Uncategorized
2 Cleveland Jews returning from a funeral die in plane crash outside New York City
(Cleveland Jewish News and JTA) – Two Cleveland-area Jewish men flying a single-engine plane were killed Thursday when their plane crashed in White Plains, New York, shortly after takeoff.
Binyamin (Ben) Chafetz of Beachwood and Boruch Taub of Cleveland Heights, two heavily Orthodox suburbs of Cleveland, were killed when the plane being piloted by Taub developed engine trouble and crashed near Westchester County Airport while attempting to make an emergency landing. The two were returning home after a funeral in the New York area.
Their extended Jewish communities were reeling even before the crash and their deaths had been confirmed by authorities, after Chafetz sent messages to a WhatsApp group after the plane experienced trouble, apparently intending to message his wife.
In the messages, which circulated widely on Orthodox social media on Thursday and Friday, he told his wife he loved her and their children and asked for their community to say tehillim, or psalms, a common response to crises.
Two Jewish emergency groups responded quickly in White Plains, where the plane was apparently seeking to make an emergency landing. Misaskim of Brooklyn, which provides crisis coordination and services for the bereaved, and Chaverim of Rockland County, a volunteer emergency service, both arrived on the scene within an hour and worked with local authorities.
Ben Chafetz, left, and Boruch Taub died when the single-engine plane Taub was piloting crashed shortly after takeoff, Jan. 19, 2023. (Courtesy Cleveland Jewish News)
The plane was not located for more than five hours after sending a distress signal. Authorities located the wreckage on a small island inside a reservoir near the airport, their search made more difficult because of heavy rain and storms.
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the cause of the crash. Taub had radioed the FAA to report low oil pressure, shortly followed by a mayday signal.
The two men were experienced pilots, the plane’s owner told a Cleveland TV station. Chafetz was the owner of an e-commerce company who attended Congregation Zichron Chaim, an Orthodox synagogue in University Heights, and Taub was the owner of an automotive and transmission business in Cleveland Heights.
A version of this story was originally published in the Cleveland Jewish News and is reprinted with permission.
—
The post 2 Cleveland Jews returning from a funeral die in plane crash outside New York City appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Israel’s Netanyahu Hopes to ‘Taper’ Israel Off US Military Aid in Next Decade
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview published on Friday that he hopes to “taper off” Israeli dependence on US military aid in the next decade.
Netanyahu has said Israel should not be reliant on foreign military aid but has stopped short of declaring a firm timeline for when Israel would be fully independent from Washington.
“I want to taper off the military within the next 10 years,” Netanyahu told The Economist. Asked if that meant a tapering “down to zero,” he said: “Yes.”
Netanyahu said he told President Donald Trump during a recent visit that Israel “very deeply” appreciates “the military aid that America has given us over the years, but here too we’ve come of age and we’ve developed incredible capacities.”
In December, Netanyahu said Israel would spend 350 billion shekels ($110 billion) on developing an independent arms industry to reduce dependency on other countries.
In 2016, the US and Israeli governments signed a memorandum of understanding for the 10 years through September 2028 that provides $38 billion in military aid, $33 billion in grants to buy military equipment and $5 billion for missile defense systems.
Israeli defense exports rose 13 percent last year, with major contracts signed for Israeli defense technology including its advanced multi-layered aerial defense systems.
US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Israel supporter and close ally of Trump, said on X that “we need not wait ten years” to begin scaling back military aid to Israel.
“The billions in taxpayer dollars that would be saved by expediting the termination of military aid to Israel will and should be plowed back into the US military,” Graham said. “I will be presenting a proposal to Israel and the Trump administration to dramatically expedite the timetable.”
Uncategorized
In Rare Messages from Iran, Protesters ask West for Help, Speak of ‘Very High’ Death Toll
Protests in Tehran. Photo: Iran Photo from social media used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law, via i24 News
i24 News – Speaking to Western media from beyond the nationwide internet blackout imposed by the Islamic regime, Iranian protesters said they needed support amid a brutal crackdown.
“We’re standing up for a revolution, but we need help. Snipers have been stationed behind the Tajrish Arg area [a neighborhood in Tehran],” said a protester in Tehran speaking to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity. He added that “We saw hundreds of bodies.”
Another activist in Tehran spoke of witnessing security forces firing live ammunition at protesters resulting in a “very high” number killed.
On Friday, TIME magazine cited a Tehran doctor speaking on condition of anonymity that just six hospitals in the capital recorded at least 217 killed protesters, “most by live ammunition.”
Speaking to Reuters on Saturday, Setare Ghorbani, a French-Iranian national living in the suburbs of Paris, said that she became ill from worry for her friends inside Iran. She read out one of her friends’ last messages before losing contact: “I saw two government agents and they grabbed people, they fought so much, and I don’t know if they died or not.”
Uncategorized
Report: US Increasingly Regards Iran Protests as Having Potential to Overthrow Regime
United States President Donald J Trump in White House in Washington, DC, USA, on Thursday, December 18, 2025. Photo: Aaron Schwartz via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – The assessment in Washington of the strength and scope of the Iran protests has shifted after Thursday’s turnout, with US officials now inclined to grant the possibility that this could be a game changer, Axios reported on Friday.
“The protests are serious, and we will continue to monitor them,” an unnamed senior US official was quoted as saying in the report.
Iran was largely cut off from the outside world on Friday after the Islamic regime blacked out the internet to curb growing unrest, as videos circulating on social media showed buildings ablaze in anti-government protests raging across the country.
US President Donald Trump warned the Ayatollahs of a strong response if security forces escalate violence against protesters.
“We’re watching it very closely. If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States,” Trump told reporters when asked about the unrest in Iran.
The latest reported death toll is at 51 protesters, including nine children.