Reb Elazar Tzadok Kaufman, who was released on Sunday after 138 days of solitary confinement in Prison 10, was welcomed with joyous dancing in the streets of Bnei Brak.
Kaufman was arrested in July at a protest in Yehud against chillul kevarim, together with two other bnei yeshivos from the Yishuv Hayashan. The three were handed over to the military police for “draft dodging” and imprisoned in Prison 10.
R’ Dovid Menachem Mintzberg was released after 36 days, and R’ Aryeh Mordechai Rabinowitz, grandson of the Mishkenos HaRo’im Rebbe, was released after about 90 days. Today, Reb Kaufman was finally released.
All three refused to wear prison uniforms for religious reasons and were punished with solitary confinement throughout their imprisonment.
In honor of Kaufman and in protest of the imprisonment of bnei yeshivos, a large reception is taking place on Sunday evening in Jerusalem.
The event began at 6:00 p.m. with a parade of thousands of children from Talmudei Torah, marching from the Schneller compound. Afterwards, a gathering was held at Kikar Shabbos, led by the Rabbanim of the Yishuv Hayashan. At the conclusion, the entire crowd accompanied Kaufman in a procession through Jerusalem’s streets, accompanied by lively music.
How Tel Aviv’s Elites Are Toasting the End of Israeli Sovereignty
While Israel bleeds, the Globalists count their chips.
On the crisp morning of November 27, 2025, while the smoke from the northern border had barely cleared the nostrils of the reservists returning home, the valet parking at the David Kempinski Hotel was overflowing with the sedans of the untouchable class.
Inside, under the soft lighting of the ballroom, the captains of Israeli industry, banking, and diplomacy gathered not to mourn the fracturing of the old world, but to carve up the carcass of the new one.
They came for the Calcalist “Global Economy 2025” conference, an event sold under the banner of “A New World Order,” illustrated by a golden globe cracked into jigsaw pieces—a visual metaphor so on-the-nose it felt less like branding and more like a confession.
Continue reading on Jewish Home News.
On Yom Kippur morning, terror hit a Manchester synagogue. Yoni Finlay faced the terrorist, fighting to keep the attacker out, and was shot in the chaos.
On Yom Kippur morning in Manchester, Yoni Finlay, 39, came to the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation in Manchester, U.K. ready to lead prayers. Within moments, a terrorist attacked the synagogue, and Yoni was pulled into a fight to protect his congregation. When police rushed in, shots rang out—and Yoni was hit. What should have been a day of holiness became a face-to-face encounter with evil.
Around 9:30 that morning, Yoni recalls, “I'm waiting, and trying to make sure that I remember the tunes.” Then he heard a loud bang. “That's when we first realized something was wrong. We kind of all looked at each other, what on earth was that?”
The bang came from the terrorist’s car ramming into the synagogue wall in an attempt to get through the gates. At the time, all he saw was Alan Levy, one of the people who welcomes people as they come into the shul, running in, shouting, “Get the doors closed!”
Yoni relates, “I didn't know this at the time, but Adrian Daulby, who, unfortunately, didn't survive, was closest to the door on the left-hand side. He quickly got both doors closed. Then we went out into the foyer because there was something going on, and we didn't know what.”
In the foyer, “the first thing I saw was the security guard, lying on the floor in front of the car,” says Yoni. “Then I saw Andrew Franks, absolutely covered in blood. I didn’t know at the time that he’d been stabbed.” Thankfully, Andrew survived.
Yoni’s father, a doctor, came out to the foyer to administer first aid to Andrew. A consulting geriatrician, he later shared that he was not trained for such a situation.
At that point, the terrorist got out of the car and was trying to break into the synagogue. Yoni recalls, “Just on instinct, people were holding the doors closed. I joined in with that. There must have been 7 or 8 of us on the doors.” Rabbi Daniel Walker, the congregation’s spiritual leader, was one of them. Meanwhile, the terrorist “was doing his best to pull the doors open, because they opened outwards.”
As the terrorist continued to try breaking through doors and windows, Yoni and others “were going from door to door to stop him from coming in. He was running up and down the steps. At one point, he was throwing stuff at the windows to try and get in. He was using his knife to try and shatter the glass, but thank God, he couldn't get in.
“We were in the presence of evil. I've never, ever felt evil radiating off somebody in the way that it did that morning.”
At the time, the men did not think about the danger they were in. Yoni says, “I did notice that he had a very large knife. And he had a belt around his waist that looked like some sort of bomb. But the very weird thing is that you kind of forgot about that. We were just concentrating on keeping the doors closed and making sure he didn't get in.”
What felt like a long time was, Yoni later learned, only seven minutes—but to them it felt like an eternity as they clung to the doors and waited for police to arrive.
Getting Shot
When the armed police finally arrived, the terrorist “came down the steps towards them quite aggressively, and they were shouting at him. They probably saw the bomb, and that's when they shot him. He got back up again, somehow. They shot him again, and that's when the bullet went into me.”
Yoni was shot by a stray police bullet.
“I knew straight away I'd been shot but it didn't hurt. It just feels like someone's punched you very, very hard. But then you're struggling to breathe. I didn't know at the time that my left lung had collapsed. So I'm struggling to breathe, I sort of had my hand over where the bullet had gone in. My thought was, I didn't want to die here.”
Other congregants immediately rushed to help. Yoni remained conscious throughout the ordeal. “People were really good. Somebody lay down next to me, kept talking to me. Somebody gave me some water. They were making sure I was okay until the paramedics could get in. They couldn't get in until the area was clear. So the police had to come in first, clear the whole area.”
Somebody alerted Dr. Finlay, Yoni’s father. He rushed over, but he felt completely unprepared and helpless. Nothing prepares a father for treating his own seriously wounded child.
When Yoni was finally taken to a hospital by an ambulance “My parents knew I was in hospital being looked after, but for hours they didn't know where I was,” Yoni says. It was an excruciatingly difficult day for them.
In the ER, Yoni was taken for a CT scan. “I'm actually terrified of operations,” He laughs. “It’s one of my biggest fears. I think I tried to convince myself I'd be fine, I just needed a couple of days’ bed rest.”
While waiting, Yoni gave a statement to the police. Then the doctor rushed in with the results of the CT scans. “He said, yeah, we're going to need to operate, sign this. I was taken into the operating theater, and next thing I knew, I was waking up.”
The surgery took over four hours. By the time Yoni woke up, his parents were already in the hospital, at his side. They remain a pillar of support throughout his recovery.
The Victims
Yoni didn’t know that at the time that two of the congregants, Adrian Daulby and Melvin Cravitz, lost their lives in the attack. Melvin was stabbed to death by the terrorist outside the synagogue. Adrian was one of the men holding the synagogue doors closed. He was also shot by a stray police bullet.
Both men were beloved members of the community and are very much missed. Yoni says, “Adrian and Melvin are the type of people that our synagogue is built on. Often, Adrian was the first person I saw when I came into the synagogue, and always with a smile. Always, ‘Hello, how are you? Nice to see you.’ And he was there every Shabbat, in his seat, which I think his father and his grandfather had sat in before him.
“And Melvin's the same, very devoted to his family, very friendly, warm, and welcoming. It affected a huge amount of people, what happened.”
For Yoni, it is especially difficult because both Adrian and Melvin used to sit behind him in the synagogue. “And now, I turn around, and there are two empty seats where there shouldn't be.”
Impact on Family and Community
The whole community has come together in mourning the victims and supporting each other, especially those directly affected.
Yoni’s parents, he says, “are strong people, but an experience like this, it has to affect you. They've been absolutely fantastic, really doing everything that they can for me whilst trying to manage their own trauma.”
Yoni’s four children, ages 16 to 9, are also still processing their trauma. Thankfully, they were not yet in the synagogue at the time of the attack. Yoni says it was a miracle that the attack took place so early in the morning. Two hours later, the synagogue would have been full of people, including children.
“I'm incredibly proud of how they've reacted to it,” Yoni says about his children. “My 16-year-old son gave an interview to one of the media stations on the day after, where he spoke about what had happened, and he said some very nice things about me.”
Another miracle, says Yoni, is that Rabbi Walker was not injured or worse. He had been one of the men going from door to door and holding them closed, as well as administering first aid to the wounded. “He’s held the synagogue together, and he’s been absolutely fantastic.”
Rabbi Walker has been guiding his congregants through the aftermath of the attack, providing encouragement and support as they mourn their losses and carry on.
On Yom Kippur itself, says Yoni, Rabbi Walker “was a pillar of strength. He made a decision that no matter what happened, we're going to carry on. We're not going to miss prayer services.” All the services of Yom Kippur took place that day, first outside, in the street, then at the police station where the congregants were taken, and later, at a local community center. The next morning, the congregation prayed at the rabbi’s house. Then other organizations offered their space, until the synagogue building was reopened for Simchat Torah.
“There wasn’t a prayer missed,” says Yoni. “The rabbi said that we were not going to let the terrorist win. He wanted to stop our prayers, and we weren’t going to let that happen.”
Fighting Darkness with Light
Yoni says, “The Jewish people have this immense power to bring light into the world.” The terrorist embodied “real darkness. He wanted to die, and the only reason he wanted to die is because he hated Jews. He wanted to kill as many Jews as he could. So we have to combat that.”
Yoni urges all Jews around the globe to be the bearers of light through acts of kindness. “It doesn't take a lot,” he says. “Say hello to somebody. Smile. Ask somebody how they are. It doesn't have to be big things, but you can bring that light into somebody else's world.”
“There's so much good in this world,” Yoni says. He witnessed the good in people who “ran towards danger that day. I wasn’t alone in that, just trying to protect the people in the synagogue. There's so much darkness, there's so much hate in this world, but actually we have that power to bring light. Everybody, no matter who you are, has an ability to make a difference. It doesn't take a lot to put a smile on someone's face, to make somebody feel good, and we have no idea what impact this has on people.”
The Outpouring of Kindness
Yoni stayed in the hospital for ten days. He is tremendously grateful to the doctors and nurses. “I had nothing but absolutely wonderful care and support,” he says. “I was incredibly well looked after.”
Yoni says he was overwhelmed by the outpouring of support he and his children received from the community.
“The unity that the Jewish community displayed is remarkable,” says Yoni. He recalls that the police later commented on how impressed they were with the whole Jewish community. “People bought food out to them, people made sure that they were warm, they had what they needed. Because it's how we respond. We don't respond with violence, we don't respond with revenge. That's not who we are.”
Within days of the attack, the synagogue received over 2,000 messages from all over the world, from both Jews and non-Jews, expressing their horror at the attack, condolences on the lives lost, and well wishes for the wounded.
Two weeks after the terrorist attack, King Charles visited the synagogue and met with the congregants. He offered condolences and expressed his solidarity with the community. Yoni says that the king’s visit was very important to the community because it “showed us that we're not alone.”
Carrying On
After Yoni was discharged from the hospital, he was nervous about going back to the synagogue and being reminded of the trauma. “But the welcome I got was so warm,” he says. “There wasn't really time to think about what happened. I was never on my own. I sat, and people came over to talk to me, and at no time was I sitting there by myself. People were making sure I was okay.”
Yoni still struggles with survivor’s guilt. “I'm not sure if it's the same bullet that went into me that also went into Adrian, but certainly it was this close… and Adrian isn't here, and Melvin isn't here, and that's really difficult for me to cope with.”
At the same time, Yoni is grateful to God for the miracle of his survival. Physically, he is on the mend. “Thank God, I've had the good news that I'm allowed to go running again,” he says. “There's still bits of pain, but I'm walking, I'm going out and doing things.”
He sees his experience as a lesson that “ultimately, we don't know what tomorrow brings” and advises others not to put off for tomorrow anything that is important to them.
On a practical level, the synagogue is increasing its security measures. The community is concerned about the rise of antisemitism in the U.K. over the past two years. Yoni says, “There's been so much hate towards the Jews in this country, and it's fueled by the media.” What happened on Yom Kippur, says Yoni, “was a shock but not a surprise.” The terrorist did not wake up that morning and decide to kill Jews. The hatred had been continuously fed to him by the media.
Yoni explains that these seemingly small and insignificant messages are the flip side of small acts of kindness making a difference. Small acts of hate have a major effect on the world. “People really have to think about the consequences of what they say and what gets put out there, because ultimately, it has an impact,” says Yoni.
After Yaakov departed from Eretz Yisrael and entered Charan, he had the dream of the ladder. In this dream, he saw angels ascending and descending. Rashi says that the ascending angels were angels of Eretz Yisrael who accompanied Yaakov to the border. The descending angels were angels to accompany him while he was in galut. Similarly, twenty years later, when Yaakov returns to Eretz Yisrael, we have a similar switching of angels. In other words, Yaakov had the constant accompaniment of angels.
In this shiur I would like to explore the mitzvah of Livui, “accompaniment,” a very important and deeply profound mitzvah.
We learn about the mitzvah of accompaniment, from Avraham Avinu. The pasuk (Bereishit 21:33) says that Avraham established an eshel, a roadside “inn” in Be’er Sheva. The word eshel is an abbreviation (alef shin lamed) for achila (eating), shtiya (drinking) and there are two opinions what the “lamed” stands for – either lina (sleeping), or leviya (accompaniment).
The Rambam (Hilchot Aveilut 14:2) says that the most spiritually elevated component of the mitzvah of Hachnasat Orchim, hosting guests, is accompaniment and someone who does not accompany their guests when they leave, it is as if they “killed them.” We learn this from the Gemara (Sota 46b) regarding the mitzvah of Egla Arufa, discovering a dead body in the open space between two cities. The Gemara says that the reason the person died in the open space was because he was not adequately accompanied and therefore the two cities in closest proximity share culpability.
It may seem strange to us that the accompaniment component is so important and serious. One would think that giving a guest the best food, waiting on them and making them feel comfortable at the table are more important. However, consider it from a different perspective. Often someone hosts a guest out of a feeling of obligation to perform a mitzvah, or out of sympathy when they see someone without food or lodging.
Therefore, during the meal the guest cannot be totally certain if their host is hosting them with pure joy or because it is out of a feeling of obligation. However, if the host accompanies their guest after the guest has wined and dined, after the meal is over, this is a sign that the hosting was from pure joy, that the host was so happy having his guest as company, that they have difficulty parting from them. This is why accompaniment is the most important part, because it is beyond the letter of the law.
Even if the accompaniment of a guest is done for altruistic reasons, there is always the faint possibility that somewhere in the back of our minds we may have some ulterior motive for doing so, perhaps hoping one day for reciprocation. There is one kind of accompaniment, however, that is totally pure, with no ulterior motives. This is accompanying a deceased to their grave. This is the ultimate chesed that one human can do for another, because there are no chances of reciprocation.
In the case of Egla Arufa, the lack of accompaniment is literally like committing murder. You sent your guest on his way without the appropriate physical protection. However, in reference to not accompanying a guest who you simply invite for a meal, it doesn’t mean that you have literally “killed them,” but rather that you have “embarrassed” them. A guest who leaves without accompaniment may feel embarrassment – that you did not accompany them because you were not happy to host them and just wanted to be rid of them. This embarrassment is tantamount to murder.
The halacha (Choshen Mishpat 427:11) is that at the very least, a host should accompany their guest four amot (6½ ft), past the front door (some are strict to accompany 6½ ft from the front gate leading into the public domain).
It is very nice that Chazal attribute the source of this mitzvah to Avraham Avinu, but that is not 100% true, it began 1948 years before Avraham Avinu, in Gan Eden. HaKadosh Baruch Hu, after He created Adam HaRishon, said (Bereishit 2:18)
“It is not good for a man to walk alone, he should have accompaniment,” and HaKadosh Baruch Hu created Chava to accompany Adam. HaKadosh Baruch Hu did not create humans to walk alone. Accompaniment is a cornerstone of Creation. When humans “accompany” each other, look out for each other and are happy in each other’s company, that builds a stable society.
The chiddush of this week’s parsha is that not only should man be accompanied by his fellow man, but that each of us, not only Yaakov Avinu, is accompanied by angels. This is the reason we sing Shalom Aleichem upon returning home on Friday night, to bid farewell to the angels who accompanied us home from shul.
Our parsha teaches us that when one set of angels leave, another set of angels take their place. When we enter our homes, there is another set of angels waiting there to take over. In fact, there are always angels accompanying us, wherever we are.
Not only are we surrounded by protective angels, angels are part and parcel of us. HaKadosh Baruch Hu’s work is done by angels and many of these angels are physical elements and processes in nature. Everything that makes our bodies work, synapses in our nerves, blood flowing through our veins, our endocrine systems, our hearts beating, etc. these are all angels of HaKadosh Baruch Hu making sure that everything works.
Not only are we accompanied by angels, but HaKadosh Baruch Hu Himself accompanies us at all times. Just as our physical bodies comprise different angels/messengers, we also have HaKadosh Baruch Hu within every single part of us. At our very core lies the image of G-d with which HaKadosh Baruch Hu created us.
When one understands this, it is ridiculous to imagine that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is not watching us, or hearing us. There is nowhere we can run or hide beyond the reach of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, because He is inside us and with us wherever we are. If we live with the understanding that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is constantly with us, watching us and also watching over us, it makes it difficult to sin.
If HaKadosh Baruch Hu accompanies us at all times, sends angels to accompany us at all times – then it is understandable why He demands the same from us. That we accompany our fellow man, that we exhibit the same joy in the company of our fellow man as He exhibits toward us.
Parshat HaShavua Trivia Question: Who did Rivka go to consult with when she felt her twin fetuses “running about” inside her?
Answer to Last Shiur’s Trivia Question: Why did Yaakov give Eisav bread and red/brown lentil stew (Bereishit 25:34), when Eisav only asked for the lentils? If Yaakov only gave him lentils, Eisav may later claim that the sale was invalid as he was in a life-threatening state of hunger (bulmus) and therefore not of sound mind. Yaakov first gave him bread to satiate him so this claim would be invalid.
Inside ArtScroll — Chanukah and Tu B’Shevat
Some are out of sequence as it’s very difficult to assess. Enjoy anyway
Our sages have told us that there is no greater proof than this that the Geulah has begun.
And a response to media hate-bait against yeshiva students who avoid the IDF
The title of part 26 of The Prophetic Teachings of Rav Elchonon Wasserman might come across as provocative, but it shouldn’t be.
If one doesn’t believe that Hashem sent Hitler, he is a kofer.
If one believes that Hashem did send Hitler, but this was cruel or otherwise wrong, he is a kofer.
If one believes that Hashem made it impossible for us to determine why He sent Hitler, then perforce he must also believe that Hashem made it impossible for us to derive the appropriate lessons and rectify the spiritual cause. That would be tyrannical and cruel, and therefore this belief is kefirah as well.
If one believes that we are not supposed to try because we might get it wrong — we might do teshuva for the “wrong” sin! — and might offend some people along the way, he is intentionally choosing to ignore whatever message Hashem is trying to send, which is a surefire recipe for disaster.
If one believes that the emergence of people like Hitler and millions of supporters around the world is anything other than a spiritual wake-up call, and that anything other than a spiritual solution will solve the problem (Am Yisrael Chai, you rising lion!), he leaves Hashem little choice but to humble him in a very painful way, God forbid.
If you want to know Rav Wasserman’s explanation in 1935 for why Hashem sent Hitler, and the eerie parallels to present times, you can listen to the class. But first one must internalize this essential truth: everything that is happening has a spiritual cause, and the only answer to the problems we face is a spiritual response.
Hishtadlus is necessary to some degree, but it has become a buzzword, an avoda zara. Unless hishtadlus is predicated on a spiritual rectification, it has no meaning and no effectiveness — even if one pays lip service to the notion that “everything comes from Hashem”. It is the definition of going with Hashem b’keri, with happenstance. This only brings even more severe punishment in response, God forbid, until we finally get the message.
We learned much more in the class, including the necessary preconditions for one to be capable of giving effective advice, and why the “solutions” for so many of our problems only seem to result in things getting worse.
The class is also available on Rumble here.
Someone asked me to write something in response to these letters being reported in the “news”, https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/418050:
Here is my response:
This is sinister propaganda and hate-mongering from Arutz Sheva and the demons they work for. First of all, these letters were written over 40 years ago. About 10 years ago I wrote in Go Up Like a Wall that the IDF is a holy institution. (I also had a generally positive view of vaccines.) Are we supposed to believe that a letter written 40 years ago is a permanent blank check for the IDF, no matter what, and nothing would change their minds?
Mind you, these letters contain no context, no halachic analysis. We don’t know why they expressed this position or under what circumstances this position might change. So these letters are halachically worthless. All they tell us is that these rabbis would not go out of their way to help people avoid joining the IDF if they weren’t learning Torah full-time.
Naturally, the “news” fails to explore the reasoning behind their position at the time, and whether or not it remains relevant today. All they want to do is play “gotcha” with those wicked, hypocritical “haredi draft dodgers”, who we are supposed to hate more than anyone else and view as an existential threat to our existence.
Here are some questions the sanctimonious hate-mongers conveniently refuse to address:
What if the IDF is sending soldiers into death traps to be maimed and killed by the thousands for a pretextual war they never had any intention of winning?
What if the IDF makes a cynical show of accommodating the religious requirements of soldiers?
What if the IDF tramples on the Torah in so many ways, and has made no secret of their goal to secularize religious soldiers?
What if the IDF is run by kofrim and traitors?
What if the IDF continues to violently destroy “illegal Jewish settlements”, not to mention all the perfectly legal Jewish homes they destroyed in Gush Katif?
What if the IDF persecutes soldiers for refusing suicidal orders, or for independently rushing to defend besieged communities on October 7?
What if the state-owned weapons manufacturers are raking in billions in profits off our record taxes and cheap blood, while soldiers beg for food and basic gear?
What if the IDF has an unfathomable “intelligence failure”, then stands down while dozens of communities are being slaughtered, and then the very same people responsible for this are charged with sending Jews into “war”?
What if the IDF gets 15,000+ Jews maimed and killed for nothing, and then claims they have a “manpower shortage”...of 15,000 soldiers?
What if the IDF is a Molech death cult?
Are we supposed to believe none of this might impact the views of rabbis who formerly had a somewhat permissive view of sending ANYONE to the IDF? It sure impacted my perspective.
Why are these questions not the discussion EVERYONE is having, instead of bickering over letters from 40 years ago and falling for Erev Rav hate-bait?
Why are we allowing the media and their Erev Rav puppet masters to dictate the conversation?
What you’re about to hear about Judea & Samaria changes everything the media reports about It proves, with living evidence, that Jew...
