Hourly Roundup 16:00 Israel · 19 Oct 2026

Stories in this hour

‘Unfair to bring Jewish students into something they have no control over,’ says town supervisor, of NY village teaching Gaza as only ‘genocide’“Most teachers would not want to touch this with a 10-foot pole, certainly not at the middle school level,” Alisa Berger, of the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, told JNS
Israel's most fateful elections? MK Gilad Kariv, Orit Farkash-Hacohen, Eran Ben-Ari & Einat WilfOn Monday, October 12, at the ANU Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv, Tal Schneider, diplomatic and political correspondent for ToI and our Hebrew sister site Zman Yisrael, spoke with leading candidates from…
Israel approves £650m public spending cuts to fund defenceOpposition politicians have criticised the government for protecting coalition allocations while slashing funding for public services
🚩 AXIS OF TERROR: Russian FM Lavrov is in Tehran meeting with his Islamist Terror Regime counterpart, FM Araghchi.Russia is helping the terrorists occupying Iran target Americans and wage war across the region. Iranian drones and missiles support Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Since Oct. 7, Jews have been targets of nearly three-quarters of all religion-based hate crimes in Portland, OregonJewish residents of Portland, Ore., have been the targets of 34 of 48 religion-based hate crimes in the city, or 71%, since the fourth quarter of 2023, during which the Oct. 7 attacks occurred, according…
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, after talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov:"The US is responsible for insecurity and tensions in the Strait of Hormuz." Araghchi said the two discussed regional security and the situation around the strait, and that
Yoav Kisch ordered an investigation against RAMA - and received a surprising resultThe external committee appointed by Education Minister Yoav Kisch to examine RAMA found no factual basis for doubting the reliability of the national exams. The report emphasizes the professionalism of the authority, but also points…
Gantz knew how to take responsibility, now it's Ofer Winter's turnBenny Gantz's withdrawal from the race changes the political balance of power and reduces the risk of losing votes in the opposition bloc • Meanwhile, Ofer Winter continues to draw support from within the right-wing…

Torah perspective

A school syllabus that names Gaza as genocide while omitting the Holocaust does not teach history. It teaches a verdict, and it hands that verdict to thirteen-year-olds who cannot yet weigh evidence. The town supervisor's worry is precise: Jewish students will be made to answer for something they did not do. Torah law is exacting here. A judge may not hear one side before the other, and a teacher stands in the seat of judgment. The sages warn against flattering the powerful and against condemning the vulnerable. When a curriculum decides the outcome before the lesson begins, the classroom stops being a place of learning and becomes a place of blame.