Argentina has announced plans to observe a national day of mourning in honor of the Bibas family, who were tragically killed.
This gesture reflects the country’s solidarity and sympathy towards the victims and their loved ones.
“I don’t speak because I have the power to speak; I speak because I don’t have the power to remain silent.” Rav Kook z"l
Argentina has announced plans to observe a national day of mourning in honor of the Bibas family, who were tragically killed.
This gesture reflects the country’s solidarity and sympathy towards the victims and their loved ones.
It’s the most significant set of consequences faced by any school in the ongoing fight between education officials and Haredi institutions in New York over laws requiring that yeshivas, like all schools, meet standards in core subjects like English and math. After years of battles in court, the halls of government and the public square, this is the first time the state has effectively closed a Hasidic school.
The two yeshivas are in Williamsburg, the center of the city’s Satmar Hasidic community. They are Yeshiva Bnei Shimon Yisroel of Sopron, which runs schools in two locations for different age groups, and Talmud Torah of Kasho. They were notified of the enforcement decisions on February 11 after ignoring final warnings issued in December, according to the education department.
President Trump signed an executive order Wednesday night barring illegal immigrants from receiving federally-funded benefits.
“My Administration will uphold the rule of law, defend against the waste of hard-earned taxpayer resources, and protect benefits for American citizens in need, including individuals with disabilities and veterans,” read the text of Trump’s order.
The president noted that the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) ostensibly prohibits illegal immigrants from obtaining most taxpayer-funded benefits, but he argued that in the decades since its passage “numerous administrations have acted to undermine the principles and limitations directed by the Congress.”
Trump claimed that the Biden administration “repeatedly undercut the goals of that law, resulting in the improper expenditure of significant taxpayer resources.”
As a result, “taxpayer resources” have acted as a “magnet” for migrants, “fueling illegal immigration to the United States,” according to the president.
Trump’s order directs the head of every federal agency to “ identify all federally funded programs administered by the agency that currently permit illegal aliens to obtain any cash or non-cash public benefit” and “take all appropriate actions to align such programs” with PRWORA and other federal laws.
The commander-in-chief further ordered government officials to “ensure, consistent with applicable law, that Federal payments to States and localities do not, by design or effect, facilitate the subsidization or promotion of illegal immigration, or abet so-called ‘sanctuary’ policies that seek to shield illegal aliens from deportation.”
Trump’s executive order also asked federal agencies to “enhance eligibility verification systems, to the maximum extent possible” in an effort to exclude illegal immigrants from taxpayer-funded benefits.
The president tasked the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by billionaire Elon Musk, with identifying “all other sources of Federal funding for illegal aliens” and recommending “additional agency actions to align Federal spending with the purposes of this order.”
The order demands that agencies refer any improper benefits going to illegal immigrants to the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security for “appropriate action.”
The move is part of the administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration, one of Trump’s key campaign promises.
The president has lauded Musk and DOGE for helping implement several of his executive orders that he argued would’ve been ignored by federal workers without the bureaucracy-cutting team in place.
Of all the images of Israelis being taken hostage on Oct. 7, 2023, the most heartbreaking is that of Shiri Bibas holding her two red-headed toddlers, her face contorted in horror, as if the camera had frozen the very instant when she realized that there is no human feeling in her barbaric captors to appeal to.
We now know who these barbarians are. The Israel Defense Forces positively identified the kidnappers of the Bibas family. They still live in Gaza.
And though Israel vowed to hunt down each and every one of the participants in the massacre, it is not targeting the Bibas abductors—because Military Advocate General Brig. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi has defined them as “citizens,” not combatants, and so has vetoed targeting them. IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi accepted the dictum and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant acquiesced. And so the tormentors of Shiri Bibas and her children are alive and well. The matter was first exposed by Amit Segal on Channel 12 News earlier this year, but nothing has changed since then.
How did we arrive at this madness?
Delta CEO stuns Gayle King when he declined to blame Trump for plane crashes.
Rabbi Haim Yosef David Abergel, head of a large community based in the southern city of Netivot, has spoken out against Shas party rabbis, calling on haredim who are not seriously studying Torah full-time to enlist in the IDF's new Hashmonaim unit, which he called "a place which is protected."
Kan News quoted Rabbi Abergel as saying: "I seek my brother - not to make any quarrels, G-d forbid, no jealousy, no hatred. To spread the Name of Heaven, even within the army, with G-d's help. To remember the difficult, horrific, terrible day that we had on Simchat Torah (October 7 -ed.). Then, out of this great pain, all of us were united. Now [let us unite], not out of pain - with joy."
"Hear the words of Rabbi Shach, of Rabbi Yissachar Meir. My righteous rabbis, whoever learns - will learn. Whoever is not learning should enlist in a haredi place, a protected place, a good place. There is the Hashmonaim Brigade, a more protected space than the protected spaces."
He added,"No one who is learning Torah, obviously, will leave his books, but the people who are anyways going out to work will be in a place that allows Torah learners to continue learning and will also truly protect all of Israel."
He also praised the enormous efforts invested in creating haredi frameworks, including tens of millions of NIS invested in creating a haredi brigade.
Jerusalem witnessed a despicable Chutzpah on Wednesday when violent extremists attacked the vehicle of the Karlin-Stoliner Rebbe with teargas as he departed from a Sheva Brachos for his granddaughter. People should not remain silent when violent thugs attack one of the leading Admorim in Klal Yisroel.
The confrontation occurred in the Mea Shearim neighborhood, where a group of extremists blocked the Rebbe’s vehicle on Ezra Street. They shouted insults at him, accusing him of encouraging Charedi enlistment in the IDF. This enraged members of the Karlin community, including overseas guests, leading to a violent brawl.
“It was a shocking scene,” an eyewitness reported. “A group of extremists just blocked the Rebbe and began to spray teargas at the car. The Chassidim didn’t stand by.”
The tensions have been escalating for some time. Extremists have been targeting the Rebbe, disrupting his gatherings and events. Last Chanukah, they attempted to interfere with a Tish on Avinoam Yellin Street.
On the previous Shabbos, as the Rebbe celebrated Sheva Brachos for his granddaughter, extremists protested outside his home on Ezra Street. At Wednesday’s final Sheva Brachot in the Karlin-Stolin study hall, tensions flared when extremists blocked the Rebbe’s vehicle and hurled insults. This provoked Chassidim who tried to push them away, leading to a violent altercation that shocked onlookers.
One Chosid described the incident:
“For over an hour and a half, they stood outside yelling insults and curses at the Rebbe, calling him by name in loud voices. Everyone ignored them. But when the Rebbe left, they escalated, shoving and lying down in front of the car to prevent him from leaving. That’s when some of our people decided to remove them by force.”
As much as anything else, two little red-haired boys and their mother symbolized the barbaric cruelty of the Hamas assault on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The video of a terrified Shiri Bibas, 32, clutching and comforting her two children—Ariel, 4, and Kfir, just 9 months old at the time—as they were being pushed away by Hamas terrorists into captivity in Gaza should haunt the conscience of humanity in much the same way as some of the most iconic images of the Holocaust.
But it did not. Or at least, it didn’t do so sufficiently to prevent a sizable portion of the international community from thinking of their captors as the good guys in the war that the Palestinians started on Oct. 7. Now, 500 days after that infamous and tragic date, as their fate has been revealed, we are also being forced to come to terms with the extent of the moral failure of the world to respond appropriately to this brazen act of genocidal terrorism.
The Trump administration has ordered the State Department to terminate all non-essential news subscriptions to outlets such as the New York Times, AP, Reuters and Bloomberg News.
The move, which was first reported by the Washington Post, comes amid a broader effort to slash government expenditures.
A memo issued Feb. 11 instructed US embassies and consulates across Europe to cancel subscriptions deemed non-essential, citing budgetary concerns, according to the Washington Post.
The guidance ordered personnel to “immediately place Stop Work Orders on all non-mission critical contracts/purchase orders for media subscriptions (publications, periodicals, and newspaper subscriptions) that are not academic or professional journals.”
On Feb. 14, a follow-up memo directed procurement teams to prioritize the cancellation of contracts with six major news organizations: The Economist, the Times, Politico, Bloomberg News, AP and Reuters.
The directive offered limited exceptions, stating that if embassies sought to retain a subscription, they could submit a justification but were restricted to “one sentence.”
Justifications were required to demonstrate that the subscription either improved national security, strengthened the country, or contributed to prosperity.
The Post has sought comment from the State Department and the six news outlets.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration ordered the General Services Administration (GSA) to terminate all media contracts, including subscriptions to Politico, BBC, E&E and Bloomberg.
The order, which was first reported by Axios, followed online backlash over revelations that government agencies had paid for Politico Pro subscriptions, leading to claims that the Biden administration was funding anti-Trump media.
Politico’s leadership refuted the conspiracy theories, clarifying that the company has never received government funding and that Politico Pro operates as a professional subscription service obtained through standard procurement processes.
AP has been criticized by the Trump administration for its continued use of “Gulf of Mexico” rather than the preferred term “Gulf of America.”
Since Feb. 12, AP reporters have been barred from White House events and restricted from traveling on Air Force One.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration evicted several left-leaning mainstream news organizations from their workspaces at the Pentagon in order to rotate in more friendly outlets.
CNN, The Washington Post, the Hill and War Zone were asked to leave their spaces, with Newsmax, the Washington Examiner, the Daily Caller and the Free Press moving in, according to a memo from John Ullyot, acting assistant to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
This shift follows a similar policy announced the previous week, which ordered NBC News, the Times, NPR and Politico to vacate their spaces.
Their offices were being reassigned to One America News Network, The Post, Breitbart News and HuffPost.
Lt. Stav Moses joined the Rescue Brigade, following her late sister Or, who fell in battle on October 7 while defending her soldiers.
Gov. Hochul falls short on governing skills, but there is one area where she’s the absolute top of the heap: No politician shrinks faster in the face of big problems than she does.
Exhibit A is her sudden decision to hold showy meetings Tuesday about whether to remove Mayor Adams.
It was a strange move to start with, topped only by her belatedly punting the decision to another day.
It ranks as one of the most bizarre political stunts New York has ever seen.
She injects herself into a no-win volatile situation yet offers no solutions.
Her unsteady hand in a moment of crisis adds to the swirling doubts about the city’s immediate future.
Hochul could have reasonably and fairly said that while she didn’t like the messy way President Trump’s Department of Justice was moving to drop the criminal charges against Adams, she would let the process play out before making any decisions.
Instead, in an apparent surrender to the noisy anti-Adams, anti-Trump crowds in Albany and the city, she called the meetings with the clear suggestion she was ready to show Adams the door.
Which is odd because she’s had the power to remove him all along, but his indictment back in September didn’t lead her to use that power.
She had him shuffle the deck of some suspect aides and presto, they were good to go.
That was the right decision because the charges are not nearly strong enough to justify bringing down a mayor or even tipping the balance against him in his re-election year.
Yet all of Hochul’s harmony with Adams disappeared the instant the mayor pledged to work with ICE detention officials.
Interesting, very interesting!
Rav Dov Landau what has suddenly changed?
And why continue voting? Could it be because of the mighty shekel??
R' Landau says we "continue voting because of the ruling of previous "dead" rabbis! Well, the "previous rabbis" ruled that they should join the government, and they ruled that way at a time when the government was entirely Leftist!
Rav Landau is finally smelling the morning coffee and has been told that the majority of frum Jews cannot understand why healthy chareidim won't help their brethren fight in a war for survival! He was also told that Frum Jews support the government stopping payments to avreichim that refuse to work!
He figures that if he gets his followers to disconnect like he himself is disconnected that will keep the naive Litvishe followers in check!
What this report leaves out is actually the most ridiculous thing R' Landau said, he wants "to live under the Arab Flag!" Why doesn't he move to Ramallah?
Most Israelis welcome Rav Landau's ruling, in fact, I saw all the Leftist Media celebrating! ,
Rabbi Dov Landau, a prominent leader within Israel’s Lithuanian ultra-Orthodox community, has instructed representatives of the Degel HaTorah political party to withdraw from all participation in Zionist institutions, citing ideological differences.
In a letter published in the ultra-Orthodox daily Yated Ne’eman, Landau criticized Zionism as a secular movement “rooted in heresy and rebellion against divine sovereignty,” urging that any involvement in Zionist institutions is a form of support for beliefs that contradict traditional Jewish values.
Landau’s opposition comes amid ongoing debates about the role of ultra-Orthodox communities within Zionist frameworks. While Israel’s ultra-Orthodox factions have long distanced themselves from the Zionist project, recent shifts have seen more Orthodox participation in institutions like the World Zionist Organization (WZO). However, Landau’s stance remains firm in rejecting involvement in these bodies, emphasizing the theological divide between secular Zionism and religious Judaism.
The directive to withdraw from the WZO and its affiliated bodies could have significant implications for Degel HaTorah, a key faction within the United Torah Judaism party. The WZO, which oversees influential bodies like the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund, plays a critical role in global Jewish affairs. The decision marks a deepening rift in Israel’s religious-political landscape, particularly in relation to the ultra-Orthodox community’s interaction with secular institutions.
In response, the local community organized a counter-protest, pushing back some of the demonstrators
Outnumbered and surrounded, the Hamas supporters quickly realized they had chosen the wrong community to target. Instead of intimidating them, they found themselves on the defensive as the Jewish community organized a powerful counter-protest.
The Jewish community turned the tables—standing strong, standing together!
NOW:Fights break out during Israel Real Estate event in Borough Park Brooklyn, police rush to separate Pro-Palestine and Pro-Israel protesters outside of the venue.
— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) February 19, 2025
Video by @peterhvideo @FreedomNTV Desk@freedomnews.tv to license pic.twitter.com/T7kHADO6zq