The idea for the song began with the bell at the beginning of the morning at the cheder right opposite Yonatan Razel’s home. “Every time I kept hearing this song, until it became a part of our Shabbos zemiros. I said to my brothers, ‘Let’s record it and it will give us closure.’” Yonatan Razel, together with his father, Reb Micha, and brothers Reb Aharon and Rav Yehuda present a unique song “Achas Shoalti”. The song is a musical expression of the spiritual experience which accompanied the whole family during the previous cycle of learning Shas, and even more so during the current cycle in the kollel for learning Daf Hayomi b’iyun which the family operates and participates in.

A strange man entered the Kehilas Chassidim shul on Shazar Street in Tiveria on Sunday night, and after getting angry at those in the Shul lit the Amud on fire. According to reports in the Israeli media, the man walked in and asked one of the Avreichim for money to travel to Yerushalayim. The Avreich gave him a shekel. When the man asked for more, the Avreich showed him that he didn’t have any more money on him. In response, the stranger attacked the Avreich and broke his glasses. The Avreich succeeded in fleeing the Shul after being beaten. When he returned, he found that the stranger had lit a fire on the Amud and burned it and the Talleisim underneath it.

Many students at a university in Tehran have openly avoided walking over US and Israeli flags in an apparent show of defiance again the Iranian government. Video shows the students walking around, rather than across, the flags at Shahid Beheshti University campus. The flags were painted on the ground so that those walking along the route would thereby insult both countries – which Iran considers staunch enemies. Watch in the second video below what happens when Iranians walk on the Israeli and American flags (most likely of the regime’s IRGC Basij members): They are booed & people begin chanting: “Shame on you!” Thousands of protesters chanting anti-government slogans have taken to the streets after Iran’s military admitted it had mistakenly downed a passenger plane.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu opened the weekly Cabinet meeting on Sunday by condemning Iran for lying about the crash of a Ukrainian airplane last week. “Iran lied,” Netanyahu said in English. “Just as they lied about their secret nuclear program, they’re lying now about the downing of the Ukrainian aircraft. They knew from the start that they had downed it. They knew that it was an unintentional downing but they lied intentionally. They deceived the entire world.” “This is completely contrary to the way that a civilized country should act, and we send our condolences to the victims of Iran’s deception and negligence,” Netanyahu concluded.

New York City police are investigating anti-Semitic graffiti, including a swastika, found sprayed in a stairwell of a local high school. An employee of Brooklyn Tech High School found the message scribbled in black marker inside the third-floor stairwell, police said. No arrests have been made. Meanwhile, in Williamsburg, YWN was provided with a video of another disturbing incident. On the video (posted below), the viewr will see a group of young non-Jewish teens on bikes stopping in front of Hasidic-owned homes, and throwing rocks at them. This happened on Shabbos afternoon on Skillman between DeKalb & Lafayette. The discovery of the graffiti Thursday followed a wave of anti-Semitic attacks in and around New York City.

In the pitch black, pre-dawn sky on the outskirts of the Iranian capital Tehran, a tiny fast-moving light can be seen racing up through the trees, as someone films from the ground. Then there is a flash of light as it seems to collide with something in the air. It is the ill-fated Ukrainian International airliner which had taken off Wednesday just hours after Iran had fired missiles at U.S. bases in Iraq in retaliation for the slaying of its top military man, Gen. Qassem Soleimani. Western leaders have said the plane seemed to have been unintentionally brought down by a surface-to-air missile near Tehran. Iran denies that a missile was to blame for the crash.

In honor of the fast of Asara B’Teves, the IDF allowed hundreds of people to enter the kevarim of Yehoshua bin Nun and Calev ben Yefunah in the Palestinian village of Kifl Haris on Tuesday night. IDF combat soldiers, border guards, Israel Police and the Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria guarded the entrance of 800 mispallelim to the kevarim. Access to the kevarim is possible only every few months in coordination with the IDF and other security forces. Brigadier General Yiftach Norkin, commander of the Ephraim Brigade, said: “The entrance of mispallelim to the kevarim in honor of the fast of Asara B’Teves was held tonight. I see great importance in providing the opportunity to enter the site and daven. I wish an easy fast to everyone.” (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)

Today, Councilman Kalman Yeger took to the floor of the New York City Council to publicly condemn politicians and members of the media who “tinker at the fringes of antisemitism.” If it had a title, the three minute speech would be called “You Did This.” In his remarks, Councilman Yeger repeatedly used the phrase to excoriate those who pretend to stand with the Jewish community, but actually stand with anti-semites. Councilman Yeger specifically pointed to “those who spent Sunday posing for pictures with Jews, but spend the other 364 days of the year festering hate against my community.” Councilman Yeger said, “we have the right to live in our city like anyone else. We have the right to go about our day without being assaulted. We are not doing this to anyone.

The attached video is fascinating and the Psak Halacha is timely: A Rav from Monsey asked Hagaon HaRav Chaim Kanievsky if guards with weapons should be posted at shuls in America due to the recent spate of anti-Semitic incidents. Rav Chaim first answered that everyone should do as they want. But then Rav Chaim was told that the mispallelim want to do what the Rav tells them and Harav Chaim said not to post guards. The second question was should some mispallelim acquire weapons to bring to shul? Harav Chaim answered that they should if it’s pikuach nefesh. The question was explained further that it’s not a matter of “immediate” pikuach nefesh, but of potential pikuach nefesh due to the recent spike in anti-Semitic attacks. Harav Chaim answered that mispallelim can bring weapons to shul.

Two men were caught on surveillance video drawing swastikas and other profanities outside a deli in Brooklyn, police said Wednesday. In the Dec. 22 footage, a man pulled out what appears to be a marker from his pocket and started scribbling on the wall outside Acapulco Restaurant & Deli on Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint. A second man standing next to the first also wrote on the wall. Police say the NYPD Hate Crime Task Force is searching for the suspects. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)