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Bar the genocide liars from our shuls: Dermer
By Ed Weintrob, The Jewish Star Former Israeli ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer told a Young Israel of Woodmere audience last Thursday that Jewish institutions should refuse to platform people who say Israel committed genocide in Gaza, calling the allegation both false and dangerous. Dermer, who grew up in Miami Beach before making aliyah in 1996, took part in a Q&A led by YIW Rabbi Shalom Axelrod. “The charge of genocide must be utterly and completely rejected — first and foremost by the Jews,” Dermer said. He called on Jewish institutions to exclude people who make the allegation. “No person who says that Israel perpetrated a genocide in Gaza should be allowed to enter this synagogue,” Dermer said, and such a person should not be supported by Jews anywhere. Dermer, whose most recent position was as Israel’s minister of strategic affairs, said the allegation has implications beyond Israel’s international reputation, arguing that it affects how Jews who support Israel are viewed. “When they say that Israel is perpetrating a genocide, this is not a hasbara (public relations) problem for Israel, it’s not a diplomacy problem for Israel, it’s a problem for you,” he told the audience of around 300 people, arguing that supporters of Israel could themselves be characterized as supporters of genocide if the allegation were accepted. “The charge that Israel perpetrated a genocide is a blatant lie, and it is a dangerous lie, and we have to utterly reject it,” Dermer said. Dermer also rejected the characterization of Israel as an apartheid state, describing it as another false allegation against the country. He argued that the genocide allegation distorts the nature of Israel’s military campaign, pointing to Israel’s efforts to warn civilians and provide humanitarian assistance. Civilian deaths in the Gaza war are tragic rather than evidence of an Israeli policy to destroy Palestinians, he said. “Now, do innocents die? Of course they do,” Dermer said. “There’s no war that doesn’t claim innocents.” He said Israel’s military objectives must be considered in the context of Hamas’ presence among Gaza’s civilian population. “We want to do everything to avoid civilian casualties, and they put civilians in harm’s way,” Dermer said.
Rabbi Shalom Axelrod (left) interviews former Israeli ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer, at Ed Weintrob, The Jewish Star the Young Israel of Woodmere on Sept. 17.
He compared the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack and hostage-taking to a hypothetical attack of similar scale in the United States, asking what the US response would be if tens of thousands of Americans were killed and thousands taken hostage. “Remember, Israel has been in Sept. 12th for 78 years,” he said, adding that it has upheld its democratic values through all of it. “The price of sovereignty is imperfection,” he said. A nation that fights for its survival cannot promise that none of its soldiers will ever make a mistake. The only way to guarantee moral perfection, he said, is to give up the means to defend yourself — “Be a victim, be a perfect victim. You’ll be perfectly moral, and you’ll be perfectly dead.” Instead, he urged, “Don’t judge Israel on a standard of perfection. Judge Israel based on how another country would act facing the threats we face.” He compared Israel to the United States.
America tolerated slavery, denied women the vote for well over a century, and withheld full civil rights for nearly two centuries, he noted. “That’s all true,” he said. That history “doesn’t mean America is not the greatest force for good” of any country in world history. Values professed from safety count for little, he argued. Values held when a nation is at risk are the ones that matter. He predicted that historians a century or two from now would look back in wonder at a democracy that kept its values under the most extreme conditions. Dermer turned to what Jewish sovereignty has given the Jewish people. He summed it up in three words: a voice, a refuge, a shield. To explain the voice, he told the story of Jan Karski, the Polish underground courier who brought eyewitness accounts of the Holocaust to President Franklin Roosevelt. “We had to ask others to make our case,”
Dermer said. “Today, we make our own case.” He noted that Israel’s prime minister would address the UN the following week. The refuge, he said, answers a question that haunted Jewish communities for centuries: when antisemitism comes, where will we go? Since 1948, there has been an answer. He cited the Jews expelled from Arab lands after Israel’s founding, the airlift of Ethiopian Jewry, and the roughly 1 million Jews who came from the former Soviet Union after the Iron Curtain fell. Today, he said, Jews in Ukraine, France or anywhere else have a place to go under the Law of Return. The shield, he said, may be the greatest gift. “For centuries, we had to beg prime ministers and kings and princes to defend us, to save our communities, to bomb the tracks,” he said. “Today, the Jewish people don’t beg others to defend us. We defend ourselves.” Dermer also that supporters of Israel should acknowledge the difficulty of generating international sympathy for the Jewish state during ongoing wars. He recalled seeing expressions of support for Israel early in the war. “There’s a lot of sympathy when the Jews are victims,” Dermer said. “Let us see who stands with us when we march to victory.” “I always want to have sympathy, and Israel can always do better at making our case. But sympathy is not going to save our people,” he said. Dermer argued that Israel should accept criticism as the cost of deploying its military strength. “I’d rather deal with the Tucker Carlsons and the Mamdanis and the El-Sayeds and fight them on CNN, BBC or wherever, and take out the Sinwars, the Nasrallahs and the Khameneis,” he said. “And that’s what Israel did, and that’s better than the alternative. And it’s something we didn’t have for about 2,000 years. We should be grateful for that.” “One hundred generations of Jews dreamed to have our problems,” he said. That privilege carries a responsibility, he said, and it does not rest only on ambassadors and prime ministers. Each person who chooses to show up at a synagogue and strengthen a Jewish community like the Five Towns becomes a “partner with the State of Israel” in securing its future. He made the point with a nod to his audience’s sacrifice that evening: putting aside Netflix and skipping Thursday Night Football, “at least until halftime.”
September 25-October 1, 2026 • 14 Tishrei 5787 THE JEWISH STAR
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Prayer brings SAR, Ramaz students to Zo’s home By Michelle Mullen, The Riverdale Press Hundreds of Jewish students from SAR (the Salanter Akiba of Riverdale) and Manhattan’s Ramaz School streamed off yellow school buses on the Upper East Side on Friday morning, gathering outside Gracie Mansion with prayer books in hand. Organizers said the gathering of elementary and high school students was meant to give them a public way to express Jewish pride, respond to concerns about antisemitism and affirm their ties to Israel. “This is a peaceful prayer vigil — it’s not a protest or a demonstration,” said Rabbi Binyamin Krauss, principal of SAR Academy, meant to let students make two parts of their identity visible at once: their attachment to New York and their connection to Israel. “We love the city, we love the state of Israel,” he told the crowd. “We don’t think that’s a contradiction, and we’re here to stay.” Speakers challenged Mamdani over his rhetoric about Israel, saying some Jewish New Yorkers have felt less safe or respected. For many of the students, the morning was also about what it meant to be visibly Jewish among hundreds of their peers. Annie Crog, an SAR Academy eighth grader, stood before the crowd and spoke about the role students could play even before they were old enough to cast a ballot. “I want to feel safe being openly Jewish in my city,” she said. “I want to be able to wear my magen David, go to synagogue and go to school without being afraid of antisemitism.” The event was not without controversy, sparking a petition signed by more than 380
Rabbi Avi Weiss of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale interacts with Rabbi Binyamin Krauss, principal of SAR Academy, at Friday’s prayer vigil outside Gracie Mansion. Michelle Mullen
SAR and Ramaz students, parents, alumni and others. It argued that the location would inevitably turn the morning into a political statement against the mayor. Holding the event at his residence, the petition said, would “needlessly inflame tensions between the mayor and the Modern Or-
thodox Jewish community” and cast the community as united against Mamdani when its members are not. Rabbi Krauss defended the decision in an essay published before the service, writing that students had been told what the gathering would involve and families were given the
opportunity to opt out. Stella Zavodnick, a senior at SAR High School in attendance, described a Jewish identity that had once felt almost effortless — Shabbat dinners, holidays and Hebrew words woven into ordinary conversation — but became more complicated after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the continuous conflict that followed. “Being Jewish started to feel like something we had to think about — where we said it and who we said it to,” she said. But, she said, Jewish history had taught her about persistence through periods of fear and displacement. “My Jewish identity didn’t begin with a hard year, and it isn’t defined by one either,” she said. That connection between Jewish identity and Israel became more personal as the program turned back toward prayer. Rabbi Avi Weiss of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale (The Bayit) stepped forward holding the military identification tags of his grandchildren, who served in the IDF, before leading a tefillah for chayalim. “May all who go out, each one come back well and healthy and alive,” he said. The event closed just as it began, with hundreds of voices joining together. Students and adults locked arms and swayed through Hatikvah, later placing their hands over their hearts for The Star-Spangled Banner before making their way back toward the yellow school buses and returning to class. This is an abridged version of a report in this week’s Riverdale Press.
Bipartisan bill seeks to shield houses of worship By Andrew Bernard Leaders from more than 30 Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu and other faith groups gathered on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to urge passage of the Right to Worship Act, a bill designed to protect religious services from the interference of protesters. Speaking to reporters, the bill’s House sponsors, Democrat Tom Suozzi of Long Island and Republican Brad Knott of North Carolina, said the legislation is intended to balance potentially conflicting elements of the First Amendment. The challenge is to mesh our “constitutional rights between the right to free speech and the right to worship. These are two very fundamental parts of what makes America a fantastic place to live,” Suozzi said. “We have got to balance these two ideas together.” The bill would make it unlawful, under penalty of a civil fine, for anyone to knowingly disrupt or impede a scheduled religious service by engaging “in a course of conduct that substantially affects interstate commerce” within 100 feet of the entrance of a house of worship. The bill also creates a right for anyone whose religious service is so disrupted to sue in court. “If there’s a civil action that can be brought, it will make the antagonizers, the harassers, the people who don’t want to peaceably protest think twice,” Knott told JNS. Jewish groups have sought greater federal and local protections for houses of worship as a result of anti-Israel protests and attacks against synagogues in the wake of Oct. 7. Anti-Israel protest groups frequently target synagogues hosting what the protest organizers describe as “real estate sales” events offering property in Israel, including in Judea and Samaria. Those events are frequently put on by groups like Nefesh B’nefesh, which promotes aliyah to Israel. For centuries, rabbinic law has regarded
Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) gestures towards Rep. Brad Knott (R-NC) at an event with faith group leaders urging passage of the Right to Worship Act near the Capitol on Sept. 16. Andrew Bernard
moving to Israel as a religious obligation. JNS asked Suozzi and Knott if Jewish organizations would have to ask courts to determine that making aliyah was a religious observance protected under the law or if those events fall outside the scope of a protected “scheduled religious service.” Suozzi said he expects there will be litigation around that issue and others. “The bill really focuses heavily on religious services, so that’ll be a real question and a real challenge as to whether or not that will withstand the constitutional challenge,” Suozzi said. “That’s why we’ve spent so much time speaking to constitutional experts about this process.” Some local officials have been less than
fully supportive. Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in January that while pro-Hamas chants from protesters at a synagogue in Queens was “wrong,” a Nefesh B’nefesh event at Manhattan’s Park East Synagogue in November was a “violation of international law,” according to his spokesperson. Knott said one reason he is backing the legislation is that worshippers currently have no legal remedy if local prosecutors decline to press charges against protesters who violate existing laws protecting houses of worship. He cited a recent case in which protesters stormed a church in St. Paul, Minn. In regard to aliyah events, Knott said the bill is deliberately narrow.
“Within the buffer zone, if you hold a sign that says ‘Israel do better,’ that’s perfectly consistent with this law,” the North Carolina Republican said. “If I grabbed a worshiper by the lapel pin and said, ‘You’re committing whatever crime’ you allege, that is a disruption that’s not sanctioned with this bill.” “We were not trying to cast a wide net,” Knott said. “It’s a focused net where people use an organized, established house of worship to target specific people.” The Jewish and other faith groups backing the legislation include the Jewish Federations of North America, Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee, Agudath Israel of America, US Conference of Catholic Bishops, National Association of Evangelicals, Hindu American Foundation, Islamic Society of North America and United Sikhs. Eric Fingerhut, CEO of Federation, described the $1 billion cost that American Jews now pay for security at their religious institutions. “Our synagogues know, and our worshippers know that they are under attack and that they have to be safe and secure,” he said. The House went into an early recess on Wednesday, meaning that the bill will not come up in the lower chamber before the midterm elections in November. Suozzi said he hopes there may be more activity in the Senate, where Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) have sponsored the bill’s companion version. “I’m really hoping that we can convince the Senate, who’s going to be in session for another three weeks, to pay attention to this now,” Suozzi said. “I think that we can get the speaker to pay attention to this once we come back, because I think it’s something that he was paying attention to and asked Knott to work on this, specifically.”
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Sotheby selling ‘significant’ Jewish manuscripts By Menachem Wecker The international auction house Sotheby’s said that its December “magnificent Judaica” sale will include what it said is one of the “most significant” works in private hands by renowned medieval Jewish artist and scribe Joel ben Simeon. The mahzor dates to about 1475 Italy, and Sotheby’s expects it to fetch between $3 million and $5 million. Its pages are “richly embellished with hundreds of drawings that engage directly with the text of the prayers,” it said. “The manuscript ranks among the most significant works by the celebrated scribe-artist remaining in private hands.” The scribe-artist, whose works can be found at the Library of Congress, Israel Museum, Jewish Theological Seminary and British Library, among others, is one of very few Jewish medieval artists whose name is known. The auction house is also offering a 15thcentury Italian Roman rite mahzor and a “monumental” Hebrew Bible made around 1300 in Germany (each estimated to fetch $2 million to $4 million) and an illuminated manuscript of a work by Moses ben Jacob of Coucy, a 13th-century French rabbi who was part of the Tosafot Talmudic commentary, which has an estimate of $1 million to $2 million. “Together, these works trace the evolution of Hebrew manuscript production from medieval Ashkenaz to Renaissance Italy and offer a rare glimpse into the cultural exchanges, artistic achievement and scholarly traditions that shaped Jewish life in Europe,” Sotheby’s said. “I am so excited to share these treasures with the public, as they have not been seen in 100 years,” Sharon Liberman Mintz, international Sotheby’s senior Judaica specialist, told JNS. The books are “filled with imagery for the High holidays,” Liberman Mintz said. Joel Ben Simeon’s prayer book “demonstrates
Detail of a 15th century Italian Roman rite mahzor from the Sotheby’s “Magnificent Judaica” auction slated for December 2026 in Manhattan. Courtesy
his engagement with the text throughout the manuscripts,” and his “playful illustrations of the blowing of the shofar and a faun holding a lulav and etrog enliven the text and guide the reader through the holiday liturgy,” she said. A c.1500 mahzor from Ferrara, in Italy, in the sale contains “very interesting visual cues for the blowing of the shofar,” according to Liberman Mintz. On the top of the right page, beneath the acronyms with 10 Hebrew letters suggesting a standard pattern of blowing the three main shofar sounds — the tekiyah, shevarim and teruah — the artist includes vertical lines that “echo the sounds of the shofar,” she said. “These manuscripts stand among the most compelling survivals of the medieval and Renaissance Jewish world,” Sotheby’s stated, of the upcoming sale, which will be on view at the Nation-
al Library of Israel in November and at Sotheby’s London from Dec. 4 to 9. “They are works of devotion, scholarship and artistic achievement in equal measure,” she stated. “From the imaginative illustrations of Joel ben Simeon to the monumental scale of the German Hebrew Bible and the opulent decoration of the Italian manuscripts, they demonstrate the extraordinary richness of Jewish book culture at moments of profound intellectual and artistic creativity.” Sotheby’s called the upcoming Dec. 17 auction the “most valuable sale of its kind in Sotheby’s history.” According to the auction house, the Joel ben Simeon mahzor, which is one of 22 manuscripts attributed to him, includes “one of the earliest visual records of a Chanukah menorah.” Just 12 of the works are signed by Joel. This manuscript is
not signed, but Liberman Mintz told JNS that it is “unequivocally his, attributed to him by the leading scholars of Hebrew manuscripts.” One image of the manuscript that Sotheby’s shared with JNS shows embellishments, including a man blowing a shofar, around 10 Hebrew letters suggesting the shofar sounds. Text beneath each set of sounds suggests that the configurations be blown thrice, for a total of 30 of the 100 shofar sounds on each day of Rosh Hashana. The shofar blower holds the instrument with his right hand and reaches below with his left for something that is difficult to make out. JNS asked Liberman Mintz if he was holding a bag traditionally used to store the shofar. “We could not decide what was in the other hand of the shofar blower,” she said. “The bag that it goes in is as good a guess as any.” Another page from the mahzor, which shows the beginning of the Mishnaic tractate of Avot, known as Chapters of the Fathers, depicts Moses on Mount Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments. The adjacent text begins “Moses received the Torah from Sinai and passed it to Joshua, and Joshua to the elders.” The Ten Commandments emerge from a form that appears hydra-like, and Moses wears a similar hat to the shofar blower — perhaps a medieval coif. “The figures are both wearing some sort of caps,” Liberman Mintz said. Asked how that sort of headgear tracks with economic class, she said she wasn’t sure. “Sometimes Joel depicts Moses with a turban, so this is a departure from his usual.” A third page, above text referring to the Biblical reference to the “15th day of the seventh month,” the holiday of Sukkot, contains an illustration of a faun, half man and half goat, bearing the four “types” that are central to the holiday: the lulav, etrog, hadas and aravah. —JNS
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September 25-October 1, 2026 • 14 Tishrei 5787 THE JEWISH STAR
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5 THE JEWISH STAR September 25-October 1, 2026 • 14 Tishrei 5787
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September 25-October 1, 2026 • 14 Tishrei 5787 THE JEWISH STAR
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HEALTH, MIND & BODY
Council, health groups meet on Jew-hate in med By Rikki Zagelbaum Julie Menin, the first Jewish speaker of the New York City Council, and several members of the council met with representatives of more than a dozen healthcare organizations from across the city last week to talk about Jew-hatred in medicine. The closed-press roundtable discussion was a “first-of-its-kind” conversation, according to Omri Attar, chief impact officer at the American Jewish Medical Association, which organized the Sept. 9 event. Attar told JNS that the council’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, co-chaired by council members Inna Vernikov and Eric Dinowitz, invited AJMA to organize the discussion a few months ago. (Vernikov, a Republican, and Dinowitz, a Democrat, are Jewish. Both took part in the meeting.) “There was broad consensus among the City Council, healthcare organizations and Jewish groups that antisemitism in medicine must be addressed more aggressively,” Attar said. “In healthcare, as we know, the patient comes first — his safety, his health.” “The discrimination from within the system is alarming, because it says we differentiate between different patients,” he told JNS. “The patient is not first anymore.” Last month, scholars told JNS that there has been a “tsunami of hate” against Jews in medicine and hospitals. “After Oct. 7, the landscape shifted in a seismic way, not that antisemitism was brand new, because we do have a history of quotas to limit Jewish enrollment in medicine and other examples of discrimination against Jewish doctors,” Hedy Wald, clinical professor of family medicine at Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School, told JNS last month. The co-author of a recent study told JNS that “you had medical students and health professionals posting horrific things on social media, very antisemitic, very anti-Israel biased, and starting to see this appear in medical journals.” The recent gathering in New York included the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the city’s Health and Hospitals system, Northwell Health, Mount Sinai Health System, Columbia University Irving Medical Center and the Greater New York Hospital Association. Attendees also came from the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services, American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League, Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, National Jewish Advocacy Center, Simon Wiesenthal Center, UJA-Federation of New York and Jewish Community Relations Council of New York. “This group of different institutions and organizations never con-
New York City Council speaker Julie Menin and Riverdale Councilman Eric Dinowitz of Riverdale join council members at a meeting about Jew-hatred in healthcare on Sept. 9. Gerardo Romo, NYC Council Media Unit
vened before, especially not under the roof of the New York City Council or the endorsement of the speaker,” Attar, who is also vice president of Israel and external relations at AJMA, told JNS. AJMA has worked with several research institutions, which have found that Jew-hatred in healthcare has “worsened” in recent months, according to Attar. “People are going online, sometimes on social media, sometimes on other platforms, and saying, ‘I don’t want to work with this Jewish doctor,’ or ‘I’m not going to treat Jewish patients,’” he told JNS. “We definitely see it more and more.” Many others, who fear being accused of Jew-hatred, are “doing it behind the scenes,” he said. “The most alarming piece is the unrecognized ones — the ones that say, ‘Oh, there’s a schedule problem,’ and maybe because of, let’s say, a patient’s surname or a doctor’s surname, something a little bit more recognized with a Jewish face,” Attar told JNS. “We see it more and more.” Council member Vernikov told JNS that the meeting, for which she began pushing “as soon as I got the task force role” in January, lasted two hours. She opened the meeting by raising what she described as an “unprecedented rise in antisemitism” that has spread into hospitals and the broader healthcare industry. “We are getting complaints from doctors, nurses, patients,” Venikov told JNS. “We want to protect these Jewish New Yorkers, and we want to make sure that patients who are very vulnerable can go to a hospital and trust that whoever’s treating them is not trying to harm them.”
One of the main issues that Menin, the council speaker, addressed during the meeting, Attar said, was Zohran Mamdani’s decision on his first day as mayor of New York City to revoke the city’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of Jew-hatred. “Allegedly, it wasn’t because of antisemitism,” he told JNS. Menin discussed the difficulty of combating Jew-hatred without a clear definition adopted by the city, according to Attar. “The lack of definition in New York City is extremely problematic, because if you want to create a task force and you want to fight against something without a clear definition adopted by New York City, it’s a problem,” he told JNS. “It’s a challenge.” “Unfortunately, we heard from them that the lack of definition — and we know the origin of the lack of definition right now in New York City — is actually adding more challenges for them to fight it than to counter it,” he said. Aside from that issue, Mamdani “was not the topic” of the meeting, according to Attar. “This is not about the mayor at all and, if you ask me, I don’t think it even needs to be mentioned,” he told JNS. No one from City Hall was invited to take part in the gathering, but Attar said that he saw a representative from the mayor’s office observing the meeting. That person “didn’t participate” and “just didn’t say anything at all,” he said. “I think the notion and the atmosphere of the discussion was conveyed to him as well,” Attar told JNS. Vernikov agreed that the mayor
was not the focus of the meeting but said that his administration was represented by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The proposed merger between Maimonides Medical Center and Health and Hospitals — the city’s public hospital system that runs 11 hospitals, 29 medical clinics and five long-term care facilities across the Big Apple — also came up during the meeting, according to Attar. The proposed deal has drawn concern from Orthodox Jewish leaders, who fear that the community could lose influence over a hospital that has long accommodated Jewish religious needs, including by maintaining a kosher kitchen. Health and Hospitals sent two representatives to the meeting. Both were “highly involved” and “asked a lot of questions to the institutions and Jewish organizations,” according to Attar. “The situation with Health and Hospitals, to my impression, I would say, is extremely positive towards really fighting the good fight and really fighting against discrimination and antisemitism,” he told JNS. “They were keen actually to understand it better, to better fight it and not on the other end.” The meeting revealed that most participating groups had anti-discrimination policies in place but that there is “a problem of enforcement and holding these institutions accountable for a lack of action that they’re taking,” according to Attar. Many complaints about Jew-hatred are also “coming anonymously, mostly from staffers or patients,” he said. AJMA has begun working with members of the City Council to build what Attar said will be a “structured,
ongoing mechanism to collectively report, track and address antisemitic incidents.” “It will not go through another system or another organization,” he told JNS. “It can be just direct, and make sure we hold these institutions accountable when it’s needed — not in a year or in a long period of time that we need to wait.” Vernikov told JNS that the roundtable also addressed the ways that institutions should respond to conduct by their employees both inside and outside the workplace. “One is, how are you dealing with somebody who is posting stuff on their own private social media, and then works at a hospital, let’s say, or a doctor?” she said. “The other thing is what if somebody actually says something during work time, like at work?” The meeting “was kind of informal in a way, and it wasn’t adversarial at all,” Vernikov told JNS. “It wasn’t like what we do in the hearings, which is why I think a lot of them agreed to come.” She said participants were receptive to the discussion and left satisfied with how the meeting had gone. The meeting was “a kickoff,” and the council plans to hold another roundtable in about three months, Attar said. Vernikov said no follow-up meeting has been scheduled yet, though the task force intends to follow-up. “This is the first of its kind and very much needed, obviously, in the era we live in right now,” Attar told JNS. “A lot of organizations emphasized that this is crucial for them to speak up and to really voice their concerns with the relevant people. They weren’t able to do that until now.” —JNS
7 THE JEWISH STAR September 25-October 1, 2026 • 14 Tishrei 5787
Congressman Tom Suozzi Will Always Stand with the Jewish Community Suozzi says he won’t bend on Israel as Democratic colleagues shift ing “Tom Suozzi has been an outstand leader in fighting antisemitism, ith supporting Israel and standing w ter American Jewry. There is no grea than friend to the Jewish community Tom Suozzi.” rector of the — Nathan Diament, Executive Di regations of Union of Orthodox Jewish Cong 6 America (Orthodox Union) - 9/16/2
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September 25-October 1, 2026 • 14 Tishrei 5787 THE JEWISH STAR
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Overcoming challenges, Israelis hit Kilimanjaro By Howard Blas For a group of determined Israelis, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, which rises 5,895 meters (19,341 feet), was only the most recent challenge they have had to overcome. Thirty-six Israelis including people with disabilities, those dealing with cancer or loss, victims of terror, soldiers with war wounds and PTSD, and those evacuated from their homes in the north, set out in late July to climb Africa’s tallest mountain — and to show what is possible even when facing a range of life challenges. The 36 Israelis and another 30 participants from the United States — Jews, Muslims and Druze — took part in the fifth Kilimanjaro climb coordinated by Accessibility Accelerator, the US partner of Access Israel, a nonprofit organization that promotes accessibility and inclusion for people with disabilities. The goal of the expeditions is to promote accessibility and inclusion. It was the second year that a delegation from Jeremy’s Circle, an Israeli NGO, participated in the climb. Pamela Becker, co-founder and CEO of Jeremy’s Circle, said, “When we returned from the first expedition, we realized that the real journey had not ended at the summit of Kilimanjaro. We saw teenagers return with self-confidence, a sense of capability, and resilience that will stay with them for years to come. “They moved from being the ones receiving support to becoming the ones offering it to others, discovering that sometimes by helping someone else you discover your own strength. That is why it was clear to us that we wanted to give more teenagers the opportunity to experience this journey. For them, Kilimanjaro is not just a mountain; it is a lesson for life.” Becker founded the organization in 2008 after her husband, Jeremy, died of cancer, leaving her with three children under the age of six. She said the organization currently supports 1,280 families and hosts 20 events a year. Daniel Nativ-Halperin of Jerusalem, a cancer survivor and member of Jeremy’s Circle, was pleased with his accomplishment on Kilimanjaro. “I am proud and happy that I made it,” said Nativ-Halperin, who admitted that two weeks was a long time to be away from his family. “I never did something like this in the past!” He was particularly impressed by the
Mount Kilimanjaro in Kenya.
The AccessibleTogether team explores Tanzania’s Ngorongoro Crater on safari ahead of its Mount Kilimanjaro climb in July.
Accessibility Accelerator
Abu El Haj Mahmoud makes his way toward the Mandara Huts. Accessibility Accelerator
Members of Jeremy’s Circle gather at Marangu Gate before beginning their ascent of Mount Kilimanjaro in July. Accessibility Accelerator
way participants helped one another. “It was a great, supportive atmosphere. Everyone helped each other—especially on the final ascent.” The team traditionally sets out at 10 pm and continues through the night to reach the summit at sunrise. Becker said one participant hiked, unbeknownst to his family, wearing a shirt bearing a picture of his father, who had recently died. “His father had wanted to climb Kilimanjaro but was too ill—he wanted to feel close to his dad!” she said.
This year, Becker’s team also included youth from Tzevet Ran, an organization that prepares teenagers for meaningful military service. Members of the group had been evacuated from their homes in northern Israel during the war. Two wheelchair users were part of the Israeli delegation, including Abu El Haj Mahmoud, a Muslim man who has served as a team leader in Access Israel’s Purple Vest Mission. The Purple Vest Mission, launched in March 2022, is an emergency preparedness and rescue initiative aimed at ensuring that people with disabilities and the elderly are not left behind during crises. Mahmoud, 54, who lives in Acre, said he was inspired to participate in the Kilimanjaro climb after learning the story of Yuval Wagner, a former IDF helicopter pilot who was paralyzed in a crash during a training mission and went on to found Access Israel. “When I met Yuval Wagner at Access Israel, I learned what life really is. I learned what I am capable of doing in life,” Mahmoud said. As a Purple Vest volunteer, Mahmoud answered a call seeking someone with a large accessible van to help evacuate elderly people and people with disabilities from Kiryat Shmona. “During the recent war, I found myself helping evacuate people, including women and Holocaust survivors, while under fire. Every evacuation was truly a story in itself!”
Adobe
His work with Purple Vest and the Kilimanjaro climb have also affected Mahmoud’s sense of self. “I am proud of myself today, after the Kilimanjaro journey. I am proud that I move around in a wheelchair. It doesn’t take anything away from me. On the contrary, it lifts me higher and higher and higher.” Mahmoud and other wheelchair users who have participated in previous Kilimanjaro missions made the ascent with the help of a large support team and Paratrek Trekkers, specialized off-road mobility chairs. “Watching this extraordinary group of Israelis take on Kilimanjaro moved me deeply,” said Jamie Lassner, CEO of Accessibility Accelerator. “Some came through Access Israel’s ‘The Day After’ program, rebuilding their lives after devastating injury and trauma. Alongside them were two heroic Purple Vest Mission drivers who have repeatedly run toward danger to rescue people with disabilities and older adults, determined to leave no one behind. “This was about far more than a mountain. It was about finding the courage to move forward when life has been forever changed, discovering what is still possible, and knowing we do not have to climb alone. Kilimanjaro rises 19,341 feet. “What these remarkable men and women overcame to get there is immeasurable.” —JNS
9 THE JEWISH STAR September 25-October 1, 2026 • 14 Tishrei 5787
The Experts at U.S. News Agree: Mount Sinai South Nassau is High Performing
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September 25-October 1, 2026 • 14 Tishrei 5787 THE JEWISH STAR
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NEWS BRIEFS 8 charged in 1992 AMIA bombing that killed 151 By JNS and other sources Argentina has formally charged seven Iranians and one Lebanese national over the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, a major new development in a case that has dragged on for more than three decades. Federal Judge Daniel Rafecas said the attack, which killed 85 people and injured 151, was ordered by Iran’s top leadership and carried out by Hezbollah, according to the ruling. Among those charged are former Iranian Intelligence Minister Ali Fallahijan, former Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Velayati and Hezbollah operative Salman Raouf Salman. Iran has refused to extradite the suspects, who remain at large. The court ordered $500 million in liens against each defendant and is moving toward a trial in absentia under Argentina’s newer legal framework. Rafecas also pointed to a possible connection with the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, which killed 22 people. Argentine officials hailed the latest legal action in the AMIA bombing case as a breakthrough after decades without convictions. Justice Minister Juan Bautista Mahiques called the ruling “a milestone in the fight against impunity” and “a historic step” for the 85 victims, their families and Argentine society. President Javier Milei welcomed the move, writing on X: “Morality as state policy!” Argentina has long accused senior Iranian officials of directing the attack through Hezbollah. Years of investigations were marred by corruption and delays, while Iran refused to surrender suspects. Argentine Ambassador to Israel Axel Wahnish called the new action “a moment of justice.” “While previous governments signed a memorandum with Iran to cover up the terrorist attacks, we signed a memorandum with Israel in defense of life and democracy and against terrorism and antisemitism,” Wahnish said.
dered the student to delete the post calling for a boycott of the professor’s classes. “This decision sends a clear message that targeting Jewish members of any academic community will have consequences,” Kenneth L. Marcus, chairman of the Brandeis Center, said. Pratt’s response was not included in the supplied material.
AOC rips Kraft over Mac
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez used New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft’s refusal to host rapper Macklemore for a fundraising pitch, attacking the Jewish billionaire over the decision. Ocasio-Cortez criticized Kraft in an email to supporters after he barred Macklemore from performing at Gillette Stadium. “This is not just about a single musical act,” she wrote. “This is about how a small handful of powerful people, like stadium owners, can threaten someone’s livelihood in order to prevent an entire massive issue from being spoken about—in this case, the genocide in Gaza.” Kraft said he would not “provide a platform for hate speech” and cited what he called Macklemore’s history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery. Macklemore, whose legal name is Benjamin Haggerty, has shouted “free Palestine” at concerts and accused Israel of “genocide.” He also wore a fake nose, wig and beard in 2014 and later apologized.
CAIR guide omissions
Fauda storms Lebanon
Israel’s hit action series “Fauda” has stormed to No. 1 on Netflix in Lebanon. The show’s fifth season topped Netflix’s weekly rankings there for Sept. 7-13, while also reaching the Top 10 in several other Arab countries. The 11-episode season debuted Sept. 8 and follows Doron Kavillio, played by co-creator Lior Raz, as he returns to a counterterrorism unit after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 attacks. The new season focuses on trauma, grief and a deep-cover operation in Marseille, France. Former Israeli intelligence official Jacques Neriah said the show’s Lebanese popularity should not be viewed as a sign of an imminent political opening toward Israel. “It’s a very good show,” Neriah said, adding that some viewers may be curious to understand an adversary through the drama. “Fauda,” which debuted in Israel in 2015, has aired in 190 countries.
Times Sq attacker: 90 days
A New York man sentenced to 90 days in jail for attacking Jews in Times Square flashed what a court observer described as a “victory sign.” Yehia Amin pleaded guilty in March to thirddegree assault as a hate crime after prosecutors said he stalked four kippah-wearing Jews near Times Square and punched a 23-year-old Israeli tourist in the back of the head. Prosecutors said Amin made antisemitic threats, including “Hamas should kill more of you” and “All Jews should die.”
Remains of the AMIA Jewish center after the July 18, 1994 bombing in Buenos Aires. argentina.gob.ar via WikiCommons
Glenn Richter, founder of the New York Jewish Community Judicial Watch Group, said Amin smiled during Tuesday’s sentencing and told the judge he wanted to look good for photographs. Richter interpreted Amin’s hand gesture as a V for victory. “Maybe to him this was a victory,” Richter said. The case originally involved seven charges but ended with a plea to one count.
Court watcher raps sentence
Jewish court watchers sharply criticized the 90-day sentence handed to Yehia Amin for attacking Jews in Times Square, while another observer said simply getting jail time was significant. Glenn Richter called the sentence “a slap in the wrist” and blamed the plea deal on limited resources. Serena Smulansky said Amin had appeared in court 22 times and was “completely unrepentant.” She also described a previous courthouse encounter in which she said Amin confronted her in a hallway. But Brian Chenensky, another court watcher who attended the sentencing, took a different view. “I think it’s a miracle that he got sentenced, tak-
ing into account the state of the justice system in New York City,” Chenensky said. “He’s going to jail for 90 days.” Smulansky compared Amin’s case with that of Larry Montes, who is accused of attacking a congregant and security guard and damaging religious objects during Shabbat services at Central Synagogue.
Pratt disciplines student
Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute disciplined a student accused of harassing a Jewish professor after what the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law called “consistent complaints.” The center said the student had harassed the professor on social media since March, calling him a “Jewish supremacist” and urging students to boycott his classes. Pratt initially imposed a mutual no-contact order, but the student allegedly continued contacting the professor from encrypted and pseudonymous accounts. The school later placed the student on disciplinary probation for the rest of his time at Pratt, according to the center. It also removed the mutual order and or-
A new report is accusing the Council on American-Islamic Relations of presenting students with a one-sided account of the Israel-Gaza conflict in its 2026-27 school resource guide. The Combat Antisemitism Movement said 845 of the guide’s 3,249 words focus on Gaza and Palestinian advocacy. Its analysis found that “Palestinian” appears eight times, while “Gaza” appears four times. The report said the guide does not mention Israel, Hamas, Oct. 7, the hostages, “massacre,” “rockets” or “human shields.” CAIR describes the guide as a resource for Muslim students, families and educators covering bullying, Islamophobia, religious accommodations and classroom discussions about Gaza and the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. The guide encourages “safe, honest and ageappropriate” discussions about Gaza with children as young as 5. CAM also criticized the guide’s treatment of antisemitism and Sept. 11.
Hawaii Jews face hate
Three of Hawaii’s four religion-based hate crimes in 2025 targeted Jews, even though Jews make up less than 1% of the state’s population, according to newly released state statistics. One of the three offenders was arrested. Hawaii recorded 44 hate crimes overall in 2025, down about 52% from 92 in 2024. The three crimes targeting Jews represented 6.8% of all hate crimes in the state. Rabbi Itchel Krasnjansky, executive director of Chabad in Hawaii, said Jews experienced harassment beyond the official numbers. “There is more harassment than just three reported hate crimes,” said Mimi Lind, executive director of Jewish Community Services of Hawaii. Lind cited a recent swastika drawn on a hiking trail on Kaua’i, saying incidents like that affect the wider Jewish community. “We have support for victims of antisemitism at our agency,” Lind said. In 2024, all four religion-based hate crimes recorded in Hawaii targeted Jews.
11 THE JEWISH STAR September 25-October 1, 2026 • 14 Tishrei 5787
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WINE & DINE Back to basics: Sukkot oldies but goodies Ethel’s Kitchen
ETHEL HOFMAN
I
t always seems unusual to focus on food for the outdoor festival of Sukkot, the Feast of Booths, before the start of Yom Kippur. It’s somewhat of a culinary conundrum to be considering menus when fasting is at the top of the list. Nevertheless, Jewish households are preparing for the week-long holiday that begins after sundown on Friday, Sept. 25. During 40 years of wandering the desert after the Exodus from Egypt, the Israelites lived in makeshift booths. To remind ourselves of the temporary nature of dwellings at that time, Jews build and eat in sukkahs that adhere to halacha in cities, towns and remote areas around the world. There must be at least two full walls, plus a third partial wall, strong enough to withstand normal wind; the sechach must be made of bamboo, tree branches, wooden planks, palm fronds, detached plants or other natural items grown from the ground; the roof must provide more shade than direct sunlight, yet allow stars to be visible; and the sukkah must be under the open sky, not under a tree branch, permanent roof or balcony overhang. By all means, decorate your sukkah with paper chains and fresh flowers, drawings and dried noodles. Kids can and do like to help. Just watch anything sugary that might draw bees or bugs; it is the great outdoors, after all. I searched for different dishes to make this year, keeping in mind that they be easy to carry from the kitchen to the sukkah or when transported to friends. There shouldn’t be anything that requires lastminute assembly. Moving through the corners of my kitchen, I found a little enamel file box stuffed with dog-eared index cards not looked at for years. Intrigued, I pulled out faded recipes for some long-forgotten dishes — tasty and fail-proof. Items include a heartwarming mushroom-barley Soup; krupnik, a mainstay in
Mushroom Barley Soup.
Ukraine; tuna noodle casserole, complete with frozen peas and carrots stirred into the creamy concoction. The cookbook “Love and Knishes” (1956) by the late Sara Kasdan includes directions for piquant meatballs, once reviewed by the New York Times as “irresistible.” Served over fluffy rice, it may become a family favorite. My friend, Gloria Spitz, a superb cook, shares her recipe for Apricot Chicken, which has been in her culinary repertoire for 40 years. “And I still make it,” she tells me. For dessert, try an oldie but goodie: ambrosia. Head down the canned-fruit aisle in your market for the components. Just drain the canned fruits, fold in the remaining ingredients and chill. Add that to the No-Bake Cheesecake — a recipe cut from the back of a package of Philadelphia Original Cream Cheese. Top with fresh berries and serve. Chag Sameach!
Mushroom Barley Soup (Pareve)
Serves 8 to 10 Cook’s Tips: • Rinse sliced mushrooms in cold water before use. • Chop vegetables in a food processor. Buy shredded carrots from the market. •In winter, add a package of Manischewitz Split Pea and Barley soup mix and increase water to 13 cups. Ingredients: 2 Tbps. vegetable oil 1 (8-ounce) package sliced white mushrooms 1/2 medium onion, coarsely chopped 1 large potato, coarsely chopped 2 ribs celery, coarsely chopped 1 cup grated carrots 1 tsp. bottled chopped garlic 8 cups water 4 rounded Tbps. pareve onion consommé powder 3/4 cup pearl barley 1 tsp. salt and 1/4 tsp. white pepper or to taste chopped parsley to garnish (optional) Directions: In a large pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the mushrooms, onion, potato and celery. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring occa-
Ethel G. Hofman
Families from Kibbutz Malkia in northern Israel, near the border with Lebanon, decorate a sukkah ahead of Sukkot in 2025. Ayal Margolin, Flash90
sionally. Add the carrots, garlic, water and consommé powder. Stir to mix. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Remove the layer that floats to the top. Season with salt and pepper. Reduce heat. Simmer for 1 hour, or until the barley becomes very soft. Garnish with parsley (optional). Serve hot.
Tuna Noodle Casserole (Dairy)
Serves 6 to 8 Cook’s Tips: • Stir in a half-cup of chopped mushrooms sautéed in 1 Tbsp. olive oil. •Use panko instead of breadcrumbs. Ingredients: 1 cup breadcrumbs 3 Tbps. butter, melted 1 can (10.5 ounces) of cream of mushroom soup 1/4 cup water 2 tsp. hot sauce 1 can (12 ounces) tuna, drained and flaked 3 cups cooked noodles of choice (elbow
Meatballs.
and penne noodles work well) Salt and pepper to taste Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x9 inch baking dish with nonstick baking spray. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir in the breadcrumbs. Cook, stirring, for 2 to 3 minutes until the mixture begins to brown. Set aside. Combine mushroom soup, water, hot sauce and seasoning. In a prepared baking dish, layer half the tuna and half the noodles. Cover with the mushroom sauce. Repeat with remaining tuna and noodles. Top with buttered crumbs. Bake in a preheated oven for 30 minutes or until bubbly and nicely browned. Serve hot. Note: Instead of canned mushroom soup, make a white sauce. Melt 3 tablespoons butter in a small saucepan over mediumlow heat. Stir in 3 tablespoons flour. Cook and stir until golden, 5 to 7 minutes. Whisk in 1-1/2 cups milk and 1/2 cup chopped See ETHEL on page 17
Ethel G. Hofman
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With a commitment to reporting that is Torah-true and honest. Making Jewish journalism great again. This section highlights 5786, the year just past.
THE JEWISH STAR September 25-October 1, 2026 • 14 Tishrei 5787
For 24 years, the covers of The Jewish Star have been telling the stories of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
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Sept. 19 - Oct. 2, 2025 • Nitzavim • 26 Elul 5785 • Vol. 24, No. 31 TWO SECTIONS
Hochul sides with Mamdani, Cuomo scolds Israel on war, Adams vows not to quit race Jews sidelined in NYC mayor race By Ed Weintrob, The Jewish Star Jewish voters were on the losing end of New York City politics this week on at least three fronts: •Apparently fearful of being primaried from her party’s left in next year’s gubernatorial election, Gov. Kathy Hochel endorsed its anti-Israel mayoral nominee, Zorhan Mamdani. •Independent candidate Andrew Cuomo, long a full-throated supporter of Israel and its Gaza war, softened his stiff posture and criticized the Jewish state, urging that it end its campaign against Hamas. •Mayor Eric Adams, the Democratic incumbent running for re-election as an independent, found himself at the bottom of several polls, lagging far behind Mamdani as well as Cuomo and the improbable Republican choice, Curtis Sliwa. Adams, a solid supporter of Israel and the city’s embattled Jewish communities, discounted the polls during an interview with The Jewish Star and said
he would stay in the race. [A report on the Adams interview is on page 4.]
Hochul’s endorsement
Hochul’s endorsement came late Sunday evening in an online-only New York Times op-ed that referenced her and Mamdani not seeing “eye to eye on everything” but dodging specifics. She did not mention Mamdani’s refusals to endorse the existence of Israel as a Jewish state or to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada”; his frequently repeated support for the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions Movement; and his pledge to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when the Israeli leader visits New York, saying only that “we discussed the need to combat the rise of antisemitism urgently and unequivocally.” Hochul added, “I’ve been glad to see him meet with Jewish leaders across the city, lisSee Jews are sidelined on page 9
Wishing our entire community, both in the New York area and in Eretz Yisrael, a 5786 filled with an abundance of good health, happiness and peace. Ketivah V’Chatima Tova!
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Oct. 24-30, 2025 • Noach • 2 Cheshvan 5786 • Vol. 24, No. 33
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Kennedy autism link fuels push to ban circumcision Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. did not eplicitly call for outlawing brit milah — but in asserting that the use of Tylenol (acetaminophen/paracetamol) to ease a baby’s pain following circumcision is a cause of autism, he added fuel to a growing anti-circumcision movement whose goal is exactly that: to stop brit milah. Rabbi Hayim Leiter, a world-traveling mohel, explores this troubling phenomenon.
RabbI HaYIM LEITER Letter from Efrat
A
s my plane touched down in Thailand, I received the check-in email for my journey back home. Despite the 11-hour flight, I could only stay one day. I had a wedding to officiate upon my return to Israel. As a “freelance rabbi” — meaning I’m not the head of a synagogue — I serve in a few capacities
President Trump and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. both said earlier this month that pregnant women should not take Tylenol. Kennedy also said that giving it to infants after circumcision is a contibuting factor in the development of autism. File photo by Joyce Boghosian, WH
Flexible Mamdani remains true to one thing: His hate of Israel icon of New York baseball, Yogi Berra, and say, “It ain’t over until it’s over.” Still, it is necessary to examine the hard facts.
JoNaTHaN S. TobIN
an anti-Mamdani flop
JNS Editor-in-Chief
W
ith less than two weeks until Election Day (and early voting beginning this Saturday, Oct. 25), it’s clear that hopes of preventing the election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor are dwindling. That means it’s time to stop pretending it won’t happen. Instead, what is needed is a sober assessment of how Jewish residents of the five boroughs will be affected by having an openly antisemitic mayor of the greatest Jewish city outside of Israel. For those who prefer to avoid that, we can roll out all the usual clichés about how the only poll that counts is the one in which the voters cast ballots. We can even quote that
Ed Weintrob, Editor and Publisher Nechama Bluth, Jewish Star Associate Stuart Richner, Richner Communications
B”H, a bigger Jewish Star will return after the holidays, in new green boxes all around town!
including that of a mohel, performing the sacred ritual of brit milah in Israel and around the world. That was the purpose my visit to the Far East. I make these trips regularly because many places in the world don’t have a resident mohel, and if I didn’t go the mitzvah would not be fulfilled. But these trips have become more complicated of late. Much of the recent news coverage about circumcision has been negative — from Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. linking the practice to autism to new data indicating declining rates of circumcision. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine report that neonatal circumcision rates have fallen since 2010 to below 50 percent for the first time. This number has been in decline since its peak of 80 to 85 percent in the 1980s. This may seem staggering to some, given how widespread the procedure has been. But for those of us who’ve been following the topic, this downturn seems almost inevitable. See A push to ban on page 2
Zohran Mamdani with his mother, Indian-American Mira Nair, and his father, professor Mahmood MamMichael M. Santiago, Getty Images via JNS dani, celebrating his primary win on June 24.
State, city and national Democrats could have reacted to the primary results in June by rejecting Mamdani and declaring their willingness to support an independent alternative, rather than let their party be taken over by not merely a hardcore Marxist but someone with a long record of support for the anti-Zionist and antisemitic cause of destroying the State of Israel. But they didn’t. While some Democratic leaders, like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both from New York City, have remained neutral, most of the party, including Gov. Kathy Hochul, has rallied behind him. In the contest’s first three-way dustup on See Mamdani’s Israel obsession on page 20
Cuomo tells UWS shul: No NYC without Jews. Page 8
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Oct. 31-Nov. 6, 2025 • Lech Lecha • 9 Cheshvan 5786 • Vol. 24, No. 34
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Eleventh hour push to save New York Dov dumps Curtis as worries mount over a split vote By The Jewish Star New Yorkers who believe that a win by Democrat Zohran Mamdani in the Nov. 4 mayoral election would be a city-dooming event, have stepped up eleventh-hour efforts to prevent election of the anti-Israel socialist. Last-minute appeals to Jewish voters to support independent candidate Andrew Cuomo, the only viable alternative to Mamdani, include key supporters of red-beret-wearing Curtis Sliwa who have turned against the Guardian Angel. See 11th hour save on page 4
Hold your nose and vote Cuomo EDITORIAL The odds seem insurmountable, but every election is a toss-up until the votes are counted. If you live in NYC: make sure that your vote counts — and urge your friends and relatives to vote as well. Andrew Cuomo is lousy candidate. He was a lousy governor. He’s likely to be less than a stellar mayor. But since he is the only alternative to Zohran Mamdani, he has my vote and he needs yours. No one should delude themselves that they’re being righteous by supporting Curtis Sliwa. A vote for Sliwa is, explicitly, a vote for Mamdani. Recriminations about how we got to this sorry juncture will come soon enough after the election. For now, it’s sufficient to acknowledge that Mamdani as mayor of the largest Jewish city outside of Israel would be very bad news. Accept this tip from Perkei Avot: We are not mandated to finish this job, but neither are we excused from trying. Get out and vote. Ed Weintrob, Editor
It ain’t over ’till it’s over!
Curtis Sliwa.
Andrew Cuomo.
Zohran Mamdani.
Leader of Park Avenue Synagogue stands with Israel, calls Zohran loss an imperative This is the text of the Shabbat sermon delivered by Elliot Cosgrove at the Park Avenue Synagogue in Manhattan on Shabbat Bereshit. o be clear, unequivocal, and on the record: I believe Zohran Mamdani poses a danger to the security of New York Jewish community. Mamdani’s refusal to condemn inciteful slogans like “globalize the intifada,” his denial of Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state, his call to arrest Israel’s Prime Minister should he enter New York, and his thrice-repeated accusation of genocide in Thursday’s debate — for these and so many other statements, past, present, and unrepentant — he is a danger to the Jewish body politic of New York. … Zionism, Israel, Jewish self-determination — these are not political preferences or partisan talking points. They are constituent building blocks and inseparable strands of my Jewish identity. To accept me as a Jew but to ask me to check my concern for the people and State of Israel at the door is as nonsensical a proposition as it is offensive — no different than asking
Israel is not a detachable policy preference. To delegitimize Israel, as Mamdani has repeatedly done, is an attack on my personhood as a Jew, as an American, and as an American Jew.
T
Hard to Reach Savings?
Elliot Cosgrove, spiritual leader of the Park Avenue Synagogue on the Upper East Side, delivering his sermon on New York’s mayoral election. YouTube
me to reject G-d, Torah, mitzvot, or any other pillar of my faith. … Mamdani’s distinction between accepting Jews and denying a Jewish state is not merely rhetorical sleight of hand or political naivete, though it is, to be clear, both of those things. His doing so is to traffic in the most dangerous of tropes, an anti-Zionist rhetoric that, as we have seen time and again — in Washington, in Colorado, in ways both small and large, online and in person — has given rise to deadly antisemitic violence. This past summer, you may recall, at the Glastonbury Music Festival in England, the crowd erupted into chants of “Death to the IDF.”
Where exactly would a Mamdani administration stand should that happen next summer in a concert on Governors Island, or in Central Park? I am not one to play the politics of fear. The entire thesis of my career is to play offense, not defense. But today, as I have before, I am throwing a flag on the field and calling out a threat to the Jewish people five minutes early rather than risk being five minutes too late. or me, the breaking point came not with Mamdani’s earlier statements — his accusations of Israeli genocide, his refusal to name Hamas a terrorist organization, or, See Park Ave pulpit on page 2
F
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Trust the Experts to Go the Distance. Nov. 21-27, 2025 Reach the Star: Editor@TheJewishStar.com • 516-622-7461 x291
Nov. 7-13, 2025 • Vayera • 16 Cheshvan 5786 • Vol. 24, No. 35
Oy
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Nov. 28-Dec. 4, 2025 • Vayetzei • 8 Kislev 5786 • Vol. 24, No. 38
1 Kislev 5786 Toldot Vol. 24, No. 37 Reach the Star: Editor@TheJewishStar.com 516-622-7461 x291
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If the mob had targeted a church or mosque, the outrage would have been unconditional. But in Mam’s eyes, it’s OK to intimidate Jews
Big Apple turns rotten DAnIeL MAeL
When Jews are targeted, the city’s moral confidence dissipates. The condemnation becomes conditional. The clarity evaporates.
Mael Time
N
Boys will be boys By The Jewish Star Friday’s White House press conference was expected to be a wild, bruising affair. The script was simple: President Donald Trump (a 79-years-old ruffian, undisputed champion of take-no-prisoners political theater) would tutor greenhorn Zorhan Mamdani (at 34 two generations his junior, a silver spoon-fed political novice — an immi-
grant!). After reading the riot act, president would put the mayor-elect in his place. But Trump and Mamdani ignored the script and improvised instead. Downplaying but not denying their differences (Trump’s called Mamdani a Communist, Mamdani’s called Trump a fascist), both men surprisingly appeared to relish an ability to get along (if not a genuine affection).
ew York has seen thousands of demonstrations since October 2023, but what happened last Wednesday night marked a moral rupture. A crowd did not gather outside a consulate or a corporate tower. It gathered at the doors of a synagogue. It gathered to frighten Jews. It gathered while the incoming mayor of the largest Jewish community in America searched for language that would allow him to acknowledge hatred without condemning those who delivered it. This was not activism. It was a show of force. A masked protester climbed above the crowd of roughly 200 and shouted the words that defined the night. “We need to make them scared.” His target was a house of worship — the Park East Synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side — a place that stands under the protection of the First Amendment and its guarantees of free exercise, free assembly, and free speech. Those protections are designed to ensure that Americans may enter a sacred space without intimidation. On this night, that constitutional promise was violated in full view of the city. Inside, families attended a routine Nefesh B’Nefesh event about moving to Israel. Outside, the chants became vicious. “Death to the IDF.” “Globalize the intifada.” “Take another settler out.”
Some protesters dispensed with politics entirely. “You are part of a death cult.” “You rapist pedophiles.” rotesters did not gather at a distance. They positioned themselves directly at the synagogue entrance. They forced attendees to walk through jeers and raised cameras that labeled them “settlers.” They posted videos online for humiliation. The intention was unmistakable. This was not a political rally. It was a deliberate attempt to make Jewish religious life feel unsafe. It was an effort to convert the entrance of a synagogue into a psychological checkpoint. If this scene had unfolded at a church or a mosque, New York’s elected officials would have raced to microphones to condemn it as an assault on religious freedom. The outrage would have been unified and immediate. Yet when Jews are targeted, the city’s moral confidence dissipates. The condemnation becomes conditional. The clarity evaporates. Then came the mayor-elect. Zohran Mamdani was presented with a test that required no complexity. A mob had surrounded a synagogue. Jews were told exSee With shuls on page 2
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On Amtrak, a rabbi’s call to thanksgiving RABBI DR. TzvI HeRSH weInReB Orthodox Union
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From the commun For the community.ity.
We help Nassau residents
e may or may not have been an antisemite, but he sure was an abrasive personality. He was my seatmate on an
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Amtrak train as I was returning to Baltimore from New York some years ago. As I recall, it was at the end of a particularly long and grueling day for me. I had a series of rabbinical meetings, delivered a talk during lunch which provided me no opportunity to eat, and was involved in an unsuccessful attempt to keep the marriage of a young couple from breaking up. I was looking forward to the respite of some quiet time on the return
trip to my home in Baltimore, but even that luxury was denied to me that evening. I sat down, as I always try to do, in the window seat. This fellow entered the railroad car and walked past me in search of a seat for himself. There were several seats that he could have chosen, but for some reason he returned to where I was sitting, glared at me, and sat down with a gesture of dissatisfaction.
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I immediately sensed that I would not experience the peaceful train ride that I had anticipated. I tried burying my head in the book I was reading, but that was not sufficient insulation from my neighbor’s insistence upon conversation. “You are obviously Jewish,” he began. “Your yarmulke, for one thing, is a dead giveaway. Plus, I see that you are reading a HeSee I have cause on page 14 brew book.”
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Rabbi Eli Schlanger.
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Matilda Brituan, youngest victim of the Sydney attack.
Boris Gurman and Sofia Gurman. Boris jumped one of the gunmen and seized his rifle as the terror attack began. The gunman used a handgun to murder the couple. GoFundMe
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Dan Elkayam.
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Alexander Kleytman (pictured with his wife Larisa) is a Shoah survivor who came to Australia from Ukraine.
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ing targets, weaponry, timing and sequence of operations. None of them knew a senior journalist was in the group. Waltz paid the price and was moved to the position of UN ambassador. The person appointed to the position of national security adviser in Waltz’s place was Marco Rubio, who simultaneously served as Secretary of State. He thus became the first person after the mythological Henry Kissinger to hold both positions simultaneously. Rubio’s senior status with Trump is particularly surprising if you go back about a decade to the two men’s contest in the Republican Party primaries, that sometimes deteriorated into ugly mudslinging.
Just over three weeks ago, on Jan. 3, Delta Force fighters burst from the darkness into the hiding place of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. At the end of the operation, the two landed on US soil and were transferred to a secure prison in Brooklyn. At a press conference, Trump declared that the United States would “manage” Venezuela. In a post a few days later, he responded to someone who called Rubio “the de facto president of Venezuela” by writing, “Sounds good.”
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Rubio (54, married and father of four) was
born in Miami to parents who emigrated from Cuba shortly before it fell to communism in the 1950s. His father worked as a bartender, his mother as a housekeeper, and the “American Dream” was for him a biography, not a slogan. In the family living room, politics was not an abstract concept but a living memory — stories of lost freedom and a regime that turned millions into refugees. This was his first political education. His faith is one of the defining factors of his character and his politics. “His faith, his Catholicism has really defined his political life,” a senior State Department official See Marco Rubio on page 2
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A member of Trump’s antisemitism panel rips Zionism, calls Jews killers By JNS and The Jewish Star midst testimony about challenges facing Jews in America, the US Religious Liberty Commission, meeting in Washington on Monday, became a forum for antisemitic talking points. The Jew-bashing was platformed by commission member Carrie Prejean Boller, one of 13 panel members appointed by President Donald Trump. She repeatedly baited witnesses with expressions of antiZionism and descriptions of Jews as killers over two-millennia — from the death of Christianity’s founder to the killing of Palestinians by Israelis during the Gaza war. “Jews killed Jesus,” Boller said, adding that because of her Catholic faith, she “does not support Zionists.”
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At Monday’s hearing of the Religious Liberty Commission (from left): Carrie Prejean Boller deployed antisemitic storylines to attack several of the Jewish people who testified about antisemitic experience in America, including activist Shabbos Kes-
tenbaum, Yitzchok Frankel (lead plaintiff in Frankel v. Regents of the University of California), Rabbi Ari Berman, Yeshiva University president, and Rabbi Meir CSPAN Soloveichik of Congregation Shearith Israel in Manhattan.
In social media posts, Boller, a former Miss California who is a right-wing activist and commentator, has accused Israel of “deliberate starvation” and “murdering
mentators Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson, repeatedly accused of Jew-hatred. She returned to those defenses on Monday. “I would really appreciate it if
children” in Gaza. She has also attacked Christian Zionists. In recent months her social media posts have been dominated by defenses of the right-wing com-
you would stop calling Candace Owens an antisemite,” Boller told Seth Dillon, CEO of the satirical Babylon Bee. “She’s not an antiSee Member on page 2
Long Beach first responders learn the power of 7 minutes
Right: Rep. Ritchie Torres speaks last year at a summit on Jew-hatred sponsored by the Combat Antisemitism Movement and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Left: In a video last week, rival Jose Vega (at left with Jewish-conspiracist Erik Warsaw), said Torres was a “bought and conrolled” by millionaire Zionists in Riverdale.
Rubio’s remarkable rise: How former Trump rival became his foreign policy powerhouse Backgrounder by Or Shaked and Dudi Kogan Israel Hayom On March 24, 2025, the Atlantic exposed one of the biggest scandals in American national security history, a field not unfamiliar with scandal. Jeffrey Goldberg, the magazine’s editor-in-chief, described how Mike Waltz, President Donald Trump’s national Security adviser, had mistakenly added him to a Signal group called “Houthi PC small group” — a group that included 18 senior administration officials. Goldberg watched in real time as senior administration officials received briefings on a military strike against the Houthis in Yemen, includ-
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‘Zionist millionaires’ in Riverdale control Ritchie Torres, rival says
By The Jewish Star and JNS Seeking to unseat Rep. Ritchie Torres in this year’s Democratic primary, Jose Vega released a campaign video last week alleging that Zionists in Riverdale “bought and controlled” Torres and are keeping the Bronx poor. Torres, whose district includes both Riverdale and poorer Bronx neighborhoods, has been a bold advocate for Israel and the fight against antisemitism, as well as various progressive causes. In the video, Erik Warsaw, a conspiracist who traffics in assertions that cast Jews in a poor light, asked Vega how is it that “the Bronx is one of the poorest districts in America, but also has some of the richest Zionist millionaires in America too.” “Because rich people like to live in areas where they can buy the politicians easily, like Ritchie Torres, who is bought and controlled by Zionist influencers and millionaires who all live in Riverdale,” answered Vega, noting that beyond Riverdale, “this district, being one of the poorest congressional districts, has the lowest voter turnout rate. So the less people that vote, the easier it is to buy a politician.” Torres responded to the video: “My opposition sees antisemitism not as a tragedy, but as a strategy.” He added that “no amount of defamation or disinformation will ever shame me out of representing every community in my district. We are One Bronx, and no amount of Jew-hatred will divide us.” See Zionist on page 23
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Members of the 2nd Battalion Fire District with MDA paramedic Aryeh Myers during a “First Seven Minutes” training session. AFMDA
From left: City of Long Beach Deputy Fire Commissioner Scott Kemins; City of Long Beach Fire Commissioner Joseph Miller; and Aryeh Myers, MDA senior paramedic and liaison with the International Relations Department. AFMDA
Would you know what to do in the first seven minutes of an emergency? That was the reality a man in Ramla faced during a terror attack in Israel. He had been stabbed in the leg; the bleeding was severe and life-threatening. When Magen David Adom paramedic Aryeh Myers arrived, a bystander had already stepped in. The person had no medical background (only a first-aid course from 20 years earlier) and no tourniquet available. Using a belt as an improvised tourniquet, the bystander controlled the bleeding until professional teams arrived. The civilians’ quick, decisive action saved a life. That principle is at the heart of “The First Seven Minutes,” a lifesaving training program developed by Magen David Adom and brought to communities in the United States by American Friends of Magen David Adom AFMDA. “The project is called ‘The First Seven Minutes’ because that’s the average time it takes for first responders to reach an emergency,” said Aryeh Myers, a senior paramedic with Magen David Adom. On Feb. 4, AFMDA brought this training to Long Beach, partnering with the Long Beach Fire Department to host a specialized training program for
emergency professionals serving Long Island’s South Shore. More than 45 fire chiefs, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs and health professionals attended, representing departments within the 2nd Battalion Fire District, which includes Baldwin, Freeport, Island Park, Long Beach, Oceanside and Point Lookout-Lido. The 2nd Battalion Fire District receives one of the highest numbers of emergency calls on Long Island, making preparedness a constant priority. The training, led by Myers, emphasized practical, lifesaving actions that anyone on the scene can take immediately in a mass casualty situation, from active shooter attacks to large-scale accidents, before ambulances and additional resources arrive. The event was born when AFMDA supporter and Fire Commissioner Alan Greenfield, MD, decided to combine his two passions for a meaningful cause. Believing there is no better teacher than someone who has lived through these kinds of emergencies, Greenfield, who attended medical school in Tel Aviv, spearheaded the program to bring firsthand lifesaving experience to Long Island. Drawing on Magen David Adom’s experience reSee Long Beach on page 2
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Prayer for the State of Israel
Global intifada knocks on Mamdani’s NY door ISIS-lovers hoped to top Boston Marathon bombing death toll
Heavenly Father, Israel’s Rock and Redeemer, bless the State of Israel, the first flowering of our redemption.
By Combined Sources Two wannabe Islamic terrorists are under arrest after throwing an improvised explosive device during a confrontation on Saturday between pro- and anti-Muslim demonstrators outside Gracie Mansion, official residence of Zohran Mamdani, the city first Muslim mayor on. The suspects “stated they were aligned with ISIS,” according to Jay Clayton, US attorney for the Southern District of New York. “This was an alleged ISIS-inspired act of terrorism that could have killed American citizens,” said US Attorney General Pam Bondi. Todd Blanche, deputy attorney general, said the men “allegedly sought to inflict mass casualties in service to ISIS with the hope of exceeding the carnage of the Boston Marathon bombing.” The two men — Emir Balat, 18, of Langhorne, PA, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, of Newtown, PA — were “both self-radicalized in recent years and traveled to Turkey and other terror-training hotspots,” the New York Post reported, citing law enforcement sources close to the investigation. The device that Balat is accused of throwing into a crowd of protesters “contained TATP, a highly volatile explosive that is colloquially known as the ‘Mother of Satan’ and extremely sensitive to impact, friction and heat,” the Justice Department said. “TATP has been used in multiple terrorist attacks over the last decade.” Jessica Tisch, the New York City Police Department commissioner, said at a Monday press conference that “I can confirm this morning that this is being investigated as an act of ISIS-inspired terrorism.” The city has been “in a heightened state of alert” since the “start of hostilities in Iran, and we remain in that posture,” said Tisch, who was wearing a Star of David necklace. “Today, we will continue to deploy additional counterterrorism resources throughout New York City, including heavy weapons teams, canine units, aviation and more.” “The last time that an IED targeting people was deployed in New York City was in 2017 when Akayed Ullah detonated a device strapped to his torso in the pedestrian underpass connecting the Port Authority bus terminal and the Times Square subway station,” she added.
Shield it under the wings of your loving-kindness and spread over it the Tabernacle of Your peace. Send Your light and truth to its leaders, ministers and counselors, and direct them with good counsel before You. Strengthen the hands of the defenders of our Holy Land; grant them deliverance, our G-d, and crown them with the crown of victory. Grant peace in the land and everlasting joy to its inhabitants. As for our brothers, the whole house of Israel, remember them in all the lands of our dispersion, and swiftly lead us upright to Zion Your city, and Jerusalem Your dwelling place, as is written in the Torah of Moses Your servant: “Even if you are scattered to the furthermore lands under the heavens, from there the L-rd your G-d will gather you and take you back. The L-rd your G-d will bring you to the land your ancestors possessed and you will possess it; and He will make you more prosperous and numerous than your ancestors. “Then the L-rd your G-d will open up your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the L-rd your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.” Unite our hearts to love and revere Your name and observe all the words of Your Torah, and swiftly send us Your righteous anointed one of the House of David, to redeem those who long for Your salvation. Appear in Your glorious majesty over all the dwellers on earth, and let all who breathe declare: The L-rd G-d of Israel is King and His kingship has dominion over all. Amen, Selah. Koren Publishers Jerusalem
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‘Zachor’ and ‘never again’ With memory comes responsibility My grandfather did not survive so we would simply ‘remember’ but so that we’d live: as Jews, with faith, dignity, responsibility. Dana Frenkel delivered this address at the Greater Five Towns Community Yom Hashoah Commemoration on Monday night at Congregation Beth Sholom in Lawrence. Frenkel, of Woodmere, co-chairs the event with Nathaniel Rogoff.
DANA FRENKEL Woodmere
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he baby steps we have been taking toward the Islamization of the West is hitting full stride. And if you’re Jewish and living almost anywhere you should be feeling run over by now.
Editor’s Note
A demonstrator — who police say described himself as an ISIS-inspired Islamic terrorist wannabee — flees after throwing a homemade explosive towards police during clashing protests in front of Gracie Mansion, Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s official residence, on Sunday. Charly Triballeau, AFP via Getty Images via JNS
“No one other than the attacker was injured in that incident, and once again, we were fortunate that the devices used this weekend did not cause the kind of harm that they were certainly capable of causing.” “But luck is never a strategy,” she said. Balat lit and threw an explosive “toward
the area where the anti-Muslim protesters gathered” at around 12:15 pm, per the Justice Department complaint. He then ran down the block, and Kayumi gave him a second explosive device, which he appeared to ignite and drop “near where several NYPD officers were standing,” the complaint alleges.
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A “student ambassador” lit one of six candles.
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The US Justice Department said on Monday that both men face charges of trying to support a foreign terror organization; using a weapon of mass destruction; transporting explosive materials, including across state lines; and possessing destructive devices illegally. See Global intifada’s on page 2
The Schanzer brothers — survivors Henry and Bernard — delivered the keynote address and lit two of the six candles at the Five Towns Yom Hashoah commemoration. Next week’s Star will report on their presentation.
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YU president links Shoah memory to AI responsibility, asks techies to join fight
Mayor Zohran Mamdani in the Annual Inner Circle Show at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in Manhattan on March 29. Michael Appleton, Mayoral Photography Office
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Following the “Hack the Hate 2026” program at the Yeshiva University Museum, YU President Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman exchanges ideas with Benjamin Good, director of content policy for Meta, and Yfat BarakCheney, executive director of the Institute for Technology and Human Rights. Ed Weintrob, The Jewish Star
Mayor Zohran Mamdani accused President Donald Trump of “killing thousands of people” in the Iran war and defended his decision to revoke his predecessor’s executive orders about Jew-hatred and anti-Israel boycotts, in an interview at City Hall with Leila Fadel, of NPR. Fadel pressed the mayor multiple times about his relationship with Trump, with whom Mamdani has met at least twice at the White House since his term as mayor began in January. “I’ll keep the nature of the conversations with the president between the two of us,” Mamdani said, emphasizing that the has “a deep opposition to this war, a deep opposition that comes out of a concern for what our politics are incentivizing in this moment — the killing of civilians, as opposed to the uplifting
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of working-class people across this country.” Fadel noted that Trump has called Mamdani a “communist lunatic” and that the mayor called the president a “fascist.” “Now that you’ve met with him, that you’ve spoken with him multiple times, do you still think he’s a fascist?” she asked. “Yes,” Mamdani said. She asked if the mayor has told Trump that he considers him a fascist. “Yes,” Mamdani said. Asked how Trump responded, Mamdani said that “I think everyone saw in the conversation we had in the Oval Office after our first meeting.” “He seems to like you. Are you and the president friends?” Fadel wondered. “I would say that he’s the president and I’m the mayor,”
Mamdani said. “The basis of the relationship comes from those two positions.” “Look at the war in Iran today,” he told Fadel in response to another question. “We’re talking about a federal administration that has spent close to $30 billion killing thousands of people at a time when working class people across this country cannot afford the bare minimum.” Mamdani, who has said that he wants to build stronger relationships with Jewish New Yorkers, has drawn “significant support from liberal and leftist Jewish Americans, Jewish communities,” Fadel said. “But you also drew a lot of skepticism, and there was a lot of fear that your sharp criticisms of Israel would also translate into someSee Mamdani cold-shoulders on page 2
NYC Council Speaker Julie Menin visits Congregation Machane Chodosh in Forest Hills. The shul was vandalized with antisemitic graffiti. Office of NYC Council Speaker
pected to be met with their usual loving community,” Menin said. “When a family woke up, they were prepared to begin an otherwise normal week. Instead, they were met with terrifying signals of hatred and threats of violence.” Menin visited the synagogue with fellow City Council members Phil Wong and Lynn Schulman, vice-chair of the council’s Jewish Caucus. Rep. Grace Meng, whose district includes parts of Queens, also visited the site with Menin. “Once again, hate has reared its ugly head in our community, and I am sickened by this vile act of antisemitism. I’ve said it many times and I will say it again, ‘Hate has no place in Queens or anywhere else in our society’,” Meng said. Mark Treyger, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of NY, said “these were not just synagogues, homes and Jewish centers: one of the sites houses a pre-K program, where young children, their families and staff were greeted with swastikas and other hateful vandalism. This is not normal, and we need city leaders to act now.” “As we warned, hateful language always turns into dangerous actions.” said Ofir Akunis, consul general of Israel in New York.
Manhattan Jew-hate mayhem An anti-Israel mob estimated to number more than 100, chanting “Long live the intifada” and “Israel should not exist,” clashed with police near the Park East Synagogue, on East 67th Street on the Upper East Side, on Tuesday evening. The crowd was protesting an Israel real-estate event inside that Mayor Zohran Mamdani earlier in the day had condemned. Sam Raskin, Mamdani’s spokesman, said the mayor was “deeply opposed” to the event because it “includes the promotion of the sale of land in settlements in the Occupied West Bank,” the New York Times reported. Mamdani has repeatedly said he is opposed to the entirety of Israel as a Jewish state, not only to any expansion into Judea and Samaria.
c
Of Syrian Jews, Ashkenazim and Hasidim and the reason I won’t wear a black hat I
HAROLD S. STEINBERG
This article was first published 26 years ago in the Long Island Jewish World, where the author penned a column for many years. He is now a resident of Riverdale. The Jewish Star welcomes reader feedback to this piece. Please address you comments to: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
t was a recurring comic tag line in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” “Who are those guys?” Asking myself that same question set in motion a gradual process of discovery, culminating in my resolution never to wear a black hat. Dear reader, allow me to explain. It happened soon after commencing my yeshiva high school education in Brooklyn. I had come from a traditional yeshiva elementary school whose student body was dotted with names like Bernstein, Adelman and Liebow-
Chassidic Jews in Brooklyn.
Mendy Hechtman, Flash90
itz. Suddenly, in high school, I found myself amid people with names like Harary, Gindi, Silvera and Shamah. They were different, and in ways that went beyond the strangeness of their names. They dressed stylishly; the boys favored those black, crepe-like, conical kippot I associated with infrequent attendees at my synagogue; and they were seriously into Motown rhythm-and-blues groups like Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, the Four Tops and the Temptations. Who were those guys?
I was to learn that they were the “Syrians.” Though some were, in fact, of Egyptian lineage, such distinctions were usually overlooked. Actually, they were the American- born descendants of Syrian and Egyptian Jews. For the most part they resided in an enclave around Ocean Parkway. They regarded Arabic as their mother tongue, not Yiddish; were often named after living ancestors; had a spiritual leader they called the “Haham” (not the Rabbi); and (oddity of oddities) did not regard kreplach and cholent See Steinberg on page 4
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May15-21, 2026 • Bamidbar • 28 Iyar 5786 • Vol. 25, No. 15
Pollard says: •Trump’s ‘dangerous,’ Israeli supporters ‘stupid’ •US alliance ‘finished’ •Bibi’s a failure •Shas is a ‘criminal enterprise’ •MKs have ‘blood on their hands’
By The Jewish Star Jonathan Pollard appears to be taking aim at nearly everyone. In an exclusive interview with i24NEWS over the weekend, Pollard, the former US Navy intelligence analyst who served 30 years in an American prison for spying for Israel, blasted President Donald Trump as “very dangerous,” declared the US-Israel alliance “finished,” accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and every current Knesset party of bearing responsibility for Oct. 7, and confirmed he is entering Israeli politics. Pollard said he would run in the upcoming Knesset election as a member of a new, small right-wing party. His comments amounted to a political broadside against the American and Israeli leaders who, in Pollard’s telling, have failed Israel at a moment of war, trauma and uncertainty. When asked about Trump during the interview, with i24NEWS senior correspondent Owen Alterman, Pollard responded: “I think he’s very dangerous. Dangerous, because I don’t know what his North Star is. I don’t
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomes Jonathan Pollard to Israel, at Ben-Gurion on Dec. 30, 2020. This week, Pollard downplayed Netanyahu’s role in his release from prison in the US and sharply criticized the prime minister.
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Lag BaOmer lights up Cedarhurst
know what his values are.” When Alterman noted that Trump “is loved in this country,” Pollard replied: “Well, that just shows you how stupid a lot of people in this country really are. They don’t seem to understand that empires like the United States have permanent interests, not permanent friendships.” Pollard accused the Trump administration of preventing Israel from decisively defeating Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran. “Ask yourself a question,” Pollard said. “Why is it that this administration has categorically refused to allow us to decisively beat any of our enemies — whether it’s Hamas, the Hutis, Hezbollah, or even Iran? “Why? Because they don’t want us to win anything decisively.” Pollard also took aim at Trump advisers Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, saying Trump “doesn’t really know much about anything that’s going on in this region, except maybe the price of real estate.” He described Kushner and Witkoff as “Tweedledum and See Pollard on page 7
After blood libel, new calls to boycott Times
The Five Towns celebrated Lag BaOmer in Cedarhurst Park with a bonfire — plus archery, a “cirque-tacular,” inflatables, petting zoo and BBQ. The event was organized by Chabad of the Five Towns Rabbi Zalman and Rebbetzen Chanie Wolowik.
If you’re not, if you have somehow misjudged the jihadist calling cards — firebombs and vans filled with explosives, hailstorms of bullets and, of course, the defiant intolerance of religious pluralism — you’re either dead or braindead. Over the past several weeks, Islamists have declared open hunting season on Jewish houses of worship worldwide. Synagogues in New York, Los Angeles and Miami were targeted with vandalism or arson; the same with synagogues in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver; and in such far-flung jihadist destinations as France, Germany, Chile, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Italy and the outback urban centers of Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney. In Holland, an explosion at an Orthodox Jewish school in Amsterdam. Hours earlier an arson attack at a Rotterdam synagogue. Four teenage Islamists belonging to The Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right claimed responsibility. In Norway, in the city of Trondheim, an armed Islamist conducting reconnaissance outside a synagogue was arrested after a high-speed car chase. A bomb was set off in a synagogue in Liège, Belgium. The Belgian Jewish community has been especially besieged as of late. Since
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A supporter of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel at a rally in Manhattan on Oct. 9, 2023.
2024, a nation otherwise known for chocolate has seen a surge of antisemitic incidents owing mostly to its large Muslim population. According to a recent poll in Brussels, where 20 percent of the population is Muslim, nearly half the city believes that Jews dominate banking
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and manipulate markets. In Azerbaijan, police foiled terrorist plots against a synagogue and the Israeli Embassy in Baku. Three synagogue shootings took place in Toronto, Canada, all within 10 miles from one another. Bullets shattered the glass entrance at Beth
Lev Radin, Shutterstock via JNS
Avraham Yoseph with two maintenance workers inside. A half hour later shots were fired at the entrance of Shaarei Shomayim. Days earlier another synagogue and a Jewish restaurant were pelted with gunfire. See Rosenbaum on page 2
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Why haven’t we won yet?
Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Geore HW Bush (CVN 77) sails in the Indian Ocean in th US Central Command’s area of responsibility, on April 23.
By Yoni Ben Menachem Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs The war between the United States and Israel on one side and Iran on the other, which has now entered a temporary pause ahead of fragile negotiations, raises a central question: How is it that a military confrontation with the world’s strongest power has not ended in a clear American strategic victory? The US wielded overwhelming military force, launching massive airstrikes and deploying sophisticated naval assets. Still, the two primary objectives — reopening the Strait of Hormuz and fully eliminating Iran’s nuclear program — remain unfulfilled. According to senior security officials, there are several explanations for the survival of the Iranian regime. First, the constraints of traditional military force. Air and naval superiority no longer en-
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Juan Alzamora for The Jewish Star
Fresh outrage as vandals hit shuls, homes
By Jessica Russak-Hoffman, JNS Police are searching for four suspects accused of vandalizing Jewish institutions and residences in Queens with Nazi symbols and other antisemitic graffiti early on Monday morning. “Multiple locations had been spraypainted with black and red paint with swastikas,” an NYPD spokesman said. Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whose spokeswoman has said that synagogues violate international law when they host pro-Israel events, said on Tuesday that he is “horrified and angered by the swastikas painted on homes and synagogues in Queens, including on a plaque honoring survivors of Kristallnacht.” “This is not just vandalism. It is a deliberate act of antisemitic hatred meant to instill fear,” he said. “There is no place for antisemitism in Queens or anywhere in our city. I stand in solidarity with our Jewish neighbors. Their safety, dignity and belonging are non-negotiable.” City Council Speaker Julie Menin visited Congregation Machane Chodosh, an Orthodox shul in Forest Hills, which was one of the targeted sites. “When rabbis and congregants arrived to pray this morning, they ex-
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edented opportunity to counter those forces. “If technology can spread darkness, it can also spread light,” he said. “That’s why this moment and this room matters so deeply.” Organizers said the event was designed to showcase how Israeli tech innovators and global Jewish communities are building a “digital iron dome,” leveraging new technology to intercept viral blood libels and ensure accurate representation in the systems training the next generation of artificial intelligence. Hack the Hate is an international initiative led by Generative AI for Good and the 8200 Alumni Association, in collaboration with Yeshiva University’s Sy Syms School of Business, the World Jewish Congress Tech Human Rights Institute, Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combatting Antisemitism, Gesher, Maccabee Ventures, and President Isaac Herzog’s Voice of the People initiative. Rabbi Berman told attendees that their work in using emerging technologies — including generative AI — extends beyond technical innovation. “More than coding products, you are shaping what people see, what they believe and how they understand one another,” he said. “And that is a sacred responsibility.” See Hacking hate on page 2
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May 8-14, 2026 • Behar-Bechukotai • 21 Iyar 5786 • Vol. 25, No. 14
These are challenging times. To survive the chaos we require the merciful help of Hashem, confidence in ourselves and in our heritage, and a dose of truth. Torah is true. But what passes for news and commentary in partisan publications and algorithmically-driven social media feeds is not. Each week, The Jewish Star works to make a positive contribution to necessary conversations in our communities. Not every article will be “on the money,” but our efforts are honest and, to the best of our abilities, Torah true. We hear regularly from readers in the communities we serve — from the Five Towns to Great Neck, Kew Gardens Hills to Riverdale to Scarsdale. Please let us know what you think. Ed Weintrob, Editor & Publisher Editor@TheJewishStar.com
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Mamdani cold-shoulders Jews and calls Trump a killer fascist
Photos by Ed Weintrob, The Jewish Star
e have just emerged from Pesach, from the story that defines us as a people. It is a story we are commanded not merely to tell, but to live: “Bekal dor vedur hayev adam lirot et atzmo k’ilu hu yatza mimitzrayim (in every generation, a person must see himself as if he had come out of Egypt).” But there is another command that runs throughout the Torah, repeated again and again: “zachor (remember).” In Judaism, remembering is never passive. It is not simply recalling the past, it is allowing the past to shape the present and obligate the future. That is why the Torah commands not only what to remember but how — to see ourselves as if we were there, to feel, to internalize, and to carry that memory forward into the way we live our lives. And that is why, alongside zachor, there is another command — sharper and more demanding: “Lo ta’amod al dam re’echa (Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor).” Because true remembrance cannot remain in the realm of thought or emotion alone; it must lead to responsibility and action. he Shoah was not only a tragedy of hatred, it was a tragedy of indifference. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks taught that the opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference. Evil flourishes not only through those who perSee Yom Hashoah on page 2
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When Islam calls, the West should hang up. Distinguished University Professor Touro College
‘Hack the hate’ For The Jewish Star Yeshiva University’s president called on technology leaders to take an active role in combating antisemitism and online hate, framing the challenge as both a moral and creative responsibility, in remarks at “Hack the Hate NYC 2026” on April 14, Yom Hashoah. Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman, speaking at the Yeshiva University Museum on West 16th Street, addressed an audience largely composed of professionals working in artificial intelligence and technology, urging them to consider the broader societal impact of the tools they build. “Tonight, we stand in the shadow of memory,” Rabbi Berman said. “We remember 6 million Jews — lives of infinite dignity, extinguished by hatred that sought to erase truth itself.” He described the Shoah not only as an act of mass violence, but as “an assault on reality,” arguing that its legacy continues to echo in modern forms of disinformation and digital hate. “Antisemitism and hatred more broadly spreads at the speed of technology,” he said. “Disinformation travels faster than truth. Lies are amplified and reality is blurred.” At the same time, Rabbi Berman emphasized that technology also offers an unprec-
THE LEADER IN PROPERT Y TAX REDUCTION
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April 24-30, 2026 • Achrei Mot-Kedoshim • 7 Iyar 5786 • Vol. 25, No. 12
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Those who believe Israeli teens deserved to be gangraped, infants set aflame and others beheaded will shrug off the attempted murder of 140 Jewish daycare children in Detroit.
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March 13-19, 2026 • Vayakhel-Pekudei • 24 Adar 5786 • Vol. 25, No. 8
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By JNS The were fresh calls this week for a boycott of the New York Times after critics accused the paper of publishing a “modern-day blood libel” — a Nicholas Kristof column alleging Israel uses sexual violence against Palestinians as part of its security apparatus. The backlash erupted after the Times denied rumors that it would retract the Monday opinion piece, which cited claims that Israeli guards were using dogs to sexually assault Palestinian detainees — allegations critics blasted as unsubstantiated, inflammatory and rooted in anti-Israel propaganda. “There is no truth to this at all,” Times spokesperson Charlie Stadtlander said Tuesday of the retraction rumor.
Stadtlander defended Kristof as “a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has reported on sexual violence for decades and is widely regarded as one of the world’s best on-the-ground reporters documenting and bearing witness to sexual abuse experienced by women and men in war and conflict zones.” He said Kristof “traveled to the region to report firsthand on the stories of Palestinians who suffered abuse, and his article collects accounts in the victims’ own words, backed by independent studies.” But critics said the column crossed a dangerous line. The Israeli Foreign Ministry accused the Times of deliberately publishing the column the night beSee After Monday’s on page 2
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sure decisive victory when the adversary relies on asymmetric tactics. Iran avoided direct confrontation with the US Instead, it employed attrition tactics and restricted its adversary’s operational latitude. The primary instrument in this approach was its arsenal of ballistic missiles and drones. These relatively inexpensive, hard-to-intercept weapons have redefined the dynamics of conflict. They forced the US Navy to maintain a distance from Iranian shores to avoid missile range and made any approach toward Iranian territory a significant risk. In doing so, Iran effectively offset part of its opponents’ technological edge. The maritime sphere clearly illustrated this shift. The US Navy failed to impose full control over the Strait of Hormuz and avoided deep offensive operations. Rather than serving as a decisive force, it became primarily a support-
ing instrument. This represents a conceptual shift, as naval dominance has long been considered a cornerstone of American deterrence. Second, while the US destroyed Iran’s formal navy, it did not target the small fast boats operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, for reasons that remain unclear. These vessels enforce Iran’s de facto ability to threaten, or close, the Strait of Hormuz. Third, Iran’s capacity to preserve internal unity. Contrary to expectations, the campaign did not trigger collapse or widespread revolt. Segments of the opposition, including reformists, adopted a protective national stance, recognizing that regime collapse could fracture the state. This undercut one of Washington’s core assumptions for quick pressure. Large-scale protests that erupted last January, involving tens of thousands of demonstrators, subsided after approximately 35,000 people were reportedly killed by the Basij militia.
US Navy
The public was both intimidated by the regime and waiting for President Donald Trump’s cue for renewed protests, per his earlier promises. Security sources indicate the regime’s handling of earlier protests set a precedent during the war — malevolent security, strong deterrence, and readiness for extreme force kept Iran’s home front stable. Fourth, Iran has sustained strategic flexibility. It has not yielded on essential issues — its nuclear program or its missile capabilities — and has maintained a policy of ambiguity and pressure. Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz is now a pivotal tool for exerting economic and security leverage over both the US and the global economy. A decisive outcome is also tied to political constraints. As the campaign dragged on, domestic pressure on Trump within the US See Why we have not yet on page 4
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June 5-11, 2026 • Beha’alotcha • 20 Sivan 5786 • Vol. 25, No. 17
As mayoral decay rots NYC: 2 women pillars of strength c
Tisch and Menin hold the city on their shoulders Perspective by Ed Weintrob The Jewish Star As Mayor Zohran Mamdani disrupts the city’s civil and economic norms, targeting Jewish New Yorkers for special abuse, two highpositioned Jewish women hold the city and its Jewish communities Atlas-like on their shoulders. While comparing Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch and City Council President Julie Menin to the biblical Queen Esther would be a stretch — their relationships with New York’s Achashverosh is not warm and fuzzy but transactional — Mamdani is compelled, at least for the moment, to hear them out: the politically astute Menin because she’s a gatekeeper to City Council action on his agenda; hyper-professional Tisch because she keeps the city safe despite the mayor’s anti-law-enforcement proclivities. At the Met Council’s early morning Legislative Breakfast on Sunday, preceding the Israel on Fifth Parade, both women reaffirmed their Jewish pride and pledged anew to defend their community in its hour of need. “I was raised to believe deeply in Am Israel,” Tisch told an estimated 500 people in attendance at the event, an annual magnet for political insiders. “That’s how my parents raised me and that is how I am raising my kids. My
Ed Weintrob, The Jewish Star
March 6-12, 2026
Your Home is Your Sanctua ry.
Don’t Let High Taxes Chase You Away!
Council Speaker Julie Menin voiced her Jewish pride at Sunday’s Met Council breakfast.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch told the Met Council she’d continue to keep New Yorkers safe.
Jewish identity is not something that I put on and that I take off. It is who I am and who I will always be.” Standing with the mayor at official functions, the police commissioner often wears a Jewish star. Menin began her remarks directly. “I am so proud to be the first Jewish speaker of the New York City Council,” she said. “In this pivotal moment, we are fighting against a scourge of antisemitism the likes of which our city has not seen in a very long time,” Menin continued. “I don’t need to tell all of you the fight that we have on our hands.” Referring to studies that report one-third of young people in New York believe the Holocaust was either a myth or exaggerated, Menin said that “as a daughter of a Holocaust survivor, this is shameful. It’s unconscionable. It’s unacceptable.” “Today, we proudly march for Jewish culture, for Jewish heritage, and for the Jewish state,” she said. Tisch offered an assurance to those preparing to march in Sunday’s parade, and for whom the prevalence of antisemitism in New York is palpable. “I worry so that you shouldn’t have to, so that you can sleep easier at night,” she said. See Women on page 5
Joyous NYers cheer Israel on Fifth Ave
Outgoing UJA-Federation of NY CEO Eric Goldstein (left) joined an estimated 50,000 Israel-lovers on Sunday, lining Fifth Avenue (above) and marching with a student from SAR in Riverdale (right). More on pages 2, 3 and 4.
THE JEWISH STAR September 25-October 1, 2026 • 14 Tishrei 5787
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September 25-October 1, 2026 • 14 Tishrei 5787 THE JEWISH STAR
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An Esther message to US Jews: ‘Do not imagine you will escape’ STEVEn ABRAHAM Beth El, Omaha
W
hen word reached Esther that her people stood condemned, she hesitated. She was, after all, inside the palace. She had proximity to power, status, access, and the illusion of insulation. Mordechai answered her with one of the most unsparing sentences in the Tanach: “Al tedami b’nafshech l’himalet beit hamelech mikol haYehudim, (Do not imagine that you, of all the Jews, will escape because you are in the king’s palace)” (Esther 4:13). I have returned to that verse again and again since October 7.
Queen Esther pleads her people’s case before King Achaschveiros.
Vladyslav Tykhonov, Adobe AI
Not because America is Shushan. It is not. America has been, by almost every measure, the most generous diaspora home our people has ever known. Its promise has been real, its blessings extraordinary, its civic ideals worth defending. But gratitude is not blindness. And the palace was never a covenant. For generations, American Jews believed that proximity meant protection. We were inside. We had become, by most external measures, the most successful diaspora community in Jewish history. And we mistook success for safety. We mistook access for belonging. We mistook America’s hospitality for an exemption from Jewish history. That illusion has collapsed. Not gradually. Not politely. Not in the abstract. It collapsed on the campuses where Jewish students were See Like Esther on page 3
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Mamdani elects 3 new antizionists to Congress
June 26-July 2, 2026
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‘… a people that dwells apart …’ —Bamidbar 23:9
TRUMP TO ISRAEL: DROP DEAD June 19-25, 2026 • Korach • 4 Tammuz 5786 • Vol. 25, No. 19
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Tobin: Betrayed by Trump, defeated by Iran, we must not be silent
JOnATHAn S. TOBIn JnS Editor-in-Chief
I
t’s a bitter to pill to swallow for those of us who have spent much of the last decade lauding President Donald Trump as the most pro-Israel
president since the founding of the modern Jewish state. There’s no denying that Trump’s decision to make a deal with Iran — the rogue state that he had gone to war against on Feb. 28 alongside Israel — represents a staggering defeat for the United States, Israel and himself personally. And those who have commended Trump for all the good things he did during his time in the White
President Donald Trump’s Georgia mug shot which hangs in the White House.
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Jewish Star columnist Boynton B. / Jerusalem
Misplaced faith
The agreement, which Trump touted as “real peace” because it opens the Strait of Hormuz, is a triumph for Tehran. What makes it all the more dismaying for Trump’s defenders is that one key criticism of his presidency has been vindicated. See Trump’s chaos on page 2
W
e’ve been here before, many times. Jewish history is replete with false prophets, princes and potentates who promise victory, prosperity and peace but instead bring us war, devastation and destruction.
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July 31-August 13, 2026 • Eikev • 17 Av 5786 • Vol. 25, No. 23
These Hamas nurses are no Florence Nightingales By The Jewish Star At least 18 Gaza healthcare workers who were publicly identified as doctors, nurses, paramedics or other medical personnel have been acknowledged by Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad as members of their organizations, the Times of Israel reported this week. The names appeared in online obituaries and casualty lists published in recent months by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which have begun identifying hundreds of rank-and-file operatives killed during the war that began after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, TOI reported. The publication said the list of healthcare workers was initially compiled by researcher Salo Aizenberg and independently verified by TOI. Among those cited are medics doubling as terror-group members are: • Mohammed Akram al-Kafarna, who was mourned by international nursing organiza-
As we watched the pathetic ying and yang of President Trump’s negotiation with the evil Iran, my heart and hopes rose and fell many times almost daily. It would rise when he seemed fed up with See Trump talks on page 4
tions as a healthcare leader following his death in September 2025. The Times of Israel reported that Hamas later identified him as a fighter in its Northern Gaza Brigade and published a photograph showing him in military gear. • Jaber Abd al-Hamid Mohammadin was publicly identified as a nurse who worked in the intensive care unit at Rantisi Children’s Hospital before Palestinian Islamic Jihad later identified him as a commander in its military manufacturing unit, according to the report. • Ahmad Adel Abu al-Hilal was described in Palestinian media as a nurse at the European Hospital in Khan Younis after his death, but the Times of Israel reported that Islamic Jihad later identified him as a team commander in its Rafah Brigade. • Salem Jumaa Shirab was remembered by Gaza’s Health Ministry as a nurse who worked at Nasser Hospital and later at an Emirati field hospital in Rafah. According to the report, Is-
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An Israeli soldier stands protectively beside a young girl in a mural in Tel Aviv’s Florentine neighborhood.
Ricki Rosen
By Linda Gradstein, JNS Take a walk in the trendy Florentine neighborhood in Tel Aviv, and almost every wall is covered with graffiti, much of it relating to Oct. 7. For example, the large graffiti of Superman that dominates an intersection in the area, with an encouraging “Don’t panic — the IDF will protect you,” written below. The graffiti, by two street artists from Ashkelon named Roman and Andrei, compares the army’s strength to Superman. It was done weeks after Roman’s house in Ashkelon was hit by shrapnel in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas onslaught. “To be called graffiti, it must be in public and without the consent of the authorities,” Avi Ettinger, who guided a small group of journalists around Florentine, told JNS. “Otherwise, it’s called street art.” If caught in the act, graffiti artists are fined and may spend a night in jail. But even though it’s illegal, the city has allowed most graffiti to stay up, especially anything relating to Oct. 7. For example, the grafSee Tel Aviv on page 2
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Our property taxes went down.
Mayor Zorhan Mamdani.
Rep. Ritchie Torres.
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40 Great Neckers trade little Persia for big Zion August 14-20, 2026 • Shoftim • 1 Elul 5786 • Vol. 25, No. 24
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workers. TOI said it contacted several of the organizations for comment or to ask whether they planned to update their records, but either received no response or was told they had no prior information indicating the individuals had military affiliations. TOI said the findings could affect ongoing debate over casualty figures and Israeli military strikes involving Gaza’s healthcare sector. Israel has long accused Hamas of embedding military personnel and infrastructure within hospitals and other medical facilities, while human rights organizations continue to accuse Israel of unlawfully targeting healthcare workers and medical institutions. The report follows previous Times of Israel investigations that said some individuals widely described as journalists and athletes killed in Gaza were also later identified by Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad as members of those organizations.
Tel Aviv is a canvas for nation’s trauma
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By Ed Weintrob, The Jewish Star Rep. Ritchie Torres, one of Israel’s most reliable Democratic friends on Capitol Hill, easily defeated two antizionist opponents in his Bronx district. Torres was always favored in the heavily Jewish Riverdale neighborhood, but he also polled well in Black and Latino parts of the expansive 15th District. While Israel may have been top-of-mind to Riverdale voters, those in other parts of the district responded favorably to Torres’ See Torres on page 2
Clockwise from top left: Jaber Mohammadin in civilian attire and in Palestinian Islamic Jihad uniform; Ahmad Adel Abu al-Hilal in hospital scrubs and in Palestinian Islamic Jihad uniform; Abd al-Latif Abu Tuaima in civilian attire and in Palestinian Islamic Jihad uniform; and Salem Jumaa Shirab in civilian attire and in Palestinian Islamic Jihad uniform. Pictures from Palestinian Islamic Jihad social media, Facebook, social media
lamic Jihad subsequently identified him as a member of the group’s military medical department in its Khan Younis Brigade. • Abd al-Latif Adel Abu Tabiya, who identified himself on social media as an employee of the European Hospital in Khan Younis. The Times of Israel said Palestinian Islamic Jihad later identified him as a team commander in its Eastern Battalion in Khan Younis. TOI also cited additional cases involving nurses, physiotherapists, hospital employees and Health Ministry staff whom Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad later described as members or commanders within their organizations. According to the report, several organizations that continue to document healthcare worker deaths in Gaza, including Healthcare Workers Watch, the Institute for Palestine Studies and Médecins Sans Frontières, continue to list some of the individuals as healthcare
Former Comptroller Brad Lander.
Zionist pal KOs anti-Israel leftist
House should not be reluctant to say so.
All aboard! Children holding outsized signs and luggage prepared to board the Mashadi aliyah flight at JFK on Monday. At right, Daniel and Daniella Livi and their three children were cheered on by grandparents Esther and Bernard Livi. Ed Weintrob, The Jewish Star
By Ed Weintrob, The Jewish Star Forty members of seven Mashadi families left Great Neck on Monday enroute to Ra’anana, embarking on new lives as olim. Exchanging a tight-knit Persian community on Long Island’s North Shore for new lives in Israel, the group traveled together on an El Al flight and will reside near one another in the Promised Land. An eighth family that hoped to join Monday’s aliyah journey plans to follow soon. Adam Aziz, making aliyah with his wife Jennifer and their five children — ages 4, 6, 9, 11 and 13 — described how the large group resolved to take the journey together. “It’s the passion of our life to live strong Jewish lives filled with Torah values,” Aziz said. “That passion drove us to say we want to be where we belong, we want to raise our kids where they belong and where our descendants, G-d willing, should belong.” He described the Mashadi community, one of a number of Iranian groups in Great Neck, as “a very special close-knit community. We’re all literally cousins. There are thousands of people we’re so close with.” That’s why making aliyah one family at a time didn’t seem quite right, and how the idea of making aliyah as a community took hold, he said. Aziz said he was grateful to both Nefesh B’Nefesh and Golan Vach of Israela for helping the families work through the complicated aliyah process. Nefesh B’Nefesh arranged the El Al seats and its representatives were at JFK on Monday to cheer them on. Nefesh B’Nefesh Associate Director Avichai Ivgui said that while having such a large group making aliyah together has happened a few times before, “it hasn’t been all that often [and it’s] incredibly exciting to see them form when it happens.” See Iran to US on page 2
New Rochelle girl is 100,000th NBN oleh Nefesh B’Nefesh celebrated on Sunday the arrival of its 100,000th North American oleh, a landmark achievement since the organization’s founding in 2002. President Isaac Herzog welcomed the family, which made aliyah from New Rochelle, to the President’s Residence alongside Israel’s Minister of Aliyah and Integration Ofir Sofer, and Nefesh B’Nefesh Co-Founders Rabbi Yehoshua Fass and Tony Gelbart. The milestone was marked by the aliyah of Jeffrey and Atara Douglas, who arrived in Jerusalem with their three children, Nathaniel (10), Hallie (9), and Emilia (6). Emilia was Nefesh B’Nefesh’s Number 100,000. Since its founding, Nefesh B’Nefesh has transformed the aliyah experience for North American Jews by streamlining bureaucracy, providing comprehensive guidance before and
The Douglas family from New Rochelle are Israelis now: Jeffrey, Atara, Nathaniel, Hallie and Emilia. NBN
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July 17-30, 2026 • Devarim • 3 Av 5786 • Vol. 25, No. 22
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In Iceland, Chabad spreads Hashem’s light at top of world
Darializa Avila Chevalier.
TORRES WINS
Mazurek: In G-d, not Trump, we trust DR. ALAn MAZUREK
By Ed Weintrob, The Jewish Star Mayor Zorhan Mamdani catapulted into the role of Democratic kingmaker on Tuesday, when his personally endorsed socialist, antzionist insurgents defeated stalwarts of the middle-of-the-road Democratic establishment. It was a clean sweep for a mayor after he appeared to go out of his way to irritate traditionally-Jewish voters leading up to the Democratic primary, deploying historic antisemitic tropes, picking fights and declining opportunities to deescalate. The Democratic nomination is tantamount to victory in the New York City districts that were in play on Tuesday. Mamdani’s wins were with candidates who are emphatically antizionist, some facing suggestions of overt antisemitism. •In the 13th District, including Upper Manhattan and some of the Bronx, Darializa Avila Chevalier — who, like the mayor, is a member of Democratic Socialist of America — defeated five-term incumbent Adriano Espaillat, 32,734 (49.41%) to 30,399 (45.89%), with 96.11 percent counted. •In the 7th District, including waterfront neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso was destroyed by Assemblymember Claire Valdez, a DSA member like Chevalier, See Mamdani on page 2
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KINGMAKER!
after arrival, and helping olim successfully integrate into Israeli society. “The Douglas family is setting a wonderful example for millions of Jews all over the world, and I wish them every success in their integration and new life here in Israel,” Herzog said. “Each person who made aliyah has contributed to Israel in ways both visible and unseen,” said Nefesh B’Nefesh Co-Founder and Chairman Tony Gelbart. “They have helped build stronger communities, strengthened the country’s economy, enriched its culture and ensured a vibrant future for generations to come.” Nefesh B’Nefesh Co-Founder and Executive Director Rabbi Yeshoshu Fass said the milestone is about what will follow, “about the sabra children born because their parents chose to build their future in Israel, and the grandchildren who know no other home. See 100,000 on page 2
Rabbi Avraham and Mushky Feldman toast the opening of Iceland’s first Jewish center. Israel Sudry
Whether or not the new Jewish Center of Iceland is the world’s northernmost Chabad house (Fairbanks, Alaska, may edge it out by 47 miles), its opening last week was an awesome achievement, an inspiring northern star for Jewish travelers. The colorful building in Reykjavik is a 9,000-square-foot, 3-story gem — and plans call for it to be joined soon by a geothermal mikvah. See story on page 18.
While or Hashem may have always been visible in the northern lights, Chabad’s brought it closer to traveling Jews, opening Iceland’s first Jewish center.
Javen, Adobe
Finding faith and song in a house of grief RABBI HAYIM LEITER
T
he message read, “Call me when you can, I have bad news.” I hadn’t heard from this colleague since I performed her grandson’s bris six months earlier. I called right away. “The beautiful boy you were the mohel for passed away — sudden infant death syndrome,” she told me. It was the last day of shiva, so I grabbed my coat and headed out. The 50-minute drive was eerie. At this point in the season, Israel should have felt like summer — not a cloud in the sky, no wind, and warm
temperatures. But the wind howled, clouds blanketed the sky, and even a light rain began to fall. I crossed paths with the family’s rabbi in the parking lot. “There are no words,” he said as he shook his head, looking at the ground. Having spent most of my career helping families welcome their newest members into the covenant, I had never sat with one mourning a loss. I wasn’t sure what I had to offer. On my ascent to the parents’ apartment, I wondered what the atmosphere would be like. My mind wandered to condolence calls where — since
the mourner is meant to initiate conversation — not a word was spoken. Then I heard it. s the elevator doors creaked open, the sounds of song drifted down the hallway. All the other doors on the floor were closed. It was coming from the family’s home. The parents and visitors were singing niggunim. The tune ended as I took a seat beside the mother.“When our hearts are broken and there are no words, we can cry out in tears or in song,” the father said. He began another melody. We all joined in. The mother leaned over and whispered to me, “This was the lullaby I would sing to him.” The baby survived for just one day in the hospital. “What organs can we donate?” the father had asked the staff.
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Letter from Efrat
Rabbi Hayim Leiter performs the bris for the baby for whom he later had to make a shiva call. Family photo
But since his body had been deprived of oxygen, their only option was his corneas. They found consolation in knowing that someone in Israel now sees the world through his “beautiful blue eyes.” The father then charged us all to look at others in a more favorable light. “Perhaps we see them as selfish, unpleasant, or offputting in some way. My request is to make the effort to look upon that person with a good eye — to give them the benefit of the doubt.” nother rabbi who visited earlier in the week had shared a story. In his hometown, there were two headstones. One read, “This person lived many years but only lived until 20”; the other read, “This person died young See Leiter on page 2
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Shlock Rock hits Mobile! August 21-27, 2026 • Ki Teitzel • 8 Elul 5786 • Vol. 25, No. 25
By Jessica Russak Hoffman, JNS Lenny Solomon of the Jewish music group Shlock Rock stepped off a plane in Mobile, Ala., on Monday to perform in the city for the first time. In 1987, he released the song “Minyan Man,” which is set in the city. “Of all the things left for Shlock Rock to do, this was one of them,” said Solomon, who lives in Israel. “I had played Birmingham, I had played Montgomery, but I had never played Mobile.” The song, which found a cult following at Jewish summer camps in the 1990s, is told from the perspective of a Jew, who “stepped off the bus in Mobile, Ala.” when “Shabbos was an hour away.” The man wanders the town and finds a fellow Jew, who invites him to be the 10th man in a minyan. Solomon told JNS that when he arrived in Mobile, he started crying, thinking of the song’s lyric, “When I make this trip through Mobile once every year, I remember the men who prayed here.” Robin Meyerson, founder and director of the Shabbat Project Arizona and the Meis Mitzvah Project, which works to ensure Jews opt for burials instead of cremation, invited him. Meyerson, who lives in Scottsdale, Ariz., told JNS that she was searching for her uncle, Donald, 90, because he “went off the grid, and the family lost touch with him.” The family located him in a Jewish-owned nursing home in Mobile. “I told my kids where I found him, and my daughter-in-law started singing ‘Minyan Man’,” she said. “What are you singing?” Meyerson asked. Her daughter-in-law told her, “Well, we always used to sing this song in camp every Friday before Shabbat would come in.” Meyerson was inspired to invite Solomon to play for the residents of the nursing home. “His music touches the soul,” she said. On Monday, Solomon played for nearly two hours. “My uncle remembered all of the Jewish songs from when he was a little boy,” Meyerson said. “It all came back to him.” She brought her uncle a kiddush cup and a tallit. Meyerson told JNS that after she located her uncle, she contacted a local Chabad rabbi, who began visiting him, bringing him challah and helping him put on tefillin. “One mitzvah ripples,” she told JNS. “I was trying to find my uncle, and now he’s reconnected with his family. He’s putting on tefillin. He’s saying prayers.”
Lenny Solomon arrives by plane (not bus) and then performs for Jews in Mobile, Alabama.
FROM ‘MINYAN MAN’ I stepped off the bus in Mobile, Alabama The sun was slowly setting on the bay It was 6 o’clock on a summer Friday afternoon, Shabbos was an hour away. I walked around the town wondering what to do ‘Cause Shabbos is no time to be feeling blue See Minyan on page 2
Honest Reporting • Torah-True • Kosher and Fat-Free
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Courtesy Robin Meyerson
Mamdani and the rabbis Speak truth to power or fall in line? YISRAEL MEDAD
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s you may have read last week, a group of rabbis recently met with Mayor Zohran Mamdani. While City Hall did not release an official list, JNS reported that there were nine rabbis and one lay leader present (she represents herself as a rabbi nevertheless) with an overrepresentation of the liberal-oriented synagogues. The New York Times noted 10 rabbis. The New York Board of Rabbis and the Rabbinical Council of America, representing many hundreds of more Orthodox rabbis, were not invited. According to Jewish Insider, the previous week, the mayor had met with leaders of the anti-Zionist Satmar community based in Williamsburg. A JTA report quoted Rabbi Jonathan Leener of the Modern Orthodox Prospect Heights
Mamdani has the rabbis right where he wants them.
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Shul as saying, “There were certainly moments of tension and passion, particularly as people tried to convey how isolated and vulnerable many Jewish New Yorkers feel right now.” The Times decided to characterize the meeting with a headline that the rabbis had been “pleading” with Mamdani to gather and talk. (If there is a way by which that newspaper can twist and turn a story upside-down if it relates to Israel, it will do so.) I have a concern that what they were doing was bleating, instead of speaking truth to power and making demands. Mamdani has succeeded, in a fairly short time, in instilling a sense of fear into the Jews of New York. or his part, Mamdani expressed the feeling that the conversation was “candid and productive” and that he “appreciated hearing from them.” In the words of Satmar Rebbe Zalman Leib Teitelbaum of Williamsburg (his brother, Aaron Teitelbaum, lords over the Chassidic haven of Kiryas Joel upstate) very much revolves around the element of fear. According to a quoted Yiddish recording, he condemned attacks by Orthodox Jews against Mamdani. “We must remember that we are in exile,” he said during his annual address at the yahrzeit of his uncle, Yoel Teitelbaum. “To denounce the mayor and brand him an antisemite constitutes a true provocation against the nations.” Interestingly, one of the main Haredi news
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websites in Israel, Kikar Shabbat, headlined its story on the speech on Aug. 10 in a very inyour-face fashion as “The Satmar rebbe is for the antisemitic mayor of New York.” The summary reads: “Recently, we have seen a terrible ‘provocation of nations’ [a reference to Rav’s dictum to his son, Hiyya at Tractate Pesachim 113A] by ultra-Orthodox Jews — the provocation against the mayor of New York. We know that we are in exile. … Fearful and peaceful Jews should behave according to the ways of the Torah and accept the decrees of exile. By shouting against it and labeling it with antisemitism, we are only expressing true provocation. It is not enough that there is provocation of nations in the Land of Israel, but they are bringing the provocation of nations here to America as well.” hat is obvious is that Mamdani has the rabbis right where he wants them. Both supporters and semi-opponents are coming to him, trying to soothe and placate his rough approach. They aren’t demonstrating. They didn’t issue an agreed-upon summation for the media. Their political maneuverings, including the buffer-zone legislation to protect schools and synagogues, have been low-key. Were they pleading, as the Times published, or were they bleating in a cowering fashion? And how did the general public, especially those unfavorably inclined towards the Jews See Mamdani on page 2
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Honest Reporting • Torah-True • Kosher and Fat-Free
I got the slide!
Aug. 28-Sept. 3, 2026
Sep. 4-10, 2026 • Nitzavim-Vayeilech • 22 Elul 5786 • Vol. 25, No. 27
15 Elul 5786 Ki Savo Vol. 25, No. 26 Reach the Star: Editor@TheJewishStar.com 516-622-7461 x291
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5 Towns tragedy
Unimaginable loss: Community mourns 40-year-old mom of 4, HAFTR teacher, lost in bizarre auto mishap in her own driveway For The Jewish Star
Allison Rahmani planned to fly to Paris on Sunday with her husband, to celebrate her 40th birthday. Instead, Matthew Rahmani was eulogizing his wife as an eshet chayil, a woman of valor, and her mother and siblings were describing the light she brought to everyone she touched. Allison was niftar on Friday after she lost control of her car and it plunged into the inground pool at her home on Elinor Road in Hewlett Bay Park. Authorities believe she may have suffered a sudden medical emergency before losing control of her 2023 GMC SUV, which struck a tree and a 2006 Honda before landing in the pool. They said she was conscious after the accident and called for help,
succumbing enroute to the hospital. Her levaya drew an overflow crowd to the Boulevard-Riverside Chapels in Hewlett on Sunday morning. A mother of four and the wife of Matthew Rahmani, president of the Irving Place Minyan in Woodmere, Allison was known for her dedication to her students at HAFTR, where she was a teacher and math coordinator. Matthew described the way she nurtured their children — Nathan, Jake, Zachary and Chloe — “like delicate plants” and said through tears that he would continue to raise them with the love and values she had given them. After reciting the Eshet Chayil poem on Sunday, Matthew added, “I’m sorry I didn’t
Allison Rahmani in 2019. FB, Matthew Rahmani
say that at her wedding. I can’t imagine more fitting words for the woman you were.”
“We are broken,” said Allison’s mother, Rachelle Rohde. “We will never be the same.” She told her grandchildren that their mother was watching over them. HAFTR officials said the school community is grieving Rahmani’s death. “She loved her students,” said Shayna Unger, a close friend and fellow teacher at HAFTR. “Allie didn’t teach because she had to, she taught because she loved it,” Unger said. “She loved math. She loved her students. She loved the Allie show. And she genuinely believed that a teacher could change a child’s life.” “Where someone else saw a difficult child, Allie saw potential,” she continued. “And if a child needed extra help, Allie gave it.”
Unger recalled that after girls in her class lost their mother, Allie set up a hair salon in her classroom to prep them for the day. “She wanted them to walk into school looking and feeling like every other girl. She wanted their school days to feel as normal as possible. Unger described her friend as “a person of action.” If she saw a problem and there was something she thought she could do to fix it, she would do it. Dana Hess told mourners that her sister was “the life of the party” and an educator who taught “because she loved to.” “Where somebody else saw a difficult child, Ali saw potential,” she shared. Melissa Berman of the LI Herald contributed to this report.
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No ‘springtime for Hitler’ in NY as Met cancels hate
Art museum was set to honor antisemitic Nazi-loving fashion icon at its gala in May
For The Jewish Star With the Metropolitan Museum of Art facing a torrent of criticism for its decision to honor a self-proclaimed Hitler-lover and Jew-denigrater, a planned exhibition of the work of British fashion designer John Galliano at the Met Gala in May 2027 was cancelled on Monday. “John Galliano: Horizons” was to form the basis of the prestigious gala, which was scheduled for Monday, May 3, the same night that Yom HaShoah begins. Galliano was convicted in Paris in 2011 of “public insults based on origin, religious affiliation, race or ethnicity.” He was fired by Dior in 2011 after a video surfaced in which he said, “I love Hitler,” and told people at a Paris bar that their ancestors “would all be [explative] gassed” in the Holocaust. He was also filmed insulting a woman’s “ugly Jewish face” and telling the man with her, “[explative] Asian bastard, I will kill you.” Galliano has since apologized and said that he was struggling with alcoholism and drug addiction at the time. The exhibit, announced on July 31, was to examine his four-decade career and promised to all address the conduct that led to his downfall. It was reported that Galliano would have been only the third living designer to receive a solo Costume Institute exhibition. In a story featured prominently in its Sunday print edition, the NY Times helped fuel growing outrage at the Met’s decision to honor Galliano.
The fountain at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s David H. Koch Plaza in 2017 G. Scott Segler via WikiCommons
In a front-page article, headlined “Furor Builds Over Met’s Plan to Honor Designer; Critics Cite Galliano’s Antisemitic Tirades,” the newspaper reported allegations of antisemitic outbursts several years after the 2011 incidents and after he apologized. The Times related a 2019 incident posted to Facebook on Aug. 1 by Lauren London, a fashion publicist.
London described an encounter at the alcohol-free Henri Chenot spa in Merano, Italy as she sat in a common area with her friend Sabine Cimber Goldberg. “Goldberg was on the phone with her daughter. Galliano was sitting nearby. When Goldberg switched from speaking English to Hebrew, Galliano began shouting ‘Merry Christmas!’ over and over again, London said,” the Times reported.
“Her friend asked Galliano if he had a problem with her speaking Hebrew, and he said he did,” London told the Times. London told the newspaper that she posted on Facebook “because that’s what’s so troublesome: I kept reading that the Met is going to call attention to his antisemitic remarks, as if it was some sort of footnote, this little part of him that’s been cured. And from what I saw, that is not the case.” The Times said Goldberg confirmed the 2019 incident and added, “I was in shock. I was on a video call with my daughter.” Goldberg’s daughter, Kelly Goldberg, confirmed to the newspaper that she heard part of Galliano’s rant. Julie Menin, the first Jewish speaker of the NY City Council, stated on Monday that “after my numerous and lengthy meetings and conversations with the Met, I am pleased that they have agreed to not honor John Galliano.” Honoring Galliano at this time of rising antisemitism “served as a gut punch to the Jewish community,” she said. Cancelling his exhibit is “the correct decision, as the harm and pain this was causing was simply unacceptable.” Anna Wintour, global editorial director of Vogue and longtime chair of the Met Gala, said that the decision not to proceed was Galliano’s. “There is no one more deserving of an exhibition of this scale than John Galliano,” Wintour said. After the cancellation, she stood by Galliano.
At RJC, Vance makes no promises
At Allison Rahmani’s levaya on Sunday at the Boulevard-Riverside Chapels in Hewlett, husband Matthew, sister Dana Hess, and Rabbi Rabbi Binyomin Sloviter of the Irving Place Minyan.
Dignity Memorial, Tribute Cast
By Andrew Bernard, JNS Vice President JD Vance spoke to Jewish Republicans in Las Vegas on Monday amid doubts from some pro-Israel conservatives about his feelings towards the Jewish state, his self-described “realist” foreign policy views and his relationship with Tucker Carlson. The press was barred from Vance’s discussion with former Senator Norm Coleman, the coalition’s national chairman, but a recording was released by the Daily Wire. (While he spoke kindly about Israel, he gave no assurances that he would offer unequivocal support to the Jewish state as American voters turn increasingly Israel-skeptic.)
INSIDE ON PAGE 22 Clock ticks to stop Vance By Jonathan Tobin
Vice President JD Vance speaks with former Senator Norm Coleman at the Republican Jewish Coalition summit in Las Vegas on Monday. RJC
The vice president said that it was “natural” that the United States and Israel have “different views on certain things” but that is the “most important regional alliance” of the United States and “one of our most important alliances in the world.” See Vance on page 2
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Rosh Hashana 5787 in the shadow of 9/11 Sep. 11-17, 2026 • Rosh Hashana • 29 Elul 5786 • Vol. 25, No. 28
Tom Callan
Adobe
Rabbi Sacks: The only way to save the world is to begin with ourselves. RABBI SIR JONATHAN SACKS ZT”L This column is excerpted from remarks published by Rabbi Sack in 2011, on the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. wo things have haunted me since 9/11. The first is the pain, the grief, the lives lost and families devastated, the sheer barbaric ingenuity of evil. The scar in our humanity is
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still unhealed. The second is our failure to understand what Osama bin Laden was saying about the West. We did not hear the message then. I’m not sure we hear it now. Why did al-Qaeda attack America? Because it believed that it could. Because it thought the US was a power past its prime, no longer as lean and hungry as it believed it was. Robert McNamara said that the first rule in politics is to understand your enemy’s psychology. As I struggled to understand 9/11, I began to suspect that the answer lay in the events of
1989. That is when the narratives of the West and the rest began seriously to diverge. In the West, 1989 was seen as the collapse of communism, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the implosion of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. The Western narrative was triumphalist. It saw those events as heralding the victory of its values without a shot being fired. The free market and liberal democratic politics had won for the simplest of reasons. They delivered, while communism did not. They would now spread across the world. It was, said Francis Fuku-
yama, the beginning of the end of history. here was, though, another narrative that few were listening to. It said that the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989 not because of the triumph of liberal democracy but because of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan earlier that year. It had invaded in 1979 and was forced to withdraw, not because of superpower politics but because of the determined resistance of a small group of highly motivated religious warriors, the Mujahidin and their helpers. That, historically, is the event that capSee Rabbi Sacks on page 3
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17 THE JEWISH STAR September 25-October 1, 2026 • 14 Tishrei 5787
Recipe box.
Ethel G. Hofman
Ambrosia.
Ethel G. Hofman
ETHEL: Returning to Sukkot oldies but goodies… Continued from page 12 mushrooms. Cook and stir until bubbling and thickened.
Gloria’s Apricot Chicken (Meat)
Serves 8 to 10 Cook’s Tips: • May substitute Thousand Island or French dressing for Russian dressing. Ingredients: 2 chickens, each cut into 8 to 10 pieces 1 (12-ounce) jar apricot preserves 1 (1-ounce) package dry onion-soup mix 1 bottle (16-ounce) Russian dressing Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place the chicken pieces in a large baking dish. Set aside. Combine the remaining ingredients. Pour the mixture over the chicken, brushing evenly. Bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour or until juices run clear when pierced with a knife.
Piquant Meatballs (Meat)
Serves 6 to 8 Cook’s Tips: • Substitute beef for ground chicken or turkey. Ingredients: 2 pounds ground beef 1 large egg 3 Tbps. bread crumbs or matzah meal 1 tsp. salt 1/4 tsp. pepper 12-ounce bottle of chili sauce 6 ounces grape jelly 3 Tbps. freshly squeezed lemon juice Directions: In a large bowl or food processor, combine the beef, egg, bread crumbs, salt and pepper. Shape into balls the size of a walnut. Set aside. Heat the chili sauce, grape jelly and lemon juice in a heavy pot over medium heat. Stir to blend. Add the meat balls. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove cover and simmer for 5 minutes longer, stirring frequently to prevent sticking. Serve hot over noodles or fluffy rice.
Old-Fashioned Ambrosia (Dairy)
Serves 8 to 10 Cook’s Tips: • Substitute whipped cream for whipped topping. • Toast coco-
nut to garnish for 1-1/2 minutes or until lightly browned. Watch carefully; it can scorch quickly. Ingredients: 1 (20-ounce) can pineapple chunks 1 (15-ounce) can mandarin orange segments 1 (10-ounce) jar maraschino cherries 1 cup shredded coconut 1-1/2 cups mini-marshmallows 1/2 cup sour cream 2 cups whipped topping 1 Tbsp. sugar or to taste toasted coconut for garnish (optional) Directions: Place the pineapple, mandarin oranges and cherries in a colander in the sink to drain. Let it sit in the colander for 5 minutes to drain well. Transfer to a large bowl. Add the coconut and marshmallows and stir gently. Fold in the sour cream, whipped topping and sugar to taste. Garnish with toasted coconut (optional). Chill at least 2 hours before serving.
Cheesecake.
Hans, Pixabay
Philadelphia No-Bake Cheesecake (Dairy)
Serves 8 to 10 Cook’s Tips: • New in supermarkets: a prepared pecan-pie crust displayed next to the graham-cracker crust. Ingredients:” 1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened 1 cup sour cream 1/3 cup sugar 2 tsp. vanilla extract 1 (8-ounce) container whipped topping 1 (9-inch) graham-cracker crust strawberries for topping Directions: Beat together the cream cheese, sour cream, sugar and vanilla to a smooth mixture. Gently fold in the whipped topping. Pour into the pie crust of choice. Smooth the top and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight. Before serving, decorate with fruit such as kiwi slices or halved strawberries, cut-side down. Ethel G. Hofman is a widely syndicated American Jewish food and travel columnist, author and culinary consultant.
Penne.
Al Rayner, Pixabay
350 bereaved teens visit US thru an FIDF ‘Legacy’
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FIDF Legacy Program participants in Times Square this summer.
The FIDF (Friends of the Israel Defense Forces) brought 240 bereaved Israeli teens to the United States this summer through its signature Legacy Program, marking the 20th year of the program and its largest summer to date. Each participant lost a parent or sibling in defense of Israel on or since Oct. 7, 2023. During the last three months, five groups traveled throughout the Northeast, combining recreational and educational experiences with opportunities to connect with FIDF supporters, host families and Jewish communities. The program gives participants time away from their daily environment, exposure to new places and cultures, and the opportunity to spend time with peers who have experienced similar loss. The groups visited New York City, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Westchester and Massachusetts, with itineraries that included Central Park, Times Square, SUMMIT One Vanderbilt, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, Little Island, Coney Island, Hersheypark, Six Flags Great Adventure, American Dream Mall, Nickelodeon Theme Park, Jewish summer camps and Yankees game in the Bronx. Participants biked, kayaked, played water sports, bowled, rode speedboats, played team sports and took part in other activities. Some groups spent time at summer camps in Pennsylvania, participating in hiking, waterfront activities, high ropes, arts and crafts, paintball and evening campfires. A key component of each trip was engaging with American Jewish communities. FIDF supporters and host families hosted groups for BBQs, meals, Shabbat and other special activities, creating opportunities for personal connections between the teens and community members across the United States. An IDF social worker accompanied each group, providing professional support and helping participants process their experiences throughout the trip. The groups were also led by counselors who are currently serving as active-duty soldiers in the IDF and who themselves had lost a loved one. Many of them participated in the Legacy Program as teens.
FIDF
“What makes Legacy so special is that we get to take these children out of their everyday reality for a little while,” said FIDF Legacy Program Project Manager Tamar Reshef. “They get to see new places, meet new people and just have fun. But what stays with me most is seeing them reconnect with themselves. “They remember who they were before the loss that changed their lives and, for a little while, they get to remember that they are still young and that there is still so much possibility and joy ahead of them.” “After everything these children have endured, giving them the opportunity to laugh, explore, make friends and experience the love of the American Jewish community is incredibly meaningful,” said FIDF CEO Maj. Gen. (Res.) Nadav Padan. “Legacy reminds them that although they have experienced profound loss, they are not alone. The connection between Israel and Jewish communities across America is a source of strength they will carry with them long after they return home.” The Legacy Program is a cornerstone of FIDF’s support for Israel’s bereaved military families. Through Legacy and its broader bereavement programs, FIDF provides financial assistance, educational opportunities, mental health services and personal support to help families navigate life after experiencing the loss of a close relative in the defense of the Jewish State. FIDF) is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization dedicated to honoring and supporting the brave men and women of the IDF who risk everything to protect the State of Israel and the Jewish people. While the mission of the IDF’s heroes is to look after Israel, defending its people, borders and freedom, FIDF’s mission is to look after them. FIDF provides life-changing support through education, financial aid, bereavement programs, mental health services and more, ensuring that every soldier, veteran and bereaved family knows they are not alone. Through global partnerships and unwavering commitment, FIDF (www.fidf. org) stands as a pillar of strength for those who sacrifice so much in service to the Jewish homeland. Reported by FIDF.
’Side Dishes
NATI BURNSIDE
For The Jewish Star
Smash House Burgers is bringing kosher food to Barclays Center, where it will operate during Brooklyn Nets games, New York Liberty games and nonShabbat concerts. The stand will have its own dedicated kosher kitchen, allowing burgers and other food to be prepared fresh at the arena rather than being brought in from elsewhere. The company will also offer kosher buffets in some of the arena’s lounges. The menu will feature Smash House favorites including its signature smashed burgers, crispy chicken sandwiches, popcorn chicken, chicken tenders and fries. The company is also planning some fun extras, including food bags containing “Golden Tickets” that can be redeemed for signed jerseys. The Barclays Center stand will be Smash House’s second part-time location, in addition to a seasonal one upstate. Those two locations are in addition to the company’s 10 full-time restaurants spread across four states. For more information about Smash House and its regular locations, visit smashhouseburgers.com.
Garden City PopUp Bagels
fee. The concept began as a seasonal pop-up outside Macy’s Herald Square and has grown into a multi-location business. Viva La Dough is located at 525 7th Avenue. The locations are Kosher Dairy and Cholov Yisroel. The new location is open Sunday through Thursday from 8 am to 10 am and Friday from 8 am to 4 pm. For more information, visit vivaladough.com.
Crown Heights Spendid Café
Splendid Café and Pastry has opened on Kingston Avenue in Crown Heights. The dairy café and bakery is owned by Crown Heights residents Kuti and Etti Allouche, with Etti bringing years of experience as a professional baker, pastry consultant and baking instructor. Before opening the storefront, she operated from home under the name “The Cookie Lady.” The menu includes coffee, pastries, cakes and desserts, with baked goods also available for Shabbos. Among the specialties are French macarons, mini tarts, cheesecake, apple pie, rugelach, chocolate kokosh and a variety of cookies. The café also serves espresso drinks including cappuccinos, lattes, flat whites and macchiatos. Splendid Café and Pastry is located at 257 Kingston Avenue, certified kosher by CHK Crown Heights Kashrus. Hours are Sunday through Thursday, 8 am to 5 am, Friday 8 am to 1 am, and closed Saturday. For more information, call 347-622-4557 or visit splendidpastries.com.
Acai Bar Cafe on UWS
been serving the community for about seven years. Last year, Turnpike Burgers leased the two neighboring storefronts, and just before Rosh Hashana, the finally closed so crews could begin knocking down the walls connecting the spaces. When the project is finished, the restaurant will have a larger kitchen, additional prep space and significantly more indoor seating. The restaurant expects to reopen after the holidays, around mid-October. Turnpike Burgers serves a variety of Glatt kosher fast-food favorites, including burgers, sandwiches, wraps, wings, fried chicken and other casual fare. The expansion should give the restaurant considerably more room to handle the crowds that have made it a popular option in the Queens kosher scene. Turnpike Burgers Grill is located at 147-41 Union Turnpike, under the Vaad Harabonim of Queens. For more information, call 347-4944000 or visit turnpikeburgergrill.com.
Manhattan Viva La Dough
Acai Bar Cafe has opened a new location inside Six60One on Amsterdam Avenue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The new shop gives the neighborhood another option for a quick breakfast, snack or meal centered around açaí and other fruit-based offerings. The menu features a variety of açaí bowls, including classic and tropical combinations, along with smoothies, fresh juices and other lighter options. The brand has already established locations in Brooklyn, Monsey and the Catskills, making the Upper West Side its latest expansion into a growing New York market. Acai Bar Cafe is located inside Six60One at 661 Amsterdam Avenue. For more information, visit acaibar.cafe.
Greenwich & Delancey has closed its longtime Cos Cob location and is preparing for a move that will keep the restaurant closed for approximately a year. The restaurant, known for chef David Teyf’s pastrami, brisket, babka and other Jewish-inspired fare, expects to reopen at a new location in Fall 2027. The new address has not yet been announced, but catering remains available throughout Fairfield County. Greenwich & Delancey under OU supervision. More information is available at greenwichanddelancey.com.
Turnpike Burgers Grill has temporarily closed as the family-owned restaurant undergoes a major expansion and renovation. Operated by the Leviev family, the restaurant has
An early-morning fire caused moderate damage to Hot Bagels in Fair Lawn on Sept. 15. A worker arriving to open the shop at 3:23 am discovered heavy smoke and immediately called 911. Fire officials quickly arrived and called for a full first-alarm assignment, bringing approximately 35 firefighters from all four Fair Lawn fire companies, along with police, EMS and other emergency personnel. Firefighters found flames extending into the walls and ceiling and had to open the walls to extinguish the fire. The blaze was under control within about 10 minutes, and everyone was able to leave the scene by 5 am No injuries were reported, but both Hot Bagels and the neighboring business sustained moderate damage. The Fair Lawn Fire Prevention Bureau is investigating the cause. Fire officials specifically credited the worker’s early arrival and quick 911 call with preventing the fire from becoming much worse. At press time, Hot Bagels remains closed following the fire. The store is located at 6-07 Saddle River Road and is under RCBC supervision, but only uncut bagels are covered by the kosher certification. The phone number is 201796-9625.
Cuvée Wines & Spirits Opens in Spring Valley
In other Connecticut news, L’Chaim of Stamford has closed its doors at 59 High Ridge Road after two years in business. The Israeli/Middle Eastern restaurant served falafel, sabich, shawarma, schnitzel, grilled meats and other Israeli favorites. The restaurant had operated under the Va’ad Hakashrut of Fairfield County.
Pitmaster coming to Miami
Turnpike Burgers Grill Expanding in Queens
Viva La Dough has opened another Manhattan location at 525 7th Avenue, between 38th and 39th Streets. It is the brand’s second Manhattan location, joining its other locations in Brooklyn and Lakewood. Another location is also planned for the American Dream Mall. Viva La Dough specializes in French-inspired dairy café fare, with its signature croissant pizzas, croffles, pastries and desserts joined by sandwiches, salads, omelets and specialty cof-
Fire Damages Hot Bagels in Fair Lawn
Greenwich & Delancey moves
L’Chaim Stamford Closes
PopUp Bagels is opening a new location in Garden City on Friday, September 25, continuing the brand’s expansion on Long Island. The new shop will operate under the same kosher arrangement as the previously reported kosher PopUp Bagels location. PopUp has a somewhat different approach to eating a bagel. The bagels are served hot and whole, with customers encouraged to “Grip, Rip and Dip” — tear pieces off the bagel and dip them into a cup of schmear rather than having the bagel sliced and spread. At the Garden City location, all of the bagels are kosher, while only the regular and scallion cream cheeses are certified kosher. The other schmears are not covered by the certification. PopUp Bagels is located at 900 Old Country Road. Hours are Monday through Sunday, 7 am to 4 pm, under National Kosher Supervision. For more information, visit popupbagels.com.
more than a typical steakhouse. Pitmaster is essentially a meat show. Guests sit together while a Pitmaster cooks and carves huge cuts of meat over live fire, with multiple meat courses served throughout the meal along with sides, drinks and dessert. The menu changes depending on what is being prepared, and the cooking itself is part of the entertainment. The Miami restaurant is expected to bring the same format to American diners. The Miami location is at 3599 NE 207th Street in Aventura. The New York location is planned for 27 West 24th Street in Manhattan and is expected to open sometime in 2027. Reservations for Miami can be made at go.pitmaster. show/miami, while more information about the concept and its Israeli locations is available at pitmaster.show.
Pitmaster, the extremely popular Israeli meat experience that has multiple locations throughout Israel, is finally coming to the United States. The Miami location begins its soft opening on October 5, and reservations are already booked for the first couple of weeks. The concept has developed a major following in Israel, where its combination of live-fire cooking and a communal dining experience has made it considerably
Cuvée Wines & Spirits has opened at the Spring Valley Marketplace, giving Rockland County another dedicated destination for wine and spirits. The store focuses heavily on wine, with a selection designed to appeal to both people looking for everyday bottles and those seeking something more specialized. Customers can also order online for pickup or local delivery. The store’s online selection includes wines from a wide range of regions and producers, along with spirits and rotating specials. Cuvée also offers local delivery to residences and ships wine to New York and a limited number of other states. Cuvée Wines & Spirits is located at 6-7 Spring Valley Marketplace. The phone number is 845282-8088. Hours are Sunday 12-7 am, Monday through Thursday 10 am-9 am, and Friday 10 am-3 pm. More information is available at cuvee. wine.
THE JEWISH STAR September 25-October 1, 2026 • 14 Tishrei 5787
A Smash House is opening at Barclays Center
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כוכב של שבת
September 25-October 1, 2026 • 14 Tishrei 5787 THE JEWISH STAR
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Jewish Star Torah columnists: Rabbi Benny Berlin, spiritual leader of BACH Jewish Center in Long Beach; Rabbi Avi Billet of Anshei Chesed, Boynton Beach, FL, mohel and Five Towns native; Rabbi Binny Freedman, rosh yeshiva of Orayta, Jerusalem; Dr. Alan A. Mazurek, former ZOA chair, retired neurologist, living in Great Neck, Jerusalem and Florida. Contributing writers: Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks zt”l, former chief rabbi of United Hebrew Congregations of British Commonwealth; Rabbi Yossy Goldman, president South African Rabbinical Association; Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, OU executive VP emeritus. To submit commentary, inquire at: Editor@TheJewishStar.com. Contact our columnists at: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com.
Fri Sept 25 / 14 Tishrei
Erev Sukkos Five Towns Fri candles: 6:29 Sat candles: 7:28 • Sun Havdalah 7:35 Scarsdale Fri candles: 6:29 Sat candles: 7:27 • Sun Havdalah 7:25
Fri Oct 2 / 21 Tishrei
Erev Shmeni Atzeres Five Towns Fri candles: 6:17 Sat candles: 7:16 • Sun Havdalah 7:23 Scarsdale Fri candles: 6:17 Sat candles: 7:14 • Sun Havdalah 7:25
Five Towns Candlelighting: From the White Shul, Far Rockaway, NY Scarsdale Candlelighting: From the Young Israel of Scarsdale, Scarsdale, NY
Celebrating Sukkot, our unique dual festival RABBI SIR JONATHAN SACKS ZT”L
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mong the festivals that give rhythm and structure to the Jewish year, Sukkot is unusual, unique. A detail which had a significant influence on Jewish liturgy appears in the book of Deuteronomy: Be joyful at your feast. … For seven days celebrate the Feast to the L-rd your G-d at the place the L-rd will choose. For the L-rd your G-d will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete. (Deut. 16:14-15) Speaking of the three pilgrimage festivals — Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot — Deuteronomy speaks of “joy,” but it does not do so equally. In the context of Pesach, it makes no reference to joy; in that of Shavuot, it speaks of it once; in Sukkot, as we see from the above quotation, it speaks of it twice. Is this significant? If so, how? (It was this double reference that gave Sukkot its alternative name in Jewish tradition: zeman simchatenu, the season of our joy. The second strange feature appears in Parshat Emor. Uniquely, Sukkot is associated with two mitzvot, not one. The first: Beginning with the fifteenth day of the seventh month, after you have gathered the crops of the land, celebrate the festival to the L-rd for seven days. … On the first day you are to take choice fruit from the trees, and palm fronds, leafy branches and willows of the brook, and rejoice before the L-rd your G-d for seven days. (Lev. 23:39-40) This is a reference to the arba minim, the “Four Kinds” — palm branch, citron, myrtle and willow leaves — taken and waved on Sukkot. The second command is quite different: Live in booths for seven days: All nativeborn Israelites are to live in booths, so your descendants will know that I made the Israelites live in booths when I brought them out of Egypt. I am the L-rd your G-d. (Lev. 23:4243) his is the command to leave our house and live in the temporary dwelling that gives Sukkot its name: the Festival of Tabernacles, booths, huts, an annual re-
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We all need rain. We are all all dependent on the complex ecology of the created world.
We all need rain. We are all all dependent on the complex ecology of the created world.
minder of portable homes in which the Israelites lived during their journey through the wilderness. No other festival has this dual symbolism. Not only are the Four Kinds and the tabernacle different in character: they are even seemingly opposed to one another. The Four Kinds and the rituals associated with them are about rain. They were, says Maimonides (Guide for the Perplexed, III: 43), the most readily available products of the land of Israel, reminders of the fertility of the land. By contrast, the command to live for seven days in booths, with only leaves for a roof, presupposes the absence of rain. If it rains on Sukkot we are exempt from the command (for as long as the rain lasts, and providing it is sufficiently strong to spoil food on the table). The difference goes deeper. On the one hand, Sukkot is the most universalistic of all festivals. The prophet Zechariah foresees the day when it will be celebrated by all humanity: The L-rd will be King over the whole earth. On that day the L-rd will be one, and His name the only name. … Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the L-rd Almighty, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. If any of the peoples of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the L-rd Almighty, they will have no rain. If the Egyptian people do not go up and take part, they will have no rain. The Sages interpreted the fact that 70 bulls were sacrificed in the course of the
festival (Numbers 29:12-34) to refer to the 70 nations (the traditional number of civilizations). Following the cues in Zechariah, they said that “On the festival [of Sukkot], the world is judged in the matter of rain” (Mishnah, Rosh Hashana 1:2). Sukkot is about the universal need for rain. At the same time, however, it is the most particularist of festivals. When we sit in the succah we recall Jewish history — not just the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, but also the entire experience of exile. he succah is defined as a temporary dwelling (dirat arai). It is the most powerful symbol of Jewish history. No other nation could see its home not as a castle, a fortress or a triumphal arch, but as a fragile tabernacle. No other nation was born, not in its land, but in the desert. Far from being universalist, Sukkot is intensely particularistic, the festival of a people like no other, whose only protection was its faith in the sheltering wings of the Divine Presence. It is almost as if Sukkot were two festivals, not one. It is. Although all the festivals are listed together, they in fact represent two quite different cycles. The first is the cycle of Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot. These tell the unique story of Jewish identity and history: the Exodus (Pesach), the Revelation at Mount Sinai (Shavuot), and the journey through the Wilderness (Sukkot). Celebrating them, we re-enact the key moments of Jewish memory. We celebrate what it is to be a Jew.
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There is, however, a second cycle — the festivals of the seventh month: Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and Sukkot. Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are not only about Jews and Judaism. They are about G-d and humanity as a whole. The language of the prayers is different. We say: “Instill your awe upon all Your works, and fear of You on all that You have created.” The entire liturgy is strikingly universalist. The Days of Awe are about the sovereignty of G-d over all humankind. On them, we reflect on the human — not just the Jewish — condition. The two cycles reflect the dual aspect of G-d: as Creator, and as Redeemer. As Creator, G-d is universal. We are all in G-d’s image, formed in His likeness. We share a covenant of human solidarity (the Noahide covenant). We are fellow citizens of the world G-d made and entrusted to our care. As Redeemer, however, G-d is particular. Whatever His relationship to other nations (and He has a relationship with other nations: so Amos and Isaiah insist), Jews know Him through His saving acts in Israel’s history: exodus, revelation and the journey to the Promised Land. o sooner have we identified the two cycles than we see what makes Sukkot unique. It is the only festival belonging to both. It is part of the cycle of Jewish history (Pesach-Shavuot-Sukkot), and part of the sequence of the seventh month (Rosh Hashana-Yom Kippur-Sukkot). Hence the double joy. The Four Kinds represent the universality of the festival. They symbolize nature, rain, the cycle of the seasons — things common to all humanity. The succah represents the singular character of Jewish history, the experience of exile and homecoming, the long journey across the wilderness of time. In a way not shared by any other festival, Sukkot celebrates the dual nature of Jewish faith: the universality of G-d and the particularity of Jewish existence. We all need rain. We are all part of nature, all dependent on the complex ecology of the created world. Hence the Four Kinds. But each nation, civilization, religion is different. As Jews we are heirs to a history unlike that of any other people: small, vulnerable, suffering exile after exile, yet surviving. Hence the succah. Humanity is formed out of our commonalities and differences. As I once put it: If we were completely different, we could not communicate. If we were all the same, we would have nothing to say. Sukkot brings both together: our uniqueness as a people, and our participation in the universal fate of humankind. This column is adapted from Rabbi Sack’s column on Parashat Emor.
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RABBI BENNY BERLIN
Jewish Star columnist BACH Long Beach
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very year, the day after Yom Kippur, I go into the garage and pull out the boards for my sukkah, and every year I have the same small argument with myself. Some of the wood is still solid, while some is warped from last year’s rain, and I have to decide what is going back up and what finally belongs in the trash. It never occurred to me until I learned a remarkable Shem MiShmuel that Sukkos asks us to make that same decision. What do we do
with the parts of the past year that did not turn out quite the way we wanted? The Torah calls Sukkos Chag HaAsif, the Festival of Gathering, because it comes when a farmer gathers the year’s produce from the threshing floor and winepress. Yet the Gemara makes a striking observation. The s’chach above our heads is made specifically from pesoles goren v’yekev, the refuse of the threshing floor and winepress, not the wheat or the wine, but what remains after the harvest has already been gathered (Sukkah 12a). The material that seems least important is what we use to build our sukkah. The Shem MiShmuel asks what this means for us. If Sukkos is the season when
The most comforting message of Sukkos. we gather everything we accomplished during the year, why is the house we build for Hashem made from the scraps rather than the harvest itself? He explains that our spiritual harvest also has produce and waste. Every year is filled with Torah, mitzvos, and good deeds, but very little of what we do is completely pure. There is the mitzvah itself, and then there is everything mixed into it, the distraction, the ulterior motive, the part of the act that never quite rose to the level
we wanted it to reach. Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are when that harvest is sorted. During these days, the good we have done is purified, and the precious part is gathered into what the Shem MiShmuel calls the otzar Shamayim, the heavenly storehouse. But not all leftovers are the same. There is motz, chaff, which has no use and is scattered by the wind, and there is teven, straw, which will never become bread but can still feed an animal or serve another purpose. The same is true of our mitzvos. here are things that need to be discarded, but there are also mitzvos that were real even if they were imperfect. The See Berlin on page 26
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When we build our sukkah, we’ve not given up RABBI BINNY FREEDMAN
Jewish Star columnist
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n 2005, Steve Jobs delivered the commencement address at Stanford University. In it, he described how he had started Apple in a garage at age 20, and after ten years of hard work, built it into a $2-billion company with 4,000 employees. And then he got fired and lost it all. He had hired a guy to help him build the company, but after a year they started
to see things differently, eventually had a falling out, and the board sided with the new guy and fired Jobs. He was devastated and did not know what to do. So he decided to start over again. He did not realize it then, but it would be the best thing that ever happened to him. The heaviness of being successful had been replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, and thus began the most creative period in his life. He started two companies, NEXT and PIXAR, and fell in love with the woman who would become his wife. Pixar created the first animated feature film (Toy Story) and became the most successful animation studio in the
Don’t lose faith. You will find what you love. world. Jobs was pretty sure none of this would have happened if he had not been fired from Apple. Sometimes life will hit you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. You will find what you love. ith Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur behind us, we enter the festival of Sukkoth, symbolized by the sukkah we sit in for seven days. Unlike
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Pesach and Shavuot, each of which has clear historical origins, the events which the festival of Sukkoth are meant to commemorate are not at all clear. Two of the most famous rabbis in Jewish history debate the nature of the sukkah. Rabbi Eliezer says they represent the Clouds of Glory which miraculously protected the Jews in the desert. Rabbi Akiva, however, believes we are commemorating the actual booths that the Jews dwelled in for 40 years in the desert. What is so special about booths in the desert? Nomadic people wandering the desert for 40 years will build huts, much as the Bedouin still do today. See Freedman on page 26
Despite tears and pain, still ‘zman simchatenu’ DR. ALAN MAZUREK
Jewish Star columnist
Boynton Beach / Jerusalem
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s we conclude Yom Kippur, we are instructed by Chazal to start looking forward to Succot and begin constructing the succah immediately that evening. We are to look forward to zman simchatenu, the time of our happiness, something that may be difficult, given all the sadness, tragedy, challenges and hardship that surround us every day. This is espe-
cially palpable in Israel, with social media amplifying it and incidents even in the most remote corners of the globe brought before our eyes and into our homes and souls. And these are just the global events that impact us; what about the personal heartaches in each of our individual lives? Yet the Torah commands us, v’hayitem ach samech — you shall be completely happy! (Devarim 16:15). For me, the son of a Litvak, happiness is not in my genetic makeup. As the old joke goes: Why do we read a portion of Megillat Esther on Purim in the Eichah tune? Answer: So that even the Litvaks will have some simcha. Ah, so then why don’t we read the whole Megillah in that mournful tune? Because the Litvaks don’t
The more hands available, the lighter the burden. want to have too much simcha! So I’ve got to work at it. I’m fortunate that I found out from my uncle, my late father’s brother, may he have a refuah sheleimah, that my greatgrandfather and grandfather were actually Gerrer Chassidim. But I didn’t know that until after my father’s passing, and since he grew up and lived in a town only kilometers outside of Vilna, I was raised in a Litvishe mindset. As I said, I have to
work on the simcha. his week was particularly difficult. Two incidents affected me profoundly, one that happened only days earlier and one that occurred eight years ago. The first was the sudden, tragic loss of my dear friend, Avi. No warning, no recent sickness. He was an exceptional person, a gifted and caring physician, a brilliant scholar of Torah, politics, history, you name it. And yet you could sit and laugh with him about the most insane and frankly silly things, mostly recalled from childhood, until the tears of laughter rolled down your cheeks. I miss him terribly, as does everyone who knew him, and our love, affection and support go out See Mazurek on page 26
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Emerging on Sukkot from darkness into light RABBI DR. TZVI HERSH WEINREB
Orthodox Union
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ear and trembling — those have been our primary religious emotions during the Yamim Nora’im, the Days of Awe when, facing divine judgment, we felt vulnerable, insecure, and anxious about what the coming year has in store for us. After all, in our prayers, we actually asked of the Almighty that he “cast His fear over all of His handiwork, and His awe over all of His creatures.” But Judaism does not want us to remain stuck
in these overwhelming emotions of anxiety and uncertainty. And so our Torah has provided us with the festival of Sukkot, a time not for fear and trembling, contemplation and soul-searching, but for serenity and joy. We emerge from what mystics call the “dark night of the soul” into the bright light of happiness. The central symbol of Sukkot is the sukkah. What is the meaning of this simple symbol? And how does it inspire this spiritual attitude of trust? Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch said it best: The building of the sukkah teaches you trust in G-d. You know that whether men live in huts or in palaces, it is only as pilgrims that they dwell. You know that in this pilgrimage G-d is our protection. The sukkah is a transitory hut that one day will leave us or we will leave it. The walls may fall, the leafy
How does the sukkah work its wonders? covering may wither in this storm, but the sheltering love of G-d is everywhere. You dwell in the most fleeting and transitory dwelling as calmly and securely as if it were your house forever. And so we redirect our orientation to G-d, no longer the harsh judge, nor even the compassionate judge. He is now our shelter and protector, the permanent “Rock of Israel” in the transitory experience we call life. We effect this shift by using the symbols the holiday provides us, chief among them the sukkah.
How does the sukkah work its wonders? The secret is to enter it respectfully and reflectively, spend as much time as possible in its shade, and invite into it two types of guests: friends and family, with special hospitality for those who may never have enjoyed a sukkah experience, and we also symbolically summon the ushpizin, the “ghost guests,” our ancestors going back to Abraham and Sarah. We immerse ourselves in the sukkah, encountering the cherished memories of those who sat in other sukkot before us, ancestors recent and long gone, and our usual companions who all participated as we do in that protracted pilgrimage known as Jewish history. Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb is vice president emeritus of the Orthodox Union.
THE JEWISH STAR September 25-October 1, 2026 • 14 Tishrei 5787
Sukkos: Here’s what we do with the leftovers
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September 25-October 1, 2026 • 14 Tishrei 5787 THE JEWISH STAR
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OPINION COLUMNISTS
To comment on or to contact any of our columnists, write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com Among our regular opinion columnists are: Ben Cohen, senior analyst, Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Stephen Flatow, president, Religious Zionists of America-Mizrachi and father of Alisa Flatow, murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995; Yisrael Medad, American-born Israeli journalist and political commentator; Fiamma Nirenstein, Italian-Israeli journalist, author of 13 books, leading voice on Israeli affairs, Middle Eastern politics and antisemitism; Melanie Phillips, British journalist; Thane Rosenbaum, Distinguished University Professor at Touro University (published by Jewish Journal); Jonathan S. Tobin, editor-in-chief, Jewish News Syndicate.
Confront Jew-haters and forget cancel culture JONATHAN TOBIN
JNS Editor-in-Chief
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ccording to some free-speech advocates, the Jews are making a big mistake. By complaining about rap artist Macklemore using a concert to promote the demonization of Israel, they are making him into a martyr or engaging in cancel culture that always backfires. They’re not wrong about one thing. Up until last week, Macklemore, a 43-yearold performer whose real name is Benjamin Hammond Haggerty, was not anyone who is thought of as a music superstar. The incident that set off the current controversy happened while he was serving as a warm-up act for another much more widely known musician, English pop star Ed Sheeran. But now that some Jews in the audience at a concert at MetLife Stadium in northern New Jersey near New York City complained about the anti-Israel propaganda they were subjected to while waiting to hear the softer-edged, ballad-like songs of Sheeran, Macklemore is getting his 15 minutes.
‘Free Palestine’ martyr? Macklemore’s publicized struggle with alcohol and drug addiction was hardly unique in his sphere. He was briefly on the radar of the Jewish world in 2014 for wearing a costume on stage in which he posed as an antisemitic Jewish stereotype with a huge nose. But after a minimalist apology for that appalling behavior, his career continued to flourish. He was even featured in a weekly address from the White House in 2016 with then-President Barack Obama, when he spoke about the dangers of addiction. But now that he has been essentially kicked off Sheeran’s current tour, which appears at large venues such as NFL stadiums and appeals to mainstream audiences,
li genocide and who highlight the savage murder of children.” But even those who don’t, as Rowe did, echo Hamas propaganda are slamming Kraft. According to Greg Lukianoff of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), Kraft was within his rights to say that Macklemore or anyone else couldn’t use his stadium to voice opinions he didn’t like. But he told CNN that doing so helps foster a culture in which free speech can’t flourish. ukianoff was a stern critic of left-wing cancel culture that resulted in the deplatforming of conservatives during the heyday of the Black Lives Matter movement. But since the start of the surge of antisemitism that followed the Hamas-led Palestinian Arab terror attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, he’s used the same argument to speak up in defense of pro-Hamas mobs on college campuses, even when Jews are targeted by them. Though that sounds as if he’s being consistent, it’s not, and he’s wrong. During the height of BLM cancel culture, normative defense of Western civilization was unfairly denounced as racism. That is not the same thing as a demand to treat antisemitic tropes and lies as reasonable arguments that deserve a fair hearing. The problem with Kraft’s critics is that the framing of this controversy as a “free speech” debate ignores both the context and the content of what Macklemore and others are doing. Whether or not the rapper ultimately profits from getting kicked off Sheeran’s tour (Abdullah Hammoud, the pro-Hamas mayor of Dearborn, Mich., has invited him to perform in his Arab/ Muslim majority city) or if he and others who share his views feel they are being oppressed by what they consider wealthy “pro-genocide” Jews, the real issue at play here is something very different.
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American rapper Macklemore performs in San Francisco in 2013.
he’s become a very big deal. Even those of us who don’t listen to rap music now know his name and his views. His left-wing political activism and fashionable hate-mongering about Israel, which is spun as merely “pro-Palestinian,” are now discussed throughout mainstream media. And to those who applaud his use of a pop-music concert not merely to proclaim his support for “Free Palestine” but to spread blood libels about Israel committing “genocide” and being an “apartheid” state, he has become something of an antiIsrael hero. The person who is primarily responsible for this is none other than Jewish philanthropist Robert Kraft, owner of the National Football League’s New England Patriots.
Kraft takes a stand Kraft has become the object of scorn among the chattering classes for having the temerity to say Macklemore wasn’t go-
Those who spout blood libels about Israel have the right to free speech, but not to a platform.
Amanda Rhoades via Creative Commons
ing to be allowed to use Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., which he also owns, to perform the same stunts he did at the Meadowlands. As The Athletic reported, Macklemore claims that Sheeran told him Kraft had organized other stadium owners to join him in an ultimatum to the singer in which he was told that if he retained the rapper, he would not be allowed to play in their venues either. Without those stadiums, which can accommodate far more ticket-buyers than smaller arenas, the tour would have been essentially derailed. n response to this, some of the other warm-up acts for Sheeran have pulled out of the tour. The American singer Finneas O’Connell, along with the singersongwriters Aaron Rowe and Lukas Graham, and the traditional Irish group Beoga, all announced their withdrawals on social media. Each cited their belief that Kraft’s actions undermined free speech and their support for “Palestine.” Rowe said that “as Irish people, we know all too well about genocide, forced famine and violent occupation. I cannot stand by and allow billionaires to use their position of power to silence the rightful voices of those who speak up against Israe-
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Tolerate hate speech? At stake in this discussion is a crucial question. Should Jews, whether rich and famous like Kraft or just ordinary people who buy tickets to pop concerts, as well as the overwhelming majority of all Americans who oppose antisemitism, be asked to acquiesce to the proliferation of such hate speech in the public square and do nothing about it? See Tobin on page 26
BEN COHEN
Global Focus
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ot for the first time, and likely not for the last, Vice President JD Vance has declared that the United States “cannot let our Middle Eastern foreign policy be subservient to the State of Israel.” The use of the word “subservient” has an unpleasant smell in this context, redolent of the groyper conspiracy theories that would have us believe that the real controllers of policymaking are “the Zionists” and not the politicians we elect. It is also a strawman argument. US foreign policy has never been “subservient” to the State of Israel, if we understand that to mean that American leaders make decisions that go against our national interest in favor of Jerusalem. According to Vance, his boss, President Donald Trump, has been the sole American leader ready to say “no” to the Israelis when saying “yes” would confound American imperatives. “I think that more than frankly any president in the last 40 years, he has shown a willingness to actually part ways with Bibi Netanyahu when he feels like
Design Soln, Shutterstock
the interests of the American people are different from the interests of the government of Israel,” Vance said. his is an odd point, to say the least, to make about a man who has frequently described himself as “history’s most pro-Israel US president.” After all, it was Trump who recognized Israeli sovereignty over both the eastern half of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, when many Democratic Party politicians
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What brings the democratic allies together is worth far more than the issues dividing them.
and European leaders warned that doing so would unleash the fearsome wrath of the entire Muslim world. It was Trump who withdrew the U.S. from the fatally flawed 2015 nuclear deal with the Iranian regime, again drawing vocal criticism that he had acted against his own country’s interests solely to mollify Israel. It was Trump who, in 2019, reversed his predecessor Barack Obama’s determination that settlements in Judea and Samaria were “inconsistent with international law.” The following year, he issued a peace plan that would have allowed Israel to retain the vast majority of those settlements. Again, those who
criticized Trump depicted him as Israel’s patsy, making decisions that would harm America abroad for the sake of appeasing powerful Jews. Last but not least, it was Trump who embarked on a joint military operation with Israel against Iran, once more ignoring warnings that doing so would threaten the stability of the “Abraham Accords” that he brokered between Israel and several Arab countries. None of the apocalyptic scenarios envisaged by the alarmists ever came to fruition. And the reason is that, in all these cases, Trump’s calculations were based on U.S. interests, not Israeli ones. Critically, none of his decisions have prevented him from also clashing with the Israeli government, as he has done on several occasions. In that sense, Vance would have been on firmer ground if he had argued that the main difference between Trump and past presidents was that his transactional approach to foreign policy yielded more successful outcomes, particularly in bringing Israel and the Arab states closer together. But there isn’t a lot of mileage in claiming that Trump has been readier to stand up to the Israelis than “any president in the last 40 years” because that simply isn’t true. uring Ronald Reagan’s tenure in the White House, bitter disputes erupted with Israel on a range of issues. After the Israeli Air Force bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981, the United States responded by suspending deliveries of FSee Cohen on page 27
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Celebrities endorsed a different ‘Free Palestine’ RAFAEL MEDOFF
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he rapper Macklemore is not the first cultural celebrity to champion the cause of “Free Palestine.” But when many of America’s leading celebrities called for a “Free Palestine” eighty years ago this week, they were talking about freeing Palestine from British occupation, in order to establish a Jewish state. The pro-Zionist play “A Flag is Born” debuted on Broadway in September 1946, starring a sensational young actor named Marlon Brando. The play was organized by the American League for a Free Palestine (AFLP), a political action committee better known as the Bergson Group. Hundreds of thousands of Holocaust survivors were languishing in postwar Europe in the autumn of 1946, and the British were preventing them from reaching the Holy Land. Academy Award-winning screen writer Ben Hecht authored “A Flag is Born” to promote the cause of Jewish immigration and statehood. The story centers on two survivors who, in a Jewish cemetery in Europe, encounter a young Zionist on his way to fight for a free Palestine — a free Jewish Palestine. In a se-
‘A Flag is Born’ championed Jewish immigration and statehood.
ries of emotional conversations, they talk about the biblical Jewish kingdoms, the ages-old Jewish yearning to return to the Holy Land, and the British suppression of Jewish freedom. Brando, 22, played David, the young man. Paul Muni and Celia Adler, stars of the Yiddish theater, played the elderly couple, Tevya and Zelda. Stella Adler, the statuesque actress and acting coach, was the narrator. n the stirring final scene, Tevya collapses and dies. David takes the prayer shawl covering his body and fashions it into a Zionist flag, symbolizing the rebirth of Jewish nationhood after the Holocaust. “When the Zionist flag was raised in the final scene, with Kurt Weill’s music in the background, it sent a chill through the audience,” the late Miriam Chaikin, author and Bergson Group activist, told me. “It sounded a note of hope, it stirred feelings of pride and strength that had lain dormant in Jewish hearts for too long.” Chaikin said her brother Joseph, later the founder of New York City’s famous Open Theater, was inspired to go into acting and directing after accompanying her to a performance of “Flag.” As a gesture of solidarity, Brando and his colleagues performed in “A Flag is Born” for the minimum Actors’ Guild wage. Brando championed the Jewish cause offstage, too. He became, as he put it, “a kind of traveling salesman” for the ALFP, giving speeches around the country about the international community’s abandonment of the Jews during the Holocaust and the need for a Jewish state. Brando was just one of many stars of stage and screen who were active in the American League for a Free Palestine. Among those
With the Wind”; Edward Buzzell, director of the Marx Brothers movies; and famed Broadway producer Max Gordon. he British hated “A Flag is Born.” The London Evening Standard called it “the most virulent anti-British play ever staged in the United States.” American audiences felt differently. Due to popular demand, the four-week opening run at Manhattan’s Alvin Theater (today known as the Neil Simon Theater) was extended to ten weeks. “Flag” then hit the road for performances in Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, and Baltimore. The latter became the subject of controversy when the theater tried to restrict African-Americans to the balcony. The ALFP and the local NAACP teamed up to force the Baltimore theater management to drop its discriminatory policy. Exuberant NAACP leaders hailed that “tradition-shattering victory” and used it facilitate the desegregation of other Baltimore theaters in the years to follow. Hecht said the fact that it was a pro-Zionist play which dealt a blow to racism in America proved that “to fight injustice to one group of human beings affords protection to every other group.” There was a time when America’s leading cultural luminaries understood that Jews should be included among the minorities who deserve justice. Today, sadly, too many celebrities seem to believe that fighting injustice requires annihilating the one, tiny Jewish state and replacing it with a twentythird Arab dictatorship. Published in Jewish Journal of Los Angeles. Dr. Rafael Medoff is director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, and the author of more than 20 books about Jewish history, Zionism, and the Holocaust.
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whose names appeared on the many fullpage newspaper ads that the AFLP sponsored, or who took part in the group’s other activities, were: •comedians Harpo Marx, Carl Reiner, Jerry Lewis, Sid Caesar and Phil Silvers; •actors Vincent Price, Jimmy Durante, Charles Blackmer (“The Great Gatsby”), Cedric Hardwicke (“The Ten Commandments”), Canada Lee (“Cry, the Beloved Country”), Harry Davenport (“Gone With the Wind”), and Katherine Warren (“The Big Sleep”); •singers Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, pianist Vladimir Horowitz, and conductor Leonard Bernstein; •David O. Selznick, producer of “Gone
THE JEWISH STAR September 25-October 1, 2026 • 14 Tishrei 5787
America has never been subservient to Israel
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September 25-October 1, 2026 • 14 Tishrei 5787 THE JEWISH STAR
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The bear of hate and Jews of the ‘Dark Side’ YISRAEL MEDAD
Media Watch
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arth Vader, as viewers discover while watching the “Star Wars” film series, had turned to evil. Luke Skywalker learns that Vader helped the Empire hunt down the Jedis, and he even betrayed and supposedly murdered Luke’s own father, Anakin Skywalker. It was only in a sequel to the 1977 film that we came to realize that Anakin’s “death” was a metaphor. It was his soul and his values that had died, whereas his physical being was severely damaged, causing voice alteration, among other things. It was Yoda, in the 1980 film “The Empire Strikes Back,” that provided us with a greater understanding of the “Dark Side.” The Siths of that place disdained defense and preferred attack. They were described as: “Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight.” Judaism has its own version of that fictional universe called the Sitra Achra, or the “Other Side.” It is the opposite of a world of holiness, a realm populated by impure forces. As we read in the Zohar (Peku-
The ‘bear’ Jabotinsky conjured up as an image of Jew-hate is still alive.
Fan wears a “Stormtrooper” costume from the movie “Star Wars” at the Tower of David Museum in the Old City of Jerusalem, on May 4, 2023. Yonatan Sindel, Flash90
dei 14:89), “when a man is under the care of the side of holiness, the ‘other side’ will never come near him and is powerless to thrust him out of his place, or of whatever he is doing.” The Jewish people are currently engaged in a series of military engagements on a variety of fronts that aim to weaken our identity and draw us away from our heritage and legacy, as well as our destiny. Our opponents are using all sorts of lightsabers with their plasma blades. That isn’t the worst. The unfortunate reality is that Jews have chosen at this time to go over to the other side—the dark side.
In truth, there have always been such Jews. In 1905, the Constitutional Democratic Party (K-D) was founded in Imperial Russia seeking to promote a Western constitutional monarchy. Members were referred to as Kadets (from the abbreviation). Jews flocked to it, but earned the mocking term “Katsaps of the Mosaic faith,” as they were viewed as subordinating Jewish interests to the achievement of liberal principles. n 1909, Ze’ev Jabotinsky wrote sarcastically about one of their leaders, Maxim Moiseevich Vinaver, in a column titled “The Bear From His Lair,” published in the Rassvet periodical. He attacked “Jew-
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ish desertion” and made fun of their desire to integrate into Russian culture. Vinaver’s basic position, which should bring to mind not only yesteryear’s Jewish communists and Bundists but our current crop of those blending in à la Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s appeal to “self-sacrifice,” was that “the Russian people is our political nation, while the Jewish people is our cultural nation.” They rejected Zionism and the need of Jews for a separate political future. Jabotinsky objected to Vinaver’s position, which placed Russian Jews in a dependency upon Russian liberalism. For Jabotinsky, the Jews of Russia are citizens of the country and demand equal rights as such. However, they don’t need to prove that right by demonstrating usefulness to Russian culture and society. Jews are not foreigners. Jabotinsky added another element. He argued that what will happen is that the Russian cultural elite, while praising individual Jews, will remain hostile to Jews as a collective and deny them their rights, as well as reject Zionism. He called these Jews “Jewish servants of the Russian palace.” He didn’t deem it a tragedy that Jews would be excluded from literary, artistic or cultural affairs since he saw those intellectuals eventually spurning those Jews wishing to become part of Russian culture. Jabotinsky continued and added one more additional factor: that of antisemitism or “Judeophobic persecution,” in his term. In the article, he castigated anti-Jewish See Medad on page 27
Facing deceitful genocide accusations in mirror PAUL BACHOW
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y multiple required legal standards, Israel has not committed genocide in Gaza. Hamas, on the other hand, has not only committed atrocities; it has mastered the art of reframing them. By invoking the word “genocide,” Hamas has turned its own crime into a political weapon; a weapon aimed at Israel and the truth itself. The tragedy is not only a loss of life but the loss of clarity. It creates a world in which the perpetrator can claim the mantle of victimhood and be believed. Understanding the legal meaning of the word “genocide” is essential, but recognizing how easily it is manipulated is even more urgent. If we fail to do so, we risk allowing the worst crimes to hide behind the most powerful words and mistaking propaganda for justice. In 1992, in Butare prefecture in southern Rwanda, someone sat down and wrote a memorandum on how to run a propaganda campaign. It was mimeographed, unsigned and largely cribbed from a French textbook on advertising. Investigators found a copy years later, after the killing was over. Buried in it was a technique the author
Hamas commits mass atrocities and then redirects global rage at Israel.
Cars charred by Hamas terrorists during the massacre in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Yossi Zamir, Flash90
called accusation en miroir — “accusation in a mirror.” The instruction was simple: accuse your enemy of exactly what you intend to do yourself. “In this way,” the author wrote, “the party which is using terror will accuse the enemy of using terror.” The technique did not die in Rwanda. It has become a standard instrument of modern conflict. We have watched it deployed at scale twice in the last four years — in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and now in Gaza. he term “genocide” carries enormous moral force. Because it is widely regarded as the “crime of crimes,” it is increasingly used not only to describe atrocities but also to justify them. “Accusations in a mirror” are now common among perpetrators. Russia used the tactic in 2022 when it
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claimed Ukraine was committing genocide in the Donbas region. No credible evidence supported the allegation. Ukraine responded by bringing a case before the International Court of Justice, seeking a formal declaration that no genocide occurred. The case is still years from resolution, but the strategy is unmistakable: weaponize the word genocide to legitimize aggression. To understand why this tactic is so powerful, it helps to look at the legal definition of genocide. Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide lists five categories of genocidal acts, only one of which involves killing. The convention defines genocide as “Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethni-
cal, racial or religious group.” Intent is the core requirement. Without the intent to destroy a particular group, the crime of genocide is not being committed. The instruction was simple: accuse your enemy of exactly what you intend to do yourself. This element — intent to destroy — is absent from Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Israel’s practice of issuing more than 105 mass evacuation orders, creating “safe corridors” of evacuation (in areas where Hamas was shooting civilians to keep them as human shields), creating evacuation zones and dropping leaflets before building strikes all demonstrate an intent to avoid civilian casualties, not to eliminate or destroy a population. These practices are incompatible with genocidal intent. In war, civilian deaths, while tragic, are not automatically illegal under international law. The governing standard is proportionality: civilian harm must not be excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage. Proportionality recognizes that civilian casualties can occur lawfully during armed conflict, especially when combatants embed themselves among civilians — as Hamas purposely does. Hamas does not fall under any of the protected categories listed in Article II. It is not a “national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” It is a political and military organization: a political party with an armed wing. The convention deliberately excluded political groups from its definition. As a result, Hamas casualties do not constitute genocide under international law. In 2007, the ICJ clarified that genocide requires the destruction of “at least a subSee Bachow on page 27
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Har Hazeitim
ReJEWv’ Nation Tour Two 3 hour (approx.) tours will be offered: Wednesday, September 23, 2026, at 10:30 AM Wednesday, September 30, 2026 (Sukkot), at 10:30 AM
This Sukkot Jeff Daube, the International Committee for Hazeitim's (ICHH) Israel chair, will guide you through 3,000 years of Jewish heritage and history.
View firsthand how ICHH and its partners in 16 short years ReJEWvenated the National Cemetery of the Jewish People after years of neglect and desecration.
Visit the sites of the
Jewish People's greatest leaders and gedolim as well as the site of the Parah Adumah and three Neviim
Witness the construction
of our magnificent Har Hazeitim Visitor Education and Heritage Center.
Register soon!
Space is limited
For additional details and registration, please contact ICHH CEO, Moshe Bruce:
THE JEWISH STAR September 25-October 1, 2026 • 14 Tishrei 5787
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September 25-October 1, 2026 • 14 Tishrei 5787 THE JEWISH STAR
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TOBIN: Face Jew-haters, forget cancel culture…
Continued from page 22 Contrary to Macklemore’s disingenuous initial “apology” for his act, saying you care about Jews but just criticizing “genocide” and “apartheid” illustrates the key issue. What he and the other members of Sheeran’s tour, along with their cheerleaders throughout the media, are doing isn’t “criticizing” the State of Israel or expressing solidarity with the Palestinians. In the wake of his stand, Kraft has bent over backwards to express his support for peace and reconciliation in the Middle East, and even promised to match Sheeran’s donations to humanitarian groups seeking to help the victims of the war that Hamas terrorists started on Oct. 7. He isn’t saying that those who hate Israel have no right to voice their views. But the notion that he or anyone else be forced to simply tolerate the spread of blood libels about “genocide” and “famines,” or the alleged wanton murder of children by Israel is intolerable. And so is the implication that supporters of the Jewish state, like Kraft, and the majority of American Jews are responsible for these mythical crimes. n the three years since Oct. 7, Jews have witnessed an unprecedented increase in antisemitic violence, including murderous attacks. They’ve seen college campuses turned into hostile environments for Jewish students and faculty by pro-Hamas groups, and city streets turned into battlegrounds against them. Just as significant, they’ve seen lies about Israel and the Jews mainstreamed
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Berlin…
Continued from page 21 Shem MiShmuel describes the physical act of a mitzvah as valuable even when it falls short of the higher level represented by the inner intention of the heart. I think about all the mitzvos of a year that look like that, the Mincha I raced through because I had somewhere to be, the chesed I did without the warmth I wish I had brought to it, the bracha I said while my mind was somewhere else, or the mitzvah I performed on automatic pilot. Those are not necessarily mitzvos to throw away. They may be teven. And what does a Jew do with teven? We build a sukkah out of it. There is another halacha about s’chach that gives this idea even greater meaning. The Mishnah in Sukkah teaches that a vine still attached to the ground cannot serve as kosher s’chach. Once it is cut, however, it can become valid s’chach (Sukkah 1:4). The material has not changed. Only its relationship to the ground has. Perhaps Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur can do something similar to the imperfect mitzvos of a year. We davened, but we were distracted by everything waiting for us afterward. We gave, but our ego came along for the ride. We did the right things, but they remained tangled in the ordinary pressures and motivations of life, too attached to the ground to become part of something higher. hen comes Yom Kippur. For one day, we try to cut ourselves loose from the ground, stepping away from the physical world as much as humanly possible. By Neilah, we may find ourselves saying words we have said hundreds of times before, only now we are actually hearing them, discovering a sincerity that was buried underneath a year of distraction. Maybe that moment does more than prepare us for the
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by corporate media outlets that now routinely publish and broadcast the “genocide” blood libels and other big lies. This hasn’t just resulted in making Israel more unpopular but has served to legitimize antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories. Under the false cover of concern for Palestinians, which for many of these socalled advocates is just the latest trendy cause, anti-Jewish hate speech has become not merely fashionable on the far left and right. As the sentiments expressed by Sheeran’s colleagues illustrated, they have become commonplace among the chattering classes, the arts and popular culture. The movement that backs the side that actually intends to commit genocide in the Middle East — as the orgy of mass murder, torture, rape and kidnapping on Oct. 7 demonstrated — cosplays as humanitarians rather than hate-mongers.
Israel-bashers not silenced In this way, the Jews and their allies are smeared not only as “genocide” supporters, but as oppressing and denying free speech to the supposedly brave people who are spreading these lies. Macklemore and his pals can spout all the pro-Hamas propaganda in Dearborn or anywhere else that will have them. As the tenor of public discourse in the liberaldominated media as well as in some rightwing podcasts has shown during the last three years, they don’t lack platforms to spout their mendacious and malicious narratives about Israel’s efforts to defend its people against those who wish to murder them.
year ahead. Maybe it changes the way we carry the year behind us. The mitzvos were always there. They may not have been everything they could have been, but now we can look back at them differently, separate them from some of the earthiness that clung to them, and recognize that even our imperfect efforts belonged to something higher. Then, just a few days later, Hashem tells us what to do with what remains. We build with it. That may be one of the most comforting messages of Sukkos. None of us brings a perfect harvest into the new year. There are things we regret and things we truly need to leave behind. But the distracted mitzvah, the tired mitzvah, the mitzvah we wish we had done better, may still have something precious inside it. Every year, I stand in my garage deciding what is still worth building with. Maybe Sukkos asks us to do the same thing with ourselves. Some things need to be thrown away, but some of what looks like leftovers is still holy enough to become s’chach. We just have to lift it off the ground. Rabbi Benny Berlin is spiritual leader of BACH in Long Beach. www.bachlongbeach.
Freedman…
Continued from page 21 Also, given the fact that Rabbi Akiva was a student of Rabbi Eliezer, why does he differ from his rebbe on this? Rabbi Akiva was a principal proponent of the Bar Kochba rebellion (131-135 CE) and was captured and tortured to death by the Romans for his role in supporting the revolt; perhaps Rabbi Akiva was saying that we cannot wait for Clouds of Glory if we wish to bring redemption, we need to be willing to build the booths ourselves.
Decent people, whether Jewish or nonJewish, who know that this “Free Palestine” movement is rooted in lies about the century-old Arab and Muslim war to deny the right of self-determination to Jews in their ancient homeland have been asked to treat antisemitic invective as merely something that they should agree to disagree about. Non-Jews like Macklemore and many others much more influential than him have had the chutzpah to tell Jews that they must deny an essential element of their identity and faith — devotion to the land of Israel — if they want to be tolerated in fashionable liberal society. What this situation has demanded is a resolution on the part of those who oppose this mainstreaming of Jew-hatred to say they won’t tolerate it anymore. While a well-known backer of Israel, Kraft has been a supporter of some of the most anodyne advocacy against hate, with ads about antisemitism that have annoyed many who think his Blue Square campaign, which has been promoted in Super Bowl ads, is not tough enough and portrayed Jews as weak. But in his comments about Macklemore, he stated nothing more than the truth when he noted that the rapper’s use of his act to spread anti-Israel propaganda, as well as a history of “antisemitic rhetoric and imagery,” is deeply offensive and hurtful to the Jewish community.
Telling Jews to shut up Had a Ku Klux Klan supporter spouted anti-black rhetoric at a concert at an NFL stadium, no one would criticize the owner of the venue for saying such a person had
A good friend, Dr. Meier Becker, once suggested that if the Jews had not sinned at the golden calf, they would have received the Torah and been on their way to Israel, protected by Clouds of Glory, without needing to build the sukkot. Indeed, the sin of the golden calf occurred on the 17th of Tammuz (40 days after the 7th of Sivan, the festival of Shavuot) and the Jewish people would have been in Israel by the new moon of Av and would never have experienced winter in the desert, so perhaps they would not have needed the booths. But in the aftermath of the golden calf and then the sin of the spies (which occurred on the 9th of Av) the Jews were doomed to wander the desert for 40 years, which necessitated the building of the sukkot. The Clouds of Glory represented the world as it was meant to be, the ideal. The sukkot represented the world as it was. Rabbi Akiva understood the reality of his day, and realized the Jewish people could not sit around waiting for Clouds of Glory, they needed to be willing to build their own booths. We celebrate the booths in the desert because they symbolize the willingness of a people, with nothing but faith, to start over again, to believe the long journey will one day bring their children home. abbi Akiva must have known how impossible the revolt against the Roman empire was, but he still believed the battle to be worthwhile (much like Mordechai Anilewicz in the Warsaw Ghetto) because it meant the Jews had not, and would never, give up. And 2,000 years later, the long lost children of those bar Kochba rebels, having never given up, emerged from the temporary booths of their wandering and exile and came home at last. Sukkot is the festival of faith and joy,
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no place in his venue. Nor would opinion leaders demand that African-Americans should simply not buy a ticket to such a performance. Everyone even tangentially involved would be put on notice to disavow such a stunt or face a storm of opprobrium. And yet Jews are told to pipe down when supporters of Jewish genocide and the extinction of the one Jewish state on the planet — the goal of the “Free Palestine” movement — as antisemites parade their hate in the public square. Far from the Israel-bashers being silenced, it is the Jews who are being told to shut up. Kraft’s stand must be the starting point for a new attitude among Jews and their friends about what they’ve been told to put up with. They and the broad majority of all Americans who abhor such bigotry need to make it clear that the only proper response to blood libels about Israel and the Jews is zero tolerance. That must be our standard for public discourse, and anyone who voices these lies or platforms them must be denounced and banished to the fever swamps of the far left or far right, where they belong. Call it cancel culture if you like. But so long as Jew-hatred, whether under the guise of anti-Zionism or “Free Palestine,” which in practice are indistinguishable, is tolerated as fair commentary or even human-rights advocacy, the plague of antisemitism will gain momentum and continue to spread with terrible consequences for both Jews and America. Jonathan S. Tobin is the editor-in-chief of JNS.
and the belief that the long difficult journey will one day prove worthwhile. This is true both on a national level and for us as individuals. As Steve Jobs suggested, the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you have not found it yet, keep looking and don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you will know when you find it. For thousands of years, we refused to settle, and now we are home. And despite what some leaders in Iran may say, we will still be here in 25 years and in 2,500 years, with Hashem’s help. A version of this column was published in 2015.
Mazurek…
Continued from page 21 to his wonderful wife and family. The other was someone readers may know. Ari Fuld, h”yd, was murdered by an Arab terrorist in 2018. He was stabbed in the back, but rather than succumb, Ari bravely turned and chased after the attacker, his gun firing, wounding him. But the loss of blood in the chase turned out to be too much for Ari. Nevertheless his bravery stopped the attacker, likely saving many lives. As I was sitting in shul the next morning, the day after my friend Avi’s funeral, thinking about him, I realized it was Ari Fuld’s yahrtzeit. Rabbi Yonah Fuld, Ari’s father, was leading the davening and I was overwhelmed with sadness. Even writing these words days later brings me to tears. But as is often the case, when you are in Eretz Yisrael, and as they say contact with Hashem is a “local call,” I start to Continued on next page
Continued from page 24 “repulsions” and used the imagery of a bear held up in its den. The bear will emerge, he wrote; in fact, “the bear has long since begun to stir in its den and is about to poke its head out.” He voiced a warning not to “trustingly disarm, disband our moral self-defense, pawn and re-pawn all our valuables in [Russian] pawnshops” because Jews will discover to their “heartfelt sorrow that the bear was not guarded and … he broke out of his den.” hat was in 1909. It’s now 2026. Yet the same picture exists of Jews wanting to seek inclusiveness within the general population and being more than willing to deny the basic fundamental elements of Jewishness to be accepted. There is UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband, who began his explanation of his sanctimonious slandering sanctions policy on Jews of Judea and Samaria by telling Parliament that “I would like to make a statement on Israel and Palestine. I do so
as a proud British Jew…” There is writer Hugo Rifkind in the London Times insisting, after his government decided to boycott goods in Judea and Samaria, penalizing Jewish residents and settlements there, that it’s just “an issue about a few hills,” a throwaway line that deculturalizes Jewish history. And there are Israeli “As-A-Jew” signing on to a letter in that newspaper. There are the Jews of Hollywood, who sign “genocide” petitions “as Jews.” There are young people involved with IfNotNow and Yachad on both sides of the Atlantic. A letter penned by anti-Israel journalist Peter Beinart, requesting financial support for the anti-Zionist Jewish Currents, writes of the need to “fully repent for what a Jewish army—with the backing of Jewish leaders around the world—did after October 7.” Ben Cohen, of Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream fame, accepts an award from Muslim anti-Zionists affiliated with the Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) on
Continued from previous page talk to Him. I ask Him, Why? How do their families bear this? What am I, what are we supposed to learn from this? I was friendly with Avi, but he wasn’t my family. I didn’t even know Ari. Yet I felt as if each one was my family. The loss was as painful as losing a brother. And then immediately I thought of the word, the concept of areivut. A Hebrew word that really defies English translation, like the word nachat (or nachas as we said in the old country). Areivut is the principle that every Jew is connected to and responsible for his and her fellow Jew, for good or bad. That is why when bad things happen, our first response is, was he, was she Jewish? Not because we are selfcentered, but because we want to, we need to, we are genuinely programmed to share their pain. When we hear of a terrorist attack on a Jew anywhere in the world, it’s our family who’s been attacked. When we hear of a lost Jewish child, or one left in a hot car — it’s like one of our own kids, even if we don’t know their name. When we hear of a car accident in the Galil or in Montana or Italy or anywhere on earth and a Jew is hurt, or G-d forbid, killed, we feel it acutely. On the other hand, unfortunately, when a Jew does something less than noble, we feel a sense of shame and embarrassment, even though we had nothing to do with it. Yet on a positive note, when Jews do something wonderful we have a sense of elation, as if we somehow were part of the whole enterprise. s I further contemplated this wonderful concept of areivut, given to us by Hashem as a people and accepted by us all, individually and as a people, regardless of level of observance, some of my pain of loss was somewhat alleviated. Not because the pain was less, but because the sense that we were all in this together, that we all shared some of the burden of the pain, made it slightly easier to accept. I felt Hashem had answered my plea for understanding, and my mind started to connect this to the whole idea of eglah arufah. Eglah arufah is brought when an unidentified body is found between two cities. Someone has to be responsible for this Jewish loss of life. Of course the authorities must do everything to determine what happened, to whom and by whom. But besides that, someone in
leadership must take responsibility for this Jew’s death, even if they had nothing to do with it. The city closest to the body is deemed responsible and the leadership of that city must perform the eglah arufah ceremony. We are all arreivim zeh la’zeh, responsible, connected to one another. What an incredible people we are! This is our extraordinary superpower! As I contemplated this wonderful concept of areivut, some of the pain became easier to carry. I know that this is little comfort for those closest to the tragedy, but it is akin to knowing when a loved one is injured there is a police officer, firefighter or paramedic there to ease your anxiety. An even better analogy is when a soldier is injured in the field, it takes a minimum of two to carry the stretcher, and the more hands available, the lighter the burden. We are all soldiers in Hashem’s army, as close as any chevra can be, dependent upon one another and responsible for one another. Mi k’Amcha Yisrael, Goy echad ba’Aretz! Who is like you, O Israel, One Nation in the Land! Dr. Alan A. Mazurek is a Great Neck native who now lives in Jerusalem and Florida.
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Cohen…
Continued from page 23 16s to Israel and then ignored Israeli protests by selling AWACS aircraft to Saudi Arabia. When Israel went to war against the PLO in Lebanon in 1982, the administration continually pressured Israel to end its siege of West Beirut. And when the American intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard was unmasked as an Israeli spy in 1985, many inside and outside the administration wondered whether the American-Israeli strategic relationship would survive the blow (it did). A similar pattern was observable in subsequent administrations. •George HW Bush withheld loan guarantees for Israel, fearing the funds would be used to expand settlements. •Bill Clinton clashed with Netanyahu over the implementation of the Oslo peace process. George W. Bush clashed
Rosh Hashanah. In The New Yorker, Isaac Chotiner describes Israel’s military actions against Hamas, a real strategic requirement to assure future security by denying the terrorist group more armed capability, as “collectively punishing Palestinians,” as if the Israel Defense Forces, after years of trying to find hostages dragged and kept across the border in Gaza, was operating in an irrational rage. They and others engaged in chipping away at Jewish solidarity are not only seeking favor within the circles they wish to gain adulation and recognition, but also to spread a corrupt, incorrect narrative that endangers Israelis and Jews. he “bear” Jabotinsky conjured up as an image of Jew-hate, of canceling Jews in artistic and economic fields and, eventually, of isolating them in a leadup to actual violence, has indeed emerged from its den. The bear is moving about. It is shuffling around.
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with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon over settlement expansion. •Obama — Trump’s bête noire — declared that his goal was to put more “daylight” between Washington and Jerusalem, going on to forge the nuclear deal with Iran and abstain on a UN Security Council resolution declaring Israeli settlements illegal. •Joe Biden paused shipments of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel at the height of the Gaza war triggered by the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7, 2023, drawing an angry rebuke from none other than Trump, who accused him of having “totally abandoned Israel.” hat this brief review of the historical record demonstrates is that neither Trump nor his predecessors have been “subservient” to Israel, merely that they have exhibited varying degrees of warmth toward the Jewish state, with Trump among the more enthusiastic. But with all of them, whenever they deemed that Israel’s actions did not serve American goals, they said so, and acted accordingly. That has been the case since the dawn of the relationship with Israel’s declaration of independence in 1948, in the midst of a war in which the Truman administration imposed an arms embargo against the nascent Jewish state as well as on the Arab aggressors. Yet the fact remains that — whether under Trump or any other president — what brings the United States and Israel together is worth far more than the issues dividing them. There are several reasons for this, but I would highlight the most basic one of all: Israel is the only country in the Middle East where the United States can consider every government a strategic ally, whether led by the right or the left, and where the people are overwhelmingly favorable towards America. The same cannot be said about a single Muslim nation. That doesn’t mean there won’t be disagreements with varying degrees of seriousness. What it does mean is that we need a more nuanced understanding of why a fundamentally positive relationship is punctuated by quarrels, which less informed pundits then seize on as evidence that America is finally breaking the supposed Israeli stranglehold on its policy formation. Ben Cohen is a senior analyst with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
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It has scented that Jews are being targeted by Islamists reinforced by Marxist leftist progressives. Jews—all Jews, not only pro-state supporters labeled as Zionists, but also the uber-religious and the secular—are being zeroed in on by blatant antisemites of manifold political persuasions, sectors of the right included. The language loathing of Jews has not been at this level of sickening aversion and hostility—on podcasts, at rallies, on websites. Despite the obvious danger, in disregard of the developing pernicious hate promoted by the very forces they identify with, certain prominent Jews consistently provide backing for this targeting. In doing so, they prefer to remain on the “Other Side,” the wrong side. Yet they may be next in line. Yisrael Medad is an American-born Israeli journalist, a member of Israel’s Media Watch executive board, and former director of educational programming at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center. He and his wife, who have five children, live in Shilo.
Bachow…
Continued from page 24 stantial part” of the targeted group; large enough to threaten the group’s future viability. Gaza’s population at the start of the war was approximately 2.2 million. Even using the highest estimate of 60,000 civilian deaths, the casualty rate is roughly 2.7%. This is tragic, but nowhere near the threshold required for genocide. Similarly, the estimated 100,000 Gazans who have emigrated represent an insubstantial part of the population. Neither figure approaches the level of destruction necessary to make a specific group unable to continue as a viable community. Determining civilian-to-combatant ratios is difficult. Israel counts combatant deaths; Hamas counts nearly all deaths — including natural deaths and individuals executed by Hamas — as civilian. Combatants often fight in street clothes, making them appear civilian at the site of death even when armed. Hamas also counts journalists as civilians even when they are on Hamas’s payroll or photographed carrying weapons. srael has stated that it intends to kill every Gazan who participated in the atrocities of Oct. 7. Those individuals, regardless of clothing, were combatants engaged in a mass-murder operation inside Israel. Their deaths cannot be counted as civilian casualties. The use of human shields further complicates the numbers. Human shields are victims of a war crime committed by Hamas, but unless they directly participate in hostilities, they are still counted as civilians. Hamas understands this dynamic and exploits it. The more civilians die, the more Hamas can incorrectly claim genocide and the more sympathy it gains in the global media. This brings us back to “accusations in a mirror.” Hamas committed mass atrocities on Oct. 7, yet it successfully redirected global outrage by falsely accusing Israel of genocide. The accusation is emotionally potent, easy to spread and difficult for the public to evaluate against legal standards. Social media amplifies the charge until it becomes an illusion-of-truth narrative, regardless of its accuracy. Hamas started this war intending to cause civilian deaths. The global outrage should be against Hamas. Paul Bachow is a filmmaker, lawyer and educator.
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THE JEWISH STAR September 25-October 1, 2026 • 14 Tishrei 5787
MEDAD: Vear of hate and Jews of ‘Dark Side’…
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