UK targets mother over support for Israel

 

A report in The Telegraph tells a disturbing story of counterterrorism policing targeting a British mother for her support of Israel.

According to the report, police visited the home of Holly Passmore, 44, of County Durham in northwest England, on July 4, 2025, after an anonymous referral to the government’s Prevent program flagged her support for Israel following an educational trip organized by Israel’s embassy in London.

Prevent is Britain’s government counter-extremism program. Referrals are assessed for potential security threats or concerns that someone vulnerable could be drawn into radicalization. Police say support offered through the program is voluntary.

The report cited records Passmore subsequently obtained showing that the referral characterized her involvement with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as excessive, citing her decision to travel to Israel. It also alleged mental health issues and susceptibility to harmful influence.

However, a police intelligence report reviewed by The Telegraph explicitly acknowledged that supporting Israel or traveling there did not constitute a counterterrorism concern.

Passmore, who is not Jewish, told the newspaper that officers questioned her connections to Israel, future travel plans, interest in Jewish matters, and whether she had visited Auschwitz.

“When they came to the door, they didn’t discuss my health. They only asked about Israel."

Passmore cares for her nine-year-old son, who has severe autism, and is pursuing a master’s degree in Holocaust studies at the University of Haifa. She disputed the referral’s characterization of her health and vulnerability.

According to the report, after she complained, two other officers, including a superintendent, visited and assured her she was not regarded as a terrorist or extremist. She alleges the superintendent also encouraged her to stop discussing the incident online.

The newspaper also reported that Passmore discovered her medical records had designated her a vulnerable adult shortly after her Israel trip. The designation was subsequently removed. She said neither change was explained to her and questioned whether it was connected to the referral.

Counter Terrorism Policing North East declined to discuss her case. The Telegraph said Durham Constabulary and the regional health board had been approached for comment.

If you can't fight them then you join them!

 

Belz Director, father of 18, who accompanied his daughter when she enlisted in the IDF, dances with her at her wedding!

 

קידוש השם: רבי שלמה אינדורסקי שליט״א מנהל הבית מדרש הגדול דחסידי בעלזא שליווה לפני שנה את בתו לשירות צה״ל זכה אמש להכניס אותה תחת החופה כדת משה וישראל. https://t.co/wRcIOi8LBV

— יוסי בהגרמ״מ (@Yosssia123) October 15, 2026

אבא חסיד בעלזא, עם 18 ילדים, רוקד עם הבת שלו בחתונה, למרות שהיא בחרה בדרך אחרת. כי בסוף, לא משנה באיזו דרך הילדים שלך בוחרים, הם תמיד נשארים הילדים שלך. זה אבא. זאת אהבה. https://t.co/I0yLpsDSMR

— בין הסדרים (@lhnn_w915) October 15, 2026

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Hamodia the Gerer Loshon Hara Paper writes that the Gerer Rebbe called for people to vote for UTJ

 

Nine days to election, the Gerer Rebbe called on his followers to vote, but unlike in the past, he is not urging them to persuade additional voters to support United Torah Judaism. 

This is evident from the very brief statement by the Rebbe in the front page of Hamodia, compared with those of the other Rebbes. And its not because the editor wanted to leave space for pictures!

Mendy Twersky Appears on Israeli Channel 13 Music Composition with Yiddish Song

 

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Hussain Obama accuses Israel of stealing land, defends Palestinian terror

 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired back at former President Obama after he claimed Israel had stolen Palestinian land.

“The Jewish people are not foreign occupiers in the land of our forefathers,” Netanyahu responded in a stern video rebuke posted on X Friday.

Obama made headlines when he slammed the founding of Israel and defended Palestinian terrorism in a conversation with Irish journalist Susan McKay during a paid speaking engagement at the O2 Arena in Belfast, Northern Ireland on Tuesday. The paid speaking event drew about 7,000 people.

“They took land off people and they were expelled. And those people understandably said, ‘This is injustice and I want my land back,'” Obama said, after first explaining that European persecution had driven Jews to seek refuge in the Middle East.

He also accused Israel of ceding “moral ground” by its conduct in the war against Hamas in Gaza, which was launched after the terrorist group invaded Israel and killed over 1,200 people in their barbaric Oct. 7, 2023 attacks.

“If the attitude of Israel is, now that we are the strongest, the most technologically advanced in the region, then our security will depend on us simply doing whatever we need and taking whatever we want, and not making any concessions to anyone, that may work short-term,” Obama said.

“But you have ceded moral ground if that is the position you take.”

The 44th president was awarded an honorary doctorate from Queen’s University Belfast earlier that day.

Netanyahu firmly rejected the idea that Israel had stolen land and said that Jews were indigenous to the Levant.

“Our land is not stolen land. This is our homeland; it’s called Judea. That’s where Jews come from. We’ve been attached to it for thousands of years,” he said.

The Israeli prime minister also claimed that the Jewish State was not the obstacle to peace in the region, and said that Israel’s enemies were also the enemies of the US.

“The obstacle to peace is not Israel, it’s not our fight for our very right to exist in our own state, it’s the refusal of our enemies, and America’s enemies to recognize the Jewish people’s right to a state of our own, in any boundaries,” Netanyahu said.

This is not the first time Netanyahu and Obama have clashed.

The two publicly clashed in May 2011, when Netanyahu pushed back during an Oval Office meeting against Obama’s call for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations based on Israel’s pre-1967 borders, with mutually agreed land swaps.

BNEI BRAK Rabbonim Oppose Relocation Of Religious Zionist School Into Chareidi Neighborhood

 

In Brooklyn and five towns chareidi institutions are surrounded by mosques, strip clubs, billboards and all of Sodom and Amora but G-d forbid a chareidi kid in bnei brak should ever see a less religious kid walk down the same street.

A dispute over the location of a Religious Zionist school in Bnei Brak has intensified after the city’s rabbonim issued a letter opposing the school’s relocation into the predominantly Chareidi Kiryat Herzog neighborhood.

The controversy centers on the Afikim state religious school on Neufeld Street, which serves both boys and girls, including children with special educational needs. Local rabbonim have expressed concerns about the school’s proximity to Chareidi educational institutions and the interactions between students during arrival and dismissal times.

The latest letter follows a series of incidents that have heightened tensions in the neighborhood, including an episode in which the school’s entrance gate was welded shut overnight.

Parents and students arriving at the school discovered that the gate had been sealed, preventing children from entering the building. Police were called to the scene, and parents ultimately brought a cutting tool to remove the welded section and reopen the entrance.

Authorities suspected that extremists opposed to the school’s presence in the neighborhood were responsible for the incident, although the perpetrators were not identified in the report.

The episode drew attention to the longstanding opposition among some neighborhood residents to the school’s location.

The dispute had already prompted a letter from the neighborhood’s Rav, HaGaon HaRav Yehuda Aryeh Schwartz, addressed to the administrations of nearby Talmudei Torah.

In his letter, HaRav Schwartz described the encounters between students from the different educational institutions during morning arrival and afternoon dismissal as causing “terrible anguish” to yeshiva bochurim and younger students.

He explained that Bnei Brak’s municipal education department was working to find a solution, but that the matter had not yet been fully resolved.

The letter also revealed that, following instructions from HaGaon HaRav Moshe Hillel Hirsch, Rosh Yeshivas Slabodka, local Chareidi institutions were compelled to delay the beginning of their school day by half an hour to minimize contact between the students.

The newly published letter from Bnei Brak’s rabbonim renews the demand that the Religious Zionist school not be relocated into Kiryat Herzog and calls attention to the need for a permanent arrangement addressing the concerns of neighboring educational institutions.

The dispute dates back at least a decade.

In 2016, rabbonim in Kiryat Herzog protested plans to relocate a Religious Zionist girls’ school from central Bnei Brak into the Chareidi neighborhood.

At the time, the rabbonim met with then-Mayor Chanoch Zeibert to express their opposition and propose alternative locations, arguing that the move could affect the neighborhood’s established Chareidi character.

Zera Shimshon Parshas Noach

 

Show of strength in Jerusalem: 5,000 attend Religious Zionist Party rally

 

More than 5,000 activists gathered Thursday evening at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem for the Religious Zionist Party's "Hineni" rally, ahead of the elections for the 26th Knesset, scheduled to take place in less than two weeks.

According to the party, the gathering marked the largest show of support in its history, bringing together grassroots activists from across Israel, from Metula in the north to Eilat in the south.

Leading rabbis from the religious Zionist community, representing more than 100 yeshivas and educational institutions, also attended the event to demonstrate their support for the party and its leadership.

Religious Zionist Party chairman and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich addressed the gathering, warning against voting for parties that might fail to cross the electoral threshold.

"In less than two weeks, we will head to elections that will determine the future of our country. A war on seven fronts, a struggle over our identity, our democracy, and our future - all of this is at stake at the ballot box," Smotrich said.

He outlined his party's priorities for the next Knesset term, including strengthening Jewish settlement in the Galilee and Negev, combating crime and protection rackets, reinforcing Jewish identity, easing the burden on reservists, drafting haredi men into the military, and introducing changes to the judicial system.

Smotrich went on to criticize other parties on the political right, arguing that they were jeopardizing the right-wing bloc's chances of winning the elections.

"The future of the State of Israel is too precious to gamble with. There are those who are still tempted to embark on dangerous adventures at the expense of the right, instead of taking national responsibility and withdrawing," he said.

Smotrich also warned against the formation of a government led by opposition figures.

"We must not lose and allow a destructive left-wing government of [Gadi] Eisenkot, [Yair] Golan, and [Mansour] Abbas to destroy everything we have built," he declared.

Concluding his remarks, Smotrich urged right-wing voters to support a party he said was certain to cross the electoral threshold.

Party officials said the rally marked the beginning of the operational preparations for Election Day, during which thousands of activists will work to expand support for the party and encourage voters to turn out at the polls.

UTJ MK "Meshiginer" Elyakim Shtark Compares Draft Evaders Travelling Abroad to those escaping the Holocaust!

 

The Charedi parties are getting crazier and crazier, and I don't see a light at the end of the tunnel! Smotrich was 100% correct ! This young smart-alecky naive Shtark needs a lesson in Holocaust studies ASAP ... 

Incoming United Torah Judaism MK Elyakim Shtark has sparked controversy after comparing the situation of yeshiva students who fear traveling abroad because of their unresolved military service status to restrictions on freedom of movement during the Holocaust.

Shtark, who is set to replace MK Yisrael Eichler in the Knesset, was speaking about the difficulties faced by yeshiva students who wish to travel overseas to seek marriage partners but fear being arrested at the airport because they are classified as military draft evaders.

At the beginning of his remarks, Shtark addressed Eichler, who is known for his outspoken statements, saying, "I've made a commitment not to bring up the Holocaust during my first few years, because you've already brought it up enough."

However, Shtark then proceeded to draw a comparison to the Holocaust himself.

"I'm not one to make Holocaust comparisons, but I find myself unable to describe our situation any other way. Our situation is close to what it was during the Holocaust, when people couldn't cross borders. It reminds me of the stories our grandparents told us," he said.