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The Daily Edition

What Matters Most On Wednesday, December 25, 2019

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IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi speaks at a conference in memory of former IDF chief of staff Amnon Lipkin-Shahak at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya on December 25, 2019. (Israel Defense Forces)

IDF chief warns Israelis: The next war will hit our home front extremely hard

By Judah Ari Gross

Top military commander vows Israel will block Iranian threats ‘even at risk of war,’ laments IDF is alone in fight against Tehran

Iran to hold joint, four-day navy drill with Russia and China

By Nasser Karimi

Iran limits mobile internet access ahead of expected protests

By Agencies and ToI Staff

Iran warplane crashes near dormant volcano; pilot missing

By AFP

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and Likud MK Gideon Sa'ar, right. (Flash90)

AnalysisBoth sides will claim a 70-30 win for Netanyahu as a triumph

Sa’ar vs Netanyahu: A bubble has burst, but a political earthquake looks remote

By Raoul Wootliff

5 things to watch as the pretender takes on the veteran in Thursday’s Likud leadership content, the first serious challenge to the PM from within his party in 14 years

Day before leadership vote, Sa’ar slams ‘racist’ attacks by Netanyahu supporters

Israel media reviewStump and dump: 6 things to know for December 25

By Joshua Davidovich

Breaking silence, top minister Erdan backs Netanyahu in Likud leadership race

Reporter's notebook

Israeli Jews flock to Jesus’s hometown Nazareth to catch a ‘European’ Christmas

For some Jews visiting the northern Arab-Israeli city, traveling abroad has whetted their appetites for the Christmas cookies and carols now easily found closer to home

The steeple and spire of the landmark Notre-Dame Cathedral collapses as the cathedral is engulfed in flames in central Paris on April 15, 2019. (Photo by Geoffroy VAN DER HASSELT / AFP)

Heavy hearts as Notre-Dame misses Christmas mass for first time since 1803

A Palestinian artisan puts the final touches on a Christmas toy at Zeina Association and Cooperative for Handicraft in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip on December 24, 2019. (MOHAMMED ABED / AFP)

Gaza's Christmas giftsVeiled women make Santa dolls in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip

By AFP

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is taken offstage during a Likud primary campaign event in Ashkelon as rocket alerts sound, December 25, 2019. (Screenshot: Twitter)

Live updates (closed)

Netanyahu taken offstage at Ashkelon campaign event as rocket is fired from Gaza

By Michael Bachner

Projectile intercepted by Iron Dome, in second incident in recent months in which Palestinian terrorists disrupt election event by PM

12:29 pm

Gaza groups announce border protests will take place less frequently in 2020
7:22 pm

One rocket fired at Israel, intercepted by Iron Dome -- IDF
7:08 pm

Rocket sirens sound in Ashkelon during Netanyahu campaign event there

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks at a business breakfast in Darwin, April 24, 2019. (Mick Tsikas/AAP Image via AP)

Australia rejects ICC Palestine probe; Germany warns against politicization

By Raphael Ahren

After Canberra says court lacks jurisdiction, Israel’s FM Katz praises its ‘principled stance’; Berlin says it is confident pre-trial judges will ‘address issues of admissibility’

IDF defends intel for Gaza strike that killed 9 Palestinian civilians

Bennett orders seizure of PA funds for families of Arab Israeli terror convicts

Senior IDF officer tells Yitzhar residents: Soldiers are ‘scared’ to serve here

Illustrative photo: Ambulances outside the entrance to the emergency room at Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital, December 3, 2014. (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)

Month-old baby apparently suffering from flu hospitalized in critical condition

Medics rush unconscious boy to the hospital while working to keep him alive after parents take him to local Jerusalem clinic; 10 dead from flu in Israel this year

In an attempt to battle the measles outbreak, some countries in Europe have enacted laws making vaccinating children mandatory. (Illustrative. Miriam Alster/FLASH90)

19-year-old dies from flu in Jerusalem, in 10th fatality of season

Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of J Street, energetically works the phones in Washington, Thursday, May 21, 2009. (AP/J. Scott Applewhite)

Progressive Jewish intelligentsia vie for larger role at World Zionist Congress

Leading liberal lights like Peter Beinart and Jeremy Ben-Ami, running for first time, hope to use expanded representation in Zionist body to steer funding away from settlements

Rosalee Glass and her daughter Lillian attend the premiere of Random Media's "Reinventing Rosalee" at Laemmle's Music Hall Theatre in Beverly Hills, California, April 2, 2019. (Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images)

Holocaust survivor dies after dropped in transit to White House Hanukkah party

Rosalee Glass, 102, businesswoman and actress who was warmly welcomed by and photographed with President Trump, was injured en route to event and passed away three days later

President Donald Trump speaks to attorney Alan Dershowitz, right, as he arrives for Christmas Eve dinner at Mar-a-lago in Palm Beach, Fla., Tuesday, December 24, 2019. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Trump holds chat with Alan Dershowitz during Mar-a-Lago Christmas eve dinner

By ToI Staff and Agencies

Trump Attorney Rudy Giuliani addresses the crowd at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit on December 19, 2019 in Palm Beach, Florida. (Saul Martinez/Getty Images/AFP)

Rebuked for ‘offensive’ remarks on Soros’s Jewishness, Giuliani doubles down

Sheldon Paul Stone

He was a stroke specialist, so he knew he was having a stroke, but the ambulance wasn’t going to get there in time

The Books of Maccabees: A tale of two stories

Imagine if Antiochus had written the story of Hanukkah… or if Judah Maccabee’s mother had. Every account reflects its author’s background, including the ones we have

From the blogs

Tammy Gannot Rosenstreich

Israel’s appalling inaction on climate change

Governments worldwide are ignoring this dire threat. If Israeli leaders think they can too, they should step outdoors and look up

Illustrative: People walk in the rain in the northern Israeli city of Sefad, on a stormy winter day, December 9, 2019. (David Cohen/ Flash90)

Winter storm blows in, bringing dust, pollution, and rain

By Stuart Winer

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Illustrative: Students at Harlem Hebrew Academy charter school have Hebrew incorporated into all subjects save for English language arts. (Courtesy: Hebrew Public)

Analysis

Cathryn J. Prince

Secular immersion schools could save Modern Hebrew programs in US universities

Charter schools such as Harlem Hebrew throw students of all backgrounds into the language. The challenge, teachers say, is to keep them studying for life

Students in an eighth-grade Hebrew class at Alan B. Shepard Middle School in Deerfield, Illinois, write a Hebrew screenplay together, December 13, 2019. (Ben Sales/JTA)

Rare Hebrew classes in public schools on the rise in Chicago’s suburbs

Peter Curtis is a music professor at Riverside City College in Southern California. (Courtesy of Curtis/via JTA)

‘Christmas With Your Jewish Boyfriend’: A jazz album of holiday songs by Jews

By Gabe Friedman

After guitarist Peter Curtis prepared a medley of the popular tunes written by his coreligionists for a holiday concert, his interest was piqued, culminating in his new collection

Tourists and pilgrims visit Manger Square outside the Church of the Nativity in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on December 24, 2019. (HAZEM BADER / AFP)

Pilgrims, dignitaries flock to Bethlehem for Christmas celebrations

The $70,000 dreidel made of 18K yellow gold and encrusted with 220 round brilliant diamonds created by Estate Diamond Jewelry in New York City was named the world's most valuable dreidel by Guinness World Records. (Courtesy of Estate Diamond Jewelry via JTA)

I made you out of blingGuinness World Records certifies world’s most valuable dreidel

The mayor of Yerucham, Tal Ohana, hopes to draw investors and make the town a cannabis mecca in Israel. (Simon Ben Ishai)

Sleepy southern Israel town seeks new highs with cannabis incubator plan

By Shoshanna Solomon

Israel to allocate some $43.2 million over five years to foster startups and entrepreneurs in medical cannabis in Yerucham, as part of push to boost tech in nation’s periphery

Technion students faced with challenges of entrepreneurship at the Technion, December 19, 2019. (Courtesy)

Technion fosters entrepreneurship within ivory towers as Startup Nation calls

By Shoshanna Solomon

More Headlines

Magen David Adom rescue teams arrive at the scene of a stabbing in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Homa on December 25, 2019. (Magen David Adom)

Man stabbed to death in Jerusalem; criminal motive probed

Economy Minister Naftali Bennett speaks to students of the Or Haim Yeshiva in Gush Etzion on September 1, 2014. (photo credit: Flash90)

Bennett seeks to break ultra-Orthodox grip on Religious Services Ministry

Immigrants from France arriving at Ben Gurion Airport, July 2018. (Nir Kafri, The Jewish Agency for Israel)

Amended figures refute claim that 6 of 7 immigrants since 2012 aren’t Jewish

By Sam Sokol and ToI Staff

ILLUSTRATIVE- An archaeological dig in Israel. (Yoli Schwartz/ Israel
Antiquities Authority)

Archaeologists discover Phoenician family tomb in ancient city of Achziv

Illustrative: Ultra-Orthodox Jews seen walking on a street in New York City on January 1, 2014. (Nati Shohat/Flash 90/File)

Man arrested for yelling anti-Semitic slurs, assaulting Orthodox Jew in New York

By Stuart Winer and ToI Staff

Spokesperson for the Likud party and for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Jonatan Urich, arrives at a conference organized by the Makor Rishon newspaper and the Bnei Akiva youth movement at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem, November 11, 2019. (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)

Supreme Court questions validity of police warrant to search PM aides’ phones

By Stuart Winer and ToI Staff

A Tesco supermarket in the UK. (CC-BY-SA Gary Houston/Wikimedia Commons)

UK supermarket sorry about ham products dumped in store’s kosher section

Jacob Gross at the yeshiva and synagogue in the London-area Canvey Island, December 13, 2019. (Cnaan Liphshiz/JTA)

Unattended Hanukkah candle caused fire at yeshiva near London

Illustrative. A chess set. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

Iran’s top chess player wants to ‘change his nationality’ over Israel ban

Russian President Vladimir Putin (C) and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu (L) take part in the annual meeting of the Defense Ministry board, in Moscow on December 24, 2019. (Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik/AFP)

Putin accuses Poland of colluding with Hitler, anti-Semitism

By AFP

Ashraf Marwan. (Screenshot from "The Israeli Connection," via YouTube)

Egyptian gets 5 years for selling book about spy who tipped off Israel

By AFP

Illustrative: Rabbi Moshe Schapiro shows a toy to a child during a charity drive in Jersey City, New Jersey, Deember 23, 2019. (Courtesy Benny Polatseck/JTA)

Weeks after deadly attack, Jersey City blacks and Jews unite for charity drive

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