A Conversation with Iris Haim, Mother of Yotam Haim, Taken Hostage by Hamas on October 7th, 2023

In an emotional and powerful episode of our podcast, we sit down with Iris Haim, the mother of Yotam Haim Z"L, who was taken hostage by Hamas on October 7th and tragically killed in a heartbreaking IDF operational miscalculation.

Iris shares her heart-wrenching story, from the day Yotam was taken hostage by Hamas to the devastating moment of learning about his death due to an operational miscalculation by the IDF.

Despite her unimaginable loss, Iris's message is one of unity, love, and unwavering support for the Israeli government and the IDF soldiers. Her journey of campaigning for the release of hostages and her efforts to foster solidarity within the Jewish state is both inspiring and moving. Join us as Iris talks about her son's memory, her dedication to Israel's soldiers and society, and her vision for the future. This episode is not just a tribute to Yotam's memory but also a testament to Iris's incredible strength and her vital message of unity and hope.

Destroying hostage posters: the embodiment of mob antisemitism

Destroying hostage posters: the embodiment of mob antisemitism

On October 7th Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel, targeting, and inflicting such savagery on Israeli civilians that, for a moment, it felt like the world gasped in horror and expressed sympathy for its victims.

That collective, sympathetic gasp was so fleeting it barely lasted a day until the Jewish victims were blamed for the massacre they endured. We Jews barely had time to mourn our people before we had to begin rhetorically defending ourselves.

While anti-Israel and antisemitic incidents have steadily increased over the past few years, anti-Jewish rhetoric has now exploded into an unapologetic blast of illogical, threating, and violent antisemitism that no longer tries to hide behind the veil of anti-Zionism. Now, American soil-that earlier felt solidly secure- is quaking under my feet, reverberating from the hate I feel closing in on me and my fellow Jews.

Not surprisingly, social media has glaringly revealed increasing and pervasive Jew hate since the October 7thmassacre, capturing narratives, images, and scenes of deeply illogical and virulent antisemitism: the DSA celebrating the massacre in NY’s Time Square on October 8th, professors at ivy league universities admiring the savagery of the attacks, the accounts of Jews who felt unsafe at a Dave Chappelle show as he spent his comedy hour vilifying Israel,

 and American University students marching in support of Hamas, an Islamist terrorist group that contradicts everything they purportedly value.

 One of the more striking manifestations of Jew hatred to appear now on social media is footage of people  tearing down posters of the Israeli hostages- a cultural phenomenon that encapsulates the deeply rotted, unapologetic and illogical nature of contemporary antisemitism.

The footage looks like this:

An individual or a couple of people quietly rip the poster off the wall. Whether the photographed face of the hostage is of a smiling teenager, giggling infant, contented grandparent, or a group ensemble of an entire family, the perpetrators callously crumple and squash the poster in their hands, throw it into the trash or drop it to the ground- as if the photo of that innocent face deeply offended the people forced to look at it.

Often the perpetrators will smirk and smile as if they have done something devilishly but innocuously wrong. Sometimes they will tear the poster down with determined anger. Others will look around, ensuring no one is observing them, then quickly grab the ripped poster and shove into their pockets, like thieves in the night.

When questioned why they are ripping down posters of innocent hostages, the offenders’ responses always lack remorse, and never suggest a hint of shame.

In the context of the actual violence of October 7th, of the consistent stream of rockets launched at Israel from Gaza, of the fact that 200+ people are still in the captive hands of Hamas terrorists, of the fact that many of the terror victims in Israel can still not be identified due to the barbarism in which Hamas levied their massacre, of the fact that medical teams are still learning of the sheer savagery of Hamas’ onslaught -from the pervasive rape of girls and women of all ages to the torture inflicted on the mutilated bodies- the tearing down of posters seems so comparatively benign, like a mischievous but naughty prank.

And even in the context of global antisemitism that is vociferously being expressed now- of the thousands of people marching through the streets of North America, Europe, and the Middle East, shouting for the eradication of Israel and death to Jews, and the equally loud silence of those watching this all unfold- the tearing down of posters seems like the least of Jews’ problems.

And yet, the tearing down of hostage posters is searing in its lack of decency, and it sadly encapsulates what Jews may have always known or have just come to realize: there are many who want to eradicate our faces-willfully supporting terrorist actions that otherwise would be abhorrent to them-like rape, kidnap, murder. The only conclusion I can reach then is that they support those actions not because they are criminally minded people but rather because those actions are targeted at Jews.

The phenomenon of tearing down posters also reveals, in both a symbolic and literal sense, the demise of rational society:

People destroy the hostage posters in what they claim is solidarity with Palestinians. But the utter absurdity of the action, highlights something equally malignant in our current cultural climate- the unwillingness to honestly look at issues and the willing deference to mob mentality.

They rip the hostage posters because they will not look at the faces of the victims; they refuse to. They must tear them down because they cannot acknowledge the counterargument of their antisemitic indoctrination-which is that the Israeli hostages are innocent victims-not violent oppressors-the antithesis of the idea the perpetrators have been served and have willfully swallowed.

As such, the destruction of hostage posters is a manifestation not only of racism and hate but also of intellectual cowardice and cognitive impotence; it is akin to a petulant child putting his hands over his ears when he is told no.

The perpetrators do not have the courage to see or recognize that supporting Hamas is not only morally wrong but also senseless: it is senseless because supporting Hamas does not help the Palestinian people, who suffer under Hamas’ regime-just like tearing down a photo of a kidnapped Jewish baby will not help a Palestinian child have a better life.

In the same sense, when masses of people chant “free free Palestine” have they really considered who they should be freeing Palestinians from? Do they really care?

Those who scream on the streets “One solution…Intifada…From the river to the sea”  are calling for the violent eradication of the Jewish people in Israel; they are calling for genocide while they  protest a supposed genocide. Refusing to accept a Jewish presence in Israel rather than insisting on the dismantlement of Hamas, they are perpetuating violence against Palestinian people because they support a terrorist group who inflicts violence on its own people. Hamas is a terrorist group who siphons all its people’s resources to grow murderous conflict, fill their own pockets, and indoctrinate their youth with hate, while intentionally using its civilians as human shields and pawns in an endless crusade against Jews.

 Those who destroy hostage posters or march in protest against Israel refuse to recognize the graveness and immorality of their ideological error. Instead, they willingly have joined a mob with blood lust. They are no different than the brown shirts in Germany in 1939 or white supremacists in the  American south herding around a lynching tree in 1959. Arming themselves with empty academic words, and intellectual theories that are intellectually non-sensical, they lack and pervert historical context. When they tear down the posters of Israeli hostages, they are expressing their unwillingness to see their own shame, their indoctrination, their mistake head on. They are merely a mob and they are loud.

While the perpetrators try to erase the victims of Hamas terrorism from American consciousness, Jewish Americans will not forget the faces of our abducted people. We will not forget our dead or our survivors, the thousands of casualties of Hamas brutality. We will always remember those who spoke out against the antisemitic mob and we will forever be grateful. And if this conflict winds downs and the dust settles, we will remember those who screamed for our blood in our streets and neighborhoods, on our soil, who tried to eradicate our right to exist -whether in social discourse or in actuality. And those who stayed silent to watch this bloody mob overtake the American airwaves of cultural consciousness, we won’t forget their silence either.

We need counter voices. If you have been silent, speak up. Do not be intimidated by loud cowardice. Now is the time.

Bio: Elana earned her PhD in English Literature from Fordham University in 2015 with a dissertation that focused on Jewish American literature and its approach to Zionism and Israel. For 12 years, she taught literature, composition, and film at St. Johns University and Fordham University, where she was awarded numerous fellowships. Following her degree, she was a Connected Academic Fellow in the Modern Language Association.

Elana also writes fiction, most notably children’s fiction, and lives in New Jersey with her husband and three children, as a member of a vibrant Jewish community that is dedicated to Israel and other Jewish causes.

Mark Goldfeder, Opinion: What donors abandoning Penn and Harvard should do next

By Mark Goldfeder

I would have hoped that, following the mass atrocities Hamas visited on more than 1,400 Israelis, US students who support Palestinian aspirations would want to separate themselves as quickly as possible from the scenes of depravity committed in the name of an explicitly antisemitic genocidal agenda.

Shockingly, however, several “pro-Palestinian” organizations on America’s most elite campuses showed no empathy for what happened to Israelis and instead blamed the victims for the unspeakable horror they suffered. (“Pro-Palestinian” is in quotations because you can, of course, be pro-Palestinian without supporting genocidal terrorism.) A coalition of student groups at Harvard University, for instance, put out a statement that they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” Some of those groups and students did eventually walk their statements back, but while Harvard’s was particularly egregious, it was not the only such incident.

Thankfully, some heroic citizens in the corporate world have issued a response. Students may have the right to openly support murder, but hedge fund CEO Bill Ackman explained that he and his fellow business leaders have a legitimate interest in knowing their names so they never inadvertently hire any of them. When a New York University Law student released a statement similarly hideous to Harvard’s, the law firm of Winston and Strawn exercised its own right to rescind the student’s employment offer.

Now these figures are going directly to the top. After mealy-mouthed administrators at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania seemed hesitant to respond to the massacre or to use the word “terrorist,” major donors announced they were closing their checkbooks and resigning from university boards in protest.

These actions are welcome, but more must be done. Donors and anyone else concerned about the climate on campus should urge administrators to hold accountable student groups whose speech crosses the line into territory not protected by the Constitution.

In particular, one of the major pro-Palestinian student groups, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), demands reining in. The national organization issued a “call to action” for students to participate in a “National Day of Resistance” last Thursday, and affiliates across the country have planned more events in the near future.

The words and imagery used in SJP’s call to action are nothing short of frightening. Its Instagram account featured a graphic of a paraglider in a clear reference to the means some Hamas terrorists used to infiltrate Israel. “Today, we witness a historic win for the Palestinian resistance … reminding each of us that total return and liberation to Palestine is near,” the accompanying text stated. “The Palestinian resistance has captured over a dozen settlements surrounding Gaza along with many occupation soldiers and military vehicles. This is what it means to Free Palestine: not just slogans and rallies, but armed confrontation with the oppressors.” The organization repeated that text in a tool kit it supplied for the action, accompanied by an extra line: “National liberation is near — glory to our resistance, to our martyrs and to our steadfast people.”

The presence of at least one anti-Zionist student group such as SJP has long been correlated with antisemitic incidents on campuses. But SJP crossed a new line when it openly encouraged its members to rally in support of a terror group whose charter calls for the annihilation of Jews, everywhere, separate from the clauses vowing the obliteration of the State of Israel. Many Jewish students have already been fearful of ostracization when attending classes or expressing their identity. But fear for their physical safety is becoming ever more acute.

Universities, take note: Your lack of action is complicity.


While several university presidents have spoken out, to their credit, many more need to join them. And they all must do more when students glorify the actions of Hamas — a US-designated foreign terrorist organization — and support “armed confrontation.”

First, under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, institutions that take federal funds have an obligation to protect their Jewish students — including from other student groups. Per the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, speech becomes harassing conduct when it is “sufficiently severe, pervasive, or persistent so as to interfere with or limit” the ability of students to join in or benefit from a university’s services or activities. Many Jewish students (even some professors) are literally afraid to go to class. Stanford Law School moved classes to Zoom last Friday out of concerns over violence. If the words of Title VI mean anything, they must protect against environments like this.

Second, all private universities have the right to shut down hateful protests without triggering any constitutional issues. Public universities are more constrained, but under Tinker v. Des Moines and its progeny — which courts have applied to universities — schools can shut down speech that will “materially and substantially interfere” with the “requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school” or “invad[e] the rights of others.” Schools don’t have to wait for trouble; they can ban expression in advance if they can “reasonably forecast” that it will violate those standards.

In Melton v. Young, for instance, school officials were allowed to prohibit the wearing of a Confederate flag because it was reasonable to assume it would be disruptive in an environment of racial tension. Shouting “all of us are Hamas” while declaring that support for Palestinians “includes violence” and condoning “armed confrontation” is certainly no less likely to cause a disruption. Moreover, SJP rallies have sometimes turned violent in the past. Predictably, some did last week as well.

Finally, it is a federal crime if someone “knowingly provides material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization.” Under Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, that can include even some speech if done “under the direction of, or in coordination with foreign groups that the speaker knows to be terrorist organizations.”

For instance, United States v. Osadzinski held that merely translating ISIS videos into English for pro-ISIS media organizations “clearly constituted ‘concerted activity’” in violation of the statute, even if there was no interaction with an actual member of the terrorist group.

In sponsoring and prepping the Day of Resistance events, SJP provided its chapters with public relations materials, instructing, “We must act as part of this movement. All of our efforts continue the work and resistance of the Palestinians on the ground.” As such, the government should carefully monitor SJP’s behavior. Indeed, some lawmakers have already recognized the problem and started calling for action along these lines.

SJP and other student groups can take the side of barbaric baby killers, but as donors and employers taught them this week, free speech has consequences. And accountability does not end there; university and government officials have responsibilities as well.

If and when speech crosses the line into discriminatory harassment, schools must remove their imprimatur from that evil while making sure to protect targeted communities, and they should proactively shut down events that are likely to cause material disruption or infringe the rights of others. At the very least, schools with applicable conduct codes should defund and/or revoke the charters of any organization that openly supports a group whose stated desire is to kill other members of the campus community.

Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. is director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. has served as the founding Editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Law and Judaism, a Trustee of the Center for Israel Education, and as an adviser to the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations. Read full bio here.

Mark Goldfeder: It's Only a War Crime if Israel Is Doing It | Opinion

By Mark Goldfeder

Once again self-proclaimed international law experts are throwing around terms that they do not understand to accuse Israel of atrocities as it responds to a vicious attack from the terrorist group Hamas.

Today, these "experts" are concerned about the war crimes of "forcible transfer" and "deportation" as Israel tries to save innocent Palestinian civilians by warning them to leave Hamas strongholds.

Here is another short primer on international law: Saving civilian lives is not a war crime. Terms matter, and there is a difference between an evacuation and a forcible transfer. Saving innocent people is what any army is supposed to do and literally the opposite of what Hamas has done and continues to do.

But don't take my word for it, let's ask the United Nations what the war crimes "forcible transfer" and "deportation" mean when the entity involved is not Israel (emphasis added):

What are the crimes of deportation and forcible transfer? Forcing persons to leave the area where they reside can be a crime against humanity, a war crime or both. If they occur in the context of a widespread or systematic attack against the civilian population, deportation and forcible transfer are crimes against humanity. Deportation and forcible transfer occur when individuals are forced by expulsion or coercion from the place they were lawfully present, and there was no basis under international law for their displacement. When persons are displaced across an international border, it is called deportation. When such displacement occurs within a national boundary, it is called forcible transfer. Forced displacement does not require physical force and can be caused by the threat of force or coercion, duress or psychological oppression. A person is lawfully present in an area if they have a right under domestic or international law to be there, including refugees and stateless persons. International law allows the involuntary removal of persons only where it is strictly for the security of the persons or for imperative military reasons, but only for as long as the removal is necessary.

This is not, in fact, a close call.

Israel is attacking Hamas, not targeting the civilian population.

Israel has an overwhelming imperative military reason to ask civilians to leave (stopping a genocidal terrorist organization) and is doing so for the security of those persons. Not a war crime—quite the opposite. This is what just war looks like.

Actually, Israel is quite literally following the letter of international human rights law.

Per the Geneva Conventions, Article 58(a) of the 1977 Additional Protocol I: the parties to the conflict shall, to the maximum extent feasible, "without prejudice to Article 49 of the Fourth Convention, endeavor to remove the civilian population, individual civilians and civilian objects under their control from the vicinity of military objectives."

Per Article 57, 1(c) "effective advance warning shall be given of attacks which may affect the civilian population, unless circumstances do not permit."

To review—Israel is engaging in a lawful, proportionate attack against a genocidal enemy force. The war crimes of forcible transfer require evidence of illicit intent; the opposite is true here. Israel has already evacuated hundreds of thousands of its own citizens to keep them out of harms' way; now Israel is desperately trying to save the lives of Palestinian civilians as well ,even at the expense of telegraphing its own attacks. Meanwhile, Hamas is ordering people to stay in harms' way, as human shields, so they can then complain to an undiscerning media about how many civilians Israel killed.

By any definition, Israel's warnings are an act of morality, if not grace. But once again, when it comes to Israel, somehow the rules are different.

Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. is director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. has served as the founding Editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Law and Judaism, a Trustee of the Center for Israel Education, and as an adviser to the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations. Read full bio here.

Only the elimination of Hamas will do; Israel can accept no less

By SHARON ROFFE OFIR

In a meeting I held as a Knesset Member with a foreign parliamentary colleague I told him that the difference between us is that when he comes to visit me at home, in addition to the living room and the bathroom, I will also show him where the rocket-proof safe room is. To be Israeli, I said, is to be intimately familiar with the sound of air raid sirens and to understand that as a citizen of the country, one is also exposed to an existential threat.

Yet nothing prepared us for the murderous terrorist attack we experienced on Saturday, October 7. The sights, the horrifying videos distributed by the Hamas terrorist organization, and the voices of my people whispering on the phone, telling me that terrorists are in their homes. It will take us time to heal and the moment for questions will come, but one thing is already clear – victory in Israel’s military campaign must be defined as the elimination of Hamas. We owe this to the hundreds of dead, to our children and parents who were abducted, and to the future of the State of Israel.

The ancient Midrash states, “He who is compassionate to the cruel will ultimately become cruel to the compassionate.”

 We must acknowledge the truth: The State of Israel has never really uprooted this murderous terrorist organization. What happened on 7/10 was the Israeli 9/11, and from this point onward, everything will be different.

The images and voices from the atrocities haunt me. The parents who hid in their homes with their children in the house and were murdered before their eyes; the elderly grandmother who was kidnapped to Gaza; the young girl who left the party with her boyfriend and was dragged away by terrorists while she cried and begged for her life; the cries of parents looking for their missing children; the rising number of dead. Those who committed these terrible crimes are not human beings. I write from the depths of my heart and hope that maybe now, finally, the world, as it sees the pictures and hears the voices, will understand what the State of Israel is facing.

In the weeks leading up to the mass murder, there were incidents in which Palestinians threw explosive devices, launched incendiary balloons that set fire to agricultural fields in border communities, and opened fire. These events join a long line of attacks, terrorist incidents, kidnappings of soldiers, and missile and rocket fire that have been occurring since the organization was established in the Gaza Strip in 1987—events that did not stop even when Hamas became the ruler of the Strip in 2007.

While the world saw the ‘return marches’ – violent rioting and attempts to breach the Gaza-Israeli border in 2018 as a legitimate event and criticized the Israeli military's response, and while the UN claimed that Israel was committing war crimes, Hamas continued to arm itself and attack Israel. In fact, for the last twenty years, the sound of Qassam rocket fire is something that every child living in southern Israel has been familiar with. Try to imagine another country that would agree to a reality in which its children sleep entire nights in a bomb shelter.

The policy led by Israel in the past decade, mostly under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was one of containment. It allowed the transfer of suitcases of money from Qatar to the Gaza Strip and approved the entry of goods to the Strip. Although Netanyahu promised in 2009 to topple the Hamas regime, in practice, he refrained from attacking initiatives. This policy continued with a decision taken a month ago, after an assessment that took place in the Prime Minister's Office, not to respond to a new wave of border riots.

The massacre of hundreds of civilians and soldiers must lead to a change in the rules of the game. Israel now faces one choice: we must now strive to end Hamas rule in Gaza and destroy the organization, down to its very foundations. Attacking targets and damaging military capabilities will not provide the answer. It will merely buy quiet for a period and allow Hamas to return to another round that may be even more violent than what we are experiencing now. We must take dramatic steps to cleanse the Strip and recognize that Hamas is the enemy, even if the price to be paid is a painful one. The citizens of Israel give full backing to this move; this will be the image of victory.

Sharon Roffe-Ofir served as a member of the 24th Knesset and is a strategic advisor, as well as a lecturer in Israel and internationally on politics, government, and women’s leadership. Read full bio here.

Israel is at war with a bloodthirsty Hamas.

By Yochai Guiski

Israel awoke Saturday, October 7 to a shocking reality; Hamas launched a large-scale incursion into communities near Gaza, employing aerial gliders speedboats, and heavy machinery and explosives to bring down parts of the border fence, all the while launching thousands of rockets at Israeli towns and communities.

The brutal nature of the Hamas assault was self-evident, as Hamas “fighters” massacred old women at bus stations in scenes reminiscent of the Russian assault on the Ukrainian town of Bakhmut. Hamas also brought Israeli “prisoners” to Gaza, showcasing themselves brutalizing captured Israeli soldiers or joyriding through the area with an Israeli senior citizen. Other, vile images show abuse of the bodies of dead Israelis.

Some images have emerged from the communities overrun by Hamas, but the devastation and the final death toll will become clear only after the IDF retakes the area and learns of the state of the local civilian residents. The Hamas raid also coincided with a music festival held where young people held an outdoor dance party – many of them were killed or wounded, while others were kidnapped and taken to Gaza, as were some residents of the area. Hamas is notorious for its ill-treatment of Israelis, holding them without any communication or access to the Red Cross for years.

Gazans also pillaged the communities they entered, taking heavy machinery, cars, and other equipment, which they then paraded in Gaza.

The attack came out of nowhere and was a major surprise to Israel and its intelligence community. This at a time when Israel was working on securing additional aid to Gaza; it has allowed thousands of Gazans to work in Israel and was in the process of allowing the Palestinians to drill for natural gas off the Gaza coast.

Hamas decided to throw all this away and plunge the region into war, claiming it was doing so as a response to Israeli Jews entering the Temple Mount during the holiday of Sukkot, thus, in their view, defiling the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

We do not know why Hamas did so. Was it their Jihadi identity asserting itself at the expense of the Gaza population, was it a coordinated plan with their Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah partners, or did they seek to take advantage of the internal turmoil within Israel?

What we know for certain is that Gaza is about to pay the price for the hubris of its leaders; we can certainly see the cruelty they have unleashed on Israeli civilians.

It is a stark and painful reminder that even as Israel pursues additional avenues to advance peace in the region with Saudi Arabia and others, some would rather see it all burn down to serve their religious zealotry and unhinged willingness to use force.

Israel will need to take an extremely hard look at its defenses and intelligence. The concept of defense based on technological superiority came crashing down, as simple numbers and ingenuity allowed Hamas to overwhelm, overrun, or bypass them altogether. The lack of strategic intelligence on Hamas’s intentions and of tactical intelligence on its widespread assault along the supposedly secure border should prompt a comprehensive assessment of the failure.

The political echelon should not receive a free pass. The government’s dogged obsession with a one-sided judicial reform tore Israeli society from within. Internal security deteriorated markedly and little time was allocated to security issues not related to Judea and Samaria.

The opening phase of what will be the Gaza war was a spectacular failure. Let us hope things get better from now on, and not worse, and let us also hope that Israel is going to learn from its mistakes and that it will never repeat them. Let us also hope that the internal divisions that have marked the tenure of the current government will ease and that both sides of the political divide learn the old maxim attributed to Benjamin Franklin – “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”   

LT. Col. Yochai Guiski is a 23 year veteran of the IDF. He retired in 2020 as a Lieutenant Colonel after serving in the Israeli Military Intelligence. Yochai served in various roles including: Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (C.O.G.A.T.), Strategic Planning Division and the Ministry of Defense (politico-military directorate). Read full bio here.

American Jews Don’t Get It

By Micah Jones

On Friday, October 6, my wife and I enjoyed Shabbat dinner with our almost-ten-month-old son. This Shabbat was special as it was now the time of year where we could welcome Shabbat a little earlier in the evening, before our son’s bedtime. Even more so, our son was now old enough to sit at the dinner table with us and gaze upon the Shabbat candles and touch the challah as we sang ha-motzi. And most special, was my wife and I blessing our son and being together as a family:

Y’simkha Elohim K’efrayim V’khimenasheh 

May God make you like Ephraim and Menasseh 

Y’varekh’kha Adonai v’yishm’rekha.

Ya’er Adonai panav elekha vhuneka.

Yisa Adonai panav elekha, v’yasem l’kha shalom 

May God Bless you and keep you.

May God’s light shine on you and be gracious to you.

May God’s face be lifted upon you and give you peace.

          As my family and I sat around the dinner table, the holiness of the moment was profound and the sanctity of Shabbat was like a glow that wrapped us closely in its sheltering light. Within our house, in our little town outside of Boston, in the United States of America, my family and I were safe and well, and free to live our lives as Jews without fear of violence or retaliation.  

The same could not be said for Jews in Israel.  

I woke up on Saturday morning, October 7, to news of the unimaginable terror that had descended upon Israel. At the time of this writing, over 700 Israelis had been murdered, many Jews taken hostage, and thousands of rockets fired into Israel’s southern communities. On the fiftieth anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, Hamas had violated the sanctity of Shabbat to launch a surprise attack on Israel, once again plunging the country into chaos. I immediately texted my close Israeli friends whose reserve units had already been activated, as well as my cousin who had recently made Aliyah and was on lockdown in her small town. The situation was chaotic and undoubtedly would be intensifying over the coming days.

As I refreshed my phone for updates, I read that Prime Minister Netanyahu had declared that “Israel was at War.” Undoubtedly the IDF’s response will be substantial and justified, and I hope that Hamas leadership and its forces are eliminated, once and for all.

But as I read the news and received updates from my friends and family, I was overwhelmed by a sense of guilt and shame. There was nothing I could directly do to help my fellow Jews in Israel. My life would not be affected directly. I would spend the weekend with my family, going for walks, enjoying some leisure time, and spending quality moments with my son.

 I was blessed to be a Jew in America.

It is this reality of comfort for American Jews that makes it difficult to comprehend the quotidian reality our fellow Jews experience in Israel. Especially in reform communities, many American Jews cannot comprehend why Israel must act the way it does—whether via its security posture or interactions with its neighbors. American Jews are so comfortable and so privileged in their safety that they cannot fathom that there are genuine forces of evil, like Hamas, that would like nothing more than to murder them simply because they are Jews.  Rather, many American Jews turn a blind eye toward actual Jew hatred, like that spouted by Hamas, or other international actors, like Iran, and instead claim that real antisemitism is that which is found online on X (formerly known as Twitter). 

Although Jew hatred does, occasionally, manifest itself in violence within the United States, as we have seen in the last few years in Pittsburgh and Poway, these incidences are few and far between. American Jews are blessed to live in a philosemitic country where they are welcomed in all aspects of society and government. But Jewish success and integration in America is rare when compared to the history of the Jewish people, and the reality of what Jews face the world over, and especially in Israel.

American Jews are not a monolith. They are not all Zionist, as I am, and many may never have been to Israel. In recent months, many American Jews have been extremely critical (unjustly in my opinion) of the Netanyahu Administration’s judicial reform efforts.  But as American Jews read and watch the news this weekend, I hope that they will take a moment to give thanks for their safety here in America. I hope that they will think of their fellow Jews in Israel who are hiding in bomb shelters with their families. I hope that they will pray for those Jews who have been kidnapped by Hamas and may face fates worse than death. And I hope that we American Jews will offer our support to our brothers and sisters in Israel to ensure that Israel can rebuild and prevent such acts of war by Hamas from ever happening again.

Micah Quinney Jones is an attorney, a US Army veteran, and a pro-Israel advocate. He is a recipient of the Bronze Star Medal for Meritorious Service. Before attending law school, Micah served for over five years as a Military Intelligence branch detail Infantry officer in the United States Army. He was honorably discharged as a Captain in 2016. The majority of his military service was spent in the Army's 82nd Airborne Division. Read full bio here.

The time has come to topple Hamas but also think about what's next.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN

In the hours after Hamas’s massive and devastating onslaught against Israeli civilians in the south of the country, it has become clear that the die has been cast and that Israel can no longer accept Hamas’s regime in Gaza, Col. (res) David Hacham, a Miryam Institute senior associate and former Arab Affairs Advisor to several Israeli ministers of defense, assessed on Saturday.

“Israel will need to topple the Hamas regime – but it also must think about what happens on the day after,” said Hacham.

As Israel plans its response, the country’s defense establishment – which is fully cognizant of the cost in blood of such a war – will need to prepare for the possibility of a new military administration in Gaza, he cautioned.

The option of a partial campaign, striking Hamas and withdrawing, is unrealistic, said Hacham.

The wave of deadly cross-border attacks that began at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday demonstrated a severe strategic failure by Israel on a scale last seen in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, 50 years ago, he added.

“One difference stands out – the lack of a prior alert in 1973 affected military maneuvers, whereas today, they have had a terrible effect on the civilian home front,” Hacham stated.

Israel’s failure has three key components, according to the former advisor. “At the intelligence level, Israel failed to detect the plan to attack despite its advanced units, eavesdropping, surveillance, and the capabilities of Military Intelligence and the Shin Bet,” he stated. “It took Hamas many months to prepare the attack, and its ability to organize and maintain the elements of surprise, while keeping the onslaught under wraps, is a major success for it,” he added. “Hamas contributed to the deception by pretending that it was in routine mode, asking to increase the number of Gazan workers allowed into Israel.”

The heartbreaking scenes of civilians caught up in the attack, crying in terror for their children, yet with no help available, was the visual, tragic expression of this failure.

Another aspect of the colossal Israeli failure is the fact that IDF soldiers and officers, along with unarmed civilians, were taken to Gaza as hostages.

The unbelievable scope of Israel’s killed and injured count is difficult to internalize, Hacham said.

“Israel’s Maginot Line collapsed in this attack like a house of cards. Despite the billions of shekels invested by Israel in building its underground and overground wall to block tunnels and infiltrations, Hamas found and exploited its weak spots. Hamas simply breached the 65-kilometer barrier with bulldozers, creating a highway for terrorists and other Gazans who cleverly exploited it,” said Hacham.

In the air, meanwhile, terrorists simply flew over the barrier with powered paragliders.

Internally, Hamas saw the internal divisions in Israeli society created by the dispute over the judicial overhaul. They viewed these developments as a major sign of Israeli weakness, and they exploited it to harm the country, Hacham said.

This was further nourished, he argued, by the way Hamas interpreted the refusal by pilots and IDF officers to volunteer for reserve duty, a move that projected weakness as far as it was concerned.

The head of Hamas’s military wing, Mohammed Deif, claimed the attack was sparked by the “desecration” of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem when thousands of Jews ascended the site during Succot, as well as violence by settlers in Judea and Samaria.

Hacham also noted that Hamas views the Palestinian Authority and its President, Mahmoud Abbas, as traitors.

As Israel plans its next steps, he proposed that Israel coordinate to a certain degree with Egypt, which is a major element that it can engage with, as well as Qatar, due to the funding it provides for Gaza.

Hacham noted that Abbas “made his usual comments during a meeting of his chiefs of staff, once again blaming Israel,” and added that “in reality, he has no say on what occurs in Gaza.”

According to the former defense official, Iran’s role must also be scrutinized closely. “Iran is a central inciter and supporter of Hamas, providing over one hundred million dollars annually to the organization and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. It is reasonable to assume that Iran was in on the planned attack,” he stated.

Both Iran and Hamas have an interest in sabotaging the emerging trilateral Saudi – Israeli – United States agreement, which would blaze a trail for other Arab Muslim countries to follow suit and normalize relations with Israel, something that he said would create an enormous challenge to the Iranian-led regional axis.

As for Hamas itself, there is no doubt that its Gazan base is a central strategic asset for it and that it wants to continue to rule it, according to Hacham. “Yet Hamas miscalculated by going this far and not realizing that Israel will decide that it had enough and that it could well go for the option of toppling Hamas,” he said.

Moving forward, Hacham said the region will also need to be on alert for the potential threat of fundamentalist Islamist elements in Judea and Samaria – Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad – hitting senior Palestinian Authority operatives in targeted killings as part of the power struggle raging as Abbas’s rule draws to its end. “All sides are preparing for the start of the post-Abbas era,” Hacham said.

He noted that Deif warned the PA and Abbas to cease security cooperation with Israel during his speech.

Ultimately, the horrific events of October 8 mean that the spark has been lit and that it could set off an even bigger fire,” Hacham stated. “Hamas often speaks about the unity of arenas – Gaza, Judea and Samaria, east Jerusalem, southern Lebanon, and within Israel – with Iran orchestrating all of this from above. In Deif’s latest speech, he called for this unity to occur. This explains Israel’s warning to Hezbollah not to exploit this opportunity, but Israel still has to prepare for potential escalations in east Jerusalem, the Temple Mount, Judea and Samaria, and within its borders,” Hacham said.

“Israel’s interest is to isolate Gaza and avoid a multi-front arena while also preparing for exactly that scenario, at the same time as it seeks to start the painful process of moving forward after its colossal failure in Gaza,” Hacham concluded.

Yaakov Lappin is an Israel-based military affairs correspondent and analyst. He provides insight and analysis for a number of media outlets, including Jane's Defense Weekly, a leading global military affairs magazine, and JNS.org, a news agency with wide distribution among Jewish communities in the U.S. Read full bio here.

 

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Jewish and Democratic: Why one completes the other

By SHARON ROFFE OFIR

The gender partition set up by the Orthodox Rosh Yehudi organization during the Kol Nidrei prayer in Dizengoff Square in the heart of Tel Aviv this past Yom Kippur is a mere metaphor for the separation that divisive elements have been trying to create within Israeli society for several years, and all the more so in the last nine months.

The disturbing images of the scuffles that erupted during Yom Kippur Eve prayers in Tel Aviv on September 24 keep replaying in my mind.

Normally, no one would disagree with the argument that every person, irrespective of their opinion, should, in their own way, envelop themselves in sanctity during Judaism’s holiest day.

But the reality here has long been far from normal. The debate is not about a gender partition but rather about a separation fence that grows ever higher as certain elements seek to create a barrier between Jewish Israel and democratic Israel.

These divisive forces call on everyone to choose a side without understanding that these two values live together and that without one or the other, the State of Israel loses the basis for its existence.

Should the citizens of Israel choose a side between Jewish and democratic? Splitting a disputed Tallit is a familiar concept in Judaism. The good news is that we did not invent this wheel; the subject has always been controversial. The bad news is that the debate has reached boiling point and there is no leader to calm the situation down. A fire is burning the prayer shawl.

The time to restore order has arrived. To do this, one must go back to basics. Let us start with the Jewish component. In the Book of Genesis, Chapter 1, Verse 27, in the story of the creation of the world, it is written: “So, God created mankind in his image; in the image of God, he created them.” This is one verse that embodies an entire concept.

Unlike the stories of other ancient Middle Eastern nations, the Bible comes along and produces a democratization of the idea of the image of human beings. This formed a key stage in the perception that divinity exists in every person—no more holy kings and idols—and this is a basic principle that teaches us about the dignity and rights of all people.

The idea of a Jewish state is mentioned in the UN General Assembly resolution of November 29, 1947, and is subsequently anchored in Israel’s Declaration of Independence.

So where did the idea of a democratic state come from? While the Declaration of Independence does not explicitly mention 'democratic,' it undoubtedly envisions Israel as a democratic state. The declaration states that the Jewish state will have elections, a constitution, institutions of governance and a constituent assembly.

The Declaration of Independence outlines in its vision Jewish and democratic foundations. The State of Israel is a Jewish nation-state and a state whose religion is Judaism. Can a nation-state also be a democratic state? Take the example of European countries. In Europe, the nation existed before the establishment of the modern state; these countries were established on the basis of an ethnic-cultural identity.

As such, these Western countries each have their own nation, and they all respect the components of democracy. Having official state religions is no impediment to democracy.  Britain, where the ruling religion is the Anglican Church, is an example of a democracy with a state religion, as are countries like Norway and Denmark that adopted the Lutheran-Christian religion and democratic values.

So why do many Israelis struggle to reconcile Jewish and democratic as part of a single whole? The answer is rooted in the political system and the power structure in Israel. Over the years, the democratic component has been eroded (elections alone are not democracy), while the Jewish component (as the ruling religion) has never been defined and has taken on shades that have nothing to do with Judaism.

The current government has taken things to a new level, and parts of the coalition are unaware that a messianic halachic state is not a Jewish state.

Returning to the harsh images of the eve of Yom Kippur, 2023. The fuel thrown on to the fire fanned the flames: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu divided the people into those who are authentic Jews and those who are not. Division serves him but does not serve us.

If we manage to understand that this is not a political debate but a threat to our very basic existence here, we will conclude that there is no Jewish without democratic, and vice versa.

The fact of the matter is that the struggle for democratic Zionism will also affect Israel’s Judaism. The idea that power lies in the hands of one authority is not the way of Judaism; a state that is less democratic is also less Jewish.

As Israeli jurist Justice Menachem Elon of blessed memory once put it: “The dual-purpose end—a Jewish and democratic state - is one, and one arrives and teaches about the other, and one arrives and completes the other, and they become one in our hands."

Sharon Roffe-Ofir served as Knesset Member in the 24th Knesset. She has served as a deputy local council head at Kiryat Tivon, and has worked as a journalist and as a senior lecturer in academic institutions for 24 years. Read full bio here.