Andrew Cuomo was once an ally of the Orthodox Jewish community or so we thought. Yes community leaders had access and a perceived relationship with top Cuomo administration officials until everyone realized the relationship was all just one of political convenience and political control. “Tzedokah” the Governor once famously pontificated to a crowd in Flatbush, means Justice and “it is justice and not a hand out to help communities like the Orthodox who do so much for the State.” Yet, despite the emotional heart tugging, he failed to deliver EITC then & never brought the issue of tuition relief back up again. Leaving struggling Yeshiva parents and leaders to fight for the scraps of the NYS Budget like they always had. The big ugly as they call in Albany. Ugly indeed.

Idit Harel Segal was turning 50, and she had chosen a gift: She was going to give one of her own kidneys to a stranger. The kindergarten teacher from northern Israel, a proud Israeli, hoped her choice would set an example of generosity in a land of perpetual conflict. She was spurred by memories of her late grandfather, a Holocaust survivor, who told her to live meaningfully, and by Jewish tradition, which holds that there’s no higher duty than saving a life. So Segal contacted a group that links donors and recipients, launching a nine-month process to transfer her kidney to someone who needed one. That someone turned out to be a 3-year-old Palestinian boy from the Gaza Strip.

The proposal for a law to develop a plan to provide financial compensation to the Meron victims and their families was knocked down by the coalition on Wednesday afternoon. Prime Minister Bennett entered the Knesset just to vote against the law, for political purposes. When he announced “opposed,” the plenum broke out in screams, with opposition MKs yelling at him “Busha, busha, go, go!” Knesset Speaker Mickey Levy tried to restore order, to no avail, and Bennett left the plenum. Following the decision, UTJ Yaakov Asher, who presented the bill, slammed the government: “You’re playing politics with the blood of those killed.

U.S. regulators on Monday added a new warning to Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine about links to a rare and potentially dangerous neurological reaction, but said it’s not entirely clear the shot caused the problem. The Food and Drug Administration announced the new warning, flagging reports of Guillain-Barre syndrome, an immune system disorder that can causes muscle weakness and occasionally paralysis. Health officials described the side effect as a “small possible risk” for those getting the shot. The action comes after the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reviewed reports of about 100 people developing the syndrome after receiving the one-dose vaccine. Almost all of were hospitalized and one person died, the FDA said.

The chabad Shliach stabbed eight times outside a Jewish day school in Boston said it was a “miracle” he survived — as he recalled the broad daylight attack in a new interview. Rabbi Shlomo Noginski told i24News in Tel Aviv: “I would like to say thank God. A miracle, a great miracle happened to me,” Noginski said. “He only managed to stab me eight times in my arm and my limbs but it could have been much worse. I feel relatively great and I thank God for the miracle.” At first, Noginski said the suspect, Khaled Awad, 24, approached him with a gun, demanding he open his car. Figuring it was a robbery, Noginski offered his keys to his attacker, he told i24. “When the terrorist approached me he threatened me with a gun and asked me to open the car,” he said.

Over the last few days, additional members of the Home Front Command have joined the IDF and Israeli Foreign Ministry delegation in Miami. Joining the delegation were rescuers, engineers and population behavior officers, who are in Miami to reinforce and assist the delegation members who arrived last week. To assist the effort, the operational analysis team of the Intelligence Directorate’s “Unit 9900”, which specializes in visual intelligence, built a three-dimensional (3-D) model that maps the collapsed building in order to streamline the process of locating the missing persons at the site of the disaster. The initial delegation arrived at the destruction site in the first 72 hours after the building collapsed. As of today, the Israeli delegation has 15 members at the site.

As rescue efforts at the site of the Surfside disaster continue, more and more details of the horrific events are being revealed. Despite the immensity of the tragedy, with 33 Jews still missing (two were found) as well as over 100 non-Jews, some of the residents experienced nissim and survived the disaster. One frum family, the Nir family, managed to escape a minute before the building collapsed. The mother of the family, Sora Nir, told B’Chadrei Chareidim how she and her children were spared from certain death. Sora, a mother of 6, had returned that night from a Chabad gathering after midnight and began hearing ominous creaking sounds. At first, she thought someone was doing home construction work and wondered who would do such noisy construction work at such a late hour.

More than two dozen people were arrested as anti-Israel demonstrators clashed in New York City’s Times Square and police were investigating the gang assault of a Jewish man as a hate crime, police said Friday. “It’s absolutely disgusting and unacceptable,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said on WNYC public radio. “We had a man viciously beaten simply because he appeared to some individuals to be Jewish. We had folks throwing very potent fireworks and creating harm to others and burning some folks, at least one person.” The melee on Thursday evening resulted in more than two dozen arrests on charges including hate crime assault, obstructing governmental administration, resisting arrest, unlawful assembly, disorderly conduct and criminal possession of a weapon, according to city police.

Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh thanked Iran on Friday for supplying weapons and funding to Gaza during the conflict with Israel. In a televised address, Haniyeh also said he will continue to “defend and fight for Jerusalem,” including the liberation of the al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City and the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in Eaast Jerusalem. “Jerusalem remains the center of the conflict,” he asserted. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)

In light of the multiple tzaros that have befallen Klal Yisrael in recent weeks, and specifically the Chareidi community in Israel, many are wondering how to respond. Many have turned to HaGaon HaRav Chaim Kanievsy for answers and on Wednesday, the Gadol’s responses were published. “Although we’re not aware of the cheshbonos of Shamayim but we see that the Midas HaDin is ‘taut,’ rachmana litzlan, it’s appropriate to be mechazeik in Torah, which protects and saves, and in tefillah, which never returns empty and has the power to tear up evil decrees, as well as to be careful with hilchos netilas yedayim,” HaRav Chaim’s response stated.