🧵 1/ I want to tell you a story.

On June 21, 1941 the German army invaded the Soviet Union.

Even before they reached the city of Ponevezh (Panevežys) five days later, the local Lithuanians started to insult and abuse the local Jews

https://twitter.com/glandsbergis/status/1893410088469090372

2/ Behind these activities there were several people from the Lithuanian elite in town, like the principal of the high-school, the deputy of the district prosecutor, the secretary of the provincial court and others. They organized the local students who were subsequently involved in the majority of the murders of Ponevezh Jews.

🧵 1/11 Several leading media outlets have reported that former Hamas leader Kahled Mashal will replace Ismail Haniyeh as political leader of the group, Of course, @netanyahu and Mashal have a long history, specifically a dramatic episode which occurred in 1997, during Bibi’s first term as Israeli PM. 2/11 In 1997, following a spate of bloody attacks on Israeli civilians by Hamas, including a twin suicide bombing at Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market which killed 16, the Israeli government decided to strike back. After convening with Mossad chief Danny Yatom, Netanyahu signed off on an operation to assassinate Kahled Mashal, a senior Hamas leader, in Amman, Jordan.

🧵: It was Lag B’Omer 1924 and the old Jewish cemetery of Lublin pulsated with unusual vitality. A small group of yeshivah students from Piotrkow along with some curious onlookers assembled in the cemetery, their collective gaze fixed upon one magnetic figure. Amid the ancient gravestones stood a 36-year-old Rav Meir Shapiro. 1/ As he faced the gravestones of some of Poland’s greatest Torah scholars, the words he uttered seemed to resonate with the weight of centuries:

“To you great rabbanim, the scholars of Lublin, who spread Torah in this city. You established great yeshivos and nurtured many students… I have come to tell you that I, your servant, Yehuda Meir ben Margala, has decided to restore the crown to its rightful place and I am inviting you to join us in the laying of the cornerstone for this yeshivah, a place where we will raise the honor of Torah until the coming of Mashiach. I am confident that it’s in your merit and in the merit of the Torah that I will succeed in my endeavors for the sake of His great Name and His Torah.” 2/

1/ Thread: They Are All Holy!
Rav Arele Belzer’s legendary Ahavas Yisroel shone brightly during the years he spent living in Tel Aviv.
In our 2022 article "The Kingdom Rebuilt: How Rav Aharon Rokeach Brought Postwar Belz Back To Life" () @Jsoundbites & I shared several powerful anecdotesmishpacha.com/a-kingdom-rebu… 2/ At a Shalosh Seudos meal held two weeks after his arrival, the Rebbe remarked to Rav Gershon Yosef Horowitz, “When we arrived in Eretz Yisrael my brother, the Bilgoraj Rav, said Eretz Yisrael is 100 times better than we anticipated. I replied that it is in fact 200 times better.” This was in keeping with the Rebbe’s general approach to ignore the negative and focus on the positive, finding only good in every Jew — even the worst transgressors.

Thread 🧵: When Shlomo Artzi sang with the Belzer Choir:

Nearly 30 years ago, when Yosef Moshe Kahana (of L’Chaim Tisch fame) and the Belzer choir were recording his classic song “Kol Zman,” there was a knock at the studio door. They were shocked to see Shlomo Artzi, one of Israel’s leading secular singers standing in the doorway. 1/ Artzi explained that he’d been recording his latest album in the adjacent studio and heard the Belzer choir singing. He was transfixed by the particular song and wanted to hear more about it, because it reminded him of his chasidic ancestors. 2/

Thread🧵 1/ Harvard & Hitler’s Henchman: When exploring the history of antisemitism at @Harvard, there lies a disturbing, yet forgotten episode from the 1930’s, especially as it relates to the inaction of its president and faculty in the face of true evil.

2/ Ernst “Putzi” Hanfstaengl was born into affluence and influence in Munich, Germany, in 1887. His father, Edgar was a prominent art publisher, while his mother, Katharine was the Boston-born daughter of William Heine, a Union Army officer in the Civil War & a cousin of legendary Union Army General John Sedgwick.

Thread🧵: Friday, while perusing the archives of Life Magazine, I encountered an unbelievable story. Paul Schutzer was born into a traditional Jewish family in Boro Park in 1930. When he was 10 years old, he starting taking pictures with a broken camera he found in a garbage. 1/A Years later, after studying to be a painter & a lawyer, he realized that what he really wanted to do was be a photographer. He traveled the world for LIFE, visiting Israel numerous times and took many photographs in the country –including several iconic photos in Kfar Chabad. 2/

🧵 Rav Ephraim Oshry was born in Kupishok, Lithuania in 1914 and was one of the few Rabbinical authorities of note to survive the ghetto of Kovno. He studied at the feet of the most renowned Talmudic sages of 20th Century Lithuanian Jewry. After the war, he aided the efforts to… https://t.co/UQ4djZn6r2twitter.com/i/web/status/1…


After moving to Rome to help establish a yeshiva for DP’s, he settled in New York, where he occupied the pulpit of Beth HaMedrash HaGadol, one of the city's oldest and most distinguished congregations. Among the many Seforim he authored is “Sheilos Utshuvos… https://t.co/AqubIXJYuDtwitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Thread: How did Orthodox Judaism come to develop in the winter resort town of Lakewood, NJ?

It began 125 years ago with an unlikely trio that included a former student of Rav Leizer Gordon in Telz, a crippled Baltimore heiress and a hotshot former colonel in the Union Army 1/ During the winter of 1879, a speculator named Charles Kimball came to Lakewood (then known as Bricksburg) & saw a miraculous recovery from lung disease—which he credited to the pure air that came from the towns abundant pine trees. He now sensed an opportunity. 2/