Allowances for Holocaust survivors living in Israel increased by about 10 percent in 2018, according to Ministry of Finance figures released Wednesday, on the eve of the Israeli Holocaust remembrance day.
Some 152,000 Israelis are recognized by the state as Holocaust survivors, for being held in concentration, or death camps, or fleeing the Nazi invasion of Europe during the Second World War.
According to the annual report of the Authority for the Rights of Holocaust Survivors, an agency of the Ministry of Finance that oversees state benefits for survivors, Israel paid some NIS 56 billion (US $ 139 million) in 2018 to some 210,000 Israelis recognized as having suffered during the war.

The New York Times editorial board blamed President Donald Trump for the paper’s decision to publish an anti-Semitic cartoon.
After acknowledging the paper published a “bigoted” and “appalling” anti-Semitic cartoon in the headline and opening sentences of the editorial, the board quickly shifts to lecturing readers about the “insidious” nature of anti-Semitism and the particular danger of anti-Semitic imagery in this political moment.

Attorney General William Barr confirmed Wednesday during testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee that the Trump campaign was briefed in 2016 that the Russians would try to infiltrate it, contrary to previous remarks made by the president.
“I have been told during the break that a lesser kind of briefing, a security briefing that generally discusses general threats, apparently was given to the campaign in August [2016],” Barr told lawmakers after returning from a brief recess.

Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, who was wounded in the Shabbos shooting at Chabad of Poway  in California, accepted the White House’s invitation to Washington, D.C., for the National Day of Prayer.
Oscar Stewart, the combat veteran who confronted the shooter and forced him to flee, and Jonathan Morales, the off-duty border patrol agent who engaged the shooter as he fled from Stewart, will accompany Yisroel to D.C., where the three will take part in a ceremony.
Stewart could not provide any details about the ceremony, but said that it was an important opportunity to exhort people of faith to stand strong and unified in the face of evil, whether it manifests as anti-Semitism, or as attacks on churches, mosques, or any other places of worship.

Venezuela uprising turns violent, opposition leader calls for liberation.
WATCH:

Iran criticized a US plan to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in Doha on Wednesday.
“The US is not in position to (..) start naming others as terror organizations and we reject by any attempt by the US in this regard,” he told reporters on a sideline of a conference. “The US is supporting the biggest terrorist in the region, that is Israel.”
President Donald Trump is working to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organization, the White House said on Tuesday, which would lead to sanctions against Egypt’s oldest Islamist movement.
Reuters and Algemeiner Staff
 
{Matzav.com}

Former FBI director James Comey lambasted Trump in a op-ed today for The New York Times that he billed as an attempt to explain Attorney General William Barr’s capitulation to the Oval Office. “How could Mr. Barr, a bright and accomplished lawyer, start channeling the president in using words like ‘no collusion’ and F.B.I. ‘spying’?” Comey began in the op-ed, which was published while Barr testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “And how could Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, after the release of Mr. Mueller’s report that detailed Mr. Trump’s determined efforts to obstruct justice, give a speech quoting the president on the importance of the rule of law?”

The prime minister of Kazakhstan, Askar Mamin, told a delegation of Jewish leaders from around the world about his plans to visit Israel by official invitation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and expressed hopes for expanding bilateral trade between the two countries, according to a statement by the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress (EAJC).
EAJC met with Mamin and Kazakhstani President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on Monday.

When a Palestinian vehicle pulled up at the Azaim Crossing point between Jerusalem and the West Bank on April 9, the day of Israel’s national elections, the two Military Police officers guarding the site had a feeling something was wrong.
Sgt. Michael Sivan and Sgt. Roman Ambar approached the vehicle and saw that the male driver was behaving in a suspicious manner—he was hesitant, fearful and acted with insecurity—they said. They diverted the driver to a lane where more in-depth security checks occur.
When they opened the trunk of the car, they discovered two M-16 automatic assault rifles, a Galilee assault rifle and hundreds of ammunition rounds. The policemen cocked their weapons and arrested the man, passing him on to the Shin Bet for questioning.

A delegation of dozens of South Koreans visiting the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps in Poland say they are there to ask for forgiveness for centuries of Christian anti-Semitism.
“We write this letter to say sorry and ask you to forgive us,” their open letter said. “We visited Yad Vashem and Auschwitz, all these sufferings experienced for 1,700 years in the Christian world are our fault. …We are truly sorry for what Christians have done to you.”