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.

A haunting photograph of a white bunk bed on the top floor of the Champlain Towers has drawn international attention and pierced the heart of many amid the searing tragedy. The bed remained largely intact, with sheets and pillows seen on the bottom bed, and an office chair next to it. Was a child or children sleeping there before the collapse occurred? The answer is no, according to a Miami Herald report. The bed is actually part of a furnished apartment, where a Jewish attorney, Linda March, 58, lived. March, who was divorced, lived at the penthouse alone.

Rabbi Shlomo Noginski, who was stabbed eight times outside the Shaloh House Jewish Russian Center & Synagogue in the Brighton neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts on Thursday, was discharged home from the Boston Medical Center several hours after the attack, Collive reported. Boston Police have identified the perpetrator as Khaled Awad, 24, of Brighton, and are still “investigating the motive behind the attack.” Awad was armed with a gun and a knife so Rabbi Noginski’s survival is truly a neis. Additionally, the attack took place in the middle of the day outside the center where children were attending a summer camp. The center went into lockdown for a short period following the attack.

A couple who lived in Australia for almost 20 years is among those missing in the Surfside disaster. In more recent years, Tzvi and Itty Ainsworth, in their 60s, moved to Florida to be near their children, but still split their time between Australia and Miami. They have seven children, with many living in Florida, including a daughter who lives just blocks away. Their niece, Chanale Fellig-Harrel, told the Associated Press that her aunt and uncle were celebrating the birth of two grandchildren. Their son in South Africa recently had a baby, and their son in Florida had a baby just days before the collapse. Itty’s mother, a Holocaust survivor who is currently battling cancer, also lives in Miami Beach. She wasn’t told about the disaster due to her illness.

The first victim identified in the rubble of the Champlain Towers was Stacie Fang, z’l, 54. Stacie, z’l, was a mother, beloved community member and businesswoman, Chabad. org reported. She lived in the Champlain Towers. Her son, Jonah Handler, 15, miraculously survived when a man walking by the rubble heard a cry for help and saw hands pushing at the debris. Stacie, originally from New York City, worked for the past ten years as Vice President of the Surfside-based Customer Relationship Management Conference “There are no words to describe the tragic loss of our beloved Stacie,” a family statement said. “The members of the Fang and Handler families would like to express our deepest appreciation for the outpouring of sympathy, compassion and support we have received.

Ivanka Trump donated money for the rescue efforts at the Champlain Towers collapse site, which is located just minutes away from the home she and her husband Jared Kushner are leasing in Arte Surfside, NBC6 reported. Trump donated money to purchase food for the volunteers who are working day and night at the scene of the collapse in Surfside. Trump and Kushner, who were out of town at the time of the collapse, live at 89th Street and Collins Avenue and Champlain Towers is only two blocks away, at 87th. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)

Surfside survivor Steve Rosenthal was asleep that night when he was suddenly jarred awake by “the loudest thunder I’ve ever heard – times 100,” he told Fox News. “I thought it was a major storm coming into Miami. Five seconds later the bed starts to shake, the room starts to shake and I honestly thought I was dreaming about being caught in an earthquake in California.” But when dust began falling on his face, Steve concluded that it was a real earthquake right there in Miami. He ran to the balcony but all he could see was dust. He ran to his bedroom and packed a bag and ran to his front door to escape. But there was so much debris blocking the hallway that he couldn’t leave.

Thousands of people were moved by the account of Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett of encountering a 12-year-old girl saying Tehillim by herself at the site of the Champlain collapse. The girl, Elisheva Cohen was saying Tehillim for her father Dr. Brad (Yaakov Reuven Hakohen) Cohen, and her uncle, Dr. Gary (Tzvi Nosson Hakohen), both missing since the collapse, Collive reported. The two brothers are both physicians who became Torah observant as adults. Brad lives in in Bay Harbor, Florida, and Gary in Birmingham, Alabama. “It all began one day in the bank 25 years ago,” recalls Rabbi Yaakov Saacks, who directs the Jewish Chai Center in Dix Hills, N.Y., where the Cohens had grown up.

One of the congregations in the building of the Tree of Life shul in Pittsburgh which was targeted by a gunman in 2018 has asked that the perpetrator’s life be spared, JTA reported. White supremacist Robert Bowers, 49, killed 11 Jews during the massacre, the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in the US. Bruce Herschlag, the president of Congregation Dor Chadash, sent a letter last week to US Attorney General Merrick Garland with the request, according to a WESA radio report on Friday. Justice in the ongoing trial of Robert Bowers, 49, should be achieved “in a manner that is both consistent with our religious values and that spares us from the painful ordeal of prolonged legal maneuvering,” Herschlag wrote. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)