Rabbi Berel Wein zt"l : The Rabbi Who Gave the Jewish People Their Story

 

Rabbi Berel Wein, who passed away in Jerusalem at the age of ninety-one, was more than a rabbi, more than a historian, and more than a storyteller. He was a bridge across generations, a man who made the sweep of Jewish history not only accessible but alive, pulsing with relevance for every Jew who heard his voice or read his words.

Born in Chicago in 1934, Rabbi Wein inherited both a deep rabbinic lineage and an appreciation for the modern world. Trained as a lawyer at DePaul University before entering the rabbinate, he carried into his later work a clarity of thought, precision, and ability to present ideas with logic and elegance. In Miami Beach, as a congregational rabbi, he proved that he could inspire hearts as well as minds. At the Orthodox Union, he transformed the kosher supervision system into one of the most respected institutions in Jewish life, bringing order, professionalism, and transparency where once there had been confusion.

Yet organizational leadership was only a chapter in his journey. In Monsey, New York, he built Congregation Bais Torah and later Yeshiva Shaarei Torah, molding a generation of students. But it was in his devotion to Jewish history that Rabbi Wein found his life’s great calling. With warmth, wit, and wisdom, he wove the vast and sometimes overwhelming saga of Jewish survival into a narrative that ordinary Jews could cherish. Through thousands of recorded lectures, dozens of books, and eventually the Destiny Foundation’s films and projects, he became known as “the voice of Jewish history.” For countless Jews who had never before encountered their past with such immediacy, he gave the gift of memory.

His books, from Echoes of Glory to Triumph of Survival, did not merely recount battles, leaders, and dates. They gave readers the sense that Jewish history is their story, a living inheritance that obligates as much as it inspires. His humor, self-deprecating and gentle, carried lessons more lasting than stern rebuke. His popular essays, later collected in volumes such as Vintage Wein, conveyed a world of wisdom in anecdotes and reflections.

Rabbi Wein’s passing leaves a void in the Jewish world. He was that rare teacher who could speak to the scholar and the layperson alike, who could remind Orthodox Jews of the grandeur of their tradition while opening the door for less observant Jews to find their place in the saga. His message was always one of continuity: that the Jewish people, scarred yet unbroken, are bound together by their history and faith.

As the Orthodox Union wrote in tribute, Rabbi Wein’s “work, perspective, and voice profoundly influenced generations.” His funeral in Jerusalem, and his burial on the Mount of Olives, sealed his life’s trajectory: from American rabbinic leader to Israeli teacher, from local pulpit to global voice.

Rabbi Wein once said, “History is our rearview mirror. Pull out without looking and you’re blindsided.” He devoted his life to polishing that mirror so the Jewish people could drive forward into the future with clarity, courage, and faith. His memory will endure not only in his writings and recordings but in every Jew who now sees themselves as part of a story thousands of years in the making.

Yehi zichro baruch — May the memory of Rabbi Berel Wein continue to inspire, illuminate, and bless the Jewish people for generations to come.

 

REPUBLISHED

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/rabbi-berel-wein-ztl-the-rabbi-who-gave-the-jewish-people-their-story/ 

LEVAYA: 

https://youtu.be/CI_kMDvlb_Y?si=TYZ-__CnvJDS7l5N

A Bitter "Matzav" - This Is The Haredi "Gadol Hador"?

 

Home News Breaking News “The Knitted Yarmulkas Are Persecuting Us”: Transcription Reveals Comments from Meeting of...

“The Knitted Yarmulkas Are Persecuting Us”: Transcription Reveals Comments from Meeting of Rav Landau and Rav Shternbuch

 

A meeting took place last week between Rav Dov Landau, rosh yeshiva of Slabodka, and Rav Moshe Shternbuch at Rav Shternbuch’s home in Har Nof, Yerushalayim. The discussion focused on the intensifying draft crisis and the wave of arrests of yeshiva students, with both gedolim delivering sharp criticism of political leaders in the Religious Zionist camp whom they accused of collaborating with secular parties against the Torah world.

As the visit began, Rav Shternbuch turned to Rav Landau and remarked, “The responsibility for this matter now falls upon you.”

Rav Landau responded: “This is the responsibility of all of Klal Yisroel. With this decree of the draft, we do whatever we can to ensure that bnei hayeshivos do not go to the army, that no one goes to the army. We do what we can through human efforts, in many different ways, and also through tefillah in Shomayim.”

Later in the meeting, Rav Landau voiced concern over Religious Zionist leaders, saying, “Today we have great enemies and persecutors, and there is also another type of persecutor, those who wear knitted yarmulkes — it is frightening.”

Rav Shternbuch cautioned against giving weight to these figures: “The less we speak with them, the healthier it is for us. When they see that they make no impression on us whatsoever, and that we remain strong, then it will not harm us.”

Rav Landau added: “The resha’im do whatever they want — resha’im who know nothing of Yiddishkeit and do not want to know. They give everything to the Arabs, but to bnei Torah they give nothing.”

Rav Shternbuch reinforced the point: “Indeed, our enemies want us to feel persecuted by them. But we must show them that they do not interest us at all, and we will continue on the path of Torah without paying them any attention.”

Addressing his colleague, Rav Shternbuch said: “Do what you can. We must do whatever is in our hands, and the success depends on Hakadosh Boruch Hu.” He then added, “In truth, the very act of doing what is required — that itself is already success.”

The two rabbonim also reminisced about their shared years of learning in Yeshivas Chevron nearly eight decades ago.

20 Years later - August 15, 2005 – The Anniversary of Ariel Sharon’s Grave Sin

 

On August 15, 2005, the State of Israel committed a wound upon itself — a wound whose scars have deepened into an open, festering sore. This was the day the “Disengagement” began: Ariel Sharon’s unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the forced expulsion of nearly 9,000 Jews from their homes in Gush Katif and northern Samaria.

Sharon, the once “bulldozer” of Israel’s security establishment, justified the move with promises of “security, peace, and international legitimacy.” But the reality 20 years later is a bitter indictment of those illusions. Gaza, once a fertile belt of Jewish agriculture, is now an Iranian proxy base armed to the teeth, raining rockets on Israel’s south, building attack tunnels, and waging constant war. The idea that abandoning land without a peace treaty would “reduce friction” proved not just naïve but strategically suicidal.

The moral sin was not merely in the faulty strategy — it was in the method. Israel’s government turned its army against its own citizens, evicting families, bulldozing synagogues, exhuming graves, and erasing entire communities. Jewish soldiers wept as they carried out orders against Jews, a rupture in the moral fiber of the state that has yet to fully heal.

The political sin was in unilateralism itself — giving without receiving, retreating without terms, and rewarding terror without extracting commitments. Hamas took the retreat as a victory, proof that armed struggle works. The rockets that fell on Ashkelon and Sderot were born in that moment of perceived weakness. The massacre of October 7, 2023, has its ideological roots in August 2005.

And the theological sin? To relinquish part of the Land of Israel — without compulsion, without battle, without treaty — was to deny our own eternal claim, entrusted by the G-d of Israel to His people. No coalition agreement, no pressure from Washington, no clever spin can erase the fact that the Land is not ours to give away.

Today, on this anniversary, we remember not merely a policy failure, but a national act of self-betrayal. The images of Gush Katif’s orange-roofed homes being emptied remain a warning: surrender does not bring peace, only the enemy’s advance. And yet, there is also a counterpoint to despair — the resilience of those expelled. Many rebuilt their lives in new communities, their faith unshaken, their devotion to the Land unbroken.

Sharon’s sin will remain etched in history, but so will the lesson: A Jewish state cannot survive by abandoning Jewish land to those sworn to its destruction. To withdraw without victory is to invite war. To evict Jews from their homes is to erode the soul of the nation. August 15 must be remembered — not as a day of “disengagement,” but as a day of disengaging from reality.

 

 

REPUBLISHED

 

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/20-years-later-august-15-2005-the-anniversary-of-ariel-sharons-grave-sin/

The Indefensible View: Claiming the Right to Live in Israel Without Defending It - Rabbi Hirsch From Slabodka Yeshiva - "Even Those Who Do Not Learn Are Forbidden to Enlist in the Army”

In the history of nations, sovereignty is never free. It is purchased and maintained at the cost of sacrifice, often of blood. For Jews, the modern State of Israel is not just a political convenience—it is the first return to Jewish self-rule in two thousand years. And yet, there are those who claim the full right to live here, enjoy the freedoms and protections the state provides, and still refuse to serve in its defense. At a time of existential threat, this position is not merely controversial. It is morally indefensible.

 

The argument is simple: if you claim the benefits of a community—its safety, infrastructure, freedoms—you are bound by justice to share in the burdens of maintaining it. This is as true for a neighborhood watch as it is for a sovereign state. When rockets fall, borders are breached, and enemies openly declare their intention to wipe us out, choosing to live here without helping to defend the land is choosing to let someone else risk his life for yours.

 

To live in a state where Jewish soldiers guard your home, patrol your streets, and stand ready to die in your place, yet insist that you bear no part in their burden, is to live at the expense of others’ courage. The Torah command “Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor” (Leviticus 19:16) is not fulfilled by watching from the sidelines.

 

Jewish history is filled with moments when disunity and the refusal to share in defense led to catastrophe. The Talmud’s account of the destruction of the Second Temple (Gittin 55b–56a) is a grim reminder of what happens when a nation fractures internally while enemies surround it. The lesson is clear: if sovereignty is to endure, all who enjoy it must protect it.

 

In times of peace, a debate about the exact nature of one’s obligations to the state can be an academic exercise. In times of existential danger, such debates are stripped of their abstraction. If we will not defend our right to live here with our bodies as well as our hearts, we forfeit the moral claim to live here at all. Sovereignty without shared sacrifice is a hollow shell. And a hollow shell, in the harsh winds of history, does not last long.

 

 Rabbi Hirsch - Love it, fight for the one and only Jewish state, or leave it!

 

 

 

REPUBLISHED

 

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-indefensible-view-claiming-the-right-to-live-in-israel-without-defending-it/

Don't Trade Me - Israel's Impossible Dilemma

 

US-Israeli Sagui Dekel-Chen and Russian-Israeli Sasha (Alexander) Troufanov, hostages held in Gaza since the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack, are escorted by Palestinian Hamas terrorists and Islamic Jihad terrorists as part of a ceasefire and a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip

A quiet yet chilling practice has emerged among some Israeli soldiers serving in the Gaza war: They are writing to their families, asking not to be exchanged for prisoners if captured by terrorists. These handwritten letters and private conversations are tragic markers of sacrifice — symbols not only of individual courage but also of a country reckoning with one of the most wrenching moral dilemmas in its history. As Israel weighs its next steps in its ongoing war against Hamas, the debate over its hostages may reveal more about its soul than its strategy.

At the heart of this dilemma is the hostage-prisoner exchange. Since the war’s onset, 140 Israeli hostages — men, women, and children, soldiers and peace activists — have been released by Hamas, in addition to eight others have been rescued by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the bodies of 57 who were recovered after dying in captivity or during rescue attempts. In return for the 140 released hostages, Israel has freed over 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, among them convicted terrorists, murderers, and suspected extremists. The trade-offs are stark and unsettling.

The releases have, on one hand, lifted national morale and reminded Israelis that their government will go to extraordinary lengths to protect its own after the terrible failures on Oct. 7, 2023. Hostage deals have reunited families and given hope to a grieving nation. On the other hand, the exchanges have raised fears that Israel is incentivizing hostage-taking and reintroducing hardened, often more radicalized terrorists back into an already volatile region. Critics of the deals worry that every released terrorist is a future bomb.

Avishai, an Israeli-American reservist in the IDF’s Shiryon (Tank) Brigade, knows these tensions intimately. On his third deployment since the Hamas invasion of Oct. 7, Avishai suffered a life-altering injury when a tank missile malfunctioned, sending shrapnel into his eye. Despite qualifying for medical leave, he chose to redeploy.

“I would switch places with any of the hostages right now. I am willing to die for them,” Avishai said. “But I don’t think the war should ever have become just about the hostages.”

Toppling Hamas, Avishai believes, should take precedence.

“I buried friends who died fighting on Oct. 7,” Avishai shared. “Where is their say in all of this?”

Avishai is not alone in this view. While polling suggests about 70 percent of Israelis support hostage releases at any cost, a sizable minority has expressed reservations.

The current war has seen exchanges carried out in tightly choreographed, haunting sequences — Israeli hostages walked by masked gunmen, some barefoot and gaunt, others silent and stunned. Some were children, others old men; some, heartbreakingly, were dead. This past month Hamas released a propaganda video of an emaciated Israeli hostage, Evyatar David, staring into a camera lens, crying uncontrollably, while being forced to dig his own grave. The intentional, theatrical psychological cruelty involved in these exchanges has only compounded the national trauma and with it the impossibility of straightforward calculation.

Only Power Frees

The Tikvah Forum — an advocacy group founded by parents, siblings, and friends of Israelis abducted on Oct. 7 — believes total victory over Hamas is the only way to ensure a return of the remaining hostages. “As long as Hamas believes it can survive in Gaza, they will never release all the hostages,” said Zvika Mor, co-founder of the Tikvah Forum and father of Eitan, who was captured during the Oct. 7 attack while working security at the Nova music festival. Eitan is believed to be one of the remaining living hostages in Gaza. “The endless negotiations give Hamas the illusion of legitimacy,” Zvika added in an interview with Israeli media, “and prolong the suffering of our families.”

“I want a deal where Hamas says, ‘OK, take all the hostages because we are defeated,'” said another Tikvah Forum member, Riki Baruch, whose brother-in-law, Uriel, was killed in Hamas captivity.

In January, Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir threatened to leave the coalition government if a deal to release Palestinian prisoners was struck, calling on Israel’s Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, to join him. “I am preventing such a disastrous deal to ensure the deaths of hundreds of soldiers were not in vain,” Ben Gvir declared. “Maximum military pressure on Hamas is how we release every hostage and ensure Israel’s long-term security.”

Released hostage Or Levy, Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan

No One Left Behind

Supporters of the swaps, however, argue that Israel’s most powerful message is its humanity and its dedication to maintaining a social contract written in blood. In a region defined by brutality, they say, that is its greatest strength. “A deal is completely unfair,” said Estrella Vicuna, a Colombian immigrant to Israel whose friend lost her daughter, Ivonne, and Ivonne’s husband, at the Nova festival. “Politically, the deal is terrible. But we have no choice. We need those people here to close the circle and grieve.”

The hostage dilemma sits at the intersection of the strategic and the sacred. It has fractured dinner tables and unified street protests. Some, like journalist Amir Tibon, argue that refusing to swap prisoners could unravel Israeli democracy from within — that internal division, not external threats, is the greater danger.

“Divisions within Israel are seen by our enemies as opportunities,” Tibon said in an interview with podcaster Dan Senor, referencing the political temperature within Israel in the previous year that led up to Oct. 7. “There is not going to be an issue that divides Israeli society more now than if the hostages all come back in caskets, or not at all. That is my biggest nightmare. It will tear apart our society.”

According to national polling surveys, the share of Israelis who favor bringing home the hostages as the most important goal has risen steadily over the last 22 months, while the share who prioritize dismantling Hamas has fallen. The data reveals that among those who consider toppling Hamas to be the most important goal, a large majority (74 percent) think that both goals can be achieved simultaneously; while among those who rank bringing home the hostages as the most important goal, a majority (59 percent ) think that the two goals cannot be achieved together. Whether the different Israeli goals of this war are helplessly intertwined, distinctive, or somewhere in between remains uncertain.

Memory as Compass — or Caution

Past swaps only deepen the complexity. Many, like Avishai, remember Israel’s 2011 prisoner exchange with Hamas in which over 1,000 prisoners — including Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind behind the Oct. 7 massacre — were released in return for IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. Israeli analyst Dan Schueftan famously called the deal “the greatest significant victory for terrorism that Israel has made possible since its establishment.” In addition to Shalit, Israel has exchanged live prisoners for corpses, as with Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev in 2008. Each time, a tortured debate took place in Israeli society.

Gilad Shalit salutes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after prisoner exchange deal

 

 

 

“I told my parents I wouldn’t want to be exchanged if I were taken,” Avishai said. “I told them that back in 2012, after Shalit came home, and I believe it even more now.” IDF protocol, grim as it is, Avishai explained, often calls for striking the site of a hostage-taking attempt to prevent capture. “If God forbid that were to happen to me,” he added, “I’d want them to do exactly that.”

It’s not bravado, he said. It’s a calculation — one that Avishai’s father, Joseph, struggles with every day. Joseph, who has five sons in combat units, sees his family woven deeply into the fabric of Israel’s fight for survival.

“As a father, I’m proud that my son would make such a request of me,” he said. “But I don’t know what I would do if it actually came to be. The war is going on too long. And it’s not just the soldiers suffering. The families are too. We need to end the war now by defeating Hamas. So that what happened on Oct. 7 never happens again.”

A Debate That Cannot Be Settled — Only Endured

Around the world, governments have traded spies, soldiers, and civilians in exchange deals, with varying degrees of transparency. The US — a country of over 350 million people — exchanged WNBA star Brittney Griner for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout. Germany and other European nations have quietly participated in exchanges involving ISIS. Some hostages are journalists or aid workers; others are pawns of war. The moral math rarely adds up cleanly.

What makes Israel’s situation unique is scale, history, and the emotional centrality of the hostage issue to its national identity. Israel is not just a country; it is a nation — a nation of people forged through collective perseverance. These hostages, being traded, treated as points of leverage and weakness, in a way almost commodified, are not strangers or distant, abstract members of a society; they are the life force and engine that enable the nation’s existence.

This is a country born out of impossible choices, where every conflict feels existential, and every decision echoes in the memories of Holocaust survivors and immigrants who rebuilt their lives from rubble. In this regard, the principle of never leaving a soldier behind is not just a military doctrine — it is part of the social contract.

The people of Israel debate, march, fight, and mourn. At hostage rallies in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, parents clutch posters and demand their loved ones back. At military funerals, flags are draped over fresh earth. At home, families like Joseph’s wonder who might be next to go, or not come home. There is fatigue, anguish, and doubt.

The mission, as David Ben-Gurion declared in 1948, was to establish a Jewish state. But the project of sustaining one — ethically, strategically, and together — is perhaps the harder task.

“There are no easy answers,” Avishai said. “But we have to be brave enough to ask the questions. Even the ones that hurt.”

https://www.algemeiner.com/2025/08/13/dont-trade-me-a-soldiers-plea/

Frum Jew Vs Frum Jew - The Latest Outrageous Conduct From New Square! IMPORTANT!

The Grand Rebbe of Gur Requests Klal Yisroel Say This Kapitel Tehillim For The Speedy Release Of Malka Leifer Who Is Innocent Of Raping 5 Girls - Only 4 That we Know of!

 

We'll Let Her Drive A Car If She Is Released To Our Care - From One Jail To Another!

{א} שִׁיר לַמַּעֲלוֹת אֶשָּׂא עֵינַי אֶל הֶהָרִים מֵאַיִן יָבֹא עֶזְרִי:
{ב} עֶזְרִי מֵעִם יְהוָה עֹשֵׂה שָׁמַיִם וָאָרֶץ:
{ג} אַל יִתֵּן לַמּוֹט רַגְלֶךָ אַל יָנוּם שֹׁמְרֶךָ:
{ד} הִנֵּה לֹא יָנוּם וְלֹא יִישָׁן שׁוֹמֵר יִשְׂרָאֵל:
{ה} יְהוָה שֹׁמְרֶךָ יְהוָה צִלְּךָ עַל יַד יְמִינֶךָ:
{ו} יוֹמָם הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ לֹא יַכֶּכָּה וְיָרֵחַ בַּלָּיְלָה:
{ז} יְהוָה יִשְׁמָרְךָ מִכָּל רָע יִשְׁמֹר אֶת נַפְשֶׁךָ:
{ח} יְהוָה יִשְׁמָר צֵאתְךָ וּבוֹאֶךָ מֵעַתָּה וְעַד עוֹלָם:

Despite imprisonment: Malka Leifer continues harassment

 

Malka Leifer, former school principal convicted of raping her students, documented harassing younger inmate.

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PrisonSexual AbuseMalka Leifer

Malka Leifer, former principal of the Adass Israel School in Melbourne, Australia, who was convicted of raping her students, was documented harassing a younger inmate, according the Daily Mail reported Monday morning.

Leifer, 58, fled to Israel in 2008 after serious allegations were raised against her. In 2021, after prolonged legal battles, Leifer was extradited to Australia.

She was convicted in April 2023 and sentenced to 15 years in prison for the rape and sexual assault of two of her students.

YNet writes that:

‘Malka Leifer, the former teacher convicted of raping two students and extradited from Israel to Australia in 2021, is now suspected of sexually assaulting another inmate inside a high-security prison wing in Melbourne.

According to a report in the British Daily Mail, Leifer, who is serving a 15-year sentence, was captured on prison security cameras allegedly sexually assaulting a young Aboriginal woman in her 20s.

A source familiar with the incident told the British outlet the alleged assault occurred in late July in a segregated section of the prison where inmates are kept apart. The source added that the incident followed a separate event in which Leifer was seen kissing another inmate serving time for human trafficking.’ (5)

 

Related articles:

• Malka Leifer's lawyer may seek report on fitness to stand trial
• Malka Leifer’s Melbourne trial moved up to August
• Baruch Leifer arrested again, denies allegations
• MK Yaakov Litzman to sign plea bargain

Since then, she has been serving her sentence in the maximum-security Dame Phyllis Frost prison in Melbourne, but no special restrictions had been imposed on her.

According to the report, after she was documented attacking an inmate in a relatively protected wing designated for inmates with lower security risks, the prison authorities decided to transfer her to another wing under stricter isolation conditions.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/413082 

Two Draft Dodgers & a 96 Year Old Investment Wizard Stumble Into A Jail....

Haredi leader ramps up pressure: Rabbi Dov Lando pushing economic moves to harm Israel

 

Rabbi Dov Lando leads initiative for several haredi factions to withdraw investment funds from Israel in protest of the arrest of yeshiva students who refuse to enlist.

 

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InvestmentsHaredimDraft LawRabbi Dov Lando

• 1 minutes

Lithuanian-haredi leader Rabbi Dov Lando has recently initiated an unusual move in which several haredi factions would withdraw their investment funds from Israel, Channel 12 News reported.

According to the report, Rabbi Lando recently approached members of the Eidah Haharedit to explore the possibility that they would join the move in protest of the arrest of haredi yeshiva students who refuse to enlist in the IDF.

The Eidah Haharedit was surprised by the request, which was described as particularly unusual due to the sharp differences between the two sides.

Related articles:

• 'They may learn the Torah, but they are not following it'
• Liberman calls for arrest of leading haredi rabbis
• Leading haredi rabbi calls to dissolve Knesset
• Emergency meeting held at home of haredi leader

While the extremist faction opposes any cooperation with State institutions, Rabbi Lando is associated with the organized leadership of the haredi community. In response, members of the Eidah Haharedit suggested that Rabbi Lando join the protests, but he refused, stating, according to them, that "he does not believe in this."

The request is being carefully considered by the members of the Eidah Haharedit due to Rabbi Lando's senior status. A source within the Eidah Haharedit claimed that the move could have "dramatic consequences, even leading to the collapse of banks." The source emphasized that despite their rigid ideological stance, they take a cautious and practical approach.

On Thursday, Rabbi Lando, 96, visited the military prison at Beit Lid, where two young haredi men are being held. This is an unusual step by the Lithuanian-haredi leader, and the visit was approved by the military police.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/412964?

U.S. Privacy

Shame on him, but also shame on us.

 

Arye Deri sits in cabinet while claiming yeshiva students sacrifice more than soldiers 

 

Arye Deri's return to politics, despite multiple convictions, highlights the deep divisions within Israel and threatens the unity needed during wartime.

Arye Deri has long been a politician whose legacy brings mostly embarrassment and shame to the State of Israel. 

In 2000, he was convicted of bribery during his tenure as interior minister and sentenced to three years in prison. For most people that would mean the end, but for Deri that wasn’t even close to being the case. 

In 2011, he returned to politics and, by 2016, was reappointed to the very same Interior Ministry where he had committed his original crimes. 

Predictably, history repeated itself. Deri once again came under investigation, and in 2022, he accepted a plea deal for tax offenses, resigned from the Knesset, and was convicted a second time.

To secure a lenient sentence, Deri was supposed to quit politics for good. But like many repeat offenders, he broke that promise too. Within a year, he was back. When the current coalition was formed in 2023, Deri reemerged not only as a party leader but as one of Netanyahu’s most indispensable political partners.

 

A convicted criminal should never have been allowed back into the Knesset, let alone into the cabinet. His initial return was a national disgrace. His second comeback, after yet another conviction, became a stain on the entire political and legal system. 

It was a clear and painful reminder of just how broken Israeli politics has become.

And yet, as bad as all that is, what Deri said last week – captured on video and released on Tuesday – takes the disgrace to an entirely new level.

Speaking to a group of yeshiva students during a private event, Deri addressed the ongoing war and called for haredi (ultra-Orthodox) participation in the IDF. He said: “Because of the war, you should contribute to the IDF in service? God forbid.”

He continued: “God forbid it should occur to anyone here in a moment of weakness that maybe at a time like this [a war] we need to do something different, maybe we need to contribute. God forbid.”

He wasn’t misquoted. He wasn’t taken out of context. He said what he meant, and he meant what he said.

And if that wasn’t enough, Deri went on to explain who he believes are the true defenders of the State of Israel: “Gentlemen, the people carrying the burden [of the defense of Israel] are the Torah students.”

Ordinarily, we could brush this off as the latest ignorant statement from yet another ultra-Orthodox politician who has been receiving handouts from the state for decades, shielded from the responsibilities the rest of the country carries. 

But Deri is not just any politician. He is the leader of Shas, one of Netanyahu’s most important coalition partners, and since the beginning of this war, he has been sitting as a member of Israel’s security cabinet.

Yes, Deri has decades of experience in government. He was part of Yitzhak Rabin’s coalition in the 1990s, and some claim that he plays a moderating role within today’s far-right cabinet. But those credentials make his words even more harmful. 

This is a man who sits in the room where life-and-death decisions are made – about ground invasions, hostage negotiations, airstrikes, and ceasefires. And he has the gall to say that Torah students who dodge the draft are the ones carrying the national burden?

What authority does Deri have on soldier trauma?

How can someone who knows the trauma our soldiers are experiencing – how many are battling PTSD, how many are being redeployed again and again, and how some are taking their own lives under the weight of it all – sit there and say that those who are actually fighting and dying are not the real contributors?

How can a politician who helps decide whether to expand the ground offensive in Gaza or launch a strike on Iran’s nuclear program say with a straight face that yeshiva students, not IDF soldiers, are the ones defending the country?

How can someone who sees how overextended the IDF is, how reliant we are on reservists, and how the burden is being carried by fewer and fewer families dare to utter the words “God forbid” about the idea of haredi service?

It is chutzpah of the highest order. And yet, as angry as we may be at Deri, the truth is that the fault lies not only with him. It lies with us.

We, the people who serve, who work, who pay taxes, and who raise our children with love of the country and an understanding that we all need to serve, are to blame because we have allowed this situation to persist.

WHEN THE Knesset voted last week to remove Yuli Edelstein as chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee – because he dared to advance a bill that would require a modest increase in haredi enlistment – there should have been outrage. 

The law wasn’t perfect, but it was an attempt to fix something deeply broken. And yet, barely anyone made a sound. The country shrugged and moved on.

Why? Because we’re exhausted and overwhelmed, and because every day brings new headlines – about starving hostages like Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski, about the need to potentially attack Iran again in the near future, and because we’re still fighting a war that has dragged on longer than anyone imagined, with no political horizon and no clear plan for how it ends.

And so, we let it slide. We let Deri sit in the security cabinet. We let him speak on behalf of the Israeli people. We let him mock the IDF, insult our soldiers, and elevate draft dodgers to the status of national heroes, all this while he sits in the security cabinet. 

We tell ourselves: “He’s not my leader.” But that’s not true; he is our leader. He’s one of the people in the room deciding the future of this country. He was there when the government approved expanding operations in Gaza. 

He was there when the war cabinet debated whether to accept a hostage deal or not. He was there when Israel struck Iran. And he’s there now, making decisions that will determine who lives and who dies.

And he does all this while being completely detached from the consequences.

How do we know? Because this year, the Knesset released a list of the lawmakers who spend the least time doing their jobs, attending hearings, submitting legislation, and just showing up. 

Do you know who came in dead last? Arye Deri. He barely attends even 20% of Knesset hearings and spends, according to reports, just 14 hours a month in the parliament building. 

That’s how seriously he takes the job we pay him to do. That’s how accountable he feels. That’s how much respect he has for the taxpayers who fund his salary and the soldiers who risk their lives while he lectures yeshiva students to “God forbid” serve in the IDF.

Shame on him, but also shame on us.

Shame on us for letting this continue – for tolerating a government that allows convicted criminals to return to power and for failing to insist on the most basic level of shared responsibility, especially in wartime.

This war has clarified many things. It has shown us who is willing to fight for this country and who is willing to exploit it. The IDF cannot continue to be an army of only half the nation. 

The burden cannot be carried by the same families, generation after generation, while others are told that studying Torah is their “service” and that actual military enlistment is something to be avoided, “God forbid.”

This is a moment of reckoning. Either we maintain a national ethos based on shared sacrifice, or we collapse into a state of division and resentment. It is up to us. 

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-863606?

Faith!

And so I ask myself whether today, in the midst of such limitless loneliness and grief, there are still reasons for hope? What wellsprings of Jewish optimism can we tap to slake or even whet our thirst for faith? And given the trials of Jewish history, the serial sentences to death, what makes us think that this time we’ll be acquitted? 

Why hope? 

 

Hostages are still captive, the war labors on, antisemitism is rampant, but through it all, Israel never ceases to inspire 

 

 

 

In Judaism, we have a traditional period of mourning — the Nine Days culminating on Tisha B’Av. On that day, we recall our people’s suffering during the destruction of our Temples, our expulsions, and the many massacres at the hands of our enemies. Precisely at this period, when Israel is once again subjected to widespread hate and suffering unspeakable loss, I feel it is crucial to ask: Is there hope?

In a country with a national anthem entitled “Hope,” it lately feels we have none.

Nearly two years into a war which seemingly has no end, much less a victory, we count the days that our hostages have languished in unspeakable captivity and count the lives of the soldiers that will never be lived and the collapse of their families’ universes. A people supposedly good with numbers, we note the skyrocketing statistics on antisemitism in the world, the synagogue bombings, the murders. We track the implosion of our support within the US Democratic Party and the decline of pro-Israel voices even among conservatives. Pro-Israel organizations tally the number of articles in The New York Times and other influential publications portraying us as racist, warmongering, and genocidal, and the UN resolutions condemning us for the most heinous crimes known to humanity.

At home, the Haredim, rapidly-growing in number, refuse to serve in the army, refuse to prepare their children to contribute to the economy, and refuse to recognize the state for which countless Jews have sacrificed — and continue to sacrifice — all. Large segments of the population accuse the government of deliberately prolonging the war and of repeatedly rejecting deals for the hostages’ release. Increasing numbers of reserve soldiers are too tired, too traumatized, or just too fed up to continue reporting for duty. Politically, our state is careening off a rightwing cliff and democracy is slowly, inexorably, eroding.

Hope, indeed.

There are times when I look at our current situation, domestically and abroad, and see only darkness. Light itself has vanished. The hope we hailed in our national anthem that established this state and kept it solvent for 77 turbulent years now belongs solely to the past.

And so I ask myself whether today, in the midst of such limitless loneliness and grief, there are still reasons for hope? What wellsprings of Jewish optimism can we tap to slake or even whet our thirst for faith? And given the trials of Jewish history, the serial sentences to death, what makes us think that this time we’ll be acquitted?

I ask the hardest of questions and come up with the unlikeliest answers. In the face of hopelessness, I am gripped, I’m galvanized, with hope.

I am not pollyannish, too old to be naïve, and too much of a historian to ignore gruesome precedents. But, by the same criteria, I can summon the experiences of one who has lived in this country for nearly half a century and seen it overcome successive insurmountable crises.

I grew up, the son of a father who helped defeat the Nazis who murdered six million of our people, in a time when three million more were still imprisoned behind the Iron Curtain and denied the right to study the language in which today we gratuitously complain about despair. Fifty years ago, I came to a country that had no relations with China, India, and Africa, to say nothing of the 12-member Soviet bloc, no peace with Egypt and Jordan, nor certainly any Abraham Accords. We had friendly relations with the United States, but no deep, multifaceted strategic alliance and no high tech. Our major export item was orange juice.

I came, a historian, acutely aware of the lachrymose view of our past as an uninterrupted series of misery. But that same historian’s eye enables me to see what no people in all of history could have accomplished, rising after two thousand years of statelessness, a mere three years after the Holocaust, to establish an independent nation in our ancient homeland. I see how that country, shorn of allies and natural resources, repelled a multi-pronged invasion designed to destroy it, absorbed 10 times its original Jewish population in 10 years, created one of the world’s only uninterrupted democracies, built seven top-flight universities, a universal healthcare system, and mustered an army more than twice as large as those of France and Britain combined. I saw Hebrew not merely reborn, but spoken, sung, and written in more abundantly than most languages in modern Europe. I saw how a poor, agrarian backwater became — in my lifetime — a military and technological superpower, the country that could invent Mobileye and Waze while standing up to the lavishly-armed forces of evil.

And it is during this war, especially, that my hope has grown. I’ve seen close to half a million Israelis leave their homes, their jobs, and their families, pick up a gun and go out to fight for their country, knowing full well that they may come back irreparably altered or may not come back at all. Half a million Israelis is, proportional to the United States, the equivalent of many millions more than all the Americans who served along with my father in World War II. The army is exceedingly tired, I know, and traumatized, but it is the same army that turns around and achieves a military triumph over Iran, continues to combat Hezbollah and the Houthis, and aid the families of our Druze citizens in Syria. This is Israel’s greatest generation, people who battled side-by-side, irrespective of their religious, political, or ethnic differences, and who are war-weary, yes, but also steeled, intensely patriotic, and determined to make this country succeed.

What greater source of hope?

Then there are Israelis in general. The 60 percent of the population who, throughout the course of this war, have volunteered to give blood, house and feed the displaced, care for the wounded and bereaved, and demonstrate on behalf of the hostages. There are myriad Israelis who, minutes after the last Iranian rocket smashed into one of our neighborhoods, were sitting in sidewalk cafes and jogging along the beachfront. We are a nation of sailors on shore leave, living it up until the next stormy sea. Indomitable.

Perhaps the unlikeliest reason for hope comes from all places, the Arab world. At a time when Western countries are condemning us daily and even threatening to sanction us, the signatories of the Abraham Accords have maintained open and candid relations with us. While Western airlines have cancelled their flights to Israel, theirs continue to operate. Colombia, one of our oldest friends, has severed relations with us while one of our oldest enemies, Saudi Arabia, is considering peace.

Finally, there is the most fundamental source of my hope, its bedrock. Faith. No greater leap of it is required of any religion more than atheism. To deny the existence of an Almighty means insisting that the countless trillions-to-one chance that a certain planet in a specific orbit around an ideally-situated sun would generate an atmosphere, produce water and life forms that would evolve into sentient human beings — that all of that was a mere coincidence, necessitates incalculable faith. So too must an atheist view the ideas of monotheism, universal morality, and the relentless pursuit of justice introduced by a small, desert people as an historical accident. An atheist must look at Israel today and conclude that its existence, to say nothing of its achievements, is merely a fluke, and Jews are — as Toynbee once infamously called us — a fossil people.

I often distinguish between what I know and what I believe, and my beliefs are always more compelling than my knowledge. I know, for example, that I will someday die, but I believe that my life and the lives of my loved ones have meaning. I know that my people have endured the insufferable and, with each funeral or shiva of a fallen soldier, with each day the hostages aren’t yet home, I encounter that agony anew. But I believe that Jewish history is pregnant with meaning. And while I don’t pretend to know what, exactly, that meaning is, I believe with all my soul that it exists.

I’m not wide-eyed, I’m not callow. But I’ve been in war and witnessed terror, and neither am I jaded. I simply know a miracle when I see one. Whether in biblical or contemporary days, we are a nation of flawed heroes, and our miracles often come encapsulated in pain. But based on the empirical evidence, grounded in both my knowledge and belief, our nation will survive this trying period and emerge, once again, robust.

Hope, for us, is not, as the poet Emily Dickinson described it, the thing with feathers. It is, rather, the thing with fringes — tzitzit — with a guitar, and occasionally, a helmet. The hope of being a free people in our own land, as our national anthem envisions, has not been lost. On the contrary, we are living the vision today with joy and agony, with courage and fortitude, and faith in a luminous future.

Michael Oren, formerly Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Knesset Member and Deputy Minister for Diplomacy in the Prime Minister’s Office, is the founder of the Israel Advocacy Group and the author of the Substack, Clarity.  

This essay first appeared on Clarity with Michael Oren on the Substack content platform, and is republished here with permission.

"We consulted with top security experts — Rav Chaim's driver, and the mashgiach in the yeshiva kitchen — and they confirmed: Torah wins wars, bullets are a chumra."

 

Haredi newspaper's front page announces 'war'

 

Yated Ne'eman headlines with the word 'War' following acts of enforcement against yeshiva students who refuse conscription, accuses Attorney General of attempting to create irreversible clash between State and haredi community.

 

*Halachic Sources Supporting Inaction

• Sotah 44b: "Even a groom from his chamber must go to war" — Especially if she is a meeskeit!

• Ramban, Sefer HaMitzvot 4: Mitzvah to fight for the Land — Only if you become a partner!

• Yerushalmi Ta’anit 4:5: Rabbi Akiva believed in soldiers. --- Must’ve been a Lubavitcher from Puerto Rico! *

 

---

yeshiva studentsarrestsHaredimDraft LawYated Ne'eman

• 1 minutes

'War'Yated Ne'eman's front cover

The main headline on the front page of the haredi newspaper Yated Ne'eman Thursday morning features the single word: "War."

The headline follows actions reportedly taken by military and law enforcement authorities against yeshiva students who failed to report for enlistment.

The central report states that military police and enforcement units carried out nighttime raids on the homes of yeshiva students, during which two brothers, both yeshiva students, were arrested at their Tel Aviv home. According to the report, their arrest was extended Wednesday night by a military court.

The newspaper accuses Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara of leading a "draconian campaign on multiple fronts simultaneously," allegedly aiming to create an "irreversible" conflict between the state authorities and the haredi community. It also claims that these actions represent a "crossing of a red line in the severe persecution of the Torah world" and that they could "critically harm the legitimacy of the State of Israel as the representative of the Jewish people."

In an editorial published on the inner pages, the tone intensifies: "The leaders of the Israeli state have decided to put their heads into the guillotine... The drums of war are already pounding in our temples... The Jewish world is now uniting to fight for its very soul."

The editorial continues: "When it comes to Torah, the result is already decided: we have won. The only question is what will happen along the way and what price the plotters will pay. This is no longer a request or plea, but a warning and a caution: 'Do not touch My anointed ones, and do My prophets no harm (Psalms 105:15).'"

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/412887 

IDF General Reveals Gaza War Strategy & Judea-Samaria's Future - Brilliant!

Would Israel survive with no army and only Torah study? To imagine an Israel without an army is to invite our enemies to lunch in Tel Aviv. Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas — these are not nations that will be disarmed by Dov Lando Or Moshe Hillel Hirsh.

 

LANDO, HIRSH, & ASHAMED OF HIMSELF!

What would happen if Israel disbanded its military and devoted all national energy and resources to Torah study? Would it be a Messianic utopia — or national suicide? This provocative thought experiment forces us to confront the tension between spiritual ideals and the gritty demands of survival.

Imagine an Israel without tanks, jets, or soldiers — just rows of yeshivot stretching from the Negev to the Galilee. Every citizen is a Torah scholar. No conscription notices. No reserve duty. No Iron Dome. Instead, there is the “Dome of Faith,” built on tefillin, Tehillim, and the Talmudic promise that Torah protects.

Some religious thinkers dream of such a world. The Talmud (Sotah 21a) teaches: "Torah protects and saves." The Zohar says the world exists only through Torah learning. And the Midrash boldly claims: "If all Israel kept two Shabbatot, they would be redeemed." Would not a country entirely committed to Hashem’s will earn Divine protection?

But let’s not kid ourselves. Jewish history is written in the blood of pogroms, crusades, and expulsions — all while our people learned Torah with mesirut nefesh. There were Torah giants in York and Worms, Vilna and Baghdad. They were slaughtered just the same. The Torah they studied ascended to heaven. Their bodies lay in the streets.

The idea that Torah alone will protect the Jewish people, without any army, borders on magical thinking — the very kind the Torah itself warns against (Devarim 18:10–12). Even Yaakov Avinu, the ultimate ish emet, prepared for war when confronting Esav. He prayed, yes. But he also sent gifts and split his camp in case of attack. Emunah and strategy — both.

The State of Israel, reborn in 1948, was not handed to us on a silver platter of Gemaras. It was defended in blood, sweat, and sacrifice. In every war — 1948, 1967, 1973, and today in Gaza — our survival depended on young men with weapons and commanders making impossible decisions in real time. Did Torah study help? Certainly. Did Divine Providence play a role? Undoubtedly. But did tanks, F-16s, and cyber intelligence matter? Absolutely.

To imagine an Israel without an army is to invite our enemies to lunch in Tel Aviv. Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas — these are not nations that will be disarmed by Dov Lando Or Moshe Hillel Hirsh. They are not impressed with our lomdus. They understand force — and unfortunately, in this world, so must we.

Some in the ultra-Orthodox world claim that Torah learning is the “true army” of Israel. They cite the tribe of Yissachar who learned while Zevulun fought. But they forget: Yissachar wasn’t the whole nation. He was part of a partnership. The Men of the Great Assembly said: "The world stands on three things — Torah, avodah, and gemilut chasadim." Not Torah alone. A world that rests on one pillar collapses.

Faith that dismisses all human effort is not emunah — it's fatalism dressed in a kapoteh. Real emunah means building tanks and trusting God. It means defending the helpless and praying for success. 

As the Netziv of Volozhin taught, Torah and derech eretz must walk together. But the Netziv read newspapers daily, so his book was recalled by a yeshiva in Lakewood, so maybe disregard the Netziv!

Would Israel survive with no army and only Torah study? In the current world — absolutely not. Such a model would not usher in redemption. It would bring annihilation. That’s not cynicism. That’s Jewish history and common sense.

 

REPUBLISHED

 

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/would-israel-survive-with-no-army-and-only-torah-study/