Birth and yahrtzeit of Yosef ben Yaakov Avinu (1561-1451 BCE).
Rav Shmuel ben Yechiel of Cologne, killed by Crusaders.
-Rav Nachman of Horodenka, one of the first close colleagues of the Baal Shem Tov, whose mechutan he later became. His grandson was Rav Nachman of Breslav. In 1764, he emigrated to the Holy Land, and settled in Tiveria. The following year (1765), he passed away and was buried there. (According to “Aliyos to Eretz Yisrael,” he was already in Eretz Yisrael in 1750, and he passed away in 1772.)

All are asked to daven for the wellbeing of Yita bas Faiga and Rochel bas Yita, a mother and her child who were injured upon being hit by a car in the chassidishe enclave of South Blooming Grove, NY, near Kiryas Yoel.
Mother and daughter have been airlifted to Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla in critical condition.
{Matzav.com}

An exhibition that offers the public a glimpse into the role of faith as a mechanism for survival during the Holocaust opened at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland on Monday.
“Through the Lens of Faith” was arranged and organized by the Amud Aish Memorial Museum in New York, which was founded by the Jewish philanthropists and businessman Elly Kleinman, and works to present the experiences of Holocaust victims and survivors, and how faith helped them persevere.
World-renowned architect Daniel Libeskind, whose previous projects include the Jewish Museum Berlin and the renovation where the Twin Towers stood in New York City, helped design the exhibit, which was installed on a path veering off the route leading to the Auschwitz Memorial and Museum.

It’s not every day that the head of the Mossad gives a public address, so when he does, people listen. His remarks come on the heels of Iran having officially breached the limit of its enriched uranium stockpile set in the 2015 deal and just hours after Israel reportedly struck several targets across Syria, including the capital of Damascus and the central city of Homs, killing at least 15 people.

In an interview on “America’s Newsroom,” the former House Speaker said President Trump just needs to stay focused on the job and that the economy needs to continue succeeding if he wants to win in 2020. Beyond that, the Democrats have no chance.
“If the economy stays good and the president stays focused, he’s going to win,” Gingrich said, adding that Trump’s campaign momentum “is all predicated on just tremendous amounts of hard work.”
Gingrich noted that the president’s confidence in his ability to win will be a big factor come election day. “Deep down, I think President Trump’s pretty confident that—when it’s over—he’s going to be re-elected,” he said.

The California Department of Justice (DOJ) released a report on July 2 revealing that anti-Semitic hate crimes increased by 21 percent in 2018 from the year prior.
The report documented 126 instances of anti-Semitic hate crimes in 2018, an increase from 104 in 2017. However, it was a decline from the 160 instances of anti-Semitic hate crimes in 2009.
Jews were the most frequent target of anti-religious hate crimes in California in 2018, followed by the “anti-other religion” category at 30 instances, 28 instances of anti-Muslim hate crimes and 10 instances of anti-Catholic hate crimes.
Despite the increase in anti-Semitic hate crimes, hate crimes overall in California dropped by 2.5 percent from 2017 to 2018, according to the report.

U.S. President Donald Trump warned Iran on Wednesday afternoon that threats against the United States and others “can come back to bite you like nobody has been bitten before!”
“Iran has just issued a New Warning. Rouhani says that they will Enrich Uranium to “any amount we want” if there is no new Nuclear Deal. Be careful with the threats, Iran. They can come back to bite you like nobody has been bitten before!” tweeted the president.

This week, the man who has said Israel just has to live with the fact that Iran wants to destroy it was nominated to be the foreign policy chief of the European Union, putting him in the position where he would be likely to succeed EU Chief Federica Mogherini in November.

Following years of low inflation, we are now returning to normal levels, according to Ori Greenfeld, chief economist and strategist at Israel-based Psagot Investment House. Speaking Wednesday at Calcalist’s annual Capital Markets Conference held in Tel Aviv in partnership with Psagot and the Israeli branch of international accounting firm BDO, Greenfeld said that for his investment portfolio, this means a greater exposure to index-linked components.

In another encouraging sign of Israel’s growing integration into the United Nations system, an Israeli diplomat was on Thursday appointed as Special Rapporteur of the global body’s budgeting and administration committee.
A statement from the Israeli mission to the UN in New York announced that Yaron Wax was chosen to serve as Rapporteur of the Fifth Committee and representative of Western European and Others Group (WEOG) of the UN during the upcoming 74th General Assembly.
“Israel is a prominent member of the Committee and active in the development and provision of medical assistance to UN peacekeepers,” the statement said.