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CAMPUS HATE

Nov. 3/10, 2023 19/26 Cheshvan 5784 • Vayera/Chaya Sarah

Vol 22, No 34 • Publisher@TheJewishStar.com • 516-622-7461

Letter to Cornell demands moral accountability

Columbia students rip U’s tolerance of antisemitism

By David Suissa, Jewish Journal By now, we’ve all heard about the frightening wave of Jew-hatred spreading across many US college campuses in the wake of the Hamas massacres of Oct. 7. Mega donors have responded forcefully to compel universities to offer more protection to Jewish students. Activist groups have filed grievances. Parents and students have weighed in. In all this activism, I came across a letter from a Jewish parent of a freshman at Cornell that stood out as a model for other parents. It capSee Cornell campus hate on page 2

Combined Sources Jewish students at Columbia University and Barnard College ripped their school administration’s “inaction against antisemitism” on the Morningside Heights campus, with Barnard senior Noa Fay complaining that “as a result of this inaction, there are Jewish students who do not feel physically safe on campus.” The students spoke after more than 100 professors signed a letter siding with students who voiced support for Hamas’ terrorist invasion of Israel on Oct. 7 that killed 1,400. See Columbia fails to act on page 4

Students Eli Shmidman, Noa Fay, Yoni Kurtz and Jessie Brenner call on Columbia University to support students targeted by bold expressions of antisemitism on the Columbia and Barnard campus..

History lesson along Gaza 25-mile strip: More grass-mowing won’t end this conflict T Analysis by Troy O. Fritzhand he Gaza Strip is a complex piece of land that has been at the center of disputes in the Land of Israel dating back thousands of years. Roots of the conflict that’s engulfing the roughly 25-mile-long coastal enclave can be traced back to

the foundation of the State of Israel. The population of Gaza has risen from around 185,000 in 1948 to over two million today, a point critical to understanding how it has changed over the decades. Following Israel’s victory against the Arab armies in the 1948-49 War

of Independence, the Gaza Strip was occupied by Egypt and became a refuge for many Arabs who fled their homes during the war. Egypt maintained civic and security rule over the strip until the Arab armies again joined forces against Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War.

Israel handily defeated them, and as a result was able to expand its borders to encompass eastern Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, Judea and Samaria, and Gaza. Immediately after the war, a bloc of Israeli settlements, known as Gush Katif, sprung up in the Strip to

both expand Jewish settlement and create a security buffer. For the next 20 years there was intermittent violence between residents, often Arab-on-Arab crime but also Arab-Jewish clashes. Generally, though, there was peace beSee History lesson on page 10

Torres stands with Israel at bring-them-home event, says hostages are world’s problem By Ed Weintrob One of Israel’s staunches supporters in Congress — Ritchie Torres, the black, Latino and gay Progressive who represents areas of the Bronx — told a bring-the-hostages-home event in Riverdale on Sunday night that “the abduction of the hostages is not simply an Israeli crisis, it’s not only an American crisis, it’s an international crisis.” Addressing 300 people at Young Israel Ohab Zedek in North Riverdale, Torres said that “the voices of the survivors deserve to be heard, their stories deserve to be told.” And he reaffirmed his long-standing support for Israel, “as it seeks to defend itself from the deadliest act of terrorism since the Holocaust.” Torres scoffed at those voicing sup-

Or Gat (right) told the Young Israel of North Riverdale on Sunday night about his family’s Oct. 7 trauma. His mother Kinneret was murdered. His sister Carmel Gat (left) and sister-in-law Yarden Roman Gat (center) are being held captive in Gaza.

port for the terrorist butchers of Hamas or who found words of condemnation for Hamas difficult to come by. “Dr. King once said that the greatest tragedy is not the strident clamor of the bad people, but it’s the appalling silence of the good people,” Torres said. “And we’ve seen too many in our society, from public officials to college and university presidents, who have shown appalling cowardice and indifference and silence in the face of barbaric antisemitism.” The evening featured remarks by Or Gat, whose mother Kinneret was murdered by Hamas terrorists at Kibbutz Be’eri near the Gaza border on Oct. 7. His sister Carmel Gat and sister-in-law Yarden Roman Gat are See Torres is with Israel on page 4

Cornell campus hate… COURTEOUS &

Continued from page 1 tures many of the issues Jewish students are facing at other colleges. And it shows a parent who won’t settle for just complaining and is taking the gloves off to get results. The letter is addressed to the Provost. Here is the key section, which drills deeply into the problem: must condemn your lack of leadership and that of the entire administration as it relates to the safety and security of the Jewish students on campus. You have tried to remain neutral to a situation where 1,400 civilians were brutally butchered, beheaded, raped and burned by an organization that is considered a terrorist group by the United States. You have failed to understand the nuance between condemning Hamas (which is an undeniable evil every bit as brutal, just not as powerful, as the Nazis) and supporting rights for the Palestinian people. The Administration has allowed actions to occur on campus which support Hamas that have come very close to and may have in some cases even rose to the level of the Federal crime of assisting the work of a terrorist group. And even with that, Cornell has avoided commenting and acting to prevent harassment and intimidation on campus detailed below by falsely claiming that Cornell is not a political institution when you have commented and shown leadership when hate crimes were directed at other groups. n your remarks, you falsely tried to equivocate the minimal (though still inappropriate) hate directed against Muslim students with the torrent of constant and vicious hate directed at Jewish students. The cowardice on the part of the Administration to the ever-increasing antisemitism on campus has not quelled the discord as you had hoped but, instead due to the vacuum of moral clarity, has empowered those who no longer feared the consequences, which has caused it to expand and worsen. After your meeting today, vicious, threatening antisemitic posts exploded on the Cornell section of the Greek online community with calls for “Jewish people to be killed;” “bombing of Jewish home;” calls to “gang rape” Zionist females; and “shoot up 104 West” (the kosher dining hall). Some of these Administration actions include (i) failing to act to and staying silent when faced with criminal action to school property aimed at silencing and terrorism against Jewish students; (ii) allowing harassments on the campus by other groups who are failing to act civilly in their own protests (iii) hiding behind the false narrative of equivocation by not stopping the intimidation of Jewish students walking on campus and also when trying to exercise their right to free speech; (iv) falsely claiming the words or lack of words by professors against the recent genocide to Israeli civilians is a case of academic freedom and (v) permitting outright antagonism to Israel specifically and Jewish students generally in Cornell’s sanctioned groups, on campus related social media (including accounts by many professors whose job it is to educate not to advocate and most certainly not to post false information which they are doing); and refusing to do what is necessary to support the students and address the issues raised to keep them safe, both physically and emotionally. s a result of the Administration’s failure and lack of leadership, students are afraid to leave their dorms at times; have removed mezuzahs from their doors; are not comfortable wearing kippot around campus; are afraid to attend Jewish events; have changed their names on social media and apps; and are generally suffering from fear and anxiety that is detracting from their academic pursuits.

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I am letting you know that the Jewish parents at Cornell and the Jewish people all around are not going to be placated by lack of moral clarity and let this continue. The mantra of “Never Again” is real and is going to guide us. As such, we will now be taking this beyond the Cornell campus to the NYS Governor, Senate and Assembly who have jurisdiction over the State Schools; the NY Attorney General to investigate the criminal activity going on and being allowed at Cornell; the local Representatives and NY Senators who oversee federal educational funding as well as terrorist activities in the US; the courts to adjudicate violations of

Your Administration’s cowardice toward everincreasing antisemitism on campus has empowered those who no longer feared the consequences, which has caused it to expand and worsen. rights of Jewish students; Jewish organizations to alert their donors and stakeholders; to social media and the press to publicize what is being allowed to go on at Cornell; and the major funders (Jewish and otherwise) so that they can make decisions on their valuable philanthropic dollars based on the values they want to support. I urge you and the Administration to reverse course immediately and be guided by the principles of Ezra Cornell which you claim to espouse. Having a zero-tolerance policy for hate includes Jewish students as well. And, when they are treated differently, and not protected as others, that is clearly evidence of the inability to recognize and prevent antisemitism. Enforcing appropriate modes of behavior, and respect for all views, is not a political position or taking sides. It is the right thing and moral thing to do. And, before things get worse as they will if students don’t face consequences for their behavior, I strongly advise the Administration to show leadership and recalibrate the moral compass on the campus at Cornell. ••• Recalibrating the moral compass is the crying need of the day. Heads of universities who are failing to protect Jewish students must know that Jewish parents and others who stand for sanity will not stand idly by.

e readThe Jewish Star you ar edieek ing is a combined 2-w Nov. 10. tion dated Nov. 3 and edition Look for our next print nwhile, on Wed., Nov. 15. Mea r webfind fresh content on ou om site — TheJewishStar.c

3 THE JEWISH STAR November3 / 10, 2023 • 19 / 26 Cheshvan 5784

T H C A N L L A ST PRESENTS

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Continued from page 1 “When Columbia professors band together and sign a letter that basically justifies Hamas’ actions, I do not feel safe,” said Barnard sophomore Jessica Brenner. “I feel walking on campus many people just want me to die.” “Now I get it,” she added, “I actually understand how the Holocaust happened.” “It was always hard for my generation to comprehend how the Nazis could have mobilized, how did the gentile bystanders fall victim to propaganda so effectively they quickly became the perpetrators themselves?” Fay said. “The saturation of anti-Israel propaganda on campus” has convinced most students “of the same insidious theories through which the Holocaust was enacted,” she continued. “The student body at Columbia and our peer institutions has been so thoroughly propagandized they do not see and refuse to see the extent of their fear and hatred towards the Jewish people. This is antisemitism at its core.” The following incidents are only a few among a pattern of hostility and hatred towards Jews that have been reported to Columbia’s administration, with little response: •An Israeli student was attacked on campus after hanging up a poster of a Jewish civilian currently being held hostage by Hamas. The Manhattan District Attorney has since charged the attacker with a hate crime. •A leader of a Columbia-funded undergraduate student organization publicly and unapologetically claimed “white Jewish people today and always have been the oppressors of all brown people,” wrote that “Israelites are the Nazis,” as-

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serted that “the Holocaust wasn’t special,” and barred Zionists from attending her club’s events. After the email circulated, the student reaffirmed their horrifying beliefs on social media. •Students at last Wednesday’s pro-Palestinian walkout on Columbia’s campus displayed banners claiming that “resistance is not terrorism,” implying that Hamas’ indiscriminate murder, rape, and terrorizing of civilians was legitimate. •A swastika was found on the walls of the International Affairs Building. •Students who publicly supported Israel received death threats. •Social media has become a cesspool of hateful rhetoric. Just a few instances include: An Instagram post that used a cockroach emoji to dehumanize students at a vigil mourning the deaths of those murdered by Hamas; The Columbia version of the anonymous social media platform Sidechat littered with posts hoping for the deaths of specific Jewish students. •Inside a Law School building, a student told a visibly Jewish student, “F*ck the Jews.” •Jewish students at Columbia Law have been targeted with antisemitic tropes in class group chats, including accusations of committing “economic warfare.” “The University’s lack of a meaningful, practical response to these acts of blatant antisemitism is incredibly disheartening,” said Brenner. “Undergraduates who have filed official reports about these incidents have been left with no emotional support, no feedback, and no consequences for the perpetrators of these hateful actions,” said Fay.

Torres is with Israel… Continued from page 1 among the estimated 240 hostages still being held captive in Gaza. For nearly an hour, Or, who was the only member of his family not at his parents’ home when the Hamas killers arrived, recounted the harrowing moments during which the story of his family — and of all Israel — changed forever. His 69-year-old mother was assassinated at point-blank range, her body identified a few days later. His brother Alon Gat, 37, daughter Geffen, 3, along with his wife Yarden were all abducted, but they but jumped from the vehicle that was taking them into Gaza when the terrorists were distracted. Alon, grasping his daughter, escaped as bullets whistled by; his wife, not as fast, is believed to have been recaptured. “He is a tour guide and familiar with the field so he stayed camoflaged in the bushes for 15 hours.” keeping his daughter calm and quiet. “The last time Alon saw Yarden, she was

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November 3 / 10, 2023 • 19 / 26 Cheshvan 5784 THE JEWISH STAR

Rep. Ritchie Torres at the Young Israel of North Riverdale on Sunday night. Ed Weintrob, THe Jewish Star

hiding behind a tree,” Or said. “We did a lot of searching. The only indication we have that she was taken again was that we didn’t find any blood, we didn’t find a body.” More than 100 bodies were found in Kibbutz Be-eri, Israeli military officials said. “Mothers, fathers, babies, young families killed in their beds, in the protection room, in the dining room, in their garden,” Israeli Major General Itai Veruv said, visibly shaken as troops went door-to-door to collect the bodies of residents killed in their homes, Reuters reported. “It’s not a war, it’s not a battlefield. It’s a massacre,” Veruv said. Some victims were decapitated, he added. “I’ve never seen anything like this, and I’ve served for 40 years.” Torres told his Young Israel audience that this is what he would tell the pro-Hamas demonstrators who have been raging through American streets and campuses: “Imagine a mother whose child was murdered. I cannot imagine anything more callous and cruel than telling that mother, you had this coming. You and your people brought this terror upon yourself. For me, this is not about geopolitics, this is not about the IsraeliPalestinian conflict, this is about human decency. “It is indecent to blame the victims of terrorism, rather than the terrorists themselves.” To those calling for a casefire before Israel accomplishes its military objectives, Torres would say that the Jewish state “has every right to do to Hamas what the United States did to ISIS and al Qaeda in the 21st century, what the free world did to the Nazis in the 20th century — it must rid the world of their terror.” To keep pressure on governments to push for the release of the hostages, Or and members of other hostage families are speaking wherever they can, attempting to reach powerful people and those with connections to powerful people. Attendees at the Young Israel event were asked to do three things: 1. Connect us with federal officials in the Biden Administration. 2. Connect us with influential social medial personalities to help share our story. 3. Pressure your elected officials to enact policy that frees Israeli hostages as soon as possible. More on the YIOZ event, including a detailed account or what happened to Or’s family, will be posted online at theJewishStar.com

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Filipino caretaker saves 95-year-old kibbutznik By Etgar Leftkovits, JNS The Filipino caretaker looked at the Hamas terrorist straight in the face and did not flinch. “Hello, sir,” she said to him in Hebrew in the darkened secured room where she and her 95-year-old employer had been hiding for hours while their house in the kibbutz near the Gaza border was broken into and ransacked. It was the climax of a morning of terror on the national nightmare that was Oct. 7 for southern Israel, when thousands of Hamas terrorists from Gaza overran nearly two dozen locations and would carry out the worst one-day attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust. It was just a day earlier that Camille Jesalva, 31, from the Philippines was enjoying a party at Kibbutz Nirim with her employer, Nitza Hefetz, marking 77 years since the communal farm’s founding in 1946. The two looked at photos together of past holidays that they had shared over the last four and half years since Jesalva began working for her, had a drink and celebrated together. All of the caretakers at the kibbutz had gathered there and felt as one with the residents, she said. In a twist of fate, Jesalva was actually supposed to be on vacation in the Philippines but had postponed her departure to be at the kibbutz gathering, and then got delayed again finding a substitute to take her place. Yet that night, Jesalva didn’t sleep well; she said she had a premonition something bad was about to happen. At 5 am, she was already totally awake — 90 minutes before the sirens would go off warning of incoming rocket fire. Accustomed to years of intermittent rockets launched towards Israel from the Gaza Strip, the two women went into the safe room, thinking it was just a routine attack. But the red alerts kept coming, and Hefetz wanted breakfast. Jesalva ran to the kitchen to bring the easiest thing she could get as the elderly woman dozed off.

Filipino caregiver Camille Jesalva, 31, with Nitza Courtesy Hefetz, 95, in Israel.

Hours went by. Then the electricity suddenly went out. Jesalva heard gunshots. She tiptoed around the house to see what was going on and noticed someone had broken in. She frantically messaged her employer’s son that she heard noises in the house, the door was ajar and the window open. Soon enough, she heard people speaking Arabic in the house; at first, she wondered if it was Israeli soldiers. “They were so loud and noisy, I realized it was not the military,” she recalled in an interview with JNS. Jesalva, who had worked in Dubai before

coming to Israel, then understood that Arabs were in their home. And not friendly ones. She messaged her mom in the Philippines that she didn’t know if she would survive and to send her a picture of her 6-year-old son. “Before I closed my eyes, the last thing I wanted to see is my son,” she said, breaking into tears, the memory of that fateful day still fresh in her mind. Four times, the terrorists would enter the house. At one point, she had to muffle Hefetz, who asked her if she was calling her son so that the attackers wouldn’t hear them. Hefetz saw that the caretaker was crying, so she quieted down. But on the fourth attempt, a terrorist suddenly entered the safe room of the house, whose door did not completely shut, the flashlight from his cell phone illuminating the darkened room. “Hello, sir,” Jesalva said to his face. “Where is the money?” he asked. The elderly woman woke up from the news. “Go home,” she told him. “Nitza, please be quiet,” the caretaker pleaded with her employer. “She saw I was scared, so she shut up,” Jesalva recounted. “I’m sorry, sir, she is old. She doesn’t know anything,” she told the attacker who had shown a flash of anger. “Where is the money?” Jesalva got her wallet off the table right in front of him and took out NIS 1,500 ($375) in cash — all the savings that she had amassed for her planned trip the following week to the Philippines. “Please, sir, don’t take my passport or my ticket for my flight,” she urged. “Is there more money?” he demanded. “No,” she responded. After searching the overturned house, she walked him to the door. “Thank you, sir. I am closing the door now,” she told him. He nodded at her and walked out.

For the next two and half hours, she lay huddled in bed trembling and sobbing violently next to her employer, who clutched her and embraced her. “She had this look on her face. I love you,” she said, “and smiled like a doll.” “If it wasn’t for Nitza, I would be dead,” she said. “The whole house is broken,” she texted her employer’s son again at 12:28 pm. “They took all my money.” But the two women escaped unscathed. Later that afternoon, the Israel Defense Forces arrived and rescued the women, taking them to the very kibbutz social hall where they had attended the party a day earlier. On the way there, Jesalva saw burnt cars, bulletriddled houses and other destruction from the hours-long attack. Families were separated at the dining hall. She realized they got off lucky. Elsewhere in southern Israel, two Filipino caretakers were taken hostage by Hamas into Gaza while four were killed. The next day, the women were taken to a hotel on the outskirts of Jerusalem. “I kept asking myself: Am I alive, or maybe I’m dead?” she recounted. The following day, they were brought to the Nofim Jerusalem assisted-living facility, where they were offered every possible care, and where Hefetz celebrated her 95th birthday. “It was a new life for me and for her,” her caretaker said. “We knew from the start that we were blessed with a wonderful and committed caretaker,” said Hefetz’s daughter, Anat Ben Moreh, 70. “Now we know that in addition to all her attributes, she is very courageous and quickwitted.” For now, Jesalva has again postponed her trip to the Philippines until her employer gets more settled down. “It’s all G-d’s will,” she said. “G-d gave me the strength.”

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UJA Fed-NY flies 27 Jewish leaders to Israel UJA-Federation of New York led a coalition of 28 metro area rabbis and other Jewish leaders to aid those impacted by the war with Hamas. The delegation landed in Israel on Monday and were planning to travel through Wednesday, visiting numerous communities to provide support and trauma assistance to evacuees and families of hostages and engaging in chaplaincy work at major medical centers. The delegation comprises rabbis and Jewish leaders from diverse backgrounds, including 11 Orthodox, six Conservative, five Reform, and one Reconstructionist leader. They represent synagogues and organizations from all five boroughs in New York City, as well as Long Island and Westchester. Rabbi Menachem Creditor, the Pearl and Ira Meyer scholar-in-residence at UJA, and Alex Roth-Kahn, managing director of UJA’s Caring Department, are traveling with the delegation. “As Israel mourns in the aftermath of the barbaric terror attack committed on innocent Israeli civilians, it is vital for Israelis to know that American Jewry is here to support them,” said Rabbi Creditor. “My heart is in pain as I make this trip to Israel, but we as clergy are ready to serve and stand in solidarity with our Israeli brothers and sisters during this painful time.” Since the attack on Israel on Oct. 7, UJA has allocated more than $37 million to meet emergency needs related to the war. Participating Jewish leaders include: • Erica Brown: Yeshiva University • Aaron Brusso: Bet Torah • Angela Buchdahl: Central Synagogue • Eliezer Buechler: Columbia/Barnard Hillel – The Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life • Carie Carter: Park Slope Jewish Center • Michelle Dardashti: Kane Street Synagogue • Joshua Davidson: Temple Emanu-El • Steven Exler: Hebrew Institute of Riverdale • Naphtali Harcsztark: SAR Academy and

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November 3 / 10, 2023 • 19 / 26 Cheshvan 5784 THE JEWISH STAR

Jerusalem Post: Anti-Zionism is antisemitism This editorial was published by the Jerusalem Post this week. he surge of anti-Israel vitriol that has coursed through major cities and college campuses and has flooded social media since Oct. 7 has found some unlikely amplifiers and enablers. Among the most strident voices condemning Israel for defending itself, accusing the Jewish state of “genocide,” blaming the country for the massacre of its own citizens, and either implicitly or explicitly justifying Hamas’s unspeakable atrocities, have been individuals and organizations that identify as Jewish. Groups like IfNotNow, the Orwellian-named Jewish Voice for Peace, and others, have been front and center at massive anti-Israel demonstrations, and individuals wearing kippot and wrapped in tallitot have drawn camera lenses in public protests against the Jewish state. Members of the viciously anti-Zionist hassidic sect Neturei Karta have featured prominently in anti-Israel rallies in recent weeks, as they have many times in the past. The presence of identifiable Jews at these protests — many of which have featured openly antisemitic chants and calls for the eradication of the State of Israel — would seem to support the oft-repeated mantra that anti-Zionism isn’t antisemitic. How could it be when there are

Jews who identify as anti-Zionist? But dig a little deeper and another reality emerges. The American Jewish Committee’s annual survey of American Jews and the US general public shows that both Jews and non-Jews in America view anti-Zionism as antisemitic. When asked whether the statement “Israel has no right to exist” — the primary ideological statement of anti-Zionism — is antisemitic, more than 85% of both American Jews and non-Jews said that it is. People know hate when they see it. And they can also follow basic logic. ll nations possess the right to self-determination; the United Nations Charter says so explicitly. That premise is the very basis of the contemporary world order. The Jews, as a nation, have that right, as well —– and the modern movement for the realization of that right, the liberation movement of the Jewish people, is known as Zionism. To reject Zionism — that is, to deny the Jewish people, and only the Jewish people, a right afforded to all nations — is to discriminate against Jews. And that is the textbook definition of antisemitism. How, then, do we square the understanding that anti-Zionism is antisemitic with the reality that some Jews, for whatever reason, identify as anti-Zionist?

That there is a small minority of Jews who identify as anti-Zionist does not make Zionism any less legitimate or opposition thereto any less antisemitic. The reality is that there have always been members of various groups that have rejected or even actively opposed their groups’ liberation movements. There were women who opposed women’s suffrage and there were African Americans who opposed the abolition of slavery. But that did not make the movements for women’s suffrage or for the abolition of slavery any less legitimate or opposition to them any less bigoted. Likewise, the fact that there is a small minority of Jews who identify as anti-Zionist does not make Zionism any less legitimate or opposition thereto any less antisemitic.

As these individuals march under banners reading, “Not in our name,” now is the time to turn that slogan right back at them. Anti-Zionist Jews are not representative of the Jewish community and they don’t speak in its name. They are as Jewish as the Westboro Baptist Church is Christian. he vast majority of Jews support Israel, regard themselves as Zionists, and consider antiZionism to be a form of antisemitism. They celebrate Israel’s triumphs and mourn its tragedies. Their synagogues and communal institutions fly the Israeli flag, they rejoice on Israel’s Independence Day, they travel — and send their children — to Israel, and they view their attachment to the Jewish state as an integral part of their Jewish identity. According to the AJC survey, a whopping 86% of American Jews view the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement as infected with antisemitism. As anti-Israel demonstrations fill city streets and flood college campuses, using token antiZionist Jews as fig leaves to legitimize their hate, the Jewish community needs to speak out and say clearly: “Not in our name.” Anti-Zionism is antisemitism. The Jewish community knows it. The public knows it. And it’s time to say so.

History lesson along the 25-mile Gaza Strip… Continued from page 1 tween Jews and Arabs. This all changed in 1987 with the founding of Hamas and the outbreak of the First Intifada, when Gaza figured prominently in the street violence that lasted almost six years. Outlining the history of the conflict, Dr. Ronni Shaked of the Hebrew University noted that Hamas, founded by Ahmed Yassin, is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood that was then illegal in the Strip. Hamas from the get-go described its mission to destroy Israel and Jews. Its charter affirms that “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” As well as: “The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: ‘O Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.’” Due to worsening conditions in Gaza, Hamas was able to build up a following, especially alongside the intifada. he end of the intifada was marked by the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993. The accords created a new reality in the land between the river and sea, which has carried the conflict since. The accords split Judea and Samaria into three administrative zones, and Gaza was mostly under the control of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Furthermore, PLO leader Yasser Arafat was brought from exile in Tunis with his organization and set up shop in Gaza. Despite Arafat’s kind words in English, he worked to instigate violence against Israel and Jews all the way up to the Second Intifada that began in late 2000. This was a brutal four-year spat of violence that saw buses and civilian sites blowing up almost daily and resulted in the deaths of more than a thousand Israelis. It was towards the latter portion of the in-

Israelis should be prepared for more violence coming from Gaza in a few years — if the IDF leaves before the job is done.

ent head of Hamas Gaza, Yahya Sinwar), many of whom had killed Jews. This in turn encouraged future extortion efforts by Hamas. Operation Pillar of Defense broke out in 2012, again after a spate of Hamas rocket attacks. Again, Israel “mowed the lawn” until the next, much bigger war in 2014. Operation Protective Edge in 2014 lasted one and a half months and was in response to the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens by Hamas terrorists in Judea. Israel’s goal was to again stop the rocket fire and destroy the terrorist group’s tunnel systems. n the end, Israel was able to destroy some, but at the cost of IDF deaths — 67 soldiers — and the severe economic cost made the war seem like a loss in the eyes of many. Since then, Hamas had sporadically shot rockets towards Israel, which was always met with air force bombardments in the Strip. In fact, for the past few years, Hamas operated under the radar and let other terrorist groups do most of the fighting. On the surface, it projected an image of trying to prioritize civic matters. This, of course, was a decoy designed to surprise Israel when it began its massacre on Oct. 7. Now, Hamas and the Gaza Strip find themselves in their worst predicament yet. For Israel, it could be an opportunity to end the cycle of “mowing the grass” and instead move towards a reality that ensures the security of the residents of the south — giving Israel full control of security in the area. That is if the government can avoid the pressure it has faced in the past and refuses a ceasefire. This is possible, as the toll — 1,400 dead in one day, mostly civilians — will be a tough pill to swallow if it means returning to “normal.” Where does this all go from here? Palestinian affairs analyst Khaled Abu Toameh says the current situation is unique because it “seriously harmed Israel’s deterrence capability.” The result of this, he says, is that “it has emboldened those in the Arab and Muslim countries who believe that Israel can be eliminated,” as well as those “among the Palestinians that believe in the armed struggle against Israel.” As war now rages full force in the Strip, the pages in the history of Gaza are still being written, though Shaked says he isn’t sure this will be “a new page in history,” meaning the public should be prepared for more violence coming from the coastal enclave in a few years — if the IDF leaves before the job is done. The author is an Israel-based tech entrepreneur.

Jewish residents resist during the forced evacuation of Kibbutz Kfar Darom in Gush Katif during the Gaza Disengagement, Aug. 18, 2005. IDF via WikiCommons

tifada that then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon proposed disengaging from Gaza completely and removing all its Jewish communities and residents. The plan was both supported and pushed by then-US President George W. Bush. The disengagement was debated intensely in the Knesset and the public, with hundreds of thousands of Israelis protesting daily. In the end, and despite mass public outrage, the government ordered the IDF to forcibly remove all residents from their homes. The plan, hoped to be “land for peace,” set out for Gaza to become a “Singapore” of the Middle East. After Israel’s withdrawal in 2005, the Palestinian Authority and the ruling party Fatah became the new leaders of the Gaza Strip. This rule was short-lived, as elections held in January 2006 resulted in Hamas winning the most seats. This upset Israel, the US and Europe — all of whom worked to keep the PA in power. A war broke out in the Strip that led to Hamas butchering Fatah leaders and setting up its own dictatorial rule that exists to this day. fter Hamas took over, Israel imposed a land and sea blockade — a right to do so was implicitly granted under the Disengagement Plan. Egypt soon joined the blockade effort. Hamas for its part immediately started engaging in hostile behavior, including the construction of its tunnel system and

firing rockets at Israel. Alongside this, Hamas began its indoctrination of the population of Gaza. Due to the Strip’s young population — more than half are under 35 years old — Hamas was able to recruit children to join the fight against the Jewish state. The first instance of war came in the summer of 2006, during the IDF’s Operation Summer Rains, carried out in response to rocket fire by Hamas, as well as the kidnapping of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. This was followed by Operation Autumn Clouds in November of the same year, which saw IDF troops enter the Strip. A number of clashes followed before the Gaza war that broke out at the end of 2008 (Operation Cast Lead). The goal was to stop the rocket fire, but in the end, the three-week war was just the first example of Israel “mowing the lawn,” of bombarding Gaza to hold off its war-starting capabilities for months or years. The next notable conflict was the Mavi Marmara incident in 2010 after activists tried breaking the sea blockade. The ship refused to turn back and was boarded by members of Shayetet 13, Israel Navy commandos. Ten of the activists were killed after they attacked the soldiers with knives. The raid produced an international nightmare for Israel. Shalit was released in 2011 in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners (including the pres-

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November 3 / 10, 2023 • 19 / 26 Cheshvan 5784 THE JEWISH STAR

Jews on American campuses share scary reality By Dor Malul, Israel Hayom “It’s only a matter of time before some tragic event happens to us.” This refrain has come up over and over again in conversations with Jewish students in the US following the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7. In recent days, with the intensification of Israel Defense Forces activity in Gaza, there has been a surge in pro-Palestinian activism on American campuses. As university presidents at prestigious institutions like Harvard and Columbia continue to refuse to unequivocally condemn Hamas’ terrorist attacks, there is growing legitimization given to a handful of violent students on campuses to attack those who support Israel, further deepening the divide between the progressive movement in the US and Israel. Jewish students had no respite last week. In Washington Square Park, adjacent to New York University, a demonstrator held a sign that read “Please keep the world clean,” alongside a drawing of a trash can with a Star of David inside. At New York’s Columbia University, the head of a pro-BDS student organization published an invitation to a gay film festival and emphasized that “It’s FREE PALESTINE over here. Zionists aren’t invited.” In an email circulated to organization members, she stated: “WHEN I SAY THE

A demonstrator displays a flag at a prior “Day of Rage” attended by Students for Justice in Palestine and other anti-Israel organizations. A Katz, Shutterstock (JNS)

HOLOCAUST WASN’T SPECIAL, I MEAN THAT.” A particularly disturbing incident occurred at Cooper Union College in New York: Jewish students barricaded themselves in the library while protesters demonstrated against Israel and banged on the library’s locked doors. The event only ended when police entered the scene and escorted the Jewish students outside the college. “While students at Cooper Union have a right to peacefully protest, hate has no place in our city,” Mayor Eric Adams said after the incident. Anti-Israel sentiments has entered classrooms, receiving support from some faculty members. At the University of California, Berkeley, a lecturer in the course “Asian American Communities and Race Relations” offered students extra credit for “attending the national student walkout tomorrow against the settler-colonial occupation of Gaza” at the university, or “watch a short documentary on Palestine and call/email your local California representatives.” Students were required to submit a screenshot of their participation in one of these activities to receive the credit. In the Middle East and Islamic Studies program at Columbia University, perhaps the most See Campuses on page 26

White House acts on campus Jew-hate spread By David Swindle and Menachem Wecker, JNS The White House reacted this week to the epidemic of antisemitism sweeping American campuses, stating that “the actions on campuses turn the stomach and remind us of the saying ‘Never again.’ De-legitimizing the State of Israel while praising the Hamas murderers who burned innocent lives, or harming Jewish students, is antisemitism by definition.” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement that “amidst the rise in poisonous, antisemitic rhetoric and hate crimes that President [Joe] Biden has fought against for years, there is an extremely disturbing pattern of antisemitic messages being conveyed on college campuses.” “Just over the past week, we’ve seen protests and statements on college campuses that call for the annihilation of the State of Israel, for genocide against the Jewish people,” Bates continued. “Jewish students have even had to barricade themselves inside buildings. These grotesque sentiments and actions shock the conscience and turn the stomach.” Biden, he said, “is proud to have been an enemy of antisemitism and hate his entire life, and he always will be.” “The Departments of Justice and Homeland Security have taken steps to ensure campus law enforcement is included in engagements with state and local law enforcement,” said the office of Douglas Emhoff, the Jewish husband of Vice President Kamala Harris. Emhoff said he was scheduled to meet on Monday with Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and with the Conference of Presidents

Douglas Emhoff with Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona on Jan. 9 in Los Angeles.

Cameron Smith, White House

of Major American Jewish Organizations “to talk about concrete actions we are taking to ensure all students feel safe on campus.” The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights “has expedited its update of the intake process for discrimination complaints under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, to specifically state that certain forms of antisemitic and related forms of discrimination are prohibited by this law,” according to Emhoff’s office, adding that “the rise in antisemitic threats of violence against Jewish students in schools and on college campuses is unwarranted and unacceptable.”

Julie Rayman, managing director of policy and political affairs at the American Jewish Committee, told JNS that Cardona opened a meeting by centering “the fear and trauma being experienced by Jewish students and educators on campus and in K-12 schools.” “He made clear his commitment that hate and antisemitism should have no place in education in America,” Rayman said. “He acknowledged that Jewish families are afraid to send their kids to schools right now, noting that ‘As a father, I’m committed to this’.” Rayman said that she and colleagues asked

the Education Department to take “additional steps to prepare universities to take prompt action against any and all acts of antisemitism and to send guidance to superintendents and others so they know what to do about walkouts and how to keep students safe in K-12 schools.” “We have asked the department to urge universities to fully embrace the IHRA definition of antisemitism, making it clear that anti-Zionism in most of its forms is antisemitism,” she added. “We were glad to hear from Secretary Cardona that he is tasking his team to create new guidance, noting that ‘If this is like nothing we’ve ever seen, then our actions must be like nothing we have ever done’,” she said. “I fully trust in his commitment to ensure that antisemitism will not and cannot be normalized.” The Department of Education made clear that it shares our sense of urgency and will stand up for students and families.” Nathan Diament, executive director for public policy at the Orthodox Union, wrote that he appreciated “the serious and concrete discussion” with Cardona, Emhoff “and other leaders about the current wave of antisemitism at American schools and actions that must be taken to fight it.” Deborah Lipstadt, US special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, also attended, as did leaders of the Conservative, Orthodox and Reform movements, Conference of Presidents CEO William Daroff, Jewish Federations of North America CEO Eric Fingerhut, Anti-Defamation League CEO and National Director Jonathan Greenblatt, among others, per the release from Emhoff’s office.

Yale paper calls Hamas terror ‘unsubstantiated’ The Yale Daily News censored an opinion piece that was critical of Hamas, removing what an editor’s note said were “unsubstantiated claims that Hamas raped women and beheaded men.” The 145-year-old publication, billed as “the nation’s oldest college daily newspaper,” drew criticism for its revisions to sophomore Sahar Tartak’s Oct. 12 column that was titled “Is Yalies4Palestine a hate group?” Tartak wrote, per an archive of the original article, that “barbarism” was “committed by Hamas terrorists from Gaza intent on killing as many Jews as possible. Yes, they raped women. Yes, they kidnapped children. Yes, they beheaded men. Yes, they cheered the whole time. It’s all on video.” The article now reads that “barbarism” was

“committed by Hamas terrorists from Gaza who seemed intent on killing as many Jews as possible. Yes, they kidnapped children. Yes, they cheered the whole time. It’s all on video.” The original article linked to an Atlantic article when it mentioned “they raped women,” and to a graphic and disturbing video of a man’s head being hacked with a hoe. On Oct. 30, the family of Shani Louk announced that the 22-year-old, who had been thought to be a hostage in Gaza, was found dead. Israeli President Isaac Herzog told German media that Louk’s skull was found. “This means that these barbaric, sadistic animals simply chopped off her head as they attacked, tortured and killed Israelis,” he said.

“I’m still collecting my thoughts on the YDN’s egregious correction,” Tartak posted on social media. “Are the hostage-taking, murder of children in their beds, burning of people alive and parading of nude captive women in the street also ‘unsubstantiated’?” wrote Dr. Nicholas Christakis, a professor at Yale and a sociologist and physician. “Hey, Yale Daily News editor Anika Seth, these reports are not ‘unsubstantiated.’ Hundreds of journalists have watched the uncensored video of the attacks made available by the Israeli embassy,” wrote Marc Thiessen, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise. Thiessen shared an account of the video footage from the New York Times, which included

“two soldiers without heads” and “brutalized young women, one of them naked.” “Go watch the video yourself,” he wrote. “Stop spreading Hamas propaganda.” “This is Holocaust denial in real time at Yale Daily News,” wrote Bari Weiss, editor of The Free Press. “Shame on Yale Daily News,” wrote Shana Goldberg, assistant publisher of Intermountain Jewish News in Colorado. “When someone shows you who they are, believe them.” John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary magazine, added: “Who is the editor of the Yale Daily News? Joseph Goebbels?” Yale Daily News did not respond to a query from JNS.

17 THE JEWISH STAR November 3 / 10, 2023 • 19 / 26 Cheshvan 5784

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GOP candidates for prez hope their messages at party’s Israel lovefest won’t stay in Vegas

Among Republican presidential hopefuls who delivered Israel-friendly words at the Republican Jewish Coalition Leadership Summit in Las Vegas: fomrer US ambassador to the UN and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley; former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie; political neophyte Vivek Ramaswamy (pictured at 2022 AmericaFest in Phoenix, photo by Gage Skidmore) and former President Donald Trump. RJC

By Menachem Wecker, JNS “We are here in dark times. We are here in challenging times,” said Norm Coleman, board chair of the Republican Jewish Coalition. “The RJC was created for a moment like this — to ensure that America has Israel’s back to do whatever it takes to wipe Hamas off the face of the earth, however long it takes.” On Saturday, Coleman, a former US senator, introduced nearly four hours of speeches by Republican presidential nominees at the RJC annual Leadership Summit in Las Vegas. Coleman said he didn’t know what the candidates would say, but that each would do a better job than President Joe Biden. “When America is weak, the world is less safe,” said Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee. Biden and the Democratic Party have “allowed an anti-Israel, antisemitic mentality into their ranks,” she said, adding that supporting Hamas is not a gray area. “This is about good versus evil,” she said. “I want to make it abundantly clear: The Republican Party stands with Israel.”

Vivek Ramaswamy “It’s no surprise how we got here,” said Ramaswamy, a political neophyte who drew riches from a hedge fund and investment firm and was a tech entrepreneur. “It is the inevitable result of this self-loathing, anti-American woke orthodoxy that has pervaded our universities, our companies and nearly every major institution across this country over the last decade.” Despite having made comments widely viewed as threatening to the US-Israel relationship, Ramaswamy denied that he is antiIsrael. “That’s dead wrong,” he said, claiming that his would be the most pro-Israel vision that the audience would hear, but not “standard, GOP-approved talking points.” He said that in his “George Washington, America-first conservative” view, America should get out of Israel’s way. Ramaswamy drew some boos when he said that Washington should avoid foreign military

entanglement, supporting Israel instead with a “diplomatic iron dome.” He claimed that US military engagement would hamstring both Washington and Jerusalem, and that unrestrained, the Israel Defense Forces could get the job done alone.

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott “We need to stop sending pallets of cash and unrequited love to Iran,” said the South Carolina senator. During his talk he often got very emotional, raising his voice, quoting from scripture and pacing the stage, as if preaching. “We need a new president and administration that doesn’t speak with a forked tongue, saying they support Israel in the day while they delay Israel at night,” Scott said. “As a Christian, I see the Jewish people as my elder brothers and sisters in faith. We all serve the one true G-d.” The senator focused on anti-Jewish hatred on college and university campuses, which he said are proving a cancer that requires a “cultural chemotherapy.” “They seem more offended by microaggressions than mass murder,” he said.

Chris Christie “There is a difference between free speech and hate speech,” said the former New Jersey governor, who is also a lawyer. “There is a difference between free speech and violence. There is a difference between incitement and free speech.” “What’s going on on our college campuses today is not free speech,” he said. “It is hate speech.” “The world knew what was going on in Germany in the 1930s and they said, ‘It’s not our problem. It’s not as bad as you say’,” Christie said. “It was American isolationism that led to those excuses.” “Nobody in this room does not want America to be first,” said Christie, alluding both to the America First movement that delayed US entry into WWII and to a phrase often linked

to former President Donald Trump. “All of us do. It is how America becomes first that is the argument in our party right now. “Do we become first by turning our back on the rest of the world? Do we become first by saying, ‘Well, this problem, this hate, this murder, this terrorism is not our problem?’ Don’t be fooled, everyone. “It’s time for unserious people to leave the stage and for serious people to stand up and say there is no substitute for American leadership in this world,” he added. “None at all.”

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum “Hamas is a proxy of Iran. Hezbollah is a proxy of Iran,” the North Dakota governor and businessman said, noting that Biden did not name Iran in his statements after the brutal Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7. “In business terms you all understand, Joe Biden thinks that if we go after the subsidiary, it’s OK to leave the parent company alone — the one that’s providing all of the funding,” he said. “When I am your president, we’ll reinstate rule number one: Don’t negotiate with terrorists,” Burgum said to applause. “Joe Biden’s recent $6 billion hostage deal just put a $1 billion price tag on every American student, every American tourist and every American business leader traveling or living abroad,” he said.

Mike Pence The former vice president used the RJC platform to withdraw from the face and also to emphasize his support for the Jewish state. “The United States is experiencing the most explosive and dangerous demonstrations of antisemitism in our history,” Pence said. “Never before have people gathered in the streets of America to celebrate the mass murder of Jews.” “It’s become clear to me: This is not my time,” he said. “So, after much prayer and deliberation, I have decided to suspend my campaign for president, effective today.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis “Israel values life. The Hamas terrorists worship death,” DeSantis said. “Don’t tell me there’s a moral equivalency here, because there is not.” He continued: “I don’t care what imbeciles on college campuses say. I don’t care what liars in the media say. I don’t care what reprobates at the United Nations say. We stand with Israel. We stand with the people of Israel.” “We would not be here today as Americans were it not for what took place in the Holy Land thousands and thousands of years ago,” he added. “The Judeo-Christian tradition is what western civilization was built on. It was what this country was built on. And they’re the caretakers of that important piece of land.” Emphasizing his anti-immigrant stance, DeSantis vowed to build a wall on the southern border, block Palestinians who hate Israel from coming to the United States, and revoke student visas for those who support Hamas.

Nikki Haley “The world is on fire,” said Haley, former US ambassador to the United Nations and former South Carolina governor. “But here in America, we’re acting like it’s Sept. 10, when we were blind to the world’s dangers. We need to remember what it felt like on Sept. 12.” “We need to wake up. We need to regain our moral clarity,” she continued. “We need to commit ourselves to ensure that good defeats evil. That means fighting antisemitism in Congress and on college campuses, and it means giving Israel everything she needs to destroy Hamas. Eliminate Hamas once and for all. Finish them.” Haley said she is glad that many, in both parties, support Israel and that Biden “is saying some of the right things.” However, she added, “his actions haven’t always matched his words. If you stand with Israel, you don’t cozy up to Iran. Biden followed in Obama’s Iran-sympathizing foot-

See RJC in Las Vegas on page 19

gathered that his vision is the most pro-Israel of any in the party, though in a much different fashion than GOP orthodoxy dictates. Repeatedly referring to Israeli founding father David Ben-Gurion’s stance that Israel must be prepared to defend itself by itself, Ramaswamy again came out in favor of a US “diplomatic Iron Dome” for Israel, and recommended that Israel not count on American financing going forward. Ramaswamy said later that he believed he clarified his views on Saturday. “I think that the philosophical foundation of my view was also clarified. We live in, understandably, a moment of raw emotion based on what happened on Oct. 7. I share that,” he told JNS. “Now when it comes to what we do, the question is, what principle do we apply?” He referenced Ben-Gurion and Israel’s right to defend itself unrestrained, without “asking anybody else for permission or for forgiveness. That’s the North Star of the response. Every-

RJC in Las Vegas… Continued from page 18 steps by helping Israel’s number-one enemy. There would be no Hamas without Iran, and there would be no murders without Iran giving the green light.” Haley said that the situations in Israel and Ukraine are more similar than different, and that the United States should support both for their own sake and for US national security. “Iran and Russia are joined at the hip, and they’re both unlimited partners of Communist China. Iran, Russia and China are all part of an unholy alliance,” she said. “Mark my words. Those who would aban-

don Ukraine today are at risk of abandoning Israel tomorrow,” she said. “They’ve lost sight of who our friends are and who our enemies are. Who is good and who is evil. That is not who you want in the Oval Office.”

Donald Trump

The former president, who is leading in the polls by more than 40 points, described himself as “the best friend that Israel has ever had.” “Everybody says, ‘You sir are the best friend that Israel has ever had,’ and with four more years, I will defend America and I

thing else follows from that.” Repeating his statement that he’d like to see a “Munich 2.0,” with Israel hunting down all who participated in the Hamas massacre, just as Israel did following the PLO massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, Ramaswamy told JNS that, in the end, “my opinion doesn’t matter in this and neither does that of any other American. This is Israel’s decision to make. And I’m rooting for success.” That includes, according to the candidate, giving Israel a full green light to take out Hamas and Hezbollah. Separately, Ramaswamy told JNS that the United States should strike back at Iran 10 times harder each time the Islamic Republic hit American assets. All signs have pointed to Iran in recent attacks against American military personnel in the Middle East. If “you mess around with us, you’ll find out what we have in store,” he said. Ramaswamy also told JNS he believes that

will defend Western civilization from the barbarians and savages and the fascists that you see right now trying to do harm to our beautiful Israel,” he said. The war between Israel and Hamas is “a fight between civilization and savagery, between decency and depravity, and between good and evil,” Trump said. “There is no comparison between a group that worships death and a group that cherishes life and cherishes our nation.” “If we don’t win this election, I really believe you’re not going to have Israel anymore,” he said. “And you’re not going to have the United States of America anymore.” It wasn’t immediately clear if by “we” he meant Republicans or himself.

the two-state solution is “an artificial myth.” “The 340 to 350 million descendants of Ishmael have how many countries? The Jewish people are entitled to one,” he said. “On one hand, you have an Arab world that has consistently and continually been attacking and slaughtering Jews in Israel, but turning their backs on the Palestinians. You can’t have it both ways. That’s done.” But he concluded with a reminder of his overarching policy on the subject: US policy is not beholden to Israel’s needs, and the alliance will be better off when Israel weans itself off American defense aid. “I’m not running for president of Israel. I’m running for president of the United States,” said Ramasway. He told JNS that both countries should “go back to our foundational vision, and our founding values. Then each of us is going to be better off and our friendship will be that much stronger for it as well.”

e readThe Jewish Star you ar ediek ing is a combined 2-we v. 10. No d tion dated Nov. 3 an edition Look for our next print nwhile, on Wed., Nov. 15. Mea r webfind fresh content on ou .com site — TheJewishStar

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By Mike Wagenheim, JNS Vivek Ramaswamy was an outlier on Israel in the Republican presidential race. After last weekend’s Republican Jewish Coalition Leadership Summit in Las Vegas, he largely remains that way. Ramaswamy, the upstart, novice candidate, led off Saturday’s cattle call of major GOP presidential candidates, trying to clear the air on his recently voiced hope that America could end military aid to Israel by 2028, along with remarks that new supplemental aid following Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre should not be given unless Israel provides the United States with an end-game strategy for Gaza. His comments have also flirted with antisemitic tropes, with talk of “financial and corrupting influences that lead [politicians in both parties] to speak the way they do” about certain unnamed conflicts. He took to the Venetian Hotel stage on Saturday among a few scattered boos, telling those

THE JEWISH STAR November 3 / 10, 2023 • 19 / 26 Cheshvan 5784

Vivek’s words put him in GOP cherem on Israel

November 3 / 10, 2023 • 19 / 26 Cheshvan 5784 THE JEWISH STAR

‫כוכב של שבת‬ jewish star torah columnists: •Rabbi Avi Billet of Anshei Chesed, Boynton Beach, FL, mohel and Five Towns native •Rabbi David Etengoff of Magen David Yeshivah, Brooklyn •Rabbi Binny Freedman, rosh yeshiva of Orayta, Jerusalem contributing writers: •Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks zt”l,

former chief rabbi of United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth •Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, OU executive VP emeritus •Rabbi Raymond Apple, emeritus rabbi, Great Synagogue of Sydney •Rabbi Yossy Goldman, life rabbi emeritus, Sydenham Shul, Johannesburg and president of the South African Rabbinical Association.

contact our columnists at: Publisher@TheJewishStar.com Five towns candlelighting: From the White Shul, Far Rockaway, NY

Fri Nov 3 / 19 Cheshvan

Fri Nov 24 / 11 Kislev

Fri Nov 10 / 26 Cheshvan

Fri Dec 1 / 18 Kislev

Fri Nov 17 / 4 Kislev

Thurs Dec 7 / 24 Kislev

Vayera Candles: 5:31 • Havdalah: 6:39

Chayei Sara • Shabbos Mevarchim Candles: 4:23 • Havdalah: 5:31 Toldos Candles: 4:17 • Havdalah: 5:26

Vayetzei Candles: 4:13 • Havdalah: 5:21

Vayishlach Candles: 4:10 • Havdalah: 5:19

First Night Chanukah

A fresh interpretation of the binding of Isaac rabbi sir jonathan sacks zt”l

t is the hardest passage of all, one that seems to defy understanding. Abraham and Sarah have waited years for a child. G-d has promised them repeatedly that they would have many descendants, as many as the stars of the sky, the dust of the earth, the grains of sand on the seashore. They wait. No child comes. Sarah, in deep despair, suggests that Abraham should have a child by her handmaid Hagar. He does. Ishmael is born. Yet G-d tells Abraham: This is not the one. By now Sarah is old, postmenopausal, unable by natural means to have a child. Angels come and again promise a child. Sarah laughs. But a year later Isaac is born. Sarah’s joy is almost heart-breaking: Sarah said, “G-d has brought me laughter; all those who hear will laugh with me.” Then she said, “Who would have told Abraham, ‘Sarah will nurse children’? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.” Gen. 21:6-7 Then come the fateful words: “Take your son, your only one, the one whom you love — Isaac — and go to the land of Moriah. There, offer him up as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, the one that I will show you.” Gen. 22:2 The rest of the story is familiar. Abraham takes Isaac. Together they journey for three days to the mountain. Abraham builds an altar, gathers wood, binds his son and lifts the knife. At that moment: The angel of the L-rd called out to him from the heavens, “Abraham! Abraham!” He said, “Here I am.” “Do not lift your hand against the boy; do nothing to him, for now I know that you fear G-d: for you have not withheld from Me your son, your only one.” Gen. 22:11-12 he trial is over. It is the climax of Abraham’s life, the supreme test of faith, a key moment in Jewish memory and self-definition. But it is deeply troubling. Why did G-d so nearly take away what He had given? Why did He put these two aged parents — Abraham and Sarah — through so appalling a test? Why did

We do not own our children. G-d does. We are merely their guardians on G-d’s behalf.

“Until Your people crossed, L-rd, until the people You acquired [am zu kanita] crossed over.” Ex. 15:16 Therefore they cannot be turned into permanent slaves: “For the Israelites are My servants, whom I brought out from Egypt: they cannot be sold as slaves.” Lev. 25:42 Third principle: G-d is the ultimate owner of all that exists. That is why we must make a blessing over anything we enjoy: Rav Judah said in the name of Samuel: To enjoy anything of this world without first reciting a blessing is like making personal use of things consecrated to heaven, since it says, “The earth is the L-rd’s and the fullness thereof.” R. Levi contrasted two texts. It is written, “The earth is the L-rd’s and the fullness thereof,” and it is also written, “The heavens are the heavens of the L-rd, but the earth hath He given to the children of men!” There is no contradiction: in the one case it is before a blessing has been said, in the other, after a blessing has been said. Brachot 35a ll things belong to G-d, and we must acknowledge this before we make use of anything. That is what a blessing is: acknowledging that all we enjoy is from G-d. This is the jurisprudential basis of the whole of Jewish law. G-d rules by right, not by might. G-d created the universe; therefore G-d is the ultimate owner of the universe. The legal term for this is “eminent domain.” Therefore, G-d has the right to prescribe the conditions under which we may benefit from the universe. It is to establish this legal fact — not to tell us about the physics and cosmology of the Big Bang — that the Torah begins with the story of Creation. This carries a special depth and resonance for the Jewish people since in their case G-d is not just — as He is for all humankind — Creator and Sustainer of the universe. He is also, for Jews, the G-d of history, who redeemed them from slavery and gave them a land that originally belonged to someone else, the “seven nations.” G-d is Sovereign of the universe, but in a special sense He is Israel’s only ultimate King, and the sole source of their laws. That is the significance of the book of Exodus. The key narratives of the Torah are there to teach us that G-d is the ultimate Owner of all. In the ancient world, up to and including the Roman Empire, children were considered the legal property of their parents. They had no rights. They were not legal personalities in themselves. Under the Roman principle of patria potestas a father could do whatever he wished with his child, including putting him to death. Infanticide was well known in antiquity (and in fact it has even been defended in our time by the Harvard philosopher Peter Singer, in the case of severely handicapped children). That, for example is how the story of Oedipus begins, with his father Laius leaving him to die. It is this principle that underlies the entire practice of child sacrifice, which was widespread See Sacks on page 26

Abraham, who had earlier challenged G-d on the fate of Sodom, saying, “Shall the Judge of all the earth not do justly?” not protest this cruel act against an innocent child? The standard interpretation, given by all the commentators — classical and modern — is that Abraham demonstrates his total love of G-d by being willing to sacrifice the most precious thing in his life, the son for whom he has been waiting for so many years. The Christian theologian Soren Kierkegaard wrote a powerful book about it, Fear and Trembling, in which he coined such ideas as the “teleological suspension of the ethical” — the love of G-d may lead us to do things that would otherwise be considered morally wrong — and “faith in the absurd” — Abraham trusted G-d to make the impossible possible. He believed he would lose Isaac but still keep him. For Kierkegaard, faith transcends reason. Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik saw the Binding as demonstrating that we must not expect always to be victorious. Sometimes we must experience defeat. “G-d tells man to withdraw from whatever man desires the most.” All these interpretations are surely correct. They are part of our tradition. I want, however, to offer a quite different reading, for one reason. Throughout Tanach, the gravest sin is child sacrifice. The Torah and the prophets consistently regard it with horror. It is what pagans do. This is Jeremiah on the subject: “They have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as offerings to Baal — something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind.”Jer. 19:5

And this is Micah: “Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” Micah 6:7 It is what Mesha, King of Moab, does to get the G-ds to grant him victory over the Israelites: When the King of Moab saw that the battle had gone against him, he took with him seven hundred swordsmen to break through to the King of Edom, but they failed. Then he took his firstborn son, who was to succeed him as king, and offered him as a sacrifice on the city wall. The fury against Israel was great; they withdrew and returned to their own land.” 2 Kings 3:26-27 How can the Torah regard as Abraham’s supreme achievement that he was willing to do what the worst of idolaters do? The fact that Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son would seem to make him — in terms of Tanach considered as a whole — no better than Baal or Molech worshippers or the pagan king of Moab. This cannot be the only possible interpretation. There is an alternative way of looking at the trial. To do so we must consider an overriding theme of the Torah as a whole. Let us assemble the evidence. First principle: G-d owns the land of Israel. That is why He can command the return of property to its original owners in the Jubilee year: “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is Mine. You are merely migrants and tenants to Me.” Lev. 25:23 Second principle: G-d owns the Children of Israel, since He redeemed them from slavery. That is what the Israelites mean when they sang, at the Red Sea:

Rabbi DR. tzvi heRsh weinReb Orthodox Union

t may not have been the first day I reported to my new job, but it was not many days later that I first met Richard Hood. I had joined a team of new PhDs, some trained as psychologists and some as educators, whose assignment it was to breathe new life into a very old-fashioned, one might even say backward, school system in suburban Washington, DC. It was a rapidly changing community that had been semi-rural up until the late 1960s. At the time I joined the school system advisory staff as senior school psychologist, the area was becoming much more diverse. On the one hand, high-level government employees were beginning to move there, finding the real estate prices more attractive than the neighboring counties. But at the same time, there were a number of areas that were depressed socio-economically and were spillovers from the teeming African-American ghettoes of our nation’s capital.

It was not long before that Washington had experienced the riots of 1968. I have many stories to tell about the years I served in that environment. But I want to focus this week’s discussion upon the personality of this one colleague, Richard Hood, a tall, burly man in his early thirties with a Southern drawl that originated in small-town Mississippi. His politics were liberal; he was open-minded, tolerant, and empathic. But he was a cynic. His favorite word was “irredeemable” — “this school system is ‘irredeemable,’” he would say, “the government is irredeemable,” “mankind is irredeemable,” “the world is irredeemable.” His attitude to life was best expressed in the sign that hung above his desk: “Pessimism Pays.” He felt that people were essentially evil, that a life of pain and frustration awaited us all, that man was fated to suffer. His spiritual mentor was the philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, whose writings have been described as the “Bible of pessimism.” ichard had a bone to pick with Western culture, child-rearing, and public education. He felt that we deceive our children into believing that the world is basically a benign and safe environment, that success could be achieved

by hard work, and good health guaranteed by clean living. He maintained that “we indoctrinate our youth into the belief that the world is a rosegarden, whereas in reality it is a snake pit.” I had long one-on-one discussions with him, because he was fascinated by Jews and Judaism. In those discussions, he came to believe that “you Jews are the worst of all. You just emerged from the hell of the Holocaust, and you still tell your children that all we be well if they just cling to your tradition.”

The Shechinah is there for us. We must be there for each other. I think of Richard often, and was sad to learn that he passed away several years ago after having returned to his Mississippi origins upon his retirement from a university teaching post. I especially remember him whenever this week’s Torah portion, Parshat Vayera (Genesis 18:1-22:24), rolls around.

Why Vayera? Because it is this week that we read the story of the akeda, of Abraham’s obedience to G-d’s command that he bind his son, Isaac, upon a mountain-top altar and offer him as a human sacrifice to the L-rd. This is surely one of the most troubling passages in the entire Bible, and traditional Jewish commentaries as well as great secular philosophers have struggled to understand it. How could Abraham, who so valued human life that he stood up to G-d Himself pleading the case of wicked Sodom and Gomorrah, unhesitatingly obey G-d’s command that he slay his own son? That is not a question I will even attempt to address within the limits of this column. But another aspect of the story has always troubled me. At the beginning of the story, Abraham was unaware of its happy ending. He did not know that at the last moment, an angel would order him to desist from sacrificing his son. As far as he knew, a terrible, unspeakable tragedy was about to unfold. But in his words to the servants who accompanied him, he was completely reassuring and gave them no inkling of the catastrophe that was about to occur: “You stay here with the donSee Weinreb on page 26

In Israel, Akeidat Yitzchak is lived every day From heart of Jerusalem

Rabbi binny FReeDMan

Jewish Star columnist

keidat Yitzchak, the binding of Isaac, is one of the most challenging stories in Jewish history. A parent is asked to do the unthinkable — to sacrifice his beloved son, in the name of … what? It is a script that is all too familiar to many families in Israel. My first day after finishing my army service was supposed to be a happy one. After four and a half years, I had received my honorable discharge and returned my gear. It was supposed

What if Avraham was not sure what G-d wanted? What if this was the point.

to be my first day of real freedom. No orders to analyze and fulfill, no inspections, patrols, guard duty stints or maneuvers — just a long, lazy day in the August sunshine. And it was, until I watched the news, and the nightmare unfolded onscreen. My unit had drawn what was thought to be a “good” station: patrols on the Jordanian border, which was quiet, especially relative to the areas in Lebanon we had been in last time around. Normally, I would have gone with them, but as I was getting out the next day, there was no reason to learn the area. A Jordanian soldier snuck across the border and ambushed one of the patrols. Ronen, a sergeant from our battalion, was killed. News like that hits you right in the gut. The next day, instead of a long lazy day, I celebrated my freedom at Ronen’s funeral. It was very different from the western, Ashkenazi funerals I had attended. In the west, you keep a stiff upper lip, though one hears the occasional muffled sob as the family tries to maintain a certain dignity and keep it together. But Sephardim are different; they let it all out, crying hysterically, even yelling. I will never forget the sheer tragedy of Ronen’s mother, inconsolable in her grief.

Screaming and shouting, she threw herself on her son’s coffin, refusing to let him go, and screamed: “Lama? Lama? Al taazov oti! (Why? Why? Don’t leave me!) How do you answer such a question? keidat Yitzchak is not some ancient story to merely remember. In every community in Israel there are modern day Avrahams and Sarahs who struggle with it every day. Perhaps a closer look at the story is in order. G-d presents Avraham with his greatest challenge: “Take your son, your only son, whom you love, Yitzchak, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him up there on one of the mountains that I will show you” (Bereishit 22:2). This, then, is the test: Avraham is to sacrifice his only son, Yitzchak, as an offering to G-d, and this is supposed to demonstrate … what? What on earth could possibly be the motivation behind such a test? What are we meant to learn from it? And most of all, why must this be such an integral part of life? How can a world in which loving parents lower their sons, their only sons (and every son is an only son, because there never was and never will be another son just like him), into the ground, be the same world that G-d describes as being “very good” (Genesis 1:31)?

What is the purpose of all these tests we seem to encounter so often in life? The Talmud, struggling with the question of human suffering in this world, makes a challenging statement: “If a person suffers travail, let him review his actions” (Berachot 5a). This damning statement seems to imply that if a person is suffering, he or she must have done something to deserve it! But elsewhere, in Moed Katan, the Talmud suggests: “A person’s life, children and livelihood, are not dependent on merit, but rather on mazal, luck.” In other words, don’t assume the challenges and suffering a person experiences, or for that matter the joy and reward they receive, have anything to do with whether or not they are a good person. All of this is simply fate. So which is it? Is our suffering of cause, or simply bad luck? he end of this story is even more puzzling: Just as Avraham is ready to fulfill this most horrible of commands, an angel calls out: “Do not send out your hand against the lad … for now I know [ata yadati] that you truly fear G-d” (22:12). What does this mean? How can G-d now know something? See Freedman on page 26

Appreciating the teachings of our prophets Kosher bookworm

alan Jay GeRbeR

Jewish Star columnist

am happy to note and bring your attention to the Mitoch HaOhel series of essays by the staff of Yeshiva University, “From Within the Tent: The Haftarot,” published by Maggid. This comprehensive 745-page work contains a series of scholarly essays on every haftarah, written by a distinguished group of rabbis and professors from YU. What makes this particular work most relevant to the Five Towns community is an essay written by Woodmere resident Rabbi Dr. Edward Reichman, dealing with unique medical aspects relating to this week’s haftarah for Parshat Vayera. Rabbi Reichman, one of America’s premier Jewish medical ethicists, is a Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Albert Einstein College

of Medicine, where he teaches Jewish medical ethics, and Attending Physician in the Emergency Department at Montefiore Medical Center. He holds the Rabbi Isaac and Bella Tendler Chair in Jewish Medical Ethics at Yeshiva College, and his research is devoted to the interface of medical history and Jewish law. This unique background has enabled Dr. Reichman to truly synthesize our religious teachings with the latest in scientific and medical knowledge for the benefit of the entire Jewish community. In his essay for Vayera’s haftarah, “The Resuscitation of Halachah: An Animated Discussion,” Dr. Reichman engages in an extended teaching as to the impact that Jewish law has

upon some of the most sensitive areas in medical practice, namely cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, coronary bypass, artificial heart transplantaeetion, corneal transplantation, and posthumous insemination. Two other topics are dealt with, briefly, that being the issue of a kohen becoming an organ recipient, and the ethical and halachic implications in the selling of human organs. All of the above are brought together in the context of the narrative of this week’s haftarah and the story of the resuscitation of the son of the Shunamite woman by the prophet Elisha. A careful reading of the Haftarah text is suggested before reading Dr. Reichman’s teaching. Dr. Reichman’s scholarly writings envelope a whole range of historical, legal, midrashic, aggadic as well as contemporary halachic responsa teachings together with some pretty hefty footnoting. Among contemporary rabbinic responsa cited are those from the works of the Chasam Sofer, Rav Isser Yehudah Unterman, Rav Yechiel Weinberg, Rav Eliezer Waldenberg, Rav

Moshe Feinstein, and Rav Chaim Regensberg, all of blessed memory; as well as the works of Rav Yisrael Meir Lau, Rav J. David Bleich, and Dr. Fred Rosner of Far Rockaway. Also noted prominently are responsa by Rabbi Dr. Don Well of Cedarhurst. Taken together with Dr. Reichman’s personal scholarship and mastery of both halachah and the relevant medical questions, this essay gives us an appreciation of the depth of learning that one can assimilate from both religious and secular aspects that go into the development of the sensitive human interactions that are represented in the Biblical plots and subplots presented to us in this week’s Haftarah. Hopefully haftarot will be taught more widely in our schools and in the shiurim in our shuls. In addition, maybe the divrei Torah delivered weekly from the pulpit will increasingly encompass the texts and teachings of the haftarot and thus help encourage a deeper appreciation of these texts by our people, both young and old. A version of this column was published in 2011.

THE JEWISH STAR November 3 / 10, 2023 • 19 / 26 Cheshvan 5784

Thinking of Richard, concluding optimism pays

November 3 / 10, 2023 • 19 / 26 Cheshvan 5784 THE JEWISH STAR

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They back ‘Palestine’ because they hate Jews JONATHAN S. TObiN

JNS Editor-in-Chief

n the past week, anti-Israel protests on college campuses and in the streets of major cities have continued and grown in size. In Europe, the numbers of those expressing “solidarity with Palestine” are even greater with hundreds of thousands marching as Israel began its ground offensive inside the Gaza Strip. The images of massive throngs of individuals waving Palestinian flags and yelling insults about Israel and Jews have been widely published and broadcast. So, too, have accounts of incidents in which Jews were subjected to intimidation or worse in public venues as aggressive opponents of Israel, who claim to be defending the Palestinian people, vented their spleen and sought to chase those who disagreed with them from public spaces. Incidents of antisemitism are skyrocketing in the United States and are even becoming more brazen and violent in Europe, where Jews already had good reason to fear being publicly identified with their faith. Just as frightening is the way that online threats against Jews have not merely metastasized but are now leading to specific threats against Jewish communities and institutions. Yet opinion leaders and influencers on social media are telling us not to believe our lying eyes and ears when we see the mounting evidence of antisemitism. Drawing conclusions from the behavior of the people screaming that “Palestine will be free from the river to the sea,” carrying posters about throwing the Jews in the trashcan or ripping down posters of Israeli kidnapping victims is mistaken.

It’s time to stop pretending that those who march to defend Hamas or advocate for Israel’s destruction are defending human rights.

Such people, we’re told, are just expressing the natural sympathies that humanitarianminded citizens have for oppressed Palestinians. If you think that’s support for Hamas, then that’s your latent Islamophobia showing. And if you believe such people ought to be held accountable, then you’re promoting cancel culture and trying to shut down freedom of speech. ompassion for Palestinian residents of Gaza, whose lives have been both disrupted and placed in danger by the war Hamas launched on Oct. 7 with its barbaric cross-border terrorist attacks on communities in southern Israel, is understandable and even commendable. Civilian casualties, however, are the inevitable and intended outcome of Hamas terrorism. Even leaving aside the issue of Hamas’s popularity, people in Gaza are not dying for a “free Palestine.” They’re dying to protect a group that has run their coastal enclave as an Islamist tyranny since 2007, and whose avowed goal — made manifest by the Oct. 7 atrocities — is to destroy the state of Israel and slaughter its Jewish population. Nor are the protests merely an expression of sympathy for the plight of those people who are, through no fault of their own, trapped in a war zone. As the flags, placards and speeches at these events make abundantly clear, the focus is on depicting Israel as not merely responding “disproportionately” to the attacks on its citizens inside its own border, as ridiculous as that allegation may be. Rather, their purpose is to rally support for “Palestine.” Defining what exactly “Palestine” is remains an important question. According to Palestinian Arabs, it consists not merely of Hamas-governed Gaza and the territories of Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”), whose Arab population is governed autonomously by the Palestinian Authority led by the Fatah Party; that area west of Jordan has been considered disputed land since the 1967 Six-Day War. Rather, they view the whole of Israel as well as those territories to be Palestine. And when they say it must be “free,” they mean the eradication of the State of Israel, something that could only be made possible by the genocide of its Jewish population. Support for this concept stems from a belief buttressed by the spread of critical race theory and intersectional teachings, which falsely view Israel as an expression of colonialism and imperialism in which “white” oppressors have victimized “people of color.” These ideas link the strug-

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators rally in front of the Israeli consulate in San Francisco two days after Hamas massacred 1,400 men, women and children in southern Israel. Phil Pasquini, Shutterstock (JNS)

gle for civil rights in the United States and against apartheid in South Africa with a desire to wipe the one Jewish state on the planet off the map. s no less a personage than Karen Attiah, the global opinions editor of the Washington Post wrote this past week, support for Hamas on the left, and specifically among African-Americans, stems from their belief that Israel must be “decolonized” along with every other vestige of Western civilization. Erasing the very idea of Jewish rights, in addition to thousands of years of history and faith, Attiah insists that Jewish liberals need to get over the idea that their erstwhile minority allies are abandoning them. If there is “solidarity with Palestine,” it is because the very existence of Israel is a crime. She then goes on to re-circulate the blood libel that Israel helped train the police in Ferguson, Mo., to kill African-Americans. She also

complains that it’s wrong to accuse people who want to eliminate Israel of being antisemites, even though the Jews are the only people that “progressives” wish to deprive of their homeland and deny the right to defend themselves. In this same way, a letter signed by numerous members of the faculty of Columbia University defended students supporting Hamas and the destruction of Israel. It also referred to the unspeakable atrocities of Hamas on Oct. 7 as “a military response” and “an occupied people exercising a right to resist violent and illegal occupation.” What is going on at college campuses and demonstrations is the full-throated expression of an antisemitic movement that seeks the end of Israel. As the demonstrators keep telling us, if that means that 1,400 Israeli men, women and children, must be slaughtered, Jewish women must be raped and tortured, and infants and children See Tobin on page 26

Viewpoint

BEN COHEN

here are few advantages for any country embroiled in a war, but if one can be said to exist, it is that armed conflict provides unmistakable evidence of who your friends are, as well as your enemies. Israel is at war with Hamas, and the Jewish people globally are at war with a resurgence of violent, crude antisemitism. Over the last fortnight, we have learned much about our friends, especially the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union. That includes a sense, as is suggested by their frequent pleas for more aid to pour into the Gaza Strip, of the potential limits of their support for Israel’s military response to the Hamas terrorist pogrom of Oct. 7. We have also learned a great deal about our enemies, most of it confirming what we already suspected. There is no doubt that Hamas and its backers in the Iranian regime are not only seeking a world without Israel, but a world without Jews. And there is no doubt that — at either end of the Mediterranean Sea — Israel is faced with two states determined to constrain it militarily while undermining its legitimacy in the worlds of politics and diplomacy. Those two countries are Spain in the west and Turkey in the east, both members of the NATO alliance. In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a bona fide genocidal dictator who has

persecuted and murdered his country’s Muslim Kurdish minority, is lauding the fetid rapists of Hamas as “liberation fighters.” In Spain, the prime minister and the foreign minister have the temerity to lecture Israel about “international humanitarian law” while the extreme left junior ministers in their Socialist coalition are calling for Israel to be sanctioned in the same manner as Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Erdoğan’s speech last week to fellow lawmakers from his Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) was truly repellent. Ever the primitive, street-corner conspiracy theorist, he claimed that Israel’s response in Gaza was not “self-defense, but savagery to commit the premeditated [my emphasis] act of crime against humanity.” Hamas, he went on, was “an organization of liberation, of mujahedeen, who fight to protect their land and citizens.” o doubting which side Turkey has taken. And there should be no astonishment here either. Erdoğan has always been a vile antisemite. Some will remember his unsightly tantrum in Davos in 2009, when he stormed off a platform he was sharing with the late prime minister of Israel, Shimon Peres, screaming: “When it comes to killing, you know very well how to kill.” In the ensuing decade, he frequently deployed words like “Nazis,” “child-killers” and “apartheid” in his verbal salvos against the Jewish state. And no one should forget his response to the independence referendum in Iraqi Kurdistan in September 2017, when he wailed about the creation of a “second Israel” in the Middle East and argued with a straight face that Israel was planning to settle large numbers of former Iraqi Jews there — another asinine conspiracy

that there is a conspiracy of powerful Jewish interests aimed at subverting the Islamic world that is genuine — far more so than his occasional, tactical overtures to Israel, which are utterly disingenuous. pain is a more complicated beast, insofar as the statements of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares are not nearly as enraging as Erdoğan’s rants. Additionally, we can take comfort that, at least for the time being, Spain is an outlier among the countries of the European Union, which have in the main avoided echoing Sanchez’s calls for an immediate ceasefire, stressing instead Israel’s right of self-defense while urging the Israelis to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza. Sanchez wants a ceasefire, and Albares wants the creation of an independent Palestinian state because, as he said in a TV interview last week, without one, “I don’t think we can guarantee the security of the State of Israel.” One has to ask: If ETA, the Basque terrorist group, had possessed the wherewithal to murder and rape nearly 12,000 Spanish citizens in a single day — the equivalent of the Israeli toll adjusted for population size — would Albares be calling for the recognition of Basque independence? Spain applies standards to Israel that it would never dream of applying to itself because, fundamentally, it sympathizes with the Arab view of Israel as an alien interloper and therefore ultimately in the wrong, regardless of what international law says about the right of self-defense. Perched on the shoulders of Sanchez and Albarez are the far-left ministers who have distinguished themselves over the last fortnight with their virulent attacks on Israel. Remember their See Cohen on page 26

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Ververidis Vasilis, Shutterstock (JNS)

theory eagerly lapped up by the Islamist masses, giving them another excuse to burn Israeli flags after Friday prayers. Yet Israel believes that it needs Turkey, diplomatically and in terms of trade, which is why there was such relief in Jerusalem last year when President Isaac Herzog seemingly pulled off a rapprochement during a visit to Ankara. So, yes, on one level, Erdoğan is an opportunist who bends with the wind, as he did in Syria, with his about-face in demanding the removal of Bashar Assad’s Iranian-backed regime. But on a deeper level, he is a hardened Jew-hater whose antisemitism is ideological. Erdoğan believes

How Oct. 7 terror reignited Jewish peoplehood daVid suissa Jewish Journal

omething noteworthy is sweeping through much of the Jewish world. Jews have bonded over disgust. They’re disgusted, first, by the savage murder, rape, torture, kidnapping and mutilation of more than 1,400 Israelis of all ages at the hands of Hamas on Oct. 7. But they’re disgusted, too, by the stunning explosion of Jew-hatred around the world and on college campuses. This explosion, it must be noted, didn’t wait for Israel’s retaliation; it came immediately after the massacres. It is this one-two punch of revulsion — for the massacres and the rise in Jew-hatred — that has ignited a level of Jewish solidarity I have rarely witnessed. The hate we’re seeing feels so deep, so visceral, so threatening that there’s a wartime level of urgency within the Jewish community. Those marching against Jews and in support of Hamas murderers in major cities and on college campuses have shaken even the more cynical among us. When my peace-loving college daughter hears protesters on campus yell, “We don’t want no two states, we want all of it!” she and her Jewish friends are not thinking peace — they’re thinking fear. They’re thinking the end of Israel. They’re spooked.

By bringing Jews of all stripes together, the existential crisis has reminded us that we are, above all, a people.

That fear is bringing them together. he barbarians who butchered as many Jews as possible on Oct. 7 didn’t give a hoot whether these Jews were young, old, male, female, gay, Reform, Orthodox, Haredi, Mizrachi, Ashkenazi, left, right, Likud, Labor or whatever. For them, and for Jew-haters everywhere, every Jew is in the same boat. “We’re all in the same boat” is precisely the electric current now coursing through Jewish veins. A global army of individual Jews and Jewish groups from across the spectrum have mobilized to help Israel any way they can, from fighting the information war on social media to raising funds for victims to organizing rallies and “bring them home” marches to taking on university leaders for not protecting Jewish students to shipping emergency supplies to Israel. No one is worried about Jewish labels. The urgency of the moment is too great. Critics who glibly call for a “ceasefire” misunderstand what Israelis are going through. Israel has survived for 75 years in a supremely hostile region because its sworn enemies were intimidated by Israel’s might. Wonks call it deterrence; we can also call it strategic fear. In a Mideast jungle where the common language is force, if Israel’s enemies are no longer afraid of the Israel Defense Forces, that’s big news. The word gets out. Oct. 7 did much to erode the fear of Israel, and the word got out. Suddenly, the strongest army in the Middle East was humiliated. It couldn’t defend its own people against a gang of terrorists. For once it looked weak and vulnerable. The enemy smelled blood. srael’s harsh response in Gaza is not about vengeance. It’s about survival. It’s about regaining deterrence. Israelis know that if they can’t put fear back into their enemy’s hearts, their existence is in play. That’s why Israelis from the left and right have supported aggressive action against Hamas. It is a statement to all hostile forces in the region: We’re

Hundreds of beds outside the Jerusalem Municipality, reflecting the number of Israelis abducted by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7. Yonatan Sindel, Flash90 (JNS)

still that Israel you better not mess with. In such a life or death situation, it’s hard for Israelis to take calls for a “ceasefire” seriously. This existential anxiety has also touched and united the Jews of the Diaspora. We’re seeing the faces of the haters, ripping down posters of hostages and brazenly calling for the end of the Jewish state. We’re seeing the triumphant body language. We’re seeing how these haters and Hamas supporters also smell blood. It’s not only disgust, then, that is uniting Diaspora Jewry — it’s also an existential dread. It’s a realization that the weakness Israel showed on Oct. 7 has triggered a dangerous, long-dormant dream among our enemies that “maybe now we can finish them off.” If this kind of shared menace doesn’t unite Jews, nothing will. In all the darkness, though, there is an up-

side to this unity — it is the rekindling of Jewish peoplehood. Jewish identity has always been multi-faceted. Judaism is a religion, a culture, a nation, a civilization, a people. By bringing Jews of all stripes together, the existential crisis coming out of Oct. 7 has reminded us that we are, above all, a people. Yes, we seem to always wait for danger to unite us. But so what? We’re only human. This is how humans react. Perhaps because of the unprecedented horrors of Oct. 7, the solidarity this time may be more sticky. We can only hope that our renewed sense of peoplehood will outlast this most painful of moments in our modern history. It would certainly make us stronger and less vulnerable. If our enemies treat us as one, who are we to disagree?

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Spain, Turkey lead diplomatic war against Israel

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Speech that endangers Jewish lives sweeps US THANE ROSENBAUM Distinguished Univ. Professor Touro College

amas chopped the heads off 40 Jewish babies, burned families alive, gang raped teenage girls, and decapitated an elderly man. Oh, and they kidnapped a six-month-old baby, young children, and female Holocaust survivors. Let that settle in for a moment. Moral revulsion is imminent. Assigning blame a no-brainer, right? Apparently not for the multitudes that praise Hamas as “resistance fighters” in a vulgar display of moral corruption, the legerdemain of situational ethics. Offset the barbarism with a litany of Palestinian grievances. There’s unrest at colleges across America, schools that offer all kinds of electives, but nothing mandatory when it comes to moral reasoning. Street protests, the world over, are even worse. Even the Secretary General of the United Nations trivialized the terrorism of Oct. 7. Damage control for Hamas is, apparently, the diplomatic thing to do. What makes it all so much worse is that the bandwagon for Hamas isn’t stopping with 10/7. We’ve reached the phase of active abetting — both endorsing Hamas, and doing its bidding.

Shouting ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater is not permissible. When a rage-filled mob is screaming ‘Intifada!’ with Jews in the vicinity, the same prohibition should apply.

amas leaders have issued “calls to action.” Followers, or mere Jew-haters, are being asked to bring the fight to global Jewry with Days of Rage and National Days of Resistance. Harassment has hit the classroom; incitement is spilling out onto the streets. So far, there are no copycat crimes (at least not yet), just organized assemblies, walkouts, and die-ins — with the add-on of threatening behavior toward Jewish students. Students at Columbia and Tulane have been physically attacked. A dorm room was set on fire at Drexel. Cornell was forced to lockdown its kosher kitchen. A pro-Hamas mob at Cooper Union chased Jewish students into the library. With the doors locked, they banged on the windows, and not because they had overdue books. A library employee suggested that the Jewish students “hide in the attic.” What, it’s also: Re-enact Anne Frank Day? The assemblies featured colorful language — on posters, and shouted by protestors, running the gamut: “From the River to the Sea”; “I Support Hamas!”; “Globalize the Intifada from New York to Gaza”; “Jihad!”; “Israel is worse than Nazis”; “By any means necessary”; “Stop Zionist Genocide,”; and “Stop Zionist Apartheid.” Some chanted, or posted on social media: “Hitler was right”; “Gas the Jews”; “Shoot all pig Jews”; and, that golden oldie, “Death to Israel!” Scrawled antisemitic graffiti is everywhere. Hamas wannabees have their very own swastika: the graphic image of paragliding terrorists. And let’s not forget the most favored battle cry of all: “Intifada!” One need not major in Middle East Studies to know that the Hamas Charter calls for the annihilation of all Jews. That means if you’re chanting “Hamas,” you’ve pledged your support for genocide. Of course, these protestors flip the script and denounce Israel as the ethnic cleanser. n Europe, some protestors are arrested for violating hate speech laws. But not in America. Since the 1960s, the United States boasts having the most robust free speech protections on the planet. Neo-Nazis once obtained a permit to march on a community of Holocaust survivors. Cross-burnings on the lawns of African-Americans have long been established as protected First Amendment speech. That’s one of the reasons why university presidents and city officials have not taken measures

are engaging in incitement, enflaming a mob predisposed to harming Jews. And as a society, we are perversely elevating hate speech to the rank of political speech. We know that free speech is not without limits. Shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater is not permissible. When a rage-filled mob is screaming “Intifada!” with Jews in the vicinity, the same prohibition should apply. “Intifada!” might be a license for Muslims to kill Jews in the Middle East. itle VI of the Civil Rights Act obligates institutions that receive federal funding to safeguard students from harassment based on race, sex, religion, and nationality. Jewish students are fearful on campus. These protests are interfering with their enjoyment of university life. Courts have always recognized the sanctity of learning environments. Students are not permitted to stand up in class and make speeches that are disruptive — even if they have something serious to say. Nor are they allowed to bring a Confederate or Nazi flag to class if its purpose is to stir ethnic and racial tensions. Those shouting, “We are all Hamas!”, knowing the business of Hamas, must be treated like budding terrorists rather than aspiring grad students. Federal anti-terrorism laws criminalize providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization. Hamas has called its followers to action. Anyone acting under those directions is, legally, a co-conspirator. Sure, punishments are being imposed elsewhere. Job offers are being rescinded for participation in antisemitic melees. Wealthy donors are starting to withhold funding to the Ivy League, where moral judgment has been especially lacking. Maintaining a school environment that repeatedly and negligently gets it facts wrong, fomenting one group of students and thereby endangering the lives of another, ought to carry some risk. These are the tragic consequences when political agendas subvert moral decency and objective truth. Universities have abdicated their custodial duties, not unlike mayors in major cities. Now is the time to get back to first principles: Hold people accountable for what they say and do. If it really causes you no distress when heads roll, then get in line: You’re next.

Poster for last week’s pro-Hamas rally outside the Brooklyn Museum, up the street from Chabad world headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway..

against those threatening Jews both on- and offcampus. They view antisemitism, whether expressed through violence or the denial of dignity, as protected speech. I wrote a book on this topic, having long felt that construing the First Amendment in this way must be at odds with the Founders of this nation. These were learned men who believed in vigorous debate on the important issues of the day. They envisioned a marketplace of ideas, not a staging ground for inciting riots. Provocative words like “genocide” and “apartheid,” when neither, in any legal or moral sense, describes Israel’s dealings with Arabs and Palestinians, is nothing less than the sanctioning of violence toward Jews. Look what happened when the bombing of a hospital in Gaza was falsely reported. Bedlam everywhere. Falsehoods on a poster are not ideas, and shouting “Intifada!” is not an invitation to debate. If pro-Hamas sympathizers have ideas they wish to impart, then find a far less threatening manner in which to express them. Otherwise, you

Israelis move forward, confronting new reality By Judy Lash Balint, JNS What do you do when your neighbors act on their long-stated wish to annihilate you? Why, you go to the fields to sow new crops and harvest the produce that’s been waiting to be picked since the Oct. 7 massacre. Over the past few days, thousands of Israelis and many volunteers from abroad have been channeling their grief, shock and outrage into traditional Zionist action. Answering the call from hundreds of farmers, young and old from every sector of society are flocking to the fields and greenhouses of dozens of kibbutzim and moshavim to work the land. At Moshav Talmei Yosef, just a few miles from the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza, dozens of people showed up for the back-breaking work of planting tomatoes in the sandy soil, shielded from the relentless sun by huge plastic greenhouse sheeting. Others, under the direction of Hashomer HaChadash, a volunteer recruitment organization dedicated to protecting agricultural lands and farms in the Negev and Galilee, headed to Kibbutz Re’im to help plow the fields for the first time in more than two weeks since the grisly events that took place there. Even kibbutzim in central Israel are feeling the pinch of the lack of manpower caused by the reserve call-up and foreign workers who headed for home as the war started. Moshav Haniel near Netanya put out a call for help in their avocado orchards, and they had to turn people away. For many, the need to be actively involved in some physical activity in support of the war effort is a way to try in some manner to cope with the realization of the lengths to which our enemies

Members of ZAKA amidst the destruction caused by Hamas terrorists in Kfar Aza near the border with Gaza, collecting dead bodies — and pieces of bodies —on Oct. 15. Edi Israel, Flash90 (JNS)

and neighbors will go to accomplish their goal of destroying the Jewish state. Yes, we all knew about those clearly stated goals written in the Hamas Charter, but few could imagine that they could be carried out so easily in one day. The extent of support for Hamas among Israeli Arabs and Palestinians living in Judea and Samaria is not really known, and so far, on at least one front,

Hamas has failed in this war. It has not yet succeeded in inflaming those Arabs to rise up in violence as they did in the most recent major skirmish with Hamas in May 2021. It’s hard to acknowledge that some of our immediate neighbors may harbor Hamas-like thoughts, but here in Jerusalem, police have arrested 110 Arabs suspected of incitement to terror over the past two weeks. Seventeen have already been indicted. One was on the cleaning staff of a Chabad school in the Gilo neighborhood. One is a doctor at Hadassah Hospital. Two Muslim preachers from mosques in the eastern part of the city were indicted for broadcasting inciting messages from their mosques. ProHamas graffiti was found in a playground close to our apartment this week. Last week, rolls of thunder echoed through the valley that divides my neighborhood from Silwan to the east. Nervous messages popped up on the local WhatsApp group asking if the noise was from explosives. It’s all stress-inducing and taking its toll. One close friend spent the last two nights in the cardio unit at Shaare Zedek Hospital. “You think it’s stress that caused your symptoms?” she reported the doctor asked when she checked into the ER. Motti Bootchkin, a ZAKA volunteer who spent almost two weeks searching for and identifying bodies in the south, collapsed and was hospitalized for exhaustion this week. He vowed to return to his “holy work” as soon as possible. Every day, since the war started, the Israel Public Broadcasting Corporation’s Reshet Bet radio channel has been giving voice to the testimonies of survivors of the horrors and the stories of the heroes who rescued them and confronted the ter-

rorists. Some speak in matter-of-fact tones about their experiences, while others break down as they describe the scenes they witnessed. It’s reminiscent of interviews with Holocaust survivors — an age-old national need to remember, document and preserve the memory of those who perished. After UN Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council that the Hamas attacks “did not occur in a vacuum,” Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan announced that Israel would refuse to issue visas to U.N. representatives from now on. Guterres later tried to walk back his words to no avail. Yad Vashem chairman Dani Dayan condemned Guterres’s “insensitive comments” and called out the hypocrisy of those who come on official visits to the Holocaust Museum and Memorial in Jerusalem. “The slaughter of Jews by Hamas on October 7 was genocidal in its intents and immeasurably brutal in its form. It puts to test the sincerity of world leaders, intellectuals and influencers that come to Yad Vashem and pledge “Never Again.” Those who seek to “understand,” look for a justifying context, do not categorically condemn the perpetrators, and do not call for the unconditional and immediate release of the abducted fail the test. UN SecretaryGeneral António Guterres failed the test.” Before Oct. 7, most Jews could not really conceive of an existential threat to our survival in 2023. Those fears were for our parents’ and grandparents’ generation. Now, in our sleepless nights, we try to wrap our head around the new reality. Then we look for the next opportunity to head to the fields to plant for the future.

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Campuses... Continued from page 12 combustible place on campus, professors have asked students to read clearly pro-Palestinian material, including Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Modern Arab Studies known for his anti-Zionist views. Ella Cheezik, who is pursuing a master’s degree in the department, said that classes have become battlefields. “Students who study with me come to class after reading the incitement materials on the reading list, and in the end, they justify Hamas terrorism,” she says. “They say to me directly, ‘Why should we believe you and not Hamas? Show me pictures of decapitated children or raped women,’ but even if I show them, I’m not sure they’ll believe me. I feel that truth and facts no longer matter. It greatly troubles me that these students could be future influential leaders.” She describes a growing sense of insecurity that Israeli students on campus share. “I choose to express my opinion in class, and I know I’ll pay a price for it. I’m afraid to leave the classroom because I don’t know who’s waiting for me outside and what they might do to me. But nothing will deter me: I won’t stop telling Israel’s story.” “I’m afraid of being a target for an attack,” says Omer, an Israeli student pursuing an MBA at Stanford. “I make sure to look over my shoulder, and I’m debating whether I should put a mezuzah on my dorm room door. The university administration is just walking on eggshells — it’s afraid to condemn in a clear and unequivocal manner.” Omer notes that as the death toll in Gaza rises, anti-Israel sentiments on campus are strengthening, and the students’ fears are also shared by faculty members from Israel. “There’s a sense of helplessness; we want to put out one fire after another, and it doesn’t end,” says Jonathan Levav, a professor of marketing at Stanford Graduate School of Business. “We are truly fighting for our lives here, with hate speech that I haven’t seen in 20 years in academia. The war in Gaza will end before the campus war. If we don’t win the battle here, the Jewish identity of the students will erode, and Jewish communities in the Diaspora will be harmed.”

Sacks... Continued from page 20 throughout the pagan world. The Torah is horrified by child sacrifice, which it sees as the worst of all sins. It therefore seeks to establish, in the case of children, what it establishes in the case of the universe as a whole, the land of Israel, and the people of Israel. We do not own our children. G-d does. We are merely their guardians on G-d’s behalf. nly the most dramatic event could establish an idea so revolutionary and unprecedented — even unintelligible — in the ancient world. That is what the story of the Binding of Isaac is about. Isaac belongs to neither Abraham nor Sarah. Isaac belongs to G-d. All children belong to G-d. Parents do not own their children. The relationship of parent to child is one of guardianship only. G-d does not want Abraham to sacrifice his child. G-d wants him to renounce ownership in his child. That is what the angel means when it calls to Abraham, telling him to stop, “You have not withheld from Me your son, your only one.” The Binding of Isaac is a polemic against, and a rejection of, the principle of patria potestas, the idea universal to all pagan cultures that children are the property of their parents. Seen in this light, the Binding of Isaac is now consistent with the other foundational narratives of the Torah, namely the creation of the universe and the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. The rest of the narrative also makes sense. G-d had to show Abraham and Sarah that their child was not naturally theirs, because his birth was not natural at all. It took place after Sarah could no longer conceive. The story of the first Jewish child establishes

a principle that applies to all Jewish children. G-d creates legal space between parent and child, because only when that space exists do children have the room to grow as independent individuals. The Torah ultimately seeks to abolish all relationships of dominance and submission. That is why it dislikes slavery and makes it, within Israel, a temporary condition rather than a permanent fate. That is why it seeks to protect children from parents who are overbearing or worse. Abraham, we argued in last week’s study, was chosen to be the role model for all time of what it is to be a parent. We now see that the Binding of Isaac is the consummation of that story. A parent is one who knows that they do not own their child.

Weinreb... Continued from page 21 key. The boy and I will go up there; we will worship and we will return to you.” And he gave Isaac no hint about the fate that awaited him. Did he not owe the lad a glimpse of his imminent death, a chance to prepare himself to meet his Maker? Was it not the height of duplicity for Abraham to reassure his son that all would be well? I could just hear Richard ask these piercing questions. Although, to my recollection, he and I never discussed the Bible, he was raised as a Southern Baptist and surely knew the story of the binding of Isaac. o me, the answer to these questions lies in this phrase, repeated twice in the narrative, for emphasis: “And the two of them walked on together.” Abraham conveyed to Isaac this message: “I am with you. I will hold your hand. I will be there for you despite the horror that awaits us both.” This is the attitude that Jewish parents have conveyed to their children throughout all of the tragedies of Jewish history. Yes, there are persecutions and pogroms and torture and worse. But I will be there with you. I will be close to you. This is one of the themes of so many of the Psalms. Rarely is the Psalmist assured that “everything will be alright.” More often, he is told, “I, G-d, am with you.” I am with you in your exile, in your wanderings, in your suffering. I am with you in the hell of Auschwitz and Treblinka. The Psalmist asserts, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me.” The Talmud teaches us that the Shechinah, the Holy Presence, is in exile alone with us. Most eloquently, Asaf in Psalm 73 expresses the consoling power of the awareness of G-d’s closeness in the most dire of circumstances: “I have been constantly afflicted, each morning brings new punishments. … Yet I was always with You, You held my right hand. … As for me, nearness to G-d is good.” Abraham felt that his duty to obey G-d took priority over the love for his beloved son. That is one central lesson of the story, although it remains a disconcerting lesson for us. But this much we can comprehend: his behavior reflected reassurance and trust, optimism and hope. At the end of the story, that hope proved justified. Richard could never fathom Abraham’s lesson. To remain hopeful in the face of threatening doom, to be able to see beyond the dark clouds of fate, to continue to pray even when “the sharp sword dangles over one’s neck:” that is Abraham’s lesson and that is the Jewish way. More than just the “Jewish way,” this capability is the secret of Jewish survival. It is a secret that we all must learn, especially in our times, when many challenges sadly still beset us. We can be confident that the Shechinah is there for us, but we must be sure that we are there for each other.

Freedman...

Continued from page 21 Was there something G-d once did not know? The Ramban (Nachmanides) suggests: “Do not read ‘now I know’ [yadati] but ‘now I have made known’ [hodati].” In other words, somehow, Avraham achieved

something that only G-d knew he was capable of. Until this moment, the Avraham that passed the test existed only in potential. Now it became reality. Many commentaries suggest that this is the basis for our trials and tribulations, that through our struggles, we live up to our potential. But this idea leaves one feeling challenged. Why does G-d have to do this in order to make us grow? Who really wants to live through such an ordeal just to discover who they are after it? There is a fascinating comment that Rashi makes at the beginning of this story. G-d commands Avraham “haalehu,” offer him up (22:2), to which Rashi says, “It does not say ‘slaughter him’.” What is Rashi suggesting? What is the difference between slaughtering Yitzchak and offering him up? After all, wasn’t Avraham asked to sacrifice his son, to slaughter him on the altar before G-d? Indeed, the end of this story clearly has Avraham, knife in hand, ready to do just that, before an angel arrives just in time to save the day. What if Avraham was not sure what G-d really wanted of him? And what if this was the point of the exercise? Avraham lived in a time when it was the norm to sacrifice children to the gods. Dying for G-d was exactly what the people of his day would have assumed the test to be. But, says Rashi, G-d doesn’t ask Avraham to slaughter his son. Rather, He asks him to offer him up. The challenge of this world, Judaism suggests, is not to die for G-d, but to live for G-d. Indeed, there are indications in the text that support this idea. At the beginning of this story, it is G-d Himself who speaks with Avraham, but at the end, G-d’s word comes through the medium of an angel, indicating distance. Perhaps Avraham was distanced from G-d because he misunderstood what G-d wanted. At a time when men were glorifying death in battle and throwing their sons into ritual fires, the world needed to learn, through one incredible individual, that the real challenge is how to live. Every day, in every moment, we make a choice: a life over death. And it is in that choice that we discover not only who we are, but also all that we can be. Previously published.

Tobin... Continued from page 22 abducted, then that is so much the worse for any of these “occupiers.” This has nothing to do with alleged Israeli misdeeds. The contention is that if Palestinian “rights” are to be respected, then Jewish rights can be erased and Jewish lives don’t matter. Unlike past versions of antisemitism that didn’t bother dressing up hate in the costume of human-rights advocacy, contemporary Jew-hatred masquerades as progressive values, and is championed in prestigious academic and journalistic venues by those respected by society. f liberal institutions like the Washington Post and the faculty of Columbia have no compunction about justifying loathing Jews, why should we be surprised if Jewish students are being locked in libraries at Cooper Union College or threatened with violence at Cornell University? What’s so shocking, then, when mobs in the streets of New York, Chicago, London and other major cities are yelling for Jewish blood? And if their counterparts in places like Dagestan in the Russian Federation riot and hunt for suspected Jews in airports? So, let’s stop pretending that the “Palestine” protests are about human rights. If they were, they’d be protesting Hamas’s terrorism. If expressing compassion for Jewish victims and, say, demanding the release of babies and grandparents being held hostage is too much to ask, they could criticize the terrorists’ use of human shields. That includes Hamas terrorists situating its military headquarters underneath a hospital, hoarding supplies inside Gaza while demanding that the world give more to aid Palestinians and refusing to let civilians under its rule escape the fighting. But they don’t do any of that. Instead, they threaten Jews, tear down posters of kidnapped Israelis and express their support for replacing Israel with “Palestine.”

Nor should we treat this public expression of antisemitism as merely something about which decent and honorable people ought to sit down and discuss. There is no wiggle room here. The idea that there is something wrong with publicly exposing those who engage in antisemitism is bizarre, especially coming from those in the academy who have done their best to drive conservative critics of their toxic theories from the public square. Cancel culture is about demonizing and penalizing those who engage in normal political debate. Opposing it has never meant justifying and defending actual racism like those who are neo-Nazis or members of the Ku Klux Klan. That’s why the doxxing of Harvard students who support the destruction of Israel and who back Hamas terrorism isn’t wrong. Reasonable people would never excuse anyone who suggested lynching African-Americans. Yet that is what is being asked for by those who are cheering on or justifying the pogroms against Jews in Israel. Indeed, Harvard even seeks to protect their right to be hired at the country’s most prestigious law firms and corporations—something it would never do for those who call for the murder of any other minority. n a saner era of American public life, those who rationalize Hamas slaughter as “decolonization,” as Attiah does, wouldn’t be editors at the Washington Post. They’d be driven to the margins of American society where they could advocate for whatever variant of antisemitism they like. The same could be said of the Daily Wire’s Candace Owens, who described the proHamas demonstration in London as proof that “people are not accepting the media narrative about what is happening in the Middle East despite the insistent rhetoric from government officials.” But what else did we expect from a defender of Kanye West’s antisemitism, whether she calls herself a conservative or not? The ability of Harvard’s Jew-haters to go on to glittering careers, or the ability of Owens and Attiah to retain their influential perches, isn’t the real question. It’s whether society has now gone so far in accepting the demonization of Israel and Jews that there is no penalty attached to public expressions of Jew-hatred, whether they pose as sympathy for Palestinians or not. What does matter is whether moral people are willing to go along with the pretense that demanding Israel’s eradication and the murder of its population is acceptable discourse. What is needed is for all people of goodwill — no matter where they sit on the political spectrum, no matter their faith or background — to denounce these vile ideas as hate speech. What’s more, they should demand that those who support this hatred be given the opprobrium and shunning that would be their fate if they were avowed Nazis, rather than merely those who support Hitler’s Islamist successors.

Cohen... Continued from page 23 names: Irene Montero, Alberto Garzon and, especially, Ione Belarra, who compared Israel’s defensive war with Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, urging a similar sanctions regime against, and a severing of all diplomatic ties with, the Jewish state. These three declared enemies of the Jewish people, allies of Hamas, occupy ministerial posts in a member state of the European Union. This is not an illusion. It’s a measure of how bad the situation has become. In many ways, the problems posed by the Spanish and Turkish positions are yet to make themselves felt. An Israeli ground operation in Gaza, together with the uncertainty over the final outcome (who will rule Gaza when the dust settles, and who will be living there?) may well jog those E.U leaders who have so far been supportive of Israel into similar ceasefire demands. We can be certain that Spain and Turkey will lead those calls and will crow over any successes in that regard. In many world capitals, Israel has won the sympathy of politicians who understand what the bestial violence of Oct. 7 represented. But Madrid and Ankara are not among them.

27 THE JEWISH STAR November 3 / 10, 2023 • 19 / 26 Cheshvan 5784

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