Jonathan Pollard and his kallah, Rivka Abrahams-Donin, made an official announcement of their engagement on Wednesday evening. Rivka, a 45-year-old Lubavitcher resident of the Gilo neighborhood of Jerusalem, made aliyah in 1996. Her late husband, Rav Yosef Eliyahu Donin, z’l, who for many years ran the tefillin stand at the Kosel and merited to help thousands of Jews don tefillin, was niftar in 2015, leaving Rivka alone with seven children, ages 2-18 at the time. An interesting fact about Rivka is that her grandfather, British Sergeant Karl (Kalman Leib) Abrahams, z’l, helped capture the notorious Nazi commander Rudolf Hess as part of his role in a special intelligence unit of the British military police.

With the tragic passing of R’ Yanky aka Jack Meyer Z”L, dozens of organizations and thousands of people are coming forward with their testaments about his askanus and describing his brilliant and selfless actions. They are right, but I also think there’s something crucial missing. I’m a relatively young man. When I was growing up, the name Yanky Meyer was almost mythological. As a child, people aspiring to become a “somebody” other than a rebbi or marbitz torah wanted to a clone of Yanky Meyer. And when we got a little older and some of us went into some field relating to askanus, that image of Yanky Meyer remained.

A Jewish woman who came under fire in Williamsburg and was hit in the head was unharmed due to being protected her shaitel. Police say the incident occurred at about 7:20 pm on Shabbos, when a vehicle approached a 21-year-old Jewish woman standing at the corner of Ross Street and Bedford Avenue, and one of its occupants opened fire at her. She was struck in the head by the projectiles – police said they were some sort of beads – but her shaitel protected her from injury by absorbing the blows. Police are now investigating the attack, though they are reportedly not sure whether it was antisemitic in nature. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

A Fox News host floated the theory that former President Donald Trump sold to Russia some of the classified documents he took with him to Mar-a-Lago after his presidency ended. “Did former President Trump try to sell or share the highly classified material to the Russians or to the Saudis or others? Or were the documents innocently mishandled and stored because he thought he had a legal right to have them?” “Fox News Sunday” host Eric Shawn asked his fellow panelists. Shawn referred to Russian state media that suggested the documents were leaked to Kremlin officials. U.S. law enforcement has not said, nor even suggested, that there is suspicion that Trump sold or gave classified information to a foreign nation.

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich predicted Thursday night that Donald Trump will be indicted by the Justice Department over allegations that he mishandled top-secret classified documents. “You have corruption from the Attorney General, to the head of the FBI, to senior elements of the FBI,” he said. “You have collusion from a wide range of the intelligence community. You had, I think it was 50 some intelligence senior officials who signed a letter last year that we now know is a total lie, none of whom have recanted.” “I fully expect the Justice Department to indict President Trump in a DC court, a district where he got 5.6 percent of the vote. So by 19 to one, the jury is likely to be against him.” “I have no idea what’s going to happen next,” he added.

An especially moving Hachnasas Sefer Torah took place last week in Jerusalem when the Englard family, who lost two sons in the Meron disaster, dedicated two sifrei Torah l’illui nishmasam. The procession began from the family’s home on Rechov Shamgar and continued to the Bobover Beis Medrash on Rechov Chagai. In the second half of the video, the father, Rosh Kollel HaRav Yitzchak Menachem Mendel Englard, can be seen dancing together with HaRav Meir Nachman Elhadad, who also lost two sons in the Meron disaster. The rejoicing of the two fathers, who both suffered such a crushing loss but remained pillars of emunah, is truly a testimony to the power of the Torah. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)

In a stunning validation of Republican accusations against the FBI being biased, whistleblowers say the agency deliberately dragged its feet on the Hunter Biden investigation and told agents not to look into the contents of his now-infamous laptop. Republican Sen. Ron Johnson sent a letter to DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz on Tuesday outlining the accusations made by the unidentified whistleblowers. “Recently, my office has heard from individuals with knowledge of the FBI’s corruption,” Johnson wrote.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Wednesday excoriated the US plan to renew the Iran nuclear deal amid reports that the US is drawing closer to signing a deal. Speaking to Fox News on Wednesday, Netanyahu said that the agreement is “a horrible deal, a dangerous deal, that will pave Iran’s path with gold, a golden-paved highway to a nuclear arsenal.” “If Iran has nuclear weapons, they don’t merely threaten my country Israel, or the entire Middle East and America’s allies. They threaten you directly,” Netanyahu said ominously. “Simultaneously with their developing nuclear weapons, they are developing the means to deliver them across continents.

In response to reports over the weekend that Otzma Yehudit chairman Itamar Ben-Gvir is considering offering a spot on his list to Jonathan Pollard, Pollard said on Sunday that he has no intention of entering political life. “It’s important to me to contribute to Am Yisrael but my place is not in the Knesset,” Pollard told Channel 12 News. “I think that I already suffered enough.” In conversations with friends, Pollard said: “I want to contribute as much as I can to Am Yisrael and the State of Israel but running for the Knesset is not the way I can do that.” This is not the first time that rumors have swirled about Pollard entering politics. In the past, there were rumors that former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu offered Pollard a spot on the Likud list.

Yoshua Hersh Glick, a father of nine from Williamsburg, New York, who was critically injured in the Jerusalem terror attack a week ago, is Baruch Hashem beginning to recover. When Reb Glick arrived at Shaarei Tzedek Hospital following the attack, he was in severe condition due to a bullet wound in his neck. He underwent emergency treatment in the trauma unit and was then transferred to the operation room for emergency surgery, which saved his life. Several days ago, Glick was transferred from the ICU to a regular hospital unit. On Sunday morning, the head of Shaarei Tzedek, Prof. Ofer Merin, visited Reb Glick, along with Chesky Berkowitz, an askan and medical adviser and friend of the family from the US, and Motti Fried, the head of the Saad U’Marpe organization.