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The Daily Edition

What Matters Most On Wednesday, April 22, 2026

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People celebrate Israel's 78th Independence Day in Tel Aviv, April 22, 2026. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

Reporter's notebook'We're able to persevere'

A stroll through Tel Aviv on Independence Day: Amid fragile calm, a city exhales

By Stav Levaton

After weeks of war and amid tentative ceasefires, crowds fill beaches and parks, embracing barbecues, music and a sense of relief

A man wrapped in a prayer shawl prays during Israel’s 78th Independence Day celebrations at Sacher Park in Jerusalem on April 22, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Photo essayBlue skies, white smoke: Israelis celebrate 78 years of independence

The 78th Independence Day ceremony, held at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, on April 21, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Israel kicks off 78th Independence Day festivities with annual torch-lighting ceremony

By ToI Staff, Nava Freiberg, Sam Sokol and Emanuel Fabian

Pioneering kinetic artist Yaacov Agam receiving the Israel Prize on April 20, 2026, at the Yaacov Agam Museum of Art (Jessica Steinberg/Times of Israel)

Reporter's notebook'Reality in other art is set and narrow, and here it isn't'

‘Creativity is the basis of Judaism’: Yaacov Agam, father of kinetic art, receives Israel Prize

By Jessica Steinberg

Accepting the award in the eponymous museum he helped design ahead of Wednesday’s ceremony in Jerusalem, the 97-year-old creator charms admirers — and a ToI journalist

Op-ed

From grief to trepidation: This year’s fateful transition from Memorial Day to Independence Day

Threatened without and within, Israel will soon have to decide whether Netanyahu is best placed to defeat enemies bent on our destruction, and whether his policies are shaping or wrecking the Israel we need

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a video address at Israel's 78th Independence Day torch-lighting ceremony in Jerusalem, April 21, 2026 (Video screenshot)

Promoted ContentSparkIL

Celebrate Israel with a free game

Honor 78 years of Israel’s independence with a free printable game from SparkIL. Foster meaningful conversation and celebrate the enduring hope of the Jewish people, together.

US President Donald Trump speaks during an event for NCAA national champions in the State Dining Room of the White House, April 21, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Trump says Iran ‘collapsing’ over Hormuz blockade as IRGC attacks ships in key waterway

By Agencies, ToI Staff and Jacob Magid

Iranian minister denies American blockade effective, after US president extended ceasefire indefinitely; Tehran executes man accused of working with Mossad

Security personnel stand guard at a checkpoint near the Serena Hotel, which hosted the first round of US-Iran negotiations during the Middle East war, at the Red Zone area in Islamabad on April 21, 2026, amid heightened security measures ahead of the anticipated second round of US-Iran peace talks. (Asif HASSAN / AFP)

In major about-face, Trump announces extension of Iran truce hours before deadline

By Jacob Magid, Nava Freiberg and AP

US bureau chief Jacob Magid joins host Jessica Steinberg on today's Daily Briefing. (ToI)

ToI podcastDaily Briefing April 22: Trump’s muddled messaging complicates talks with Iran

By Jessica Steinberg and Jacob Magid

A demonstrator wears a sticker over her mouth with the words "no execution" next to the portraits of alleged victims of crackdowns, during a silent march denouncing the deadly crackdown on anti-government protesters in the Islamic Republic, in Paris on January 31, 2026. (Sébastien DUPUY / AFP)

Live updates (closed)

April 22: Iran dismisses Trump’s claim that it scrapped executions at his request

Pezeshkian: US truce violations, blockade are main obstacle to negotiations * IDF investigating after two journalists said wounded by strike in southern Lebanon

8:00 pm

White House indicates that Iran talks focused strictly on the nuclear file
7:55 pm

White House denies reports that it gave Iran a deadline to submit nuclear deal proposal
7:15 pm

'False news': Iran dismisses Trump's claim that it scrapped executions at his request

Ora Hatan, one of the honorary torchlighters at the state’s annual Independence Day ceremony on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem on April 21, 2026, stands in her new restaurant in her house in Shtula on April 13, 2026. (Diana Bletter/Times of Israel)

Reporter's notebook'I would have rather cooked for their weddings'

Volunteer cook who pampers IDF troops under Hezbollah fire lights Independence Day torch

By Diana Bletter

Ora Hatan, whose mother was honored in 2008, is chosen for her ‘determination’ as she stays put on the Lebanese border, feeding soldiers even after a rocket destroyed her family restaurant

Author Rachel Goldberg-Polin joins host Jessica Steinberg for an episode of What Matters Now

What Matters Now podcast

Rachel Goldberg-Polin: Mother of murdered hostage Hersh ‘parcels out her pain’ in book

By Jessica Steinberg

‘When We See You Again’ is mother’s raw accounting of what happened to her son, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, and to her and her family

A thriving Diaspora is not a failure of Zionism

Israel does not need all Jews to live in the same place. It needs them to be strong, and connected by identity and a sense of shared purpose

True independence must include the air we breathe

Bad energy policy and political convenience are leading the country to environmental collapse and endangering Israel’s future

David H. Webber

The shared ground beneath Jewry’s secular-religious schism

At my aunt’s funeral, my secular Israeli cousins rejected religion — but they instinctively chose a Jewish goodbye. There’s a lesson in that

Daniel Orenstein

Not flying the flag this Independence Day

I’ve long been a proud immigrant, but while Israelis terrorize Palestinians in the West Bank and the government tolerates the crimes, I cannot celebrate my country

Archaeology

Rossella Tercatin

Rare ancient charcoal shows how prehistoric ‘Israelis’ were already grilling 780,000 years ago

A new study testifies to how hominins at Gesher Benot Ya’akov took advantage of their environment to fuel fires, showing advanced cognitive abilities

A general view of the excavation of Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov Acheulian site in northern Israel dating to some 780,000 years ago. (GBY Expedition)

Smoke rises from southern Lebanon during an Israeli military operation, April 20, 2026. (Ayal Margolin/Flash90)

IDF says Hezbollah breached truce by launching rockets at troops, drone at Israel

By Emanuel Fabian

Terror group takes responsibility, claims attacks come in response to Israeli violations of ceasefire; military says it struck launcher

Hezbollah supporters carry the Iran-backed terror group's flag while they ride a motorcycle past destruction, upon their return to their neighborhood in Beirut's southern suburbs, after a 10-day ceasefire with Israel came into effect, April 17, 2026. (Fadel Itani/AFP)

As internal divisions simmer, Lebanese see echoes of last century’s civil war

By Maya Gebeily and Emilie Madi

An IDF soldier smashes a statue of Jesus in southern Lebanon, in an image uploaded to social media on April 19, 2026. (X/used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

IDF delivers new statue to Christian village

2 troops dismissed, jailed for smashing statue of Jesus in southern Lebanon

By Emanuel Fabian

Soldier who took sledgehammer to the statue and another who photographed the act given 30 days in military prison; 6 troops who ‘did not act to stop incident’ called in for questioning

Relatives mourn at a hospital in Ramallah, where their loved ones were taken after being killed by alleged settler gunfire in the village of Al-Mughayyir, east of Ramallah in the West Bank, on April 21, 2026.( Zain Jaafar/AFP)

2 Palestinians, one of them 14, killed in alleged settler attack in West Bank

By Nurit Yohanan and Emanuel Fabian

IDF suspends reservist said to open fire outside a school in al-Mughayyir, near Ramallah, says villagers were throwing stones at an Israeli vehicle

Palestinians stand at the scene where settlers set fire to a home and vehicles in the village of Beit Imrin, near Nablus in the northern West Bank, April 22, 2026. (Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90)

Settler arson attack reportedly wounds 8 Palestinians, including baby; police launch probe

By Emanuel Fabian and ToI Staff

Op-ed

Memorial Day exposes widening rift between public and political leadership

2.5 years of war, a lack of Oct. 7 accountability, and Haredi draft exemptions have turned a day of unity into one of dissent as leaders ask citizens to bear increasingly unbearable costs

Bereaved families, friends and Israeli soldiers visit the Nova music festival massacre memorial site in Re’im Forest during Israel’s Memorial Day, April 21, 2026. (Tsafrir Abayov/Flash90)

Screen capture from video of a fundraising event that appeared to be held by the Gur Hasidic sect on Israel's Memorial Day eve, April 20, 2026. (X)

Lavish Hasidic fundraising event held on Memorial Day eve, sparking condemnation

A woman holds a picture of the Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei in a memorial for school children who were killed during a strike on a school in southern town of Minab, in downtown Tehran, Iran, April 7, 2026. (AP/Vahid Salemi, File)

Analysis

After surviving US-Israeli strikes, Iran regime may be divided over terms for ending war

By AMIR-HUSSEIN RADJY and Lee Keath

While Islamic Republic’s leaders have united around a hard line, negotiations with US could test panel that now seems to be running Iran by exposing differences among its members

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks in Las Vegas, April 16, 2026. (Lucas Peltier/AP)

US imposes new sanctions against suppliers of weapons to Iran

By Reuters and ToI Staff

Charlie Scheidt and Kat Rohrer are the co-authors of 'Inheritance: Love, Loss and the Legacy of the Holocaust.'(Rutgers University Press via JTA)

'I couldn’t just let this history disappear with me'

Son of Holocaust survivors and granddaughter of a Nazi confront their separate inheritances

By Andrew Silow-Carroll

Charlie Scheidt and Kat Rohrer forge unlikely partnership to pen ‘Inheritance,’ a memoir about his family’s harrowing escape from the death machine her grandfather was committed to

US students work under Ten Commandments and Bill of Rights posters on display in a classroom at Lehman High School in Kyle, Texas on October 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

Texas can require Ten Commandments be displayed in classrooms, US court rules

American conservatives laud victory for ‘moral values’ as ruling signals boost to similar legislation in other red states; law’s challengers plan to take case to Supreme Court

US President Donald Trump departs an event for NCAA national champions in the State Dining Room of the White House, April 21, 2026, in Washington. (AP/Alex Brandon)

Trump reads from Bible in America 250 event that critics accuse of Christian nationalism

Alan Dershowitz attends Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech at the 80th session of The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), in the UN headquarters in New York, September 26, 2025.

Alan Dershowitz leaves Democratic Party, calling it the ‘most anti-Israel’ in US history

By Grace Gilson

More Headlines

The Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas speaks to Kareem Rahma, host of the 'SubwayTakes' web series, on a train in New York City on April 22, 2026. (Screenshot/YouTube)

The Strokes frontman says ‘privileged’ Zionists talk ‘like Black people during slavery’

By Jackie Hajdenberg

A sign declaring 'Jews and animals are not allowed,' at the Villa Hotel in the city of Osh, Kyrgyzstan. (X: Used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

After uproar, Kyrgyzstan hotel removes sign barring entry to ‘Jews and animals’

Illustrative: German police officers walk in Munich, Germany, Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

Syrian charged with planning attack on Jews and ‘infidels’ in Berlin

By Agencies and ToI Staff

Paramedics arrive at the scene of a shooting in Yarka, a Druze village in northern Israel, on April 21, 2026. (Screenshot/Magen David Adom)

Man and woman shot dead in suspected double homicide in north

By Charlie Summers

Illustrative image of bagged grapes. (Oleksandr Lanevskyi, iStock at Getty Images)

Retail chains found to be charging over double what they pay for imported grapes

The ASHRU Fund, a new fund created by Jewish leaders, aims to support survivors of sexual violence and trafficking. (Screenshot via JTA)

Confronting Wexner’s Epstein ties, alumni of Jewish leadership programs launch survivor fund

By Grace Gilson

A photo of Scarsdale High School in Scarsdale, New York. (Google Streetview via JTA)

After Israeli flyers in NY high school placed in urinal, board president faces calls to resign

By Grace Gilson

Eyal Tzionov, a TikTok personality who dresses up as the Sephardic chief rabbi, sits in the audience of Israel's annual Independence Day torch-lighting on Mount Herzl, Jerusalem, on April 21, 2026. (Screenshot/YouTube)

Clerical errorTikToker dressed as chief rabbi stirs confusion at Independence event

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