The JEWISH
GAZA Vayeitzei • Nov. 16, 2018 • 8 Kislev, 5779 • Torah columns pages 18–19 • Luach page 18 • Vol 17, No 44
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Kristallnacht 80 years on Teddy Roosevelt’s great-grandson joins 2 5T rabbis to mark event
At the Five Towns’ Kristallnacht remembrance, at Kehillas Bais Yehudah, from left: Theodore Roosevelt IV and rabbis Yaakov Feitman and Ephraim Polakoff. Ed Weintrob / Jewish Star An Israeli bus traveling near the border with Gaza burns after being hit with Palestinian mortar fire on Monday. More than 450 rockets were fired into southern Israel from Gaza before a cease-fire took hold late on Tuesday. IDF Spokesperson
Avoidable war becomes inevitable ariel kahana Makor Rishon
T
he Fourth Hamas War, as this week’s conflagration may soon be called, comes as a surprise to no one. For the past six months, Hamas has been staging provocations and firing on Israeli communities at will. Rather than taking out those who breach the border fence or launch incendiary kites, the Israel Defense Forces and the political echelon chose to let things slide, contain events, and show forbearance. They decided on restraint and have been humiliated. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, like his predecessors Ariel Sharon and Yitzhak Rabin in their later years, has stated that he does not want “pointless wars.” To paraphrase Winston Churchill: Netanyahu was given the choice between war and dishonor. He chose dishonor — and he got war. As was the case before the 2014 Gaza war, Hamas is not as sophisticated as Israeli intelligence officials think. It does not have geostrategic considerations, and its activities are not based on some long-term plan. It is much simpler than that: Hamas has power, therefore it shoots. Hamas is all about killing Jews. Thus, when some-
one rubs it the wrong way — Egypt, the Palestinian Authority or Israel — its response is to fire on Israel. Unfortunately, this is the only language Hamas speaks and the only modus operandi it has. That is why the protection Hamas gets from Qatar, in the form of cashstuffed suitcases, will not help prevent its unstoppable march to war. However, rather than making sure that those who fire at it are held accountable, Israel has accepted the defense establishment’s convoluted explanations on how this is just part of the ongoing feud between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. This misguided approach has even led to Netanyahu assigning more blame to PA President Mahmoud Abbas than to Hamas. Abbas is no saint, but despite his many flaws he does not dispatch terrorists into Israeli territory. Hamas does. Looking back, it is clear that a decisive Israeli response in the spring would have prevented war in the fall (and some observed this in real time). Netanyahu, the IDF chief of staff, and the Diplomatic-Security Cabinet should have sided long ago with the hawkish approach advocated by Education Minister Naftali Bennett, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, who wanted to eradicate the threat when it was small. Perhaps if Israel had taken this approach, the past eight months of frequent rocket warning sirens, incendiary kites and widespread fires would have looked very different. Moreover, the use of force earlier would have prevented or led to a scaled back military effort now.
By Ed Weintrob The Five Towns commemorated the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass, last Wednesday evening at Kehillas Bais Yehudah Tzvi in Cedarhurst. Rabbi Yaakov Feitman, the shul’s morah d’asra, said it was appropriate for the remembrance to take place in a shul because that is where the tragedy began. “The Nazis tried at first to destroy the spirit and soul of Israel,” he said. “They didn’t succeed, and the proof is that we are all here tonight.” “The destruction began on Kristallnacht with the burning of shuls, yeshivos and Sifrei Torah, and since that’s how the destruction began, that’s how the rebuilding must begin,” said Rabbi
Ephraim Polakoff of Congregation Bais Tefilah of Woodmere, in whose shul the annual Five Towns commemoration originated some years ago. “There’s no more fitting venue than a shul to hold a Kristallnacht event, no greater testament to the rebuilding of Judaism,” he said. “Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass, represents the spirit of the Jewish people,” Rabbi Polakoff said. “The Jewish people have grown to be numerous like the sand by the seashore” — as Hashem promised Avraham — “yet we’re are also like metal,” which when “destroyed and broken can be melted down and reconstituted. As much as we’re shattered [and] See 80 years on page 6
Brafman teams with Dershowitz for JNF Two Zionists from Brooklyn — one a prominent Lawrence-based criminal defense attorney, the other a renowned constitutional scholar — came to Congregation Beth Shalom on Sunday to help kick off the Jewish National Fund’s Five Towns community campaign.
Attorneys Benjamin Brafman and Alan Dershowitz engaged in a wideranging discussion of global and Israeli issues. They kibitzed on how they were not the best yeshiva students, with Brafman posing questions to DershoSee JNF on page 6
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