A Belzer chassid was attacked by an anti-Semitic thug this week. The chassid, in his 60s, was on the way home from the Belzer Beis Medrash when a thug began punching him in his face. Jews nearby overpowered the assailant and called the police. Hatzalah volunteers arrived at the scene and provided emergency treatment to the chassid before evacuating him to the hospital. The assailant was arrested by the police. The incident occurred amid fears of the Jewish kehilla in Antwerp of the pending removal of army protection from Jewish institutions across the country by September 1, despite rising anti-Semitism in Belgium and across Europe. The decision was made by the Belgian government as part of a plan to reduce the number of soldiers in Belgian cities.

A Jewish student at the University of Chicago passed away over the weekend after he was seriously injured by a stray bullet on a Green Line train on Thursday Max Lewis, z’l, 20, was critically injured by the bullet and was evacuated to the University of Chicago Medical Center. It’s the second loss in two weeks for the small Jewish body at the University of Chicago. Ilan Naibryf was in the Champlain Towers two weeks ago when the disaster occurred and is still missing. Baila Brackman, who runs the university’s Chabad center with her husband, Rabbi Yossi Brackman, told JTA that both students were active members of the Jewish community. “They were precious young men whom we cared about deeply and loved deeply,” she said. “Both of them always had a huge smile.

US forces and local Guatemalan police raided the compound of the Lev Tahor cult on Tuesday, taking two senior cult officials into custody. Yoel and Shmuel Weingarten were apprehended by authorities after infiltrating the compound in Guatemala. The operation began last week when an agent from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and two from the National Civil Police (PNC) infiltrated the cult living on a farm in the village of El Amatillo, in Oratorio, Santa Rosa. The agents posed as people carrying humanitarian aid. They arrived with toys and gifts for the children, while gaining the trust of the adults, who opened the doors of the community for them. The undercover agents reportedly lived with the residents for a week. Warrants have been out in the U.S.

Yochai Leibrow, a Lubavitcher chassid living in London, was subject to two anti-Semitic attacks on public transportation within an hour on Motzei Shabbos. While on a bus in London’s West End, a man cursed him, said he would beat him up, and threatened to “slit your throat for Palestine.” None of the other passengers or the driver intervened during the incident. Leibrow got off the bus and proceeded to the Underground. There he encountered a group of youths on the escalator who jeered at him and screamed anti-Semitic epithets such as “I ******* hate the Jews.” “I tried to remain calm, but what bothers me is that people like this are just roaming the streets free, in London,” Liberow told Israel’s Channel 12 News. “I’ve experienced similar incidents in the past, many times over.

HaGaon HaRav Moshe Shternbuch spoke about the Surfside disaster during his weekly shiur on Thursday. “We heard about the great tragedy that happened last week in Miami, in which many were killed, including Jews, r’l,” HaRav Shternbuch said.

Khaled Awad, who stabbed Rabbi Shlomo Noginski eight times last week, had a Jewish roommate in college who was forced to take out a restraining order against him after he attacked him, CBS Boston reported. Aidan Anderson, who is Jewish, and Eric Valiente were Awad’s roommates at the University of Southern Florida, where he studied chemical engineering until very recently. Aidan said that he and Awad were “friends” until Awad attacked him in their apartment one day. Following the incident, Aidan moved out and took out a restraining order against him. “We were friends, to be honest with you,” Aidan told CBS Boston. “I’m Jewish. And he knew that from the time I moved in.” However, according to Aidan and Eric, Awad’s anti-Semitism quickly became evident.

Russia has been suffering from a sharp surge of coronavirus cases in the past month, and over 25,000 new cases were confirmed on Sunday, the largest number since January. Despite the high coronavirus rate and the fact that vaccines became available in Russia last year, the vaccination rate is low, with only about 18 million of its 144 million people vaccinated. Russian Chief Rabbi Rav Berel Lazar has called for all Jews in the country to be vaccinated with the Sputnik vaccine, which is free for all Russian citizens, Collive reported. In a letter sent to hundreds of Jewish communities across the country, Rav Lazar wrote (as translated by Collive): “Unfortunately, the COVID pandemic has recently been on the rise again, and there are many families who got sick.

Dutch MP Roeloff Bisschop has demanded that the Dutch Education Ministry take urgent measures to fight anti-Semitism in school in the wake of the publication of a shocking article about the bullying Jewish students endured during Operation Guardian of the Walls, World Israel News reported. Bisschop sent a letter to the Dutch education ministers calling their attention to a June 14 article in the Nieuw Israëlietisch Weekblad, a Dutch Jewish newspaper, headlined “My Child Doesn’t Want to be Jewish Anymore.” The article contains disturbing accounts of the anti-Semitic verbal attacks Jewish children have endured in public schools in the Netherlands, often with the knowledge of the teachers.

President Joe Biden on Friday announced he’s nominating University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann to serve as U.S. ambassador to Germany. Gutmann was born in Brooklyn to Beatrice and Kurt Gutmann, a Holocaust survivor from a frum family in Feuchtwangen, Germany. Kurt was a college student near Nuremberg when Hitler rose to power. He fled Nazi Germany in 1934 and after he was denied asylum to the US, brought his entire family, including four siblings to Bombay, India, where he founded a metal factory.  He met his wife on a vacation in New York City and settled in New York.

A man suspected of stabbing a rabbi eight times near a Jewish day school in Boston was held without bail Friday at his arraignment pending a hearing to determine whether he is a danger to society. Khaled Awad, 24, pleaded not guilty to assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon and assault and battery on a police officer in connection with the Thursday afternoon stabbing of Rabbi Shlomo Noginski in the city’s Brighton neighborhood. The attorney who represented Awad on Friday could not be reached for comment. A number for Awad, who’s from Brighton, could not be found. The hearing to determine whether he’s a danger is scheduled for July 8.