A new survey released by the Anti-Defamation League shows nearly half of the global population holds elevated levels of antisemitic attitudes.
The Global 100 poll found that an estimated 2.2 billion people, representing 46% of the world’s adults, “harbor deeply entrenched antisemitic attitudes,” the ADL stated. That figure is double the level from a decade ago and the highest on record since the group monitoring Jew-hatred began examining worldwide trends.
Through its polling partners, including Ipsos, the ADL surveyed more than 58,000
adults from 103 countries, covering some 94% of the world’s adult population, with responses solicited between July 23 and Nov. 13, 2024.
Alarmingly, the survey revealed that one-fifth of respondents have not heard about the Holocaust with only 48% recognizing the historical accuracy of the mass-murder operation to eradicate European Jewry. That figure of recognizing the accuracy of the Holocaust fell to just 16% among respondents in the Middle East.
That figure falls under 40% among 18to 34-year-olds — a demographic among which some 50% overall hold antisemitic
sentiments. Forty percent of that age category also agreed that “Jews are responsible for most of the world’s wars.” The antisemitic figures among the younger generation were noticeably worse than their elders in many categories.
“We live in a world in which a literal modern-day pogrom can take place in the streets of a major Western European capital, unchecked for hours, and in the aftermath, we are gaslit and told that what happened was something we imagined or blamed for the act in the first place,” Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL national director
See Hates us on page 4
Trump: Good heart, uncertain agenda
By Ariel Kahana, Israel Hayom
As Donald Trump prepares to reclaim the White House in just a few days, an extensive portfolio of international and domestic challenges awaits — with Israel’s security concerns commanding significant attention. Unlike his first term, Trump enters office on Jan. 20 following methodical preparation and with a clear grasp of both priorities and implementation strategies.
The Iranian nuclear threat stands as the foremost security concern. Having withdrawn from the nuclear agreement in 2018 during his previous term, Trump demonstrates acute awareness of the immediate danger Tehran represents. Two assassination attempts by the ayatollahs’ regime have only reinforced his determination for swift resolution.
The incoming administration’s approach encompasses multiple strategies: stringent American sanctions, enhanced Israeli-American military collaboration and the potential formation of a broader international coalition.
Military support
The ammunition shortage crisis, stemming from the Biden administration’s restrictions on certain munitions, heads Israel’s immediate requirements. Trump’s transition team has indicated plans for comprehensive removal of these restrictions and expedited military shipments to the Israel Defense Forces within the first 48 hours after his inauguration.
The Gaza war presents another urgent priority. The incoming president has articulated a more definitive
stance on concluding the war — following an Israeli victory — than has the current Israeli leadership. While an immediate cessation is not expected, Trump’s team anticipates resolution within months. The administration plans to request that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu provide a detailed strategic roadmap for bringing the campaign to its conclusion.
Diplomacy, legalities
In what would be a significant move against international legal pressure targeting Israel, Trump plans immediate action regarding the International Criminal Court in The Hague
(ICC). As reported by Israel Hayom, comprehensive sanctions will target the institution and its personnel, including economic restrictions and U.S. entry bans. This executive action parallels congressional initiatives for stringent legislation against the court and its collaborators.
The administration also plans to swiftly address the Biden-era sanctions affecting Israeli citizens, particularly those targeting Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria and Tzav 9 movement leaders who opposed Hamas supply transfers. Trump’s team has committed to removing these restrictions during their initial days in office.
Regional dynamics
The completion of the Abraham Accords through Israeli-Saudi normalization remains a shared objective, though significant challenges persist. Saudi Arabia’s nuclear development aspirations conflict with Israeli security principles, while their expectation of Israeli acknowledgment regarding a future Palestinian state faces increased resistance following the Oct. 7 massacre.
Israel’s strategic concerns extend to the growing influence of Muslim Brotherhood-aligned states. This includes Turkey’s expanding regional role, its Syrian protectorate and Qatar’s mounting in-
fluence in the West through sophisticated diplomacy and economic leverage. While unaddressed in initial discussions between the incoming administration and Netanyahu, these developments demand increasing attention.
The Palestinian question, central to Trump’s first-term “Deal of the Century,” now occupies a markedly lower priority. While his national security appointees largely align with Israeli rightwing positions, the president’s current stance remains undefined.
Looking forward
Additional bilateral matters await discussion, including Israel’s potential support for various American global initiatives. The US also maintains its reservations about Chinese involvement in Israeli strategic investments. These issues are considerably interconnected: Addressing Iran’s nuclear program could influence Saudi nuclear ambitions, while expedited military support could accelerate conflict resolution in Gaza.
Two fundamental principles warrant consideration. First, contemporary leadership typically dedicates 80% of its attention to emerging challenges rather than planned initiatives. Second, Trump — historically considered Israel’s strongest presidential ally — employs unconventional approaches and strategic surprises to achieve breakthrough results. While such behavior may emerge, it is unlikely to disadvantage Israeli interests.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Donald Trump, UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan (right) and Bahrain Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani (left)attend the Abraham Accords Signing Ceremony at the White House on Sept. 15, 2020. Avi Ohayon, GPO
Floodgates keeping antisemitism under wraps broke on Oct. 7, 2023. Pro-Hamas, anti-Israel and anti-Jewish rallies exploded around the world after Hamas’ mass murder, rape, mutilation and kidnapping of Jews, including this rally in Times Square on Oct. 9, 2023. Lev Radin, Shutterstock
One thing after another, we can’t catch a break
HAUER
OU
Executive VP
The news and the images of the fiery destruction that has consumed parts of the Los Angeles area are startling and devastating. We recognize the fear and anxiety being experienced throughout the community due to the volatility of the situation and daven for the continued safety of those beyond the currently affected areas and for the recovery of all who have suffered devastating loss of life, home, and property.
Please dedicate extra tefillot for those in Los Angeles and reach out with messages of support to those there whom you know.
We at the Orthodox Union are in hourly contact with OU professionals and other communal leaders on the ground and will share any practical calls for action as relevant.
It feels like we are not getting a break.
During the past several years, we have experienced a parade of serious challenges of almost unremitting intensity. The past 15 months have certainly been that way, though recent miraculous turns of events have brought us hopes of emergence from the darkness. Yet we are again set back by events like those of the past week, from the losses of civilians and soldiers in Israel and the discovery of the remains of two of the remaining hostages, to the devastation we are now seeing in Los Angeles.
Perhaps this gives us a tiny bit of insight into the unspeakable and unremitting pain, fear and uncertainty still faced by the hostages and their families and by so many others more directly impacted by the situation in Eretz Yisrael.
Simply put — no break.
We must continue to hope.
Asara b’Tevet — the fast day we observed last week — is to be seen this way as it commemorates not one, but a slew of successive tragedies experienced by the Jewish people on the 8th, 9th, and 10th of Tevet, specifically the forced translation of the Torah into Greek, the death of Ezra the Scribe, and the siege of Yerushalayim. As we say in the selichot for this day: “l recall the distress that befell me. He hit me with three blows this month. He cut me down, refused me, hit me; even now, He wears me out…”
That same feeling is conveyed at the outset of last week’s parsha, as the story of our bondage in Egypt starts on some level at the beginning of parshat Vayechi. Rashi notes there that this parsha is not separated from the previous one by the usual text break, the usual empty space in the scroll, indicating that around the time of the death of Yaakov – anticipated in the opening words of that parsha – “the eyes and hearts of the Jewish people were closed by the difficulties of the bondage.”
Evidently the symbol for bondage is just that – no break.
This has been and continues to be a difficult time in so many ways and for so many people, with no break. It is hard and it wears us out.
But we must also continue to hope, noting that the joyous conclusion of our bondage was marked by Klal Yisrael singing the Song of the Sea, a section of the Torah written with the unusual style of including breaks not only between sections, but within each and every verse.
Yes, we experience periods where there is no break and no rest for the weary, one thing after another. But we know equally well that netzach Yisrael lo yishaker, that the existence of the Jewish people will also never take a break, that our bond with Hashem is indestructible, and that we can look forward to a wonderful and peaceful future with anticipation and confidence.
Harachaman Hu yanchileinu yom shekulo Shabbat u’menucha l’chayei ha’olamim. May the Compassionate One bring us the time that will be entirely Shabbat and rest for life everlasting.
The Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center burns during the Eaton fire in Pasadena on Jan. 7. Josh Edelson, AFP via Getty Images via JNS
RABBI MOSHE
UGHTS.
SPEAK OUT! SPEAK OUT! VERSATION. SHAPE T SPEAK UP! SPEAK UP! SHARE YOUR
AK UP!SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS U
THOUGHT LEADERS IN ISRAEL ARE LISTENING, THIS IS YOUR CHANCE TO SHARE YOUR OPINION.
Hates us…
Continued from page 1
and CEO, said on a conference call on Tuesday coinciding with the survey’s release.
“While tracking antisemitic incidents is an essential way to measure antisemitism, it’s by no means the only way negative attitudes towards Jews — in agreement with age-old antisemitic tropes — have been a crucial pillar that the ADL uses to assess overall levels of anti-Jewish prejudice within a country,” Greenblatt added. “It is a key factor that impacts how free a Jewish person feels to live openly and express their identity, whatever that looks like for them.”
Twenty-nine percent of those younger than 35 expressed favorable opinions of the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip, higher than the overall mark of 23%.
The survey shows Palestinian-controlled territories in Judea and Samaria, and Gaza, with a 97% index score, placing them with Kuwait (97%) and Indonesia (96%) as the most antisemitic populations. Those with the lowest Index Scores are Sweden (5%), Norway (8%), Canada (8%) and the Netherlands (8%). That may seem surprising after Norway approved Palestinian statehood last year; Canada saw higher instances of antisemitic instances over previous years; and Amsterdam was rocked by what many construed as a modern-day pogrom in November.
The Middle East and North Africa (76%) received particularly high index scores, with Asia (51%), Eastern Europe (49%) and SubSaharan Africa (45%) not far behind. The Americas (24%), Oceania (20%) and Western Europe (17%) showed lower levels of antisemitic sentiment, though the ADL says even those raw figures are concerning.
‘A pretext for bigots’
The Global 100 data serves to inform governments about what actions they can take to reverse worrying trends, according to the ADL, as the survey measured the number of respondents who believe in six or more of 11 negative stereotypes about Jews to be definitely or probably true.
“Governments need to speak out clearly and forcefully — need to speak out repeatedly — and leaders must call out antisemitism wherever and whenever it occurs, particularly when it happens within the ranks of their own party or partisan group,” Greenblatt said, advocating for additional protections for Jewish communities, stronger hate-crime laws, and more widespread and diversified Holocaust education.
The survey also posed other questions related to Jews and Israel with 71% of respondents saying their country should have diplomatic relationships with Israel and 75% encouraging their countries to welcome Israeli tourists. A little more than two-thirds said they don’t think that their country should boycott Israeli products and businesses.
“Governments can count on the support of an encouraging majority (57%) of respondents globally who recognize that hate towards Jews is a serious problem in the world. This also holds true for a majority of respondents across all seven geographical regions, age groups, education levels, and political orientations,” the ADL said.
JNS asked Greenblatt whether the ADL anticipated some figures to fall after the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza or whether that was unlikely given the upward trends among younger respondents.
“I don’t think we know the answer to that. Antisemitism was rising, so in some ways, it’s fair to say that we created a pretext for bigots,” he replied, referring to the many who used the Hamas-led terrorist attacks and atrocities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, to “throw fuel on the fire.”
“I think we need to reserve judgment and take a bit of a wait-and-see approach, even as we, as they say, hope for the best and prepare for the worst,” he said.
Hegseth: ‘I support Israel destroying, killing every last member of Hamas’
By Andrew Bernard, JNS
Pete Hegseth’s Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday opened with a disruption by an anti-Israel heckler who accused Hegseth of being a “Christian Zionist” who supports “genocide.”
The former Fox News host and retired Army major who served in Iraq and Afghanistan is President-Elect Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Pentagon.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) asked Hegseth about those claims.
“The first one accused you of being a ‘Christian Zionist’ — I’m not really sure why that is a bad thing,” Cotton said. “I’m a Christian. I’m a Zionist. Zionism is the belief that the Jewish people deserve a homeland in the ancient Holy Land where they’ve lived since the dawn of history.”
“Do you consider yourself a Christian Zionist?” Cotton asked.
“I’m a Christian, and I robustly support the State of Israel and its existential defense and the way America comes alongside them as their great ally,” Hegseth said. “I support Israel destroying and killing every last member of Hamas.”
Israeli media reported that Steve Witkoff, Trump’s pick for Middle East envoy, pressured Israel to accept the current proposed ceasefire-forhostages deal, which according to critics doesn’t do enough to eradicate Hamas.
If confirmed, Hegseth said that he intends to redirect the Pentagon “behemoth” away from protracted conflicts in the Middle East, in order to focus on the US confrontation with China.
“We’re gonna start by ensuring the institution understands, as far as threats abroad, the Chinese Communist Party is front and center, also obviously defending our homeland as well,” he said.
Hegseth faced tough questions from Democrats on the Senate Committee on Armed Services about his drinking, allegations of sexual misconduct and comments about the role of women in the military.
He denied allegations about his personal conduct and said they were part of a “coordinated smear campaign orchestrated in the media.”
Hegseth’s nomination is expected to be one of the most contentious of Trump’s picks to get through Senate confirmation given his background as a Fox News firebrand, who has been deeply critical of Democrats and “woke” diversity,
equity and inclusion efforts in the military, as well as accusations about his personal life.
Hegseth said at the hearing that he had been “completely cleared” of a 2017 sexual assault allegation that resulted in no criminal charges. In 2020, Hegseth paid a legal settlement to the accuser over the encounter at a California hotel, which his lawyer told the Associated Press was consensual.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said that Hegseth’s account of the events nonetheless raise questions about his integrity.
“You had just fathered a child two months before by a woman that was not your wife,” Kaine said. “I am shocked that you would stand here and say you’re completely cleared. Can you so casually cheat on a second wife and cheat on the mother of a child that had been born two months before, and you tell us you are completely cleared?”
Hegseth, 44, has been married three times. His fourth child was born to the woman who is now his wife, a Fox News producer, in August 2017. He was still married at the time to his second wife, who filed for divorce in September of that year. The encounter, which Hegseth’s lawyer said was
consensual, occurred one month after that, in October 2017.
In a 2023 interview with Nashville Christian Family Magazine, Hegseth said he had renewed his Christian faith in 2018 after he and his third wife joined their congregation in New Jersey.
Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) accused Democrats on the committee of being hypocritical in asking Hegseth about drinking and marital infidelity.
“How many senators have shown up drunk to vote at night?” Mullin asked. “Don’t tell me you haven’t seen it, because I know you have. And then how many senators do you know have got a divorce for cheating on their wives?”
“It is so ridiculous that you guys hold yourself as this higher standard, and you forget you got a big plank in your eye,” he added. “We’ve all made mistakes.” (The New Testament directs adherents to mind the “plank” in their own eyes before worrying about splinters in the eyes of others.)
The questioning divided along partisan lines, with Republicans indicating they would support Hegseth’s nomination and Democrats arguing that he is unqualified.
Hit NY bid to secularize Jewish schools
By Vita Fellig, JNS
New York State Education Department’s policies discriminate against Chassidic Jews and threaten their ability to maintain a Jewish-centered education, according to a federal complaint that four yeshivas in Brooklyn filed on Monday.
Bobover Yeshiva Bnei Zion, Oholei Torah (Chabad), United Talmudical Academy (Satmar), and Yeshiva and Mesivta Arugas Habosem (Tzelemer) argue in the complaint that state targeted them unfairly with its “Part 130” regulations in 2022.
The regulations require nonpublic schools to prove that their curricula are “substantially
equivalent” to those of public schools. Schools failing to meet that standard — which is tied to anti-Catholic rules that date back more than a century — must adjust their curricula or risk losing their status and students’ eligibility to attend.
Although there is another pending lawsuit, challenging the “substantially equivalent” standard, this complaint alleges that the state is making it impossible for the yeshivas to comply with the law.
“When the nanny state and the secular state converge, it is no surprise that government finds no value in Jewish education and no regard for the educational choices that parents make for
their children,” the complaint adds.
“This is not a challenge to the regulations that were passed a few years ago. The complaint makes that clear,” Avi Schick, a partner at Faegre Drinker Biddle and Reath and attorney for the yeshivas, told JNS.
“What this does attack is the state and city drive to standardize and secularize the education, philosophy and mission of these yeshivas,” he said. “What we have seen are bureaucrats focused on making sure that yeshivas don’t graduate what government thinks are a bunch of narrow-minded Jews of the past. That’s very troubling, and not only is it troubling, it’s illegal.”
Rabbi Mendel Blau, head of school at Oholei Torah, told JNS that the Chabad yeshiva had a positive relationship with the state’s education department until recently.
“Rather than focusing on the quality of education our talmidim receive and their many achievements, the Department of Education appears intent on imposing specific frameworks for how and what we teach,” he said.
“Families choose Oholei Torah, because they value an education rooted in Torah and guided by the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe,” he added. “The complaint was filed to ensure that the rights of our yeshiva and its families are protected, and to safeguard the diversity and richness of New York’s educational landscape.”
Students at the Chassidic school Oholei Torah in Brooklyn. Oholei Torah
Pete Hegseth testifies during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. Saul Loeb, AFP via Getty Images via JNS
Terrorists hit Israel 18,000 times in 2024
Terrorists attacked the Jewish state no fewer than 18,000 times in 2024, killing 134 innocent people and wounding another 1,277, according to data released by the National Public Diplomacy Directorate in the Prime Minister’s Office last week.
Israeli civilians were attacked from seven fronts — Iran, Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip, Iraq, Yemen and from within Israeli territory — 18,365 times last year, revealed the report, which combined data from all security agencies and the country’s emergency response groups.
Some 16,400 rockets and missiles were fired into Israel, of
which approximately 15,400 were launched by Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon and 700 from the Gaza Strip. October saw the most launches, with more than 6,900 attacks reported.
At the same time, terrorists sent at least 399 drones toward Israeli territory, the vast majority of which came from Lebanon.
Seventy-one people, including 14 children, were murdered in aerial assaults, and 892 more people sustained wounds. In addition, the rocket, missile and drone attacks sparked more than 600 wildfires, burning 92,417 acres managed by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and
more than 42,749 acres of grazing land.
An additional 1,900 terrorist incidents were reported in 2024, including stone-throwing, Molotov cocktails, car rammings, shootings, stabbings and bombings.
November was the quietest month, with 109 terrorist incidents reported, while July saw the most violence in Israel — 37 people were murdered and another 394 were wounded that month.
The most common type of terrorist attack recorded in 2024 was stone-throwing, with 1,248 incidents reported, followed by “throwing objects, arson and tire burning” (162), attacks with Mo-
lotov cocktails (14), shootings (132) and the use of explosive devices (89).
According to the annual report published by the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) on Dec. 31, Jerusalem thwarted more than 1,000 significant terrorist attacks in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem in 2024.
Most of the attacks involved firearms (689) and explosive devices (326), with others being stabbings, rammings, bombings and abductions. —JNS
At Parker, new year’s a ball New JFK-TLV flights
Parker Jewish Institute joined local fire departments for a light show and Times-Square-style ball drop on December 31, helping residents, patients and family members welcome the new year.
“We are so appreciative of our first responders, not just on new year’s eve, but all year long,” said Parker President and CEO Michael N. Rosenblut.
“Their commitment to keeping our community safe is steadfast. And of course, we give special thanks to the Parker community in designing, building and activating our very own ball drop.”
Participants included members of Engine Engine 251 of Glen Oaks, the Manhasset-Lakeville Fire Department, Garden City Fire Department, New Hyde Park Fire Department, the 105 Precinct, and SeniorCare EMS.
Arkia CEO Oz Berlowitz announced on Monday inauguration of a direct flight route between Tel Aviv and JFK in New York, revealing a partnership with AIRTECH, a company linked to Israel’s high-tech industry hub.
Arkia said it plans to operate Airbus A330-900 NEO aircraft and that the inaugural flight is scheduled for Feb. 8, with round-trip tickets starting at $1,199 including luggage, two full meals, and beverages, Arkia said.
The Parker Jewish Institute for Health Care and Rehabilitation, headquartered in New Hyde Park, is a leading provider of short-term rehabilitation and long-term care, and a leader in teaching and geriatric research.
Photo by Alan Ginsberg
Pictured: Security personnel at the scene of a drone attack in Tel Aviv on July 19, 2024. Avshalom Sassoni, Flash90
1st Temple period ritual structure ID’d
A unique structure unearthed in Jerusalem’s ancient City of David was used for ritual practices during the time of the First Temple, according to a report published Tuesday.
The site was uncovered 15 years ago on the eastern slopes of the City of David compound, just outside the walled Old City of Jerusalem. It includes eight rock-hewn rooms containing an altar, a standing stone, an oil press and a winepress, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority.
Excavation director Eli Shukron wrote in an article published in the scientific journal Atiqot that his team had recently determined that the structure was used for ritual purposes while the Temple stood just a few hundred meters away.
It is the only known ritual structure from this period discovered in Jerusalem and one of very few found in the land of Israel.
One room’s floor displayed mysterious carved V-shaped marks, the purpose of which remains unclear, the state-run archaeological body said.
Shukron believes that the uncovered 220 square meter structure was in use until the middle of the period when the kings of Judah ruled.
“When we began excavating, we discovered that the site had been sealed with fill from the 8th century BCE, indicating it had fallen out of use during that time,” said Shukron.
A carved installation identified as an altar, with a channel for liquid drainage.
He added that this cessation may possibly have been part of King Hezekiah’s religious reforms. According to Tanach, Hezekiah sought to centralize worship at the Temple in Jerusalem, abolishing ritual sites scattered across the kingdom.
“This unique structure uncovered in the City of David is an exciting testimony to Jerusalem’s rich past,” said Israel’s Minister of Heritage Amichai Eliyahu. “Such discoveries make our connection and historic roots — going back thousands of years — tangible, in Jerusalem and other sites where the Jewish culture and belief system emerged.” —JNS
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Above: The City of David complex included specialized installations in each room — an oil press, winepress, and what researchers indentified as an alter with a drainage channel. Kobi Harati, City of David
Archeologists working in the City of David site. Vladimir Neichen, Israel Antiquities Authority
Right:
Kobi Harati, City of David
Kol Ram Concert
Featuring Kol Ram with special performance by SAR’s High School Choir
Tuesday Jan. 28th 8-9pm
Hebrew Institute of Riverdale - The Bayit 3700 Henry Hudson Pkwy, Riverdale, NY 10463
Tickets: Advance Registration: $15
Advance Registration for Students and Senior Citizens: $10
At the door: $20
Purchase tickets online at www.thebayit.org/event/kolram25
Online ticket sales close at 5:00pm on January 28.
IDF widow, pregnant with 3rd, faces hard times
By Deborah Danan, JNS
On June 20 of last year, Sgt. First Class (res.) Saadia Dery spoke with his wife, Racheli Orya Dery, by phone from the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza, where he was stationed.
The couple discussed plans for their second son’s first birthday and their wedding anniversary, both of which were just days away.
An hour after Racheli hung up, Saadia was killed in a mortar attack.
Racheli, 29, marked both milestones during the shiva. A blue balloon shaped like the number one adorned the mourning tent at Saadia’s parents’ home in Eli, while the cemetery visit at the end of the mourning week coincided with the couple’s fifth anniversary.
A day after the shiva, Racheli discovered she was pregnant with the couple’s third child.
For nearly six months, she kept the pregnancy to herself, attending all the prenatal appointments alone. Now, she prepares to face childbirth on her own too — a decision shaped by the profound solitude she has experienced since Saadia’s death.
“On one hand, he left me with an incredible final gift, but on the other, I can’t believe he left me to face this alone. It’s this overwhelming mix of life and death. With this pregnancy, I feel him inside of me so intensely, but I also feel his death in the most intense way possible.
“I can’t speak about this to anyone,” she told JNS.
One of the first people she told about the pregnancy was Idan Siboni, Saadia’s commander in the IDF Alexandroni Brigade, a reserve infantry unit made up of veterans of the Golani Brigade.
Siboni and other members of the platoon have made it their mission to support Racheli and her children, 3-year-old Hallel and 19-month-old Yinon Shaul, in every way, from organizing weekly grocery deliveries to taking her out on Saadia’s birthday in a bid to alleviate some of the pain.
Saadia was deployed to the northern border on Oct. 7, 2023, the day of the Hamas-led attack down south, and remained there for five months. Later, the platoon was deployed to Gaza, where he was killed. The platoon’s third deployment was in Southern Lebanon, fighting Hezbollah terrorists.
In a plea made shortly before his death, Saadia asked the others in his unit to take care of his wife and children in the event that something should happen to him. “We fought on three fronts, but fighting for Racheli and her children became our fourth — and possibly our most important — mission yet,” Siboni said.
Saadia’s platoon has organized a crowdfunding campaign to buy an apartment for Racheli. As the widow of a fallen soldier, she receives monthly stipends from the Defense Ministry, including a rental stipend (paid directly to the landlord) capped at 3,000 shekels (about $810). That stipend is only available to those renting apartments costing up to 6,300 shekels, and exceeding that amount disqualifies her from receiving any rental assistance.
During the recent wave of air-raid sirens warning of Houthi missiles from Yemen — one of which hit less than half a kilometer from her home — the heavily pregnant Racheli had to wake her baby and toddler and carry them down flights of stairs to the bomb shelter.
Remaining in Jaffa holds deep significance because of how much the city meant to Saadia. But it’s nearly impossible to find a sufficiently sized apartment in the area that includes a safe room within the 6,300 shekel rental cap.
“He believed living in Jaffa and strengthening the community was part of his life’s mission,” Racheli said. “He was an emissary in everything he did in life.”
The five years of their marriage were the happiest of her life, Racheli said. “I would ask myself all the time, is it really possible for it to be this good?”
Her life until then had been far from easy, shaped by her parents’ turbulent divorce during her teenage years and the devastating loss of her father two years before she met Saadia at age 22.
Sitting on the couch in her small but tidy apartment, Racheli noted the significance of the day — it was her father’s yahrzeit, a detail that added weight to her reflections. Saadia didn’t just step into her life — he stepped into her family’s as well, often taking on her absent father’s role by offering guidance to her five siblings.
When Saadia informed her that he was being deployed to Gaza, Racheli’s heart plummeted. Until that point, when he had been stationed on the northern border, she had been crippled with anxiety, exacerbated by caring for a toddler and a four-month-old through incessant rocket sirens.
“But when he said that awful word — Gaza — that was it for me. The feelings of anxiety were replaced with a feeling of total certainty. I knew then that he wouldn’t return from this war,” she told JNS.
Despite his optimism — about winning the war, about the progress of the IDF — and his constant reassurances that he would be fine, Saadia’s actions told a different story. During a break from the front, he put everything on hold: his university studies, his rabbinical training at a Jaffa yeshivah, and he went out of his way to find a replacement in his work as an aide for autistic children. (Disclosure: Dery was an aide for this reporter’s child).
“It felt like he knew he was going to die and was tying up loose ends,” Racheli said.
During the furlough, Saadia insisted that he wanted to do
something every day with Racheli alone or with the children. Each day, he planned something special — picnics, restaurant outings, a trip to the Ramat Gan Safari.
“Every outing felt like he was experiencing it for the last time,” Racheli recalled, noting how she couldn’t stop taking photos. The feeling was so strong, she said, she even snapped pictures of mundane moments like washing his children’s hair. “I just knew it was the last time he would bathe them.”
When the time came to return to Gaza, Racheli begged him not to leave. He had received sick leave due to a cold, but he insisted on going back two days earlier than planned. “Nothing I could say would stop him,” she said. “He believed so fully that this was his duty, to fight in a war for our existence. He would say to me, ‘Imagine me asking you to stop the most important thing in your life.’”
For many months, she conjured images of his funeral and shiva in her head, knowing that any moment a knock on the door from military representatives would be the death knell confirming her worst nightmare.
When the knock came, one day after his return to Gaza, she saw the officers through the peephole. At that moment, a silent prayer flickered through her mind. “Let him be wounded — even critically — that I’ll somehow deal with.”
When they delivered the news that would change her life forever, she collapsed to the ground, her children in the room with her. “When people speak about this moment, they always say it feels like the ground beneath you just gives way. That’s what it felt like exactly. I just screamed and screamed at the top of my lungs.”
Now, sitting on the couch in her apartment,
Racheli broke down again as the memories overwhelmed her. A phone call informing her that Saadia’s brother Avraham was on the news to speak about the fundraising campaign, jolted her back to the present.
Listening to Avraham appeal to the anchor about Racheli’s plight, an oversized image of Saadia in uniform looming on the screen behind him, was surreal. “I just can’t grasp that he’s talking about me. It doesn’t feel real.”
Avraham and fellow reservists from the Alexandroni Brigade extolled Saadia as a hero of Israel. There was talk of how he proved that it was possible — despite haredi objections — to be both a Torah scholar and a dedicated IDF soldier. Racheli bristled at some of the praise. “It’s all true of course. But I want people to know not just the war hero, but the man he was on a personal level. This man — my man — who was an exceptional father, the perfect family man. That’s enough, without turning him into a symbol of grand, lofty ideas and ideals. I want people to know that he was goodness itself, and that he was the love of my life.”
Saadia Dery (right) and Idan Siboni (center) with Alexandroni Brigade comrades.
Courtesy Idan Siboni
Saadia Dery studying Talmud in Gaza. Courtesy Laly Derai, Facebook
Saadia Dery with his children, Hallel and Yinon Shaul. Courtesy Racheli Dery
Saadia and Racheli Dery and their children, Hallel and Yinon Shaul. Courtesy Racheli Dery
WINE AND DINE
Variations of old-fashioned cholent recipes
My dad told me that every Friday my grandmother cooked two meals in tandem — Shabbat chicken or brisket (gedempte fleisch, an Ashkenazic pot roast) on one side of her tiny counter and, in her big, black, speckled roasting pan, another dish made of all kinds of things.
The “things” she put in her big black speckled pot would go in the oven and begin cooking on Friday then continuing all night until lunchtime the next day. The result would be a delectable mélange of meats, beans, potatoes, root vegetables, and lots of garlic. There was always the lingering flavor of gribenes and sometimes her homemade stuffed helzel or kishke. Sadly, my grandmother never wrote down a recipe, so I have no idea how she made this dish that I can still taste today.
According to Gil Marks z”l, cholent is a completely Jewish food, born out of the necessity to serve a hearty, hot meal in the cold winter months and not cook or light a fire on Shabbat. Famed cookbook author Joan Nathan said in “Jewish Cooking in America” that “for centuries, on Friday mornings [Jews] would assemble [their stews]. The dish was covered with a cloth or mixture of flour and water to form a crust. It started cooking on Friday before sunset and [was] left to warm all night over coals in a hot [communal] oven.”
The wife would pick up the cooked food after shul and, once home, would crack open the hard, baked cover and serve the steaming bean and meat stew to her family and guests.
The ingredients of this hearty dish were different in every country because Jews have always cooked with local ingredients, making universally Jewish dishes distinctly regional in flavor. In addition, the herbs and spices and even the meats used, were always location dependent. Cholents were made with lamb or beef, duck, or chicken. All used beans and some added potatoes.
In Germany and parts of Eastern Europe, cholent was called schalet, close to the French cassoulet, which more closely translates to kugel than to stew. The German-Jewish-Yiddish schalet eventually diverged into two roads — one towards sweetness and noodles and the other towards savory, heartier dishes. German schalets were often made of potatoes and onions, while other kugels used apples and pears and sometimes bread or noodles. All were descendants of the cholent of centuries past.
But whatever the individual characteristics of the dish, the focus and purpose have always been the same; to create a nutritious, hearty and delicious meal that will feed all the unexpected guests and will survive — and even taste better because of — the long, slow cooking required.
Overnight French Cassoulet Inspired Cholent (Meat)
• Ingredients:
• 3-1/2 to 4-1/2 lbs. boneless short ribs, cut into 2 to 3 inch pieces
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.
• 4 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil, more if needed
• 4 to 5 marrow bones
• 2 large onions, coarsely chopped
• 3 celery stalks, sliced
• 1 to 2 large leeks, white and light green parts only, washed and thinly sliced
• 4 to 6 carrots, peeled and sliced
• 3 to 6 garlic cloves, finely minced
• 2 Tbsp. tomato paste
• 1 cup white wine
• 3 cups white beans, such as cannellini, soaked in water overnight
• Optional: 3/4 lb. smoked duck or turkey breast or kosher sausage
• 3-1/2 to 5 cups chicken broth or stock
• 1/2 tsp. any of the following: tarragon, rosemary, herbes d’Provence; dried chives
• 1 tsp. kosher salt, to taste
• 1/2 tsp. freshly cracked black pepper, to taste
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 225 degrees. Pat the beef ribs with a paper towel and sprinkle generously with salt and cracked black pepper. Set aside. Heat a large Dutch oven and add the olive oil. Add the beef and brown on all sides. Remove to a plate and add the marrow bones. Cook until the bones are slightly browned in places. Place on the paper towels to drain. Add more oil if needed. Add the onions and cook until golden, 7 to 10 minutes. Add the leek and cook until softened. Add the celery and carrots, mix well and cook until softened. Add the minced garlic and cook until fragrant.
Create a hole in the veggies and add the tomato paste. Let it cook until the edges begin to brown, 1 minute. Mix well and add the wine. Mix until blended. Add the beans and mix. Add the marrow bones moving them so they are at the bottom of the pot. Add the beef pieces and the smoked duck, turkey or sausage, nestling it in among the beans. Add the stock around the sides of the pan and season with more salt and pepper and the herbs.
Bring to a boil over medium heat and stir often. If the beans absorb the liquid too quickly, add more stock or water as needed. Skim any foam that forms. Cook for 20 to 30 minutes, remove from heat and let cool 10 minutes. Add more liquid to cover solids by 1 to 2 inches. Cover the pot tightly with aluminum foil. Then put the pot’s cover on top and place in the oven. Bake overnight. Check in the morning and add more liquid if needed. Continue to cook until serving time and then return, covered, to the oven for the remainder of Shabbat. Serves 8+.
NOTE: You can add chicken wings to this instead of the sausage, if you like a milder flavor.
Vegetarian Shabbat
Cholent with Lima Beans and Barley (Pareve)
This cholent is so forgiving that you can add any grain and any vegetable to it. I have made it with farro, wheat berries, rice and all kinds of small beans.
Ingredients:
• 2 to 3 large onions, about 3 to 4 cups chopped
• 2 to 3 leeks, trimmed, thinly sliced, rinsed well
• 3 to 4 shallots, thinly sliced
• 3 to 10 cloves garlic, finely minced, to taste
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 1 cup barley
• 1 cup split green peas
• 1 cup dried baby lima beans
• 1 cup red lentils
• 3 cups chopped carrots
• 2 cups chopped celery
• 2 to 3 pounds Red Bliss potatoes, cut in half
• 1 tsp. freshly cracked black pepper
• 1 to 2 tsp. kosher salt
• 1/2 to 1 tsp. paprika
• 1/4 cup freshly snipped chives
• 6 to 10 cups water or vegetable stock
• Optional: minced Tarragon, rosemary, thyme, to taste
• Optional: tamari sauce, to taste
• Optional: 1/2 to one cup dry white or dry red wine; 2 to 3 cans (15 ounces each) chopped tomatos
• Optional: Eggs still in the shell nestled in the veggies to cook overnight.
• GARNISH: 1/4 cup fresh parsley, finely minced
Directions:
In a large skillet, heat the oil and sauté the onions, leeks and shallots until they are translucent and completely softened. Scrape them into a heavy Dutch oven and add the rest of the ingredients. Season and stir well. Bring the cholent to a boil on top of the stove over medium heat, stirring frequently. Reduce the heat and simmer for 2 hours, adding more water or stock as needed and removing any foam that forms on top. Taste for seasonings and adjust as needed.
Preheat the oven to 250 degrees. Just before sundown, add enough stock or water so that the cholent is 1 to 2 inches under water. Cover tightly with foil and then with the pot’s cover and place in the center of the oven. Check for liquid level in the morning, adding more if needed. When ready, remove from the oven, stir, adjust seasonings, garnish with parsley and serve. Serves 8+.
Just a note: Red kidney beans contain a protein called phytohaemagglutinin that is toxic. Cooking at high heat kills the toxin, but the low heat from a slow cooker or low oven will not, and just 2 to 3 beans can make you very ill. To avoid this, boil your red kidney beans for at least 10 to 20 minutes before cooking them in a low oven.
Kosher Kitchen
JONI SChOCKEtt Jewish Star columnist
Catholic Mex actress an Israeli Jewish educator
By Etgar Lefkovits, JNS
The teenage Mexican actress stumbled upon a YouTube clip by a Spanish-speaking rabbi talking about how to find happiness through the Bible.
The video that popped up on her computer in Mexico City would change her life forever.
The 18-year-old who was used to doing TV commercials and soap operas on Telemundo — an American Spanish-language channel owned by a division of NBCUniversal — quickly ordered a Bible via Amazon and started reading it trying to grasp lofty biblical concepts after having been raised as a Catholic in a secular household.
The chance video that would forever shape and serve as a landmark in Hannah Abitbul’s life was, perhaps, more than pure chance.
Although she was born into the world of television acting and commercials (her mother worked as a booking agent for a modeling agency), she was always interested in Judaism, even as a little girl.
“What do you do on the Sabbath?” she would ask the secular Jews working as producers or photographers at her work. “We light the candles,” they replied to her, she recounts in an interview with JNS in Tel Aviv.
Still curious, she sought out more information on the Internet about Judaism, including learning about kashrut, as she pondered theological questions about the source of her own religion.
After buying her Bible, Abitbul decided to seek spiritual guidance and searched on Google for “synagogue near me.”
She visited the synagogue in Mexico City that came up on the web, and at the entrance, gave the Mexican name she was born with. The local security guard told her she could not come in for security reasons. However, the employee, who was new on the job (and didn’t know much about Judaism himself) agreed to take her number and give it to the rabbi.
Some days later, the rabbi called her back and said he didn’t understand what she had wanted
but agreed to meet her. Abitbul told him that she was interested in converting, but he replied that at 19, she was still very young, could change her mind and that it wasn’t for her.
“Today, you will want Judaism, and tomorrow, Buddhism or vegan,” he told her.
Insisting that she was studying Judaism, the rabbi asked her what Jews eat on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement (a fast day). “I don’t know, but I like to cook,” she replied.
Not surprisingly, the rabbi was unimpressed.
Undeterred, she kept phoning him until he agreed that she could come to a Friday-night service. The congregants were already in the middle of it, and she said she was “mesmerized” by the songs welcoming in the Sabbath.
“I felt like I knew the song, even though I had never heard it in my life,” she said.
She persisted in keeping in touch with the rabbi and began going to courses in Judaism at the synagogue after work to prove that she was serious.
The rabbi asked the teenager if her parents were aware of her Jewish studies, and when she told him
no — that they were sure she was at parties on Friday nights — he insisted that she tell them.
Abitbul told her mother that she had something important to tell her, and the two met for sushi lunch. Her mom had no clue what was to follow. Upon hearing that her daughter wanted to convert to Judaism, she was shocked, and after first assuming that it was because of a Jewish boyfriend, insisted on meeting the rabbi and his wife to be sure her daughter was not involving herself in a cult.
After a cordial meeting with them, her mother relented.
The next major surprise for her parents came when she told them that she wanted to study in Israel, where the rabbi told her she could learn and eventually undergo a conversion.
Her family, who thought that Israel was only about war and terrorism, refused to help her financially. Abitbul paid her own way from her salary in acting.
After three months studying at a Jerusalem girl’s seminary in 2017, she returned to Mexico
because her mother had fallen ill with cancer, passing away the following year.
After her mother’s death, Abitbul reconsidered whether it was right for her to return to Israel as she had planned. Her older sister told her to do what made her happy and not to stay in Mexico because of the family.
Abitbul returned to Israel. A year and a half later, she completed her conversion process, which she notes happened at Shavuot, which marks the giving of the Bible.
Ironically, around the time she finished her conversion, her cousins, who were applying for a Spanish passport, had discovered that her father’s family from Spain — completely unbeknown to him—were Anusim, or Jews who were forced to convert against their will.
Meanwhile, shortly after her own conversion Abitbul, 27, met her future husband, Avishai, on a popular Israeli dating app that caters to the traditional and religiously observant (her husband became religious himself on a post-army trip to India; she covers her hair and is religiously observant). Two months later, they were engaged. Soon after, they were married and are now the parents of a 2-year-old son.
“He is 100 percent non-Spanish-speaking,” she said of her husband, noting that his family in the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon, not far from the Gaza Strip, wondered aloud during the war how she had left the beaches of Mexico for a tumultuous life in Israel.
Coming full circle, the Jewish educational organization Aish HaTorah, based in Jerusalem, heard of her unusual story and reached out to Abitbul to ask her to do some video clips about the Jewish holidays and Judaism in general for Spanish speakers.
Soon, the gig mushroomed into a full-time job running their social media.
“It was always natural for me to be in front of the camera,” she says.
Post-Assad, Golani Druze have new Israeli view
By Andrew Bernard, JNS
The fall of Bashar Assad in Syria is opening new doors for the Druze community in the Israeli Golan Heights, Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif, the spiritual leader of the Druze community in Israel, told JNS.
Speaking in Arabic via a translator at a Hudson Institute event in Washington, Tarif said that fear of the Assads had limited the hand of the Druze in their four villages in the Golan. Under the new Syrian leader Abu Mohammad al-Julani, there is an opportunity for engagement, according to Tarif.
“We cannot forget that the previous regime was merciless,” he said. “When the 1973 war started, the first thing they struck was the Druze. Before they even struck the army.”
Israel captured the Golan Heights in 1967 and with it four predominantly Druze towns that maintain close relations with the Druze community across the border in Syria. Unlike the Druze communities that became part of Israel in 1948 and which are integrated into Israeli society as
citizens and often as volunteer soldiers, most of the Druze in the Golan Heights, in towns like Majdal Shams, rejected Israeli citizenship.
A Hezbollah rocket attack in Majdal Shams that struck a soccer field and killed 12 Druze children in July, and Assad’s fall in December, have raised the question whether the Druze in the Golan might be open to a new relationship with the Jewish state.
“The people of Majdal Shams were scared
Israeli-Emirati relations
When Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar met with his Emirati counterpart, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in Abu Dhabi on Jan. 7, it was the first exchange at that level since Oct. 7, 2023. Lower-level diplomatic engagements continued during Israel’s war against Hamas, and the United Arab Emirates, which condemned Hamas’s attack early on, often criticized the Jewish state’s prosecution of the war harshly in international fora.
“The reception by Sheikh Abdullah was clearly very warm and friendly, and so they put it all over the ministry of foreign affairs’ feed and out of the Emirati embassy in Washington,” Sievers, a former diplomat who served in the region, including as US envoy to Oman, told JNS.
Sievers, whose new role focuses on deepening ties between
to normalize or become citizens of Israel because of the Assad regime,” Tarif said. “Now the situation is different.”
“The barriers are broken. There are no more barriers,” he said. “Some of them I used to talk to in secret. Now they’re talking to me in public.”
The status of minorities, including the Druze, Christians and Alawites, in Julani’s Syria is one of the most pressing questions after the fall of Assad. Syria’s roughly 700,000 Druze make
up about 3% of the country’s population, with most living in the southeastern province of Suwayda, where they are a majority of the population, or around the capital Damascus. They have long faced oppression as an ethno-religious minority, which is usually described as a distinct Abrahamic religion separate from Islam. In recent years, they have faced persecution — ranging from forced conversion to massacres — from Sunni Islamist groups. In 2018, ISIS carried out a string of suicide bombings and other attacks in Suwayda that killed more than 250 Druze, and the terrorist group kidnapped more than 30 Druze women and children.
In 2015, members of the Nusrah Front, which was Syria’s al-Qaeda branch and the predecessor to Julani’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, shot 20 Druze in the northwest province of Idlib after accusing them of being infidels. Officials from the new government have said that they “guarantee” the religious rights of all Syrians, but many remain skeptical.
American Jews and Gulf leaders and citizens, doesn’t think it is a coincidence that an Emirati media report about the same time as the ministerial visit quoted official sources about an Emirati role in post-war Gaza. That wasn’t a new idea, according to Sievers, but it had added weight given the high-level diplomatic meeting.
The Jan. 7 meeting nudged Israeli-Emirati ties back into the spotlight, but Sievers told JNS that AJC never stopped working in the country, even as the war appeared to fray some of the bonds forged in the Abraham Accords.
“Certain things slowed down. Bringing visitors to Israel wasn’t really possible after Oct. 7, and there were a lot fewer Jewish and Israeli visitors coming here,” he said. “But there was always a dialog — we just did it without publicity and without calling attention to ourselves.” See Israeli on page 22
B yMike Wagenheim, JNS
With her husband and their young son in Jerusalem.
Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif, spiritual leader of the Druze community in Israel, speaks at a Hudson Institute event in Washington on Jan. 8. Andrew Bernard
Marc Sievers, a former US diplomat and director at American Jewish Committee in Abu Dhabi, with Mohammed Abdulla Al Ali, CEO of the think tank Trends Research and Advisory, in Abu Dhabi, UAE. AJ
Proudly Jewish. Proudly Zionist.
Jewish Star Torah columnists:
•Rabbi Avi Billet of Anshei Chesed, Boynton Beach, FL, mohel and Five Towns native •Rabbi David Etengoff of Magen David Yeshivah, Brooklyn •Rabbi Binny Freedman, rosh yeshiva of Orayta, Jerusalem
Contributing writers: •Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks zt”l,
former chief rabbi of United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth •Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh
Weinreb, OU executive VP emeritus •Rabbi Raymond Apple, emeritus rabbi, Great Synagogue of Sydney •Rabbi Yossy Goldman, life rabbi emeritus, Sydenham Shul, Johannesburg and president of the South African Rabbinical Association.
Moses’ second question to G-d at the Burning Bush was, “Who are You?” He asks G-d in the following way:
So I will go to the Israelites and say, “Your fathers’ G-d sent me to you.” They will immediately ask me what His name is. What shall I say to them? Ex. 3:13
G-d’s reply, Ehyeh asher ehyeh (wrongly translated in almost every Christian Bible as something like “I am that I am”) deserves an essay in its own right.
Moses’ first question, though, was, Mi anochi, “Who am I?”
“Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?” said Moses to G-d. “And how can I possibly get the Israelites out of Egypt?” Ex. 3:11
On the surface the meaning is clear. Moses is asking two things. The first: who am I, to be worthy of so great a mission? The second: how can I possibly succeed?
G-d answers the second. “Because I will be with you.” You will succeed because I am not asking you to do it alone. I am not really asking you to do it at all. I will be doing it for you. I want you to be My representative, My mouthpiece, My emissary and My voice.
G-d never answered the first question. Perhaps in a strange way Moses answered himself. In Tanach as a whole, the people who turn out to be the most worthy are the ones who deny they are worthy at all.
The Prophet Isaiah, when charged with his mission, said, “I am a man of unclean lips” (Is. 6:5). Jeremiah said, “I cannot speak, for I am a child” (Jer. 1:6). David, Israel’s greatest king, echoed Moses’ words, “Who am I?” (II Samuel 7:18). Jonah, sent on a mission by G-d, tried to run away. According to Rashbam, Jacob was about to run away when he found his way blocked by the man/angel with whom he wrestled at night (Rashbam to Gen. 32:23).
The heroes of the Bible are not figures from Greek or any other kind of myth. They are not people possessed of a sense of destiny, determined from an early age to achieve fame. They do not have what the Greeks called megalopsychia, a proper sense of their own worth, a gracious and lightly worn superiority. They did not go to Eton or Oxford. They were not born to rule. Instead, they were people who doubted
their own abilities, who became heroes of the moral life against their will. There were times when they felt like giving up. Moses, Elijah, Jeremiah and Jonah reached points of such despair that they prayed to die. But there was work to be done — G-d told them so — and they did it. It is almost as if a sense of smallness is a sign of greatness. So G-d never answered Moses’ question, “Why me?” but over time the answer revealed itself.
Still, there is another question within the question. “Who am I?” can be not just a question about worthiness. It can also be a question about identity. Moses, alone on the mountain, summoned by G-d to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, is not just speaking to G-d when he says those words. He is also speaking to himself. “Who am I?”
There are two possible answers.
The first: Moses is a prince of Egypt. He had been adopted as a baby by Pharaoh’s daughter. He had grown up in the royal palace. He dressed like an Egyptian, looked and spoke like an Egyptian. When he rescued Jethro’s daughters from some rough shepherds, they went home and told their father, “An Egyptian saved us” (2:19). His very name, Moses, was given to him by Pharaoh’s daughter (Ex. 2:10). It was, presumably, an Egyptian name (in fact, ‘Moses’, as in ‘Ramses’, is the ancient Egyptian word for “child”. The etymology given in the Torah, that Moses means “I drew him from the water,” tells us what the word suggested to Hebrew speakers). So the first answer is that Moses was an Egyptian prince.
The second was that he was a Midianite. For although he was Egyptian by upbringing, he had been forced to leave. He had made his home in Midian, married a Midianite woman - Tzipporah, daughter of a Midianite priest - and he had been “content to live” there, quietly as a shepherd. We tend to forget just how many years he spent there. He left Egypt as a young man and was already eighty years old at the start of his mission when he first stood before Pharaoh (Ex. 7:7). He must have spent the overwhelming majority of his adult life in Midian, far away from the Israelites on the one hand and the Egyptians on the other. Moses was a Midianite.
So when Moses asks, “Who am I?” it is not just that he feels himself unworthy. He feels himself uninvolved. He may have been Jewish by birth, but he had not suffered the fate of his people. He had not grown up as a Jew. He had not lived among Jews. He had good reason to doubt that the Israelites would even recognize him as one of them. How, then, could he become their leader?
More penetratingly, why should he even
Ruth was un-Jewish by birth. Moses was un-Jewish by upbringing. When they saw suffering and identified with the sufferer, neither could walk away.
think of becoming their leader? Their fate was not his. He was not part of it. He was not responsible for it. He did not suffer from it. He was not implicated in it.
What is more, the one time he had actually tried to intervene in their affairs — he killed an Egyptian taskmaster who had killed an Israelite slave, and the next day tried to stop two Israelites from fighting one another — his intervention was not welcomed.
“Who made you ruler and judge over us?” they said to him.
These are the first recorded words of an Israelite to Moses. He had not yet dreamed of being a leader and already his leadership was being challenged.
Consider, now, the choices Moses faced in his life. On the one hand he could have lived as a prince of Egypt, in luxury and at ease. That might have been his fate had he not intervened. Even afterward, having been forced to flee, he could have lived out his days quietly as a shepherd, at peace with the Midianite family into which he had married. It is not surprising that when G-d invited him to lead the Israelites to freedom, he resisted.
Why then did he accept? How did G-d know that he was the man for the task? One hint is contained in the name he gave his first son. He called him Gershom because, he said, “I am a stranger in a foreign land” (Ex. 2:22). He did not feel at home in Midian. That was where he was, but not who he was.
But the real clue is contained in an earlier verse, the prelude to his first intervention. “When Moses was grown, he began to go out to his own people, and he saw their hard labor” (Ex. 2:11).
These people were his people. He may have looked like an Egyptian but he knew that ultimately he was not. It was a transforming moment, not unlike when the Moabite Ruth said to her Israelite mother-in-law Naomi, “Your people will be my people and your G-d my G-d” (Ruth 1:16).
Ruth was un-Jewish by birth. Moses was unJewish by upbringing. But both knew that when they saw suffering and identified with the sufferer, they could not walk away.
Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik called this a covenant of fate, brit goral. It lies at the heart of Jewish identity to this day. There are Jews who believe and those who don’t. There are Jews who practice and those who don’t. But there are few Jews indeed who, when their people are suffering, can walk away saying, This has nothing to do with me.
Maimonides, who defines this as “separating yourself from the community” (poresh mi-darchai ha-tsibbur, Hilchot Teshuva 3:11), says that it is one of the sins for which you are denied a share in the world to come. This is what the Haggadah means when it says of the wicked son that “because he excludes himself from the collective, he denies a fundamental principle of faith.” What fundamental principle of faith? Faith in the collective fate and destiny of the Jewish people. Who am I? asked Moses, but in his heart he knew the answer.
I am not Moses the Egyptian or Moses the Midianite. When I see my people suffer I am, and cannot be other than, Moses the Jew. And if that imposes responsibilities on me, then I must shoulder them. For I am who I am because my people are who they are. That is Jewish identity, then and now.
Just one man can make all the difference
From Heart of Jerusalem Rabbi biNNY FREEDMaN Jewish Star columnist
Twenty-one-year-old Zvika Greengold had just been accepted into the prestigious Company Commanders course and given two weeks’ leave. He was home on his Kibbutz Lohamei HaGeta’ot near Haifa when, at 2 pm on Oct. 6, 1973, the Yom Kippur War began.
Nearly 2,000 Syrian tanks poured across the border in the Golan Heights while hundreds of thousands of Egyptian troops crossed the Suez Canal in the Sinai. Israeli troops, suffering unspeakable losses, scrambled to try and hold back the onslaught.
Capt. Greengold, a tank officer, sensed how bad things were and frantically started making his way across the country to the Golan where he understood the situation was dire. Syrian tanks were just a few hours from Tel Aviv and there was not much standing in their way.
Arriving at the IDF command center in Nafach on the Golan, a couple of hours before Syrian tanks burst through the gates, he found the army in disarray. Tank crewmen who had managed to get to the Golan had no idea what to do or where to go. Commandeering two tanks he hurriedly grabbed whatever crewmen he could find and within a few minutes was rolling out of the base with two tanks.
He called his unofficial unit “Koach Zvika” (Force Zvika) and managed to make contact with troops fighting in the southern Golan. As night fell, he set out on the Tapline Road, the same route used by the Syrians to cross the border and enter Israeli territory.
Almost immediately he encountered an entire company of Syrian tanks advancing towards the command center. Understanding that if the Golan fell, the entire coastal plain of Israel would soon follow, he advanced in the darkness towards the vastly superior Syrian force and by deft maneuvering and firing from multiple positions, was able to convince the Syrians that they were facing a far larger force of Israelis.
At one point, seeing a Syrian tank ten yards away, he fired at point-blank range, exploding the enemy tank just in time, but the blast hit his own tank and knocked out his radio. So he jumped from his tank in the midst of battle and ordered the second tank in his unit to continue fighting. Sending the second tank’s commander back to his original tank with no communications he ordered him to simply follow him and fire at his own discretion. But in the darkness the second tank lost its way and Zvika now faced the entire Syrian force alone.
Moments later he saw a column of hundreds of Syrian tanks headed across the Golan. Despite being outnumbered, he moved in and out of the darkness, firing on the Syrian tanks while remaining undetected. As the battle raged, he changed his position constantly, firing from different directions to give the perception of a much larger force. In an attempt to uncover the Israeli forces, the Syrians turned on their searchlights but discovered nothing, the light beams only helping Zvika and his tank crew identify more Syrian tanks and inflict greater losses. The Syrian forces, stunned by the attacks, retreated to avoid further casualties.
Throughout the night, as more Syrian tanks continued to pour over the northern border, Zvika continued to attack the Syrians from various positions. At one point, a Syrian tank lit his tank on fire, badly burning his crew. Although he suffered from burns and shock, he ran to another tank and took command of its crew. He con-
We must do our best when an opportunity arises, then leave the result to G-d.
tinued in this way for hours, striking at Syrian tanks and changing vehicles whenever his tank was disabled. When his gunner was wounded and overcome with shock and fatigue, Zvika simply took his place in the gunner’s position continuing to fire shells at the Syrian tanks.
Into the next day, the Zvika Force continued with other troops along the Tapline Road to confront the Syrians, refusing to retreat lest the Syrians press their advantage and discover they had really already won. Eventually, Israeli forces gained the upper hand, repelling the Syrian forces just as they were on the verge of breaking Israel’s defenses.
After more than 20 hours of battle, Cpt. Greengold got off his tank in the middle of the Nafah base. Exhausted, he fell to the ground. An intelligence officer brought him to an IDF medical center, where he was finally treated for his injuries. It is estimated that during the course of that fateful night, he and his crew destroyed 20 tanks and many more armored vehicles, some say as many as 60. At one point joined by eight tanks commanded by Lt. Colonel Uzi More, they charged an entire Syrian divison (360 tanks!).
Through the night, Zvika would not say on the radio how bad things were or even hint to the fact that he was only commanding one tank, afraid the Syrians might intercept his frequency and figure out he was all alone. Even his own superior officers were fooled: Colonel Yitzchak ben Shoham, commanding the 188th and later killed in the fighting, assumed he was commanding a force of at least a company of tanks.
After the Yom Kippur War, the IDF awarded Cpt. Greengold with a Medal of Valor for his extraordinary heroism.
Sometimes, one man, at the right place at the right time, can make all the difference.
This week’s portion of Shemos contains one of the most painful episodes in Jewish History as an entire people falls from grace in Egypt, eventually finding itself enslaved, its children murdered, with no end in sight. Then, when it seems as though no hope remains, G-d tells Moshe, that it is time — after 200 years — for the Jewish people to be redeemed.
In his famous encounter with G-d at the Burning Bush, Moshe is not sure he is the right man for the job, but eventually acquiesces to Gd’s command and leaves the safety and comfort of his home and family in Midian to journey to Egypt and confront Pharaoh.
Armed with a miraculous staff and the word
of G-d, one would imagine Moshe must be sure their redemption will occur almost immediately, but it does not work out that way: Pharaoh refuses to accept Moshe’s demand to free the Jewish people, instead withholding the straw they desperately need to fulfill their quota of bricks, causing them to sink deeper into despair until they groan under the burden of their misery. Eventually the Jews turn on their would-be saviors Moshe and Aaron (5:20-21) castigating them for making their situation even worse and doing nothing to hasten their redemption.
At this point, a curious dialogue ensues between Moshe and Pharaoh, which concludes the portion of Shemos in what seems to be the middle of the story. Moshe seems to challenge G-d:
“Why have you made things worse for this people, and why did you send me?” And Hashem responds to Moshe: “Now you will see that which I will do to Pharaoh, for with a strong hand I will send them forth (free them from Egypt).”
Rashi notes that Jewish tradition suggests Moshe is being castigated by G-d: “You questioned my ways? Says G-d: now you will see (the miracles I will do to Pharaoh when setting the Jews free) but later (when I bring the Jewish people home to Israel ) you will not see (i.e., You will not enter the land.”
There must be some legitimacy to Moshe’s claim that the Jewish people are suffering, for G-d says the redemption will begin, but he must have also said something wrong. So what part of Moshe’s claim was right, and what was wrong?
Moshe actually asks G-d two challenging questions:
•Why have you, G-d, made things worse for the Jewish people?
•Why, if things are worse for them, did you send me here?
We might at first glance assume the first is a reasonable inquiry — a true leader is in pain when his people suffer, so perhaps it is good Moshe challenges even G-d on His causing the enslaved Jews to suffer even more. But the second question suggests a certain presumptuousness above Moshe’s pay grade: Moshe is questioning why Hashem sent him to Egypt! Who are we to question G-d’s ways?
Yet in fact it the second question is praised in Jewish tradition and Moshe is taken to task for the first question.
So what then, is the nature of this second question? What is Moshe suggesting by asking why he was sent?
Rav Avigdor Nevehnsahl in his Sichot Le’Sefer Shemos suggests that while the end result is always in Hashem’s hands, our own role in it is another thing entirely.
As an example, when Moshe resists Hashem’s urgings to redeem the Jewish people (ibid. chapter 3) at the Burning Bush, one wonders how he could cause the redemption to be delayed, even for a moment. After all, if he had not argued with G-d he would have begun the redemption that much sooner, so how could he cause the Jewish people to continue to suffer even for a day?
But in truth, the redemption of the Jewish people was always meant to happen on the day it happened, the only question was what role Moshe would play. And if his hesitation was because he worried about whether his being chosen would cause pain to his older brother Aaron who had remained in Egypt all the many years Moshe was in Midian, (see Rashi ibid. 4:13) then he was right to suggest that he wanted to be a force for redemption and not for pain.
What a powerful message: Moshe was willing to give up perhaps the most important role in history; the redemption of the Jewish people from Egypt and the receiving of the Torah at Sinai, simply to avoid causing pain to his brother! Because in the end we have to do the best we can to be doing the right thing at the right time and then we can leave it to G-d to ensure the result is as it should be.
Just like Capt. Zvika Gringold, who could not imagine that with one tank he would stop an entire Syrian division. And indeed that was not his job. His job was to fight with every ounce of strength he had, in every moment, to stop the one tank in front of him, and leave it to Hashem to decide what the actual result of it would all be.
In whatever moment we find ourselves, we need only decide what we are meant to do based on what we think Hashem wants of us in that moment, and be sure we do our best. After that we can trust that Hashem will make sure the result will happen as it was always meant to be. Ultimately, the Jewish people will be redeemed and come home to the land of Israel, just as it was always meant to be. The only question is what role we get to play on that journey. Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem. Rabbi Freedman is rosh yeshiva at Yeshivat Orayta in Jerusalem. To reach him, write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
Destroyed Israeli tank on the Golan Heights near the border with Syria, after the Yom Kippur War in 1973.
We know him as Moshe Rabbenu, Moses our Master, Moses our Teacher, Moses our Master Teacher.
But is it his name, given to him by an Egyptian princess, that grants him the role of this week’s central personality? I think not.
Do the titles “master” and “teacher” themselves affirm that he is larger than life, an individual forever of central importance, beginning with the events described in this week’s Torah portion, Shemos (Exodus 1:1-6:1), and continuing to this very day?
I prefer to believe that it is the suffix of the word “Rabbenu,” the “nu” which means “our,” that makes Moshe special. He is “our” master, “our” teacher, the outstanding personage of the Jewish people. In a sense, he is the property of the faith of Judaism, to the exclusion of other faiths and other nations.
True, he is revered by our “sister” religions and is honorably mentioned in their sacred writings. For other faiths, he is a prophet, a hero, per-
haps even a “saint.” But he is not their teacher, not their masterful authority figure. The Torah, the comprehensive guide to every aspect of our lives as Jews, is Torat Moshe. The Torah is our guide in life, and Moshe is our shepherd.
Many of us are not aware of the fact that Moshe has been claimed by non-Jews besides the other Abrahamic religions. His very identity as a Jew, an Israelite, has been challenged from many directions. It has been maintained by many who argue that he was an Egyptian, a prince of Egypt, who sought further power and a loftier position of leadership by aligning himself with the enslaved Israelites.
Such arguments were advanced in ancient times and persisted in recent generations in German literature and in Hollywood productions.
One fascinating argument for Moshe’s nonJewish origins was advanced by a famous Jew who had his own bone to pick with religion in general and with Jewish religion in particular. I refer to Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, and the author of “Moses and Monotheism.”
Freud published this work later in his life, when his influence and fame were at their peak, and it met with approval from many quarters. It also met with a cascade of criticism and vociferous opposition from defenders of the Jewish
faith, those who insisted that Moshe was Rabbenu, “our” teacher.
One such critic was a mid-twentieth century writer named Chaim Greenberg (1889-1953). Greenberg was a Labor Zionist activist and prolific writer who was among the most severe critics of the American Jewish community’s response to news of the Holocaust. Although some of his many writings have been translated into English, I possess a multi-volume collection of his Yiddish essays that I find very perceptive, and that express many traditional Jewish values in a manner which only the Yiddish language can fully capture.
Greenberg wrote a searing rebuttal to Freud’s thesis in 1939, going so far as to mock it as nonsense. I do not know whether his rebuttal had any great impact upon the rest of the world, which was then distracted, to say the least, by the rise of Nazism. But I do know that many Jews were grateful to Greenberg for demolishing Freud’s contention that not only was Moshe an Egyptian, but that monotheism itself had its origins in ancient Egyptian culture.
I imagine that many Jews were then quite pleased that Greenberg’s rebuttal issued from a distinctly non-rabbinic source, from a Labor Zionist publicist with impeccable secular credentials. I should add that my readings of
When the Israelites leave Egypt, there is much discussion as to how they received the wealth they took with them from Egypt. Was it borrowed, taken — or received as a gift or payment for the years of servitude? All of these approaches are discussed by the commentaries.
In her article on this subject, Nechama Leibowitz records a unique approach suggested by Josephus, who says, “The Egyptians honored them with these gifts, [some] in order to hasten their departure, and others out of the good neighborliness and the friendship they bore them. When they went forth the Egyptians wept and suffered remorse for the way they had treated them ill.”
This approach hints to a society in which there was more than mere awareness of “the
other,” there was a familiarity between the natives and the visiting-slaves.
What, therefore, is the meaning of the message G-d gives Moshe at the burning bush, as to what “the Israelites will do to or for the Egyptians when they leave with silver vessels, gold vessels, and clothing?”
Shemot 3:22 says, “V’nitzaltem et Mitzrayim,” which Artscroll translates as, “You shall empty out Egypt.” The Living Torah (Aryeh Kaplan) suggests, “You will thus drain Egypt [of its wealth].” Rabbi S.R. Hirsch (as translated to English by David Haberman) has it as, “You will cause Egypt to deplete themselves.”
“Ye shall spoil the Egyptians,” meaning, you’ll take all their possessions as spoils, reads the Soncino Chumash.
Benno Jacob’s commentary on this verse suggests that owing to the root of “v’nitzaltem” (to save), and the fact that the word, when it appears elsewhere in Tanach, never has the direct object (in this case “Egypt”) as being the one from whom the saving takes place (the direct object is always the one being saved), it must mean “You will save the Egyptians” (you
will clear their name, and vindicate the humanity of the Egyptians).
Afriendly parting and generous gifts would smooth the departure, avoid bitter feelings, and restore a sense of humanity to the term “Egyptians.” As Rabbi J.H. Hertz quotes Benno Jacob, “The Israelites would come to see that the oppressors were Pharaoh and his courtiers, not the Egyptian people.”
He concludes with the suggestion that this view would help them carry out the mitzvah in Devarim 23:8, “Not to abhor an Egyptian.” He says, “It is for this reason that the Israelites are bidden to ask their neighbors for these gifts, to ensure such a parting in friendship and goodwill, with its consequent clearing of the name and vindication of the honor of the Egyptian people.”
Many would like to argue that it is the loudmouth leadership in rogue regimes that become the mouthpiece for unfortunate silent majorities who would not agree with their government’s actions if they had a chance to express an opinion without fearing for their lives. Was that the case in Egypt?
Greenberg’s many works have led me to admire his Yiddishe neshama and thorough familiarity with a wide range of traditional Torah sources. The rebuttal to which I refer is included in Greenberg’s collection of essays entitled Yid un Velt (“The Jew and the World”). The title of the essay is “Moshe Rabbenu Foon Der Gantzer Velt” (“Moses Our Teacher of the Entire World”). Note the implication that although Moshe had universal impact, he remained Rabbenu, “our” teacher. But the essay’s title comes from a long-forgotten Yiddish nursery rhyme, which translates as follows:
Moshe Rabbenu of the entire world (velt), Throw me down a small sack of money (gelt). What will you do with the small sack of money? I will buy myself a little wagon. What will you do with the little wagon? I will load it with little pebbles. What will you do with little pebbles? I will build myself a little shul. What will you do in the little shul? I will daven Mincha and Maariv!
The meaning of this childlike poem is quite clear. The child conceives of Moshe as simultaneously “our” Teacher and the Teacher of the entire universe. But he carries within his pure and innocent soul the conviction that the ul-
Weinreb on page 22
Not every Jew in slaveland Egypt was a heel Ode to Moshe Rabbenu, our Master, our Teacher
The approach suggested by Benno Jacob lends itself to the possibility that like the rows of trees at Yad Vashem dedicated to righteous gentiles who saved Jews during the Holocaust, not everyone in ancient Egypt was a cruel taskmaster.
If we believe in the possibility that humans are capable of being, want to be, or are good, we need to create opportunities for others to demonstrate this. We must open our minds to the possibility that those who seem to be the bitterest of our enemies may be stuck behind a façade they cannot break through on account of fear.
Let us pray that those itching to befriend our people can do so in peace, and with no fear for their lives; that they can have the redeeming experience they so desperately need in order to live out their lives as free men and women.
Excerpted from a previously published column. Avi Billet, who grew up in the Five Towns, is a South Florida-based mohel and rabbi of Anshei Chesed Congregation in Boynton Beach. This column was previously published. To reach Rabbi Billet, write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
K’ish Echad b’lev Echad (one people, one heart)
As B’nei Yisrael embark on the next stage of their national development with the end of their enslavement in Egypt, unity plays a pivitol role in their success.
Having reconnected with Yosef, the brothers, now the tribes, remain united, becoming numerous and strong. But once Yosef died and as a “new king arose” (Shemot 1:9), the stage was set for divisiveness and opportunism. Yet the Torah tells us that Yosef, the first of the brothers to die, personally saw three generations through Ephraim — “vayaar Yosef l’Ephraim bnei shileishim” (Bereishit 50:23).
Although only Yosef is the brother explicitly mentioned in the Torah as knowing his family for three generations, we may assume that all the brothers, the leaders of their eponymous
tribes, also personally knew their great grandchildren, because they died after Yosef.
Let’s take this thought experiment one step further. Each brother might influence their own tribe and make certain they stayed true to their tradition and heritage, but they could not necessarily influence the other tribes. Let’s say, G-d forbid, one of the brothers (or his son, or grandson or greatgrandson), decides, “you know what, I want to go out on my own, with new beliefs, customs and ideas.” That would have been the end of the whole enterprise; the building of a nation would have been stillborn!
That is why achdut (unity) is vital to survival and success.
Unity does not mean conformity. Just as each tribe upon the Exodus had its own flag and banner, position and location in travel and their own mission statement, they pledged to act as one nation, one people, united under Hashem. Chazal tell us that we became a “people,” Am at Har Sinai, when we stood as an am echad “k’ish echad, b’lev echad” (as one man with one heart) (Rashi, quoting the mechilta,
But as this week’s parsha, Shemot, tells us, the first person to call us a “people,” an am, is our enemy, the new Pharaoh (or perhaps an old Pharaoh with new policies) — “Hinei am b’nei Yisrael, rav v’atzum mimenu” (Behold the people, the Children of Israel, are more numerous and stronger than we.”
Just as many declare that this is the first recorded official statement of antisemitism, it should be clear to us that it is the first public recognition of us as one people, one nation, an am.
Of course, our history throughout the Tanach is filled with internal division. We therefore must be vigilant to overcome this all too human behavior.
Hashem gave us the Torah to guide us, to overcome “natural inclinations or behaviors” — including the inclination to brotherly hatred. As Rabi Akiva taught us, “zeh klal gadol baTorah” (this is the most important principle in the Torah), that will guarantee us survival, strength, success, victory, and ultimate redemption.
This is reinforced in the haftarot of Shemot. Two entirely separate haftarot — the Ashkenazi from sefer Yeshayahu, and the Sefardi from sefer Yirmiyahu. Both hint of a dark future ahead, the loss of the 10 tribes in Isaiah and the loss of Judah and Jerusalem in Jeremiah, which parallels the slavery and persecution in Egypt in our parsha.
But both ultimately refer to Israel in hopeful terms:
“You will be gathered up one by one, O’ Children of Israel” (Isaiah 27:12) and “Israel is holy to Hashem, the first of His crop” (Jeremiah 2:3).
“Gathered up one by one” but brought together as “the first of His crop,” in unity and victory.
“Israel is holy to Hashem, the first of His crop; whoever devours it will be held guilty — evil shall come upon them! — these are the words of Hashem.”
Shabbat Shalom
Dr. Alan A. Mazurek is a retired neurologist, living in Great Neck, Jerusalem and Florida. He is a former chairman of the ZOA. To reach him, write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
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Trump’s response to ‘scholasticide’: Defund
The vocabulary of contemporary antisemitism is somewhat limited. Its supporters have been forced to invent new meanings for old words like genocide to distract the world from the murderous intentions and actions of Palestinian groups like Hamas and to falsely label Israel’s defensive war against the terrorists as both criminal and intended to wipe out all Palestinian Arabs.
Yet as bad as that might be, those who are determined to justify the war against the Jewish state as a righteous rather than a genocidal cause must also come up with new language. That’s necessary if they are going to mobilize every possible constituency to join their perverted campaign to erase the Jewish state and wipe out the Jews.
One such word is “scholasticide.”
The term entered public discourse this week because members of the American Historical Association voted at its annual meeting in New York in favor of a resolution accusing Israel of “scholasticide” in the Gaza Strip. It also condemned US support for the war on Hamas and demanded an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza without so much as a single mention of terrorism or even lip service to the question of releasing the nearly 100 hostages still being held by the Islamist group.
Norm in academia
As a rule, this association and its obscure doings receive no attention from the media. Yet as with other similarly insignificant groups, it generated a lot of publicity, including an article in the New York Times, by adding its collective voice to the anti-Israel and often openly antisemitic agitation that has become normative in academia.
That such an organization is dominated by left-wingers and has swallowed the big lie that Israel and the Jews are “white” oppressors and supporters of “apartheid” is not newsworthy. Such resolutions at otherwise insignificant gatherings that exist more to help desperate unemployed persons with worthless degrees get jobs than any scholarly purpose are a dime a dozen these days. Indeed, it is news when some aca-
demic group doesn’t condemn Israel and lend its support to the war against its existence.
However, the timing of this particular vote is significant.
Coming as it does only days before Presidentelect Donald Trump takes office, it is an important reminder of the debate about what the federal government — a vital source of funding for almost all universities — can do about the surge of antisemitism that has swept across the country, particularly on college campuses since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The vote of association members has given the country a well-timed wake-up call. While the writing has been on the wall for years, with Trump back in office, something can finally be done about the way the mandarins of American higher education have effectively joined the ranks of the Jew-haters.
Their debate — during which these wouldbe scholars booed and tried to shout down those who spoke against the anti-Israel resolution before it was approved by a vote of 428-88 — opens a window into the bizarre world of self-satisfied and arrogant leftist ideologues most Americans are unaware of.
The American Historical Association’s allegation illustrates how corrupt and anti-intellectual the leftist-dominated academic world has become.
Justifying Trump’s plans
As Pamela Paul, a liberal opinion columnist at the New York Times noted with some concern, the problem with the resolution isn’t just that it is untethered to the facts about the conflict. Nor is it only a mistake because it can only serve to encourage more campus unrest where pro-Hamas mobs of students, faculty and staff have intimidated Jews and expressed support for the genocide of the Jews (“from the river to the sea”) and terrorism (“globalize the intifada”).
As Paul wrote, the thing that ought to worry these academics the most is the fact that it will provide more motivation for Trump to “crack down” on left-wing activists at the many schools where antisemitism is not just normative, but enabled by the indifference and tacit support of faculty and administrators.
She’s right about that but wrong in asserting that this would be a bad thing that the supposedly smart people who attend such meetings ought not to encourage.
To the contrary, the historians have provided Trump with yet another example of more than just their lack of rigorous scholarship. They have also given him, as well as those who will soon run the US Department of Education and the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, proof that schools that incite hatred against Israel and the Jews under the cover of academic instruction are violating Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which forbids such discriminatory conduct. Up until now, when complaints have been reg-
istered, these institutions have been given slaps on the wrist or induced to make empty promises of better behavior in the future. Instead, Trump should ensure that those schools that have incorporated falsehoods and misinformation about Israeli “genocide” and “scholasticide” as a part of everyday teaching are stripped of federal funding.
‘Education’ in Gaza Strip
According to those who advocate for the use of “scholasticide” to describe events in Gaza, the term was coined specifically to smear Israel during the first of the wars Hamas initiated against the Jewish state in 2008. As with other anti-Israel tactics, it is an argument that is fundamentally rooted in deception and lies that count on the ignorance of those that it seeks to influence.
The schools that have been destroyed in Gaza are routinely used by Hamas to store weapons, shelter terrorists and launch rockets against Israeli civilians. The historians ignored the fact that this makes them legal targets. More than that, education in Gaza — whether operated directly by Hamas or by the UN Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) — is an essential element in the Islamist war to eradicate Israel.
Hamas and UNRWA (whose purpose is to perpetuate the conflict, employing Hamas members and some active terrorists) schools help indoctrinate Palestinian Arab children to hate Israel and the Jews, and to believe the continuation of the futile century-old war against Zionism is an essential element of their identity.
Contrary to the historian’s resolutions, the Israel Defense Forces do not deliberately seek to destroy schools. However, when Hamas uses such buildings as launchpads to fire on Israeli citizens, the IDF cannot and should not let them be safe spaces for carrying out the murder of Jews.
The claim is also ironic because it is only since June 1967, when Israel came into possession of Judea and Samaria, that educational institutions run by the Palestinian Arabs were given the funding and opportunity to serve that population. It’s also absurd since the whole point of anti-Zionist invective — whether from Palestinians or their foreign supporters — against Israel is to essentially erase Jewish history. It is only by denying the fact that Jews are the indigenous people of the country whose roots, amply documented by the Bible in addition to archeological evidence, date back thousands of years and long before the arrival of any Muslims.
But there’s more to this controversy than the absurd and ahistorical allegation of Israeli “scholasticide” against Palestinian Arabs.
Twisting language
The twisting of language to justify the antise-
See Tobin
JoNaThaN S. TobiN
JNS Editor-in-Chief
Palestinians at an UNRWA school in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip after an Israeli airstrike targeted terrorists, on June 6, 2024. Abed Rahim Khatib, Flash90
4 ways to cherish the ‘chosenness’ of Jews
SHLOMO
The idea that the Jews are the “Chosen People” is not particularly fashionable, even among many Jews. It’s viewed as sectarian, supremacist and even racist. Here are four ways that all of us, Jews and nonJews, can embrace the idea.
1. The Jews are chosen to choose life
Near the end of the Torah in the 19th chapter of the book of Deuteronomy, our teacher Moses, in his final address, told us that we need to make a choice. Forty years beforehand, he led us out of slavery in Egypt, and we became a free people. He led us to Mount Sinai and gave us the Torah, and we became Bnei Chorin — a people with the freedom to choose. At the end of his life, Moses tells us what to choose:
With Heaven and Earth as witnesses, I have placed before you life and death, blessing and curse, and I call for you this day, to choose life.
Ever since those words were first spoken more than 3,000 years ago, the Jews have been choosing life. The last 2,000 years of exile have been filled with examples of difficult circumstances in which “choosing life” was not easy. But we have followed our teacher’s instructions and have stubbornly chosen life.
The first way of embracing the Jews’ chosenness is to view it as the Jews’ “choosing-ness.” We are the people with an unshakeable commitment to choosing life.
2. The Jews are chosen to survive and thrive
The Jews have been ruled and often oppressed by the great powers of the Middle East — the ancient Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Medes, the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines and many more. This long period of foreign domination ended on May 14, 1948, when the British flag came down, and the blue-and-white Star of David went up.
All that is left of the ancient empires that ruled Israel are museum relics. However, the nation that was oppressed by all the great Middle Eastern powers is now the mightiest in the region.
Before Western civilization conquered and connected the world, thousands of native peoples lived on our planet. Each had a unique language, culture and spiritual tradition with most of them residing in the land of their ancestors.
Anthropologists tell us that in California alone, some 500 distinct cultural groups existed before the arrival of the Europeans. Very few of these survived the confrontation with the juggernaut of Western civilization. Yet
somehow, the Jewish people managed to survive—and not just survive but to thrive. They became leading contributors to the cultures of the societies in which they lived.
Most exceptionally, they maintained their native Jewish way of life, their connection to the land of Israel and their yearning to return to that land.
We just celebrated the Jewish holiday that marks the first time the Jewish people successfully confronted the overwhelming power and allure of Western (Greek) civilization. This feat of cultural and spiritual resilience has been repeated countless times since then. The lights of the chanukiah (the
Just as out of all the women of the world, a man’s wife is his beloved, so, too, out of all the nations of the world, the Jews are G-d’s beloved.
Chanukah lamp) are still shining more brightly than ever and in more places on Earth than ever before.
No other people have come close to manifesting such extraordinary vitality. As Mark Twain said: “All things are mortal but the Jew.” The Jewish people are chosen for a special physical and spiritual vitality and a special light to shine in the whole world.
3. The Jews are chosen to bless the world
Jews constitute just 0.2% of the world’s population, but nearly onequarter of Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry and medicine have gone to Jews. Likewise, the Jewish contribution to innovative technology, the arts, social justice, political causes and more is way out of proportion to our numbers. There is something in the Jewish psyche that gives us a special drive to dream of a more perfect world and to help move us towards that better world.
The Jews’ chosenness is not an
intertwined with one another. It is such an intimate and special moment. In light of this, it would seem more appropriate to keep the walls of the chuppah closed for privacy. However, tradition dictates that the walls of the chuppah remain open, and everyone present can witness this intimacy. Something very special happens then.
There’s a wave of love and joy that flows out from the chuppah and fills the assembled guests with a spirit of love and joy. Rather than just a private intimate experience, the wedding becomes a collective experience of love and joy. It seems that the more intensely and exclusively the bride and groom are focused on one another, the more intense the shared experience of love among all those present.
If the bride or groom violates the intimacy by waving to the crowd, the spell is broken, and the shared sense of love and joy disappears. Somehow, it’s the very particularity of their love only for one another that opens up the channel of love for everyone around them.
In Chapter 14 of Deuteronomy, Moses declares to the Jewish people:
“You are kadosh to the L-rd, your G-d; the L-rd has chosen you to be a treasured people for Him, out of all the nations that are upon the earth.” Just as out of all the women of the world, a man’s wife is his beloved, so, too, out of all the nations of the world, the Jews are G-d’s beloved.
There’s a name for the experience of love and joy that happens at a Jewish wedding. It’s called the Shechinah, the manifestation of the Divine Presence, which we experience as love and joy and a desire to come close to each other and our Creator.
I learned from my teacher, Rabbi Daniel Kohn of Bat Ayin, that what happens on a small scale at weddings is meant to happen on a big scale when the Jewish people reciprocate G-d’s desire for intimacy with us.
We’ve been scarred and traumatized by exile. But G-d has been faithful to us. He has brought us back to our homeland, reconstituted our nationhood, and returned us to Zion — to G-d’s chosen place in Jerusalem on the Temple Mount. Over the last 75 years and especially in the 15 months since Oct 7, G-d has shown us countless miracles.
entitlement to special privilege; it’s an obligation to bestow blessing. As G-d told our forefather, Abraham: “Through your descendants, all the nations of the earth will be blessed.”
The Jews are the people committed to bringing blessings to humankind.
4. The Jews are chosen to be G-d’s beloved
The Jewish wedding takes place beneath a special canopy, the chuppah, under which the bride (kallah) and groom (chatan) become husband and wife. Surrounding the canopy are the family and guests.
For the bride and groom, it’s one of the most special and intimate moments of their lives. At the beginning of the ceremony, the bride encircles the groom seven times. Then the groom encircles the bride’s finger with a ring. Then he declares: “You are kadosh (sacred) to me.”
In this ceremony, the separated souls of the bride and groom become
The many enemies that surrounded us with a ring of fire have crumbled one after another, and the Jews in Israel have discovered that we’re a nation crowded with incredibly heroic human beings.
G-d is inviting the Jewish people to take our place with Him so that the Shechinah can return and the whole world can be filled with love and joy and a desire to connect to one another and to our Maker.
Many Jews have rejected the concept of chosenness as chauvinistic and as an obstacle to meaningful and deep relationships with non-Jews. In fact, our chosenness is just the opposite. It’s the gateway to a deeper relationship with non-Jews, with each other and with G-d.
By embracing our identity as G-d’s chosen people, we empower ourselves to be heroes in the story of Man and help bring us together as one beautiful blue globe in G-d’s vast universe. Shlomo Vile, webmaster and digital marketing director for JNS, made aliyah with his family in 2010. Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
“Wedding Under the Stars” by Elisheva Shira.
Used with permission by the artist
Fake Gaza genocide meets real one in Sudan
GLOBAL FOCUS BEN COHEN
For more than a year, Jews inside and outside the State of Israel have been besieged by false claims of the “genocide” of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
The rhetoric of the pro-Hamas mob — “We don’t want no Zionists here,” “Go back to Poland” and so on — has been ugly enough to make Nazi Germany proud. The real-world impact — arson and gun attacks on synagogues and other Jewish institutions from Canada to Australia, a pogrom in Amsterdam, physical and sexual assaults on those wearing identifiably Jewish symbols, creeping discrimination against “Zionists” in the worlds of art and medicine and academia, and too many other such episodes to comprehensively list here — is all too reminiscent of Nazi thuggery.
There is no longer any doubt that Jewish
The obsession with Jews and Israel diverts attention from humanitarian crises that are far more dire than Gaza and far more intractable.
communities are facing the worst upsurge of antisemitism since World War II. At the root of the current onslaught is what my JNS colleague Melanie Phillips calls “Palestinianism,” which, she argues, “seeks to write the Jews out of their country, their history and the world.” That explains the fixation with affixing the label “genocide” to Israel’s military response to the atrocities of Oct. 7, 2023, which were themselves an act of genocide, intentionally targeting Jews because they are Jews living in their historic homeland.
Yet in public relations terms, we have to concede that this has been a blood libel with legs, embraced not just by the keffiyeh-clad automatons but by governments from Ireland to South Africa, as well as by the United Nations, whose secretary-general, António Guterres, opined last September to his eternal shame that he had “never seen such a level of death and destruction as we are seeing in Gaza in the last few months.”
It’s important to recognize that the trauma Jews have experienced since Oct. 7 has also impacted non-Jews. I don’t mean our immediate neighbors in Europe and North America who, apart from a courageous and vocal minority, have followed in the ignoble tradition of their forebears by looking the other way. I am referring to those minorities and stateless nations around the world whose fate at the hands of repressive regimes and their proxy militias has been drowned out by the noise of the pro-Hamas mob and its enablers.
Silence and indifference have greeted the Turkish regime’s bloodthirsty pledge to “eliminate” the Kurdish-led, US-backed resistance forces in Syria in the wake of the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s vile dictatorship. The same UN Human Rights Council that lambastes Israel last month co-hosted a “human rights” conference with the same Chinese Communist
Party that is waging a genocide in the northwestern region of Xinjiang.
It’s the ongoing slaughter in Sudan, however, that really exposes the moral rot at the heart of “Palestinianism.” For the first time since the term “genocide” was given legal standing with the 1948 adoption of the UN Genocide Convention, the world’s attention has been gripped by a fake genocide while a real one has been raging at the same time. Hamas propaganda preying on the minds of the stupid and the gullible in our own societies is largely to thank for this sordid outcome, which leaves an indelible stain on Western civilization.
Since the outbreak of Sudan’s latest civil war in 2023, the Biden administration has placed the issue at the bottom of its foreign-policy pile. But
one of the last acts of outgoing Secretary of State Antony Blinken was to issue a Jan. 7 statement concluding that “members of the RSF and allied militias have committed genocide in Sudan.” Too little, too late, certainly, but not wholly useless.
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are an outgrowth of the feared Janjaweed paramilitaries that carried out a genocide in the western region of Darfur 20 years ago. The latest fighting followed the decision of RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as “Hemedti,” to split with the military government that took power in a 2021 coup in Khartoum.
As Blinken correctly pointed out, both the military regime and the RSF “bear responsibility for the violence and suffering in Sudan and
See Cohen on page 22
US should declare UNRWA a terrorist body
Middle East Analysis
The last few weeks have not been good for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). They were, therefore, good for humanity.
Two senior UNRWA staffers indicated in a New York Times article that the UN agency will shut operations in Judea and Samaria, as well as in the Gaza Strip.
Israel has declared UNRWA to be a terrorist organization and bans it in the Jewish state effective Jan. 28.
The United States should follow suit on Jan. 20, the day Donald Trump is sworn in as president. UNRWA employees raided, raped, murdered and abducted Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, 2023, thus becoming a foreign terrorist organization or FTO. The US should classify it as such, bankrupt it and destroy it.
Let’s review the case:
It is now beyond dispute that UNRWA employees took part in the Oct. 7 massacre, rape and kidnapping of 1,200 men, women and children. In August, the UN agency issued a mealy-mouthed admission of this.
UNRWA’s admission of employing terrorists should make this an open-and-shut case. Yet nothing involving the UN ever is.
Months before, in April, the Israeli government issued a report detailing UNRWA’s participation on Oct. 7. As of the date of the report, Israel identified 12 UNRWA employees for whom they had photographic and other evidence. That does not mean there were only 12 UNRWA employees involved, only that 12 were caught on camera.
Of the 12, seven were teachers, two were school counselors, and the others were humanitarian-aid warehouse managers.
On Oct. 7, 2023, UNRWA “social worker”
Faisal Ali Mussalem al-Naami was caught on camera dragging the body of 21-year-old Jonathan Samerano. He murdered Samerano in the rear of an SUV.
•A little more than a year later, on Oct. 24, 2024, the Israel Defense Forces eliminated Mohammad Abu Itiwi. He was a Hamas commander who led one of the assaults on Oct. 7, murdering and abducting Israeli civilians who were already
fleeing from the Nova music festival. His day job? He drove UN-associated vehicles for UNRWA.
•In another case, an UNRWA teacher was caught holding hostages for 50 days in brutal conditions.
•At least 30 more UNRWA staff members served in support roles for Hamas on Oct. 7. There is a mountain of evidence; Israel has 1,000 team members assigned to the job.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken described the evidence against UNRWA as “highly, highly credible.”
UNRWA’s admission should make this an open-and-shut case. Yet nothing involving the United Nations ever is. To satisfy the skeptical, let’s peel back the next putrefied layers of this onion.
Israel details 485 UNRWA employees who are (or were) active members of Hamas’ armed military wing, including commanders. Docu-
mented cases are too numerous to list here, but they include educators and school principals who were Hamas commanders. Israel warned UNRWA of the problem before Oct. 7, yet the agency did nothing.
The next layer of the onion includes UNRWA employees who are actual members of foreign terror groups, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad or others but not confirmed members of the military wings. According to Israel, nearly 1,470 people fall into this category.
The United Nations does not consider Hamas to be a terrorist organization and permits Hamas members to work for UNRWA. “Oh, I am sure that there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll, and I don’t see that as a crime,” said former UNRWA commissioner-general Peter Hansen in 2004.
While UNRWA might not care that its employees work for and collaborate with Hamas and other FTOs, the United States does. The United States classified Hamas as an FTO in 1997.
Another layer of the onion is UNRWA’s history of permitting US-designated FTOs to borrow its facilities. They even let Hamas use UNRWA’s headquarters until Israel destroyed the campus in July.
The next layer of UNRWA’s rotten onion is the funding of terror. UNRWA funds terror in two primary ways. First, it skims donor money. Second, it creates thousands of phantom “jobs” for FTO members who pursue their real career: jihad. UNRWA employees have an improbably high absenteeism rate. Some never show up.
UNRWA has no independent outside auditor. It does not follow GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) or other accepted accounting procedures. It deliberately obfuscates and hides expenses. Billions of dollars are unaccounted for.
The last layer, for purposes of US anti-terror statutes, is UNWRA’s general support for FTOs. A large percentage of UNRWA’s
See Robbins on page 22
Screengrab from a Voice of America report on those who have fled Sudan for refugee camps in Chad as part of an ongoing civil war, May 16, 2023. Henry Wilkins, VOA via WikiCommons
RAMI CHRIS ROBBINS
UNRWA social worker Faisal Ali Mussalem al-Naami (rear), carrying the body of a murdered Israeli man, is seen along with another terrorist at Kibbutz Be’eri, Oct. 7, 2023. South First Responders, Telegram
Weinreb…
Continued from page 18
timate “universe” is the little shul and the Jewish evening prayers!
My experience as a child psychologist has led me to take children’s songs, nursery rhymes, and fairy tales quite seriously. But the long-forgotten song I just shared with you is merely the opening of Greenberg’s long-forgotten essay.
After commenting with his own sense of pride in the Jewish Moshe Rabbenu, he shares this comment from the works of the greatest of all Jewish poets, Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi. Here is what he writes, in my own inadequate translation from his lucid and vibrant Yiddish:
How did Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi put it so many centuries ago? He insisted that Israel received its place in world history not thanks to Moshe Rabbenu. Quite the contrary — Moshe Rabbenu became great because of Israel! Therefore, Jews refer to themselves not as Moshe’s people, but as G-d’s people.
Moshe alone, without a people prepared to accept the Torah and travel with him to Mount Sinai, would never have become Moshe Rabbenu! His teachings would have been neglected and forgotten by world history.
Moshe owed his glory to the Jewish people who followed him into the desert and who follow him to this day. Therefore, the Jewish people “own” him. He was, and remains, Rabbenu — “our” teacher.
Indeed, “Torah tziva lanu Moshe, morasha Kehilat Yaakov. The Torah Moshe commanded us is the heritage of the Congregation of Yaakov.” (Deuteronomy 33).
To reach Rabbi Weinreb, write: Columnist@ TheJewishStar.com
Tobin…
Continued from page 19
mitic campaign against Zionism, Israel and the Jews is just as important to the “pro-Palestine” cause as their rationalizations of terrorism and the barbaric atrocities of Oct. 7 as legitimate “resistance.” That’s especially true about their now routine misuse of the term genocide to describe Israeli actions rather than those of Hamas. Genocide refers to a deliberate campaign to wipe out an entire people. It was coined in the aftermath of the Holocaust because there was no existing term to describe a national policy, such as that of the Nazi regime in Germany, which aimed at the complete extermination of a people. It was created by Rafael Lemkin, a Polish Jewish lawyer and lifelong Zionist who survived the Holocaust and devoted his life to the study of mass atrocities. As zealous as he was about documenting war crimes of all sorts, he was careful in defining his terms, including the distinction between the inevitable casualties that are part of any war and crimes against humanity.
Examples of actual genocides are what the Nazis did to the Jews during the Holocaust; the terror famine perpetrated by the Soviet Communists in Ukraine during the Holodomor from 1932 to 1933; or the slaughter of members of the Tutsi tribe in Rwanda by the Hutus in 1994.
And far from Israel committing genocide in Gaza, as military experts who understand the laws of war have pointed out, their efforts to avoid civilian casualties are unmatched by any modern army in history. The ratio of casualties between combatants and civilians in Gaza — Hamas operatives make up nearly half of all those who have been killed in the past 15 months — is lower than any other example of urban warfare.
That’s especially true when you consider that Hamas deliberately seeks to create Palestinian casualties by hiding among civilians and using tunnels underneath homes to store terrorists and weapons, even firing rockets at Israel from areas designated as humanitarian safe zones. And while tragically, many Palestinians have died in the war that those who claim to lead them started (though almost certainly not nearly as many as the false statistics put forward by Hamas claim),
the total is a small fraction of the population and not anything like an actual genocide.
The false use of a term that came into existence to describe the mass slaughter of Jews to delegitimize the efforts of the Jewish state to prevent another Holocaust for which Oct. 7 was just a trailer is more than ironic. It’s a standard tactic of antisemites throughout history to falsely accuse Jews of committing crimes that their haters seek to do.
Treason of intellectuals
That the virus of antisemitism has continued to spread in the 21st century only 80 years after the Holocaust is a catastrophe for humanity. What is particularly upsetting about the latest iteration of the plague of Jew-hatred is that the stormtroopers of contemporary antisemitism are largely to be found about those who purport to be the educated elites of society.
Yet as Niall Ferguson, one of the most distinguished and best-read contemporary historians, wrote in the Free Press, as American universities became hotbeds of antisemitism, this isn’t new. The Nazi movement that took root in Europe in the 1920s and ’30s was not the product of working-class or uneducated people. Rather, its advocates were largely to be found among those with college degrees and who trafficked in ideas rather than only street violence. As his essay titled “The Treason of the Intellectuals” (an illusion to the seminal 1927 study of the topic by French scholar Julian Benda) pointed out: “Anyone who has a naive belief in the power of higher education to instill morality has not studied the history of German universities in the Third Reich.”
While the intellectuals of the 1920s elevated race as the most important factor in society in order to stigmatize Jews and elevate non-Jewish Aryans, today’s elites have similarly embraced the same concept to harm those designated as “white oppressors” and to raise up “people of color.” But while those who support the latter cause may think they are “progressives” trying to better the world, by designating Jews and Israel as evil oppressors, they have unleashed a new wave of antisemitism that Hamas and its sympathizers hope will lead to another Holocaust.
Ferguson is among those who have recognized the rot at the core of American academia stems from the dominance of the toxic myths of critical race theory and intersectionality that have enabled this fashionable belief that has legitimized antisemitism. He thinks that the only answer is not to try to reform elite schools where these ideas are the new orthodoxy but to build new ones, like the University of Austin he has helped found.
He’s right; still, that leaves us with the question of what to do about a university system that has been hijacked by hate-mongers who pose as humanitarians.
The answer at the start is to defund every school where antisemitism and anti-Americanism are not merely tolerated but have become built into its teaching. There already was a powerful case to be made in favor of defunding institutions where the new treason of the intellectuals is normative. The American Historical Association has reminded us why this should be a priority for the new administration.
To reach Jonathan S. Tobin, write: Columnist@ TheJewishStar.com
are in dire need of humanitarian assistance. The number of dead lies in the tens of thousands. The number of demonstrations, rallies and performative protests stands at zero.
Included in the raft of sanctions that accompanied Blinken’s announcement are seven companies based in the United Arab Emirates — a US ally and partner in the broader Middle East peace process — that have helped the RSF purchase weapons and smuggle gold from Sudan’s lucrative mines through Dubai. UAE operates an embassy and three consulates in the US, whose addresses are easily available online.
A demonstration outside one of these, under the slogan “UAE: Stop Funding Genocide in Sudan,” would be perfectly feasible and eminently laudable. But those organizations that might be in the position to organize one — like Black Lives Matter, a sentiment that clearly doesn’t apply to Black Lives in Africa when Arabs are doing the killing — are absent.
This brings me back to the point I made earlier about the impact of this present surge of antisemitism. I’ve never been a fan of the oft-made assertion that Jews are the canary in the coal mine and that what starts with them won’t end there, because it assumes a much greater degree of overlap between antisemitism and other forms of bigotry than is actually the case.
However, a more salient point is that the obsession with Jews and Israel diverts column inches and airtime away from those humanitarian crises that are far more dire than Gaza and far more intractable, given that the war in the Strip would be over as soon as Hamas releases the remaining hostages it kidnapped on Oct. 7 and lays down its weapons, as growing numbers of Palestinians — as distinct from their Western cheerleaders — are exhaustedly urging.
As long as the outside world continues to indulge the Palestinian strategy of being the only victims worth the name, we are abetting the genocides that don’t get talked about.
Ben Cohen is a senior analyst with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. To reach him, write Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
Continued from page 21
30,000-member workforce foments terror even among young children, in violation of United States law. The evidence shows that they engage in these activities in UNNRWA facilities on company time.
From 2007 to 2017, the United States’ contributions to UNRWA totaled $3.6 billion. In August 2018, the United States ended donations to UNRWA. Democrats reversed course in April 2021, donating another $1.2 billion up to the Oct. 7 massacre. It was a significant blunder. Terrorism is defined in Sec.140(d)(2) of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.” (See, 22 USC. Sec. 2656f(d)(2).)
When terror is undertaken by a group like UNRWA, the US Secretary of State, in consultation with the US Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury, has the power to declare that a group is an FTO. (See, 8 USC. § 1189.) If the US were to take this path, it would paralyze UNRWA. The group’s accounts would be frozen. Its assets would be blocked, and it would be unable to use mainstream or Western banking institutions. Private and even sovereign donors would potentially transgress US law by contributing funds. UNRWA’s culpable employees would be subject to extradition and arrest. Nor is there immunity under US law. Murder, rape and abduction of Jewish civilians remain outside the scope of UNRWA’s official duties.
Following UNRWA’s direct involvement in — and support and funding of, terror — there is no other reasonable conclusion. UNRWA has become a foreign terrorist organization, according to US law. Now is the time to end it. Rami Chris Robbins is a Jewish-American writer who focuses on Middle East issues. To reach him, write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
Israeli-Emirati… Cohen…
Continued from page 21
lack the legitimacy to govern a future peaceful Sudan.” But the RSF and its allies have, to quote Blinken again, “systematically murdered men and boys, even infants, on an ethnic basis, and deliberately targeted women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and other forms of brutal sexual violence.”
The overall humanitarian cost is staggering.
More than 11 million human beings have been internally displaced, and another 3.1 million have fled across Sudan’s borders — about 30% of the country’s population. Nearly 640,000 are suffering from one of the worst famines in Sudan’s history. More than 30 million people
Continued from page 14
The AJC hosted an iftar break fast for Ramadan even as the war escalated last March. Sievers said that the event, which wasn’t publicized on social media, did not receive negative feedback. There have also been several lowkey events and visits from AJC and US Jewish lay leaders, and Israeli tourists and Jewish groups have gradually returned to the country, he said.
“The Israeli embassy in Abu Dhabi never closed. It wasn’t asked to close by the Emiratis, and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs had sufficient confidence in the security levels here that they never withdrew,” Sievers said. (A twoweek stretch at the end of 2023 was the only exception, in which families left.)
The relationship between Jerusalem and Abu Dhabi “weathered the shock” of the Oct. 7 attack and its aftermath, “and even though it was difficult in some ways, there was certainly less criticism here,” Sievers told JNS. “They found different ways to mitigate that.”
Large Emirati humanitarian efforts in Gaza were coordinated quietly with the Israel Defense Forces and the Israeli Defense Ministry, and downplaying that collaboration helped blunt domestic criticism in the Emirates about continued diplomatic ties with Israel, according to Sievers.
“I think in terms of the relationship being able to take this kind of shock of the ongoing war in Gaza and other tension in the region and still keep on going, that’s quite an accom-
plishment,” he said.
Abu Dhabi has been an exception when it comes to the Abraham Accords. Israeli envoys in Bahrain and Morocco returned to Israel — either due to security concerns or pushed out by the countries.
Sievers and the AJC decided to stay in Abu Dhabi even after the Iran-sponsored kidnapping and murder of Zvi Kogan, a 28-year-old Chabad rabbi, in late November. They also did so amid reports that Tehran was keeping watch over Israelis and diaspora Jews visiting the Emirates.
“We did have discussions about our presence here. It’s a personal decision really more than an organizational decision,” Sievers told JNS. “My wife and I decided right away that we weren’t going anywhere, but we did get multiple messages from the Emiratis, from the leadership here, that gave us a connection with the police that I didn’t have before — in case there was a need.”
Other Jews in the country have different reactions and thoughts about their safety.
“The circumstances are different in Abu Dhabi than Dubai,” Sievers said, noting that the latter is more diverse and busy.
There are also more Jews in Dubai than Abu Dhabi, with some 2,000 to 3,000 in the entire country.
“I know a lot of people were nervous,” Sievers said. “At least in terms of our circles of friends and contacts in the community, I don’t know of anyone who left.”
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