The Jewish Star 11-14-2025

Nov. 14-20, 2025

23 Cheshvan 5786

Chayei Sarah Vol. 24, No. 36

Reach the Star: Editor@TheJewishStar.com 516-622-7461 x291

Honoring our veterans

You are standing on a hilltop, watching children play soccer on a dusty patch of dirt in the valley below. Hours earlier, that same field had been too dangerous for anyone to cross. What changed?

American military strength had created a bubble of safety where life could flourish again. This scene captures the nature of protection and peace.

On the occasion of Veterans Day, which we marked on Tuesday, Nov. 11, I would like to share a truth that runs through our tradition, the Jewish warrior as a sacred calling. Toward the end of Deuteronomy (31:6), Moses speaks these words to the Israelites:

Chizku v’emtzu ahl-tiru v’ahl-taahrtsu meepnahem. (Be strong and resolute, be not in fear or in dread of them; for the L-rd your G-d Himself marches with you: He will not fail you or forsake you.)

These words aren’t just for encour-

agement. They were a commissioning, a sacred charge that echoes through Jewish service in the American armed forces.

Our sages teach us that pikuach nefesh, the saving of human life, overrides almost every other commandment. Shabbat rules can be bent to save a life; non-kosher food can be eaten if necessary for survival; the Yom Kippur fast can be broken in the event of illness or declining health. The preservation of life takes precedence over nearly everything else in Jewish law.

Military service is pikuach nefesh on a national level. When Jewish service members deploy overseas, when they stand watch around the world and at home, when they train for hazardous missions — they are fulfilling one of Judaism’s highest callings.

Iserved as a military chaplain in the US Air Force for more than 25 years. I look back on this service with fondness, patriotism and pride.

Military chaplains, in particular, are uniquely called to “serve those who serve.”

The chaplain’s role is to advise leadership and provide a moral and spiritual compass in places of extreme complexity. Early in my career, I had the privilege of being the assigned chaplain to an F-16 fighter squadron. Every week or so, I would visit with the maintainers, pilots and crew chiefs just to see how things were going, to show a presence, stating, “I am here for you.” As part of my routine, I would pay a courtesy call to the commander and senior NCO (non-commissioned offi-

cer) to let them know I was “roaming their buildings.”

Each time I would stop by, the commander would disengage from whatever tasks, phone calls or discussions to escort me on my rounds.

After the third or fourth time, I said, “Sir, I can’t help but feel that I interrupt your day and create a distraction for you when I visit the squadron.”

He took a long pause, raised his hand flat and said, “As a pilot, I have been taught about thrust, lift and vector.” He rocked his hand from side to side, mimicking a plane flying through the air. He flipped his hand, palm up and continued, “But I know that G-d holds my plane in the palm of His hand — and you’re His representative.

“You remind me that I need to look after my folks.”

Pikuach nefesh on the grand scale.

The same G-d who was with David when he faced Goliath, who was with the Maccabees when they reclaimed the Temple, has been

with Jewish service members in the jungles of Vietnam, the deserts of Iraq, the mountains of Afghanistan and the trials of the home front. The battlefields of war and of personal struggle do not separate one from G-d. Often, it becomes a sacred space and an expression of our highest faith. It is the place where G-d’s presence is most real.

One of the deepest expressions of love and service is to stand between evil and innocence with the resolve and strength to make a difference. All soldiers and veterans understand this principle — with pride and patriotism — and often served as guardians of life and the protectors of the innocent.

The Hebrew word gibbor, often translated to “warrior,” is frequently used to describe service members. But it means so much more than simply someone who fights. In its fullest sense, the word means “the strong, or powerful; one who protects the weak.”

Those who have served, both living and dead, encompass every facet of what it means to be gibborim.

Just as every parent who protects their children from harm, every citizen who refuses to be a bystander when others are threatened, America’s veterans stand tall as mighty defenders throughout G-d’s world.

On this Veterans Day, we remember the service of soldiers, sailors and airmen who represent Judaism’s highest callings — the protection of life, the defense of freedom and the preservation of human dignity. Military service is a form of worship and a testimony to faith. The G-d who commanded us to be strong and courageous, may He continue to strengthen our hands and our hearts for the work of justice and peace.

Yevarechecha Adonai v’yishmerecha May the L-rd bless you and keep you, especially those who have kept watch over others. Chazak v’ematz. Be strong and courageous. For the L-rd your G-d is with you wherever you go. Ira Flax retired as a Lt. Col. in the United States Air Force.

Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com

A mourner recalls a sacrifice, at this week’s Veterans Day ceremony in the Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., on Tuesday. Brendan Smialowsk,

Extreme malice: Kristallnacht, UN racism vote

MICHAEL BELLING Reporter

Nov. 10 marked a double anniversary of two expressions of “the oldest hatred” — the hatred of the Jews.

•It was 50 years since the lowest point in the history of the United Nations, when the world body approved its “Zionism is racism” resolution.

•It was 87 years after the horrors of Kristallnacht (“Night of Broken Glass”) in Germany and Austria on Nov. 9-10, which marked the beginning of the Nazi industry developed to kill all Jews.

These events typify two aspects of the eliminationist ideology that has dogged and often dominated Jewish history for millennia. Christian and Muslim anti-Judaism sought the conversion of Jews, while the Nazis were bent on their physical destruction.

The UN canard was a move toward destroying the Jewish homeland and depriving Jews of their identity as a people using secular terminology, while the Holocaust was an attempt to wipe Jews out physically.

Both have deep roots — going back to biblical times — but they still flourish today.

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, in an address to the European Parliament in September 2016, referred to “the mutating virus: understanding antisemitism.” He said:

Throughout history, when people have sought to justify antisemitism, they have done so by recourse to the highest source of authority available within the culture. In the Middle Ages, it was religion. So we had religious anti-Judaism. In post-Enlightenment Europe, it was science. So we had the twin foundations of Nazi ideology, Social Darwinism and the so-called Scientific Study of Race. Today, the highest source of authority worldwide is human rights.

That is why Israel — the only fully functioning democracy in the Middle East with a free press and independent judiciary — is regularly accused of the five cardinal sins against human rights: racism, apartheid, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and attempted genocide.

Since World War II, human rights have become virtually a secular religion in the West and serve to promote the latest incarnation of the mutating virus of Jew-hatred. Israel’s been accused of the five cardinal sins against human rights mentioned by Sacks, plus the addition of declaring Israel and Zionism the new Nazism.

This led directly to the 1975 UN resolution and served to justify the worldwide anti-Israel, antiZionist and, frequently, openly anti-Jewish demonstrations in many countries.

Most people seem to be unaware that, by participating in this campaign, they are echoing and reinforcing old Soviet antisemitic and anti-Zionist propaganda campaigns, which date back to at least 1967 (when the Arab clients of the Soviet Union suffered an ignominious defeat following their aggression against the State of Israel).

Russian rulers feared a revival in the godless Communist country of Jewish consciousness and identification, which they felt could threaten their Marxist-Leninist totalitarian and atheist philosophy — the reason for the existence of the Soviet state.

Soviet leaders referred it to the KGB propaganda and disinformation department, hoping to discredit the unwelcome Jewish renaissance and put a stop to it.

The KGB probably felt it could not use religious anti-Jewish accusations, as the Soviet Union had no religion other than communism. Racist antisemitism had been discredited after Hitler. So they hit on the modern, post-World War II themes of human rights, inverting Hitler’s real race hatred

and coming up with the totally baseless claim that Zionism is racism.

This Big Lie was accepted with alacrity and promoted by Israel’s Middle Eastern enemies who, along with the Soviet Union, were the leading proponents of Jew-hatred after 1945. With the Soviet bloc, these countries had an automatic majority in the major international organizations, which they used to advance this claim. In 1975, the UN General Assembly passed its resolution.

Calls for the end of the Jewish state are part of the new antisemitism. The old antisemitism denied Jews rights as individuals. In its newest incarnation, Jew-hatred denies the right of the Jewish state to exist among the family of nations and of Jews to have a state like any other people.

Sixteen years later in 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the General Assembly came to its senses on the issue and repealed the resolution, something never done before or since.

Unfortunately, the saga of this Big Lie did not end there. It was resuscitated with additions and refinements a mere 10 years later in all its poisonous hatred at the notorious, so-called Durban anti-racism conference in 2001, officially the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, under the auspices of the United Nations.

The conference was hijacked by vile Jew-hatred and anti-Israel rhetoric, including antisemitic pamphlets and the distribution of the worst false accusation of the previous century — a notorious forgery, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. ” Durban became a launching pad for fresh and vicious acts — from the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment campaign to open campus antisemitism and hateful genocide accusations brought by South Africa to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. They reared their head again soon after the Oct. 7 genocidal attack on Israel on by Hamas, aimed at killing as many civilians as possible bringing Israel’s other enemies in the region, particularly Iran and its proxy, Hezbollah in Lebanon, into a war finally to destroy the Jewish state.

Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and even the PA, which governs much of Judea and Samaria, show no signs of accepting a Jewish state in any borders whatsoever and have remained consistent in their objective to destroy Israel totally.

The letter, spirit and hatred of the two Nov. 10 events live on today. Repetition of falsehoods may get them believed, but the truth is that Zionism is not a dirty word. It is no more than the Jewish national liberation movement for the right of self-determination, something granted to other peoples, in the Jews’ ancestral homeland.

The sheer clamor of Jew-hatred might at times appear overwhelming, yet it is important to state at least three positives that speak louder than the antisemitic shrieks and threats:

•Israel is today stronger than ever.

•A solid wall of Arab opposition to Israel that stood for many years now has several large holes in it: peace with Egypt since 1978 and with Jordan since 1994, and, most encouragingly, the 2020 Abraham Accords that brought peace between Israel and Bahrain, the United Aram Emirates, Morocco and Sudan — these accords survived the Gaza war and show signs of expanding to include Kazakhstan and perhaps Saudi Arabia

•Jews not allowing others to determine who and what they are. In the words of Chaim Herzog, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations in 1975, in response to the Zionism is racism resolution: “I do not come to this rostrum to defend the moral and historical values of the Jewish people. They do not need to be defended. They speak for themselves. They have given to mankind much of what is great and eternal. They have done for the spirit of man more than can readily be appreciated by a forum such as this one.”

Michael Belling written widely on the Middle East. Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com

New view from Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives

By Judith Segaloff, JNS

The Mount of Olives (Har Hazeitim) in Jerusalem is the site of the world’s oldest and most venerated Jewish cemetery. Overlooking the Temple Mount across the Kidron Valley, it was mentioned by the prophets in the Tanach, has served as a sacred Jewish graveyard for more than 3,000 years and is traditionally considered a harbinger of the Messianic era.

In May 2010, then-State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss issued a scathing report detailing the cemetery’s deterioration, warning that it was in a sad state of disrepair. Har Hazeitim had become plagued by vandalism, stone-throwing and criminal activity, largely by local Arabs. The violence not only made visits dangerous but also hindered preservation and restoration efforts.

Jeff Daube, who made aliyah from the United States in 2007 and has served since 2010 as Israel’s representative to the International Committee for Har Hazeitim (ICHH), told JNS that the situation has dramatically improved in recent years.

Construction of the Visitor Education Center is already underway, with a cornerstone ceremony planned for February 2026.

The center will feature an amphitheater on the roof, a synagogue, a seminar room, and a research library, all overlooking the Temple Mount

illustration of the

and the Kidron Valley — where, tradition holds, the High Priest once passed after preparing the holy ashes of the red heifer. The facility will also enhance existing Memorial Day services for Israel’s fallen soldiers.

Among those interred on the Mount of Olives are some of the most revered figures in Jewish history: the daughter of Pharaoh, wife of King Solomon; the prophets Haggai, Malachi, Zechariah and Hulda; and modern luminaries includ-

ing Prime Minister Menachem Begin and his wife, Aliza, Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog (the grandfather of Israeli President Isaac Herzog), Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, Rabbi Yitzhak Hutner, Chaim ibn Attar (known as Or ha-Hayyim) and Nobel laureate Shai Agnon. Some burial caves date back to the Second Temple period.

“Even the so-called ‘B- and C-listers’ have extraordinary stories,” said Daube, pointing to the 228 lone soldiers who survived the Holocaust and later fell defending Jerusalem in Israel’s War of Independence.

To preserve and share those stories, the center will feature interactive exhibits, including augmented-reality tours and QR codes placed throughout the cemetery, telling the histories of those buried there.

For donor Pnina Graff, whose family has generations buried at Har Hazeitim, the ICHH project is deeply personal. “My husband’s greatgrandmother, Gruna Taxon, was buried there in the 1930s,” she said. “She made aliyah not from Europe, but from America, because America wasn’t religious enough.”

“Our visitor center is the first Jewish construction there in 2,000 years,” Graff told JNS. “Aside from the historical and archeological significance, it is also of strategic significance.”

Assessing some of the damage after Kristallnacht, “The Night of Broken Glass,” in Germany on Nov. 9-10, 1938. Colorized, US Holocaust Memorial Museum

Artist’s

planned visitor center on the Mount of Olives.

Setting politics aside, Israel is a Jewish issue

Iwas standing with a group of students outside the West Wing of the White House campus when a Chassidic man walked out of the White House’s Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Seeing the teens wearing kipot, the man asked what we were doing there. I explained that we were on a trip to learn about and lobby for the US-Israel relationship.

I was curious about what a Chassidic man was doing at the White House and asked him what he was doing there. He explained he was advocating for many Jewish issues, but quickly qualified his response by emphatically stating, “But not Israel!” His enthusiasm and gusto made it clear that he didn’t view Israel as a “Jewish issue.” I politely wished him success and returned to talking with my students.

Israel’s Declaration of Independence reaches its crescendo with the words, “We, the members of National Council, representing the Jewish people in Palestine and the Zionist movement of the world, met together in solemn assembly by virtue of the natural and historic right of Jewish people and of resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations: Hereby proclaim the establishment of the Jewish state in Palestine, to be called Israel.”

To people who are unfamiliar with Israel, Jews and their politics, having a Jewish state that some Jews do not consider Jewish is confusing at best and absurd at worst. They would think an entire column dedicated to demonstrating that the Jewish state is, in fact, Jewish, to be ridiculous.

In the aftermath of the New York City mayoral election, many were shocked by how much support the Zohran Mamdani received from New York Jews. Called an antisemite by many, the world could not understand how he received more than 30% of the Jewish vote.

Yet on the religiously observant right, many Jews consider Israel’s secular nature and lack of allegiance to the Torah and halachah as disqualifying factors in its quest to be considered a Jewish state. They await a messianic era where a Jewish commonwealth will be ruled by a messianic king and governed as a theocracy. Until then, a secular state, no matter how close it comes to Torah observance, cannot be called a Jewish state.

In Der Blatt, a Yiddish language newspaper, the Satmar Chassidic community announced its endorsement of Zohran Mamdani and condemned the “vicious campaign” portraying him as an antisemite as being “false and dangerous.” In a worldview that doesn’t consider Israel a Jewish state, Mamdani’s many anti-Israel statements aren’t seen as antisemitic.

Meanwhile, on the secular left, there are Jews who think Israel was

born in sin, having established a state by taking land that belonged to Arab Palestinians; they consider the current policies of the State of Israel to be so heinous and inconsistent with Judaism’s values of peace and justice, that it State has forfeited its designation as a Jewish state.

The point of view that doesn’t regard Israel as a Jewish issue is shortsighted and demonstrates a misunderstanding of Jewish history and its probable future. While Israel was established first and foremost to return the Jewish people to their historic homeland, it was also established as a place of refuge for persecuted Jews.

Jewish history is a rotating cycle of persecution, refuge and persecution again. Time and again, Jews found

stability in one land only to eventually face persecution and even eviction. The constant search for refuge only begat the same problems again elsewhere.

In every new place, Jews fooled themselves into thinking that this place would be different, but it never changed. The State of Israel was established to be the final place of refuge, where no Jew would ever have to flee again. Israel is a Jewish issue because it will be the place that all Jews will eventually flee to when their current country begins to persecute them.

The newest form of antisemitism masquerades as a political position in opposition to the policies of the State of Israel. These antisemites hide their hate behind a veneer of political ad-

EDITOR WANTED

The Jewish Star is seeking a new editor who will be responsible for expanding local news coverage, recruiting and managing staff and freelance contributors, and editing and enhancing material from The Star’s wire services — all while maintaining the highest Jewish and journalistic standards.

This full-time in-person or hybrid position (starting at $45k-65k) offers Jewish

holidays, vacation, health insurance, and 401k.

Candidates should have news reporting and editing experience, an understanding of what interests Modern Orthodox Jewish communities, and a drive to excel in a professional, collegial environment.

While our primary competitors emphasize one-dimensional and biased political

vocacy and anti-oppression. Jews see through the disguise of those who hate them and perceive the antisemitism hidden as anti-Zionism.

There are Jews whose yearning for stability engenders naivete, and who convince themselves that antiZionists don’t hate Jews. Israel is a Jewish issue because the hidden antisemitism disguised as anti-Zionism will eventually reveal itself and attack Jews, Zionist or not.

Lastly, there are many Jews who oppose the government of Israel and its policies. Irrespective of their feelings toward the State of Israel, its government or its policies, the reality is that the land of Israel is governed by the State of Israel. Whatever power governs the land of the Jewish people becomes a Jewish issue. To deny this simple logic is irrational. Israel is a Jewish issue because the government of Israel manages the land of the Jewish people.

The Chassid at the White House dismissed Israel as a non-Jewish issue. His view reflected the extreme positions among secular left Jews who decry Israel’s “original sin” and policies, and the religious right Jews who are awaiting a messianic theocracy.

These fringe views, like Satmar’s endorsement of Mamdani, ignore Israel’s role as the eternal Jewish refuge amid cyclical persecution, unmasking anti-Zionism’s latent antisemitism and its governance of the Jewish homeland.

Israel is a Jewish issue.

Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com

coverage, The Jewish Star’s team of veteran journalists is committed to the highest professional standards — insisting on journalistic and commercial integrity and a pursuit of truth that’s grounded in an adherence to Torah values and a love of Israel.

The Jewish Star, serving diverse Modern Orthodox communities on Long Island, in Queens, Riverdale, Upper Manhatan and

Westchester, is an independent newspaper produced by Richner Communications, a 100 employee familyowned company that publishes the Pulitzer Prize winning Riverdale Press and dozens of community newspapers, websites and shopping guides.

Proudly wear your Jewish Star in a kosher environment … and help make Jewish journalism great again.

Kotel scene on the eve of Jerusalem Day, May 25. Chaim Goldberg, Flash90

Indigenous: ‘We love Israel.

By Josh Hasten, JNS

“For many indigenous people, support for Israel is faith-based,” Sheree Trotter, director of the Indigenous Embassy Jerusalem, told JNS on Tuesday during an academic symposium at the city’s Bible Lands Museum.

Trotter, who is a Maori (Te Arawa) from New Zealand, said the purpose of the symposium was to push back against academia, which promotes a false narrative about Jews being foreign colonizers in their ancestral land.

Trotter said that as devout Christians, she and her husband have been involved with the Jewish community for about 30 years.

“Because of our Christian faith, we began to see and understand the uniqueness of Israel and the Jewish people and have developed a real respect for the heritage coming from this land. So, we owe a debt in a sense to the Jewish people for what we enjoy in our faith,” Trotter said.

She shared that a day before the symposium, the Indigenous Embassy Jerusalem organized a march of solidarity with Israel through Jerusalem’s Old City.

She said the goal was to tell Israelis, “We understand your struggles. We know what it’s like to be marginalized, discriminated against.”

Trotter earned her Ph.D. in history from the University of Auckland with a thesis on Zionism. She is the author of “Zionism at the Ends of the Earth: A Story of Humanitarianism and Identity” (2025). The book tells the story of Zionism in New Zealand, from early settlement to the rebirth of Israel in 1948.

The indigenous peoples of the world support Israel and recognize that the Jewish people have returned to their roots, Hebrew University Emeritus Professor Wayne Horowitz declared on the sidelines of the symposium.

The event was titled “Zionism and Indigeneity versus Settler Colonialism and Historical Revision-

ism,” with the goal of affirming Zionism and Jewish indigeneity, responding to false narratives and building relationships. Horowitz, an archaeologist specializing in the ancient Near East and Assyriology, served as the event’s Israel coordinator.

He told JNS that indigenous groups around the world view the Jews in Israel as the prime example of a nation that kept its roots alive throughout thousands of years of Diaspora living and succeeded in returning to its homeland.

“Whether the First Nations Aboriginal peoples of Australia, the Maori in New Zealand, the natives of Africa, American First Nations (formerly called Indians) and others, they are seeing the dry bones [of Israel] coming back to life [per the Prophet Ezekiel’s biblical vision].”

The Jews’ indigenous status in Israel doesn’t get canceled just because they were expelled from the

land by colonial powers, including the British Empire, the Roman Empire, the Babylonian Empire and the Assyrian Empire, Horowitz said.

“From the earliest days of Diaspora, the Jewish people have maintained their indigenous ties and love for the land of Israel. We have kept Hebrew alive, which has been resuscitated as a living dayto-day language in our own days. For generations, we have celebrated the agricultural, seasonal holidays based on the calendar of the Land of Israel,” he said.

Therefore, he suggested Israel must terminate the false and vile accusations that somehow the Jewish people are colonizers in their own land.

“That has to be absolutely rejected. Part of that is working with our allies, the other indigenous peoples in the world, who have the same types of problems of having their heritage and language

under threat, and speaking together in one voice about these issues,” he said.

Horowitz said that only once the Jewish nation’s indigenous status is recognized, and the concept that Jews are “white colonialists” is disavowed, can Israel make progress on outstanding issues with other nations.

Australian Olympic field hockey gold medalist Nova Peris spoke at the symposium. Peris is a proud Aboriginal woman of Yawuru, Lunga Kitja and Bunitj Gagadju descent who has dedicated her life to building bridges of understanding and advancing equality for indigenous Australians.

Peris was also in Israel in June, to receive the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology’s President’s Award, recognizing her unwavering commitment to combating antisemitism and her advocacy for Israel.

During her symposium talk, she said she came to Israel “to honor truth in all its forms.” She said that 2,000 years ago, the Romans tried to erase Jewish identity, but failed because truth can’t be destroyed.

“History, archaeology and scriptures tell the truth — the Jewish people are indigenous to the Land of Israel,” she said.

Peris took the mainstream media to task for promoting false narratives and headlines regarding Israel’s defensive measures since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught. “Every lie feeds antisemitism, the world’s oldest hatred.”

She stressed that the Oct. 7 attack was not about politics or “resistance,” but pure evil, which she said was supported by 72% of Palestinians.

Peris drew a comparison between the plight of the indigenous Aboriginals in Australia and Jews in Israel, who both have their unique language, history and connection to their land.

“Both peoples know survival, resilience and truth,” she said. “The indigenous and Jewish peoples stand shoulder to shoulder.”

Participants in the Indigenous Embassy Jerusalem solidarity march at the Jaffa Gate on Nov. 3. Perry Trotter

Adelson: Stefanik ‘has guts to say the truth’

By Abby Notkin, JNS

A few days after Rep. Elise Stefanik, the upstate Republican who in Congressional hearings last year skewered university heads for giving antisemitism a green light on their campuses, announced her entry into the gubernatorial race, the congresswoman was lavishly praised by billionaire philanthropist Dr. Miriam Adelson.

“When I heard you talking to the heads of the universities, I said to myself, ‘She has the guts to say the truth’,” Adelson told Stefanik on Sunday, as she introduced the congresswoman, at a ZOA event in Manhattan.

Adelson’s late husband, Sheldon Adelson, “used to say, ‘Stand up for what you believe in even if you stand up alone,’ and you showed us and all the world courage,” she told Stefanik. “You had the courage to do it, and you stood up for what you believe in, and it was fantastic. You are a great leader.”

“I hope to visit you in the office of New York governor next year after the election,” Adelson added.

Stefanik told the ZOA event, where she received the Maccabee Warrior Award for Leadership, that she “stood shoulder to shoulder with the American Jewish community and the people of Israel through war, terror and tragedy.”

Stefanik, who would face Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat who endorsed Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, in a general election, said she will never forget putting a “simple” moral question to the presidents of Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of Pennsylvania.

“‘Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate your university’s code of conduct?’” she said. “I expected them to say ‘yes.’ But one after another after another said, ‘It depends on the context.’ And the world heard. Let me be clear. It does not depend on the context.”

Stefanik said that she is running for governor because New York “is not just a city and state in crisis — it is the epicenter of the battle for the very Western values that have shaped America. The fight for democracy, for capitalism, for the dignity of work, for the belief that through effort and perseverance anyone can achieve the American Dream.”

Mamdani is “a raging antisemite, defund the police, tax-hiking communist,” who “openly traffics in sympathy for those who chant ‘globalize the intifada,’ who refuses to condemn the glorification of terror, who has said he would arrest Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, whose family

history and political ideology is steeped in sympathy for suicide bombers and terrorists,” Stefanik said.

“At the very moment that New Yorkers were looking for strength and moral clarity, our weak Gov. Kathy Hochul, the worst governor in America, showed weakness and endorsed the jihadist for mayor,” Stefanik said. “She propelled him to this office putting every Jewish New Yorker at risk.”

Morton Klein, national president of the ZOA, said at the event that “there has been a generalization and mainstreaming of bigotry against Jews.”

“Bigotry has been disguised as principle, hatred is baptized as virtuous and the ZOA will fight these dangerous lies with no appeasement and no dilution,” he said. “Total war against hatred.”

The event began with a memorial for Charlie Kirk, who was slated to be honored at the gala before a gunman killed him on Sept. 10.

“When I asked him to speak, he was overwhelmed with gratitude,” Klein told JNS, of Kirk. “He was such a great supporter of Israel and never turned against it, as people are saying.” (Some prominent conservatives, who peddle conspiracy theories, have said that Kirk wasn’t a Zionist.)

“It was a terrible loss for the world and the Jewish people when he was brutally murdered by that terrible human being,” Klein said. He told JNS that he and Kirk were close and traveled in Israel together.

Leo Terrell, chair of the US Justice Department task force on Jew-hatred, told the event that “Jewish Americans should have the same rights as all Americans. When they attend schools, they will not be discriminated against.”

“I am sick and tired of the ‘Jewish tax,’ the additional cost of security for Jews to go to school, work and synagogues,” Terrell said.

Cnservative talk-radio show host Sid Rosenberg told JNS at the event that “even though it seems like the war is over in Israel and the Middle East, with antisemitism at home in New York, we must continue to fight.”

At the event, ZOA announced a new Women’s Leadership Division, which Susan Good and Rhonda Small will co-chair.

“Our women’s division mission is clear — to uphold Israel’s sovereignty, to strengthen Jewish philanthropy, to advance education and social good and to stand united and fearless in a fight against antisemitism,” Good told attendees.

DESK of RABBI S.M. LEINER- INSURANCE BROKER 917-543-0497

Note the ACCOLADES from our CLIENTS

RE: SYNAGOGUES and YESHIVOS

Dear Rabbi Leiner, Thank you for replacing the Insurance for our Synagogue, with a Savings of almost 50%.

B.F. Executive Director

RE: REAL ESTATE CORPORATION

Dear Rabbi Leiner, You and Your Experts, have saved our Corp. Very Substantial Sums, with your Quality Insurance Replacement on our Real Estate Buildings. Thank you, M.B. Pres.

RE: HOMEOWNERS INSURANCE

Dear Rabbi Leiner, Our Insurance Company Refused to renew our Insurance Homeowners Policy. However, You and Your Experts were able to Secure for us other Insurance Coverage, even at a much lower Premium, than the Prior Canceled Insurance Policy. Thank You So Much.

Rep. Elise Stefanik speaks at the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Md., on Feb. 22. Gage Skidmore via WikiCommons

HALB learning to life

Each week, HALB first graders enjoy hands-on science experiments to better understand the world around them. This week they learned all about Air Pressure (bottom left), keeping a paper towel dry when submerging using a cup.

Central’s Shabbaton

HALB lower school students were visited by The Sky Planetarium (top), looking at the moon and stars and learning about the lunar calendar and Kiddush Hachodesh.

The school’s eighth grade STEM class created their own spoon characters which they coded to move and dance (bottom right).

Excitement built at Yeshiva University High School for Girls (Central) in anticipation of the school’s Shabbaton, which took place this past Friday and Saturday, Nov. 7-8.

The YUHSG theme for this school year — Full Hearts, Full Souls — was reflected throughout Shabbaton, which brought together all four grades, faculty and faculty families for a weekend of learning, laughter and spiritual connection.

The event is “a time to come together as a community, to bond and learn and sing and have fun,” said Sydney Yaros, Central’s director of activities and a Judaic studies faculty member.

The weekend began on Friday morning, when students and faculty departed together for the Camelback Mountain Adventure Park. Upon arrival, students jumped into a full sched-

Early Childhood students in HANC’s Reinstein Family Campus in West Hempstead engaged in a variety of hands-on experiences to bring learning to life.

What better way to explore parshat Noach than with a special visit from

ule of spirited programming, including settling into accommodations at the Camelback Resort. Friday evening brought candle lighting, mincha, welcoming words, a festive dinner and, of course, the much-beloved YUHSG faculty skit, followed by an oneg and a panel for the senior Wildcats.

Shabbos day brought more grade-bonding activities designed to strengthen the sense of community that defines YUHSG, including divrei Torah from sophomores and juniors, “Choose Your Own Schmooze” sessions with YUHSG faculty, a shiur, shaloshudus, and singing. A melava malka featured a DJ and exclusive privileges at the Aquatopia Indoor Water Park.

The group returned to the Holliswood campus on Sunday morning, rejuvenated and newly bonded.

“Steppin’ Out Ponies.” The children loved feeding and petting a variety of animals, but their favorite part was walking the new HANC fields on ponies. Back in their classrooms, the children enjoyed sorting animals as they

walked two by two to the tayva, and after learning about the different levels of the tayva, they created one of their own using pom poms and other materials. Then they enjoyed a Noach-centric culinary experience: animal crackers.

Jewish women empowered against Jew-hatred

By Sharon Altshul, JNS

Nearly 800 Jewish women from around the world filled Kedma Hall in Neve Ilan on Sunday night for Momentum’s Israeli gala celebration, titled “A Mother’s Heart: The Heart of a Nation.”

The evening capped a two-week program that brought some 1,400 participants from 15 countries to Israel, according to Momentum, a global movement that inspires Jewish mothers to live meaningful lives, to strengthen Jewish identity, faith and resilience at a time of rising antisemitism and national mourning.

For many, the trip included moments of both heartbreak and hope. Simcha Abergel, a Momentum community leader from Singapore, said a highlight was visiting Kibbutz Nir Oz, where a member of her community had lost her parents, both of whom were kidnapped and murdered on Oct. 7. “It was important for us to be there,” she said.

Sunday night’s gathering drew women from Singapore, Guatemala, the United States and across Israel for an evening of music, reflection and solidarity. The program combined inspiration and emotion — culminating in the launch of Momentum’s first Impact Awards honoring women whose leadership has strengthened Jewish life worldwide.

Speakers included Mehereta Baruch-Ron, the first Ethiopian-Israeli deputy mayor of Tel Aviv-Yafo, who said joining Momentum a decade ago was “one of the most meaningful choices” she had ever made, connecting women “to their traditions and to the next generation.”

Batsheva Moshe, general manager of Wix Israel, called the movement “a global embrace,” adding that “seeing women from around the world come to Israel and be part of the Jewish nation is unbelievable.”

Racheli Fraenkel, educator and mother of Naftali Fraenkel, one of three teens kidnapped and murdered by Hamas terrorists in 2014, reminded the audience that hope and unity can emerge from heartbreak.

Their messages set the tone for an evening that celebrated the resilience of Jewish women and the power of community to heal and rebuild.

Momentum founder Lori Palatnik and members of the organization’s public council presented awards to women who have transformed their communities. The inaugural award went to Pamela Claman, who was recognized for her decades of dedication to Jewish unity family empowerment.

Among the honorees was Tzahit Levi of Israel, founder of a network for female IDF veterans. Her remarks came shortly after the announcement that the remains of Lt.

Hadar Goldin, missing since 2014, had been returned to Israel — a moment of shared sorrow and resolve.

International awardees included Cheryl Wise from Canada, Estela Goldberg from Guatemala, and Natalie Ciner from Orange County, California.

Ciner said this year’s experience felt different. “Since Oct. 7, it’s become even more meaningful,” she shared.

On her third Momentum trip since 2019, Wise described her journey from “just a mother” to a mentor and leader.

A spiritual leader and educator, Goldberg has built a vibrant Jewish community in the heart of Latin America. Since first coming to Israel with Momentum in 2014, she has maintained monthly community meetings and projects. “There were so many highlights this trip,” she said, “but the Kotel is always where

I feel the deepest connection, and dancing together with everyone, that joy stays with me.”

The evening’s most emotional moment came when mothers of freed hostages took the stage, including Sylvia Cunio, Julie Kuperstein, Miriam Gertsevsky and Meirav Gilboa-Dalal.

“The embrace we received tonight proves that we are one people with one heart,” declared Gilboa-Dalal, whose son, Guy, was freed after two years in Hamas captivity.

Before leaving home on Oct. 6, 2023, to attend the Nova Music Festival, she said, Guy had asked his father to wait before dismantling their sukkah, a request that became symbolic of the family’s enduring faith. When Guy was finally released, he helped take down the sukkah that had stood waiting for him.

As photographs of hostages and fallen soldiers appeared on screen, the audience rose in a spontaneous ovation before joining Israeli singer Einat Sarouf in a rousing closing song, “We Will Dance Again.”

Hundreds of women joined hands, singing and dancing together, a powerful symbol of faith, joy, and sisterhood. “There was so much estrogen you could almost feel it, in the best possible way,” one participant remarked. Palatnik closed the evening with a call to action: “Our unity as Jewish women is not a moment — it’s a movement. When we lead from the heart, we transform families, communities and the Jewish future.”

Founded in 2009, Momentum, working closely with Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, says it has reached more than 25,000 women from three dozen countries, helping them to boost Jewish life, community and connection to Israel in their communities.

WINE AND DINE It’s

Ttime of year again. Turkey anyone?

hanksgiving this year seems a bit different. It is hard to prepare a feast when so many are fearful that they may not be able to feed their families in the coming weeks. It is a time for neighbors to help neighbors, to give to organizations and work in ensure that all families are fed and can celebrate.

No child should go to sleep hungry in America. Remember: The first Thanksgiving was about sharing with all members of the community, from the Pilgrims to the Native Americans. It is a good lesson to remember these days.

I always knew that most of the holiday food preparation rested on my shoulders. Since members of my extended family did not keep kosher, they could not cook for me. They did provide mevushal wine and drinks and fruit, but I did all the prep. In addition, I, ever the manager, took it upon myself to manage the serving and more, so I was always the last one to sit at the table. I am sure that this all sounds too familiar to many of you. I often found myself exhausted. Luckily, I had many hands willing to clean up and do the dishes. Now that my kids are grown, they do help — my daughter makes a side dish or two, my older son makes a salad and vegetable and my younger son makes appetizers. But the turkey was always on me and I like it that way because I have learned a few shortcut, or hacks as they are now called, that help make turkey prep shorter and easier.

First of all, Thanksgiving is a really easy big meal to make as the menu is kind of preordained. Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes or yams, cranberry sauce, and whatever other sides you like. Make as many menu items as you can in advance and freeze them. I already have two pecan pies, some veggie stock and homemade cranberry sauce.

My favorite Thanksgiving trick, however, is to spatchcock, or butterfly, the turkey. When I suggested this method of cooking a few years ago, some people were horrified. How could I possibly give up taking an iconic, perfectly roasted turkey, whole and golden, to the table?

Easy.

I can cook two 12 to 14 pound turkeys in one oven in under 2 hours and then I have the oven available for everything else, so my day is actually far more relaxed. With a good pair of kitchen shears, you can butterfly the bird yourself or, have your butcher do it. Here’s another Secret. This method provides lots more crispy skin and makes a remarkably juicy bird. There are lots of sites that provide super easy directions. Also, why not try a new kind of turkey this year, a new seasoning, or glaze to bring new flavors to the table?

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Classic Butterflied Turkey (Meat)

• 12 to 14 lb. turkey butterflied

• 4 Tbsp. Canola oil or schmaltz, melted

• 6 cloves garlic

• 3 onions, cut into quarters

• 4 stalks celery, trimmed and washed

• 3 leeks, about 6 inches, white and light green part only

• 4 carrots, scrubbed and trimmed, left whole

• Paprika

• Onion powder

• Garlic powder

• Kosher salt

• Freshly cracked black pepper

To Butterfly: Have the butcher butterfly the turkey, if you are not comfortable doing so. Use a very sharp knife or sharp kitchen shears. Place the turkey breast side down. Cut up one side of the spine, cutting through the ribs. Cut up the other side and remove the backbone. Save for broth. Turn the turkey over and press down on the center of the breast to crack the breastbone and front ribs. Place the flattened turkey in a large roasting pan. Cut the onions in quarters and brush with canola oil. Scrub the carrots and trim the ends. Cut the leeks, slice halfway through, fan the layers and rinse thoroughly. Trim and wash the celery.

Alternate the leeks, celery, and carrots placing them across the width of the roasting pan in the center of the pan. There should be enough to reach almost end to end.

Peel the garlic cloves and place them around the bottom of the pan. Do the same with the onion quarters. Sprinkle with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Place the turkey skin side up on the vegetables. Drizzle the oil over the turkey and rub it evenly over all exposed skin. Add some water or broth, about 2 cups, to the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle with a little salt, pepper, paprika, garlic powder and onion powder. Cover the tips of the wings and the tips of the legs tightly with about 2 inches of foil. Cover loosely with aluminum

and roast at 350 until golden.

Baste often and remove the foil for the last half hour of cooking. An instant read thermometer should read 170 degrees in the thigh and 165 in the breast. You can remove when the temperature is about 5 degrees below those temperatures, as the turkey will continue to cook for a bit after removing it from the oven. Cooking should take about 1-1/2 to 2-1/2 hours, depending on the size of the turkey.

Remove the turkey and the vegetables except the garlic. Press the veggies through a sieve to extract the flavors and some of the flesh of the veggies. Discard the remaining solids. Add the pan drippings and mix well. Place into a fat separating cup and let the sauce settle.

Pour the fat-free juices into a saucepan and season with salt, pepper and maybe a bit of dry white or red wine – yes, either will work. Heat, season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve. This “au jus” has far fewer calories than traditional gravy.

A 12-pound turkey will serve about 8 people.

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme Roasted Turkey (Meat)

• 12 to 16 lb. turkey (for a larger turkey, increase ingredients accordingly)

• 1 cup parsley, finely chopped

• 1 cup basil, finely chopped

• 1 cup thyme, finely chopped

• 1/2 cup sage, finely chopped

• 1/4 cup rosemary or oregano

• 2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

• 1 stick pareve trans-fat-free margarine, melted

• 2 stalks celery, cut into chunks

• 2 carrots, peeled and cut into chunks

• 2 leeks, white part only, cut into chunks

• 6 to 10 cloves garlic, cut in half

• 1/2 cup unbleached flour

• 1/2 cup unfiltered apple cider

Classic Butterflied Turkey. wholesomeyum.com

Smoky Maple Glaze for Turkey. parade.com

JONI: It’s that turkey time of year once again…

• 3/4 cup dry white wine

• 6 cups turkey stock (chicken stock if you don’t have turkey)

• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Prepare the turkey and place on a roasting rack. Set aside. Place the next five ingredients in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until finely minced. Add the olive oil and pulse once or twice to create a paste. Scrape into a medium bowl. Melt the margarine and set aside.

Cut up the celery, carrots, leeks and garlic and scatter evenly around the roasting pan. Add the cooled, melted margarine evenly around the pan.

Rub the turkey with about 1/3 of the herbal paste. Place in the oven and roast, basting with the herbs every 30 minutes. Roast until about 150 degrees. Baste once more and increase the oven temperature to 425 degrees.

Roast until the temperature of the white meat reaches 160 degrees, the dark meat is 170, and the skin is golden. Remove from the oven; the temperature will continue to rise and should easily reach 165 degrees. Let rest for about 15 minutes, then carefully transfer the turkey to a platter

Remove the veggies from the pan and discard. Place the pan over 2 burners and turn the heat to medium-high. Add the flour and cook for about 2 minutes whisking constantly. Slowly drizzle in the stock, whisking constantly until the mixture is smooth. Add the apple cider and the wine and bring to a boil, scraping up any browned bits that are still stuck to the bottom of the pan.

Reduce heat to a strong simmer and, mixing often, simmer until thickened and smooth, about 4 to 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and adjust wine and cider. You can puree the gravy in a blender or serve as is. Ladle into a gravy boat, carve the turkey and serve. Makes about 5 to 6 cups.

Roasted Turkey with Cran-Maple Glaze (Meat)

• 12 to 18 lb. turkey

Herbal Rub:

• 1 stick softened pareve trans-fat-free margarine

• 1 tsp. onion powder

• 1/2 to 1tsp. freshly cracked black pepper

• 1/2 to 1 tsp. salt

• 1 Tbsp. fresh parsley, finely minced

• 1 Tbsp. shallots, finely minced

• 2 Tbsp. garlic, finely minced

• 2 whole scallions, finely minced

1 small bunch fresh chives, finely minced Mix the margarine and the rest of the rub ingredients together in a small bowl. Set aside. Glaze:

• 3 Tbsp. pareve, trans-fat-free margarine

• 1 (12 oz) package fresh cranberries

• 2/3 cup pure maple syrup Grade B

• 1/2 cup cranberry juice

• 1/2 cup pomegranate juice

• 3/4 cup unfiltered apple cider

• 1/4 cup light brown sugar

Place all glaze ingredients in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to a strong simmer. Let cook for about 20 to 30 minutes until the cranberries are very soft and the glaze is reduced by about 1/3. Strain through a sieve into another saucepan, pressing on the berries to push through as much fruit as possible. Return to a simmer, taste and adjust maple syrup or sugar to taste. Baste the turkey several times with the syrup during the last hour of roasting. If the turkey browns too much, tent with foil. Pass the rest of the glaze or serve over yams.

Lemon Sage “Butter” Rub for Turkey (Pareve)

This is my favorite “massage” for the turkey.

• 2 sticks softened trans-fat-free pareve margarine such as Earth Balance, very soft

• 2 scallions finely chopped

• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped fresh sage leaves

• 1 Tbsp. finely grated lemon zest

• 1 lemon, very thinly sliced

Mix the scallions, sage and lemon zest with the softened margarine. Rub half the mixture into the meat of the turkey under the skin. Place two or three lemon slices under the skin on each side of the breast. Melt the rest of the margarine mix and use it to baste the turkey as it roasts.

Citrus Sage Roasted Turkey (Meat)

• 1 (any size) turkey rinsed and patted dry, giblets removed

• 2 lemons, cut into thin wedges stem to flower direction

• 2 oranges cut into thin wedges, stem to flower direction

• 10 to 12 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

• 3 onions roughly chopped

• 2 Tbsp. fresh, flat leaf parsley, minced

• 1 Tbsp. Italian seasoning or mixture of rosemary, sage, oregano

• 1 tsp. black pepper

• 1 stick pareve, trans-fat-free margarine or 1/3 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil

• 1 sprig fresh rosemary

• 4 to 5 sprigs fresh sage

• 3 to 4 fresh tarragon leaves

• 2 to 3 cups chicken or turkey stock or water

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Rinse the turkey, inside and out, and pat dry with paper towels. Place on a rack in a roasting pan and set aside.

Cut the lemons and oranges and place in a bowl. Chop the garlic and onions and add to the bowl. Add the minced parsley. Toss to mix. Set aside.

Place the Italian seasoning and pepper into a small bowl and add the softened margarine or olive oil. Mix well. Slide your fingers under the skin around the breast and rub the meat with half the mixture. Pat the skin down and rub the rest of the mixture over the entire bird.

Place half the citrus mixture into the cavity of the bird. Place the remaining half and any juices into the roasting pan. Add the sprig of rosemary, the sage and tarragon and the chicken or turkey stock.

Tent the turkey loosely with foil and place in the oven. Roast until the temperatures reach 160 degrees for white meat and 175 for dark meat. Rotate the pan once while roasting. Remove the foil for the last half hour and increase the temperature to 375 to crisp the skin. Remove from the oven and let rest for 15 minutes. Tip the turkey to pour any juices into the pan. Remove the citrus pieces from the roasting pan and use the drippings as a base for gravy or as au jus. If you like, garnish with orange and lemon halves or wedges. Serves a crowd.

Smoky Maple Glaze for Turkey (Pareve)

• 1 stick plant based “butter,” very soft

• 2/3 cup pure maple syrup grade A Dark Amber

• 6 to 10 cloves garlic, finely minced

• 1 tsp smoked paprika

• 1/2 to 1 tsp salt

• 1/2 to 1 tsp black pepper, to taste

• 5 to 6 thyme leaves, minced

• Splash freshly squeezed lemon juice

Mix all the ingredients together in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until blended. Taste and adjust ingredients as desired. (I like more lemon juice.)

Fill the turkey cavity with cut up lemons, maybe a cut up apple, and some fresh herbs.

Massage some of the maple butter onto the turkey and under the skin. Make sure to get the mixture everywhere on the skin. Roast, tented, until about 150 degrees. Bush again with the compound butter and roast until the dark meat is 170 and the white is 160. Brush the remaining butter on the turkey and roast for a few more minutes.

Remove the turkey and let rest for 10 to 15 minutes.

Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com

Citrus Sage Roasted Turkey.

First kosher cookbook, in English, on auction block

By Debra Flax, JNS

Among the items that auction house Kestenbaum and Company plans to sell on Nov. 18 is what it says is the first kosher cookbook written in the English language, published in 1846 and estimated to go for between $3,000 and $5,000.

Lady Judith Montefiore, Sir Moses Montefiore’s wife, penned the anonymous work, per the auction house.

“In this significant cookbook, Lady Judith Montefiore sought to elevate home cooking with social polish while remaining true to the tenets of Jewish practice,” it stated. “Additionally, she intended that her cookbook would attract the attention of ‘those ladies not of the Hebrew persuasion’ by providing them with recipes for sophisticated fare that was only incidentally kosher.”

The cookbook includes both traditional Jewish fare and dishes that “reflect the wider culture in which English Jews lived, as could be

found ‘at all refined modern tables’,” according to the auction house.

“Given that fashionable Victorian tables were often groaning with prohibited foods, including elaborate combinations of dairy and meat, shellfish and pie crusts made with lard, the author had at hand a tall task,” it said. “Perhaps more important than the recipes themselves is the fact that Lady Judith served a message that one can be ‘genteel without being Gentile.’”

Other headline items up for sale include an uncut copy of the Maryland “Jew Bill,” the first “comprehensive” mahzor set printed in America, and the late 16th century papal order to destroy the Talmud — items expected to sell from a few thousand dollars to $30,000 each.

In Maryland, a “protracted struggle” sought to afford political equality to Jews, according to the auction house.

“Maryland’s first constitution, passed in 1776, retained a colonial

statute requiring all public servants to invoke a Christological oath. Not only were governmental officials and members of the legislature considered public servants, but so were lawyers, military officers and jurors,” it stated. “Thus, a Jew was deprived of a possible livelihood, opportunities to demonstrate his loyalty and trial by his peers.”

Though Jews protested that “inferior status” starting in 1797, it took until 1826 when the state legislature passed the “Jew Bill.” The 1829 copy, uncut and in the publisher’s cloth-backed boards, is estimated to fetch between $6,000 and $9,000 and includes speeches from some of the strongest advocates for Jews.

“Despite the fact that it was a state issue, the impact of the Jew Bill extended well beyond Maryland,” the auction house stated. “It caught the young nation’s attention and reverberated overseas.”

The Kestenbaum sale will also

include what it calls an “exceptionally rare” set of mahzors, which is the first “comprehensive” one printed in America, published in 1837 and 1838, and a medal with 19 engravings made in Germany around 1738 to mock Joseph Oppenheimer, a Court Jew, after his execution. The mahzors and the medal are estimated to go for $20,000 to $30,000 each.

Another offering is what Kestenbaum refers to as the first book that a Jew published in North America, a 1735 work on Hebrew grammar.

Judah Monis, who descended from Portuguese conversos and who wrote the book, moved to New York City around 1715 and then moved to Boston, per the auction house.

It is estimated that these books will sell for between $5,000 and $7,000.

Monis was baptized in Boston on March 27, 1722, and he became Harvard College’s first Hebrew teacher soon thereafter. He resigned from that role in 1760, according

to the auction house. “Already by 1720, Monis had completed a first draft of the grammar textbook he would eventually use to teach Hebrew at Harvard,” it said. “Because of a lack of funds and sufficient Hebrew type, however, the book was not published until 1735.”

The book went on to “serve generations of students at Harvard and other institutions of higher learning in New England,” it said.

For an estimated $6,000 to $9,000, buyers can also bid on a 1593 copy of Pope Clement VIII’s official order to burn the Talmud.

The order begins with the phrase “with malice of the Jews” and bars “possession or study of the Talmud, Kabbalah and any rabbinic texts,” and “all copies of the Talmud were to be turned over to the officers of the Inquisition for burning,” the auction house stated.

“The result was more than censorship,” it said. “It was deliberate cultural erasure.”

Jewish Star Torah columnists: Rabbi Benny Berlin, spiritual leader of BACH Jewish Center in Long Beach; Rabbi Avi Billet of Anshei Chesed, Boynton Beach, FL, mohel and Five Towns native; Rabbi Binny Freedman, rosh yeshiva of Orayta, Jerusalem; Dr. Alan A. Mazurek, former ZOA chair, retired neurologist, living in Great Neck, Jerusalem and Florida.

Contributing writers: Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks zt”l, former chief rabbi of United Hebrew Congregations of British Commonwealth; Rabbi Yossy Goldman, president South African Rabbinical Association; Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, OU executive VP emeritus.

To submit commentary, inquire at: Editor@TheJewishStar.com. Contact our columnists at: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com.

Fri Nov 14 / 23 Cheshvan

Chayei Sarah • Shabbat Mevarchim

Five Towns candles: 4:20 • Havdalah: 5:28

Scarsdale candles: 4:19 • Havdalah: 5:21

Fri Nov 21 / 1 Kislev

Toldot

Five Towns candles: 4:15 • Havdalah: 5:23

Scarsdale candles: 4:14 • Havdalah: 5:16

Fri Nov 28 / 8 Kislev

Vayetzei

Five Towns candles: 4:11 • Havdalah: 5:20

Scarsdale candles: 4:10 • Havdalah: 5:14

Fri Dec 5 / 15 Kislev

Vayishlach

Five Towns candles: 4:09 • Havdalah: 5:18

Scarsdale candles: 4:08 • Havdalah: 5:13

Five Towns Candlelighting: From the White Shul, Far Rockaway, NY

Scarsdale Candlelighting: From the Young Israel of Scarsdale, Scarsdale, NY rabbi Sir

Answering hopes and fears with real action

The sedra of Chayei Sara focuses on two episodes, both narrated in intricate detail. Abraham buys a field with a cave as a burial place for Sarah, and he instructs his servant to find a wife for his son Isaac.

Why these two events?

The simple answer is because they happened. That, however, cannot be all. The Torah is not a history book, it is Torah, meaning “teaching.” It tells us what happened only when events that occurred then have a bearing on what we need to know now. What is the “teaching” in these two episodes?

Abraham, the first bearer of the covenant, receives two promises — each stated five times.

The first is of a land. Time and again he is told, by G-d, that the land to which he has travelled — Canaan — will one day be his:

(1) Then the L-rd appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” He built an altar there to the L-rd, who had appeared to him. Gen. 12:7

(2) After Lot had separated from him, the L-rd said to Avram, “Raise your eyes and look around from where you are to the north, south, east, and west. All the land you see I will give to you and your descendants forever. … Get up and walk through the length and breadth of the land, for to you shall I give it.” Gen. 13:14-17

(3) And He told him, “I am the L-rd who brought you out from Ur Kasdim to give you this land to possess it.” Gen. 15:7

(4) On that day the L-rd made a covenant with Avram: “To your descendants I will give this land, from the River of Egypt to the great river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Refaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.” Gen. 15:18-21

(5) “I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout the generations: an eternal covenant. I will be G-d to you and your descendants after you, and I will give you and your descendants after you the land where you now live as strangers, the whole land of Canaan, an everlasting possession, and I will be their G-d.” Gen. 17:7-8

The second was the promise of children, also stated five times:

(1) “I will make you a great nation, and I

will bless you and make your name great. You will become a blessing.”

Gen. 12:2

(2) “I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth: if anyone could count the dust of the earth, only then could your offspring could be counted.” Gen. 13:16

(3) He took him outside and said, “Look at the heavens and count the stars — if indeed you can count them.”

He said to him, “that is how your descendants will be.” Gen. 15:5

(4) “And G-d said to him, “As for Me — this is My covenant with you: you shall be father to a multitude of nations. No longer shall you be called Avram. Your name will be Avraham, for I have made you father to a multitude of nations. Gen. 17:4-5

(5) “I will bless you greatly and make your descendants as many as the stars of the heavens, as the sand on the seashore.” Gen. 22:17

These are remarkable promises. The land in its length and breadth will be Abraham’s and his children’s as “an everlasting possession.” Abraham will have as many children as the dust of the earth, the stars of the sky, and the sand on the seashore. He will be the father, not of one nation, but of many.

What, though, is the reality by the time Sarah dies? Abraham owns no land and has only one son (he had another, Ishmael, but was told that he would not be the bearer of the covenant).

The significance of the two episodes is now clear. First, Abraham undergoes a lengthy bargaining process with the Hittites to buy a field with a cave in which to bury Sarah. It is a tense, even humiliating, encounter. The Hittites say one thing and mean another. As a group they say, “Sir, listen to us. You are a prince of G-d in our midst. Bury your dead in the choicest of our tombs.” Ephron, the owner of the field Abraham wishes to buy, says: “Listen to me, I give you the field, and I give you the cave that is in it. I give it to you in the presence of my people. Bury your dead.”

As the narrative makes clear, this elaborate generosity is a façade for some extremely hard bargaining. Abraham knows he is “an alien and a stranger among you,” meaning, among other things, that he has no right to own land. That is the force of their reply which, stripped of its overlay of courtesy, means: “Use one of our burial sites. You may not acquire your own.”

Abraham is not deterred. He insists that he wants to buy his own. Ephron’s reply — “It is yours. I give it to you” — is in fact the prelude to a demand for an inflated price: 400 silver shekels.

At last, however, Abraham owns the land. The final transfer of ownership is recorded in precise legal prose (Gen. 23:17-20) to signal that, at last, Abraham owns part of the land. It is a small part: one field and a cave. A burial place, bought at great expense. That is the entirety of the Divine promise of the land that Abraham will see in his lifetime.

The next chapter, one of the longest in the Mosaic books, tells of Abraham’s concern that Isaac should have a wife. He is – we must assume — at least 37 years old (his age at Sarah’s death) and still unmarried. Abraham has a child but no grandchild —no posterity. As with the purchase of the cave, so here: acquiring a daughter-in-law will take much money and hard negotiation.

The servant, on arriving in the vicinity of Abraham’s family, immediately finds the girl, Rebecca, before he has even finished praying for G-d’s help to find her. Securing her release from her family is another matter. He brings out gold, silver, and clothing for the girl. He gives her brother and mother costly gifts. The family have a celebratory meal. But when the servant wants to leave, brother and mother say, “Let the girl stay with us for another year or ten [months].”

Laban, Rebecca’s brother, plays a role not unlike that of Ephron: the show of generosity conceals a tough, even exploitative, determination to make a profitable deal. Eventually patience pays off. Rebecca leaves. Isaac marries her. The covenant will continue.

These are, then, no minor episodes. They tell a difficult story. Yes, Abraham will have a land. He will have countless children. But these things will not happen soon, or suddenly, or easily. Nor will they occur without human effort. To the contrary, only the most focused willpower will bring them about.

The Divine promise is not what it first seemed: a statement that G-d will act. It is in fact a request, an invitation, from G-d to Abraham and his children that they should act. G-d will help them. The outcome will be what G-d said it would. But not without total commitment from Abraham’s family against what will sometimes seem to be insuperable obstacles.

A land: Israel. And children: Jewish continuity. The astonishing fact is that today, four thousand years later, they remain the dominant concerns of Jews throughout the world — the safety and security of Israel as the Jewish home, and the future of the Jewish people. Abraham’s hopes and fears are ours. (Is there any other people, I wonder, whose concerns today are what they were four millennia ago? The identity through time is awe-inspiring.)

Now as then, the Divine promise does not mean that we can leave the future to G-d. That idea has no place in the imaginative world of the first book of the Torah. To the contrary: the covenant is G-d’s challenge to us, not ours to G-d. The meaning of the events of Chayei Sarais that Abraham realized that G-d was depending on him.

Faith does not mean passivity. It means the courage to act and never to be deterred. The future will happen, but it is we — inspired, empowered, given strength by the promise — who must bring it about.

Growing old, in age and satisfaction with life

Back in high school, I had a friend who purposely got questions wrong on tests to stay in the lower track. I watched him breeze through school with almost no stress. I wondered why I was sweating while he coasted along.

Years later, we spoke about it. In a moment of honesty, he told me he regrets doing that. He would never want his own children to purposely hold themselves back just to stay comfortable.

Comfort feels good in the moment, but real satisfaction comes from pushing through challenges. Charlie Harary once shared a story that speaks to this and connects to our parsha, Chayei Sarah.

In a talk to college students, he spoke about a husband and wife who got into a fight on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. She left to carpool. He went to work in the South Tower of the World Trade Center. She was still running errands, and he was at his desk when the second plane hit 15 floors below his office.

He realized he had minutes left to live. What did he do?

He called home and left a message. “Honey, I am the luckiest man alive for having been your husband for these years. Whatever I have ever

Sarah Cohen, age 91, was having some health issues and went to see her doctor.

“What should I tell you, Mrs Cohen?” said the doctor. “I can’t make you any younger.”

“Doctor,” said Sarah, “I don’t want you should make me younger. I need you to make me older!”

“And Abraham was old, well on in years,” we read in this week’s Torah portion, Chayei Sarah. And the obvious question is that the phrase seems rather redundant. “Old” and “well on in years” seem to mean the same thing. We know

the Torah is never repetitious and not a single word is superfluous. So, why the need for both expressions?

Commentary explains that old is a biological term, while “on in years” refers to the accomplishments of the person in their many years of life. “On in years” means that the person’s years were well spent.

Some people live long lives, but don’t use their time on earth very wisely. Others achieve a great deal in a relatively short span of time. Abraham had many years, and his years were richly endowed, full and filled with an abundance of significant achievements.

Are we living or merely existing? Some people are blessed with very long lives, but are they alive and fruitful, or are they simply vegetating? Like the fellow whose tombstone

done to make you unhappy, I regret it now. You are the greatest thing G-d ever gave me. Just turn on the TV and know that I will love you forever.”

Charlie then challenged the students. Do not wait for tragedy to say what matters. Make the difficult call now. Take the uncomfortable step. Some students called their parents, others called siblings, some friends.

When they returned, Charlie asked if anyone wanted to share. One young woman raised her hand. She said she called her father. Their relationship had been strained for

years, filled with distance and frustration. She told him she loved him and that she was sorry. Everyone expected a heartwarming reconciliation. Instead, her father angrily hung up. The room went silent. When Charlie asked how she felt, she said, “I feel amazing. For years, I believed the broken relationship was my fault. Today, I did something about it.”

She didn’t hurt her father by calling. She revealed a hurt that was already there and chose to stop pretending it didn’t exist. Maybe things are still broken, but she took a step and pushed things in the right direction. That felt incredible. In Chayei Sara, we say goodbye to Avraham Avinu. The Torah describes his passing: And Avraham expired and died in a good old

epitaph read, “Died at 60. Buried at 90.”

The Torah, therefore, teaches us that Abraham’s years were filled with quantity and quality. As Benjamin Franklin said, “A long life may not be good enough, but a good life is long enough.”

Back in 1980, the Lubavitcher Rebbe launched an initiative to establish kollels specifically for senior citizens. He argued that after retirement, older people had a lot of time on their hands, and it was all too often being wasted. These Studies for Seniors programs mushroomed all over the world, providing learning

opportunities and keeping older people meaningfully and happily occupied while enjoying newfound satisfaction and contentment.

I personally established the kollel for senior citizens in Johannesburg when I was the director of the Chabad House. I still remember receiving a phone call one day from a woman who told me, “Rabbi, you saved my father’s life!” I was stunned. How did I save his life?

She explained that before joining the Studies for Seniors program, her father would walk around in his payjamas all morning just waiting for lunch. He had nothing to do and little to look forward to. But no sooner had he enrolled in the program than he was like a new man. He was dressed and ready to go at the crack of dawn. Eager and brimming with anticipation, he not only

Handwriting on the wall is clearer than ever

The Vilna Gaon (the Gr”a) said that “everything is in the Torah.” He confirms what Ben Bag-Bag said in Pirkei Avot centuries earlier: “Turn it over, turn it over, for everything is in it.”

In that regard, how many of us know where the well-known saying “the handwriting is on the wall” comes from? As my preamble suggests, it comes from the Torah (specifically the Tanach in sefer Daniel, 5:25).

In Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylonia, dies and his grandson, Belshazzar, becomes king. While Nebuchadnezzar had been vicious and evil and was responsible for the destruction of Jerusalem and the Holy Temple, he still believed that “G-d rules.”

Belshazzar on the other hand, was arrogant against G-d. During a wild party in which he and his court drank from the holy golden vessels stolen from the Temple, a disembodied hand appears on the wall and inscribes an Aramaic inscription (most of Daniel is in Aramaic) that says, “Mene, Mene, Tekel u’Pharsin.”

Belshazzar is clueless to its meaning, until Daniel explains it to him and prophesizes Belshazzar’s downfall. Each word is significant: “Mene, Mene” (you, Belshazzar, and your reign

Jews live their lives within the framework of the Jewish calendar. At this time of year, we identify strongly with the narratives contained in the weekly Torah portions that we read in the synagogue. Our thoughts are with the biblical characters of the current parshiyot, Chayei Sarah — Abraham and Sarah, Lot, Hagar and Ishmael, and Isaac and Rivkah.

If we are not thinking of the heroes and villains of the parsha of the week, we have an alter-

native. We can turn our thoughts to the recent holidays or to the ones which we shall soon celebrate. The holiday of Sukkot is now part of the rapidly fading past, so we might be thinking of Chanukah, which is but a few weeks away. We are certainly not yet thinking of Purim.

The list of biblical heroines whose stories delight our children and inspire us at this time of year does not yet include Queen Esther. In this week’s Torah portion, Chayei Sara, we do encounter two queenly women. We mourn the death of the matriarch Sarah, and we admire Rivkah’s ability to live up to the spiritual standards of the mother-in-law she never met.

But Esther? There is neither trace nor hint of her existence.

So why would I be writing about Esther at

will be counted); “Tekel” (weighed and judged as if on the scales of justice; “u’Pharsin” (you and your empire will be torn apart and distributed to the new empire of Persia and Medea.

Last week’s election of Zohran Mamdani was “the handwriting on the wall” — we Jews (as a people and as individuals) are no longer welcome here. Which brings us to this week’s parsha, Chayei Sarah. We are like Avraham Avinu, a ger v’toshav

(an alien and a resident). As Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik put it, “the Jew is a resident of his country, and as such he must work and pray for its welfare, as Jeremiah urged his people on the threshold of exile. But on the other hand, the Jew in this world is always an alien, for his allegiance is to G-d and his goals are set forth by the Torah. A Jew must always be ready to be a lonely alien, resisting the culture that surrounds him and maintaining his unique responsibility.”

But Avraham Avinu had the respect of his neighbors. We do not.

And despite that, he was still required to pay an exorbitant amount of money to purchase the kever for his beloved Sarah. It is one

Tthis time of year? Purim is still many months away, and there are other female role models in the current Torah portions. Even Chanukah, which occurs much sooner than Purim, features feminine heroines such as Yehudit. Where does Esther shine in?

For the answer let us turn to the Midrash and to that singular sage, Rabbi Akiva. We know that Rabbi Akiva lived a remarkable life, underwent many changes, became a preeminent Torah scholar, and died a martyr.

he Midrash introduces us to Rabbi Akiva in reference to the first verse in this week’s Torah portion. It is a verse which seems to require no exegesis, simply saying, “Sarah’s lifetime — the span of Sarah’s life — came to 127 years.” What further explanation or commentary is necessary? She lived a long and productive life. What more is there to say?

To answer this, we must remember that Rabbi Akiva was, first and foremost, a teacher. Some students paid attention to his lectures some of the time, but few, if any, listened attentively to every lecture. Like every teacher before and since, Rabbi Akiva had to devise methods to gain the attention of his disciples.

So the Midrash takes us into Rabbi Akiva’s classroom.

Published weekly except during certain religious and civil holidays by The Jewish Star LLC New York City office: 5676 Riverdale Ave Suite 311, Bronx NY 10471 • LI office: 2 Endo Blvd, Garden City NY 11530 Here’s how to reach The Jewish Star — Write: Editor@TheJewishStar.com. Call: 516-622-7461 ext 291

Editor & Publisher: Ed Weintrob

516-622-7461 ext 291

Jewish Star Associate: Nechama Bluth

516-622-7461 ext 241

Content: The Publisher endeavors to ensure that our content is within the bounds of normative halachah and hashkafah. Anyone who feels anything we publish may be inappropriate in this regard is urged to bring the item in question to the attention of the Publisher. Advertising is accepted at the sole discretion of the Publisher and should conform to standards appropriate for distribution in an Orthodox community. Send us your news! Editor@TheJewishStar.com

Advertising: Publisher@TheJewishStar.com

Kashrut: The Jewish Star is not responsible for the

kashrut of any product or establishment featured in its pages. If you have questions regarding any establishment or product, including its supervision, please consult your rabbi for guidance.

Submissions: All submissions become the property of The Jewish Star and may be edited and used by the Publisher, its licensees and affiliates, in print, on the web and/or in any media that now exists or will exist in the future in any form, including derivative works, throughout the world in perpetuity, without additional authorization or compensation. The individual or entity submitting material affirms that it holds the copyright or otherwise has the right to authorize its use in accordance with The Jewish Star’s terms for submissions.

Opinions: Views expressed by columnists and other writers do not necessarily reflect the position of the Publisher or of The Jewish Star LLC.

Distribution: The Jewish Star is available free in kosher food establishments, stores, synagogues, and curb-side newsboxes on Long Island, in New York City and elsewhere. To request free delivery to your location, write Publisher@TheJewishStar.com.

Copyright: All content is copyright and may not be republished or otherwise reproduced without written permission by The Jewish Star; to do so without permission is against the law and halacha. For content reproduction write to Publisher@TheJewishStar.com.

The Jewish Star subscribes to JNS. It, or its contributors, own the copyrights on material attributed to them. The length and content of JNS material and all other submitted material may be edited by The Jewish Star.

Member: American Jewish Press Association.

This newspaper contains words of Torah. While it is not considered shaimos, please dispose properly.

OPINION COLUMNISTS

Mitchell Bard, foreign policy analyst, authority on USIsreal relations; Ben Cohen, senior analyst, Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Stephen Flatow, president, Religious Zionists of America-Mizrachi and father of Alisa Flatow, murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995; Yisrael Medad, Americanborn Israeli journalist and political commentator; Rafael Medoff, founding director of David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies; Fiamma Nirenstein, Italian-Israeli journalist, author of 13 books, leading voice on Israeli affairs, Middle Eastern politics and antisemitism; Melanie Phillips, British journalist; Moshe Phillips, national chairman, Americans for a Safe Israel; Thane Rosenbaum, Distinguished University Professor at Touro University (published by Jewish Journal); Jonathan S. Tobin, editor-in-chief, Jewish News Syndicate.

‘Nuremberg’ and a failure of international law

In the two years since the Hamas-led Palestinian Arab attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, international law — a body of legal rules and cases that largely has its origins in the Nuremberg tribunals that followed the defeat of the Nazis in the Second World War — has been a constant topic of worldwide discourse. That orgy of murder, rape, torture, kidnapping and wanton destruction was the largest mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. And like the Holocaust, it engendered a discussion about the application of such law to mete out justice to the guilty.

But faith in the idea that the civilized world could unite to create a new era of collective security and global justice that characterized the creation of the United Nations and the Nuremberg trials has been largely proven unfounded in the 80 years since the top Nazis went on trial in 1946.

Can anyone be a Nazi?

That historic event is the subject of a new film, “Nuremburg” directed by James Vanderbilt and headlined by appearances by actors Russell Crowe, Michael Shannon and Rami Malek. Though it is a historical drama, the basic conceit of the film is summed up in the final words of Malek’s character, US Army psychiatrist Dr. Douglas Kelley, who administered tests to and attempted to diagnose the first 22 Nazis put on trial, who says, “If you think the next time it happens, we’re going to recognize it because they’re wearing scary uniforms, you’re out of your damn mind.”

In other words, anyone can be a Nazi war criminal, and in 2025, the most popular application of that belief is to the people of Israel. Though the genocidal intentions toward

their Jewish victims of the Palestinians, who were responsible for the civilian massacre and kidnapping on Oct. 7, brought to mind those of the Nazis, the international legal establishment has not shown much interest in prosecuting the perpetrators. Instead, the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice, both in The Hague, devoted their attention to prosecuting the Israelis who had been attacked.

Israel’s efforts are much like those of the Allied powers that fought and defeated Nazi Germany and its allies. The Allied victory came at a fearsome cost to their own people: the German forces and civilians.

The war waged by the Jewish state to ensure that the Oct. 7 criminals could not continue their reign of terror has actually been conducted with far more concern for avoiding civilian casualties than the campaigns in the air and on land fought by the United States, Britain, and especially, the Soviet Union.

Indeed, the proceedings of the ICC and the ICJ have been largely farcical shows that said more about the moral bankruptcy of the contemporary, so-called “human rights” organizations and legal institutions than anything else. The one-sided kangaroo court proceedings that led to indictments of Israeli leaders by the ICC were a travesty. The behavior of those involved went a long way to discrediting the entire concept, which was largely inaugurated by the Nuremberg trials.

What we have learned is something that has always been obvious since 1946. International law is a loose set of ideas that can mean whatever those countries or individuals that are attempting to impose it on the world declare it means. Which is to say, when it is applied by those who waged a just war against Adolf Hitler’s criminal regime, the attempt to articulate standards and rules has some credibility. But if those posing as judges and prosecutors are, instead, guided more by prejudice — and, as it happens, some of the same antisemitic prejudices as the Nazis themselves — then the results aren’t going to be anything that resembles justice.

A new film argues we’re all capable of Nazi-like crimes. But justice for atrocities still depends on who is doing the judging.

In a way, that makes it an appropriate time to re-examine what happened in Nuremberg.

More than ‘victor’s justice?’

This widely promoted movie is clearly intended as the sort of blockbuster that is talked about as “Oscar-bait.” Unfortunately, it’s a mishmash of bad ideas, poor writing and sometimes embarrassing performances, and falls well short of the pre-opening buzz that was generated by its producers — let alone the achievement of the most important previous cinematic effort to discuss the trials, the star-studded 1961 classic “Judgement at Nuremberg.”

That Stanley Kramer film was a deeply serious attempt to ponder whether the postwar accounting for the Nazis’ crimes could be anything more than, as the defendants claimed, “victor’s justice,” rather than a precedent that could set down guidelines that might help the world deter more Holocausts or render justice when mass atrocities were committed in the future.

The significance of this 2025 “Nuremberg” lies more in its ham-handed effort to promote a certain universalist idea about international justice and crimes against humanity than in any disappointment about the script, direction and performances.

At its core is an attempt to focus on Kelley, a minor participant in the first Nuremberg trials, who wrote a book about his experiences and

then, despite a distinguished medical career, descended into depression and alcoholism before committing suicide in 1958.

The film depicts Kelley’s supposed journey from suspicion and a cynical desire to exploit his role in the trial to make money to one of some sympathy for and genuine interest in shrinking the head of the most important of the Nazi elites to be put on trial: Hermann Göering, played by Russel Crowe, who employs a rather unconvincing German accent and even in his current incarnation as a plump middle-aged man doesn’t much resemble the morbidly obese second-incommand of the Third Reich.

Among the many unpersuasive theatrical devices thrown into a story that was dramatic enough without the extra sauce is the idea that Kelley’s insights were crucial to breaking down Göering when he was called to testify, and obtaining his conviction and that of the other top Nazis.

That is patently absurd. There was never the slightest chance that the four-nation tribunal of American, British, French, and especially vengeful Soviet judges, who are given short shrift in the movie, were going to acquit Göering or any of the other top Nazis of the most important charges relating to crimes against peace and conspiracy to wage aggressive war (though not all, including Adm. Karl Donitz, the head of the

Russell Crowe as Hermann Göering in the 2025 film “Nuremberg.” Scott Garfield, Sony Pictures Classics

JONATHAN S. TObIN

JNS Editor-in-Chief

Reality bites the Jewish opponents of Zionism

GLOBAL FOCUS BEN COHEN

If you’ve ever wondered in your darker moments what life would be like for the small minority of Jews who would remain in the Land of Israel after (heaven forbid) the destruction of the State of Israel, I’d strongly recommend watching this video from the SyrianCanadian activist Laith Marouf. Once you’ve seen it, you may be tempted, as I was, to send him a note of appreciation for his refreshing clarity. [Link: bit.ly/440Eh1J]

I should make clear from the outset that Marouf is an antisemite and all-around bad guy. The son of a Syrian diplomat who served the hated, and now ousted, regime of Bashar Assad, Marouf was a regular guest on Iranian and Russian TV channels during the Syrian civil war, justifying the massacres perpetrated by Assad across the country, including among the thousands of Palestinians who reside there.

For

After becoming a Canadian citizen in 2020, despite this atrocious record, Marouf received hundreds of thousands of dollars in government grants for an “anti-racism” project he initiated. He also established the proHezbollah “Free Palestine TV” platform in Beirut. Earlier this year, he was arrested and then released by the Lebanese authorities when he was discovered in a restricted zone on the border between Lebanon and Israel.

Let there be no doubt, then, that this naturalized Canadian citizen wants to see Hamas and its allies eliminate Israel and kill as many Jews, whom he calls “loudmouthed bags of human feces,” as soon as possible. So why, then, listen to anything he has to say?

Simply because, in this case, he gives an honest account of how Jewish anti-Zionists are perceived by the pro-Hamas movement and, therefore, what their role should be.

“You will never see me on the same platform as a Jewish person,” states Marouf at the outset. Why? Not because he dislikes Jews (he says), but because doing so amplifies the notion that “the viewer needs to hear a Jew say it before they will believe a Palestinian.”

He then goes on to emphasize that the only acceptable role for a Jewish anti-Zionist is to stand meekly and obediently “behind” Palestinians, rather than getting out in front of them.

“And you know what?” he continued, warming to his theme. “They shouldn’t be beside us. They should be behind us. The only thing I want to hear from a Jewish anti-Zionist is parroting [my emphasis] what Palestin-

ians say. A Jewish anti-Zionist shouldn’t have an opinion about Palestine that is in any form contradicting the Palestinian position.”

The only time that a Jewish anti-Zionist might be permitted more room for maneuver is when “he is confronting his own Zionist community.”

Clearly, Marouf is not expecting much, given his evident contempt for Jewish antiZionists. In his view, they have failed to take the risk where it mattered — with their

bodies and their lives, in direct conflict with Israel — comparing them unfavorably with those Germans who did exactly that, he believes, when it came to the Nazi regime.

“Do you know any Jew on this whole planet who risked their lives to save a Palestinian?” he asked rhetorically. “People are starting to associate Judaism with Zionism not because of us, but because of the inaction of Jews that claim they are anti-Zionist.”

See Cohen on page 23

Bad times have arrived for NYC and its Jews

After last week’s mayoral election that saw an avowed socialist and proud antiZionist take City Hall as if he and his cohorts had stormed the Bastille, a vision for a more progressive New York City is upon us.

Zohran Mamdani has big plans for the Big Apple — rent freezes, new affordable housing, free buses, lax law enforcement and newfangled police strategies that feature mental health professionals packing Prozac, cityowned grocery stores, “Gifted & Talented” schools open to all regardless of merit, and

strengthened sanctuary protections for undocumented immigrants.

This is a long way from when Frank Sinatra sang, “New York, New York, It’s a Helluva Town,” in “On the Town” in 1949.

Many are worried, especially those who survived New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s when there were transit, teacher, and sanitation strikes — commuters were forced to walk across bridges; kids stayed home from school; uncollected garbage piled up on streets. It was a heyday for the rodent class.

There were repeated electricity blackouts and riots in Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant. In the summer of 1977, a serial killer was on the loose while the New York Yankees — those Bronx Bombers — played in the World Series. Meanwhile the borough itself was set aflame.

New York City did not fully recover until 1996 — before many of Mamdani’s youthful neo-Bolsheviks were even born. That means they know even less about the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989. Getting free stuff from a government that has usurped the means of production and regulates housing sounds enticing, but such grand utopian schemes have never worked in human history. Ironically, the city so often identified as the financial capital of the world — hub to Wall Street and its New York Stock Exchange, and home for robber-baron princes like Cornelius Vanderbilt, John Jacob Astor, J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller and even Donald Trump — is now in the hands of a 34-year-old mayor who has never run anything in his life.

Sinatra’s ‘Theme from New York, New York’ may become a swan song.

Mamdani’s first career, as a rapper, ended in failure. That means that Jay-Z, who presides over a financial empire that has little in common with communism, would have made a far better choice to run New York City.

Michael Bloomberg was given the keys to the city for three successful terms not because of his charisma, oratory or smile. Voters surmised that he knew how to make managerial decisions and understood a few things about municipal finance.

Mamdani is in way over his head.

If looming bankruptcy, social unrest and violent crime are part of Mamdani’s prescription for a more progressive New York, people will leave — not just the wealthy looking for safer tax havens, but everyone if they discover that the New York City of 2026 is as unlivable as it was in 1976.

One million New Yorkers left the city back then — including my parents.

Remember this bit of dialogue from “Annie Hall”: “What’s so great about New York? I

THANE ROSENBAUM

Anti-Zionist demonstration at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem on March 8, 1920. WikiCommons

Graffiti covers a New York City subway car on the Lexington line in 1974. Jim Pickerell, US National Archives and Records Administration via WikiCommons

win likely to embolden leftists in West

Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York marks not only a political turning point for the city, but also a symbolic triumph for the Red-Green alliance that has been steadily taking shape across the West. This new coalition — of the radical left and the Islamist movement — has found fertile ground both in Europe and the United States.

Yet in Europe, its impact is even greater, the result of years of confused immigration policies, moral relativism and the naïve illusion that multiculturalism could exist without values.

Mamdani represents the perfect embodiment of this alliance. His campaign was built on pro-Palestinian slogans and on the rejection of Israel’s legitimacy. He has succeeded where others have merely experimented — by turning anti-Zionism into a mainstream political banner.

The shocking fact is that he won even a quarter of the Jewish vote in a city that, along with Jerusalem, holds the largest Jewish population in the world. That, more than anything, reveals how deep the moral disorientation has become.

There are always Jews ready to go as sheep to the slaughter, convinced that universalism and tikkun olam somehow mean denying their own peoplehood.

The bus Mamdani is driving is not free — not for democracy, not for freedom, and certainly not for New York’s Jews.

For Europeans, this is a wake-up call. When a proudly Islamic mayor who refuses to call Hamas a terrorist organization can rise to power in America’s most Jewish city, it tells us that anti-Zionism has become the most fashionable form of antisemitism.

Mamdani’s first pledges say it all: he aims to sever New York’s cooperation with Israeli institutions, including the successful CornellTechnion partnership that has fueled dozens of startups; to boycott the New York City–Israel Economic Council; and to divest from Israeli pension funds.

He has not spoken of human rights, except when blaming Israel. He has never declared support for the Jewish state. On the contrary, he has praised and globalized the intifada against it.

In his youthful arrogance, he seems to believe he can reshape the moral compass of the West. His lineage — as the son of a famous director who banned her own films from being screened at Jerusalem’s liberal Cinematheque — adds to his aura among the “chic” intelligentsia of the left who prefer rebellion to truth.

Facing reality: Meet the Muslim Brotherhood

In 1918, V.I. Lenin renamed the Bolshevik Party the Russian Communist Party. Western scholars and policymakers soon began studying communism and the threat it posed to free nations.

In 1920, the German Workers’ Party adopted a new name: the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, better known as the Nazi Party. Western scholars and policymakers soon began studying Nazism and the threat it posed to free nations.

In 1928, Hassan al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Western scholars and policymakers were uninterested, regarding it as nothing more than a religioussocial welfare organization and therefore no threat to free nations.

For nearly a century, that view has persisted despite accumulating evidence to the contrary. Now, finally, clearer perceptions are emerging.

One example: Last week, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), the think tank over which I’m proud to preside, published a monograph titled “Patient Extremism: The Many Faces of the Muslim Brotherhood.” I have space here to highlight just a few of its insights and offer just a few of my own.

First, to comprehend what motivated alBanna, you need to consider what happened in 1922: The Ottoman Empire, having made the mistake of siding with Germany in World War I, collapsed when Turkish nationalists, led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, abolished the Ottoman Sultanate.

The Ottoman Caliphate, a religious institution associated with the Sultanate, was abolished two years later as part of Atatürk’s secular reforms.

To al-Banna, there could be no greater tragedy and humiliation.

The first caliphate was established in 632 C, immediately after the death of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam. Thereafter, a succession of caliphates conquered and

ruled much of the world.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s mission: to establish a new and even mightier empire and caliphate based on Islamic supremacy, the expansion of the Dar al-Islam (the “lands of Islam,” contrasted with the Dar-al-harb,  where wars must be waged) and the conviction that “Islam is a faith and a ritual, a nation and a nationality, a religion and a state, spirit and deed, holy text and sword.”

The Brotherhood today is not monolithic. Each branch decides how best to make progress in its region.

Some, such as Hamas, conduct terrorist attacks, though by calling violence directed against civilians “resistance,” and spinning its vow to exterminate Jews “from the river to

the sea” as “anti-colonialism,” it enhances its appeal to the progressive left.

Other branches adhere to a policy of nonviolence, but based on “prudence not principle,” as the FDD monograph observes. “They may accept leaders chosen by the people, but their bedrock conviction remains that no government is legitimate unless it rules according to the dictates of sharia, Islamic law.”

Osama bin Laden and his longtime deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, had ties to the Brotherhood early in their careers.

Though the Brotherhood is Sunni, it has influenced Iran’s Shia rulers. Before the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has been Iran’s supreme leader since 1989, translated into Persian several books by Sayyid Qutb, a leading ideologue of the Brotherhood who followed al-Banna in the 1940s and early 1950s.

Qutb proposed that a revolutionary “vanguard” (tali’a) of true believers would be necessary to overthrow existing orders and wage jihad against the West, “all the Satanic forces and Satanic systems,” as well as against those Muslims insufficiently hostile to the West.

The Brotherhood has come a long way since the days of al-Banna and Qutb. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, president of NATO member Turkey since 2014, supports Hamas and embraces the Brotherhood’s broader goals, perhaps imagining himself as the first Ottoman sultan and caliph of the 21st century.

Qatar, designated as a Major Non-NATO Ally of the United States, also supports Hamas, along with many other branches of the Brotherhood in many other places.

The emirate’s rulers are fabulously wealthy thanks primarily to vast offshore natural gas reserves, particularly the North Field, which the Qataris share with Iran’s rulers.

Among the projects on which they spend

See May on page 23

Illustration depicting the “Abolition of the Caliphate, The Last Caliph.” March 16, 1924. Le Petit Journal via WikiCommons

See Nirenstein on page 23 Zohran Mamdani at a Bronx Mosque on Oct.24.

Spencer Platt, Getty Images via JNS

Antisemitic right ignores Jewish role in the US

LAWRENCE SOLOMON

Former Fox News host and current political commentator Tucker Carlson recently said he “dislikes” Christian Zionists “more than anybody,” deeming their views un-Christian and inconsistent with Western civilization.

He singled out Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and US.Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee as adherents to this “dangerous heresy,” but he might have added President Abraham Lincoln, who saw the restoration of Jews to their national home in Palestine as “a noble dream and one shared by many Americans.” After the Civil War, Lincoln expected Americans to lead the world in helping Jews realize that dream.

Carlson’s comments were made during a two-hour interview with Nick Fuentes, who, along with others on the antisemitic right, views Jews as un-American, unpatriotic intruders. Yet Jews were among the earliest patriots. When George Washington needed $20,000 in emergency funds to sustain his army for the decisive Siege of Yorktown, he told his superintendent of finance to “send for Haym Salomon.” The funds that Salomon raised through his Jewish networks, supplemented by his personal wealth, ended the war.

Contrary to the ahistorical view of Carlson and Fuentes, America has always been joined at the hip with Jews. The Puritan settlers identified with Jews and advocated for their return to their homeland, as did early presidents of Harvard College and Yale College.

The Founding Fathers themselves identified the formation of the United States with that of Jews and Israel. Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, who formed a committee on July 4, 1776, to design the Great Seal of the United States,

If baseball is as American as apple pie, then so, too, are Jews.

proposed an image of Moses leading the Israelites at the splitting of the sea. Jefferson suggested the image of Israel in the wilderness, following a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

Contemporary American culture would be unrecognizable without the contribution of Jews. If baseball is as American as apple pie, then so, too, are Jews.

The recently completed World Series was the brainchild of a Jew, Barney Dreyfuss, owner of the National League champions, the Pittsburgh Pirates, who, in 1903, challenged the American League’s Boston Americans. In 1905, the rivalry between the leagues was formalized as the World Series.

Jews have been major league players in establishing American culture elsewhere, too. Americans applauded Jewish productions from Hollywood and Broadway, and they sang their hearts out to legions of iconic songs by Jewish composers, including “White Christmas,” “The Christmas Song” and many other Christmas tunes.

The humor of Jewish comedians has long resonated with Americans, as seen in the early popularity of the Marx Brothers, Jerry Lewis, Jack Benny and Milton Berle, and more recent comedians such as Jerry Seinfeld

P’stinian propaganda shields African atrocities

As an African diplomat fighting genocide, I watch the Palestinian narrative monopolize global outrage while African victims vanish. This is no accident: it shields mass murder in Nigeria and Sudan.

Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre killed 1,139 Israelis. Within weeks, the world inverted reality: Israel became the aggressor. Meanwhile, in 2024, 4,118 Nigerian Christians were slaughtered by Islamist terrorists; over 7,000 more in the first 220 days of 2025 — villages torched, families hacked apart.

In Sudan’s Darfur, 12 million people have been displaced and more than 100,000 murdered since April 2023, with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) weaponizing famine. There are no campus protests, no U.N. resolutions, no boycotts. The silence is deliberate.

Pro-Palestinian networks — NGOs, media, and academia — flood discourse with “genocide” accusations against Israel, diluting the term until it means nothing. This buries African horrors and grants de facto immunity to Boko Haram and the RSF. Deliberate distraction is tantamount to perpetration.

This propaganda onslaught is not sporadic — it is a coordinated, global information war waged across every platform. NGOs such as Am-

While Israel is demonized for defending itself, jihadist slaughter in Africa continues in silence.

nesty International and Human Rights Watch issue reports built on Hamas-sourced data; U.N. rapporteurs such as Francesca Albanese fabricate death tolls tenfold higher than reality; and Western media outlets like the BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera amplify staged “Pallywood” scenes and unverified casualty figures.

Even self-appointed Jewish moralists — rabbis and activists at saynotoethniccleansing.org — lend their names to blood libels that ignite global antisemitism while ignoring the ethnic cleansing of 12 million black Africans in Sudan.

This isn’t a debate. It’s psychological warfare, executed with precision to isolate Israel, shield jihadist terrorists, and erase African genocide from the moral map.

Outlets such as Al Jazeera and CNN parrot Hamas’s Gaza Health Ministry figures — unverified and inflated by thousands, according to UN audits — while ignoring Israel Defense Forces warnings and aid deliveries. The BBC enforces systemic bias: labeling Hamas terrorists as “militants,” omitting Israeli victims in headlines, and citing Hamas casualty numbers without caveats.

Researcher David Collier has exposed Hamas’s propaganda playbook: inflate civilian deaths by including natural and pre-war fatalities, stage “Pallywood” videos, and flood media with unverifiable claims before facts emerge. Western outlets are eager accomplices in this deception.

On Western campuses, protesters chant “globalize the intifada” — a coded call for violence against Jews — while ignoring Boko Haram’s genocidal massacres. Their selective outrage and ideological fanaticism betray not ignorance but intent: to vilify Jews while erasing black African victims. This moral inversion disqualifies them from serious roles in public discourse.

Israel, meanwhile, shows restraint unprecedented in modern warfare. It could annihilate Gaza in days — its 1967 Six Day War victory proved its capability. Instead, it has evacuated over a million Gazans with warnings, delivered

2.1 million tons of aid, and sacrificed more than 800 soldiers in painstaking, house-to-house operations to minimize civilian harm.

Hamas, by contrast, hides weapons in hospitals and schools, executes Gazans accused of “collaboration,” and uses children as shields. Its own figures — about 46,600 deaths by early 2025 — include at least 20,000 combatants, a civilian-combatant ratio far lower than U.S. urban war norms.

Yet, even these distortions grow more grotesque. In September 2025, Francesca Albanese claimed 680,000 Gaza deaths, including 380,000 infants — ten times higher than Hamas’s own numbers, with zero evidence. Such fabrications are not errors; they are provocations designed to inflame hatred and obscure genuine atrocities elsewhere.

Every false “genocide” charge against Israel

deflects scrutiny from real genocides in Africa. Boko Haram and the RSF kill with impunity because the world chases manufactured outrage. Propagandists who amplify Hamas’s lies share moral responsibility for the blood of black Africans. Israel fights for survival against jihadist annihilationism — Pharaoh, Haman, Hitler, and now Hamas. Denying this truth invites repetition. If the world continues to indulge propaganda over reality, it will not be only the Jewish people who suffer. The world’s most vulnerable — those without cameras, hashtags, or lobbyists — will continue to die unheard.

Grant Gochin is diplomat and journalism, Honorary Consul for the Republic of Togo and previously special envoy for Diaspora Affairs for the African Union. Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar. com

Protesters hold a banner reading STOP GENOCIDE IN SUDAN during a demonstration in support of the Sudanese people in Lyon in France on Nov. 8. 2025. Photo by Matthieu Delaty, Hans Lucas, AFP via Getty Images

See Solomon on page 23

Fans watch what would become the first World Series game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Boston Americans at Exposition Park III in Pittsburghon Oct. 6, 1903. RW Johnston via Boston Public Library via WikiCommons

TOBIN: ‘Nuremberg’ and a flawed judgement…

Continued from page 18

German Navy, were convicted of participating in war crimes or crimes against humanity).

Putting the Shoah on the record

The point of the proceedings was to establish that such crimes had happened, including the first showings of some of the most graphic film evidence of what had happened in the Nazi death camps. That was the dramatic high point of the trial and one in which the film, which merely hints at the horrors rather than shows them in their full depravity, doesn’t entirely capture, though it does at least give us the moment when Göering put on sunglasses and turned away from the sight of his evil deeds.

There is a lot about the chief prosecutor, US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, whom the film gives more credit for the trial taking place than he deserves, including an ahistorical confrontation with Pope Pius XII, since the plans for such a tribunal had been in the works long before the end of the war. Even though Moscow’s totalitarian dictator Joseph Stalin famously said in 1943 that the best thing would be to execute 50 to 100,000 German officers, the Soviets were themselves as interested in having a trial as the other allies.

It is true that, as the film shows, Jackson was

Berlin…

Continued from page 17

age, Zakein V’Savea, old and satisfied (Bereishis 25:8).

The Ramban explains that Zakein refers to the length of days, while savea speaks to something deeper. Inner completion, a sense of having fulfilled one’s mission.

The Mesilas Yesharim, in his opening chapter on the purpose of life, teaches that we are here Laamod Benisayon, to stand strong in our ordeals. Avraham’s life was anything but easy. He left his homeland. He rejected the idols of his family. He endured famine and exile. His wife was taken captive twice. He waited years to have children. He sent Yishmael away. He faced the Akeidah. He buried Sarah. His life was not comfortable. His life was meaningful. It was deeply satisfying.

Avraham’s savea was earned through a lifetime of choosing not to hide from difficulties. What would that look like for us?

This week, choose one place where you have been avoiding. Maybe it is a conversation with your spouse about the distance that has crept in. Maybe it’s about setting boundaries with your teenager rather than avoiding conflict. Maybe it is taking on the project at work that scares you because it reveals your weaknesses. Maybe it is reaching out to a sibling after months of silence. Comfort fades. Growth lasts. Effort lasts. Meaning lasts. May we merit to look back one day and say that we did not only grow old, we grew satisfied.

Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com

Continued from page 17

had something to get up for, but he had a whole new purpose in life.

The Rebbe correctly pointed out that retiring people at 65 deprives the world of an infinite treasure of wisdom and experience that we would be foolish to squander. When it comes to the debate of youth over experience, American author and educator Lyman Bryson said, “The error of youth is to believe that intelligence is a substitute for experience, while

an inexpert interrogator of Göering on the stand. Still, the effort to make that the high point of the film falls flat, more because of Vanderbilt’s uninspired screenplay than the failure of the actors.

Nor does the script or Crowe’s performance tell us anything of interest about Göering, other than he was a clever actor who never stopped playing his captors, including, in an important coda to the trial that was left out of the film, convincing one of them to help him commit suicide so as to escape the hangman’s noose.

Equally unconvincing was the injection of a side plot involving a translator — a German Jew who had escaped to America, leaving his family behind to die before joining the US Army, and who exhorts Kelley to help bring the criminals to justice by breaking doctor-patient confidentiality. Many such Jewish immigrants, including a young Henry Kissinger, played a not-insignificant role in the postwar American administration of Germany and the interrogation of Nazis. But having the English actor Leo Woodall, who plays this role, speak in perfectly idiomatic American English rather than with, as any person who had, as this character supposedly did, only left Germany in 1940, a German accent, is among the many small details that this production got wrong.

But the real problem here is that, unlike Kramer’s morally complex “Judgment in

the error of age is to believe experience is a substitute for intelligence.”

Clearly, we need both. If only we were all able to synchronize the energy of youth with the experience of our elders.

Mozart was composing music from the age of 5. Anne Frank was only 12 when she started her famous diary. And Pelé was all of 17 when he helped Brazil win the Soccer World Cup in 1958.

On the other hand, Ronald Reagan was 69 when he was elected president of the United States, and Nelson Mandela was 76 when he became president of South Africa. At the time, when Reagan was criticized for being too old for office, he countered by quipping that Moses had led the Israelites’ exodus out of Egypt when he was already 80 years old. If he’d retired at 65, the Jews might still be slaves in Egypt!

At the end of the day, how many years we will live is in G-d’s hands. But what we do with those years is up to us. Please G-d, we will all be blessed to live lives that are long and productive.

Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com

Mazurek…

Continued from page 17

of the three places noted in Tanach that had to be purchased, openly and publicly, by our forebears — the others being Yaakov Avinu purchasing Shechem and King David purchasing land from Aravnah the Jebusite which would become the site of the Bait HaMikdash. Despite these obvious contractual purchases — witnessed and acknowledged — they are the three most contested places in all of Israel (namely Hevron, Shechem [Nablus], and Yerushalayim, and we continue to be falsely accused of theft.

The Gr”a notably said that each parsha in sefer Devarim corresponds to a 100-year period in the sixth millennium, the 5000’s (we are currently in the year 5786), the millennium before the coming of Moshiach. So each century corresponds to a parsha. Others posit that each posuk in the Torah corresponds to a year in the time since creation.

The posuk for 5786, in Haazinu 32:32, is particularly interesting given the recent election in New York City.

“Ki migefen S’dom gafnam, u’mishadmot Amorah, anavemo invei rosh ashkelot merrorot lamo (for their vineyard is from the vineyard of S’dom and from the fields of Amorah; their

Nuremberg,” this film doesn’t really make a strong case for judging the Nazis that goes beyond platitudes. Worse, its conclusion seems more interested in convincing its audience that there was nothing really special about what happened in Germany that couldn’t happen anywhere else.

‘Never again?’

It’s true that the cry of “never again” has rung hollow many times since 1946, as genocides in places like Cambodia and Rwanda, Sudan or even today in China, as the Communist regime persecutes the Uyghurs. Atrocities in these countries have happened without the civilized nations of the world lifting a finger. Efforts to prosecute war crimes committed during the ethnic conflicts in Bosnia, however, have achieved some justice.

Still, the international push to redefine the term genocide — a word first coined in the aftermath of the Holocaust by Polish Jewish lawyer Rafael Lemkin, who was both an ardent Zionist and an adviser to Jackson at Nuremberg, though he is not shown in the film — in an effort to fit Israel’s war of self-defense against the genocidal terrorists of Hamas rather than an attempt to wipe out an entire people as the Nazis attempted to do to the Jews, is relevant. It demonstrates that the application of international law is only

grapes are grapes of gall, so clusters of bitterness were given them.”

The reference to Sedom is painfully reminiscent of New York City, which can be plausibly referred to as New Sedom, given some of the policies enacted that do more to protect the “rights” of assailants and assassins than their victims, as was the case in Sedom itself (masechet Sanhedrin 109b).

This verse comes after a long litany of condemnation of Am Yisrael rebelling against Hashem and His Torah, the result of which is their being scattered from their land as all the nations join in gleeful persecution of the Jewish people. (Sound familiar?)

Eventually, it appears that Hashem feels His chosen people have suffered enough and turns His wrath to their tormentors, the other nations. But about this, there is a dispute between Rashi and the Ramban.

Rashi believes Hashem is reverting back to a condemnation of Israel, who have been emulating the behavior of Sedom. Ramban argues no, the evil described is that of the other nations.

Through the lens of the recent election, it is apparent that they are both right.

The goyim, the nations, now represented by Mamdani, are easily identified (Ramban). But so are the useful Idiots, the 30% of Jews who voted for suicidal policies by voting for Mamdani (Rashi).

As one continues verse by verse (which according to this interpretation would mean year by year), we see that by verse 32:36, or four years hence, Hashem has clearly decided that the Jewish people have paid dearly for their rejection and abandonment, and He turns his full wrath on the other nations:

Verse 36: When Hashem will have judged His People, He shall relent regarding His servants…

Verse 41: If I sharpen My flashing sword and My hand grasps judgment, I shall return vengeance upon My enemies, and upon those that hate Me shall I bring retribution.

Verse 43: O nations, sing the praises of His people, for He will avenge the blood of His servants; He will bring retribution upon His foes, and He will appease His land and His people.

It is so interesting that this time, the retribution and comfort that Hashem will finally bring us is intimately tied to the Land, His Land, to Eretz Yisrael, as it says “He will appease His Land and His people.”

Hashem told us many times throughout

as just or good as the people trusted with carrying it out.

While the Nuremberg trials served an important purpose by putting the truth about the Nazis’ crimes on the record in a way that the world would never forget, it did not, contrary to the film’s epigraph, giving credit for it to Jackson, create a system that has succeeded in preventing the concept’s misapplication. And by failing to tell viewers something about the ideology and politics at the heart of the Nazis’ antisemitism or what it meant to Germans and their collaborators, including Göering’s sympathetically portrayed family, the new movie is nothing more than an overstuffed court procedural with defendants sporting bad accents.

The aftermath of the post-Oct. 7 war might have been an apt moment for the sort of film that would remind the world of the virtues and inherent shortcomings of a system applied by multilateral organizations or nations that aren’t always interested in impartial justice. Instead, all Vanderbilt has given us is an unpersuasive morality play that might well do more to encourage antisemites to pretend that contemporary Jews who seek to defend themselves against the spiritual descendants of the Nazis deserve to be put on trial, as opposed to inspiring faith in an impartial application of international law.

Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com

Tanach (sometimes openly, sometimes cryptically yet prophetically, as here in Haazinu — Devarim 31:29 — where we are clearly told about the Messianic End of Days), that if we follow His will we will succeed, but if not we will be punished.

Yet here we are given a choice, an “off ramp” to end the suffering and persecution sooner. We can go home to Eretz Yisrael (if not now, then as soon as possible) to atone for our misdeeds.

The next four years in New York City are going to be rough. We can hearken to what another of our greatest prophets, Isaiah, told us: “The smallest shall increase a thousandfold, and the least into a mighty nation; I am Hashem, in its time I will hasten it.”

Our Sages (masechet Sanhedrin 98a) tell us this prophecy means that if we are not worthy, it will come in its time; if we are worthy, Hashem will hasten the geulah)

Let’s make ourselves worthy and hasten it. Shabbat Shalom.

Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com

Continued from page 17

Rabbi Akiva was sitting and expounding Torah. His audience fell asleep. He tried to awaken them, and said, “What motivated Queen Esther to reign over one hundred and twenty and seven provinces? We must assume that Esther, as a descendant of Sarah who lived for one hundred and twenty and seven years, considered it proper to reign over one hundred and twenty and seven provinces.” (Bereshit Rabbah 58:3)

What are we to learn from this cryptic passage?

To those of us who are teachers, there is a measure of comfort in learning that Rabbi Akiva too had difficulty maintaining the attention of his students. We also learn that his students were fully aware of the role that the number 127 plays both in the book of Genesis and in the book of Esther. We can assume that there is something about Rabbi Akiva’s mention of this coincidence that awakened the sleepy classroom. But surely there is a much more profound lesson here. If there is a lesson to be learned from Sarah’s life, it is that not only is every year is valuable —

so is every month, every week, every dayand every hour. If we are to translate 127 years into 127 provinces, then each year is an entire province, each month a region, each week a city, each day a neighborhood, each hour a street, each minute a building, and every second an entire room. If one allows himself a second of slumber, he forfeits a room. If one sleeps for a week, he loses an entire city. Every segment of time represents a significant opportunity, and with every wasted moment opportunities are lost.

This is Rabbi Akiva’s lesson to his sleepy students. “You’re not merely dozing off and enjoying idle daydreams. You are wasting time, killing time, and in the process losing opportunities which will not present themselves again. If you miss a moment of a Torah lecture, you create a void that can never again be filled.”

This is lesson is a lesson to all of us. In contemporary terms, it is about time management. Time is a gift, but it is an ephemeral gift; a moment lost can never be retrieved.

But Rabbi Akiva insists that this is not his lesson, but Sarah’s lesson. It is the legacy that she left for her descendants. Queen Esther grasped that legacy. She did not assume the role of a passive queen, but actively reigned over all of her 127 provinces. She studied their needs, recognized their individual differences, and helped each of them best utilize their unique resources. As Grandmother Sarah valued each and every one of her years, so too did Esther value every one of her many provinces.

So must we all learn to utilize all of our blessings to the fullest, whether they be the blessing of longevity or the blessing of political power, the blessing of wealth or the blessing of grandchildren. Living a full life means appreciating all of our blessings and making the most of them.

What wonderful teachers we have had, and how differently and creatively they taught us these lessons. Sarah taught them in the context of the family tent. Esther taught them from her royal palace. Rabbi Akiva taught them from his classroom lectern.

Whatever our place in life, following their lessons will lead to a life of meaning and purpose, the kind of life for which we all strive.

Thus, although this week’s Torah portion carries Sarah’s name in its title, she would be the first to make room for her progeny, Esther, to join her in teaching her lesson to us. Esther too has a place in Chayei Sara.

A version of this column was previously published. Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com

Cohen…

Continued from page 19

Such a message is little short of humiliating for the motley crew of anti-Zionists of Jewish origin — Peter Beinart, Max Blumenthal, Abbie Stein, Alon Mizrahi, the “International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network,” among others — whose ravings from the safety of their living rooms continue to disfigure the public debate on the Middle East. It’s humiliating because it places them in the same camp as the vast majority of Jews who remain Zionists, when they have tried so hard to distance themselves from this community as stridently and as hatefully as possible. It’s humiliating because it tells them that, since they are Jews, they cannot be trusted and must therefore have every word they utter scripted by a Palestinian ideological commissar.

Marouf’s speech is further confirmation that Jewish anti-Zionists (or “antizionists,” as I call them) have, as I wrote last year, increasingly outlived their usefulness. The overwhelming majority of the proHamas movement is composed of non-Jews. Many, if not most, of them are Millennials or Gen Z’ers whose embrace of the Palestinian cause is very recent. They have made that solidarity an integral component of their personal and social, as well as political, identi-

ties. Partly because of the distance in time, they are, whether on the left or the right, less bothered than preceding generations by accusations of antisemitism or a sense of duty to respect the memory of the Holocaust.

Most of all, they are tired of the Jewish anti-Zionist “not in my name” shtick. They are in this game to express solidarity with the Palestinians, not engage in endless debates about Jewish identity or the fissures among Jews when it comes to Israel. For this crowd, the only good Jewish anti-Zionist is the one who drops the word “Jewish” from the descriptor.

I would like to believe that among the supporters of Jewish Voice for Peace and similar groups, there are those discomfited by Marouf’s instruction to Jewish anti-Zionists to simply “parrot” the Palestinian line. I would like to think that they have enough pride in themselves and in their Jewish identity to recognize an insult when they see one.

Critically, I would like them to understand that Marouf’s tone and words sound a warning about how a stateless Jewish minority in the Middle East would be treated by its overlords.

The abolition of Zionism is not a mere slogan. It is a plan of action to be implemented in those schools and synagogues and community centers that would be permitted to exist. It leans far more towards compulsion than it does to persuasion. Its goal is subordination.

Having heard what Marouf has to say, Jewish anti-Zionists are faced with a choice. They can agree with him and accept their inferior role.

Or they can use his remarks as an opportunity to fundamentally rethink their positions — and finally grasp that those who say that Jews are not indigenous to the region, are colonialists, engage in “genocide” and should be sent back to the lands where they were once murdered are the real liars and charlatans here.

Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com

Rosenbaum

Continued from page 19

mean, it’s a dying city.” The film was released in 1977.

If mass migration is in New York’s future, it might prove to be especially true of Jewish New Yorkers. Rising crime is what ultimately produced the first wave of “white flight.” But Jews were only among the casualties of those crimes, and not its principal targets.

With campus riots and raucous street protests over the past two years as indicators, this mayor might chuckle at the thought of Zionists chased around by hordes screaming, “Globalize the Intifada”— a sentimental slogan of Mamdani’s campaign.

Will he at least call in crime-fighting social workers to rescue besieged Jews? How did one in three Jewish New Yorkers cast their ballots for a Muslim who believes Israel to be a genocidal state that has no right to exist? New York City is home to 1.3 million Jews, the second largest Jewish population outside of Tel Aviv.

Well, a recent Washington Post poll revealed that 61 percent of Jews believed that Israel had committed war crimes in Gaza, and 40 percent believed Israel committed genocide. Only 56 percent said they were emotionally attached to Israel; even fewer, 36 percent, among those aged 18 to 34.

The progressive movement has demonstrated an enormous appetite for antiwhite, anti-American, antisemitic, antipolice animus. Tearing down monuments and desecrating synagogues is calisthenics for this crew. The prospect of “white flight” (especially for the worst kind of settler-colonialists, the Jews), might not even be a cause for concern. It might be an occasion to celebrate. But when taxpayers, especially wealthy

ones, flee, the tax base erodes. Who is going to be around to pay for all this free stuff? Unless nihilism itself is the endgame, and not the possibilities for a more sustainable New York. Fearmongering? Islamophobia? Hardly. There is a legitimate reason to actually fear Islamists — most especially if one is Jewish. Just ask the people of Paris, London, Berlin, Stockholm, Brussels, Barcelona, Madrid, Milan and Genoa. Far too many Muslims are never shy in letting the West and their liberalism, and Jews and their very existence, know how much they are despised.

Not everyone is house hunting on Zillow, just yet. We still have toilet paper and bread, after all. Mamdani hasn’t yet taken office. Muggers are still in training. But expect New Yorkers to stock up before shelves to the city grocery stores go bare. Others are signing up for Krav Maga.

Good luck, New York City, should your Jews all decamp for yet another round of refugee status. Jews have been indispensable to the city’s growth and stature as the cosmopolitan capital of the world. New York without Jews is most certainly not New York — even if Mamdani’s jolly antisemites would prefer it that way.

Jews make places more interesting. Mamdani may not realize, or care. We learned during the campaign that he had never heard of Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind.” It wasn’t clear whether he even knew who Billy Joel was. Doubtless he prefers Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind.”

Joel is not only Jewish, but a child of a Holocaust survivor. And Sinatra’s “Theme from New York, New York,” which may become a swan song, was written by John Kander and Fred Ebb, both children of Jewish immigrants. (Irving Berlin’s “G-d Bless America” is another story, altogether.)

Wherever Jews have been — whether in the West or Middle East — they have enriched its culture, made it more prosperous, and set the pace for innovation and creation.

Be careful what you wish for, Mamdani voters.

And if you’re among the Jews who longed for a Muslim who celebrated October 7 to represent your interests, watch how friendless you may soon become.

Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com

Nirenstein

Continued from page 20

Mamdani’s rise from campus activism, through founding Students for Justice in Palestine, to the mayor’s office of New York, shows how deeply the anti-Israel ideology has penetrated the cultural and political bloodstream of the West.

The consequences will not be merely symbolic. Jewish life in New York will no longer resemble the witty, vibrant, self-confident world of Woody Allen and Seinfeld. The schools, the cultural institutions and the public sphere will now be influenced by a leadership that views Jews as dhimmi, tolerated but inferior, whose existence must be justified through endless apologies for Israel.

Whether Mamdani will actually reduce rents or make buses free is irrelevant. What matters is that his rise will embolden a new generation of European politicians who have already noticed how effective antisemitic and anti-Zionist slogans can be in mobilizing crowds. They are learning fast that hatred of Israel is an easy ticket to power.

But this bus that Mamdani is driving is not free — not for democracy, not for freedom, and certainly not for the Jews who once made New York their proud home. It is heading toward a destination we have seen before in history. And this time, the ticket price could be the moral soul of the West itself.

Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com

May…

Continued from page 20

their fortune: Al Jazeera media platforms, which have long disseminated Brotherhood propaganda, much as the Cominform, short for the Communist Information Bureau, did for the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Al Jazeera collaborates and shares content with such foreign media outlets as the BBC, France 24, Reuters and PBS. In addition, Wikipedia regards Al Jazeera as a “reliable source” for its articles. This may partly explain why there is now burgeoning support for Hamas in many Western countries.

In the United States, there are mosques where Brotherhood imams preach, and organizations that present themselves as advocates for Muslim civil rights but are, transparently, Brotherhood fronts.

Now, a bit of good news: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that the United States is preparing to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

Final thoughts for today: Communism has not been defeated. On the contrary, Beijing is now the headquarters of the most powerful Communist Party in history.

Naziism may be making a comeback. Last month, podcaster Tucker Carlson conducted a cordial interview with neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes, who said he thought Adolf Hitler was “very, very cool.”

And of course, the Muslim Brotherhood is waging a jihad that began 1,400 years ago. All this reinforces my longstanding belief that there are no permanent victories, only permanent battles. We can fight those battles, or we can shout “No more endless wars!” and capitulate.

I’m not aware of a third option.

Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com

Solomon…

Continued from page 21

and Jon Stewart.

According to Time magazine, in 1978, some 80% of stand-up comedians in the United States were Jewish.

The comic-book heroes that captured the American imagination — Superman, Batman and Captain America, among them — had Jewish creators.

Jews are also prominent in the political culture of conservatives. They include the neoconservatives that the antisemitic right especially disavows, people like Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz, but also icons that many American conservatives embrace, economists such as Milton Friedman and Ludwig von Mises, and philosophers such as Leo Strauss, Murray Rothbard and Ayn Rand.

The antisemitic right has yet to articulate a coherent explanation for its Jew-hatred. They assert that Jews control the media, yet on the issue that appears to animate them most — Israel’s conduct in Gaza — the media overwhelmingly sides against Israel. They assert that Jews have divided loyalties, yet the Trump administration is replete with Jews in powerful positions: Steve Witkoff, Stephen Miller, Howard Lutnick, Lee Zeldin. Their loyalty to the president the country has never been unquestioned.

To date, the antisemitic right’s only verifiable objection to Jews is that Jews aren’t devout Christians. To that, and only to that, the Jews are guilty.

Lawrence Solomon is a columnist for Canada’s National Post.

Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com