The deranged and depraved pro-Hamas constituencies on Ivy League campuses have taken many liberties with their “higher” education over the past 20 months. What tops the list is a twisted misreading of the First Amendment. The fact that constitutional law professors never bothered to set them straight says a lot about the failed integrity of the custodians of our laws.
Remember when the three university presidents from Harvard, Pennsylvania and MIT testified before Congress in response to the alarming spike in antisemitic agitation on their campuses? Negligently advised by counsel and terrified of Jew-hating students (many of whom came from Middle Eastern countries
SAY THEIR NAMES!
Thunderous gaslighting language materialized into senseless murder outside a Jewish museum.
where antisemitism is baked right into the pita bread), they were unable to say with certainty that calling for the genocide of Jews violates their policies on bullying and harassment. It was a question with an obviously simple answer: Such threats are protected by neither principles of free speech nor academic freedom. But this unholy trinity had, as their first order of business, the avoidance of no-confidence votes at home. After all, their many antisemitic colleagues — incubated in “Humanities” departments flush with Qatari money and obsessed with anti-colonial fixations that depended on
See By any means on page 2
THANE ROSENBAUM
From our family to yours,
From our family to yours,
Wishing everyone a sweet & special holiday.
Wishing everyone a sweet & special holiday.
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Wishing everyone a sweet & special holiday.
Margaret Tietz is proud to provide the Jewish community with the highest quality short-term and long-term Subacute Rehabilitation, Clinically Complex Care and a state-of-the-art virtual reality rehab system. Combined with a beautiful new Synagogue and renovated gym, you’ll rehab comfortably and confidently in our five-star rated, fully Kosher facility. At Margaret Tietz, we will get you back on your feet... and back home quickly.
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By any means…
Continued from page 1
the demonization of Jews — would never forgive them had they conceded in the congressional record that calling for the destruction of Israel, and blaming Jewish students for a nonexistent genocide in Gaza, were both morally wrong and outside the scope of a university education.
Instead, they comported themselves as smugly superior to congressional representatives (although ironically, their fiercest interrogator, Elise Stefanik, was a Harvard graduate). The three presidents cagily replied that the answer depended on the “context.”
Wait a minute: There’s a context in which calling for the mass murder of Jews is permissible? Does the same situational loophole exist for the nostalgic lynching of African-Americans?
Advocating for the death of a people standing 10 feet away from you is most assuredly not constitutionally protected. There is no “context” in which murderous threats are immune from governmental and university regulation.
And, yet, chants like “Globalize the Intifada!” somehow continued unabated after Oct. 7, 2023 — on both campuses and city streets.
Now we have witnessed the dangers inherent in casually downplaying the felonious loose lips of terrorist fanboys: Two soon-to-be-engaged Israeli Embassy employees were shot dead outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington. The gunman was apparently all hopped up on antiAmerican, anti-Israel animus. His social media postings were replete with “death to America,” “death to Israel” and “I voted for Hamas.”
Unhinged, yes, but still to be taken seriously.
These tragic murders, and hundreds of lesser harassments, could have been avoided had we not allowed antisemites to make a mockery of the First Amendment. The more “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free,” “Resistance is justified when people are occupied,” “Glory to the Martyrs” and the unrelenting slander “Genocide!” got repeated, the more such bloody passions were likely to be acted upon.
These are the tragic consequences of living in a time of moral inversion. Hateful Muslims, selfhating Jews, malicious professors, Marxist elected officials and pink-haired Queers for Palestine paraded their delusions on the campus green and public square. Thunderous gaslighting language eventually lit the match that materialized into senseless murder outside a Jewish museum.
The louder one cheers for terrorists, the more likely one will become inured to the meaning of those chants and chart his or her own lethal course.
America is far more permissive of free speech guarantees than other liberal democracies. For instance, the Supreme Court has upheld flag and cross-burnings, the use of vulgar language to express a political viewpoint, the disruption of military funerals, even marching neo-Nazis in a community of Holocaust survivors, as falling within the contours of free speech.
Ideas expressed offensively or insultingly do not forfeit First Amendment protections.
But offensive and hurtful is not the same as threatening speech. The Supreme Court has held that “true threats” and “fighting words” do not receive free speech guarantees. Similarly, speech that “incites imminent lawlessness” loses all First Amendment safeguards.
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Those proscribed categories of speech all occurred on campus to Jewish students and professors.
The First Amendment was ratified to disseminate ideas, not calls for murder. Universities spent the past 19 months conning America into believing that incitements such as “Globalize the Intifada!” are nothing but harmless expressions of public and moral support for Palestinians. In the truncated world of X, they are tantamount to political speech.
Did the encampments on campuses, with keffiyeh-shrouded hordes whipping each other into frenzies, barricading Jewish students from access to classrooms and libraries, in any way resemble the Lincoln-Douglas Debates? Did disruptions of Christmas tree lighting and commencement ceremonies have anything in common with
The more ‘From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free,’ ‘Resistance is justified when people are occupied,’ ‘Glory to the Martyrs’ and the unrelenting slander ‘Genocide!’ got repeated, the more such bloody passions were likely to be acted upon.
tuxedo-clad debaters at the Oxford Union?
All throughout history those with wicked intentions insisted that words otherwise plainly calling for violence and mayhem meant something else entirely. Just look underneath all that shouting and spittle and you’ll discover a sanguine message of human virtue.
“The Final Solution to the Jewish Question,” anyone?
Aself-motivated lunatic looking to burnish his name as a human rights crusader murdered a young couple: Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim. Soon after leaving his victims lying in their own blood, he removed his keffiyeh and shouted, “Free, free Palestine.” He was then heard to say, “I did this for Gaza.”
By all accounts he was no Islamist, but an American-born Hispanic socialist who took all that incessant chanting to heart. He apparently believed he had been given marching orders to bring the intifada to the streets of Washington. There was no hidden meaning to globalizing the intifada: Wherever Jews are on the globe, strike them down.
And that’s precisely what he “did for Gaza” — murdered two people without knowing whether they were Jews, or that they worked for the embassy, or whether they worried about the plight of the Palestinians. (They happened to be all three, although Lischinsky, the product of a mixed marriage, was a practicing Christian and an avowed Zionist.)
Such added information was unnecessary because he was told to perform his tasks “by any means necessary.” That, too, was plainly understood: Vanquishing Israel demanded that this young couple be killed, just like it was “necessary” to torch Israeli infants, behead Israeli adults, and gang-rape and mutilate Israeli teenagers on Oct. 7.
These licenses to speak freely until fully absorbed into action is what Jew-haters were given under the false pretense of the First Amendment. The only question we can already begin to presage is how long it will take before this latest assassin of Jewish dreams becomes a folk hero to antisemites everywhere.
Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
The Jewish Star will not publish during Shavuot week and the week after.
We will return םשה תרזעב on Wednesday, June 18, with an expanded issue.
Douglas Murray: Israel can’t leave Hamas in Gaza
By Canaan Lidor, JNS
Despite mounting international pressure and war costs, Israel cannot afford to end its war “with Hamas in power in any form,” British public intellectual Douglas Murray told JNS last week.
The prominent journalist — who last month published a book titled “On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization” — justified Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to keep fighting until Hamas is dismantled, and downplayed concerns that doing so would leave Israel isolated.
“Anything short of victory is defeat,” Murray told JNS at a conference organized by the Euro
Last week, the leaders of the United Kingdom, France and Canada published a joint statement threatening “concrete actions in response” to the war. The European Commission on Tuesday decided to review its trade agreement with Israel, citing concerns of human rights abuses.
According to some reports, the war is also straining the US-Israeli alliance and pressure to end the war short of achieving its main goal is mounting internally in Israel. Yair Golan, the leader of the far-left The Democrats party, last Tuesday implied that Israel was insane, as “a sane country does not kill babies as a hobby.”
But “the reality is that Israel must see this
between Israel, Hamas and several other Iranian proxies. The British journalist subsequently spent weeks in Israel, where he documented atrocities committed by Hamas.
On April 10, Murray defended Israel on the podcast of Joe Rogan, where he challenged Rogan, the world’s most listened-to pundit, on perceived unfairness and laziness in discussing Israel’s war. That exchange had more than four million listeners.
Murray does not believe in continuing the war regardless of its cost, but rather that this cost is still manageable, despite attempts to raise it for Israel.
As centrists and left-wingers turned against Israel since Oct. 7, right-wing politicians in key European states have embraced the Jewish state and called for tough action in their countries against perpetrators of anti-Israel riots and antisemitic attacks.
Some of these emerging forces are legitimate and significant allies for Israel that mainstream media tend to ignore so as to “bolster a narrative that Israel is a pariah nation,” Murray argued. But others are less straightforward, and should not be embraced too closely by Israel at this stage, he advised.
“We will take over Gaza, and our security control will be there forever,” Netanyahu said on May 12, shortly before he announced an intensification in the fighting in Gaza.
The intensification is envisioned as the final stage of a war that broke out on Oct. 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists murdered some 1,200 Israelis and abducted another 251. Israel says it has killed more than 20,000 terrorists in Gaza since then.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is one of Israel’s most outspoken allies in Europe, and has blocked many foreign policy initiatives against Jerusalem that require consensus within the EU. A social conservative who opposes immigration, he is reviled by many on the left and routinely accused of antisemitism for his opposition to the political projects of George Soros, a far-left billionaire who is Jewish.
In the Netherlands, the staunchly pro-Israel and anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders and his Party for Freedom are similarly accused of racism, often in connection with Wilders’ 2020 conviction for saying his voters want fewer Moroccans in their country.
Both Wilders and Orban are legitimate partners and allies of Israel, Murray said.
But other right-wing parties that have embraced Israel are “not straightforward,” he added, naming the Alternative for Germany party and France’s National Rally as examples of actors that “have problems.”
In February, Israel lifted its longtime boycott of the National Rally. The shift came as French President Emmanuel Macron changed his rhetoric about Israel, imposed an arms embargo, accused Israel of “barbarism” and threatened to downgrade EU-Israel trade as well as to recognize a Palestinian state.
Since Marine Le Pen in 2011 took over the National Rally party that her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, established, dozens of activists have been kicked out of the party for antisemitic speech and Holocaust denial. Marine Le Pen eventually kicked out her own father. Murray is not convinced that National Rally is a legitimate partner, he said.
“I think that the National Rally is one to keep a very close eye on. And I think the Alternative for Germany is a much more complicated one because it’s newer,” he said.
Supporters of Alternative for Germany, or AfD, often say that the party is moderate compared to other European parties on the ideological right, but that it is singled out because it is German.
Murray acknowledged this bias and justified it, arguing it was not the result of animus or bigotry, but flowed simply from the importance and power of Germany, and what that could mean for the rest of Europe.
Israel should engage with all those parties, though stop short of embracing them, he said.
“It’s not that there’s a magic solution for Israel. But you should keep dialogue open with everybody, because everybody can be in power,” he said.
Douglas Murray speaks at a conference in Madrid on May 12, 2025. Yoav Dudekevitch
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in Budapest on April 3. Avi Ohayon, GPO
IDF soldiers operate in northern Gaza on May 20 as part of Operation Gideon’s Chariots against Hamas terrorists. IDF
Academic
World-Renowned
Jewish
Central
Biblical blue dye search told in a visitors center
By Etgar Lefkovits, JNS
KFAR ADUMIM, Israel — It was four decades ago that three childhood friends from New Jersey who had immigrated to Israel heard of a young Jerusalem rabbinical student who was looking for scuba divers who could help him find snails off the Mediterranean coast.
The three young men knew nothing about snails or the centuries-old search for the biblical blue known as tekhelet, but it was an adventure that would change their lives.
“It became a hobby that became an obsession that tuned into a mission,” Baruch Sterman, who took part in the sea outing 40 years ago, told JNS this week.
Sterman, 63, from Efrat, went on to found the Ptil Tekhelet nonprofit in this Jerusalem bedroom community on the road to the Dead Sea. It obtains snails to produce the biblical dye.
The search for the source of the dye used for the biblical blue goes back centuries, and weaves together archaeology, chemistry and biblical scholarship involving chemists, marine biologists, a great Chassidic rabbi and a former chief rabbi of Israel who is the grandfather of the state’s current president.
For about 1,400 years following the Muslim conquest of the Land of Israel in the seventh century, the identity of the sea creature used to make the dye was lost to the world. This after two millennia when the purple and blue dyes derived from snails were used as a sign of royalty, coloring the robes of the kings and princes from Media and Babylon to Egypt to Greece.
Until that expedition four decades ago, no one wore the biblical blue on the fringes of their white prayer shawls other than a small group of Chassidim who followed the opinion of Rabbi Gershon Henoch Leiner (1839-1890), the first to be known as the Radzyner Rebbe, who thought he had found the source for the tekhelet from a squid, Sterman said.
But a 1913 University of London doctoral dissertation by the chief rabbi of Ireland, Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog, who would go on to become the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, and subsequent laboratory testing of material he sent for analysis found that the dye from the squid was inorganic and synthetic, a manufactured color created by the chemicals used in the labs and not by the sea creature.
For about two centuries, researchers continued to search for the source of the traditional biblical blue, a marine animal known, according to rabbinic literature, only as the hillazon.
A French zoologist found three mollusks in the Mediterranean Sea in
1858 that produced purple blue dyes, and identified one, the Murex trunculus (nowadays known as the Hexaplex trunculus), a medium-sized sea snail, as the source of the biblical blue, but they were not the pure blue described in ancient Jewish sources.
Researchers consulted at Washington’s Smithsonian Institution in 1979 also couldn’t figure out how to get the coveted sky blue from the sea creature.
The mystery was finally solved in 1985, when Professor Otto Elsner at Israel’s Shenkar College of Fibers, who was researching ancient dyes, discovered that when exposed to sunlight, the snail’s dye was blue after all.
This led Eliyahu Tavger, the young Jerusalem rabbinical student, to enlist the three New Jersey men on their snail expedition on Israel’s northern coast.
“By the time we got there, we had fallen in love with the idea, having learned all the history in the drive up north,” Sterman, who had learned how to scuba dive during his student days at Columbia University, recalled.
They succeeded in taking a few hundred snails from the Mediterranean, producing five sets of tzizit, ritual fringes attached to the corners of Jewish prayer shawls. The snails produce tiny amounts of the coveted dye, requiring as many as 40 to color
the fringe of one garment.
Four decades and hundreds of thousands of Jewish prayer garments later, a small visitor center telling the story of the mystery of the biblical blue is being launched at the end of this month, at Ptil Tekhelet’s factory, located a 20-minute drive east of Jerusalem in the Judean Desert.
The enterprise, which was founded in 1991, sells cotton or wool Jewish prayer shawls with the biblical blue attached to one of the fringes, for about $50 each.
The snails used to make the dye are brought to Israel exclusively from abroad, including Europe and the Mediterranean countries, since they are a protected species in Israel.
The factory has already attracted Jewish and Christian tourists over the years, leading founders to press ahead with setting up an educational center at the site.
(A blue and white Israeli flag with the biblical dye used in the factory was presented to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during President Donald Trump’s first term in office.)
The visitor’s center tells the story of tekhelet from ancient times to the present and its rediscovery, along with a view of the dyeing process.
“We felt it was not just a goal to provide tekhelet for people who want to wear it,” Sterman said. “We believe that this is an incredibly inspirational story bringing together science, Torah, spirituality and our culture all wrapped together.”
Bedouin voices cry out, ‘Their Islam is not ours’
By Tania Shalom Michaelian, JNS
On the blood-soaked morning of Oct. 7, 2023, Hamid Abu Ar’ar was driving from his home in a Bedouin town in the Negev with his pregnant wife, Fatma, their seven-month-old baby and a coworker. As they approached the Ma’on Junction, eight Hamas terrorists on motorcycles opened fire on their car.
“My wife told me, ‘Hamid, I can’t feel my leg,’” he recalled. “Then she died next to me. I leaned her seat back and closed her eyes.” The co-worker was also murdered.
Their baby, wounded by shrapnel, was still alive in the back seat. Hamid grabbed him and sprinted from the vehicle to hide inside a roadside electrical cabinet.
For five hours, he crouched there with his baby, feeding him from a bottle he had grabbed from the car. Four Hamas gunmen took cover just behind the cabinet, unaware of the two hiding inside.
“I could hear them arguing in Arabic about when to ambush the approaching IDF soldiers,” Abu Ar’ar told the audience at the Joe Alon Center near Kibbutz Lahav in the Negev, which houses the Museum for Bedouin Culture.
In a split-second decision, Hamid opened the cabinet doors and ran toward the soldiers, warning them of the ambush — a move that the IDF said saved the lives of some 45 soldiers that day.
“Those monsters who came over the border didn’t distinguish between Jew, Arab or Christian,” he said. “They murdered my wife, a devout woman wearing a hijab and who left behind nine orphans. They did it in the so-called name of Islam. But their Islam is not our Islam.”
Hamid was speaking at a recent event hosted by “Stories That Bind Us: Memory and Dialogue of October 7 at Heritage Sites,” a program launched by the Society for Preservation of Israel Heritage Sites (SPIHS) with the support of Jewish National Fund-USA.
Also speaking that evening was Wahid Al-
Huzail, 53, a retired lieutenant colonel in the IDF with a distinguished military record: a commander in the Bedouin Reconnaissance Battalion, decorated for bravery, and a key figure in the defense of Israel’s southern border. But it’s his civilian work — empowering Bedouin youth, supporting released prisoners and assisting victims of terror — that placed him on the frontlines once again that fateful day.
“I saw the footage — terrorists in a pickup truck driving through Sderot — and I couldn’t believe it,” he recalled. “Then the phone calls began. Families were desperate. Their sons worked in the fields, on the kibbutzim. They hadn’t come home. They weren’t answering their phones.”
Among the thousands caught in the crossfire that day were dozens of Bedouin citizens. Some were agricultural workers in the Gaza Envelope, others civilian drivers and security guards — many were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Twenty-one Bedouin were murdered in the Oct. 7 attacks, including the youngest known victim: 14-hour-old Naama Abu Rashed.
Naama’s mother, Sujood, was shot by terrorists on her way to the hospital to give birth. Doctors fought to save the newborn, but Na’ama died hours after delivery.
“There was no system in place for the Bedouin population following October 7,” Al-Huzail said. “No one answered the phone. No support, no recognition. We had to build it ourselves.”
And so, Al-Huzail did what leaders do in times of chaos: he acted. He created an emergency war room to track the missing, organize aid, and help the wounded. With support from government ministries and NGOs, he founded a nonprofit that provides psychological counseling, financial aid, and legal help to Bedouin terror victims. But even more powerful than the help they received was the help they gave.
While parts of Israeli society feared unrest in Arab towns following Oct. 7, the opposite hap-
pened. The Bedouin of the Negev mobilized in support of their Jewish neighbors. Bedouin doctors, nurses, and paramedics treated the wounded. Farmers delivered food and water to kibbutzim. Bedouin social workers cared for Israeli evacuees. And many Bedouin reservists reported for duty without hesitation.
“On October 7, we saw the truth: we are already living together in this land. And we choose each other.”
Liat Aviely, who manages the Joe Alon Center (which was named after an Israeli Air Force officer and military attache to the U.S. who was shot and killed in the driveway of his home in Chevy Chase, Maryland on July 1, 1973), described the evening as deeply moving.
“Heritage sites offer an objective platform, with no hidden agenda or political opinion, for
people to come and hear a story and learn about legacy and history,” she said. “It was an extremely important event.”
“There are so many obstacles and challenges between our two peoples,” she continued. “But we live together in the same corner of this earth. The least we can do is listen and empathize. The ‘Stories That Bind Us’ event allowed us to do just that.”
Indeed, she said, the aftermath of Oct. 7 revealed more than just horror. It revealed solidarity. It revealed the humanity that endures beneath years of mistrust and division.
Since his wife’s death, Hamid Abu Ar’ar has been raising his nine children alone. He’s proud of having pulled them out of despair in the year since the attack. His own healing, he said, comes from speaking about Fatma. “Every time I speak about her, I feel that she’s still with us,” he said.
He’s also made it his mission to head out into his own community to promote coexistence. “I tell them, as a devout Muslim, that nowhere in the Quran is it written that we can kill men, women and children in the name of our religion,” he said. “My children learn the Quran, but they will learn it with their eyes wide open.”
Abu Ar’ar said he’s keeping the baby bottle with which he fed his son with while they hid in that cabinet on that dark day.
“When he’s old enough to study the Quran, I will give him that bottle to remind him of how terrorists murdered his mother while claiming it was done in the name of Islam,” Abu Ar’ar said. “I want him to seek only the truth.”
Promoting coexistence, he said, is for his children’s future. Interior Minister Moshe Arbel granted Abu Ar’ar permanent residency status on Feb. 21, crediting him with risking his life to save IDF soldiers on Oct. 7.
“We don’t just share the land,” added Wahid Al-Huzail. “We share the pain, the fears, the future. October 7 didn’t distinguish between Jew and Arab. So why should we?”
Interior Minister Moshe Arbel granted permanent residency status to Hamid Abu Ar’ar on Feb. 21, 2024. Interior Ministry
Murex trunculus shells and coins depicting them from the Roman period. Ptil Tekhelet
The sixth-century edict of Roman Emperor Justinian I, which made possession of tekhelet by commoners a capital offense. Ptil Tekhelet
Colors obtained from the Murex trunculus snail — from purple to blue. Ptil Tekhelet
After Biden diagnosis, advice from St. John’s
In response to former President Joe Biden’s recent diagnosis with an aggressive form of prostate cancer, the chief of hematology/oncology at Episcopal Health Services’ St. John’s Hospital is urging men to prioritize early detection and routine screenings.
“President Biden diagnosis is a powerful reminder that prostate cancer can affect anyone — and that early screening and prevention efforts can save lives,” said Dr. Marc Warshawsky, MD.
The Far Rockaway-based St. John’s Hospital serves the Five Towns and surrounding communities.
Prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer death among men in the United States. About 1 in 8 men will be diagnosed during their lifetime. While many cancers grow slowly, aggressive forms can spread quickly and require prompt treatment.
Warshawsky recommends the following steps to reduce risk:
•Get Screened: Men age 50 and older — or age 40 and older for those who are black or have a family history — should speak with their phy-
sician about prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing.
•Know the Signs: Although early prostate cancer often has no symptoms, warning signs may include a frequent urge or inability to urinate, blood in urine or semen, and frequent pain or stiffness in the pelvis, lower back or hips.
•Maintain a Healthy Diet: A diet low in red meat, and high in fruits, vegetables and healthy fats may reduce cancer risk.
•Exercise Regularly: Staying active supports hor-
mone regulation and immune function.
•Don’t Smoke: Smoking is associated with more aggressive prostate cancer and poorer outcomes.
•Limit Alcohol and Maintain a Healthy Weight: Obesity may increase the risk of more aggressive forms of the disease.
“Small lifestyle changes can make a major difference in your health outcomes,” Warshawsky said.” And if you’re at risk, early screening can save your life.”
St. John’s Hospital offers comprehensive prostate cancer care, including early detection, diagnostic and advanced treatment options.
Dr. Warshawsky, a boardcertified medical oncologist known for his exceptional clinical expertise and dedication to patient care, provides care for inpatient and outpatient hematology and oncology patients and also lead EHS’ Hematology/Oncology outpatient facility, where patients will be treated for a full range of hematologic and oncologic conditions.
To schedule a consultation, call 718-869-7949 or visit EHSCancercenter.com
News supplied by EHS
Marc Warshawsky, MD
Braving ‘smelly’ protests, 55K walk in Toronto
By Dave Gordon, JNS
Sara Lefton, the chief development
officer
at the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto, estimates that 6,000 more people — a total of 56,000 — marched at this year’s Walk with Israel compared to last year’s.
“We are strong, we’re united and we will keep standing up for our community,” Lefton, who is also executive director of the Jewish Foundation of Greater Toronto, told JNS of the event, which the United Jewish Appeal organized. “We need others to stand with us,” she added. “This is not just a Jewish issue. This is a Canadian issue. We need to stand up for Israel.”
Lefton told JNS that the UJA is grateful to the Jewish community and its “many allies” who joined the walk.
Salman Sima, a former Iranian political prisoner who lives in Toronto, was one of those allies. He told JNS that he joined some 200 Iranians at the walk.
Sima also held a sign stating that he stands with Yaron Lischinsky, one of the two Israeli embassy employees whom a gunman killed as they left an American Jewish Committee event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington last week.
“We marched for our right to exist, for Zionism and for the triumph of good over evil,” Amir Epstein, co-founder and executive director of Tafsik, told JNS. (He said that some 1,200 people from Tafsik joined the walk, including Iranians, Hindus, Christians and Yazidis.)
The 2.2-mile walk began at Temple Sinai Congregation of Toronto, a Reform community located in a heavily Jewish area, and ended at the 27-acre Sherman Campus, which includes the Prosserman Jewish Community Centre.
Kevin Vuong, a former federal parliamentarian, stated that “the tactical decision to force peaceful UJA Walk participants to walk through a gauntlet of pro-Hamas intimida-
tion, harassment and smoke bombs was, at best, a naive mistake that must be reviewed.”
He said the walk “was a much-needed breath of fresh, peace-loving, positive air.”
Talia Klein Leighton, president of Canadian Women Against Antisemitism, said that she experienced the smoke bombs.
“The pro-Hamas masked protestors and their accomplices, including the Neturei Karta, were well-orchestrated and coordinated,” she said. “Toward no other demographic, except the Jews, would this be tolerated, protected and justified by the establishment.”
“The fact that I had to shelter my children in a phalanx of people to protect them from the smoke bombs and vitriol of this hate mob is telling enough,” she said.
Some attendees told JNS that the police didn’t do enough to keep pro-Israel walkers safe. JNS counted about 200 anti-Israel protesters, many of them waving Palestinian flags.
Matthew Taub, a Toronto-based Israel advocate, told JNS that it was “shameful” that the police gave protesters space within the
event next to attendees, “like they were the lead float in a parade.”
“Here we are being ridiculed and shamed, as we walk through this with our families, with our children,” he said. “We shouldn’t have to walk through a group of people shaming us for being born Jewish.”
“I found it disgusting that we are truly seen as second-class citizens,” he added.
Danny Edell, who owns a construction and renovation company in Toronto, said it was “profoundly troubling that our children had to walk past crowds of masked protesters shouting hate-filled chants that called for the destruction of Israel, right here in Toronto in 2025.”
“Even more disturbing was the sight of Toronto police walking in front of these masked, pro-Hamas demonstrators as they infiltrated the Walk for Israel,” he said. “I fear for the future of the Jewish community in Toronto.”
Tamara Gottlieb, president of the Jewish Educators and Families Association of Canada, observed that “most Canadians don’t understand the precipitous decline in secu-
rity for the Jewish community that has taken place in Canada in the past two years.”
She noted that the protesters chanted “free Palestine,” the same phrase that the gunman who allegedly killed the two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington reportedly told police as he was arrested.
“We know exactly what ‘free, free Palestine’ means,” Gottlieb said. “It now comes with bullets.”
“It’s a sign of a sick society,” Daphna Pollak, who volunteers with Canadians for Israel, said, “when there’s such a level of hate that a segment of society needs to be protected with this level of police presence.”
Mamann, of the Toronto Zionist Council, said that the anti-Israel protesters were sufficiently far away from those walking in support of Israel, although the things that they shouted were “distasteful,” “untrue” and “provocative.” Leighton, of Canadian Women Against Antisemitism, told JNS that despite the protests, the walk was “an amazing experience for all of us.”
An estimated 56,000 people participate in a Walk with Israel, sponsored by the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto, on May 25. Dave Gordon
At Mount Sinai South Nassau, we honor the power of nurses and recognize the invaluable contributions they make to our hospital, its patients, and the communities we serve.
Mount Sinai South Nassau nurses have earned Magnet® Recognition, a national quality standard that few hospitals obtain, three consecutive times since 2014. A Magnet designation highlights the nurses and hospital’s commitment to patient care and is an indicator of better outcomes for patients. As we celebrate Nurse’s Week, we recognize the Mount Sinai South Nassau nurses who achieved this high standard of care.
www.mountsinai.org/southnassau
Be grateful, Torres tells 600 Touro U grads
Touro University graduated nearly 600 students last Sunday at the 51st Annual Commencement Exercises, held at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center.
Rep. Ritchie Torres, a Bronx Democrat who is a leading pro-Israel voice in Congress, received an honorary degree and was the keynote speaker. He shared his views on the critical need to stand up for truth, justice and morality in today’s world, and he urged graduates to infuse their lives with gratitude.
“One of the greatest honors of my life is to receive a degree from an institution I truly respect. Not every university lives up to the ‘higher’ in higher ed,” he said. “Touro is an institution that does take that seriously.
“As a lifelong learner who considers words the most powerful forces on earth, I know they can create but we’ve also learned from our post-October 7 world that words can also destroy. Words can be used to spread lies and incite hatred that hardens into violence and terror.
“Since October 7, we’ve seen the creation of an alternate reality. Evil has become good, wrong has become right and antisemitic terror has become resistance,” said Torres.
“In this age of lies and libel, we have no greater obligation than to speak the truth with moral clarity and courage. That is the burden that has been conferred upon you by your Touro education. We cannot remain silent, we must stand up and be revolutionary truth-tellers in
a world of lies against the Jewish people and the Jewish state. In that effort, you will have in me a lifelong friend and ally.”
Torres also shared his thoughts on the virtues of gratitude.
“Being grateful is not merely an emotion, it is a way of life, a way of viewing the world that has the power to transform how we experience life,” he said.
“It is human nature to obsess about what is missing in our lives, rather than appreciate what is present. For me, gratitude is the ability to see clearly and value deeply the blessings in our lives. Be grateful for the love and support of family, friends and educators, and for the power of Jewish tradition. Its staying power is a gift and a miracle, its structure is a deep foundation for living a flourishing life.
“Graduates, make the most of the gift and harness it in service of building a better world. I am rooting for you and beyond that, I now stand with you as a new, but proud member of the Touro family,” continued Torres
In his message to the graduates, Touro University President Dr. Alan Kadish shared his insight on the need to tap into two traits that have long characterized Jewish tradition — adaptability and resilience.
“You have faced COVID, a rise in antisemitism and the meteoric growth of new technology. Yet, you’ve all made it here today and that shows you are able to adapt to changes around you and that you are resilient and able to stand
strong and rise to myriad challenges,” Kadish said.
“While the world may seem bleak today, pessimism is not a Jewish trait,” he continued, quoting one of his own teachers. “I have full confidence that the future will be bright and I look forward to seeing what each of you will accomplish. Wherever life takes you, you’ll always be part of the Touro family. We are all here to support each other and now more than ever, we are counting on you — the 2025
graduates — to create a hopeful future.”
Numerous awards were presented for community service as well as high academic achievement in math, accounting, biology, finance, psychology, computer science, political science and more.
The Touro graduates are headed for careers in top firms in technology, finance, accounting, cybersecurity and more. Many will enter graduate and professional schools in law, medicine, dentistry and psychology, where they have
acceptance rates of over 95%. Others will pursue health science careers as physical and occupational therapists, physician assistants and pharmacists through Touro’s Integrated Honors Pathways.
One of the valedictorians, Rachelle Halpert of Touro’s Lander College of Arts & Sciences, shared thoughts on the unique experience at Touro as well as encouragement to fellow students as they enter the next stage.
“Touro has fostered the best possible environment for me and my fellow graduates to thrive. Touro has developed in us an enthusiasm and ‘fire’ for learning, while at the same time providing a calm, serene atmosphere, giving us the time and space to succeed.
“For those willing to put in the effort, Touro gave us the opportunity to truly fulfill our potential. My fellow classmates, we’ve faced deadlines, long nights and hard choices and we’ve made it here. We’re not just prepared for the future we’re part of shaping it. The world is waiting!” said Halpert.
Other valedictorians included Yedidya Diena of Touro’s Lander College for Men who is planning for a future as a wealth manager; Rachel Hanan of Touro’s Lander College for Women The Anna Ruth and Mark Hasten School who is headed to Touro’s New York Medical College this fall; and Michael Weingarten of Touro’s Lander College of Arts & Sciences, who is gearing up for a career as a physician. News submitted by Touro University.
At YU graduation, top honor goes to Stefanik
By Emily Goldberg, JNS
Rep. Elise Stefanik, one of the leading voices in Congress denouncing Jew-hatred, received Yeshiva University’s highest honor — its presidential medallion — during the school’s commencement exercise last Thursday at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens.
“You understand that neutrality in the face of evil is complicity,” YU President Rabbi Ari Berman commended Stefanik, a Republican whose district covers several counties in update New York and who is weighing a challenge to Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul next year. “Because you refuse to stay silent, you became one of the fiercest defenders of the Jewish people in American public life today.”
“You remind us that true allies do not waiver with political wins but rise with moral resolve,” Rabbi Berman said.
Stefanik told the crowd that defending Jews “was a moral question, not a political one.”
She drew overwhelming cheers and applause from the audience, including graduates, as she recounted how, during congressional hearings, she asked university presidents tough questions about whether calling for the genocide of Jews runs afoul of their schools’ codes of conduct.
“One after the other after the other answered, ‘It depends on the context’,” she told graduates. “Let me tell you. It does not depend on the context.”
Rachel Goldberg-Polin, whose son Hersh Goldberg-Polin was murdered in Hamas captivity and whose body was recovered and laid to rest in September 2024, delivered a commencement address and was conferred an honorary doctorate.
“Thank you for being with us
and with all the hostage families since day one,” Goldberg-Polin said, pausing briefly to cry. “You looked at what connects us. You said, ‘Your agony is my agony. Your pain is my pain. Your son is my mother’s son, and so your son is my brother’.”
In honor of Hersh’s memory, Rabbi Berman announced that Yeshiva had created an Or Shel Hersh award — meaning “Hersh’s light” — to be given to two graduating students annually to honor those who embody Hersh’s character and value of bringing people together and seeing the good in others.
Not everyone was pleased with YU’s decision to honor Stefanik, with 83 faculty members signing a document in opposition.
“In Judaism, truth — emet — is recognized as a sacred principle, woven into the fabric of ethical conduct and moral leadership,” wrote the professors, many of them at Yeshiva’s gradu-
ate schools and some of them anonymous. “According to the Talmud, it is the very seal of the divine.”
“To award Stefanik the presidential medallion is, effectively, to endorse dishonesty, an act that runs counter to the Jewish values of integrity and righteousness that Yeshiva professes to uphold,” they added.
In their letter denouncing Yeshiva’s senior leaders for opting to “politicize this meaningful occasion,” the professors stated that Stefanik was one of the Republican House members to support overturning the 2020 presidential election and that she referred to those arrested after the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol as “hostages.”
The term “hostages” is one that “we have all come to feel acutely should be reserved for actual cases of abduction and not applied to legitimate criminal prosecutions,” they wrote.
A Yeshiva spokesperson told JNS that Stefanik is “a staunch supporter
of the State of Israel, a champion in the fight against hate in America and the leading congressional voice in holding universities accountable for unconscionable expressions of antisemitism on college campuses.”
Caleb Gitlitz, of Baltimore, who graduated in January with a psychology degree and participated in commencement on Thursday, told JNS that Stefanik “works tirelessly” for the rights of Jews and Americans to live peacefully and freely.
“We, as the flagship Jewish university who take deep pride and gratitude in our American roots and identities as well, are so grateful for Congresswoman Stefanik and all she does,” Gitlitz said.”
David Benhamu, of New York, who majored in physics and attended graduation on Thursday, told JNS that the professors “overreacted” in their letter.
“The honor of receiving the medallion isn’t about accepting and ap-
proving every policy that politician believes in, but rather recognizing something that they did that we are especially grateful for,” Benhamu said.
“This year, for Stefanik, it was in appreciation of her continuing to combat antisemitism across American life, especially on college campuses,” he said.
“People are too invested in politics and in which ‘side’ they are on,” Benhamu said. “They can’t recognize something positive someone did if that person doesn’t agree with them on all other issues.”
“Yes we may disagree on a lot of things, but in the end what matters is that we can appreciate each other for the positive work we agree on, respect each other in the rest where we disagree and come together as one united country,” he added.
Emily Goldberg, who received her degree at last week’s YU commencement, was editor-in-chief of The Observer, a YU student newspaper.
From left: Dr. Marian Stoltz Loike, Dean of Touro’s Lander College for Women; Rabbi Moshe Krupka, Touro Executive VP; at podium, Touro President Dr. Alan Kadish; Dr. Stanley Boylan, VP for Undergraduate Education; Rep. Ritchie Torres; and Dr. Robert Goldschmidt, Dean of Touro’s Lander College of Arts & Sciences. Touro
Rabbi Ari Berman, Yeshiva University president, speaks with Rep. Elise Stefanik during YU’s commencement at Louis Armstrong Stadium, at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens on May 22. YU
WINE AND DINE
Jamie Geller’s perfect Jerusalem cheesecake
RAPHAEL POCH AISH
On May 19, two weeks before Shavuot, celebrity chef and cookbook author Jamie Geller, who is now the chief communications officer of Aish, set out with her team (including the writer of this article) to taste and rate some of the best cheesecakes in Jerusalem.
Jerusalem has a plethora of bakeries, each with its unique style of cheesecake presentation. “We aimed to sample as wide a variety of different kinds of cheesecakes as we could in one morning,” said Geller, who helps curate Jewlish, a Jewish food website and sub-section of Aish.com, named after one of her best-selling books.
“Shavuot is my favorite holiday,” Geller exclaimed. “Even though all dairy commemorates the tradition, Shavuot has become known as the cheesecake holiday, and I fully enjoy one day of dairy bliss. This is the only time that I reflect on my time in America and fondly remember having a two-day holiday, a full 48 hours, to indulge in cheesecake and all things dairy.”
In modern times, cheesecake has become entwined with celebrating Shavuot, a tradition for which many reasons are given. The most prominent of these is that Jews were given kashrut laws regarding the proper treatment of meat at Mount Sinai on Shabbat and were forbidden from slaughtering or cooking meat that day, so instead they ate dairy.
Another reason is that Mount Sinai is called Har Gavnunim (mountain of peaks) in Hebrew and its etymology is close to the Hebrew word for cheese — gvina
A third reason given is that by eating dairy products, we give thanks to G-d for giving the Jews the land of Milk and Honey.
While Geller eats only in restaurants with a mehadrin or badatz level of kashrut supervision, she brought her team to help explore some of the popular hotspots around the city with different kashrut certifications.
Ahead of the cheesecake crawl, Geller described her ideal cheesecake: “To me, the perfect cheesecake is New York-style — creamy, semi-rich, a bit savory and full-bodied. It’s a mile high with a small token layer of crust on the bottom.”
She added, with a smile, “Cheesecake can
also be classified as a protein, so I get to indulge with no guilt on this holiday. The rest of the holidays, aside from Chanukah, we’re pretty much rolling in meat and potatoes.”
The first stop saw the team visit Marzipan Bakery on Agrippas Street, mostly famous for its melt-in-your-mouth rugelach. The bakery also had a wide variety of (frozen) cheesecakes available.
Geller’s team, which aimed to try different styles in each place, chose the typical Israeli “crumb” cheesecake after discussing with the staff what their top recommendation would be.
“Growing up, my Israeli aunt Zehava used to make this style of cheesecake with crumbs — it took me back a bit to that memory,” Geller said.
Overall, the team determined that the cheesecake was well-rounded and creamy, with a lemon undertone. It was a solid cheesecake and received a respectable 7 out of 10 from the 6 tasters who judged it based on composition, taste, heaviness or lightness of cheese and how well the crust complements the cheese.
“The classic Israeli cheesecake with crumbs on top is the typical kind that all the kids bring home from gan (pre-school), and you know there were 25 fingers in that cake, but you let the kids eat it anyway,” Geller quipped.
The next stop was Berman Bakery, also on Agrippas Street. There, the team sampled a cheese log that was labeled “baked cheesecake.”
“This was more of a cake than a cheesecake,” the team determined. “It wasn’t what we were looking for today,” Geller added.
Next came the Oreo cheesecake from English Cake, across Agrippas from the Machane Yehuda shuk. This cake was really exciting; its appearance enthralled some of the team members, but they said the cheese was far more of a gelatinous cream than a typical cheese. The cake was rated a 6 out of 10.
Following that, the crew stepped into Boutique Central, where they tried a classic New York-style cheesecake.
“This was terrific,” one of the team tasters exclaimed. “It has everything I was looking for, a full-bodied cheese, a light crust that complemented the entirety of the cake, and a second layer of creamy cheese on top.”
The overall score for the cake was 8.5 out of 10.
Leaving the shuk area, the team headed to King George Street to sample two cheesecakes from the French-style patisserie, Yehuda Bakery. One was a pecan cheesecake, the other a caramel-topped version.
They said the pecan headed toward a more gelatinous consistency with nut flavoring diffusing into it, while the caramel held a stronger cheese body and more varied flavor. The overall scores given by their team were 6 for the pecan and 7 for the caramel.
From there, the group headed down to Yoel Solomon Street to sample Napoleon Patisserie’s lotus cheesecake. It came in a small circular torte-like shape that, the team determined, was full of cheesecake flavor.
“This is a 10!” Geller exclaimed after tasting just the first bite of the lotus cheesecake, halfcovered by lotus cookie-flavored crust and half by a delicious cream.
“This is a little piece of heaven. It is exactly what I hoped for and wish to have this Shavuot!”
The entire team ranked the lotus cheesecake fairly highly, scoring an average of 9.5 from
the six team members, having garnered perfect scores from both Geller and another taster. It came time for the last stop on the crawl, which brought the team to Kadosh Café Patisserie. Here, the group faced a challenge: there was no cheesecake left!
After speaking with several staff members and explaining what was taking place, a waiter headed into the kitchen and found a single piece of Basque-style cheesecake in the back of a fridge. As the team of tasters dug in, it became apparent that Kadosh, which has a reputation for serving delicious, tantalizing cakes, once again did not disappoint. The darkness of the basquestyle cheesecake was in full play, as was the full body of the cheese itself. The piece of forgotten cheesecake ranked at a lofty 8.5. It left us all wondering how good it would have been if it were freshly made right out of the oven.
Geller said that “the inspiration for the cheesecake crawl came about as a culmination of several different factors. We were looking for a team-building experience themed around the holidays that could also be used as a cool piece of social media content that will help other people celebrate the holiday.
“As we were sitting around eating the different cheesecakes, we went around the table and discussed different reasons for the tradition of why we eat cheesecake and dairy on the holiday of Shavuot. We did some research, we learned about the holiday and a lot about cheesecakes in Jerusalem. It was a win-win on many levels.”
Waxing philosophical, she added:
“This is exactly what food during the holidays is for. It is a means to an end to get us all together, as families, as friends, around a table, to talk, to connect with one another. After all, the food, the cheesecake, is just a means to bring us together around the table to spend the holiday together, to learn, to love and to live.”
Concluding the cheesecake search in Jerusalem, Geller said, “We will certainly be doing similar projects in the future, and I encourage anyone who can do so, to conduct their own crawl or taste test with their family or work colleagues. It helps get everyone into the holiday spirit. I wish everyone who reads this a happy and joy-filled holiday.”
Raphael Poch is public relations director of Aish.
The cheesecake tasting team, from left: David Muller, Raphael Poch Jamie Geller, Kaitlyn Valese. Arianne Eliasov and Naomi Silver. Aish
The Lotus cheesecake at Napoleon Patisserie. Raphael Poch
Celebrity chef Jamie Geller with a classic Marzipan “crumb” cake. Raphael Poch
The Jewish Star will not publish the next two weeks. Look for us again on Wednesday, June 18.
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NO ONE SHOULD DIE OF AN OVERDOSE.
Most fatal overdoses happen at home. What you know can save a life. Help keep our communities safe by learning about overdose prevention and reaching out to those at risk.
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Jewish Star Torah columnists: •Rabbi Avi Billet of Anshei Chesed, Boynton Beach, FL, mohel and Five Towns native •Rabbi Binny Freedman, rosh yeshiva of Orayta, Jerusalem •Dr. Alan A. Mazurek, former ZOA chair, is a retired neurologist, living in Great Neck, Jerusalem and Florida.
Contributing writers: •Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks zt”l, former chief rabbi of United Hebrew Congregations of British Commonwealth •Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, OU executive VP emeritus •Rabbi Yossy Goldman, president of the South African Rabbinical Association.
Five Towns Candlelighting: From the White Shul, Far Rockaway, NY
Scarsdale Candlelighting: From the Young Israel of Scarsdale, Scarsdale, NY
Sound of silence: Finding G-d in the wilderness
rabbi Sir
JonaThan SaCkS zt”l
Bamidbar (which means “desert”) is usually read on the Shabbat before Shavuot. What is the connection between the desert and the Torah, the wilderness and G-d’s word?
The Sages gave several interpretations. According to the Mechilta, the Torah was given publicly, openly, and in a place no one owns because had it been given in the Land of Israel, Jews would have said to the nations of the world, “You have no share in it.” Instead, whoever wants to come and accept it, let them come and accept it.
Another explanation: Had the Torah been given in Israel the nations of the world would have had an excuse for not accepting it. This follows the rabbinic tradition that, before G-d gave the Torah to the Israelites, He offered it to all the other nations and each found a reason to decline.
Yet another: Just as the wilderness is free — it costs nothing to enter — so the Torah is free. It is G-d’s gift to us.
But there is another, more spiritual reason. The desert is a place of silence. There is nothing visually to distract you, and there is no ambient noise to muffle sound. To be sure, when the Israelites received the Torah, there was thunder and lightning and the sound of a shofar. The earth felt as if it were shaking at its foundations.
But in a later age, when the Prophet Elijah stood at the same mountain after his confrontation with the prophets of Baal, he encountered G-d not in the whirlwind or the fire or the earthquake but in the kol demamah dakah, the still, small voice, literally “the sound of a slender silence” (1 Kings 19:9-12).”
I define this as the sound you can only hear if you are listening. In the silence of the midbar, the desert, you can hear the Medaber, the Speaker, and the medubar, that which is spoken. To hear the voice of G-d you need a listening silence in the soul.
Many years ago British television produced a documentary series, “The Long Search,” on the world’s great religions. When it came to Judaism, presenter Ronald Eyre seemed surprised by its blooming, buzzing confusion, especially the loud, argumentative voices in the beit midrash, the house of study.
Remarking on this to Elie Wiesel, he asked, “Is there such a thing as a silence in Judaism?” Wiesel replied: “Judaism is full of silences … but we don’t talk about them.”
To hear the voice of G-d you need a listening silence in the soul.
Judaism is a very verbal culture, a religion of holy words. Through words, G-d created the universe: “And G-d said, Let there be … and there was.” According to the Targum, it is our ability to speak that makes us human. It translates the phrase, “and man became a living soul” (Gen. 2:7) as “and man became a speaking soul.”
Words create. Words communicate. Our relationships are shaped, for good or bad, by language. Much of Judaism is about the power of words to make or break worlds.
So silence in Tanach often has a negative connotation. “Aaron was silent,” says the Torah, after the death of his two sons Nadav and Avihu (Lev. 10:3).
“The dead do not praise you,” says Psalm 115, “nor do those who go down to the silence [of the grave].” When Job’s friends came to comfort him after the loss of his children and other afflictions, “they sat down with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights, yet no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his pain was very great.” (Job 2:13).
But not all silence is sad. Psalms tells us that “to You, silence is praise” (Ps. 65:2). If we are truly in awe at the greatness of G-d, the vastness of the universe and the almost infinite extent of time, our deepest emotions will indeed lie too deep for words. We will experience silent communion.
The Sages valued silence. They called it “a fence to wisdom” (Mishna Avot 3:13). If words are worth a coin, silence is worth two (Megilla 18a). R. Shimon ben Gamliel said: “All my days I have grown up among the wise, and I have found nothing better than silence.” (Mishna Avot 1:17)
The service of the Priests in the Temple was accompanied by silence. The Levites sang in the courtyard, but the Priests — unlike their counterparts in other ancient religions — neither sang nor spoke while offering the sacrifices. One scholar, Israel Knohl, has accordingly spoken of “the silence of the sanctuary.”
The Zohar (2a) speaks of silence as the me-
dium in which both the Sanctuary above and the Sanctuary below are made.
There were also Jews who cultivated silence as a spiritual discipline. Bratslav Hassidim meditate in the fields. There are Jews who practise ta’anit dibbur, a “fast of words”. Our most profound prayer, the private saying of the Amidah, is called tefillah be-lachash, the “silent prayer”. It is based on the precedent of Hannah, praying for a child.
“She spoke in her heart. Her lips moved but her voice was not heard.” (1 Sam. 1:13)
G-d hears our silent cry. In the agonising tale of how Sarah told Abraham to send Hagar and her son away, the Torah tells us that when their water ran out and the young Ishmael was at the point of dying, Hagar cried, yet G-d heard “the voice of the child” (Gen. 21:16-17).
Earlier when the angels came to visit Abraham and told him that Sarah would have a child, Sarah laughed inwardly, that is, silently, yet she was heard by G-d (Gen. 18:12-13). G-d hears our thoughts even when they are not expressed in speech.
The silence that counts, in Judaism, is thus a listening silence — and listening is the supreme religious art. Listening means making space for others to speak and be heard. As I point out in my commentary to the Siddur, there is no English word that remotely equals the Hebrew verb sh-m-a in its wide range of senses: to listen, to hear, to pay attention, to understand, to internalize and to respond in deed.
This was one of the key elements in the Sinai covenant, when the Israelites, having already said twice, “All that G-d says, we will do,” then said, “All that G-d says, we will do and we will hear [ve — nishma]” (Ex. 24:7). It is the nishma — listening, hearing, heeding, responding — that is the key religious act.
Thus Judaism is not only a religion of doingand-speaking; it is also a religion of listening. Faith is the ability to hear the music beneath the noise. There is the silent music of the spheres, about which Psalm 19 speaks:
The heavens declare the glory of G-d The skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day to day they pour forth speech, Night to night they communicate knowledge. There is no speech, there are no words, Their voice is not heard.
Yet their music carries throughout the earth. (Tehillim 19)
There is the voice of history that was heard by the prophets. And there is the commanding voice of Sinai that continues to speak to us across the abyss of time.
I sometimes think that people in the modern age have found the concept of “Torah from Heaven” problematic, not because of some new archaeological discovery but because we have lost the habit of listening to the sound of transcendence, a voice beyond the merely human.
It is fascinating that despite his often-fractured relationship with Judaism, Sigmund Freud created in psychoanalysis a deeply Jewish form of healing. He himself called it the “speaking cure,” but it is in fact a listening cure. Almost all effective forms of psychotherapy involve deep listening.
Is there enough listening in the Jewish world today? Do we, in marriage, really listen to our spouses? Do we as parents truly listen to our children? Do we, as leaders, hear the unspoken fears of those we seek to lead? Do we internalize the sense of hurt of the people who feel excluded from the community? Can we really claim to be listening to the voice of G-d if we fail to listen to the voices of our fellow humans?
In his poem, “In memory of W B Yeats,” WH Auden wrote:
In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start.
From time to time we need to step back from the noise and hubbub of the social world and create in our hearts the stillness of the desert where, within the silence, we can hear the kol demamah dakah, the still, small voice of G-d, telling us we are loved, we are heard, we are embraced by Gd’s everlasting arms, we are not alone.
Shnei Luchot Habrit thru Jewish history’s lens
As a neurologist, specializing in Alzheimer’s and related diseases, I often give talks on memory. I usually begin by pointing out the unique relationship of Jews to the concept of memory. We Jews are consumed by memory.
•We call our New Year Yom Hazikaron, the Day of Memory, with zichronot, memories, a prominent feature of the afternoon Mussaf prayer.
•We have another Yom Hazikaron, recalling the fallen soldiers and victims of terror and murder throughout our history.
•We have a list of “six memories, shesh zechirot,” said by some, daily after morning prayers, shacharit (give yourself six points if you’ve ever said it!).
•We say yizkor in recalling our passed loved ones.
And there are other examples.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, zt”l, has pointed out that there is no Hebrew word for “history.” We use the hebraicized Greek and English word historiya, but that’s not of Hebrew origin. For us, memory — zikaron — is history.
We’re approaching Shavuot, which the Torah says occurs after we’ve brought the Omer offering and counted 50 days. It doesn’t give us a specific date. Furthermore, it says nothing about Matan Torah at Har Sinai being given on that day; Chazal have given us that tradition, but that too is shrouded in mystery and controversy. Even Chazal can’t agree on the date! Was it the 6th or 7th of Sivan (Shabbat 86a-88a)?
It’s almost like we have a case of national Alzheimer’s Disease — we can’t even remember the date of our national foundational event, the giving of the Shnei Luchot, the Ten Commandments, the Torah! (so don’t feel so bad the next time you forget something).
While the reasons for this mystery are fascinating and even mystical, that’s not what I want to talk about. Rather as I sit in holy Jerusalem, with Sivan and Sha-
What significant moment from Jewish history is celebrated on Shavuot? The giving of the Torah, right? Wrong.
Unlike other holidays such as Pesach and Sukkot, the Torah does not assign a historical significance to Shavuot. In Pesach’s case the Torah tells us “On this day I took you out of Egypt” (Shmot 12:17). In Sukkot’s case, the Torah tells us we dwell in sukkot “because I had the Israelites dwell in booths when I took them out of Egypt” (Vayikra 23:43).
Rabbi Joshua ibn Shu’ib pointedly reminds us that the Torah never says “Celebrate a holiday of Shavuot for on that day I gave you the Torah.” We know that Rosh Hashana is a “day of truah” (sounding the shofar), and Yom Kippur is a “day of forgiveness,” but Shavuot is considered zman matan Torateinu the general time frame of the giving of the Torah, but not
yom matan torateinu, the day of the giving of the Torah.
One can argue that Pesach and Sukkot are also called “zman” something, such as the time of our freedom (Pesach) and the time of our rejoicing (sukkot). They also are not called “Yom” — the “day” — of these celebrations. But the difference between these two holidays and Shavuot is that they are each spread over a seven-day period, which by default can not be defined as a single “day of” our freedom or rejoicing.
One reason why Shavuot can never be called the “day of” anything is because Shavuot does not celebrate a historical event.
In the Torah, Savuot is depicted only as an agricultural holiday. In Shmot 23:16 it is called Chag Hakatzir, the holiday of harvest. In Shmot 34:22 it is called Shavuot, as the acts of harvest and bringing first fruits are mentioned. In Vayikra 23, the holiday isn’t even called by name, but is set in the context of Sefirat Ha’Omer, in that the 50th day, also known as the day after the completion of seven full weeks, is the day of the holiday. (Devarim 16 has a similar context, as it calls the
Although the rest of the world refers to the Five Books of Moses as the Pentateuch, traditional Jews refer to it as the Chumash, stressing that it is comprised of five very different sections, with the themes of each book differ fundamentally from each other. Genesis (Bereshit) deals with the creation of the world and its early history and the formation of the family that became the nation of Israel. Exodus (Shemot) describes our slavery in Egypt, our redemption from that slavery, the revelation on Mount Sinai, and the construction of the Tabernacle in the desert. Leviticus (Vayikra) is concerned mainly with the sacrificial rituals and the duties of the kohanim. Deuteronomy (Devarim is a summary and review — in some sense a preview — of Jewish history. But what is the Book of Numbers (Bamidbar) all about? Moreover, in what way is
Bamidbar relevant to us today and what eternal message does it contain?
Ramban, in his introduction to Sefer Bamidbar, wrote that “this whole book deals only with those commandments which were meant for a particular time, the period when the Israelites stayed in the desert, and with the miracles which were done for them. … There are no commandments in this book which are binding for all times except for some commandments about the offerings which He had begun in the Book of Leviticus.”
Ramban’s words attest to the temporary nature of the book which we begin to read this Shabbat.
The nineteenth century Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehudah Berlin, the Netziv, views the desert narratives of Bamidbar in a manner which only adds to our perplexity. In his introduction to our book, he insists that it is mainly concerned with a period in which we were led by direct divine guidance and protected by supernatural interventions. So our question takes on a metaphysical aspect. Of what benefit to us is a book which describes a reality totally different from the one we inhabit today?
vuot approaching, I would like to examine their relationship to our own role in Jewish history and destiny.
Earlier this morning we were informed of the terrorist murder of a precious young couple, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim Hy”d (oh, how I tire of writing those letters!) and later we all were dutifully summoned by a siren to the protected areas, courtesy of our latest and newest adversary, the Houthi’s. Just a “typical morning” in Jerusalem.
We never met these wonderful young people, but each of us feels as if somehow we knew them; their murder affected us personally, their families’ pain is our pain. Why?
The answer is maamad Har Sinai (standing at the foot of Sinai). That is where we stood, ready to receive the Torah as Am Echad, k’ish
echad b’lev echad (as one people, as one person, with one heart). That is where we were forged as a nation, by Hashem, accepting the idea of areivut, of Kol Yisrael areivim zeh lazeh (all Israel are responsible for one another). Just works not only in painful times, such as described above, but also in the glad times.
How many of us felt the joy of victory and accomplishment, pride and togetherness when we heard of the phenomenal “beeper operation” of Mossad that changed the course of the war. We had nothing to do with it but felt as if we did! Those of us old enough to remember the Six-Day War recall the sense of elation when we learned of Israel’s lightning victory, when only days before we felt we were on the verge, chalilah, of another Holocaust.
We are one people. When we hate one another, chas v’shalom, our nationhood falls apart.
Which leads me to another thought.
The Shnei Luchot Habrit, the Two Tablets given at Sinai, can be written and spoken as an acronym — shin, lamed, heh, pronounced SheLaH. This was also the
holiday Shavuot as well.)
Finally, in Bamidbar 28:26 the holiday is called Yom Habikkurim, the day of the first fruits.
So why is the connection to the giving of the Torah so ensconced in our heads?
Obviously we do not live in an agricultural society, nor do we live in Israel, so perhaps we needed to develop an additional significance to this holiday so that, in our own hearts, we would not have difficulty understanding the need for this holiday at all.
There are two Talmudic passages that can shed light on our quandary.
Rosh Hashana 6b points out that before there was a set calendar, any month on the Hebrew calendar could potentially be 29 or 30 days. If Nissan and Iyar were both 30
days, Shavuot would be on the 5th of Sivan. If Nissan and Iyar were both 29 days, Shavuot would be on the seventh of Sivan. If one was 30 and the other was 29, Shavuot would be on the sixth of Sivan.
In Shabbat 86b-88, the Talmud goes through painstaking detail and argument over the date of the giving of the Torah. It boils down to two opinions: the sixth or seventh of Sivan. The back and forth is not relevant to our discussion, but the fact that the date of the giving of the Torah is uncertain is highly relevant.
In the previous paragraph, a fifth-of-Sivan Shavuot was raised as a real possibility. Such a Shavuot would be completely disconnected from any commemoration of the date of the giving of the Torah — as well it should be, for the event of the holiday and the event of receiving the Torah are unconnected. But there is some connection. It is the same season. In some cases Shavuot will fall out on the day of the giving of the Torah.
The Minchat Yitzchak notes how the seven weeks of sefira parallel the seven prepara-
It should be noted that Ramban’s contention that “there are no commandments in this book which are binding for all times” was modestly challenged by the late fifteenth century commentator and statesman Don Isaac Abarbanel, then more forcefully by the late eighteenth century Rabbi Pinchas Horowitz, author of Panim Yafot.
Quoting one of his distinguished predecessors, he writes, “I’m puzzled. In this book, we do indeed find many mitzvot which are applicable to all generations and are not limited to the Tabernacle rituals. They include the mitzvah to confess one’s sins, the mitzvah of the Birkat Kohanim, the requirement of challah, the mitzvah of tzitzit, the mitzvot of not
being led astray by our hearts and by our eyes, the mitzvah of redeeming the firstborn, the laws of inheritance, the laws of nullification of vows, and, perhaps above all, the mitzvah of sounding the shofar on Rosh Hashanah.
When I confront such difficulties in my Torah study, I look for a commentary which reframes the problem in some novel and creative manner. I have compiled my own informal “short list” of such commentaries, most of which are of relatively recent composition. One of them is the collection of insights of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of blessed memory, entitled “HaMaor ShebaTorah.” His first approach is based upon the title of our book, Bamidbar, “In the Desert,” or, perhaps better, “In the Wilderness.” The Rebbe understands the entire Pentateuch as a description of the preparation of a dirah batachtonim, a dwelling place for the Almighty in this human world.
The first three books of the Torah focus on the internal process that the Jewish people must undergo to create an “inner” dwelling place for the Almighty. The fourth book, our book, is a de-
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From the BLM riots to DC shooting in 5 years
The path that led Elias Rodriguez, a 31-year-old college-educated Hispanic man with a professional career working for a medical organization, to embrace a belief in “Free Palestine” — shorthand for the destruction of Israel — was likely complex. But however it started, it ultimately led him to act out that genocidal idea by killing two young Israeli embassy staffers in Washington on May 21.
To fully understand this tragic event and the way it marked the logical culmination of a period of anti-Israel and antisemitic agitation, it is necessary to place it in the full context of what has been happening on the American left since another watershed moment. The killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis policeman almost exactly five years ago on May 25, 2020, set off a summer of “mostly peaceful” demonstrations and riots across the United States.
The moral panic about race that ensued after that Memorial Day incident transformed political discourse and culture. And it marked the rise of an ideology associated with the Black Lives Matter movement that encompassed more than just the widespread belief in the myth that African-Americans were being routinely hunted and killed by the police.
The belief in the toxic myths of critical race theory, intersectionality, settler-colonialism and woke catechism of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) — all of which became a new orthodoxy from which dissent wasn’t allowed — came to dominate American society.
Obsession with race
As we soon learned, the BLM mantra wasn’t merely a revisionist attempt to frame the United States as an irredeemably racist nation. Critical race theory divided the world into two immutable groups of people of color and white oppressors forever at war with each other.
Unsurprisingly, this neo-Marxist mindset falsely categorized Jews and Israel as part of the “white oppressor” class, despite the fact that the majority of Israelis originate from other areas of the Middle East from which they were forced to flee or expelled.
It is only by referencing this dogma can it be understood why someone like Rodriguez would wind up murdering two strangers in cold blood because he assumed that both were Jewish and connected to Israel since
they were attending an event at the Capital Jewish Museum.
The killing was carried out by a man apparently immersed in the politics of the far left and participated in “pro-Palestinian” protests. He shouted “Free, free Palestine” before being taken into custody and reportedly told police, “I did it for Palestine. I did it for Gaza.”
The manifesto found at his Chicago home spoke of his belief that peaceful demonstrations against Israel were insufficient and that the “perpetrators and abettors of genocide” had “forfeited their humanity.” It also spoke of the “morality” of “armed action.”
This crime is being dismissed by some as a “lone wolf” incident that can’t be linked to fashionable “criticism” of Israel, rooted in lies about Israel committing genocide or starving Palestinian babies.
Others will dispute that it has anything to do with the anti-Israel cause, and the wave of antisemitism and hatred for the Jewish state and Jews that has surged since the Hamas-led Palestinian Arab attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Such assertions serve the purposes of those who wish to distance the murders from the widespread acceptance of blood libels against Jews linked to the war in Gaza against Hamas that Israel has been fighting for the past 19 months.
Mainstreaming blood libels
Since that date, the American left has treated Israel as the villain of the war that began with the largest mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust and views its efforts to eradicate Hamas as the real crime. With the help of the media, popular culture and the left wing of the Democratic Party, invective against Israel and open antisemitism has gone mainstream in a way unprecedented since the Second World War.
Such anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiments are not new. They’ve been part of the far left’s toolbox for more than half a century since the Soviet-inspired “Zionism is racism” campaign became a popular slogan in the Communist bloc and across the Third World.
But the support it has gained in mainstream American political discourse — to the point where, as the latest Gallup tracking poll tells us, those who identify as Democrats now support the Palestinian cause over that of Israel by a staggering 59% to 21% margin, while Republicans and independents still overwhelmingly back the Jewish state—would have been unimaginable without the impact that the BLM summer had on American life.
The point being is that if you believe that America is racist, it’s that much easier to believe the same of Israel. At the heart of the
turn against the Jewish state isn’t a reasoned critique of the Middle East conflict, which goes on because of the Palestinian Arabs’ consistent refusal to accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state, no matter where its borders might be drawn. Nor is it really about what is happening in Gaza since its Hamas rulers launched the current war, which could end the moment they release the remaining Israeli hostages and agree to surrender their rule over the Strip.
The argument about Israel isn’t about a belief in a two-state solution that the Palestinians don’t want or opinions about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government. It is a conviction that Israel is a manifestation of racism, colonialism and oppression against people of color. That is why the mobs on college campuses and in the streets of American cities who have sought to make life intolerable for Jews act not merely out of extremism, but with a sense that their cause is just and linked to a great progressive crusade.
The effort to mainstream the idea that Israelis and Jews are guilty of horrible crimes that must be punished inevitably led to the Washington murders. As such, it is part and parcel of the way a radical BLM movement and its misguided liberal enablers, including
those in the Jewish community such as the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee (the agency that sponsored the May 21 event that ended tragically) essentially legitimized a way of looking at the world that racialized political discourse.
Not every person who was duped into taking part in the BLM demonstrations that gained widespread support from political liberals in the summer of 2020 necessarily agreed with everything that movement espoused, including its hatred for Israel and antisemitism.
Many, if not most, participants — aside from those who burned and looted city neighborhoods or attacked police in their thousands — thought they were merely expressing support for civil rights and outrage at an unjust, brutal killing caught on video that went viral. By the same token, it’s possible that some of those screaming for Jewish genocide (“From the river to the sea!”) and terrorism against Jews (“Globalize the intifada!”) don’t fully understand the implications of what they are saying or doing. The results, though, are now obvious: The Washington shooting exemplifies the fatal implications of mainstreaming such slogans.
See Tobin on page 22
JOnATHAn S. TObin
JnS Editor-in-Chief
A Black Lives Matter protest.
Shane Aldendorff, Pixabay
Challenges to brit milah are not always threats
RABBI
It seems that brit milah is under attack again. Police in Antwerp, Belgium, raided the home of two Haredi mohels on May 14, confiscating their knives and demanding a list of the circumcisions done in the past year. The Jewish community there was stunned, and the European Jewish Association claimed that this crosses another red line, having struggled with issues of shechita (“ritual slaughter”) for quite some time.
But this case is not a clear-cut example of antisemitism as has happened in other parts of the world.
A little less than a year ago, a mohel from the United Kingdom was arrested in Ireland for performing circumcision. The charge against him was impersonating a medical professional. In 2007, a law was passed in the region restricting circumcision to only be performed by a doctor. Prior to his arrest, it appeared to be settled law that circumcision carried out for religious and cultural reasons was not classified as a medical procedure, and therefore, not a violation of the law. It was further understood that this arrest was most likely motivated by Ireland’s disdain for the State of Israel and the ongoing conflict with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which they vocally opposed.
The case in Belgium is complicated.
The case in Belgium is more complicated.
The raid was initiated by a local Jewish man, who is the plaintiff in a longstanding case against the local Jewish community. In October 2023, Rabbi Moshe Aryeh Friedman filed a police complaint against six mohels, claiming their practice of metzitzah b’peh (MbP) endangered the children’s health.
MbP is a controversial step in the procedure where there is direct oral contact with the penile incision. The custom, which is commonplace in the ultra-Orthodox community, is believed to transmit bacteria and potentially Herpes Simplex 1, which can be life-threatening to a newborn.
Unlike Ireland, Belgium doesn’t have the implied exemption for ritual circumcision to be performed by a non-medical professional. The lack of exemption means that the mohels in question were breaking the law, whether or not those in the Jewish community agree with the statute as it stands.
I have to admit, this case is the most complicated I’ve encountered in my career. In 2018, Iceland proposed a ban on all non-medically necessary circumcisions. At the time, I was so passionately opposed to the proposal that I floated the idea of publicly protesting the law if it came to pass. I wanted to conduct the rite in the public square to demand the law’s reversal. I now see how foolish that would have been.
I’ve spent the majority of my career fighting the practice of metzitzah b’peh. I established an organization here in Israel called Magen HaBrit to educate parents to ask their mohel to use a tube. Suction done with a sterile tube alleviates the issue of any germ transfer between the ritual circumciser and the baby. And although my feelings on the practice haven’t changed, I now realize that there are many moving parts when it comes to religious freedom.
When I first embarked on my career as a
mohel some 15 years ago — and even when I heard of the actions Rabbi Friedman was taking to oppose MbP — I couldn’t think of a better solution. Earlier in my career, I even questioned the Rabbinut HaRashit of Israel directly as to why they didn’t take a stronger stance against the practice.
Their excuse at the time was that if they openly opposed the practice, then mohels in Germany (which was attempting to outlaw the rite) who continued the practice could be arrested. I dismissed their excuse as weak and spineless. But now I’m not so sure.
What’s clear about what’s happening in Belgium is that no one is doing the right thing. As much as it pains me to say, if the law of the land is that circumcision must be performed by a medical professional, then they are the only ones who can do it. The mohels in the Haredi community who continue to violate the law are responsible for their own fate.
But both of the mohels in question and Friedman have been completely shortsighted in their behavior. Just as the Rabbinut HaRashit indicated to me many years back, their actions
See Leiter on page 22
Judaism, Zionism and the environment at Shavuot
As Shavuot approaches, we celebrate not only the giving of the Torah — the covenant between the Jewish people and God — and the Festival of the Harvest, which marks the end of the wheat season and the bounty of the land. These two layers are deeply interconnected: The 50 days leading up to Shavuot, marked by unstable weather and fragile crops, have traditionally been a time of personal refinement in preparation for receiving the Torah.
In recent decades, these same days have also come to include Israel’s national holidays, highlighting both the lived reality of being a people rooted in its land and the price paid for that privilege.
These three dimensions invite us to reflect on this particular season and the deeper connections between Torah, Zionism and the Land of Israel’s natural environment.
They prompt us to ask: How should we live in this land to thrive and ensure that future generations can thrive here as well?
The Torah opens not with laws and com-
The flourishing of human society must be accompanied by the protection of the natural world and accountability to future generations.
mandments, but with the stories of Genesis — formative narratives that define humanity’s place within creation. Humanity, formed alongside all other living beings, is given a distinct charge: to till and tend it. We are part of the natural world, yet uniquely responsible for its care.
The blessing given to humanity includes power, influence and a profound moral obligation. This mirrors key principles of sustainability: The flourishing of society must be accompanied by the protection of the natural world and accountability to future generations.
Later, the Torah grounds these ideals in reality, presenting a vision for a just society in the Land of Israel, shaped by practical commandments. These mitzvot enable societal flourishing while regarding the land as a partner rather than a commodity. As it says: “That your days and the days of your children may be many upon the land” (Deuteronomy 11:21).
Sustainability, as a global concept, can sometimes feel abstract. However, when grounded in local context — tied to culture, landscape and community — it becomes tangible and meaningful. It bridges the “green Torah” of thriving in our homeland with the moral imperative to live in harmony with nature and our true selves.
In this way, sustainability naturally aligns with the Zionist vision. Love for the land transforms into a duty to protect it, and the desire to remain here leads to responsibility for the generations to come, that they too may enjoy the land’s beauty and abundance.
Our Jewish ancestors were farmers in this land. The agricultural commandments unique to the Land of Israel created a social framework rooted in mutual responsibility, compassion and communal engagement. The book of Ruth, read on Shavuot, reflects this ethos: a narrative of human kindness woven into a rural, agricultural setting.
The Jewish calendar also embodies this integrated vision; its holidays combine natural, agricultural and spiritual layers. The rhythms of Israel’s seasons support moral growth, historical consciousness and spiritual depth. For example, beginning on the second night of Passover, we count the Omer — 50 days of inner preparation that parallel a period of agricultural uncertainty. When the wheat harvest finally arrives, we exhale with relief and mark the moment with the receiving of the Torah.
Tending the land in Israel connects us to our story — to a biblical past rooted in both faith and farming, to pioneers who returned and revived the land as part of the Zionist enterprise, and to our aspiration to live sus-
tainably, meaningfully and responsibly in this place for our sake and that of our children.
Safeguarding Israeli agriculture through environmental and social sustainability is a national imperative. Equally, renewing Jewish culture as a moral-ecological tradition is a profound act of cultural continuity. Torah and land nourish us, shape our identity and offer pathways for tikkun — repair.
Now, in these complex and challenging times, we must lift our gaze, remembering that we are here to stay, and deepen our green roots in the soil of this beloved land. Einat Kramer is educational director at HaShomer HaChadash. Write: Columnist@ TheJewishStar.com
Tilling and tending the land of Israel.
A brit milah performed by a mohel in the Mea She’arim neighborhood in Jerusalem on Nov. 9, 2014. Yonatan Sindel, Flash90
EINAT KRAMER
HaShomer HaChadash
HAYIM LEITER
Letter from Efrat
The insane imagining of the imagined ‘Palestine’
At the 2023 Palestine Book Awards ceremony, the winner of the “Counter Current Award” category was the volume “Imagining Palestine,” which concerns itself with a topic referred to as “cultures of exile and national identity.” Oddly enough, it has a very Jewish ring to it.
The book highlights that “all national identities are somewhat fluid, held together by collective beliefs and practices as much as official territory and borders” and that “the articulation and ‘imagination’ of national identity is particularly urgent.”
It acknowledges that “the imaginative construction of Palestine is a key element in the Palestinians’ ongoing struggle.”
As I asserted in December 2020, “In the artificially conceived world of the imagined ‘Palestine,’ there is an alternative constructed history — the result of an ideological creationism I will term ‘Palestinianism.’”
My thesis is confirmed.
Of course, there is no artificial creationism in Zionism, despite the recent uptick in proDiasporic theorizing output by Shlomo Sand, Peter Beinart, Shaul Magid, Daniel Boyarin, Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin, Jessica Dubow and other uncomfortable Jews seeking to justify themselves within a “non-location” and be-
All of this is not a fairy tale but very real history. Jews know what it is.
longing to a “non-nation.”
A new initiative is an Anti-Zionist Congress in Austria. Will they adopt the claim that there’s a “right of Palestinian Return, Repatriation and Reparations,” as some claim, which is just a reverse Zionist narrative since very little of anything “Palestine” is original.
Zionism is multi-layered, ancient (no, it did not begin in the 1880s), fully integrated and rooted into Jewish texts, liturgical and secular, as well as sacred and secular observances.
•Zionism is the very real national identity expression of the Jewish people.
•It possesses a very provable past of 3,000 years, including literary sources and archaeological finds, along with an ongoing religious performance and a continual presence in a recognized national homeland with a globally shared language, ritual and customs.
•Only a genuine political, social and religious movement could have succeeded, as Zionism did, with more than 7 million Jews in Israel and millions of Jewish Zionists abroad. It is not at all inauthentic or artificial.
Nevertheless, Jews today are to be targeted for a form of “Great Erasure” (with tangential acknowledgement to Charles Blow). Jews must be chased from public venues, suspected of participating in or assisting a faked “genocide” and an effort of “mass starvation.” Their synagogues, hospitals and institutions are targeted, their livelihoods damaged, their reputations besmirched. And leading the charge are the Jews of the liberal, humanist camp.
That erasure is not enough, of course. Israel’s existence cannot be acknowledged by them.
Responding to New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani saying that “Israel has a right to exist,” Within Our Lifetime activist Nerdeen Kiswani tweeted: “What kind of strategy justifies affirming a settler colony in the middle of a live-streamed extermina-
tion?” At her rallies, she has Jew-like Neturei Kartas (who appear to be ultra-Orthodox Jews) lined up in a standby performance.
Something must replace it. For pro-Palestine proponents, Jewish history in the Land of Israel, the continual presence of Jewish in the Land of Israel throughout the centuries, the primacy of Jerusalem Rebuilt and Zion Resettled in Jewish consciousness and what Israel represents the 99% of Jewry supportive of Zionism is not only worthless and “fake” but must be eradicated from the minds of humankind. They are practicing a genocide of thought, a genocide of truth.
In his brilliant takedown of Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, journalist Liel Leibovitz suggests that “Palestine … has never
been and will never be a real place, let alone one that accommodates real, live Jews. Instead, Palestine … is merely an abstraction.” To reorient that phrasing, Arab Palestine is an abstraction, whereas “Jewish Palestine” was very real. The name was intended to erase Judea as applied by the Roman occupation in the second century CE.
“Palestine” did exist, but as a Jewish reality. It existed for scholars and historians who wrote about the Roman and Babylonian administration of “Palestine,” a Jewish country. Or of the so-called Palestinian (actually “Jerusalem”) Talmud. In the seventh century C.E., there was a Jewish Palestine. There was a Jewish community in Crusader “Palestine.”
See Medad on page 22
To reject Zionism is to reject a core of Judaism
Imagine someone saying that every country in the world, no matter how bloody or concocted their origins, has a right to exist except Israel. Then imagine that person saying it’s not antisemitic.
By definition, Zionism is the belief that the Jews have a right to return to their historic homeland, and that it should be a haven for independence and sovereignty.
Ever since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, there have been increasingly louder calls from anti-Israel organizations that insist that being anti-Zionist is not the least bit antisemitic. They say they simply wish to oppose Israel’s existence. But Zionism and Judaism are inextricably linked, inseparable and cannot exist without each other.
Here are 10 reasons why denying Zionism rejects core aspects of the Jewish collective existence:
1. Israel is in Jewish prayers: Within the 18 blessings contained in the Amidah prayer, recited three times daily, “Zion” and “Jerusalem” are mentioned five times. The Land of Israel, in Hebrew Eretz Yisrael, is referenced throughout the liturgy, along with a desire to return to the land. The Torah service, recited on Shabbat, as well as on
Mondays, Thursdays, and festivals, includes the verse, “For out of Zion shall go forth the Torah, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” The seminal Jewish prayer is Shema Yisrael or “Hear O’ Israel.” At the end of the Passover seder, participants chant “Next year in Jerusalem.” And many synagogue sanctuaries are oriented toward Jerusalem.
2. Tanach, the Hebrew Bible: There are 152 mentions of Zion and 669 mentions of Jerusalem in the Tanach, which also references the “Holy Land” in Zechariah and Samuel, while the “Land of Israel” appears twice in Ezekiel. The very nature of this repetition indicates its centrality to Judaism.
3. Holidays and holy days: Nearly every holiday on the Jewish calendar (12 in total) is tied to Israel, either taking place there, celebrating the land, growing fruits and vegetables in Israel, etc. The only exception is the holiday of Purim, during which the Jews were saved in ancient Persia, thanks, in part, to Queen Esther and her cousin Mordechai.
4. The indigenous connection: Zion was always the Jewish homeland, back to the time of Moses. The ancient Israelites (not Theodor Herzl) were the first Zionists. Jews have yearned for a return to Zion since their first exile in 586 BCE and again after their second exile in 70 CE Jews have maintained a continuous presence in the Land of Israel for more than three millennia because of how central it was to their identity.
5. Independence and sovereignty: There’s a water-tight legal case that the Jewish people should have land title to Israel, as they are the only nation to have established sovereignty in Israel and Judea on two separate historical occasions. Archaeological evidence corroborates biblical accounts of Jewish sovereignty.
6. Jew is from “Judea,” the ancestral Jewish land: The English word “Jew” traces its origins to the Hebrew word Yehudi, meaning “of Judah” or “Judean.” Judah (Yehudah in Hebrew) was the fourth son of Jacob and the name of one of the 12 tribes of Israel; it later became the name of the southern kingdom after the division of the ancient Israelite monarchy. Over time, Yehudi came to refer to all Israelites, not just those from Judah. The linguistic journey from Yehudi to “Jew” proceeded through phonetic changes and adaptations to the sounds and spelling of each language through which the word passed: Greek Iou-
daios, Latin Iudaeus, Old French giu or juieu, Middle English Gyw, to the modern English “Jew.” The Arabic word for “Jew” is also Yehud In an ironic twist, all of those times antisemitism is preached from the Arab media, madrassas, mosques and members of the political class, you’ll hear them toss around the word Yehud — the very name that was derived from the very place where Jews originally came from.
7. Messianic prophecies: Jewish tradition states that in the era of the messiah, Jews in the Diaspora will return “home” to the Land of Israel, and the Jewish Temple will be built.
A boy holds a Torah scroll as in a wheat field before the holiday of Shavuot in 2013. Mendy Hechtman, Flash90
Period columns, fallen along old Roman road in Judea. David Bena via WikiCommons
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name given by Rabbi Yeshayahu ben Avraham Halevi Horowitz to his sefer, a book that became so popular he became known not by his real name, but by the acronym, the Shelah HaKadosh (1555-1630).
Born in Prague, a disciple of the great posek for Ashkenazic Jewry, the Rema, the Shelah served as Av Beit Din in Austria, then Rabbi of Frankfort, and then Chief Rabbi of Prague. In 1621, after the passing of his wife, he moved to Yerushalayim, where he became Rabbi of the Ashkenazic community.
In 1625 he was kidnapped by the Pasha Ibn Faruh, and when released in 1626 moved to Tzfat, becaming a devoted kabbalist. He died in 1630, in Teveria, where he is buried near the kever of the Rambam.
His eponymous magnum opus reaffirms that both Torah’s — written and oral — were handed down at Sinai. This multi-volume encyclopedic work, dealing with halacha, ethics and mysticism, has had a profound influence on Chasidism years later, through its influence on the Baal Shem Tov and Rav Shneur Zalman of Liadi (Chabad). This is evident in the Shelah’s teachings that one should have “joy in every action” and “convert the yetzer hara to good.”
What an incredible concept, connected directly to our oneness as a people, to our shared experience at Har Sinai!
Despite our pronounced pain from recent horrors, we must strive for “joy in every action.” Despite our marked differences, we must work “to convert our yetzer hara to good.” Success in both of these areas shows us that history, memory, is not destiny.
That is the real meaning and message of Shavuot, when we figuratively stand once again together at Sinai and recommit to accepting ol malchut shamayim (the yoke of Heaven) b’yachad — together. Only by standing together will we will bring about our geulah Shabbat shalom v’chag sameach!
Dr. Alan A. Mazurek is a retired neurologist, living in Great Neck, Jerusalem and Florida. He is a former chairman of the ZOA. Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
Mazurek… Weinreb… Billet…
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tory days a woman takes before going to the mikvah. We count as she counts, and like the bride awaiting her chupah, the Jewish people prepared to bind themselves to G-d forever at Sinai. These connections, plus the coincidence of the calendar put Shavuot and a celebration of the receiving of the Torah into the same ballpark.
So why doesn’t the Torah give us the date of Matan Torah?
Rashi says in Shmot 19:1 “Because the Torah should be new to us every day, as if it were given today.” We cannot limit our celebration of the Torah to one night and day of the year. It is a constant gift, with no time limits and no set dates.
Avi Billet, who grew up in the Five Towns, is a South Florida-based mohel and rabbi of Anshei Chesed Congregation in Boynton Beach. This column was previously published. Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
scription of the beginning of an outward process aimed toward the rest of humanity. The midbar, wilderness, represents the arena in which the Jewish people confront the outside world, the olam hachitzoni.
The Rebbe thus uses the metaphor of the wilderness to represent the challenge to the Jewish people to fashion a “dwelling place” for the Almighty among all the human race. This metaphor was employed by the prophet Ezekiel, chapter 20 verse 35, which reads, “And I will bring you into the wilderness of the nations, and there I will enter into judgment with you face to face.”
The Rebbe maintains that the theme of Sefer Bamidbar is the mission of the Jewish people to establish a dwelling place for the Almighty among all the people on Earth. This approach certainly makes our book relevant today.
The Rebbe continues to offer a second approach. Although most of us call it Sefer Bamidbar, our Sages refer to our book as Sefer HaPikudim, Book of Countings, similar to the general public’s Book of Numbers. He questions the fact that our Torah attributes such significance to mere numbers. After all, does quantity have spiritual importance? Is not quality what really matters from a spiritual perspective?
To answer these questions, the Rebbe suggests that the lesson of the Book of Numbers is just this: numbers do matter. Quantity does lead to quality even in the spiritual sphere. After all, he argues, prayer requires a minyan, a quorum of ten men. Birkat HaMazon requires three for a zimun. And a special blessing is recited when 600,000 Jews are in one’s view.
I would add the words of Rashi in last week’s Torah portion (Leviticus 26:8): “A small number of people upholding the Torah cannot compare to a large number of people who do so.”
The theme of the Book of Numbers is simply this: Numbers do matter. Quantity impacts quality.
Thus, we can begin this new section of the Five Books of Moses conscious of two major themes: (1) As Jews, we have a mission to the nations to help make the world a “dwelling place” for the Almighty, and (2) just as “the more the merrier,” so too, “the more the holier.”
Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
Tobin…
from page 18
Trump’s necessary pushback
Nevertheless, it is impossible to imagine or understand how we have arrived at a moment in American history when the public square is awash in antisemitic discourse without comprehending how the spread of “progressive” ideas about race and identity since May 25, 2020, made it possible.
The ubiquity of pro-Hamas mobs on college campuses and the violence directed at Jews in the last 19 months culminating in the murders on May 21, 2025, are a direct result of the success that leftists have had in indoctrinating so many Americans in their doctrines. Only by convincing students and so many others, like Rodriguez, who are immersed in fashionable notions that smear Israelis and Jews and valorize Islamist terrorists, could these lies about Israel, Zionism and Jews become so popular.
The process by which the left completed
its long march through our institutions that culminated in the BLM summer led just as inevitably to the deaths of two young people in front of a Jewish venue.
That is why so many well-meaning liberals and groups like the American Jewish Committee and others who have expressed their horror at the murder of 30-year-old Yaron Lischinsky and 26-year-old Sarah Milgrim — the two murdered Israeli embassy staffers — are wrong to oppose President Donald Trump’s efforts to rid American higher education of woke ideologues, as well as to deport foreign students who have violated the terms of their visas by taking part in antisemitic lawbreaking.
If there is to be a much-needed pushback against the post-Oct. 7 surge in Jew-hatred, it cannot be separated from the false leftist doctrines that fuel it. Trump is seeking to attack the root cause of this hatred while his liberal critics look away from it to stay in sync with their partisan allies.
The madness that took hold in the United States after the killing of Floyd was more than just the result of COVID counter-measures that induced mass hysteria or the spread of misinformation about police killings. And it was more than a deliberate attempt to undermine the enormous progress in race relations since the passage of federal civil-rights legislation in the 1970s. It was part of a broader neoMarxist assault on Western civilization and the values of the American republic that had been percolating on the far left for decades.
But beyond that, it was also a necessary element in the destructive process that led to the wave of leftist Jew-hatred that has led to the shedding of innocent blood on American soil.
The best way to honor the victims and to ensure that such horrors are not repeated involves more than just turning all American Jewish institutions, synagogues and communal buildings into harder targets, necessary though that may be. It also means supporting the Trump administration’s vital campaign to punish those colleges and universities that have tolerated and enabled antisemitism and to guarantee that woke ideology no longer dominates them.
We now know that those who chant for Jewish genocide abroad will, sooner or later, resort to the same sort of violence at home. The trail of these murders leads directly back not just to Oct. 7 but to the summer of 2020. Ignoring that brutal fact will only lead to more hatred and bloodshed.
Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
Leiter…
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have ramifications for everyone around them.
Both those who are breaking the law and those who are revealing their behavior to the authorities have jeopardized our sacred ritual far beyond their local community. They’ve given excuses to the other countries in Europe and beyond to question our commitment to the safety of this Jewish practice. And as much as we’d all like to say those who restrict our religious freedoms are to blame, we must look inside ourselves and make sure that we’re not causing more harm than good, for the betterment of Am Yisrael.
I’m slated to travel for a brit in the coming days to an area I’ve yet to visit.
As always, I’ve done my due diligence to make sure the practice can legally be performed by both medical professionals and religious leaders alike. As far as I know, there is no local mohel in the region.
In Mamluk “Palestine,” there were Jews, including in Gaza.
Jewish “Palestine” existed for Christian pilgrims from the 16th century and for Protestant Pilgrims in the 19th century. It existed for diplomats, religious leaders and politicians. Their mental geography was clear: Jews and Palestine belonged together, even if they derided Jews and sought to replace the Old Testament theology.
“Palestine” eventually took an actual shape and form, which it never had previously, in 1922 when the League of Nations decided that the territory would be reconstituted as the Jewish national home due to its historic connection to the Jewish people. Arabs were not mentioned in that decision. The land was grasped as Jewish — and not because Arabs were ignored. Their countries were to be everywhere else in the Middle East, except where the Jewish homeland would be.
The territory of what was known as “Palestine” for 1,800 years since the Jews of Judea (a name the Romans used on a victory commemorative coin) lost their political, military and economic independence — their sovereignty — was not an imagined land. It had delineated borders, and Jewish religious law defined practices to treat the land with appropriate sanctity.
All of this is not a fairy tale but real history.
Jews do not imagine the Land of Israel. We know what it is. We know we lived there, and many of us will live there. We know (and many non-Jews know as well) what it looks like, and how its fruits and produce taste. And we reject Islamist replacement efforts.
Yisrael Medad is an American-born Israeli journalist and political commentator.
Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
Gordon…
8. Torah commandments for Israel: There are 26 commandments in the Torah that can only be performed in Israel, including agricultural tithing, setting aside a percentage of farm food for the poor, resting the land on the sabbatical (shmita) year, bringing first fruits to the temple and the laws regarding cities of refuge. No other religion mandates practices to be performed exclusively in Israel.
9. The eternal bond: Even Jews who were irreligious, secular, assimilated or atheist were drawn to move to the Jewish homeland before statehood, even when it was predominantly a swampland, undeveloped and sparsely populated. They, too, understood the deep connection the land has to the Jewish nation.
10. Jewish holy sites: The enduring centrality of the Temple Mount and Western Wall to Jewish faith and identity — sacred sites that have been the focus of Jewish prayer, pilgrimage and longing for millennia — demonstrates that Zionism is not merely a modern political movement but one deeply rooted in the religious, historical and spiritual fabric of Judaism itself. To separate Zionism from Judaism would be as inconceivable as detaching Mecca from Islam or Bethlehem from Christianity.
Mistakes happen, and when readers bring them to our attention we try to correct them. The correction was brought to the editor’s attention by a reader who wrote to: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
A column by Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt in The Jewish Star’s May 23-May 29 print edition (headlined “Creeping dangers of AI: A Jewish perspecrive”) included a reference to Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik as “the outstanding Orthodox theologian and Talmudist of 19th century America.”
The Rav was a 20th Century man, born Feb. 27, 1903 and niftar on April 9, 1993.
But shortsighted infighting, such as what’s happening in Belgium, endangers our practice worldwide. Until the day comes that Jews have all come to Israel to live, it’s on us to work together to make sure that our religious duties can be carried out in as many places as possible.
Rabbi Hayim Leiter is a mohel and founder of Magen HaBrit, an organization that protects the ceremony of brit milah and the children who undergo it.
Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
Jews, Israel and Judaism are all part of the same DNA. By removing Zionism from Judaism or trying to delegitimize Zionism, one is eliminating a critical pillar of Jewish life. AntiZionists might trot out token Jews to negate this fact, but a person’s accident of birth or ethnicity does not give their ignorance any moral legitimacy.
Those who say they are anti-Zionist or deny Israel’s right to exist are essentially using it as a shroud for Jew-hatred. As Martin Luther King Jr. said: “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking antisemitism.”
David Gordon is a media professional with varied spanning more than 25 years.
