By Rabbi Yair Hoffman It is rainy. You are travelling upstate for a Shabbos, or a retreat or Shabbatone. The roads are slippery.

The brutal murder of two Israeli embassy staffers, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night has been met with a bloodcurdling response from pro-Hamas groups, who have hailed the killings as a “heroic attack.” The victims, a young couple on the cusp of engagement, were gunned down by 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez as they left an American Jewish Committee (AJC) event aimed at fostering dialogue on the Gaza crisis. Rodriguez, who shouted “Free Palestine” during his arrest, fired 21 shots at the couple, killing them in a targeted act of antisemitic terrorism. Yet, instead of universal condemnation, pro-Hamas groups have repulsively glorified the attack.

The Trump administration has terminated Harvard University’s certification in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP), effectively barring the institution from enrolling international students for the 2025-2026 academic year. The decision, announced by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Thursday, requires current international students at Harvard to transfer to other institutions or face loss of their legal status in the United States. The move follows a series of disputes between the Trump administration and Harvard, centered on allegations of noncompliance with federal demands for records related to student protests and disciplinary actions.

An inman in the heart of Oklahoma told his congregation that throughout history, “the cowardly Jews just want to attack women and children.” “This is how they were and this is how they will aways be,” he said during a Friday sermon in Norman, the third most populous city in the state. MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, which often translates similar videos from Arabic to English, published the video with subtitles—no translation needed in this case. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)

Democrats chairman Yair Golan was videoed on Thursday evening in a physical confrontation with a resident of Kiryat Shmona, during a conference in the city. In the footage, residents of the city are seen condemning Golan for the statements he made on Tuesday, implying that “IDF soldiers kill babies as a hobby.” Golan started yelling back at one of the protesters who called on him to remove his military ranks. Golan then approached the elderly man and pushed him. Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich stated: “Yair Golan’s true and violent face continues to be revealed.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is launching a sweeping crackdown on billing practices across all Medicare Advantage (MA) plans—an aggressive move that could ripple through the nursing home industry and reshape how skilled nursing operators navigate federal reimbursement. In a major policy shift announced Wednesday, CMS revealed plans to dramatically scale up audits of all MA plans to recover billions in alleged overpayments. Nursing home operators that contract with these plans—and rely on timely, predictable reimbursements—could soon find themselves in the crosshairs of intensified federal scrutiny. Until now, CMS has been auditing only about 60 MA contracts a year.

Cleveland Heights Mayor Khalil Seren is facing mounting public outrage after explosive allegations of antisemitism surfaced against his wife, Natalie McDaniel. Last week, the law firm Sobel, Wade & Mapley, LLC filed a formal complaint with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission alleging that McDaniel used antisemitic slurs in private text messages referring to city officials, including members of the Jewish community. The complaint, which includes messages reportedly sent to Mayor Seren and a former aide, accuses McDaniel of referring to Jewish Planning Commission Chair Jessica Cohen as a “broodmare” — a term allegedly used to disparage Orthodox Jewish families for having large numbers of children.

IDF forces raided the village of Burqin, near Bruchin, in the northern Shomron on Thursday morning, according to videos posted by Palestinians on social media. The video shows hundreds of soldiers entering the village in the early morning hours. The terrorist who murdered Tze’ela Gaz, H’yd, while she was on the way to the delivery room, lived in Burqin. He was eliminated on Shabbos by IDF forces. During the security forces’ activity in the village, a terrorist ran towards them holding a bag suspected of being booby-trapped. The soldiers shot and eliminated him. The forces searched the bag and found an M-16 rifle and other weapons used to carry out the attack. Investigators from the Yehuda and Shomron District Police collected the findings to locate additional accomplices.

As anti-Semitic incidents spiked across the United States in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, the Biden administration’s Education Department reportedly failed to investigate nearly 200 related complaints, according to a former senior official now serving under President Donald Trump. The official, speaking to Fox News, claimed that more than 150 of the unaddressed complaints were filed after the deadly assault by Hamas, which left nearly 1,200 Israelis dead and ignited a war that has reverberated far beyond the Middle East — including on American college campuses, where pro-Palestinian protests and rising tensions have left many Jewish students feeling targeted and unsafe.

France and Saudi Arabia are reportedly developing a proposal to disarm Hamas, Bloomberg reported Thursday, citing sources familiar with the talks. According to those sources, Saudi officials have been in direct contact with Hamas leadership in an effort to secure the group’s demobilization and transition into a non-military political entity. While it remains unclear whether France has engaged Hamas directly—especially given the European Union’s designation of the group as a terrorist organization—both nations are said to be collaborating on a plan that would allow Hamas to retain limited political power in exchange for disarmament.