Seven young men and women who were detained by police on Monday on charges that their prayer outside the Temple Mount constituted a disturbance of the public peace, were released after police demanded that they sign a restraining order barring them from the Old City for 15 days, legal aid society Honenu reported.

Six of the detainees refused to sign the order and were released on the condition that they appear in Magistrate Court Tuesday, when police will be asking the court to bar them from the Old City.

Honenu attorneys have been complaining repeatedly that Jerusalem Police are so fearful of Arab rioting that they have begun to target Jews who are not attempting to disrupt the unholy status quo of the Temple Mount, but are merely engaging in action that might potentially anger the Arabs — regardless of the fact that the action is absolutely legal.

Shira always tries to get to the annual Shmiras Halashon conference in Jerusalem’s Binyanei HaUma. It’s quite enthralling and energizing to be with thousands of other women, all gathered together to try and help bring Moshiach and hasten the building of the third Beis Hamikdosh by being more careful about their speech.

The evening is always honored by the presence of rabbanim, from all over the world, who are renowned speakers. Some of them may have flown in especially for this particular evening and even leave for the airport straight after giving their talk. Their words, ideas and examples give tremendous chizuk and encouragement to everyone and provide plenty of practical ideas on how to dan le’kaf zechus, judge your friends and neighbors favorably even when things don’t look so good, how to avoid speaking loshon horo, how to banish all sinas chinam, baseless hatred, from your hearts . Everyone goes home full of good intentions to improve themselves and their speech and behavior and with practical steps to take to help ensure their success.

But this year, for various reasons, none of Shira’s relatives or friends were able to go with her. One wasn’t well, one had just recently given birth, her daughters were just too exhausted to go out again after a full working day and a large family to take care of. So for the first time in many years she hadn’t bought tickets in advance. She also made a mental note to herself to pick up CD recordings at the end so that she could give them to her married children to listen to at home. Normally she would arrive, meet up with her companions and go straight to their seats. But this time she knew she’d have to stand in line for a while to get a ticket. She hoped her seat wouldn’t be too high up as the osteoarthritis in her knee was playing up and hurting badly and both standing in line for the ticket and climbing stairs to get to her seat were not activities she looked forward to.

As she approached the building she took out her purse and prepared a handful of shekels ready for the many women who were collecting outside. A destitute kallah, a family on the brink of starving, a child in need of very expensive medication or an operation in chutz le’areetz for a life-threatening illness. She tried to give something, however small, to everyone. She knew it wasn’t easy or pleasant to stand around asking for money and so many people were far worse off than she was. She glanced into the box office and saw with dismay just how long the lines were, but now that she was here she was determined to get a seat somehow, wherever it was.

She joined the end of the line and had been standing there for no more than a few minutes when she felt a tap on her shoulder. A woman she had never met before asked her, “How many tickets do you need to buy?”

“Just one.”

“Oh good. Well I bought quite a few in advance from one of the women in my neighborhood who was selling them, and not all of my children could come so I have one left. Would you like to buy it from me?”

Before Shira could ask where the seat was the woman continued, “It’s one of the best seats in the hall. It’s in row 7, right at the front.”

Shira couldn’t believe the hashgacha pratis. Not only did she not have to wait in line for her ticket but she also wouldn’t have to climb any stairs. And for the first time ever she would be close enough to be able to see the speakers and not have to rely on the video screen.

The body of the terrorist, Abd al-Malik Saleh Abu Kharoub, was returned to his family for burial on Tuesday night.

He was buried near the Old City of Jerusalem, in a small funeral at night, as per an agreement made between the terrorist’s family and the police.

On March 9, 2016, Kharoub and a second terrorist, Muhammad Jamal Al-Kalouti, opened fire at a bus in Ramot, Jerusalem and the drove past the Old City and began opening fire on civilians near a train station.

The two were killed by police.

Al-Kalouti’s body was returned last week, and was buried in the Bab al-Zahra cemetery in Jerusalem in a small funeral at night.

At the time, officials only returned Al-Kalouti’s body after the family deposited NIS 20,000 in collateral with the police and pledged not to have more than 30 people at the ceremony.

Early on Monday morning this week, a convoy of eight PA military vehicles and two vehicles with Israeli plates traveled into eastern Jerusalem, which is under Israeli sovereignty, Israel’s Channel 2 News reported Tuesday night. The convoy included about 50 uniformed PA security personnel, members of Unit 101–the shock troop founded by the late Chairman Yasser Arafat, and the PA Preventive Security.

The convoy’s mission was to detain four PA Arabs suspected of murdering two PA policemen a week ago in the Shechem area. The four suspects were able to evade the local security forces and find shelter in heavily Arab eastern Jerusalem. The PA security force pursued them, weapons drawn, inside Israeli territory.

PA forces entered the Jerusalem municipality’s Arab neighborhoods of Ras Shehadeh, Ras Hamis, and the Shuafat refugee camp. The forces received no approval for their actions, nor did they alert Israeli authorities, or attempt to coordinate the chase.

This highly irregular even took place against the background of the sizzling violence in the PA city of Shechem, where confrontations between an estimated 100 gang members and police have resulted in two policemen shot dead, two wanted men beaten to death by police, and a senior militia leader gone rogue being lynched by police in his jail cell.

According to Arab media reports, many of the militias that sprang into existence during the 2000 second Intifada have become criminal gangs and have been fighting PA police over turf in several cities.

For the statement by the Rebbetzin’s family, please click here.

Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis, pioneer in Jewish outreach, founder of the international Hineni organization, and Jewish Press columnist for more than fifty years, passed away Tuesday at the age of 80.

Rebbetzin Jungreis was born in Szeged, Hungary, in 1936, where her father, HaRav Avraham HaLevi Jungreis, was chief rabbi.

In 1947, after going through the horrors of the concentration camps and the Holocaust, the Jungreis family arrived in Brooklyn, where the Rebbetzin married a distant cousin, HaRav Meshulem HaLevi Jungreis. The couple settled in North Woodmere, New York, where Rabbi Jungreis was the spiritual leader of Ohr HaTorah.

The Rebbetzin and her husband embarked on a lifelong mission devoted to combating the ravages of secularization and assimilation in the United States.

It was in the early 1960s that Jewish Press publisher Rabbi Sholom Klass and his wife, Irene, met the Jungreises at the old Pioneer Country Club in upstate New York. Impressed by the Rebbetzin’s dynamic style and passion for helping others, the Klasses suggested she write a weekly column for the paper.

The column, Rebbetzin’s Viewpoint, soon debuted and became the longest running column in the history of The Jewish Press. Letters come to the Rebbetzin from readers all over the world who hoped to see their questions answered in the paper.

“I wanted the word ‘rebbetzin’ to be part of the column’s title,” Rebbetzin Jungreis said, “because I wanted young women to realize what a noble position it is to be a rabbi’s wife.”

In an interview last year with Naomi Klass Mauer, Rabbi Klass’s daughter and the current publisher of The Jewish Press, the Rebbetzin described her connection to the paper as a deeply personal one:

“Despite many offers from other periodicals,” she said, ‘I have only to picture your holy father and your very special mother, whom I loved, to know why I continue to write for The Jewish Press.”

Rebbetzin Jungreis’s interest in outreach – kiruv – went back to her girlhood years.

“The idea of bringing people back to Yiddishkeit was inside me from my childhood,” she told Mrs. Mauer. “It really started back when my father would encourage me to bring in the neighborhood children. But the older I got the more I realized how great the mission really was. I was asked to speak at a Young Israel collegiate convention. I looked out at the audience and told myself, ‘If I were to have an organization, I would speak to reach people, to wake people up. I would even speak in Madison Square Garden to students and young people. I would call it Rock and Soul, to wake up their souls.’

“From there the idea grew. My father was always encouraging me to reach out and before I officially started Hineni I asked him to take me to all the rabbanim for a berachah. He took me to chassidic rebbes and yeshivish rabbis, to Rav Moshe Feinstein and Rav Yosef Soloveitchik, among others, and all gave me their blessings.”

Shortly after Hineni was launched in 1973, the Rebbetzin’s vision of speaking at Madison Square Garden became a reality, and Hineni became a worldwide movement, leading an uncountable number of Jews to Jewish observance.

Traveling the world to spread the message of Torah, the Rebbetzin somehow found the time to author several best-selling books including The Jewish Soul on Fire, The Committed Life, The Committed Marriage and Life Is a Test.

She was recognized by numerous world leaders for her work. She shared a mutual admiration with President George W. Bush – not only was she asked to deliver a benediction at the 2004 Republican National convention, President Bush also appointed her to serve on the honorary delegation that accompanied him to Jerusalem for the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the state of Israel in May 2008.

The Rebbetzin was not one to let advancing age prevent her from pursuing her outreach work, even a broken hip and a torn meniscus. Through her later years she lived life at a pace that would have exhausted someone half her age.

Asked about her vitality, she credited – what else? – Jewish Scripture.

“I take my inspiration from Tehillim,” she told Naomi Klass Mauer. “The psalm for the Sabbath day – Psalm 92, verses15-16: ‘They are vibrant and fresh even in ripe old age and proclaim how our Lord is right, His word inerrant.’ ”

Rebbetzin Jungreis is survived by her children Chaya Sora Gertzulin, Rabbi Yisroel Jungreis, Slovi Wolff, and Rabbi Osher Jungreis, and by many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. (The Rebbetzin’s husband passed away in 1996.)

The levayah took place Wednesday morning at the Agudath Israel of Long Island in Far Rockaway.

By Michael Bachner/TPS

Jerusalem (TPS) – An Israeli-Arab resident of Jerusalem has been arrested and indicted in court for receiving tens of thousands of US dollars from a Hamas operative in Turkey. He allegedly intended to send the money to families of Hamas terrorists, with the intention of encouraging terror attacks against Israelis.

Israel has frequently accused the Palestinian Authority leadership of paying stipends to the families of perpetrators of terror attacks against Israelis, as a way of encouraging such attacks.

The indictment was filed on Friday at the Jerusalem District Court against 39-year-old Seif Al-Din Abdel-Nabi on charges of contacting a foreign agent and illegal funding of terrorism.

According to the indictment, Abdel-Nabi had known Hamas operative Zakariah Najib for years before giving Najib the money. Najib has served time in Israeli prison for involvement in the abduction and murder of IDF soldier Nachshon Wachsman in 1994. He was released in a prisoner swap in 2011 when abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was released in exchange for over 1,000 terrorists.

Abdel-Nabi met Najib in Turkey during a business trip to a clothing shop he owns in Istanbul, the indictment elaborated. Najib knew that the defendant lived in Jerusalem and asked him to send the money to Israel, where he would be ordered to transfer the funds to families of terrorists who were either killed or serving time in prison. The money transfer was meant to be a remuneration by Hamas for the terror attacks.

During several trips to Turkey, the defendant allegedly received a total of USD 25,000 from Najib. He used various techniques to hide the money when traveling to Israel, such as having attempted to disguise the money transfers by using different mobile phones and coordinating them in public places.

“By committing the above actions, the defendant knowingly maintained contact with a foreign agent without sufficient explanation in order to promote or fund acts of terrorism or to provide a reward for terror attacks,” read a statement by the Jerusalem District Attorney’s Office, which has requested that Abdel-Nabi remain in custody until the end of court proceedings against him.

The Jerusalem Police on Sunday morning also arrested six residents of the Arab neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber who are suspected of joining and supporting a terror organization.

The evidence was obtained through the interrogation of Soufian Abdou, who was arrested on Friday for supporting a terror group just several days after completing a 14-year prison term for attempting to poison Israelis at a coffee shop in Jerusalem. Abdou’s remand has been extended until Monday.

The Turkish parliament on Friday night approved a deal for Israel to pay $20 million to the families of Turkish participants who were killed in the 2010 Gaza flotilla flagship Mavi Marmara incident, Anadolu reported. The deal ushers in the normalization of diplomatic relations between the two countries after a six-year break.

The money will be transferred in a lump sum deposit to a bank account opened by Turkey and shared through diplomatic channels, and the transaction will be completed within 25 business days of the bilateral agreement taking effect.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said earlier this month that Jerusalem had met all of Ankara’s preconditions for normalizing ties, which were degraded in 2010 after Israeli commandos were attacked on the high seas when they were trying to take over control of the Gaza-bound Turkish ship in international waters. Nine Turkish activists who attacked the Israeli soldiers were killed and 30 injured, one of whom later died of his injuries.

Turkey demanded an official apology from Israel, compensation for the families of the dead activists and the lifting of Israel’s Gaza blockade. But Ankara settled for two out of three: in 2013 Prime Minister Netanyahu expressed regret over the incident to Turkey’s then-prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The approval of the deal had been delayed on account of the failed coup in Turkey. The deal was actually signed a month and a half ago in Jerusalem by Israel’s Foreign Ministry Director Dore Gold and in Ankara by Turkish outgoing Deputy Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlolo. The Netanyahu security cabinet approved the deal by a vote of six to three, with Ministers Liberman, Bennett and Shaked voting against.