Police in Beverly Hills are investigating a break-in and vandalism overnight at one of the city’s largest Iranian-Jewish synagogues as a hate crime. The break-in happened around 2 a.m. Saturday at the Nessah synagogue on Rexford Drive, according to the Beverly Hills Police Department. The synagogue was closed for the rest of Shabbos and was expected to open back up on Sunday. Several rooms inside the building were ransacked and Sifrei Torah and Seforim were damaged but the outside of the building didn’t suffer any severe damage. Police added that no markings or other signs of anti-Semitism were left by the suspect who was captured on security footage but it would still be investigated as a hate crime. “This cowardly attack hits us at the heart of who we are as a community.

North Korea said Saturday that it successfully performed another “crucial test” at its long-range rocket launch site that will further strengthen its nuclear deterrent. The test — the second at the facility in a week, according to North Korea’s Academy of Defense Science — possibly involved technologies to improve intercontinental ballistic missiles that could potentially reach the continental United States. In a separate statement, Pak Jong Chon, chief of the Korean People’s Army’s general staff, asserted that North Korea has built up “tremendous power” and that the findings from the recent tests would be used to develop new weapons to allow the country to “definitely and reliably” counter U.S. nuclear threats.

A Channel 12 news report on Saturday night stated that the Israeli Mossad helped foil several terror attacks in Denmark this past week. As part of the operation which was carried by Danish Intelligence forces and local police, some 21 terror activists were arrested in Copenhagen and several other cities around the country. The report said Mossad’s help had stopped attacks at the last minute. Flemming Drejer, the operative head of the Denmark’s Security and Intelligence Service, said the suspects were “driven by a militant, Islamist motive.” Copenhagen Police Chief Inspector Joergen Bergen Skov said some of them would be charged under the Scandinavian country’s terror laws on Thursday behind closed doors.

Federal authorities have recovered a van that may be connected to the Jersey City shootings that killed four people and are now being investigated as domestic terrorism, the FBI said Saturday. The white van recovered Saturday morning in Orange, New Jersey, about 11 miles (17 kilometers) northwest of Jersey City, is being examined for any evidence related to the attack, the FBI said in a news release. A man and woman killed a police officer near a cemetery, three people in a kosher supermarket and then died in an hourslong gun battle with police Tuesday, authorities say. It was not clear how the van may be linked to the attack, and authorities did not release further details.

Democratic Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, who has long opposed House Democrats’ impeachment effort, discussed switching parties in a meeting with President Donald Trump, an administration official said Saturday. CNN reported that he told his colleagues of his intentions of switching. The official, who was not authorized to discuss the private conversation and spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Van Drew met with Trump in the White House on Friday. Drew, a longtime state senator serving his first term in Congress, is one of his party’s more endangered lawmakers in next November’s elections. His southern New Jersey district narrowly favored Trump in 2016 and the congressional seat he won in 2018 had been under Republican control for nearly two decades.

In the wake of the horrible anti-Semitic attack in Jersey City, the kosher community was left without their only supermarket that was decimated in the terrorist attack. Jersey City’s Mayor Steven Fulop knew who to call to get emergency food to his city – Met Council. “We got the call Wednesday night and our immediate response was, ‘of course, we will get your constituents food for Shabbos.’ 24 hours later we delivered and distributed over 10,000 pounds of food – from cholent mix to challah to eggs and even dessert like rugelach. We made sure that these 100 families had everything they needed for Shabbos,” explained David G. Greenfield, Met Council’s CEO.

The House Judiciary Committee on Friday voted to adopt two articles of impeachment against President Trump – capping a contentious three-day session that Republicans panned as a “kangaroo court.” The committee adopted both articles, alleging abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, on a party-line vote of 23-17. A final vote in the full House is expected next week, which could tee up a Senate trial in the new year just before presidential primaries are set to get underway. But the committee vote was preceded by fireworks on Thursday night, when Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., infuriated Republicans by wrapping up the hearing just before midnight and postponing the votes until the morning. “It is now very late at night,” Nadler said.

Just one door away from the JC Kosher Supermarket, the scene of the Jersey City terror attack, is the local Cheder with approximately 50 children. Many were speculating that the terrorists had more than enough ammunition to kill a few people in a supermarket, and feared that the intended target was the school. This fear seems to be turning into a confirmation on Friday morning, as Jersey City mayor Fulop tweeted the following moments ago: “My opinion is that as more info comes out it’ll become increasingly clear that the target was the 50 children at the Yeshiva attached to that store. We will never know 100% but the doorway to the yeshiva was 3 feet away + it seems he goes in that direction 1st.

A German court ruled on Wednesday that Ursula Haverbeck, otherwise known as the “Nazi grandma” will not receive an early release from her two-year prison sentence. Haverback, a 91-year-old neo-Nazi is a Holocaust denier and has repeatedly claimed that Auschwitz was just a labor camp. In 2017, a court in the town of Verden convicted her for incitement and she entered prison last year. Although she has served over two-thirds of her prison sentence and Germany regularly releases prisoners at that stage, the court decided against releasing her early. The court did not provide an explanation. Holocaust denial has been illegal in Germany since 1985 and carries a prison sentence of up to five years. Nazi symbols, such as swastikas, are illegal as well.

By Rabbi Yair Hoffman for 5TJT.com It is Erev Shabbos.  As you are preparing to go to shul you detect a horrible smell.  It is coming from your basement and you go to check it out. And then you see it.  Gallons and gallons of raw sewage are coming up from your toilet and who knows where else.   It is a homeowner’s worst nightmare. But the nightmare does not end.  You call the plumber. He comes and says – there is nothing that can be done.  It is a DEP (Department of Environmental Protection) problem because it is a backup from the main sewer line. Can this really be true?  The answer is yes, and it just happened to one of my son’s Rebbeim. The DEP did not come until Motzaei Shabbos.  And it usually happens to the last home on the block before a bend.