Yom Hazikaron: Remembering My Brother Keeps Him Alive

 

Hillel Schwartz by the grave of his brother, Ezra Schwartz, who was killed in a Palestinian terror attack in Israel on Nov. 19, 2015

 For me, every day is Yom Hazikaron. Since I lost my older brother, Ezra, to a terrorist attack on Nov. 19, 2015, not a day has gone by that I do not think about him.

I remember Ezra every time my little brothers and I watch a Patriots or Yankees game, his most beloved teams. I see his infectious smile every time I step out of my comfort zone to reach out to someone new. And I laugh at his antics every Friday night when my family reads from the letters we received after his death, and we learn about how he choked down hot peppers on the camp bus or made ridiculous music videos in his bunkhouse at two in the morning.

His tragedy resonates with almost all who hear it. A Palestinian terrorist opened fire from inside a vehicle near the Etzion Junction in the West Bank, killing Ezra, along with an Israeli teacher and a Palestinian bystander. Ezra was studying as part of a gap-year program at a yeshivah in Beit Shemesh, and that day was on his way to deliver snacks to Israeli soldiers stationed near Efrat when he was shot. He was just 18 and preparing to attend Rutgers University after his year in the Jewish state.

When Ezra was killed, the entire Jewish community supported my family. There was so much sadness around the world. Everyone wanted to help us. We received condolence cards and letters from Ezra’s friends and acquaintances describing their interactions with him. Our friends carried us through those first few months. Strangers sent Hanukkah gifts. We felt honored to be Ezra’s family. In the midst of my tragedy, I felt so loved.

But for most Jews outside of our community of Sharon, Mass., south of Boston, Ezra’s impact has faded with time. Yom Hazikaron is a day for these Jews to remember their loss and rekindle the closeness the nation felt in the aftermath of his death. It’s a day to perpetuate the memory of my brother and everyone else who died for Israel.

But more than that, Yom Hazikaron is a day for my family and those like ours to realize that our loved ones have not been forgotten by world Jewry. Every mention of Ezra’s name brings us a bit of healing. It lets us know that we are not alone, that people still care. It even goes a little way towards bringing Ezra back to us. Every time someone does something in his memory, it shows us that even though he’s not here with us on earth, he is not totally gone; he is still with us, affecting our lives.

I have participated in communal Yom Hazikaron ceremonies ever since my brother’s death. But this year’s Masa Israel Journey ceremony was a new experience. For the first time, I was helping Ezra be remembered not by people who knew and loved him, but by thousands around the world who had never met him or even heard of him.

Ezra on far right with his siblings

Once in a while, I wonder whether Ezra’s repeated mention really makes a difference. But then I see the impact his story has on each new person who hears it—and I realize that if Ezra can change even one more life, it is all worth it. At the filming of this year’s Masa Israel Journey ceremony, I was sitting next to a man and a woman from another Masa program. This may have been their first time in Israel. I looked a little different than most of the wreath-holders, so they asked about my story. I told them about Ezra—and I could see their faces change. One of them started crying. Most of the people I encounter already know about my family’s experience, so I seldom have the chance to see how my brother’s story can move those hearing it for the first time. Each reading of Ezra’s name gives new people the opportunity to look him up, read about him and be inspired by something he did.

I am now nearing the completion of my year in Israel, an opportunity my brother never had. He will never attend Rutgers, start a career or build his own family. But as long as people remember him, Ezra will never truly be gone. He will live on in our stories, in our actions and in the children who bear his name.

This Yom Hazikaron, please take a minute to think of my brother. Read a story about him and maybe even do something in his merit. Ezra excelled at enjoying life and helping those around him. My family and I also encourage you to share your stories in Ezra’s memory with us, if you feel compelled to. In acts of kindness, you will be returning to him a bit of the life that was ripped from him, from my family and from the Jewish people.

Hillel Schwartz is the brother of Ezra Schwartz, an American victim of Palestinian terror in Israel in 2015.

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Inran Admits “1,000s Of Centrifuges Destroyed At Natanz,”

 

Thousands of centrifuges used to enrich uranium has been damaged or completely destroyed at the Natanz nuclear site, a senior Iranian official stated on Tuesday.

Alireza Zakani, the head of the Iranian parliament’s research center, detailed the damage incurred in the attack in an interview on state TV.

Zakani’s statement seems to confirm remarks by Channel 13 News analyst Alon Ben-David, who said that Iran’s provocative announcement that it will begin increasing uranium enrichment to up to 60% is “not a significant threat.”

Ben-David explained that due to the extensive damage at Natanz, Iran will not be able to reach 60% enrichment there and although it maintains about 1,000 additional centrifuges at its Fordo plant, those centrifuges can only enrich uranium up to 60% in very small quantities.

An increase of up to 60% uranium enrichment is significant since it is a short step away from weapons-grade uranium.

Lt. Col. (ret.) Michael Segall, an expert on strategic issues with a focus on Iran, terrorism and the Middle East, and a senior analyst at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, told JNS on Monday that the attack caused years of work to “go down the drain.”

“This isn’t the first time that centrifuges in Natanz have crashed in one way or another,” Segall said. “I’m not sure how many cascades [a group of centrifuges working together to enrich uranium more quickly] were destroyed there, and it is not clear what happened, but when a cascade breaks, this represents years of work that go down the drain.”

Segall also spoke about the political repercussions of the multiple attacks [attributed to Israel] on Iran’s “top-secret” sites, with Iranians mocking the regime on social media for being unable to protect its most critical assets.

“The regime has been exposed,” he said. “As it continues to absorb attacks, there is a growing erosion in its perception by the Iranian people, and certainly, by the Iranian diaspora.”

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Watch Storekeeper Refuse Money From IDF Soldier on on Yom Zikaron

 

קיוסק שלא לוקח כסף ביום הזיכרון מחיילים, מדהים. pic.twitter.com/azCzctr25C

— אריאל אלחרר (@ariel_elharar_) April 14, 2021

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Bernie Madoff, whose Ponzi scheme devastated the Jewish world, dies in prison at 82

 

Bernie Madoff, the fraudster who ran a $17.5 billion Ponzi scheme ensnaring thousands of investors, including a long list of Jewish organizations and families, has died at 82.

The Associated Press reported Madoff’s death Wednesday at a federal prison in Butner, North Carolina.

Madoff was known as a selective money manager who made fantastic yet consistent profits for his clients until his entire operation was exposed as a scam amid the 2008 financial crisis. Madoff’s confession of his Ponzi scheme, in which he invented fake stock gains on paper and used new investments to pay off withdrawals from other investors, set off a virtual earthquake in the Jewish philanthropic world.

Among Madoff’s investors were European hedge funds, elderly retirees and a range of nonprofits. Among his victims were some of the most prominent Jewish institutions in the country, as well as Jewish celebrities like Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and Sandy Koufax, the Hall-of-Fame pitcher.

Madoff’s investors included Yeshiva University, elite Orthodox Jewish day schools in New York and Boston, Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, and other Jewish organizations and family foundations.

Many of those investors had met Madoff through the small world of Jewish philanthropy in New York and south Florida, and placed their money with his fund via friends of his such as Jeffrey Picower and J. Ezra Merkin, who operated hedge funds that invested heavily with Madoff. Merkin, a former president of the elite Fifth Avenue Synagogue in Manhattan, directed perhaps $1 billion of congregants’ money to Madoff, according to the New York Times.

So when Madoff, facing increasing pressure due to a national financial crisis, confessed his crime in 2008, the effects were felt across American Jewry. Following the confession, the Jewish Funders Network, which convenes Jewish donors, brought together 35 of the largest Jewish foundations to create a plan to provide emergency funding to some of Madoff’s victims.

Around that time, the Anti-Defamation League also documented an uptick in anti-Semitism that it concluded stemmed from the news of Madoff’s fraud.

The consequences of Madoff’s fraud have reverberated through the Jewish world for years. Some Madoff investors, such as Hadassah, had withdrawn more money than they invested over the years, and were subject to “clawback” suits in which they had to pay back the fictitious profits. While Madoff had claimed to be managing nearly $70 billion, most of that money (aside from what investors gave him) had never actually existed.

A trustee, Irving Picard, has spent the years since 2008 trying to recover the actual billions that Madoff stole. As of 2021, they had recovered and restituted more than $14 billion of the $17.5 billion Madoff took.

“They really felt that they had so much more money in their accounts,” Richard Greenfield, a lawyer who consulted for a handful of Madoff victims in Florida, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in 2018. “When they talk about their losses, they talk about the fictitious numbers in their accounts, and for some of them, it’s hard to explain: Your real loss wasn’t $200,000, it’s $10,000, which is what you put in.”

Madoff was born in 1938 in Queens, New York, and began working as a stockbroker in 1959. He married his wife, Ruth, that year and had two children. He originally made a name by investing in computerized stock trading in the NASDAQ market, and served as NASDAQ’s chairman.

He began managing private clients’ wealth in the 1970s. While he told Diana Henriques, who wrote a book about him, that the Ponzi scheme began in 1992, the federal prosecutor who led the criminal investigation of Madoff believes that Madoff started the scheme when he began his money-management business.

He collected accolades as his ostensible success grew. Madoff was named the treasurer of Yeshiva University, the flagship Modern Orthodox institution, and gained a reputation as a reserved but effective steward of Jewish organizational finances.

Then it abruptly ended. Madoff pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 150 years in federal prison. His two sons, whom he swore had no involvement in his fraud, predeceased him, one by suicide on the second anniversary of Madoff’s arrest.

In 2020, Madoff requested compassionate release from prison, telling the court he was dying from kidney disease. His request was denied.

He is survived by his wife, Ruth.

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My First Lesson In Zionism I Learned From The Kloizenberger Rebbe z"l

 

The most profound tragedy as well as the most uplifting confirmation of our faith were both experienced by the Jewish people within the very same decade of the last century: the shame of humanity that either cooperated with or silently permitted the decimation of the Jewish people and the diabolical atrocities of the Holocaust, and then- only three years after the suicide of Hitler - the newfound hope for humanity with the rebirth of the State of Israel confirmed by a vote in the United Nations.

To suggest that the Holocaust was the necessary price the Jews had to pay to return to their homeland after almost 2,000 years of destruction, exile and persecution, borders on the blasphemous.

However to overlook the inextricable juxtaposition of these two nationally defining events - the first bringing us down to the hellish depths of despair and the second raising us up to the dizzying heights of redemption- would be blinding oneself to the commanding voice of Jewish history. 

And so I begin this essay with my first lesson in Zionism, which emerged from the ashes of Auschwitz.

It was the Shabbas of the weekly portion Ki Tavo, toward the end of the summer of 1952. I had known that the Rebbe of Sanz-Klausenburg had taken over the Beth Moses Hospital, where he had built a very large Bais-Medrish  as well as a printing press to teach his disciples a trade, and I wanted to pray with the Chassidim that Shabbas morning.

When I arrived at the Bais-Medrish, I was amazed by the sea of black and white swaying figures that greeted my eyes, all newly immigrant Holocaust survivors. It was said about the Rebbe that although his wife and 13 children had been murdered, he had not sat shiva for any of them; he preached that those still alive must be saved with exit visas before one could be allowed the luxury of mourning for the dead. The Rebbe himself was among the last to leave Europe, insisting that the captain does not leave the sinking ship before its passengers.

I took a seat directly behind the Rebbe, who stood at his lectern facing the eastern wall and the Holy Ark, with his back to the congregation. The prayer was the most intense I had ever experienced, with no talking whatsoever, and chance individuals even bursting out in tears during varying parts of the service, apparently in response to a sudden association with painful memory.

Then the Torah reader began to chant the weekly portion. When he came to the passage known as the Tochecha, consisting of the curses that would befall the Israelites, he began to read (in accordance with the time-honoured custom) in a whisper and very quickly. 

A sound suddenly came from the place of the Rebbe; he said only one word: "Hecher, Louder."

The Torah reader immediately stopped reading, and seemed to hesitate for a few moments. I could almost hear him pondering. Did the Rebbe actually say "louder"? Would the Rebbe go against the custom of Jews in all congregations to chant the curses rapidly and in a barely audible voice? The reader apparently decided that he had been mistaken in what he thought the Rebbe had said, and continued reading in a whisper.

The Rebbe turned around to face the congregation, banged on the lectern, his eyes blazing:

"Ich hub gezugt hecher, I said louder," he shouted out. "Let the RBS"O hear! We have nothing to be afraid of. We have already received all of the curses- and more. Let the Almighty hear, and let Him understand that the time has come to send the blessings!"

I was trembling, my body bathed in sweat. Many people around me were silently sobbing. The Rebbe turned back to his lectern, facing the wall. The Torah reader continued to chant the curses loudly, and distinctively, and in a much slower cadence.

At the end of the additional prayers, after Aleinu, the Rebbe once again turned to his congregation, but this time with his eyes conveying deep love, 

"Mein tayere shevestern un brider, my beloved sisters and brothers, the blessings will come, but not from America. Indeed, G-d has promised the blessings after the curses, and He has already begun to fulfil His promise by bringing us home to Israel. May more blessings await us, but they will only come from Israel. Let us pack our bags for the last time. Our community is setting out for Kiryat Sanz, in Netanya, Israel."

Signed

Shlomo Riskin

Efrat

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Watch The Official Yom Hazikaron 2021 Ceremony on Har Hertzl

 

Starts at 5:32 mark

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On Yom Hazikaron We Remember the 146 U.S. citizens murdered and the more than 200 wounded by Palestinians

 Yom Hazikaron, observed today, is the day on which Israel remembers not only its fallen soldiers, but also civilians who were murdered by Arab terrorists. But there is one category of terror victims who, while technically included in that designation, have been almost completely forgotten—American victims of Palestinian Arab terrorism.

Since 1968, a total of 146 U.S. citizens have been murdered, and more than 200 wounded, in Palestinian Arab terrorist attacks. Most were tourists or college students spending a summer, six months, or a year of study in Israel—like my daughter, Alisa. Others were dual American-Israeli citizens living in Israel.

The parents of these victims reacted like Israeli parents do in the face of loss. They sit shiva for their children, siblings or parents, then go about putting one foot in front of the other trying to rebuild their shattered lives. Some of us try to participate in the on-going building of the State of Israel and move here. I did it; not because of Alisa’s murder but because of her life.

Obviously, in many respects there is no difference between a terror victim who was a citizen of one country and one who came from another country. What all of them have in common is that they were innocent targets of brutal savages.

Yet in several important respects, American victims are different.

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Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto Says Hitler Killed 6 Million Jews Because They Talked in Shul ... In Morocco they Didn't

 

Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto, head of the Jewish Court leaders in Morocco, slammed those who engage in idle talk in the synagogue and study hall, saying that such behavior is "horrifying and ruins everything."

The statements were made during the Tuesday night lecture at the Shuva Yisrael Yeshiva in Manhattan, when Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto wrote a letter in a Torah scroll and blessed the leaders of the Shomrim organization of Williamsburg.

"This is an enormous power and a great merit, not to speak during prayers. It is what holds up the world."

Regarding the coronavirus pandemic, he said: "The plague which we have been through is not simple. Since the splitting of the Red Sea, there was never such a thing as this, that G-d closed the entire world the way we had it now. These are signs that the Messiah is coming."

Rabbi Pinto also said that all of the Jews' significant troubles are caused by idle chatter in the synagogue.

"Torah sages have said that the Holocaust in Europe happened because they spoke during prayers. It did not come to Morocco, because we were careful not to speak during prayers," he explained. "Speaking during prayers is horrifying and destroys everything."

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Newly Elected MK Reform Rabbi Sneaks Sefer Torah into Kotel For Women ... He has MK immunity

 

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Chareidie Pilots in Israel

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WATCH – THE NEW FACE OF BLM... Daunte Wright's Last Video Post

 Check out Daunte Wright’s last video. 

This video of Daunte Wright flashing his unregistered handgun while smoking a blunt is one of the last videos he ever recorded. 

Wright was wanted on a warrant when he attempted to flee by car yesterday after being stopped by police near Minneapolis. Wright was in the process of getting arrested for a weapons charge & escaping police (on top of already having a warrant for his arrest) before he was killed yesterday by police.

Daunte Wright is the new face of BLM, as BLM claims Wright was killed for being Black.

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Israeli Study "a cup of yogurt can ‘cure’ your case of COVID-19"

 

Pre-clinical research by Israeli scientists, published in Microbiome, indicates that Kefir could be used to treat cytokine storms caused by coronavirus.

Can a cup of probiotic yogurt help save the lives of people with COVID-19?

Researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev say they have identified molecules in kefir that are effective at treating various inflammatory conditions, including “cytokine storms” caused by COVID-19. Kefir, which is similar to yogurt but thinner in consistency, is a fermented drink made by inoculating cow’s or goat’s milk with microorganism mixtures, such as yeast and bacteria.

A cytokine storm is when the body’s immune system goes into overdrive and attacks itself – one of the leading causes of death in COVID-19 patients.

The research was conducted by PhD student Orit Malka and Prof. Raz Jelinek, vice president and dean for research and development at BGU. It was recently published in the peer-reviewed journal Microbiome.

Several years before the coronavirus pandemic, Malka noticed that yogurt had a therapeutic effect and began studying it in Jelinek’s lab, Jelinek told The Jerusalem Post. They identified molecules in the yogurt that had dramatic antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties.

“One of the main reasons people die of COVID is the cytokine storm,” Jelinek said. “Cytokines are immune molecules that are designed to help the body fight invaders like viruses. But in certain circumstances, and scientists don’t know exactly why, the body goes into a sort of overdrive and secretes many cytokines – so many that it kills you. That is what happens during COVID.”

“We knew that we had found these molecules in yogurt with anti-inflammatory properties,” he said. “So, when COVID started, we said, Let’s see if these molecules can help against cytokine storms.”

More at The Jerusalem Post

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Media cheers a return to the failed Iran deal

 

A Monday New York Times front page headline on the explosion at a key Iranian nuclear facility claimed the “Attack May Hurt Efforts to Reboot 2015 Deal.” On Tuesday, also on the front page, the paper declared that “Israel’s Role in Iran Blast Casts A Shadow on U.S. Nuclear Talks”

Get it? Making a new deal with Iran is a very good thing, anything that hurts the chance is a very bad thing, including Israel. 

Here’s an alternative view: the Times is still drinking the Kool-Aid that the original Iranian nuclear pact was a success and is worth saving. To committed dead enders, Iran’s violations of the terms and spread of regional terrorism are irrelevant.

The cult surrounding the deal at the Gray Lady includes the paper’s editorial board. Its Saturday screed, written before the weekend attack, began by saying “There exists now a brief window of time” for President Biden to reach a new accord. The reason: Iranian moderates could be gone by summer. Ah, yes, Iranian moderates, the unicorns that only blinkered leftists can see. So let’s hurry and make a deal, any deal.

The Times, of course, spews a lot of nonsense that is safely ignored, but this time it’s singing in harmony with Biden. The president is so eager to rejoin the pact Donald Trump wisely scuttled that he’s willing to help pin the blame on Israel for the sabotage of the underground facility at Natanz. With initial speculation that the U.S. and Israel cooperated on the attack, as they had in a cyber attack in 2010, the White House quickly denied any role in the operation, which knocked out all power to the centrifuges. “The U.S. was not involved in any manner,” press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday. 

So much for the usual diplomatic ambiguity that would protect an ally and give the U.S. more flexibility when it is questioned in the future about classified operations.

But Biden clearly has no interest in protecting Israel’s likely role. On the contrary, he’s served notice in numerous ways that the full American embrace the Jewish state enjoyed in the Trump years is history.

Indeed, the efforts to separate from Israel and woo Iran illustrate how Biden is determined to breathe new life into the foreign policies of the Obama-Biden administration, even the failures. Chief among them is casting Israel as more of an obstacle to peace than a unique friend and ally.

A clear example is that Biden’s already given the Palestinians two gifts — hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars and the heckler’s veto over America’s policies on their dispute with Israel. Trump had stopped the payments in part because some of the money went to salaries for the families of terrorists. Besides, Palestinian leaders refused even to talk to the Trump team, so why should they get rewarded with American cash. They shouldn’t but, incredibly, neither of those issues seems to bother Biden. Full speed backwards.

As for the Abraham Accords, the historic alliance between Israel and four Muslim nations, a new State Department spokesman couldn’t even bring himself to say the official name of the agreements. Had Trump been re-elected, it’s probable the Saudis would have signed on and gone public with their secret Israeli ties, perhaps even agreeing to full diplomatic recognition. That would be an unprecedented seismic shift, yet Biden began his administration by insulting the Crown Prince by saying he would only talk to the King. 

He also cut our military support for the kingdom’s war in Yemen against the Houthis, a terror group that has been attacking Saudi oil fields.

The Houthis themselves offer a window into Biden’s strange priorities. Although — or perhaps because — the Houthis are funded and armed mostly by Iran, he removed the terror designation that Trump imposed on the group in the waning days of his administration. Trump’s action was a slap at Iran and a gift to Saudi Arabia, and Biden has reversed that. Again, why?

Still, the timing of the Natanz explosion is important, coming just after Iranian and US negotiators had their first round of meetings. With much of the Israeli press assuming it was a Mossad operation, the Times and Biden seem to have concluded the goal was to thwart progress that could lead to a new nuclear pact. They could be right, but here’s another, more likely possibility. Israel doesn’t trust Biden to make a good deal or Iran to abide by any restrictions. Therefore, Israel acted to set back the mullahs’ nuke program while it had an opening and before it was too late. As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday, “I will never allow Iran to obtain the nuclear capability to carry out its genocidal goal of eliminating Israel.”

Whether the United States still shares that commitment is unclear. That doubt is a formula for trouble that already has emboldened Iran and led Israel to act without waiting for American approval or help.

by Michael Goodwin

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Biden's "Buddy" Iran .... Trying To Lure Israelis Abroad, Kidnap Them

 

Iranian Fake Profile

Iranian intelligence agents have been engaging in efforts to lure Israelis abroad in order to kidnap or harm them, a joint statement from the Shin Bet and Mossad said on Monday.

The agents’ modus operandi is to open fake Instagram accounts, mainly of females in the tourism industry. The “women” contact Israelis with international business ties who often travel abroad with invitations for meetings for business or social purposes.

The agencies warned Israelis who travel abroad to beware of invitations from unknown social media accounts.

At least one such incident almost occurred two months ago, when an Israeli traveled abroad for a meeting at which Iranian intelligence agents were lying in wait for him. The Shin Bet managed to contact the man on an intermediate stop to switch flights and convinced him to return to Israel.

“This is a well-known action pattern similar to the one carried out by Iran in the past against regime opponents in Europe,” the agencies stated. “Now, Iran is acting similarly against Israeli citizens seeking to develop legitimate business ties abroad in the countries mentioned.”

“There is a real fear that this activity by Iranian elements will lead to attempts to harm Israelis or abduct them.”

“Security officials call on Israeli citizens who maintain business ties abroad to be aware and vigilant about inquiries on social networks from profiles they do not recognize, and to avoid contact with them.”

The countries that Israelis had been invited to for nefarious purposes include Arab countries, the Gulf states, Turkey, and countries in the Caucasus, Africa, and Europe.

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Israel: No Masks Required Outdoors From Next Week

 

Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, the head of the Health Ministry’s Public Health division, said on Tuesday that beginning next week Israelis will not be required to wear face masks outdoors, Ynet reported.

“According to the latest data, when it comes to outdoors – but not during public gatherings – masks can come off starting next week,” she said.

“But masks will have to stay in our bags at all times since it is still mandatory to wear them indoors. We don’t know if someone next to us is infected or not, vaccinated or not, and closed spaces still pose a high risk.”

“For over two weeks, 95% of Israel has been ‘green;’ this is a tremendous achievement,” Alroy-Preis added.

“Our goal is to open [the economy] as quickly as possible, return to normalcy – but still be cautious. The virus is still here.”

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Israel pays tribute to fallen soldiers, victims of terrorism

 

Israel on Wednesday paid tribute to its fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism, with a series of ceremonies nationwide.

Israel's Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terrorism Remembrance Day was ushered in on 8 p.m. Tuesday, as a one-minute siren blared across the Jewish state, bringing it to a standstill in memory of the 23,928 fallen soldiers and terror victims who have died since 1860.

The siren at was immediately followed by the state ceremony at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

A two-minute, siren will again wail nationwide at 11 a.m. Wednesday. It will be followed by the state Memorial Day service at the Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem, as well as smaller events in Israel's 52 military cemeteries and at memorial sites across the country.

At 11.02 a.m. a special missing man formation aerial salute will fly over Mount Herzl to honor the fallen.

The ceremony honoring victims of terrorist attacks will be held in Jerusalem at 1 p.m.

According to the Defense Ministry, since last Memorial Day, 112 new names were added to the somber list of those who died defending the country since 1860.

Of them, 43 were IDF soldiers, police officers, and civilians, and 69 were disabled veterans who passed away due to complications of injuries sustained during their military service.

The Defense Ministry's figures include all security forces members who died during their service over the past year, including as a result of accidents, suicide, or illness.

According to National Insurance Institute data the number of civilians killed in terrorist attacks since Israel's inception in 1948 stands at 4,159. This figure includes 120 foreign nationals, who were killed in terrorist attacks in Israel and 100 Israelis who were murdered in attacks overseas.

The hostilities have left 3,262 orphans including 121 who have lost both parents, 800 widows and widowers, and 975 bereaved parents who are still with us.

Memorial Day will come to a close with a ceremony slated to take place on Mount Herzl at 8 p.m. Wednesday, ushering in Israel's 73rd Independence Day.

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Gov. Cuomo Attended Sukkos Event And Said “These People And Their (Expletive) Tree-Houses”

 In an article highlighting NY Governor Cuomo’s rise to power and his political career, NY Times Journalist Maggie Haberman writes that Cuomo reportedly voiced his frustration with a campaign appearance during his run for Attorney General in 2006.

Haberman says Cuomo was attending an event on Sukkos, and said “These people and their (expletive removed) tree houses,” Cuomo said to his team, according to The Times.

A spokesman for the Governor denied the comment.

“His two sisters married Jewish men, and he has the highest respect for Jewish traditions,” the spokesman said.

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Malka Leifer's lawyers Looking to Drag Her Alleged Victims Through the Mud

 Lawyers for Malka Leifer, the former ultra-orthodox school principal accused of dozens of child sex offences, have said the "home life" of her alleged victims may be probed, as they seek to test the evidence against her.

Ms Leifer today fronted the Melbourne Magistrates' Court facing 74 charges of child sex abuse, including multiple counts of rape, indecent assault and sexual penetration of a child.

The allegations have been levelled against the 54-year-old by three sisters — Dassi Erlich, Nicole Meyer and Elly Sapper — who attended the Adass Israel School in Elsternwick while Ms Leifer was headmistress.

Ms Leifer has long maintained her innocence.

Today the Melbourne Magistrates' Court heard that 10 witnesses will be called to test the evidence against Ms Leifer.

The administrative hearing was only Ms Leifer's second appearance since she was extradited from Israel earlier this year.

She appeared by videolink from the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, which is Victoria's maximum-security women's prison, wearing a blue jumper, a white shirt and a white head covering.

Ms Leifer was supported by her brother, who watched proceedings from Israel, where it was early in the morning.

She spoke sparingly, only acknowledging that she could hear the proceedings.

Her lawyer, Tony Hargreaves, told the court that any cross-examination would be done with "as much care as possible".

"Clearly the relationship that the three complainants had with their parents, in particular their mother, it would seem is the genesis for the relationship between the accused and the complainants," Mr Hargreaves told the court.

Malka Leifer's accusers, Nicole Meyer, Elly Sapper and Dassi Erlich

"We may wish to ask the witnesses about … what was happening at home with the complainants," he said.

"…It will be limited and it may be that counsel chooses not to pursue that avenue."

Ms Leifer will face a five-day hearing in September.

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