Jewish Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested on Thursday morning and charged with espionage by the Federal Security Bureau (FSB), the successor to the KGB, the first time Russia has accused a foreign journalist of espionage since the Cold War. According to a Wall Street Journal report published on Friday, Gershkovich, 31, is the American son of Soviet-born Jews who emigrated to the US in the late seventies. His mother, Ella, fled the Soviet Union when she was 22 via Israeli documents [there was no further explanation of this fact], and his father, Mikhail, left the Soviet Union in the same Jewish migration wave. The two met in Detroit and later moved to New Jersey, where they raised Evan and his older sister.

The post Mir Dinner Highlights: See it. Hear it. Live it! appeared first on The Yeshiva World.

Gedolim Urge the Daily Learning of Mussar in Dirshu’s Kinyan Chochma Program
The post Historic Meeting of Leading Senior Mashgichim at Home of Rav Gershon Edelstein appeared first on The Yeshiva World.

Chaim Topol, z’l, a leading Israeli actor who charmed generations of theatergoers and movie-watchers with his portrayal of Tevye, the long-suffering and charismatic milkman in “Fiddler on the Roof,” passed away on Thursday morning in Tel Aviv at the age of 87. A recipient of two Golden Globe awards and nominee for both an Academy Award and a Tony Award, Topol long has ranked among Israel’s most decorated actors. Up until a few years ago, he remained involved in theater and said he still fielded requests to play Tevye. Topol got his start in acting in a theatrical troupe in the Israeli army in the 1950s.

Chief Rabbi of Tehran Rav Yehudah Gerami organized a festive Purim party for dozens of Jewish children. During the party, Rav Gerami asked the children questions about the Megillah and gave out prizes. As seen in the videos below, the party was packed with excited children and some exhausted-looking parents. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
The post WATCH: Jewish Children Celebrate Purim In Modern-Day Persia appeared first on The Yeshiva World.

Jews throughout the world celebrated Purim on Monday evening, including the Jews in modern-day Persia, otherwise known as the Islamic Republic. Like every year, Chief Rabbi of Tehran Rav Yehudah Gerami davened at the kevarim of Mordechai and Esther in the city of Hamadan before Purim. In the video below, Jews in Tehran can be seen in shul after Kriyas HaMegillah reciting Shoshanas Yaakov in the Persian nusach. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
The post WATCH: This Is How Jews In Tehran Recite “Shoshanas Yaakov” appeared first on The Yeshiva World.

Jews from the Jewish kehilla in Djerba, Tunisia on Monday, Taanis Esther, carried out its minhag of hanging an effigy of Haman and his ten sons from a tree and burning it. Djerba, an island off the coast of Tunisia, which some call “the island of Kohanim,” has housed a Jewish kehilla with an unusually high percentage of descendants of Kohanim for over 2,500 years. There were approximately 100,000 Jews, or 15% of the entire population of Tunisia, living in Djerba in 1940, but currently, there are only about 1,000 Jews living on the island. It is the largest Jewish community in Tunisia and the second largest in the Arab world, after the Jewish kehilla in Casablanca, Morocco, which has between 1,500 to 2,000 members. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)

A terrible tragedy occurred when a fire broke out overnight Wednesday in a home in Monroe, near Kiryat Yoel. A large number of fire and rescue services arrived at the scene. Sadly, after they managed to extinguish the fire, they discovered that a frum couple and their seven-year-old daughter had perished in the fire. The cause of the fire is not yet known. This is a developing story. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
The post BDE: Terrible Tragedy In Monroe: Frum Family Perish In House Fire appeared first on The Yeshiva World.

Jordanian security inspection officials cut off the leather straps of a Rav’s tefillin at the Queen Alia International Airport in Amman on Monday. HaRav Moshe Haliva, the Rav of the Sephardi kehilla in Dubai, flew from Israel to Abu Dhabi via Amman. When Rav Haliva went through security in Amman, security officials confiscated his tefillin, and after an hour and a half of arguments, and despite the Rav’s pleas that it was a religious object, they cut the tefillin straps in front of him and returned the batim to him. “I cried, I begged,” Rav Haliva told Ynet. “I explained to them that it’s a holy object, I told them that we’re cousins, that we also daven to Allah.

Moses Elisaf, z’l, the first Jewish mayor in Greek history, passed away on Friday at the age of 68 after a brief bout with cancer. Elisaf, a physician and professor of internal medicine by profession, ran as an independent in the 2019 Ioannina municipal elections and defeated the incumbent, in his first foray in politics. He served in the position until his death. During Elisaf’s election campaign, his political opponents claimed that he was a Mossad agent. Elisaf, who often visited relatives in Israel and worked at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University in 1993-94, said at the time that the claim was antisemitic but did not believe that antisemitism, in general, was a serious issue in Greece.