RSS
‘You don’t know yet, do you?’ How Jews offline for a 2-day holiday found out about the attack on Israel
(JTA) —When Rabbi James Proops arrived at his Modern Orthodox synagogue in Livingston, New Jersey, on Saturday morning, he found three people waiting to meet him: two members of the security committee and a non-Jewish guard.
“As I approached, they looked at me … you know, I could see there was something wrong with the look,” Proops recalled on Monday. “And they said, ‘Rabbi, You don’t know yet, do you?’ And I said, ‘Don’t know what?’”
That was how Proops learned about the horrors unfolding in Israel — an attack by Hamas that would leave more than 900 Israelis dead, wounded and taken captive in brutal fashion.
It would fall to him to pass the grim news along: Because Proops’ synagogue, Suburban Torah, is Orthodox, most congregants refrain from using electronic devices on Shabbat or on the following day, which was the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah. That meant, he said, “The vast majority of people that were coming to synagogue came that morning [had] no clue what was going on.”
Proops chose the moment in the service when Jewish communities recite a prayer for those in need of healing to share that, in fact, many Jews were hurt. He offered numbers that were staggering — yet far smaller than what would become known.
“The whole sanctuary was in absolute silence as I began to relay what was going on in Israel,” he said. “And I could see in the faces, just shock and bewilderment.”
It was a scene that would unfold countless times over the weekend. There was no question about how Israelis who observe Shabbat and holidays found out about the attack on their country on Saturday morning, as sirens announced incoming rockets, phone alerts sounded and soldiers were called to duty. They got more details on Saturday night when the Simchat Torah and Shemini Atzeret holiday ended in Israel and they turned their phones back on.
But in the rest of the world, where the two holidays are celebrated over consecutive days, the process of finding out was slower and more drawn out. Orthodox Jews often found themselves relying on non-Jews to feed them details about the catastrophe unfolding in the country where they have many friends and family.
Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt was on her way to teach a Torah class for bat mitzvah-aged girls when a member of her synagogue approached her.
“You don’t know what’s happening in the world. It’s really bad,” the woman told her.
“I didn’t understand what I was even hearing from her,” recalled Chizhik-Goldschmidt, a longtime journalist who has contributed to the New York Times and The Atlantic and now leads The Altneu synagogue in New York City with her husband. But when she returned to the main sanctuary from the class, she saw that something had changed.
“There were people hanging off the rafters, it was so packed with Jews,” she recalled. “And I just saw on their faces that they had seen something very traumatizing. And they didn’t know how to process it. I just saw the look on their faces.”
Throughout the morning, Chizhik-Goldschmidt said several people came up to her in a repeat of her first encounter — telling her that she did not know what was happening.
“I understood in that moment that this was not another rocket exchange,” she said. “It’s a very strange experience to be an observer, and you’re sort of in this almost hermetically sealed bubble in time and space.”
But living in New York City, Chizhik-Goldschmidt explained, meant having access to plenty of people who did know what was happening and who had seen the news. She began walking into different bodegas to ask for information. She spoke to her doorman. At the synagogue’s kiddush, she spoke to the wait staff, asking them in Spanish how many people had died.
“It felt like from another era, when there are rumors, and you don’t know what is true,” Chizhik-Goldschmidt said. “I heard there was a pogrom. I heard there was a pogrom in another city. I heard there were Jews. I heard there were rapes. I heard, I heard, I heard. It was a total mess. … Unfortunately, all of them were true, but it was just so impossible to comprehend at the time that all those things could happen.”
Avi Rovinsky, who attended an Orthodox synagogue in Cleveland, learned about the attack when the rabbi informed the congregation in the middle of the morning prayer service on Saturday. The congregation paused their prayers to recite three chapters of Psalms — a traditional Jewish response to tragedy. “Whenever the rabbi spoke it was about the joy of the holiday while still having your heart ripped out,” Rovinsky said.
Rabbi Aaron Finkelstein of Anshe Sholom B’nai Israel in Chicago found out from an Israel congregant who was waiting for him at the synagogue with a flask. Finkelstein said he cracked a joke about it being too early to drink before being told about what was happening in Israel. He then relayed the news to his congregation during services, just before the Yizkor prayer of mourning recited four times a year, including on Saturday.
“It was certainly a holy burden to be able to kind of share that in real time,” he said.
Proops said he got details over the course of the holiday from Debbie, the former police officer his synagogue had hired to provide security over the weekend, in keeping with the practice of many American synagogues.
As a police officer, Debbie had gone on an exchange trip to learn from law enforcement in Israel and had stayed with a police officer’s family. She learned early on, Proops said, that her host had been killed in the attack on Saturday.
“The woman who’s outside protecting us is feeling it just like we are — that was actually a very moving and painful moment,” he said.
Another moment was also a source of pain and anxiety, he said: 7:15 p.m. on Sunday evening, when the two-day holiday ended.
“I dreaded turning my phone on, I’ll be honest with you. Because you know, 36 hours had gone by since the initial outbreak of attacks. And I had no idea what I was going to find from relatives, friends, colleagues,” Proops said. “And so with trepidation, we finished the services last night with some extra Psalms. And then we had to kind of connect with the real world, so to speak.”
—
The post ‘You don’t know yet, do you?’ How Jews offline for a 2-day holiday found out about the attack on Israel appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire
Explosions send smoke into the air in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, July 17, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
The spokesperson for Hamas’s armed wing said on Friday that while the Palestinian terrorist group favors reaching an interim truce in the Gaza war, if such an agreement is not reached in current negotiations it could revert to insisting on a full package deal to end the conflict.
Hamas has previously offered to release all the hostages held in Gaza and conclude a permanent ceasefire agreement, and Israel has refused, Abu Ubaida added in a televised speech.
Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States, have hosted more than 10 days of talks on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day truce in the war.
Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment on the eve of the Jewish Sabbath.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on a call he had with Pope Leo on Friday that Israel‘s efforts to secure a hostage release deal and 60-day ceasefire “have so far not been reciprocated by Hamas.”
As part of the potential deal, 10 hostages held in Gaza would be returned along with the bodies of 18 others, spread out over 60 days. In exchange, Israel would release a number of detained Palestinians.
“If the enemy remains obstinate and evades this round as it has done every time before, we cannot guarantee a return to partial deals or the proposal of the 10 captives,” said Abu Ubaida.
Disputes remain over maps of Israeli army withdrawals, aid delivery mechanisms into Gaza, and guarantees that any eventual truce would lead to ending the war, said two Hamas officials who spoke to Reuters on Friday.
The officials said the talks have not reached a breakthrough on the issues under discussion.
Hamas says any agreement must lead to ending the war, while Netanyahu says the war will only end once Hamas is disarmed and its leaders expelled from Gaza.
Almost 1,650 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed as a result of the conflict, including 1,200 killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli tallies. Over 250 hostages were kidnapped during Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught.
Israel responded with an ongoing military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
The post Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel
People hold images of the victims of the 1994 bombing attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) community center, marking the 30th anniversary of the attack, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Irina Dambrauskas
Iran on Friday marked the 31st anniversary of the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish community center in Buenos Aires by slamming Argentina for what it called “baseless” accusations over Tehran’s alleged role in the terrorist attack and accusing Israel of politicizing the atrocity to influence the investigation and judicial process.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on the anniversary of Argentina’s deadliest terrorist attack, which killed 85 people and wounded more than 300.
“While completely rejecting the accusations against Iranian citizens, the Islamic Republic of Iran condemns attempts by certain Argentine factions to pressure the judiciary into issuing baseless charges and politically motivated rulings,” the statement read.
“Reaffirming that the charges against its citizens are unfounded, the Islamic Republic of Iran insists on restoring their reputation and calls for an end to this staged legal proceeding,” it continued.
Last month, a federal judge in Argentina ordered the trial in absentia of 10 Iranian and Lebanese nationals suspected of orchestrating the attack in Buenos Aires.
The ten suspects set to stand trial include former Iranian and Lebanese ministers and diplomats, all of whom are subject to international arrest warrants issued by Argentina for their alleged roles in the terrorist attack.
In its statement on Friday, Iran also accused Israel of influencing the investigation to advance a political campaign against the Islamist regime in Tehran, claiming the case has been used to serve Israeli interests and hinder efforts to uncover the truth.
“From the outset, elements and entities linked to the Zionist regime [Israel] exploited this suspicious explosion, pushing the investigation down a false and misleading path, among whose consequences was to disrupt the long‑standing relations between the people of Iran and Argentina,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said.
“Clear, undeniable evidence now shows the Zionist regime and its affiliates exerting influence on the Argentine judiciary to frame Iranian nationals,” the statement continued.
In April, lead prosecutor Sebastián Basso — who took over the case after the 2015 murder of his predecessor, Alberto Nisman — requested that federal Judge Daniel Rafecas issue national and international arrest warrants for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over his alleged involvement in the attack.
Since 2006, Argentine authorities have sought the arrest of eight Iranians — including former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who died in 2017 — yet more than three decades after the deadly bombing, all suspects remain still at large.
In a post on X, the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA), the country’s Jewish umbrella organization, released a statement commemorating the 31st anniversary of the bombing.
“It was a brutal attack on Argentina, its democracy, and its rule of law,” the group said. “At DAIA, we continue to demand truth and justice — because impunity is painful, and memory is a commitment to both the present and the future.”
31 años del atentado a la AMIA – DAIA. 31 años sin justicia.
El 18 de julio de 1994, un atentado terrorista dejó 85 personas muertas y más de 300 heridas. Fue un ataque brutal contra la Argentina, su democracia y su Estado de derecho.
Desde la DAIA, seguimos exigiendo verdad y… pic.twitter.com/kV2ReGNTIk
— DAIA (@DAIAArgentina) July 18, 2025
Despite Argentina’s longstanding belief that Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah terrorist group carried out the devastating attack at Iran’s request, the 1994 bombing has never been claimed or officially solved.
Meanwhile, Tehran has consistently denied any involvement and refused to arrest or extradite any suspects.
To this day, the decades-long investigation into the terrorist attack has been plagued by allegations of witness tampering, evidence manipulation, cover-ups, and annulled trials.
In 2006, former prosecutor Nisman formally charged Iran for orchestrating the attack and Hezbollah for carrying it out.
Nine years later, he accused former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner — currently under house arrest on corruption charges — of attempting to cover up the crime and block efforts to extradite the suspects behind the AMIA atrocity in return for Iranian oil.
Nisman was killed later that year, and to this day, both his case and murder remain unresolved and under ongoing investigation.
The alleged cover-up was reportedly formalized through the memorandum of understanding signed in 2013 between Kirchner’s government and Iranian authorities, with the stated goal of cooperating to investigate the AMIA bombing.
The post Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns
Murad Adailah, the head of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood, attends an interview with Reuters in Amman, Jordan, Sept. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jehad Shelbak
The Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world’s oldest and most influential Islamist movements, has been implicated in a wide-ranging network of illegal financial activities in Jordan and abroad, according to a new investigative report.
Investigations conducted by Jordanian authorities — along with evidence gathered from seized materials — revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood raised tens of millions of Jordanian dinars through various illegal activities, the Jordan news agency (Petra) reported this week.
With operations intensifying over the past eight years, the report showed that the group’s complex financial network was funded through various sources, including illegal donations, profits from investments in Jordan and abroad, and monthly fees paid by members inside and outside the country.
The report also indicated that the Muslim Brotherhood has taken advantage of the war in Gaza to raise donations illegally.
Out of all donations meant for Gaza, the group provided no information on where the funds came from, how much was collected, or how they were distributed, and failed to work with any international or relief organizations to manage the transfers properly.
Rather, the investigations revealed that the Islamist network used illicit financial mechanisms to transfer funds abroad.
According to Jordanian authorities, the group gathered more than JD 30 million (around $42 million) over recent years.
With funds transferred to several Arab, regional, and foreign countries, part of the money was allegedly used to finance domestic political campaigns in 2024, as well as illegal activities and cells.
In April, Jordan outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s most vocal opposition group, and confiscated its assets after members of the Islamist movement were found to be linked to a sabotage plot.
The movement’s political arm in Jordan, the Islamic Action Front, became the largest political grouping in parliament after elections last September, although most seats are still held by supporters of the government.
Opponents of the group, which is banned in most Arab countries, label it a terrorist organization. However, the movement claims it renounced violence decades ago and now promotes its Islamist agenda through peaceful means.
The post Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns first appeared on Algemeiner.com.