Why haven’t the leaders of the “ PASUL-Olam HaTorah” – the ultra-Orthodox, Torah-observant world – condemned this behavior? Instead: They rally to shut down the country in the name of Torah. Why is no one concerned that now “Torah” communities are above the rule of law and fomenting hatred of Jew against Jew

 

If only just a few Haredim were calling police ‘Nazis’ and women ‘shiksas’ 

 

Ultra-Orthodox rioters are no longer fringe extremists: I watched local teens block cars and my Haredi neighbors cheer them on – as the police did nothing 

 

 

Haredi protesters attempt to block traffic on a road in Beit Shemesh during a demonstration on June 9, 2026. (Israel Police)

I live on the seam in a neighborhood divided between Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox.

And in my neighbor’s words: It’s a dumpster fire. And we’re watching it spread across the country as everyone’s hands are tied, with a mumbled wish: “This too shall pass.” 

I’d like to ask all of those who don’t live on the edge of this dumpster fire to please hold off on your kumbaya suggestions until you’ve lived with it consistently on your back porch. Not two streets away, but on your doorstep – where you witness hate-filled riots every single week, year in and year out, and see it spread. 

You’re not seeing the scale, intensity, and insidiousness of this brand of Haredi extremism that realizes how easily and willingly its growing masses can shut down the country. But I hope the next election brings change or that someone higher up will wake up and unbind the hands of law enforcement.

Oh, the Difference a Front Row Seat Makes

I live on the street that borders both the dati leumi (religious Zionist) and the Haredi neighborhoods in Beit Shemesh, a city approximately halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. We have a front row seat to Haredi extremism that political, religious, and community leaders talk about in the abstract. A view that even our neighbors one street away in our same neighborhood do not have. Visitors and even new neighbors see a riot on our street and say, “That’s awful! But it’ll get taken care of. Just a handful of hundreds of extremists throwing a tantrum. Just add more ahavat Yisrael (love for the Jewish people)…” 

Funny, I think. We/the world has made this mistake before. But I understand that it’s hard to predict the future. Even the CIA declared that “Iran was not in a revolutionary situation” in 1978 (the shah was overthrown by the ayatollah in 1979).

The line of thinking for most people goes something like this: It’s a small minority of kitzonim (extremists), not the vast majority of Haredim, who incite and shut down traffic. Only a few call the police “Nazis” or our women “shiksas.” The rest aren’t like that!

I’ve also been at those types of riots, where the participants were from other neighborhoods or paid or seemed a little off. They were just “the kitzonim.”

But on Tuesday, I saw with my own eyes that I have been wrong for the past eight years of living on this street. I would always call the rioters “kitzonim”; I live a bit further up the street – not as close to the riots as I could be. My neighbors’ apartment window faces the riots directly. They always called the same people “Haredim.” After the other night, I too will say “Haredim.”

Tuesday night, at 9:30 p.m., against my better judgement and best sense of self-preservation, I stepped out to see if the riot was over (it had started at 6 p.m.).

Humiliating Capitulation

It wasn’t over. For 3.5 hours, the police had rerouted traffic, preventing access to the roundabout at the end of my street, which is a major thoroughfare in Beit Shemesh, inconveniencing countless people and the 47 bus lines that have stops along that intersection. 

Video Player

Hundreds of young Haredi men were milling about in the roundabout screaming “Nazi” at the police, who were monitoring from the sidewalk; yelling “shiksa” in my neighbor’s face; and shouting and blocking any unlucky non-Haredi driver who happened to have made it through the police blockades into the intersection.

To our utter amazement, as the cars got stuck, the police stood back and waited. As fires were set at the roundabout, the firefighters waited down the block to let them burn out on their own.

Cars stuck? No reaction from the police. Then a boy in a crowd across the street threw a rock at the police. They stormed after the crowd with their batons. I muttered, “Finally.” Then a kid standing next to me responded: “No! They hit everyone. Those guys didn’t throw the rock!” I just stood there dumbfounded. 

For hours, the police had not moved these rioters from the roundabout. They’d removed the law abiding drivers instead. Because “the rioters don’t listen.” 

According to my neighbors, it’s due to national-level policy. Law enforcement’s role in our country has been reversed to: tell the law-abiders to move back so these law-breakers won’t have someone to attack. Just stand back and let them destroy your neighborhood in peace. For as long as they like.

Boys learning in night seder (evening studies) in the neighborhood yeshivot came running to the roundabout. Local boys. Not “kitzonim” –– regular black-hatted, white-shirted, Haredi yeshivah boys. Who then joined the others in blocking cars, shouting “Nazi,” and throwing rocks. And the discussions on the sidewalks and the cheers by the Haredi bystanders were not silence at all; they were support. 

Finally a water cannon truck showed up at around 10 p.m., four hours after traffic had been stopped there – and the Haredim all ran from the street. Some of the boys took the firehose at the shopping center on the corner, turned it on, and started spraying back. I’m assuming there was a good reason why the truck was not sent earlier to clear the roundabout for drivers at 6 p.m.. My neighbors’ granddaughter was working at the bakery on the corner, and her grandfather went in to get her and she came out visibly shaken with rage. They would have to drive her home, as there were no buses.

On every Friday night and Shabbat for the past eight weeks, this is what has been happening, under the guise of “Shabbos”: People blocking streets, mobbing cars, shouting at drivers and their frightened children, lying down in front of cars in the street. With the police waiting a short distance away. It’s not about keeping Shabbos holy. They’re literally stopping and damaging cars. It’s simple bullying.

No Consequences

And with no consequences. Not a ticket. Not an arrest. Not only does it intensify, it encourages. Teenage boys are able to fight “anti-Torah” oppressors (the State of Israel); meanwhile, the oppressive law enforcement protects them while they break the law and attack others. Who’s in charge?

So, others shrug off when I get on a bus and hear hisses around me to sit in the back. When young kids laugh and call me shiksa in a parking lot, and I ask to speak to their rebbe (teacher), and he just shrugs. When young Haredi schoolgirls start yelling “I’m glad they died” out their classroom window at family members at a cemetery on Yom HaZikaron (Israel’s Memorial Day) during the siren. When they are emboldened enough to travel to Alon Shvut to storm a justice’s private home. And my well-meaning neighbors point to their Haredi coworkers who say they are embarrassed and that these kitzonim are just the outliers. I too know many Haredim who are ashamed of this behavior, but they are the ones who are the outliers. It looks like the Haredi mainstream is now justifying extremism.

If not, why haven’t the leaders of the “Olam HaTorah” – the ultra-Orthodox, Torah-observant world – condemned this behavior? Instead: They rally to shut down the country in the name of Torah. Why is no one concerned that now “Torah” communities are above the rule of law and fomenting hatred of Jew against Jew? 

The temperature is rising. Rapidly. And we’re shrugging it off.

I hope that instead of sidelining this issue when thinking about the upcoming elections, voters and leaders wake up and consider whether they vote for a government that will continue to embolden a growing minority with the power to shut down the country, without a care how much it costs any individual or society. I hope someone in leadership realizes that continuing to do nothing empowers a community that encourages its youth to regard every other Jew in the country as a “Nazi.” 

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/if-only-just-a-few-haredim-were-calling-police-nazis-and-women-shiksas/

-----שלום עליכםChina’s Xi Jinping lands in North Korea to meet Kim Jong Un in rare visit ---- While Trump Is Yutzing Around With Iran, China is Solidifying Their Grip & Stranglehold On The Asian Continent!

US President Donald Trump treats negotiations with Iran “like a bazaar,” former head of the Mossad’s counterterrorism division Oded Ailam said during an interview

 

Former Mossad official says Trump naive about Iran, misunderstands Middle East diplomacy

 

The former counterterror head of the Mossad said that Trump "does not understand the terminology of the Middle East, not the dialectic, and the Iranians are teaching him a lesson in that regard.”

US President Donald Trump treats negotiations with Iran “like a bazaar,” former head of the Mossad’s counterterrorism division Oded Ailam said during an interview with 103FM on Monday morning.

“It’s hard to summarize, we are only in a pause. We have not finished anything, just as we have not finished anything in any arena, and we need to admit the truth. There are extraordinary military achievements in all arenas that are not really being translated into diplomatic achievements,” he said.

“One of the main reasons is a capricious president named Trump, who is negotiating in the Iranian bazaar. More or less, he comes in the morning to his stall, puts up a sign that says, ‘By the end of the day, I need to sell all the merchandise,’ and expects prices to go down.

"He does not understand the terminology of the Middle East, not the dialectic, and the Iranians are teaching him a lesson in that regard.”

Ailam also called on Israel to look at events taking place elsewhere in the world, noting his talk of a wall funded by Mexico, his plans to conquer Greenland, and the deadlines he has given for those issues.

 

Bahrain's Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Donald Trump and UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed participate in the signing of the Abraham Accords in Washington, September 15, 2020. 

 

“We owe this man an enormous debt, no matter what. He brought the Abraham Accords; he was the most dominant factor in the hostage deal. This man did what seven presidents before him did not do, and he attacked Iran, which absorbed heavy blows. However, we are talking here with a president who sometimes acts against his own interests and could write a glorious chapter in Barbara Tuchman’s book The March of Folly.”

Former Mossad counterterror head says Trump limited Israel's Iran strikes 

Ailam then described Israel as a limited player on the regional stage and argued that its standing is deteriorating in the face of its enemies.

“Let’s take an analogy from the World Cup: they bring up the striker Ousmane Dembélé, and the coach tells him, ‘You only shoot with your right foot and only pass backward.’ We need to get the maximum out of this. We have no say.

"Israel must sever the equation in which the Iranian lawyer tells the Lebanese client, ‘I represent you, and I don’t care what you say.’ The importance of this move was that Israel did not accept it. Israel is sending a very clear message that the key in Beirut will hang on the wall in Tehran. In that sense, the message was very sharp and clear.”

He added more about the developments taking place in Lebanon, stating that Israel’s territorial control is what has harmed Iran and Hezbollah the most.

“What worries the Iranians most is that they are seeing a process of internal disintegration begin inside Lebanon, including within the Shiite community, where people are starting to ask questions. I speak with Lebanese and follow what is happening there. We have never seen such serious doubts from all parts of the spectrum,” he said.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-898969?

 

 

Mexico Bombs the United States, Bibi Calls Trump Not To F****N' Retaliate

 

The premise is absurd, which is precisely why it is so useful. In our era, the absurd is no longer a warning sign; it is a governing principle. Mexico “bombs” the United States, Bibi phones Trump, and the great question of our age becomes not whether this sounds like a fever dream, but whether there is still a shred of adult judgment left anywhere in the Western world. The answer, alas, is increasingly no. We are governed by improvisation, vanity, and the conviction that every crisis can be managed with a camera, a slogan, and a donation link.

What makes the whole scene so grotesque is not merely the violence, but the reflex to misunderstand it. A direct attack on American soil would demand clarity, seriousness, and retaliation proportionate to the assault. Instead, the modern political imagination rushes immediately toward confusion, spin, and strategic sentimentality. Trump, who loves the theater of strength more than the substance of it, would be tempted to treat the moment as a personal insult before he treated it as a national emergency. And Bibi, with the instincts of a veteran survivalist in a region where weakness is always fatal, would presumably see the danger first: once a superpower starts improvising its own humiliation, everyone nearby begins paying the bill.

That is the joke and the tragedy at once. The United States, a country built on the assumption that borders matter and consequences are real, has spent years teaching the world that its leaders may be loud but are not necessarily decisive. Adversaries notice these things. They study hesitation the way predators study limps. If Mexico were ever to cross such an unimaginable line, the real scandal would not be the attack itself, but the American habit of converting existential events into partisan spectacle. One side would demand fury, the other restraint, and both would be less interested in the republic than in the performance of their tribe.

Bibi’s warning not to retaliate, in this cartoon of geopolitics, would not come from tenderness. It would come from experience. The old truth of diplomacy is that enemies rarely fear your morality; they fear your memory and your resolve. Israel has spent generations learning the difference between anger and deterrence, between a speech and a shield. The American political class, by contrast, often behaves as though virtue and security are interchangeable, as though being good is the same thing as being defended. It is not. It never was.

And so the spectacle ends where it always ends: with the United States discovering, yet again, that it cannot live on self-regard alone. A nation can survive incompetence, vanity, even the occasional clownish president. What it cannot survive for long is the belief that serious dangers can be managed by unserious people. That is the real missile in this fantasy—fired not by Mexico, but by a civilization that has forgotten how to distinguish power from theater, and strategy from mood.

 

REPUBLISHED

 

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/mexico-bombs-the-united-states-bibi-calls-trump-not-to-fn-retaliate/

Let’s Stop Assuming Donald Trump Knows What He’s Doing in the Middle East

 

Trump: I’m calling Netanyahu ‘right now… to tell him not to retaliate’ for Iran’s missile attacks

For nearly a decade, Americans have been told that Donald Trump possesses a mysterious genius when it comes to foreign policy. Every contradiction is explained away as strategy. Every reversal is called flexibility. Every blunder is repackaged as three-dimensional chess. And nowhere is this mythology more dangerous than in the Middle East.

It is time to stop assuming Donald Trump knows what he is doing.

The assumption itself has become a substitute for evidence. When negotiations fail, supporters claim that failure was the plan. When allies are confused, they call it unpredictability. When adversaries gain leverage, they insist Trump is merely setting a trap. The pattern has become almost theological. The leader is presumed infallible, and therefore every outcome, no matter how embarrassing, is interpreted as proof of wisdom.

The Middle East, unfortunately, is not a reality television set. It is not a Manhattan real-estate negotiation. It is a region where weakness is detected instantly, where political theater has consequences, and where enemies study actions rather than campaign slogans. In such an environment, confidence without competence can be extraordinarily expensive.

The problem is not that Trump lacks confidence. The problem is that confidence has become a replacement for knowledge. The Middle East is a graveyard filled with the reputations of leaders who believed they could improvise their way through ancient rivalries, religious passions, tribal loyalties, and geopolitical calculations. History is littered with statesmen who assumed they could bend the region to their will only to discover that the region had different plans.

Consider the endless fascination with negotiations. Trump approaches diplomacy as though every problem has a deal waiting to be signed. Yet not every adversary is seeking the same outcome. Revolutionary regimes often value ideology more than prosperity. Fanatics frequently prefer confrontation over compromise. Nations pursuing long-term strategic objectives are not necessarily interested in helping an American president create a favorable headline.

This is particularly relevant when dealing with Iran. The assumption that Tehran views negotiations through the same lens as a New York businessman misunderstands the nature of the regime. Iran's leadership has spent decades demonstrating patience, ideological commitment, and a willingness to absorb pain in pursuit of strategic goals. To imagine that a clever sales pitch or a dramatic summit automatically changes that reality is not sophistication. It is wishful thinking.

What is most striking is how often Trump's defenders confuse motion with progress. Announcements become achievements. Meetings become victories. Negotiations become breakthroughs before any breakthrough has actually occurred. The public is encouraged to judge intentions rather than results.

But foreign policy is ultimately measured by outcomes. Are America's allies stronger or weaker? Are America's enemies more constrained or more confident? Is deterrence increasing or declining? These are not partisan questions. They are practical ones.

The cult of political personality has infected much of American discourse. Many critics assume Trump is a fool. Many supporters assume he is a genius. Both positions abandon the discipline of sober analysis. The wiser approach is to examine events as they unfold and judge them by their consequences rather than by emotional attachment to the man himself.

For those of us who grew up studying Jewish history, this lesson should sound familiar. Survival was rarely achieved through wishful thinking. It required clear eyes, skepticism, realism, and the ability to distinguish rhetoric from reality. Communities that confused hope with strategy often paid a terrible price.

Donald Trump may succeed in some areas of Middle East policy. He may fail in others. But serious observers should reject the childish assumption that every move is evidence of hidden brilliance. Statesmanship is not magic. Leadership is not measured by confidence alone.

The Middle East is one of the most unforgiving regions on earth. It has humbled empires, shattered illusions, and exposed the arrogance of leaders far more experienced than Donald Trump. Before assuming that he alone possesses a master plan invisible to everyone else, Americans should demand something far simpler:

Proof.

 

REPUBLISHED

 

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/lets-stop-assuming-donald-trump-knows-what-hes-doing-in-the-middle-east/

The problem in the Middle East is not, and has never been, the existence of the state of Israel. The problem is jihadism, Islamism, Islamic extremism, Islamofascism militant Islam—or whatever words you want to use to describe the belligerence and triumphal lunacy of those who take the most pernicious doctrines of Islam too seriously.

 

Why I Won’t Debate Critics of Israel

A note to the Making Sense Community

Sam Harris Jun 5

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Many readers and podcast listeners have been dismayed by my enduring support for Israel and now urge me to debate someone—really anyone—drawn from a growing cast of scholars, grifters, and moral lunatics who have made that beleaguered country their professional or psychiatric obsession. The Making Sense Community seems to have inherited this infatuation, leading to some heated exchanges in recent days. I’ve explained my position on Israel across several podcasts and in my public talks, but it might help to summarize it here.

First, my general attitude: I’m not interested in exploring all the ways that Israel has missed the mark—from Prime Minister Netanyahu’s corrupt alliance with the far right, to the many crimes committed by settlers in the West Bank, to the deaths of innocent noncombatants in several wars—because none of these failings, however grave, will alter my sense that (1) the ethical difference between Israel and her enemies remains vast, and (2) the global preoccupation with the Jewish state, as though it were the worst villain among nations, is contemptible, being the product of perennial lies and delusions.

Next, a simple heuristic: As I suggested in at least one Community thread already, if my intransigence on these matters mystifies you, it might help to understand that, for whatever reason, I think militant Islam is ten times worse than you think it is. When I talk about “jihadists” and their various groups—Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, the IRGC, etc.—I’m talking about people who I consider to be worse than Nazis (jihadists being, essentially, Nazis who are certain of Paradise). My views about the conflict in the Middle East will not fundamentally change unless my critics produce evidence that Israel has become as evil as her enemies.

However, you can rest assured that if the IDF morphs into a death cult that uses its own civilian population as human shields (and yet somehow remains widely popular), if ordinary Israelis begin to celebrate martyrdom above every earthly priority, producing generations of bright-eyed, suicidal fanatics, if the residents of Tel Aviv condone the taking of Palestinian infants, old women, and other noncombatants as hostages and then gather in crowds of thousands, baying for their blood—if, in other words, the Israelis begin to resemble the Palestinians, then I won’t care who wins this war. Short of this, there remains a world of difference between the two sides, and I believe that we should focus on how brutalizing it is for any free society to confront enemies that can sincerely claim to “love death” more than everyone else loves life—for this has been Israel’s predicament for the better part of a century.

The problem in the Middle East is not, and has never been, the existence of the state of Israel. The problem is jihadism, Islamism, Islamic extremism, Islamofascism militant Islam—or whatever words you want to use to describe the belligerence and triumphal lunacy of those who take the most pernicious doctrines of Islam too seriously.

I won’t debate the history of the Middle East because it is irrelevant to resolving the conflict there. Of course, many people insist that we must disentangle and reconsider every strand of this history, going back at least a century. The reason I’m convinced that this is a fool’s errand is simple: Palestinians and Israelis have discrepant accounts of the past, and no amount of study or debate will reconcile them.

What’s far more important to understand—and I think it really is the only thing worth considering—is what the current inhabitants of Israel, the Palestinian territories, and the surrounding Arab states want out of life now. (Not what they pretend to want or what a handful of royal families want, while their populations want something quite different.) What do the Jews and Muslims in the region really yearn to accomplish? What are they willing to sacrifice for? What are they willing to die for? And what are they willing to let their children die for?

When we focus on the present this way, if we’re being honest, we must concede that there are two very different realities on either side of this conflict: culturally, psychologically, ethically, spiritually—in every way that matters. Yes, Israel has its religious fanatics too. But they aren’t the same sort of fanatics we find in Hamas or Hezbollah, and they’re far less representative of the surrounding culture. Notwithstanding everything that can be said against Prime Minister Netanyahu, the Israeli far right, and the settlers in the West Bank—and there is much to condemn—I believe the following remains true:

If the Palestinians laid down their arms, there would be peace. There could be a two-state solution; there could even be a one-state solution; it wouldn’t matter. If the Palestinians simply stopped killing Jews and stopped building a culture that celebrates pointless murder and martyrdom as its highest values, there could be a diverse, tolerant, and prosperous society between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. There could have been one eighty years ago. But if the Israelis laid down their weapons, there would be a genocide. This was obviously true on October 7th, 2023. And for anyone who has been paying attention, it has been true on every other day since the founding of the state of Israel.

The truth is, I have never known how Israel should have responded to the events of October 7th. I only know that they, along with every other free society, must ultimately defeat militant Islam. How we should do this is genuinely debatable. But that’s not the point of contention among Israel’s critics, especially on the left. To them, worrying about militant Islam—even in Israel, even in the aftermath of the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust—is just more “Islamophobia.” It’s just more “colonialism” and “racism” (as though that last charge made any sense in the Middle East).

If you want to understand my view of this conflict, simply ask the one question that clarifies everything in the present:

What would each side do if it had the power to do whatever it wanted?

Though many pretend otherwise, everyone knows the answer to this question to a moral certainty.

If Hamas had the power, it would perpetrate a real genocide in Israel. The group has affirmed its commitment to this project on countless occasions, both before and after October 7th. And while it is true that Jew-hatred throughout the Muslim world has been made immensely worse by a century-long fascination with Nazi propaganda and conspiracy theories, this animus isn’t merely a modern phenomenon. For instance, there is a famous hadith which predicts that the End Times will not come until the very stones and trees cry out “Oh Muslim, there is a Jew behind me, come kill him.” Unsurprisingly, Hamas cited this hadith in its founding charter.

Most Palestinians know this, and yet Hamas remains popular. For over a decade, Hamas diverted foreign aid that was meant to improve life in Gaza and used it to build the largest bomb shelter our species has ever constructed—hundreds of miles of tunnels—and yet no Palestinian civilians were allowed to shelter there during the war. Why not? Because Hamas was using these men, women, and children as human shields. And when Israel made phone calls and sent millions of text messages urging civilians to evacuate, the loudspeakers in the nearest mosques warned them to stay in place. And Hamas snipers murdered many who tried to move to safety. The Palestinians know all this, and yet Hamas remains popular. Even after all the devastation that Hamas has brought down on its own people, it remains the most popular Palestinian faction, well ahead of its rival, Fatah. This is why there is no peace in the Middle East.

The suffering in Gaza is terrible, and I’ve never pretended otherwise. But the suffering elsewhere—suffering you aren’t thinking about—is just as real. You should ask yourself why you don’t care more about it. This difference, emotionally and politically, is what it looks like to lose an information war.

We haven’t seen all the dead children in Yemen, Syria, or Sudan, where the numbers are far worse than in Gaza, but everyone has witnessed the pornography of misery and death that has been steadily manufactured by supporters of Hamas. You might think that your special concern over Israel is due to the fact that we (Americans) supply many of the weapons the IDF uses to kill Palestinians. But we supplied arms to Saudi Arabia and the UAE for a war in Yemen that has killed an estimated 377,000 people. Where were those protests? Where was the celebrity sanctimony over Yemeni dead? Why didn’t Zohran Mamdani trumpet his opposition to this evil while campaigning to become Mayor of New York? Yemen was the world’s worst humanitarian crisis for years, with American weaponry and logistical support fully implicated, and yet it never became the organizing moral obsession of universities, media institutions, activist networks, or leftwing politics the way Gaza has.

To point this out isn’t to commit the rhetorical sin of “whataboutism.” Rather, it exposes a glaring moral disparity: The world simply does not care when Muslims kill other Muslims—amazingly, it doesn’t much care when they kill Christians either—but it does care, enormously, when Jews do it. The General Assembly of the UN and its Human Rights Council have passed more resolutions against Israel than against all other nations combined, including North Korea, Iran, Russia, China, Syria, Sudan, and Yemen. A few of these countries have committed actual genocides. None of this makes sense. But this is the world we are living in.

Of the world’s 193 nations, two-thirds were created by map makers who merely imagined their frontiers into being, without much regard for the tribal interests of the people living within them. In fact, more than half were created since 1948, the year that Israel was founded. And yet there is only one whose legitimacy is still debated everywhere. There is only one nation on Earth that must continually argue for its right to exist, even when the very survival of its people is threatened by avowedly genocidal enemies.

This obsession with Israel, and the double standards to which its people are held, now forms the center of mass of that shapeshifting moral affliction widely known as “antisemitism.”

I’ve lived most of my life believing that dangerous antisemitism was behind us, at least in the West. Unfortunately, the response to October 7th has put that assumption very much in doubt. The atrocities committed by Hamas revealed a level of Jew hatred, globally, that shocked even those of us who have been students of antisemitism for much of our lives. Crucially, this hatred showed itself before Israel invaded Gaza. When the corpses of the young people mutilated and murdered at the Nova Music Festival were still being identified, we had students at Harvard and professors at Columbia—and demonstrators in New York, London, Sydney, and Toronto—celebrating their killers.

Why does antisemitism matter? Well, for the Jews, it’s obvious why it matters, but why should it matter to everyone else? It matters because when you look at what antisemites also hate, you find they hate everything that makes culturally rich, diverse, open societies possible. Real antisemites bring with them more than just their hatred of Jews: they bring censorship, political repression, conspiracy thinking, and the politics of dehumanization and scapegoating. So decrying antisemitism is not an act of special pleading. It is a defense of the moral and institutional architecture that makes free societies possible.

Let me close with another general point to members of the Making Sense Community: Many of you have written to tell me that you’ve lost respect for me over this issue (or that you still value my work and are giving me “a pass” on Israel). I reject this framing, and you should too. No one should be a part of Community just because they agree with me. I’m not running a political party, and there is no line for me, or for anyone else, to toe. If I’ve fallen off a pedestal because I said something you don’t agree with, the pedestal was the problem, not the disagreement. Of course, if you think I am lying to you, or that I otherwise lack integrity, you should leave and never look back. But if you just think I happen to be wrong, even about something important—especially about something important—I encourage you to keep showing up with better evidence and arguments. This, after all, is what a real intellectual and moral community is for.

Adirei Torah YU Style.....

 

While Iran bleeds the region, China watches – The American President Shanda

The Chinese Proxy, Iran, Keep Americans Bogged Down In The Middle East While China Plans To Move On Taiwan Before Trump Leaves Office....

The great trick of modern geopolitics is that the most dangerous wars are often not the ones that begin with armies crossing borders, but the ones that drain a nation’s attention, patience, and will. America, once a civilization capable of seeing the whole board, now seems condemned to stare at the Middle East like a man hypnotized by a fire in one room while someone quietly breaks into the house through the back door. Iran understands this. China understands it even better. And together they exploit an American political class that confuses motion with strategy and noise with strength.

Iran is not merely a regional nuisance. It has become the perfect proxy instrument: cheap, fanatical, deniable, and endlessly expandable. Through militias, missiles, drones, terror networks, and constant provocation, Tehran keeps the United States and its allies stuck in a cycle of reaction. Every day spent managing Iran’s chaos is a day America is not spending on the larger civilizational challenge. That is the genius of the arrangement, if one is cynical enough to call it genius: keep Washington exhausted, morally tangled, and strategically distracted.

While Iran bleeds the region, China watches. Beijing does not need to fire a shot to benefit from American overcommitment. It simply needs America to remain busy in the wrong theater. A superpower that is dragged into a permanent crouch in the Middle East is a superpower less able to deter in the Pacific. Taiwan, after all, is not an abstract question. It is a test of whether the United States still means what it says when the stakes are higher than campaign rhetoric and lower than apocalypse. China knows that the window for bold moves opens when Washington is overstretched, internally divided, and strategically tired.

And that is the deeper scandal: not merely that enemies are scheming, but that America keeps handing them opportunities. The same establishment that warns of “escalation” at every turn has spent years manufacturing paralysis. It wants no decisive victory, no clear doctrine, no serious burden-bearing. It prefers managed decline with good press coverage. So Iran is tolerated, China is “engaged,” and the American people are told that prudence means drifting while adversaries prepare.

This is how empires get embarrassed. Not always by defeat, but by distraction. The nation that cannot decide where its real front line is will eventually discover that the enemy has chosen it for him. The Middle East may still be a graveyard of illusions, but Taiwan is where illusions meet steel. And if America remains trapped in one swamp while China studies the next battlefield, the bill will not come due in theory. It will come due in history. 

 

REPUBLISHED

 

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/while-iran-bleeds-the-region-china-watches-the-american-president-shanda/

Abuse, Abandonment, and Autonomy

Be'halot'cha (Numbers 8-12)     

Beha’alosecha 5786: Abuse, Abandonment, and Autonomy

Series: Shabbat Shalom Weekly

 

When children curse their parents for forcing independence, the proper response is silence – not retaliation. This counterintuitive approach, and acceptance of abuse from one’s two-year-old, proves to the child that the parent’s actions are truly for the child’s benefit, not the parent’s ego. Taking abuse without responding demonstrates genuine love because there’s no personal benefit to the parent in accepting such treatment. 

As a senior staff member of a college and rabbinical school, students often come to me for advice on choosing a life path and career. In the last six months, I had two students who decided to end their status as full-time students and – based on their personalities (and for completely different reasons) – I recommended that each of them consider a career in plumbing.

Both took my advice and found themselves plumbing apprenticeships. One lasted exactly half a day; his team was called out to a Taco Bell to clear out a sewage blockage (one can only imagine what that must have been like). After a couple of hours this former student was 100% convinced that plumbing was not for him.

By contrast, the second student found his apprenticeship both fulfilling and rewarding. I asked him if he minded some of the more unpleasant aspects and he said to me, “Rabbi, I am low man on the totem pole and there are some days that I come home in clothes that stink to high heaven, but I just LOVE my job. I work extremely hard and come home exhausted and often smelly, but I would not have it any other way.”

Upon reflecting on their sharply differing attitudes, I realized that the main difference between them was that the first student was just looking for a way to earn money and make a life for himself. He quickly concluded that plumbing was not for him and that there must be a better way to earn money. The second student, however, immediately saw himself as a plumber and thus he quickly found the job itself fulfilling – despite its less pleasant moments. In fact, even coming home smelly just concretized in his mind that he was a plumber.

This week’s Torah portion has a relevant message about self-definition. In fact, it has a rather astonishing statement from Moses regarding the issues of leadership and how he characterizes motherhood.

After yet another litany of complaints from the Israelites about the lack of food variety and their continual pining for the “good ol’ days” of living in Egypt, Moses gets pretty fed up with them and his responsibilities as their leader and he says to God:

Why are you treating your servant so badly? Don’t you like me anymore? Why do you place such a burden on me? Am I their mother who was pregnant with them and carried them in my belly? Did I give birth to them? Why have You told me that I must carry them in my bosom and act as a nursemaid would treat an infant until they get to the land You swore to give to their ancestors? Now they are whining to me to give them meat. Where can I get enough meat to give all these people?
I cannot be responsible for this entire nation! It is too hard for me! If You are going to do this to me, just do me a favor and kill me! Don’t let me stay in this terrible predicament! (Numbers 11:10-15)

The great medieval Biblical commentator known as Rashi explains (ibid 11:12) that when the Almighty told Moses and Aaron to lead the Jewish people and carry them in their “bosom” that He meant they must lead even if/when the Israelites hurl curses, insults, or even stones at them.

This reveals a fundamental truth about parenting: it inherently involves some abuse by one’s children. What is going on here? What kind of definition is this about the responsibilities of parenthood? We must examine the source for the potential antipathy a child might have toward his parents.

Every child experiences trauma at birth – being expelled from the perfect temperature-controlled security of having every need met in the mother’s womb into a cold, demanding world of (albeit, minimal) independence. As parents go on to wean, toilet train, and gradually withdraw support, children naturally feel betrayed and angry. They rage against parents who are pushing them into independence, perhaps even without guaranteeing that they have the tools to succeed. This contentious beginning is one of the sources of the universal parent-child tension that fills psychology offices worldwide.

The modern solution of extended financial dependence only serves to exacerbate this problem. It creates entitled adults who, not having to face life on their own, fail to develop proper coping skills. This lack of personal development and resilience upon failure leads to a much more debilitating issue; the absence of confidence to succeed on their own. As their personal obligations increase, they become ever more reluctant to release their financial dependence on others because they don’t have any proof that they can thrive alone.

Thus, today we have another cultural phenomenon: whole swaths of modern society – yes, mainly wealthy families – support their married children’s lifestyles and life choices, never requiring their children to take responsibility for their own families or financial obligations. Sadly, this has begun to create a welfare mentality even among the affluent.

The true goal of parenting, like leadership, is not to provide perpetual care but to develop independence. Every step in parenting leads to this; birth and forcing a child to breathe on his own, weaning and forcing the child to feed himself, potty-training and forcing the child to take care of his bodily functions and personal cleanliness, etc. Our goal is to push our children – whether they like it or not – to their own personal success as independent beings, one step at a time.

When children curse their parents for forcing independence, the proper response is silence – not retaliation. This counterintuitive approach, and acceptance of abuse from one’s two-year-old, proves to the child that the parent’s actions are truly for the child’s benefit, not the parent’s ego. Taking abuse without responding demonstrates genuine love because there’s no personal benefit to the parent in accepting such treatment.

We find this concept elsewhere in the Torah. In Hebrew the word azov paradoxically means both ‘abandon’ and ‘help.’ True help enables eventual abandonment. Meaning, the only way you know that you have truly helped someone is when they reach the point when they don’t need you anymore. This is like teaching a child to ride a bicycle; in the beginning you hold on to him and the bike, but eventually you have to make a conscious decision to let go. If you continue holding on then he won’t learn to ride a bike. The goal is always to reach the point where support can be withdrawn (i.e. “abandonment”) so that independence can be achieved.

But the only way parents can properly do this is if they define themselves as parents, first and foremost. We have to constantly remember that parenting is hard and yes, it can be a lifelong commitment to helping your children become independent. It certainly comes with challenges, and we must adapt and make adjustments as our children grow.

Parenting can be innately contradicting, like when we spend the first three years of our children’s lives teaching them to walk and talk, and the next fifteen years telling them to sit down and be quiet. It can also feel like running a customer service department for customers who have no interest in following directions or using the product properly. We continuously get performance reviews from customers who can’t find their shoes, insist they put them on themselves, and then get angry when they hurt after putting them on the wrong feet. But we weather it all.

That is, unless we do not define ourselves as parents and resent the responsibilities of parenting. This is when we plug our children into devices so that they won’t bother us and insulate ourselves from taking care of them by hiring nannies and drivers to take them to soccer practice and play dates. We actively ignore every opportunity to spend alone time with them – particularly when their lives are hard and demanding. We prioritize our careers and delude ourselves into believing that providing financial security is more important than being present to support our children.

However, endless financial support does not teach independence. Defining ourselves as their parents and building our children’s self-esteem through unconditional love allows our children to grow confident enough to make own choices. Parental support is not about guaranteeing that our children make the choices we would make; it’s about creating an environment in which children know they are safe to make their own life choices and we will be there regardless of success or failure. We must provide the tools to give them the confidence to make their own choices regarding career, spouse, religiosity, etc.

Most importantly, we must be prepared to let go and – at every juncture – accept the resistance that comes with pushing our children toward independence. This the only way to develop our children into genuine responsible adults rather than perpetual dependents. It is also the only way to be a true leader; like Moses and Aaron.

https://aish.com/behaalosecha-5786-abuse-abandonment-and-autonomy/

Yahrzeit of Moreinu Horav Moshe Wolfson zt"l - 17 Sivan

 

Yahrzeit of

Moreinu Horav

Moshe Wolfson zt"l

17 Sivan

    

R' Moshe ben R' Shmuel Yehuda zt"l

Today, 17 Sivan marks the Yahrzeit of our revered Mashgiach, Moreinu Horav Moshe Wolfson zt"l. The Mashgiach was unique – he was with Yeshiva Torah Vodaath for 93 years! First as a young talmid, then a Rebbe and eventually the Mashgiach of the Bais Medrash.

The Mashgiach told his family that though he imbibed from the kedushah and avodah of many rebbes, the one who shaped him and who was his Rebbe muvhak was Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz, pioneer of Torah in America, founder and Menahel of our Mesivta and founder of Torah Umesorah.

In 1947, as a bachur all of 22 years of age, the Mashgiach was chosen to teach a group of teenage boys who had come to the Yeshivah from different countries in South America. With a combination of love and wisdom, he was remarkably successful with these boys. Shortly thereafter, he was appointed to teach young talmidim in the Yeshiva Ketana, where the Mashgiach was very successful and very beloved.

Eventually, Rav Wolfson was appointed by Rav Nesanel Quinn as assistant menahel. Rav Wolfson occasionally delivered a shmuess to the bachurim, who loved the shmuessen and wanted more. The Rosh Yeshivah, Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky, took note. When the position of Mashgiach became available in the Beis Medrash, it was offered to Rav Wolfson.    

He became Mashgiach and was outstanding in dealing with bachurim and in delivering uplifting shmuessen on emunah, tefillah, the yamim tovim and other important topics. With his clear daas Torah and strict adherence to emes, he guided scores of talmidim, many of whom remained attached to him until his passing.

In 1969, the Mashgiach was offered the position of Mara d’Asra of Camp Torah Vodaath and also served as head of the camp’s Masmidim program. He conducted a tish every Friday night on the front lawn, replete with zemiros, sippurei tzaddikim, and divrei Torah. At some point, the Mashgiach decided to change the Masmidim’s way of davening. The Mashgiach spoke about connecting to the Ribono shel Olam through slow, loud, heartfelt tefillos. The roots of Emunas Yisroel had been planted.

The Mashgiach once said that he felt he was sent down to this world to be machazek the avodah of tefillah. It began in Camp Torah Vodaath and was greatly expanded with the founding of Emunas Yisroel, as the Mashgiach taught generations to daven slowly, loudly, and most importantly, with true feeling and kavanah. What began with a small group of Torah Vodaath talmidim became a worldwide movement of sorts. Rav Shimson Pincus zt”l, who was the Mashgiach’s talmid in first grade, said that Emunas Yisroel’s davening influenced all of Boro Park. Today, with branches in Boro Park, Lakewood, Monsey, Yerushalayim, and Beitar, its influence has spread much further.

The Mashgiach also became renowned for his shmuessen, in which he demonstrated a unique capability of chiddush and incredible power of gematria. His shmuessen were first published in Lashon HaKodesh under the title Emunas Itecha, which today is among the most often-quoted chassidishe sefarim. Recordings of his shmuessen both in Yiddish and English are listened to by frum Jews of all shades and stripes. To date, ten sefarim in English, based on his shmuessen, have been published.

The Mashgiach's desire was to serve the Ribono shel Olam, nothing else mattered. Despite his fame, the Mashgiach remained the same humble tzaddik. Every moment of his life was devoted to avodas Hashem and that included not only tefillah, but also limud haTorah, tzedakah and chesed. Every moment was lived with purpose, with a focus. And yet, along with his great madreigos of avodah, kedushah, and taharah, the Mashgiach was so accessible, so down to earth, so easy to speak with. His words, though measured, conveyed so much love for every Yid but especially for his talmidim.

Yehi Zichro Baruch!

 

For the publication released at the Yeshiva's Legacy Dinner

"HAMASHGIACH​"

TALMIDIM REMEMBER

click here

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For a short biography with pictures that appears in

"AMERICA'S YESHIVA"

click here