The recent spate of attacks on our brothers and sisters in America and throughout the world has affected us all on a very deep level. Footage of young men throwing bricks at elderly Jews on their way home from prayer and adults punching children on their way to school is painful to the collective Jewish heart in a way few other things are. While our religion has always stressed a positive outlook on the world, the value of human decency and the presumption of goodness in our fellow man, the hateful violence we are witnessing makes it very difficult to maintain it. We are hurting. We are angry. We are scared.

Dear Editor,
I am worried about the proposed NY State regulations that could impact yeshivos, which I have been reading about for the past half year on Matzav.com.
However, there is a question that people have been asking that no one seems to be answering:

Dear Matzav,
The story of a restaurant in Lakewood that put up an Israeli flag on Yom Ha’atzmaut made headlines last week when rumors began to spread that the head of hechsher certifying the store had threatened to pull the hashgacha if the flag was not removed.
Whether or not the rumors were true, the story caused a stir, with questions about the authority of hechsherim and the legitimacy of Zionist holidays becoming the hot topic. For me, the discussions clarified a similar situation that took place just a few moths prior.