The Folly of Holocaust Museums at the Expense of Jewish Education

 

There is something profoundly disturbing about a Jewish community that can raise hundreds of millions of dollars to build magnificent Holocaust museums, construct elaborate memorials, preserve photographs of concentration camps, exhibit piles of shoes belonging to murdered Jews, and document, with painstaking detail, the machinery of Nazi extermination, while simultaneously struggling to provide every Jewish child with a meaningful, affordable, and intellectually serious Jewish education. We have become extraordinarily accomplished at memorializing Jewish death. But have we become equally committed to ensuring Jewish life?

This is not an argument against remembering the Holocaust. Anyone who suggests that the destruction of European Jewry should be relegated to the margins of Jewish consciousness has misunderstood both Jewish history and Jewish responsibility. The Holocaust must be remembered, studied, documented, and taught. Its victims deserve nothing less. The survivors deserve nothing less. The six million murdered Jews deserve nothing less. But there is an enormous difference between remembering the destruction of Jewish civilization and investing in the survival of Jewish civilization. One is an obligation to the dead. The other is an obligation to the living. And when the two compete for limited communal resources, we must have the courage to ask whether our priorities have become dangerously distorted.

We have built institutions dedicated to explaining how the Jews were destroyed. Where are the equally ambitious institutions dedicated to ensuring that Jewish civilization will flourish for the next thousand years? Where is the same fundraising energy, the same billionaire generosity, the same communal determination, the same architectural imagination, and the same institutional urgency directed toward Jewish education? Where is the national campaign to ensure that no Jewish child is denied a Jewish education because his or her parents cannot afford tuition? Where are the endowments that guarantee teachers decent salaries, schools adequate facilities, and children access to the intellectual riches of Jewish civilization?

A Holocaust museum can teach a visitor what happened in Auschwitz. It cannot, by itself, teach that visitor what the Rambam wrote, why the Talmud matters, what the prophets demanded of Jewish society, why Jewish sovereignty was central to Jewish destiny, or what it means to assume responsibility for the future of the Jewish people. A museum can display the photographs of a destroyed European Jewish community. It cannot recreate the Jewish intellectual civilization that once filled its synagogues, yeshivot, homes, and libraries. That civilization survived for centuries because Jews invested in education, transmission, argument, scholarship, religious practice, and the intellectual development of their children.

The irony is almost unbearable. We commemorate a generation whose world was destroyed while neglecting the institutions responsible for transmitting its greatest inheritance. The Jews of Europe did not merely leave behind victims and martyrs. They left behind centuries of Torah scholarship, philosophical inquiry, literature, religious creativity, communal responsibility, and intellectual achievement. Their greatest legacy was not simply that they died as Jews. It was that they lived as Jews, built Jewish communities, educated Jewish children, and understood that Jewish continuity required an enormous investment in the next generation.

What would those murdered generations think of a Jewish community that can spend extraordinary sums commemorating their deaths but cannot guarantee that the next generation will understand the civilization for which they lived?

There is another uncomfortable question that Jewish communal leadership rarely wants to confront. Holocaust education has become one of the most recognizable forms of Jewish philanthropy. It is emotionally powerful, publicly respectable, and capable of attracting support from governments, corporations, foundations, and wealthy individuals. A magnificent museum provides visibility, prestige, and a permanent monument to the generosity of its benefactors. Jewish education, by contrast, is often an unglamorous, expensive, and endless undertaking. It requires paying teachers every month, subsidizing tuition every year, maintaining schools, training educators, developing curricula, and confronting the difficult intellectual questions that young Jews bring into the classroom.

There is no ribbon-cutting ceremony when a struggling family receives tuition assistance. There is no international television coverage when a teacher inspires a teenager to study Jewish philosophy. There is no spectacular architectural photograph when a child learns to read a page of Gemara or discovers the extraordinary intellectual world of Maimonides. Yet these are the achievements that determine whether Jewish civilization will survive.

The problem is not that Holocaust museums exist. The problem is the possibility that we have confused the preservation of Jewish memory with the preservation of Jewish identity. They are not the same thing. A young Jew can visit Yad Vashem, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, or another memorial institution, emerge deeply moved, and still know almost nothing about Jewish history before 1933, Jewish philosophy, the Hebrew language, the Bible, the Talmud, or the extraordinary diversity of Jewish thought. He can understand how six million Jews were murdered without understanding what made the Jewish civilization they belonged to so remarkable.

We must stop assuming that Holocaust memory automatically produces Jewish commitment. It does not. Guilt is not education. Grief is not identity. Photographs of murdered children do not substitute for teaching living children who they are, where they came from, and what responsibilities they inherit.

And this problem extends far beyond the secular Jewish community. The Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox worlds also have serious educational failures that cannot be concealed behind impressive enrollment statistics or endless fundraising campaigns. A school system that leaves parents financially crushed, teachers underpaid, children inadequately prepared for the demands of modern life, or students unfamiliar with the broader intellectual challenges facing the Jewish people cannot claim that its educational mission is complete. Jewish education must produce knowledgeable, intellectually confident, morally responsible Jews who can engage with the world rather than retreat from it.

Nor should Jewish education be reduced to the accumulation of religious information. It must teach the history of the Jewish people, the extraordinary contributions of Jewish civilization, the responsibilities of Jewish sovereignty, the meaning of Jewish peoplehood, the moral teachings of the prophets, and the intellectual courage that characterized generations of Jewish scholarship. It must teach children to think, question, investigate, and understand. A Jewish child should emerge from school with an appreciation not only of what Jews believe but also of what Jews have accomplished and what they are expected to contribute to the world.

The Torah itself places education at the center of Jewish continuity. "ושננתם לבניך", you shall teach them diligently to your children. The commandment does not instruct us merely to build monuments to previous generations. It instructs us to transmit their inheritance to the next generation. The Shema is not a memorial service. It is a declaration of responsibility, a demand that Jewish identity be carried from one generation to another.

Moshe Rabbeinu did not tell the Israelites to build museums commemorating the Egyptian oppression. He commanded them to teach their children. The Exodus was to become part of the living consciousness of the Jewish people, but its purpose was not to leave them permanently imprisoned in the memory of slavery. It was to create a people capable of accepting responsibility for its destiny.

This distinction is especially important in the aftermath of October 7. Jewish communities around the world have discovered that Holocaust memory, important as it is, does not necessarily equip the next generation to confront contemporary antisemitism, anti-Israel propaganda, historical distortions, and the political hostility directed against Jewish sovereignty. Young Jews need intellectual preparation, historical knowledge, confidence, and the ability to defend their identity. They need to understand the history of Zionism, the ancient Jewish connection to the Land of Israel, the wars of Jewish survival, and the complicated realities of the Middle East. They cannot be expected to defend a civilization they have never properly learned to understand.

Imagine what could be accomplished if the extraordinary philanthropic energy directed toward Jewish memorial institutions were matched by an equally ambitious commitment to education. Imagine a permanent national endowment guaranteeing affordable Jewish education. Imagine scholarships for every child whose family cannot meet tuition obligations. Imagine a major investment in Jewish teacher training, Jewish history departments, serious adult education, Hebrew literacy, and intellectually demanding curricula. Imagine schools that teach both the treasures of Jewish tradition and the realities of the contemporary world. Imagine a generation of young Jews who are not merely emotionally connected to the Holocaust but intellectually and spiritually connected to the entire sweep of Jewish civilization.

This is not an argument for closing museums or diminishing memorial institutions. It is an argument for restoring proportion. We need museums, archives, memorials, research centers, and Holocaust scholarship. But we also need to ask why Jewish education so often has to beg for money while institutions devoted to commemoration can attract enormous philanthropic commitments. Why is there no comparable national emergency declared over the affordability and quality of Jewish education? Why do communal leaders speak so passionately about never forgetting the Holocaust but so rarely demonstrate the same urgency about children who are growing up without the Jewish knowledge necessary to sustain their identity?

And where are the wealthy Jewish philanthropists? Where are the billionaires who can finance extraordinary buildings and monumental institutions? Why should their generosity end with the construction of memorials? Why not establish permanent educational endowments that will serve generations of Jewish children long after the names of today's benefactors have disappeared from public consciousness?

A building is a monument. An educated child is a future.

The greatest memorial to the six million is not another building, another exhibition, another photograph, or another solemn ceremony. It is a Jewish generation that knows its history, understands its Torah, appreciates its civilization, speaks its language, engages with its challenges, and possesses the confidence to continue the extraordinary story of the Jewish people.

We must remember Auschwitz. We must teach the Holocaust. We must preserve every document, every testimony, every photograph, and every surviving fragment of the world that was destroyed. But we must not allow the memory of Jewish death to consume the resources and imagination required for Jewish life.

The ultimate tragedy would be to build magnificent institutions explaining why European Jewry disappeared, while failing to build the educational institutions necessary to ensure that Jewish civilization will never disappear.

We owe the dead our memory. We owe the living our investment. And we owe the Jewish future something far more important than another monument: we owe it an educated generation.

There is a particularly striking historical example of what Jewish leadership and Jewish philanthropy ought to look like. My grandfather, Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz ZT"L, understood something that today's Jewish philanthropic establishment seems to have forgotten. The future of the Jewish people would not be secured by constructing monuments to the tragedies of the past. It would be secured by educating Jewish children, rebuilding Jewish learning, and creating institutions capable of transmitting our inheritance to generations yet unborn.

He did not spend his life dreaming about building a museum commemorating the destruction of European Jewry. He understood that the greatest response to the destruction of Jewish communities would be to rebuild Jewish education. His vision shaped Torah Vodaath to the jewel of American yeshivas, and ultimately the creation of Torah Umesorah https://www.torahumesorah.org/, the National Society for Hebrew Day Schools. He recognized that American Jewry faced an enormous challenge. The children of immigrants were growing up in a society that offered extraordinary opportunities but also presented formidable pressures toward assimilation. If Jewish continuity was to survive in America, it would require an educational infrastructure that could reach children in communities throughout the country.

That was foresight. That was leadership. That was understanding the Jewish future.

Rabbi Mendlowitz did not have the luxury of measuring success by the grandeur of a building or the number of wealthy donors attending an inaugural dinner. He was concerned with something far more fundamental: Would there be Jewish children who knew Torah? Would there be schools capable of educating them? Would there be teachers prepared to inspire them? Would Jewish communities possess the institutions necessary to sustain Jewish life in America?

His answer was to build. Not monuments to destruction, but institutions of education. Not memorials to what had disappeared, but schools that would ensure something survived.

Torah Umesorah became an instrument through which Jewish day-school education could expand across America. Its significance was not simply institutional. It represented a philosophy of Jewish survival. Rabbi Mendlowitz understood that a Jewish future could not be left to sentiment, nostalgia, or occasional communal celebrations. It had to be deliberately constructed, classroom by classroom, teacher by teacher, child by child.

Consider the contrast with today's philanthropic establishment. We have Jewish billionaires capable of financing magnificent institutions, but where is the comparable national mobilization to make Jewish education affordable? Where is the determination to create an educational endowment that guarantees that no Jewish child will be denied a Jewish education because of family finances? Where is the urgency to recruit and compensate outstanding teachers, strengthen curricula, and build educational institutions that prepare Jews intellectually and spiritually for the challenges of the modern world?

My grandfather understood that Jewish survival was not an abstraction. It was an undertaking that demanded work, sacrifice, organization, and an almost obsessive commitment to the next generation. He did not wait for someone else to solve the problem. He created institutions to address it.

That is the model Jewish philanthropy should be following today. Imagine if the wealthiest members of American Jewry approached Jewish education with the same determination that Rabbi Mendlowitz brought to his work. Imagine if they established permanent educational endowments, removed the financial barriers confronting parents, invested in outstanding teachers, and made serious Jewish learning accessible to every child.

We would be honoring the past in the most meaningful way possible. We would be doing precisely what the generations destroyed in Europe would have wanted: ensuring that their children, grandchildren, and future generations remained part of a living Jewish civilization.

The tragedy is that we already have the model. We do not need to invent it. We need to recover its spirit.

Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz understood that Jewish history does not end with the destruction of a generation. It continues through the education of the next one. His legacy challenges today's Jewish philanthropists with a question they should find impossible to ignore: Are you financing Jewish remembrance, or are you financing Jewish survival?

My grandfather invested in the future when the future of American Jewry was anything but assured. Today's Jewish billionaires have vastly greater financial resources. The question is whether they possess anything approaching his vision.

 

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Garbage In, Garbage Out: Donald Trump, His Dumpster & The Degradation Of America

There is something more frightening than a corrupt politician. It is a population of citizens that refuses to recognize corruption when it is committed by the politician they worship. There is something more dangerous than a president who repeatedly challenges the truth. It is a political following that no longer cares whether what he says is true. And there is something more destructive than a government that lowers the standards of public conduct. It is a movement that celebrates the lowering of those standards as a political victory.

Welcome to Donald Trump’s America. Welcome to MAGA, where garbage goes in and garbage comes out, and where millions of Americans have apparently decided that the quality of their political leadership is no longer measured by honesty, integrity, competence, or respect for the Constitution. It is measured by whether Donald Trump is winning the latest political fight.

This is not simply a criticism of Trump. Trump is what he is. His behavior, public statements, political tactics, and governing style have been on display for years. The greater question is what has happened to the people who continue to defend him, regardless of the circumstances. What has happened to their judgment? What happened to their capacity to distinguish between right and wrong, truth and falsehood, public service and personal interest? How did a movement that claims to represent American greatness become so comfortable with lowering the standards by which America measures itself?

The MAGA movement has turned political loyalty into a substitute for thought. It has created an environment in which a supporter can hear one thing today, hear its opposite tomorrow, and defend both with equal enthusiasm. A promise can be abandoned, a position reversed, a statement contradicted, and an explanation changed, yet the applause continues. The leader is never responsible. The opposition is always responsible. The media is always lying. The courts are always political when they rule against him. The investigators are always corrupt when they ask questions. The institutions are always broken when they refuse to do his bidding.

What a remarkable arrangement. A politician who demands that everyone else be accountable, while his most devoted followers seem determined to exempt him from the same obligation.

The MAGA supporter who once claimed to believe in fiscal responsibility should be asking hard questions about government spending and the national debt. The supporter who claimed to believe in constitutional government should be concerned about the limits of presidential power. The supporter who claimed to believe in law and order should be demanding consistent standards of justice. The supporter who claimed to believe in family values should be willing to apply moral standards to political leaders as well. Yet the political conversation too often becomes an exercise in explaining why the principles that mattered yesterday do not matter today.

What happened to my conservative movement? Where are the traditional Republicans who once spoke about limited government, personal responsibility, constitutional restraint, free markets, and the importance of institutions? Have they all surrendered their intellectual independence to a political personality? Surely there are still conservatives who recognize that supporting a president does not require abandoning one’s brain at the entrance to the voting booth.

And let us examine the extraordinary contradiction surrounding the January 6 attack on the Capitol. For generations, Americans regarded the peaceful transfer of presidential power as one of the defining characteristics of their democracy. Yet after the 2020 election, false claims of widespread election fraud were used to challenge the legitimacy of an election whose results had been certified through the constitutional process. On January 6, the Capitol was attacked. Police officers were assaulted. The democratic process was violently interrupted. This should have been a moment of national clarity. Instead, the political arguments continued, and the responsibility of those who promoted the false election narrative became a partisan battlefield.

What does it take to persuade a political movement that the peaceful transfer of power matters more than the fortunes of one politician?

The MAGA movement has also helped create an extraordinary political media ecosystem. Television personalities, internet influencers, podcasts, and social media commentators compete to reinforce the same grievances. Supporters are repeatedly told that they are the victims of an enormous conspiracy, that every criticism of Trump is evidence of hostility, and that every unfavorable development is another reason to distrust the institutions reporting it. There is a profitable industry built around keeping people angry. Anger generates attention, attention generates money, and money sustains the political spectacle.

The result is a country in which citizens increasingly consume political information designed to confirm what they already believe. Instead of asking whether a claim is true, they ask who made it. Instead of examining evidence, they examine the political affiliation of the person presenting it. If the source supports Trump, it is accepted. If it challenges Trump, it is dismissed. This is not independent thinking. It is intellectual surrender.

And the consequences are not confined to domestic politics. America’s allies watch. America’s adversaries watch. Governments around the world make decisions based on their assessment of American reliability. A country that repeatedly turns its foreign policy into an extension of domestic political theater risks undermining the credibility that took generations to establish.

Israel should understand this better than almost anyone. American presidents change. American political movements change. American strategic priorities change. Israel cannot afford to confuse the interests of the Jewish state with the personal political fortunes of Donald Trump or any other American president. The relationship must be grounded in enduring strategic interests, not presidential flattery or political personalities.

There is another particularly ugly dimension to this phenomenon: the double standard. Imagine a Democratic president behaving in ways that Trump supporters have defended when committed by Trump. Imagine the reaction if a Democratic president demanded personal loyalty from public officials, attacked independent institutions, or treated criticism as disloyalty. The same voices that now defend such behavior would be demanding investigations, congressional hearings, and accountability. The problem is not that these people have no standards. It is that their standards too often change according to the identity of the person being judged.

And the responsibility does not belong only to Trump or his followers. Republican politicians who privately understand the dangers but publicly remain silent share responsibility. Donors who finance political operations without demanding accountability share responsibility. Media figures who profit from outrage share responsibility. Religious leaders who abandon moral consistency when politics becomes involved share responsibility. A democratic society is weakened not only by those who violate its standards, but also by those who recognize the violations and remain silent because speaking up might cost them influence, money, or votes.

The American dumpster will not be emptied when Trump eventually leaves the political stage. The habits have already taken root. The appetite for outrage, the distrust of evidence, the hostility toward independent institutions, and the expectation of personal political loyalty will not disappear automatically. A generation has watched these behaviors become ordinary features of American political life.

That is why the title matters. Garbage in, garbage out. The quality of a country’s political output cannot be separated from the quality of the political culture feeding its institutions. When citizens reward dishonesty, dishonesty becomes politically useful. When they reward personal attacks, personal attacks become campaign strategy. When they excuse conflicts of interest, accountability becomes optional. When they value loyalty above principle, political leadership becomes a personality business.

America has produced extraordinary scientists, entrepreneurs, educators, soldiers, thinkers, and statesmen. It has built institutions that became models for much of the world. It has defended freedoms that millions elsewhere can only dream of possessing. It should be ashamed of how casually its political culture has treated some of those achievements.

Donald Trump is not the whole American problem. The millions who refuse to hold him accountable are part of the problem too.

A president can occupy the White House for a limited number of years. A political movement can contaminate the national culture for generations. That is the real danger of MAGA. Not simply what Trump does while holding power, but what Americans have learned to accept, excuse, and even celebrate in his name.

The next generation will inherit the consequences. They will inherit the weakened institutions, the political hostility, the diminished trust, the international uncertainty, and the degraded standards of public conduct. They will be asked to repair a country whose political leaders and citizens spent years arguing over personalities while neglecting the foundations of the republic.

And when they ask how America arrived here, the answer will not be complicated.

Garbage went in. Garbage came out.

The American dumpster is now a political inheritance. Donald Trump may eventually leave the building. The MAGA culture he helped build will be much harder to take out with the trash.

*

The best Orthodox Jewish blogs curated and ranked based on multiple factors, including content relevancy, subject expertise, posting frequency, and freshness of content. Blogs with highest credibility within the Orthodox Jewish space are ranked higher. This list is updated regularly to ensure it reflects the most active, influential, and valuable Orthodox Jewish blogs on the internet today. https://bloggers.feedspot.com/orthodox_jewish_blogs/

 

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Israel’s Haredim Keep Growing. Their Parties Don’t | Rabbi Yehoshua Pfeffer | Tikvah Podcast

(November 8, Sunday) Rabbi Yehoshua Pfeffer actually made great advances by pushing the Haredi Vote Towards the secular parties where their votes are now diluted. Yasher koach to Rabbi Pfeffer! Paul Mendlowitz

  
The haredi population of Israel keeps growing, both in absolute numbers and as a share of the country. By that logic, the haredi parties should gain power with every election. Instead, they emerged from this one significantly weakened. What happened? Rabbi Yehoshua Pfeffer leads the Iyun Institute and chairs the rabbinic committee of Hatzibur HaHaredi, one of four new haredi parties in the race. 

He joins Jonathan Silver to explain how Shas and United Torah Judaism differ, what each campaigned on, and how the haredi parties went from kingmakers to fixed members of Netanyahu’s bloc. He also discusses why Shas lost so much of its traditional following to Likud and Otzma Yehudit, and why none of the new parties, his own included, came close to the threshold. This conversation was recorded on October 29, before final results were certified. Pfeffer’s Mosaic essay making the case for Hatzibur HaHaredi: https://ideas.tikvah.org/mosaic/essay...

The Shocking Losers of the American Elections Were the American Jews

 

American Jews had better stop congratulating themselves on their political sophistication. They have just received a political wake-up call, and I suspect much of the Jewish establishment is too intellectually comfortable, too politically invested, and too institutionally self-important to understand what has happened. The American elections have exposed a vulnerability that Jewish leadership has spent years pretending did not exist. The old American political consensus supporting Israel is crumbling, the Republican alliance is proving far more conditional than advertised, and candidates openly hostile to American military assistance for Israel are finding a receptive political audience. The shocking losers of these elections were not simply individual candidates. They were American Jews who believed that their political influence was permanent.

Let us begin with Donald Trump. The president who has repeatedly advertised himself as Israel's greatest political friend has announced that the United States will end approximately $4 billion in annual military assistance to Israel. His explanation is that Israel is wealthy enough to defend itself. But there is something considerably more revealing beneath that explanation. Trump has complained that Republicans are being politically attacked over American financial support for Israel. Imagine that. The great champion of Israel has discovered that supporting Israel can become a political inconvenience. The message to American Jews should be unmistakable: even a president who has cultivated the image of being Israel's strongest ally is prepared to reconsider the relationship when his own political interests demand it.

And where, exactly, does that leave the American Jewish organizations that spent years embracing Trump as the answer to every Jewish political anxiety? What happened to all those declarations about an unprecedented friendship? What happened to the assumption that Republican political loyalty would provide Israel with an enduring shield? Apparently, that shield comes with conditions, and the conditions are determined in the White House. American Jews have made a serious mistake when they confuse a politician's affection for Israel with a permanent commitment to Israel's security. Trump is a transactional politician. Anyone who has not understood that by now has not been paying attention.

Then there is Michigan. The election of El-Sayed to the United States Senate, on a political platform sharply critical of Israel and American military assistance to the Jewish state, should be ringing alarm bells throughout American Jewish communal life. A candidate who made opposition to American support for Israel a prominent part of his political message has demonstrated that this position can coexist with electoral success. That is a political development American Jews cannot simply wave away. It does not mean that every Michigan voter endorsed his position on Israel. It does mean that opposition to American assistance for Israel is no longer automatically disqualifying in American electoral politics.

The irony is almost too extraordinary to ignore. Trump announces the termination of military assistance, while El-Sayed welcomes the direction of that policy from the opposite side of the political spectrum. They have arrived at overlapping positions through entirely different political routes. One represents a transactional Republican calculation, the other an explicitly anti-Israel political agenda. American Jews are left watching two very different political forces challenge a relationship they once regarded as secure.

But the real indictment is directed at American Jewish leadership. For decades, the major organizations have measured their success by access to presidents, photographs with senators, invitations to White House ceremonies, fundraising totals, and the number of politicians willing to speak at their annual dinners. They have mistaken access for influence and influence for security. They have built an impressive political infrastructure while failing to prepare the community for a changing American political culture. What good is a photograph with a president when that president can announce the termination of military assistance to Israel? What good are millions spent on political campaigns when a candidate opposed to American support for Israel can nevertheless win? What good is all the self-congratulation when the political ground is shifting beneath the very institutions that claim to protect Jewish interests?

The American Jewish establishment has become extraordinarily skilled at fundraising and remarkably unskilled at strategic foresight. It knows how to issue statements, organize conferences, arrange meetings, and mobilize donors. But where is the intellectual leadership? Where is the serious examination of why Israel has become such a divisive issue in American politics? Where is the preparation for a generation of Americans whose relationship with Israel is fundamentally different from that of their parents and grandparents? Where is the discussion about what happens when the United States no longer regards unconditional support for Israel as politically advantageous?

And let us dispense with another comforting illusion. American Jews cannot simply transfer their political allegiance from Democrats to Republicans and imagine that their problems have been solved. Neither party is a Jewish insurance policy. The Democrats have factions increasingly hostile to Israeli policy and, in some cases, to the very legitimacy of Jewish sovereignty. The Republicans have a president who has demonstrated that American assistance to Israel can become an expendable political issue. The Jewish community must stop behaving as though its future can be secured by attaching itself to whichever political party appears friendlier at a particular moment.

There is also a responsibility that belongs to Israel. Israel must finally abandon the dangerous assumption that American support will always be available in precisely the form to which it has become accustomed. A sovereign Jewish state cannot build its long-term defense strategy on the political goodwill of an American president. Israel needs greater military independence, a stronger domestic defense industry, technological self-sufficiency, and the economic capacity to defend itself under changing international circumstances. An alliance is valuable, but dependency is dangerous. The Jewish state was established to ensure that Jewish survival would no longer depend on the generosity or political calculations of other nations.

The American Jewish community must also confront the difference between antisemitism and legitimate political disagreement. Antisemitism is real, dangerous, and increasingly visible. It must be confronted without hesitation. But blaming every political setback on antisemitism is an intellectually lazy substitute for understanding political reality. Jewish organizations must be able to distinguish criticism of an Israeli government from hostility toward Jewish sovereignty, and legitimate disagreement over American foreign policy from discriminatory hostility toward Jews. If they cannot make those distinctions, they will find themselves speaking only to people who already agree with them.

What particularly troubles me is the absence of a serious generational strategy. American Jewish leadership continues to behave as though the political and cultural environment of twenty years ago will somehow return. It will not. Younger Americans are encountering Israel through a very different set of political, educational, and media narratives. Jewish institutions cannot answer that challenge with another fundraising dinner or another press release. They need education, intellectual confidence, historical knowledge, and leaders who are willing to challenge both the outside world and their own communal assumptions.

The elections have exposed something profoundly uncomfortable. American Jews possess extraordinary financial resources, universities, professional networks, philanthropic institutions, and political experience. Yet none of those advantages guarantees political security. Wealth does not automatically create respect. Lobbying does not automatically produce public understanding. Access does not guarantee loyalty. And the friendship of a president does not constitute a national strategy.

The American Jewish establishment needs an intellectual housecleaning. It needs leaders who understand that Jewish security cannot be built on photographs, political flattery, or the assumption that yesterday's alliances will survive tomorrow's political calculations. It needs to stop confusing the management of Jewish institutions with the protection of Jewish interests.

The tragedy is not that American Jews failed to elect their preferred candidates. Jewish voters are diverse, and they have every right to their own political priorities. The tragedy is that the institutions claiming to represent them appear so poorly prepared for the political realities now unfolding.

Trump has demonstrated that support for Israel can become a political bargaining chip. Michigan has demonstrated that opposition to American assistance for Israel can find electoral success. And the American Jewish establishment has demonstrated, once again, how little it understands the danger of relying on political assumptions that are rapidly disappearing.

For generations, Jews asked whether America would remain a dependable friend of Israel. Perhaps it is time to ask a more uncomfortable question: Have American Jewish leaders become so accustomed to the privileges of American political influence that they have forgotten how to prepare the Jewish community for a world in which that influence is no longer sufficient?

That is the real election result. And it is one American Jews cannot afford to ignore.

 

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Cole’s book chronicles a five-year investigation into Jared Kushner’s alleged “secret financial agreements and arrangements” made between Trump’s son-in-law and the rulers of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar --- Matthew Cole - “Princes and Thieves” | The Daily Show

 Investigative journalist Matthew Cole sits down with Jon Stewart to talk about his new book, “Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Zayed’s Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East.” Cole’s book chronicles a five-year investigation into Jared Kushner’s alleged “secret financial agreements and arrangements” made between Trump’s son-in-law and the rulers of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. Cole points out that Kushner’s lawyer unequivocally and emphatically denies everything in his book, but Cole remains “very confident that I have the story right.” #DailyShow #MatthewCole #JaredKushner

I just discovered some 5000 comments recently went unseen by me --- They went into 2 files I did not see. I'll see if I can retrieve them and publish them! Sorry about that.

Jared of Arabia (w/ Matthew Cole) - Members Only #353 

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Jews Must Start Thinking Clearly about Islam in America - Muslims will soon outnumber Jews in the U.S. How will that change America, and the place of Jews in it?

 

Jews Must Start Thinking Clearly about Islam in America

Muslims will soon outnumber Jews in the U.S. How will that change America, and the place of Jews in it?

By Tal Fortgang

Read the essay now

In 2025, many American Jews were shocked by the victory in the New York City mayoral race of Zohran Mamdani, who has made hatred of Israel the cornerstone of his political career, and who has since commemorated the anniversary of September 11 with a condemnation of America. Even more unsettling is the rise of Abdul El-Sayed, arguably an even more radical candidate, surrounded​ on all sides by​connections​ to the Muslim Brotherhood and anti-Israel obsessives. But here an important fact comes into play: according to most estimates, Michigan, where El-Sayed is running for a Senate seat, has nearly twice as many Muslims as Jews. If current trends continue, similar ratios will become increasingly common throughout the country. To many Americans, and especially to American Jews, the very expression of concern about the growth of the Muslim population smacks of the worst kind of bigotry. Perhaps the only thing more uncomfortable than voicing such concerns is seeing political figures with the views of Mamdani or El-Sayed rising to power. Our own Jewish identity has so often been deployed against us that we now cringe at the thought of trading in a kind of discrimination that disadvantaged our fathers. How should American Jews deal with this predicament? Should our views of immigration shift accordingly? And are such worries really a concession to the selfsame prejudice once turned against Jews? Let's begin with some facts. Less than a month after October 7, 2023, a college professor in California approached a pro-Israel rallygoer named Paul Kessler, hit him in the head with a megaphone, and killed him. In October 2024, a twenty-two-year-old shot a Jewish man walking to synagogue in Chicago. In June 2025, a man yelling "free Palestine!" firebombed a gathering in Boulder, Colorado in support of Israeli hostages, killing an eighty-two-year-old Jewish woman. And in March 2026, a man drove his explosive-laden vehicle into a synagogue preschool in suburban Detroit, where he was stopped by security before he could kill dozens of Jewish children. While certainly not an exhaustive list of anti-Jewish attacks in the U.S. since the Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel, these have gained some attention for being brazen, especially violent, and explicitly tied to rising anti-Israel sentiment. They also had something else in common. Kessler's killer is a Jordanian-born Muslim and naturalized American citizen. The Chicago shooter, who committed suicide after being charged with hate crimes, was a Muslim Mauritanian national. The Boulder murderer is an Egyptian Muslim. The man who planned the massacre in Michigan was a Lebanese-born Muslim angry about Israel killing members of his extended family—who the IDF says were members of Hizballah. And that's not to mention the untold number of averted incidents, like when a Pakistani man was arrested in late 2024 before he could carry out an Islamic State-directed attack against Jews in New York. Without downplaying the threat to American Jews posed by other radical movements and deranged individuals, and certainly without demonizing all Muslims as violent threats, we can say at least that Jews have good reason to believe that Islamist ideological violence, often justified or set off by anti-Israel hysteria, poses some threat to Jewish safety. ​ Continue reading the essay here.

“This is New York’s first measles-related death in 30 years, a devastating reminder of what’s at stake when Washington deliberately erodes decades of progress in protecting Americans from preventable illnesses,” Ms. Hochul said.

 

Child Dies From Measles in New York State’s First Fatal Case in 30 Years

 

Gov. Kathy Hochul said that the death in Lewis County reflects eroding vaccination levels. The state is experiencing a significant outbreak of the viral illness.

Gov. Kathy Hochul said she was “heartbroken” by the death of a child in New York’s North Country from measles.Credit...Hilary Swift for The New York Times

A child in New York’s North Country died after contracting measles, the first death in the state from the viral disease in 30 years, health officials announced Monday.

Gov. Kathy Hochul said the death was a signal that public health protections were eroding as a growing number of families forgo vaccinations.

The child died in Lewis County, which is northeast of Syracuse and has recorded 15 measles cases this year, according to the health authorities, who shared few details about the case.

“I am heartbroken to learn that a child in Lewis County has died after contracting measles,” Ms. Hochul said in a statement.

The governor linked the death to Trump administration policies that she said have undermined public confidence in pediatric immunizations.

“This is New York’s first measles-related death in 30 years, a devastating reminder of what’s at stake when Washington deliberately erodes decades of progress in protecting Americans from preventable illnesses,” Ms. Hochul said.

Measles, one of the most contagious diseases, was once nearly vanquished from the United States but has made a dramatic comeback in recent years. Nationwide, 4,852 measles cases have been recorded this year. That’s more than twice as many as in 2025, which saw the highest number of measles cases in more than a quarter-century.

New York is in the midst of a significant measles outbreak, with at least 178 cases this year, most reported since August. The cases are concentrated in about 10 counties upstate.

Amish communities, where vaccination rates tend to be lower, have been particularly hard hit. At an earlier point in the outbreak, a county health official in Cattaraugus County in western New York had said that about three-quarters of the upstate cases were within “Plain communities,” a term used to describe Amish and Mennonite groups that emphasizes the unadorned nature of their lives.

Amish Families Pushed to Undo a Vaccine Law. Then Measles Arrived.

Oct. 20, 2026

A number of Amish communities in New York are locked in a long-running legal battle with the state Health Department over whether children in one-room schoolhouses must be vaccinated. The U.S. Supreme Court had signaled its interest in the dispute, which has major implications for New York’s strict law on school immunizations. Unlike many states, New York does not allow schoolchildren to be exempt from vaccine requirements for religious reasons.

Concerned about the possibility of stigma, public health officials have been reluctant to say much about whether the outbreak in New York is still predominantly among Amish and Mennonite groups, or is spreading more broadly.

The clusters of cases in Amish communities in New York appear linked to far larger outbreaks in Amish communities in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Joseph Goldstein covers health care in New York for The Times, following years of criminal justice and police reporting.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/11/02/nyregion/measles-death-child-new-york-lewis-county.html?

The Trumpian Looting Begins: What Happens When Trump Loses Congress?

 

A Damning Account Alleges Jared Kushner Conducted Diplomacy for Profit

The new book by the reporter Matthew Cole connects $2 billion in slush funds from Gulf state leaders to Trump’s son-in-law in an effort to influence U.S. policy.

 

The U.A.E. president Mohammed bin Zayed and President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, in 2026.

Cole’s most explosive claims, however, relate to a 2017 operation by a Dutch military intelligence unit, which found that Russian agents had screenshots from inside Kushner’s iPhone. Investigating further, they discovered that Kushner had access to a bank account in the U.A.E., containing $750 million laundered through Azerbaijan but, according to Cole, originally deriving from the Emirati and Saudi governments. “It is unclear if Trump ever approved or even knew about the arrangement,” Cole writes.

By the spring of 2018, Cole maintains, M.B.Z. had moved roughly $1 billion into another account, held by the Israeli central bank, on Kushner’s behalf. Cole says it is also “unclear” if or how Kushner used these funds, “but according to the person with knowledge of the money, its allocation was for Kushner’s personal benefit.” For M.B.Z., Cole suggests, the return on his investment was a recalibration of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, culminating in the invasion of Iran, whose influence he feared.

These accusations are grave. The first bank account was allegedly a slush fund used to finance operations in Libya and elsewhere by Erik Prince, the former C.E.O. of Blackwater, the private military contractor (now known as Academi). If Kushner was a signatory to this account, he was helping to run a foreign government’s proxy wars. And if he used some or all of the money in the second account for his personal benefit, he was effectively an undeclared agent of a foreign power.

 https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/26/books/review/princes-and-thieves-matthew-cole.html?

 

Before Giving Billions to Jared Kushner, Saudi Investment Fund Had Big Doubts

Before committing $2 billion to Mr. Kushner’s fledgling firm, officials at a fund led by the Saudi crown prince questioned taking such a big risk. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/10/us/jared-kushner-saudi-investment-fund.html

 

 Mr. Jared Kushner
“Special Envoy for Peace”
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Affinity Partners
16690 Collins Avenue
Sunny Isles Beach, FL 33160

Dear Mr. Kushner:
You are now reportedly participating as “Special Envoy for Peace” in negotiations on
behalf of the United States government to address the roiling conflicts in the Middle East. At the
same time, you are soliciting billions of dollars from Gulf monarchies for your private business
ventures while already managing billions of dollars of their money in your international
investment firm, A Fin Management LLC (Affinity).

From the standpoint of the American people, your decision to act in these two roles—one
public for the government and one private for personal profit—creates a glaring and incurable
conflict of interest. Your clients Saudi Arabia and the Royal Crown Prince Mohammed Bin
Salman have unique and significant strategic, economic and political interests that are certain to
diverge sharply from the strategic, economic and political interests of the American people....

https://democrats-judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/democrats-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/2026-04-16-raskin-to-kushner-affinity-re-conflict-of-interest.pdf

* 

There is a frightening possibility that the most dangerous period of Donald Trump's presidency may not be behind us, but directly ahead. If Republicans lose control of the House on Tuesday, November 3, and perhaps even the Senate, America may discover what happens when a president who has repeatedly treated public office as a vehicle for personal power suddenly realizes that his political authority is slipping away. A president who fears accountability, despises oversight, and regards criticism as an act of disloyalty may become considerably more reckless when confronted with a hostile Congress. And the question Americans should be asking is not simply what Trump will do after an electoral defeat, but what he might attempt to accomplish before the clock runs out.

Imagine the possibilities. Executive orders, presidential directives, regulatory interventions, pardons, contracts, international arrangements, and last-minute policy decisions could become instruments in a desperate effort to protect his financial interests, advance the business interests of his family, and consolidate wealth and influence before congressional oversight becomes more formidable. I am not suggesting that every executive order will necessarily be corrupt or unlawful. I am suggesting that a president whose personal financial interests and public responsibilities have repeatedly raised questions about conflicts of interest deserves extraordinary scrutiny, particularly when facing the prospect of losing congressional protection.

Trump has never demonstrated much appreciation for the traditional distinction between the presidency as a public trust and the presidency as a personal possession. His political universe revolves around loyalty, personal advantage, family interests, and the preservation of his own power. In that universe, government institutions are not necessarily independent guardians of the public interest. They are potential obstacles to be overcome, personnel to be replaced, and agencies to be pressured. The presidency becomes less a constitutional responsibility than a platform from which to advance the Trump enterprise.

And what about his children? The Trump family has enjoyed extraordinary commercial and political opportunities because of the family's proximity to the presidency. The American public has every reason to demand transparency about whether presidential decisions, foreign relationships, government policies, or regulatory actions benefit family business interests. The appearance of impropriety is not a minor political inconvenience. In a functioning democracy, it is a serious warning sign.

A Republican congressional defeat would also create a new political reality. Congressional committees could investigate financial dealings, demand documents, subpoena witnesses, examine foreign business relationships, and scrutinize the administration's handling of public resources. The possibility of meaningful oversight could be precisely what makes the remaining months politically explosive. A president who has spent years attacking investigations may view congressional oversight not as a constitutional responsibility but as an enemy operation directed against him personally.

And that is where the danger lies. What happens when a president who has spent years demanding unquestioned loyalty discovers that the constitutional system no longer has to accommodate him? What happens when Congress is no longer a rubber stamp? What happens when investigations become possible, subpoenas become enforceable, and administration officials begin to understand that their obligations are to the Constitution rather than to Donald Trump?

The executive order could become his favorite political weapon. But executive orders are not presidential permission slips to enrich oneself, reward relatives, evade Congress, or rewrite the law. They remain subject to constitutional limitations, statutory authority, judicial review, and congressional oversight. The American system was designed with precisely this sort of presidential temptation in mind.

The irony is extraordinary. Trump campaigned as the man who would drain the swamp. Yet Americans have witnessed a presidency in which the boundaries between personal business, family interests, political loyalty, and public responsibility have repeatedly become subjects of serious controversy. The man who promised to clean up Washington has made the question of presidential self-enrichment one of the defining issues of his political career.

The real test of American democracy may come after Tuesday. If the voters take away Trump's congressional majority, they will not merely be changing the political balance in Washington. They will be sending a message that the presidency does not belong to its occupant, that the federal government is not a family corporation, and that the American treasury is not an extension of a presidential business empire.

And Democrats should understand something important: winning Congress is not enough. They must exercise their constitutional responsibilities intelligently, aggressively, and without turning oversight into political theater. They must investigate where evidence warrants investigation, expose conflicts of interest, protect government institutions, and demonstrate that accountability is more than a campaign slogan. They must resist the temptation to imitate the very political abuses they condemn.

America does not need another presidential circus. It needs an accounting.

The presidency is not a family inheritance. The executive branch is not a private investment fund. The American people are not shareholders in the Trump Organization. And the United States Treasury is not a personal ATM.

If Trump loses Congress on Tuesday, the question will be whether the American constitutional system is strong enough to restrain a president who may have even more incentive to use the remaining power of his office for personal and family advantage.

A president's final years in office should be devoted to serving the country, not settling personal accounts, protecting private fortunes, or arranging the next generation of family privilege.

Trump may regard Tuesday as a political defeat. America must make certain that it does not become a financial opportunity.

 

REPUBLISHED

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-trumpian-looting-begins-what-happens-when-trump-loses-congress/

College Administrator Beats Agudath Israel To The Punch, Opens The Door For More Moshav Leitzim To Sue: He applied for a religious exemption under Title VII, the federal civil rights law that forbids workplace discrimination and allows employees to apply for “religious accommodation,” and his request was accepted in September.

 

Man Granted Religious Exemption Against Using AI at Work....

 

He says AI is undercutting his "ability to be a moral actor."

University of Kentucky administrator David Durman was granted a religious exemption from using AI at work, claiming that use of the tech violates his religious beliefs as a humanist.

As Religion News Service reports, Durman maintains that outsourcing cognitive tasks to chatbots could interfere with his development as a “moral actor.” Assisted by the American Humanist Association (AHA), he applied for a religious exemption under Title VII, the federal civil rights law that forbids workplace discrimination and allows employees to apply for “religious accommodation,” and his request was accepted in September.

“The process and work involved in thinking through situations, through my work, through my ethics, through the way I handle other people, is a key component in being able to develop myself as a moral person,” Durman told RNS. “And offloading that labor, regardless of whether it’s taxing or not, is undercutting my ability to be a moral actor.”

Durman isn’t the first American to obtain this kind of AI exemption. This summer, a software engineer and Unitarian Universalist in North Carolina named Erin Maus was also granted a religious exemption from using AI at work, with Maus saying that ethical and environmental concerns raised by AI violated her religious beliefs.

His approved exemption also comes as religious leaders around the world — most notably Pope Leo, who’s taken a stance against AI — grapple with what AI means for their faith.

In his letter to the University of Kentucky’s Office of Equal Opportunity requesting the exemption, Durman wrote that “substituting automated machine processing for human presence, authentic listening, and personal responsibility in my work directly conflicts with my obligation to uphold human dignity and flourishing as primary.”

Humanism isn’t an organized religion, but does qualify as a religion under federal statutes. The AHA told RNS that Durman, to its knowledge, is the first humanist to be granted an AI exemption.

“This is the first of its kind at the AHA and for humanism generally to exempt those who see AI use as flying in the face of their freedom of conscience,” Alexandria Huiskens, an AHA attorney, told RNS.

“For us, humanism is a comprehensive way of life,” she added. “It’s built on inherent worth and dignity, and everyone should have room to exercise this comprehensive way of life at work the same way Christians do, or Muslims do.”

Durman’s reasoning is reminiscent of “cognitive surrender,” the term coined by Massachusetts Institution of Technology scientists that describes humans farming out their mental agency to AI tools. By refusing to outsource his critical thinking skills, Durman contends, he’ll be able to center his life and agency around humans.

https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/man-religious-exemption-ai-work

A second asifa addressing the growing impact of artificial intelligence was held Thursday night in Lakewood, drawing senior dreaming rabbinic artificial unintelligent leadership and continuing a discussion that began earlier this week.

The gathering focused on concerns surrounding AI-driven calling, texting, and content generation, and followed an initial asifah that drew dozens of leading rabbanim and roshei yeshiva, where the gedolim called for a yom taanis u’tefillah over the threats posed by AI. A date has not been set for when that will take place.

Thursday night’s meeting featured remarks from Rav Elyah Ber Wachtfogel, Rav Malkiel Kotler and Rav Yisroel Newman, who addressed both the technological and hashkafic implications of artificial intelligence.

During his remarks, Rav Yisroel Newman warned that artificial intelligence poses dangers he described as more severe than those associated with the general internet. Rav Malkiel addressed the use of AI in Torah learning, stating that Torah learned through AI-generated means would not warrant a bracha, characterizing such a bracha as a berachah levatalah.

https://theunorthodoxjew.blogspot.com/search?q=moshav+leitzim