Ahead of a planned strike in local municipalities tomorrow, the Israel Teachers’ Union says it will not allow schools to operate without the presence of security guards — which are provided by the local authorities.
It has instructed members of the union not to let students into class if institutions are unprotected.
Some 170 municipalities are planning to halt their work over the government’s failure to transfer certain promised funds.
Read more at Times of Israel.
{Matzav.com}

The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees has stepped aside temporarily as an internal probe into alleged mismanagement at the organization proceeds, it said on Wednesday.
Pierre Krahenbuhl, commissioner general of the agency known as UNRWA, will be replaced on an interim basis by the agency’s acting deputy chief Christian Saunders, it said.
The agency said findings in the probe so far “revealed management issues which relate specifically to the commissioner general,” who “has stepped aside until the completion of the process.”
Read more at i24NEWS.
{Matzav.com}

Two men have pleaded guilty to acting as illegal agents of the government of Iran on charges stemming from monitoring a Jewish center in Chicago and American members of an exiled Iranian opposition group, the U.S. Justice Department and FBI announced Tuesday.
Majid Ghorbani, 60, an Iranian citizen and permanent U.S. resident of Costa Mesa, California, pleaded guilty Monday to one count of violating U.S. sanctions, according to court records. Ahmadreza Mohammadi-Doostdar, 39, a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen, pleaded guilty Oct. 8 to one count of conspiracy and one count of acting as an undeclared agent of the Iranian government, court filings show.

The publisher of a soon-to-be-released book by an anonymous senior Trump administration official has told the Department of Justice it would not comply with its request for proof the author did not sign any nondisclosure agreements.
Assistant Attorney General Joseph Hunt made the request Monday in a letter to the publishers of a book by the official behind a 2018 New York Times op-ed that declared there was a “resistance” within the administration is writing a book available next month.

[COMMUNICATED]
Yartzeit this Shabbos – Take advantage now! Nothing pierces the heavens like the tears and tefillos of a yiddishe maame, let alone the maame of all yidden, Rochel Imeinu. Yes, the Rochel Imeinu who so selflessly gave away her simanim. The Rochel Imeinu who was buried in isolation in Bais Lechem, so that she can daven on behalf of her children when in galus. 
We are mere days away from Rochel Imeinu’s yartzeit, 11 Cheshvan, which comes out on Shabbos Parshas Lech Lecha. Year after year, yidden of all stripes flock to Kever Rachel on this vaunted day to daven for all that weighs on their hearts. However, since it falls out on Shabbos, the Kever will be closed and empty, except…

The Shnerb family on Monday celebrated the bar mitzvah of their son Aharon, two and a half months after their 17-year-old daughter Rina was murdered in a terror attack.
Attending the bar mitzvah were Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, chief rabbi of Tzfat and son of late Sephardic Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu; Rabbi Yosef Zvi Rimon; Lod Mayor Yair Revivo; friends, and family members.
Rabbi Eitan Shnerb, father of the bar mitzvah boy, spoke about the song which he said “has accompanied him in a special way since Rina was murdered.”
“This song gives me the strength to both laugh and cry,” he said, singing the Mordechai Ben David song “Hinenei rofei lach” with the brothers.
Read more at Arutz Sheva.

Donald Trump Jr. named CIA officer Eric Ciaramella as the whistleblower who filed a complaint about President Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The president’s eldest son, 41, sent out a link via Twitter to a Breitbart News story that named Ciaramella as the “alleged” whistleblower.
Ciaramella, a 33-year-old CIA officer, was named in a RealClearInvestigations report last week.

The family of Moshe Holtzberg, who survived the Mumbai masscare, is requesting families who named children after Rabbi Gabi (Gavriel) and Rivky Holtzberg to help them with a unique project, COL LIVE reported.
Moshe will celebrate his thirteenth birthday next month, and the family is working to collect stories of children named after his parents. The stories will be printed and bound, to be given to him as a bar mitzvah gift.
Parents who have named a child after either Gabi or Rivky can send in the child’s name, age, photo, and location, as well as a description of the child and the inspiration behind the name, to Snspielman@yahoo.com.

Anti-Israel activity on college campuses in the United States increased during the 2018-19 academic year, according to an Israel on Campus Coalition report that shows there was a record number of anti-Israel disruptions at pro-Israel campus events.
During the academic year, campuses on the East Coast experienced more anti-Israel events than any other region, including an increase in anti-Israel activity at Ivy League schools such as Columbia University, Brown University and Cornell University.
Harvard University experienced a rise in anti-Israel events over the past two academic years.

The New Right’s Naftali Bennett says he believes there’s “a very, very high probability” Israel will go to a third election within a year due to the ongoing political gridlock and inability to form a government.
That eventuality is currently more likely than a coalition taking shape, he says on a newly launched podcast, unless Yisrael Beytenu’s Avigdor Liberman changes course and agrees to join a narrow right-wing religious government.
He warns that the right will likely suffer “a great blow” in such an election. “I’m very pessimistic,” he says.
Read more at Times of Israel.
{Matzav.com}