Trump: US ‘in no rush’ during ‘constructive’ Iran talks; ‘perhaps’ Tehran will join Abraham Accords
Today, 5:52 pm
US President Donald Trump calls negotiations with Iran
“constructive,” while noting that “time is on [Washington’s] side” and
the US naval blockade against Iran will remain in effect until an
agreement is reached.
“The negotiations are proceeding in an orderly and constructive
manner, and I have informed my representatives not to rush into a deal
in that time is on our side,” Trump writes on Truth Social. “The
Blockade will remain in full force and effect until an agreement is
reached, certified, and signed. Both sides must take their time and get
it right. There can be no mistakes!” he adds.
Trump repeats his assertion that whatever deal is reached with Iran
will be better than the one previously negotiated by the Obama
administration, saying the current deal will be “THE EXACT OPPOSITE.”
“Our relationship with Iran is becoming a much more professional and
productive one,” Trump continues, while adding that “they cannot develop
or procure a Nuclear Weapon or Bomb.”
He thanks regional countries for their “support and cooperation,”
which he says “will be further enhanced and strengthened by their
joining the Nations of the historic Abraham Accords” normalization
agreements brokered by his administration, and goes as far as to suggest
that Iran, which is sworn to Israel’s destruction, perhaps “would like
to join [the Accords], as well!”
A Miscarriage of Journalism at ‘The New York Times’
Nicholas
Kristof’s column alleging Israeli sex crimes against Palestinian
prisoners embraces the erosion of our democratic norms, writes Roy K.
Altman. (Illustration by The Free Press)
Nicholas
Kristof’s recent essay about supposed Israeli sex crimes against
Palestinian detainees is a travesty—not simply because it’s wrong as a
matter of fact, or because it regurgitates long-debunked blood libels
against the Jewish state at a time of rising antisemitism around the
world.
It’s a travesty because it embraces the erosion of
democratic norms at an inflection point in our history. Since our
founding, the American political experiment has entrusted everyday
citizens with the revolutionary power to choose. We choose the men and women who represent us. We choose how to balance the intimate relationship between a free people and its government. We choose whether to send a member of our community to prison.
But
we entrust our fellow Americans with the power to make these choices
because we believe that a virtuous people will be equipped to make the right
choices—principally because we assume that our citizens will be
prepared to discern truth from fiction. And we feel comfortable in that
assumption because we’ve devised a system of laws—based on evidence,
burdens of proof, and a time-tested set of rules—to help us assess the
veracity of contested claims. In this way, the jury system isn’t simply a
means of ensuring fair trials. Rather, it’s a way of training free
citizens to make difficult decisions for themselves.
Today,
this whole system is being undermined by the proliferation of false
information—especially on the internet. But it’s one thing to have our
geopolitical and ideological enemies—whether China, Russia, or the
Muslim Brotherhood—pushing unverified claims about our closest allies
into our cell phones. It’s another thing entirely for TheNew York Times,
a supposed “paper of record,” and one of its Pulitzer Prize–winning
journalists to offer a story that—in its disregard of basic
evidence-gathering norms, its unwillingness to investigate the opposing
side’s position, andits inversion of common
sense—violates the fundamental rules of fairness and due process that
have, for centuries, served as the bulwark of our democracy.
In
his explosive essay, Kristof accused Israel of using sexual violence
against detained Palestinian prisoners as a kind of “standard operating
procedure.” Kristof’s claim is thus not merely that a few rogue Israeli
prison guards sometimes behave illegally—as happens in all Western
democracies, including our own. It is, instead, that the Israeli
government has implemented a systemic policy of deploying sexual
violence against Palestinian prisoners on a massive scale.
The
jury system isn’t simply a means of ensuring fair trials. Rather, it’s a
way of training free citizens to make difficult decisions for
themselves.
The timing of the essay is itself
troubling. Weeks ago, the independent commission charged with
investigating, and reporting on, Hamas’s widespread use of sexual
violence against Israelis on October 7 informed the Times that it would be releasing its report on Hamas’s egregious sex-crimes violations on or around May 12. According to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, when the commission offered to provide the Times with its findings, the Times said it was not interested. But then, on May 11, one day before the commission’s report was set to be published, the Times ran Kristof’s piece, which flips the script by portraying the victims of mass sexual violence as the perpetrators. (The Times denies
the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s version of events and insists that there
is no relationship between the timing of the commission’s report and
Kristof’s column.)
But we should recognize that this
preemptive co-opting of the real story here—the systemic victimization
of Israeli women and girls—is no innocuous question of timing. As any
experienced trial advocate or jury consultant can attest, the
psychological doctrine of primacy—which explains why a fact finder is
often most persuaded by the story he hears first—dictates the order in which evidence is produced, and witnesses are called, in many American trials. The Times later
ran a shorter story about the Israeli commission’s report, but by then,
as the doctrine of primacy teaches us, it was too late.
In
law as in logic, we can and should use a party’s conduct in deciding
whether we believe what the party has to say—principally because that
conduct may help us understand the party’s incentives, its biases. And
the Times’s conduct as it relates to a story about
Hamas’s sex crimes—followed in quick succession by its decision to
publish an inflammatory opinion piece about supposed Israeli sex
crimes—tells us a lot about the Times’sbiases.
On
the merits, Kristof’s article violates three central precepts of our
legal system: It disregards basic rules of evidence gathering; it
refuses to investigate the opposing side’s views; and it ignores logic
and common sense.
Let’s start with fairness. One of the
fundamental rules of our justice system is that a man should be
permitted to confront his accuser. Whether in civil or criminal cases,
we have for hundreds of years rejected the English Star Chamber’s
technique of allowing anonymous witnesses to advance salacious claims in
secret. This principle is so essential to any basic system of fairness
that it appears repeatedly throughout our laws—from the Sixth
Amendment’s Confrontation Clause and its guarantee of public trials to
our hearsay rules, which preclude out-of-court statements the accused
never had an opportunity to cross-examine. But Kristof’s article relies
mostly on anonymous sources whose credibility—much less their political
or ideological affiliations—cannot be tested and thus cannot be known.
Kristof
justifies his reliance on anonymity by suggesting that his sources
would face retribution, either from Israeli authorities or from their
own communities, if they came forward. But there are at least four major
problems with this excuse.
One, Kristof provides no evidence of any similar retribution against one of the men he spoke with who has
publicly accused Israeli guards of sexual assault. For months now, Sami
al-Sai has repeatedly and publicly claimed, including to major news
outlets like NPR and the Times, that he was
sexually assaulted while in Israeli detention. There are real problems
with al-Sai’s claims. For one thing, soon after his detention, he filed a
petition with the Israeli Supreme Court, arguing that he was wrongly
detained and asking for his immediate release. In that petition, he
complained about the quality of the food he was given and said that he
was treated badly,but he notably never mentioned any of the sex allegations he’s now advancing.
The New York Times
didn’t respond to a request for comment as to whether Kristof reviewed
any of al-Sai’s judicial records before publication of his report. It’s
safe to assume, however, that he didn’t. How Kristof could report
reliably on al-Sai’s condition while in prison in the absence of any of
these legal documents is a question worth pondering.
For
another, the Supreme Court’s order denying his petition found credible
evidence that he was affiliated with Palestinian terror groups and that
he had thus been properly detained—an obvious stain on his reliability
as a witness against Israel, the central target of every Palestinian
terror group. (Kristof describes al-Sai merely as “a freelance
journalist.”) But the point here is that, far from suffering any
retribution for complaining about his detention, al-Sai was later freed, and Kristof never suggests that he’s since been subject to any form of punishment.
Two,any
cursory review of Israeli legal databases would reveal that Israeli
prisons allow Palestinian prisoners to file complaints about the
conditions of their confinement—and that these complaints do get filed.
Indeed, since 2023, Israel has received 182 such complaints filed by
Israel Prison Service detainees from the Gaza Strip. Of those, 83 were
filed by the prisoners’ attorneys, 85 were reported by Israeli officials
themselves, and four involved allegations of sex offenses—a tiny
fraction among a prison population that includes some 10,000
Palestinians. But the point is that Kristof offers not a single shred of
evidence that any of the Palestinian prisoners
who filed complaints has ever been subjected to retribution—much less
that this speculation about retribution has ever been a feature of the
Israeli prison system.
Three,
Kristof’s reliance on anonymity ensures that no one—most especially the
Israelis—can ever prove him wrong. That’s because he not only tells us
very little about the accusers, he tells us nothing about the offenses.
No locations. No dates. No perpetrators. Israeli prisons, like many of
our own, are often videotaped, and those recordings are reviewed not
just by prison guards but by prison officials and lawyers. If Kristof
had conducted anything resembling a fair analysis, we would have
expected him to have asked to review some of this footage. But there’s
no indication that he ever did. Nor can anyone else do so now because
Kristof gave us no details to check against his claims. There’s an old
adage that says it’s impossible to prove a negative—all the more so when
there are no facts to investigate.
Four, we should
acknowledge that it’s always hard for victims of sexual assault to
advance their claims publicly. But any system committed to basic
fairness recognizes that the accuser’s preference for anonymity must
bend to the accused’s right to confront the claims against him. And
that’s not just because we want to allow the accused to test the
reliability of the accuser’s claims. It’s also because we presume that
the mere act of declaring something publicly itself evinces some degree of credibility.
Palestinian
Chairman of the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor Ramy Abdu, center, in
Gaza city in 2015.
The few sources Kristof doesname
underscore why anonymity is so problematic. Beyond al-Sai, Kristof
relies heavily on a report by Euro-Med, an organization with known ties
to Hamas. While Kristof says that Euro-Med is “often critical of
Israel”—an almost laughable understatement—he never discloses that
Euro-Med’s leader, Ramy Abdu, is affiliated with Hamas, that he has
advocated publicly for “a million October 7ths,” and that he has
repeatedly peddled implausible (and now discredited) claims about
Israel, including the absurd allegation that Israel “harvests organs.”
Kristof similarly relies on a United Nations Human Rights Council
report, which is itself based on anonymous reporting and which openly
dispenses with its typical corroboration requirements in favor of “a
single primary source.”
Whatever one thinks of Israel
or its prison system, we must ask ourselves: Why does Kristof never
tell his readers any of this? Don’t we deserve to know that the NGO on
which he based so much of his “opinion” has hurled false claims about Israel before, or that its director is affiliated with Hamas?
All
of which brings us to the second major defect in Kristof’s piece: his
failure to seriously investigate the opposing side’s position. Our
adversarial system stands on a simple but profound premise: Truth is
best tested through confrontation. No just system would accept, without
question, the accuser’s claims and call it a day. But Kristof does
exactly that. Here are three examples of this basic flaw in his
reporting.
First, in advancing his claim that Israel permits
or encourages sexual abuse of detainees as a matter of state policy,
Kristof fails even to mention that sexual offenses are strictly
prohibited under Israel’s penal code. Indeed, the Israeli legal system
imposes enhanced penalties when sexual offenses, including by security
personnel, are motivated by race, skin color, or national origin. And
Israeli military forces are bound by a host of additional directives,
which further protect prisoners from state-sponsored violence,
including sexual violence. Again, Kristof discussed none of these laws
and never attempted to assess the extent to which violations of these
laws are ever punished. What was he trying to hide?
Our adversarial system stands on a simple but profound premise: Truth is best tested through confrontation.
Rather
than engage with these laws, Kristof offers the unchallenged and
uncorroborated view of Sari Bashi, who told him that Israel rarely
punishes prison guards who violate Israeli law. Not so. Even in the
aftermath of October 7, when there was understandably little sympathy
for the Palestinian terrorists who had suddenly flooded Israel’s jails,
the Israel Defense Forces cracked down on misconduct. Looking to
incidents reported by Israeli commanders and soldiers alone, the Israeli
military has instituted more than a dozen disciplinary proceedings or
measures against soldiers for law violations against Palestinians, some
even resulting in military discharges—a severe penalty in a society that
views military service as the ticket to socioeconomic advancement.
Military prosecutors have also launched three criminal investigations
into alleged sexual offenses by soldiers against Palestinians, and five
more are currently undergoing a preliminary examination.
Several
other Israeli investigations have led to prosecutions and serious prison
sentences. One Israeli soldier, for example, was convicted and
sentenced to jail for physically abusing Palestinian inmates and
requiring them to speak in a demeaning way. Another who inappropriately
searched Palestinian women and foreign tourists was sentenced to
fourteen months in prison. Two soldiers were convicted and sentenced to
prison for assaulting a Palestinian detainee during a security
inspection. Each of these cases eviscerates Kristof’s suggestion that
Israel fails to punish soldiers or prison officials who behave illegally
toward Palestinians—and they’re simply incompatible with Kristof’s
thesis of state-sanctioned abuse. But the more fundamental point, again,
is that Kristof curiously never tells his readers any of this.
Second,
Kristof likewise fails to disclose that there’s an elite unit in
Israel’s police force, called Lahav 433, tasked with investigating
misconduct by the Israeli Prison Service. Now, it’s entirely possible
that Israel created this unit inside what’s known as the “Israeli FBI”
and filled it with elite servicemembers who do nothing but sit in an
office all day, twiddling their thumbs and happily allowing misconduct
to go unchecked. The far more plausible inference, I submit, is that
Israel didn’t create this elite investigative unit
simply to do nothing. But the point is that we don’t know—and cannot
know—the answers to any of these questions from Kristof’s “opinion”
piece because he never bothered to mention this unit, never thought to
interview its members, and never investigated the extent to which it
actually enforces Israeli law.
Third, rather than
inquire into the practices of the men and women charged with enforcing
Israel’s penal code, Kristof turned to former Israeli prime minister
Ehud Olmert, who conceded he didn’t know anything about Israeli abuse of
Palestinian prisoners and yet proceeded to speculate that he “was not
surprised by the accounts [Kristof] had heard.” Several glaring issues
here. For starters, Kristof never tells his readers that Olmert, a
disgraced and embittered former politician, was convicted and imprisoned
on charges of fraud and bribery. Nor does Kristof explain why it makes
any sense to question Olmert about the policies of a prison system he
says he knows nothing about and a government he hasn’t participated in
for more than a decade. We wouldn’t trust Richard Nixon as an expert in
the policies of the Bill Clinton–era Bureau of Prisons. But all this is
mostly beside the point because, once the article came out, Olmert
clarified, in a statement to The New York Times and obtained by The Free Press,
that “Mr. Kristof’s article includes claims of extraordinary gravity:
that Israeli authorities have directed the rape of children, that dogs
have been used as instruments of sexual assault, that systematic sexual
torture is state policy. I did not validate these claims.”
Former
Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert received a six-year prison sentence
on charges of fraud and bribery.
Of
course, an essay isn’t a courtroom. But when a reporter in our supposed
“paper of record” advances a series of allegations that are this severe
and pernicious, not solely against an individual but against an entire
nation, we should demand that he produce evidence to match the gravity of his assertions. And Kristof—who has been forced in the past to admit that he’d been lied to by his sources—has fallen well short of this standard.
Which
brings us to Kristof’s final departure from our fundamental precepts:
his lack of common sense. The most salacious claim in Kristof’s piece is
the allegation that Israel is now systematically training dogs to rape
Arab Muslim men. This claim used to live only on the fringes of the
wildest internet conspiracy theories. In 2010, there was a spate of
shark attacks in the Red Sea, situated between Israel and Egypt. For
whatever reason, most (if not all) of these attacks occurred on the
Egyptian side of the border. I happened to be in Israel that summer and
heard an Egyptian minister wondering whether the Mossad, Israel’s
foreign intelligence service, was systematically training sharks to eat
only Arab flesh. My father and I, hearing this over the radio in a cab,
laughed at the absurdity of the claim.
But we aren’t laughing now.
What we’ve seen over the last few years is that wild and illogical
conspiracy theories that used to reside only on the internet and in the
anti-Israel Arab street now circulate in the mainstream media, brought
there by irresponsible journalists who flout evidentiary standards,
ignore basic notions of fairness, and disregard common sense and the
truth. What kind of a society will we be if we don’t reverse this
disturbing erosion in our ability to tell truth from falsehood?
There is a tragic similarity in the psychology of collective accusation. When Nicholas Kristof paints Jews as uniquely bloodthirsty, uniquely indifferent to suffering, or uniquely responsible for every death in a complicated war, he participates in an ancient instinct: the need to turn Jews into a moral monster large enough to absorb the world's rage. The language may wear the suit and tie of humanitarian concern, but underneath it lives the old medieval poison — the belief that Jewish power is uniquely sinister, uniquely corrupting, uniquely illegitimate.
What makes Kristof’s rhetoric so poisonous is not merely that it is dead wrong but that it drags an ancient moral sickness into a modern newspaper costume and calls it conscience. To smear Jews collectively is bad enough; to dress that smear up as concern, to launder accusation through the language of virtue, is a deeper disgrace. It is the old blood libel with better tailoring. The setting has changed, the vocabulary has changed, but the instinct is the same: take a whole people, flatten their humanity, and present suspicion as if it were wisdom.
And yet the hypocrisy does not stop there. The same kind of collective indictment, the same lazy moral vandalism, appears inside Israel itself, where ultra-Orthodox factions too often speak as though the state, the secular public, and the IDF are not fellow Jews but something alien to be scorned, blamed, or exploited. The result is a grotesque mirror image. One side slanders Jews from the outside; the other erodes Jewish solidarity from within. One attacks with accusation, the other with contempt. Different uniforms, same moral defect.The secular Jew becomes spiritually contaminated. The Israeli government becomes a machine of impurity.The soldier who risks his life becomes morally inferior to the man who condemns him from the safety of a Beit Midrash study hall. History should have cured Jews of this madness. It should have taught us what happens when Jews become incapable of distinguishing disagreement from demonization. For two thousand years, defenseless Jews prayed for someone — anyone — who could defend Jewish blood. Now, for the first time in centuries, there exists a sovereign Jewish state with Jewish pilots, Jewish tanks, Jewish intelligence officers, Jewish infantry. And still there are those who speak of these defenders almost as if they are agents of evil rather than the shield standing between Jewish life and annihilation.A serious people cannot survive on this kind of poison.
Jews have endured too much history, too much exile, too much blood, to surrender to the cheap thrills of collective accusation. The enemy outside and the fracture inside feed each other. When Jews speak about one another as if they were strangers, traitors, or moral contaminants, they hand ammunition to every anti-Semite who ever claimed Jewish unity was a lie. And when outsiders revivify the ancient charge against Jews as a people, they confirm why that unity matters in the first place.
One does not need to agree with every Israeli policy to recognize the grotesque imbalance of moral scrutiny imposed upon the Jewish state. Nor must one abandon religious devotion to understand that the existence of Israel is not sustained by miracles alone. It is sustained by young men and women standing guard at borders while "intellectuals" abroad condemn them and sectarians at home spiritually belittle them.
The old blood libel claimed Jews murdered Christian children for ritual purposes. The modern version declares Jews enjoy oppression, crave domination, thirst for war, and manipulate world powers. It is more sophisticated in vocabulary, but not necessarily more enlightened in spirit. And when Jews themselves begin describing their fellow Jews as moral contaminants, spiritual Nazis, or enemies of God merely because they inhabit modern Israeli society or serve in its army, they unknowingly echo the same dehumanizing impulse that has haunted Jewish history from the beginning.
A civilization cannot survive if every internal argument becomes an accusation of cosmic evil. Israel was not reborn so Jews could resume the luxury of civilizational suicide. The secular Israeli soldier and the ultra-Orthodox scholar are bound together whether they like it or not. One preserves the body of the Jewish people; the other preserves part of its soul. Sever either one completely, and the entire structure begins to crack.
The enemies of the Jews never cared whether a Jew wore a black hat, a knitted kippah, or no kippah at all. In Auschwitz, they did not separate the observant from the secular before sending them into the smoke. Jewish history is cruel precisely because it reminds us that the world has often seen Jews collectively — while Jews themselves remain determined to fragment into tribes incapable of recognizing a shared fate.
US President Donald Trump says he would accept a 20-year suspension of Iran’s nuclear program.
Asked by a reporter on Air Force One whether a 20-year suspension
would be sufficient, Trump responds, “20 years is enough. But the level
of guarantee from them… it’s got to be a real 20 years.”
In the past, Trump has demanded that Iran agree to forever cease
enrichment, claiming that he didn’t want to pass the problem off to a
future president.
By the time the delegation from Donald Trump
landed in Beijing, the Chinese leadership had already prepared the
banquet menu. Not diplomacy. Not strategy. Not even revenge. Lunch.
The appetizer was humiliation served
cold after the Strait of Hormuz circus — the spectacle of a superpower
getting outmaneuvered by men in sandals with drones assembled from spare
refrigerator parts and divine confidence. Somewhere in Beijing, an
elderly Communist Party strategist probably removed his glasses, looked
at a map of the Pacific, and whispered: “So this is the American
century?”
And then came the main course: Orange Trump Chopped and Fried.
Not literally, of course. Satire
requires clarification these days because civilization has lost both its
sense of humor and its reading comprehension. But figuratively? The
feast was magnificent.
First the chefs tenderized him with
flattery. The Chinese understand something Americans never do: vanity is
easier to penetrate than armor. Compliment the suit. Praise the
“historic leadership.” Mention the television ratings. Tell him the
crowds in Shanghai are bigger than his rallies in Florida. By dessert
he’s negotiating against himself.
The mandarins across the table must
have looked at each other the way casino owners look at a tourist
carrying grocery bags full of cash. Calm. Patient. Respectful.
Predatory.
Trump walks into negotiations like a
man entering a boxing ring convinced the ring announcer is the
opponent. He thinks performance is power. China thinks power is power.
The Chinese Communist leadership
spent forty years studying supply chains, rare earth minerals, naval
expansion, artificial intelligence, industrial espionage, currency
leverage, and strategic patience. America spent forty years producing
influencers who review breakfast cereal on TikTok.
And then Washington wonders why Beijing smiles so politely.
The old Soviet apparatchiks at
least pounded shoes on tables and threatened nuclear annihilation. The
Chinese are more elegant. They let you keep talking. They pour tea while
you slowly auction away your leverage one headline at a time.
Somewhere in the Forbidden City
mentality — that ancient imperial understanding that dynasties rise and
fall — American politics must look like a reality show filmed inside a
collapsing shopping mall. Republicans screaming. Democrats screaming.
Cable hosts screaming. Wall Street gambling. Universities producing
activists who believe geography is oppression but biology is optional.
Meanwhile China builds ports.
That is the terrifying part. Not
that China is stronger. Not yet. It is that China believes history is
long while America believes history is an election cycle.
So yes, the lunch was probably excellent.
Orange Trump —
lightly battered,
deep fried,
served with applause.
World renowned Talmud scholar, Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz and futurist, Ray Kurzweil in dialogue at the 21st Aleph Society Dinner on November 2, 2015. Their discussion, moderated by Tomas Gorny, covered topics like human progress, technology, evil, democracy.
The
Gedolei Hador are traveling across the globe on behalf of Keren Olam
HaTorah, in their relentless mission to save limud haTorah in Eretz
Yisroel.
From
city to city and country to country, history is unfolding before our
eyes as the leaders of Klal Yisroel rally support for Torah at this
critical time.
Now, you don't have to miss a single moment!
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the official Keren Olam HaTorah WhatsApp Community to receive live
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WhatsApp, Maps & Apps on Dumb Phones
Find out which phones support the apps you need — and which don't.
You want a simple phone. But you also need WhatsApp for work. Or Waze
for directions. Maybe Spotify for music. Can you have the best of both?
The
short answer: it depends on the phone. Most basic flip phones can’t
run WhatsApp at all because they don’t support the operating systems or
storage needed. But some advanced “hybrid” models can.
This guide
breaks it down — what makes a dumb phone capable of running WhatsApp,
why most flip phones can’t handle modern apps, and what options exist if
you need a kosher phone with filtered WhatsApp.
Before
the unveiling, the figure was blessed. Pastor Mark Burns — Trump’s
longtime spiritual adviser and a candidate for Congress in South
Carolina’s 3rd District — assembled a circle of evangelical and Jewish
clergy at the foot of the gilded statue and consecrated it.
A
22-foot effigy of Donald Trump, wrapped in gold leaf, now stands at his
Doral golf course in Miami. The president boasted about it Thursday
morning on Truth Social with the all-caps line: “The Real Deal — GOLD.”
He sits there like a monument to political absurdity, wobbling on the wall of the republic, waiting for gravity to do what gravity always does. The old nursery rhyme was supposed to be about a foolish egg. But America, in its infinite talent for self-humiliation, has promoted the egg to the presidency and then acted shocked when the shell began to crack. Humpty Dumpty was never meant to be a statesman. He was meant to be a warning. That, of course, is precisely why he became irresistible.
There is something almost metaphysical about the American Humpty Dumpty president: the gleaming confidence, the overripe certainty, the permanent pose of a man who believes that sheer volume can substitute for structure. He speaks as though reality is a press release, as though chaos is a branding opportunity, as though every collapse can be renamed a triumph if the sentence is loud enough. This is not leadership. This is theatrical self-assertion in a cheap tuxedo. It is the political equivalent of painting a crack in the wall and calling it architecture.
And yet the country keeps rewarding the performance. Why? Because Americans, for all their sermonizing about seriousness, are suckers for spectacle. They do not merely tolerate the buffoon. They elect him, defend him, then act aggrieved when the buffoon behaves like a buffoon. The Humpty Dumpty president understands the nation’s weakness better than the nation understands itself: that many people would rather be entertained by decline than instructed by discipline. He offers drama in place of responsibility, swagger in place of wisdom, noise in place of judgment. It is a rotten bargain, but a popular one.
The tragedy is not that he is ridiculous. Ridiculous men have always prowled the edges of power. The tragedy is that he reveals how fragile the American political imagination has become. Once upon a time, presidents were expected to sit with the burden of office, to appear almost reluctant before history. Now we get a court jester who mistakes instability for energy and vanity for vision. The eggshell throne may be absurd, but the audience is not innocent. The crowd assembled below is cheering the crack, buying tickets to the fall, and demanding an encore when the pieces hit the ground.
Still, the image remains irresistible because it is true in the deepest way. Humpty Dumpty did not merely fall; he was always in the process of falling. That is the modern American strongman in miniature. He projects invulnerability while living inside collapse. He shouts about strength while depending on fragility. He promises restoration while mastering ruin. In the end, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men are not enough—not because the nation lacks talent, but because no civilization can be built by a man who confuses debris with destiny.
So let the image stand. The American Humpty Dumpty president perched high, cracked, self-important, and somehow still waving at the crowd as though the floor were somebody else’s problem. It is funny, yes. It is also sad. And if the republic has any sense left at all, it will stop applauding the egg before the whole wall comes down.
Meron rabbi arrested after cult watchdog warned of sex abuse in strictly run group
Accusers say Rabbi Yosef Shoveli, 54, passed
off sexual abuse as ‘spiritual’ acts; in group he leads, personal
decisions are tightly controlled and members do chores without pay
Rabbi Yosef Shoveli speaks in a sermon
A leading communal rabbi from Meron in northern Israel has been
arrested for alleged “serious sexual offenses,” police said on Thursday,
a week after he was accused by a cult watchdog of managing a tightly
controlled group since at least 2011.
A statement from the Israel Police said Rabbi Yosef Shoveli, 54, was
arrested overnight Wednesday-Thursday following a covert investigation
after multiple complaints were received.
Shoveli is said to have maintained tight control over his followers, although it was unclear how many adherents he had.
Sources familiar with the details of the case told the Walla news
site that according to complaints that had accumulated over time,
Shoveli presented his control over followers as spiritual.
“He succeeded in entering into the lives of people and making them
completely dependent on him. He controlled their daily routines,
distanced them from their families, and some of them effectively became
his servants,” a source with knowledge of the probe told Walla.
Shoveli was expected to be brought before a court for a remand hearing later on Thursday.
Police called on anyone who may also have been harmed by the suspect or have any knowledge of alleged crimes to come forward.
Last week, the Israeli Center for Cult Victims posted a warning about
Shoveli, saying it had collected 16 testimonies against him, including
from five people who were directly involved in the group’s inner circle,
as well as from family members from the Haredi community.
A leading communal rabbi from Meron in northern Israel has been
arrested for alleged “serious sexual offenses,” police said on Thursday,
a week after he was accused by a cult watchdog of managing a tightly
controlled group since at least 2011.
A statement from the Israel Police said Rabbi Yosef Shoveli, 54, was
arrested overnight Wednesday-Thursday following a covert investigation
after multiple complaints were received.
Shoveli is said to have maintained tight control over his followers, although it was unclear how many adherents he had.
Four of those who came forward said they were sexually assaulted by
Shoveli, who presented the acts as “spiritual.” They said they were
witnesses to assaults on other members, indicating a pattern of abuse in
the group.
The center described an inner group of heightened control, and an
external group among whose members “dependence, high piety, and harm to
family ties” began to take shape.
In the internal group, members’ lives are intensely controlled, with
the center noting some members wouldn’t even establish their own family
without Shoveli’s approval.
Some even changed their last name to Shoveli, according to the center.
Members carry out daily chores for Shoveli, such as cleaning and
caring for his children, without pay, the center said, adding that
members viewed their servitude as a “privilege” and “mission.”
Shoveli said he “absolutely disavows all of the above and rejects the matters outright,” in response to the center’s claims.
Last year, survivors told a Knesset hearing harrowing tales of sexual abuse primarily
taking place in ultra-Orthodox and national-religious communities, with
abusers using the mantle of religion to justify the acts.
Beit Midrash Derech Chaim seeks to enable the transition of
Chareidi (Ultra-Orthodox) students towards full integration into Israeli
society, through academic study and IDF service, leading to gainful
employment and the ability to significantly contribute to the
development of the State of Israel. Graduates will thus present a new
model of Chareidi Judaism, who will build bridges to connect to all
elements of Israeli society.
Activity
Beit Midrash Derech Chaim is a post high school four year
University level program. In the first 2 years, the students undergo an
intensive course of Torah study during the day and academically
recognized computer studies in the evenings. Torah studies are focused
on the creation of a Talmudic scholar imbued with a love for all
elements of modern Israeli society. Instruction centers on the need to
retain the unique values of their Chareidi upbringing while learning
acceptance, tolerance and understanding towards others. Academic studies
are geared towards a degree in Computer Sciences with a specialty in
Cyber Defense.
In year’s 3 and 4 students will serve in the IDF Intelligence and
Technology units, using the skills they have gained towards defense of
their country while gaining valuable work experience.
Upon completion of their studies and army service, students will be
equipped for a successful transition into the work force, and be fully
prepared and motivated to contribute significantly to Israeli society.
The Arizal Exorcises the Spirit of J. from R. Hayyim Vital
On the road to Meron, where the Safed kabbalists believe Jesus is buried, R. Hayyim Vital (16th
cent.) encounters a dangerous spirit, who overpowers him in a moment of
spiritual weakness. The spirit later tosses him in the air and exhausts
him nearly to death, but Vital makes it to his master, the great R.
Isaac Luria, the Arizal, who, fearing the spirit will kill Vital and
thwart his plans to bring about the messianic age, exorcises it.
The Blind and Mute Man Possessed by Devils, James Tissot, 1886–1896. Brooklyn Museum
Luria’s Spirit Is Angry with Hayyim Vital
R. Hayyim Vital (1542–1620) was the chief student of R. Isaac Luria
(1534–1572)—known popularly as the Ari or Arizal, the originator of
Lurianic kabbalah.[1] In Sefer Hezyonot [Book of Visions], Vital’s mystical diary,[2] he tells of how a maggid (friendly spirit)[3] possessed the daughter of his friend Raphael Anav.[4]
The maggid was the spirit Ḥakham Piso (probably R. Isaac Israel de
Piso, an exile from Spain) who had died about 30 years earlier; he had
committed some small sin that was still hanging over him, so his soul
was sent to Damascus in order to bring messages to Vital.[5]
Frustrated that none of these messages came from his deceased
teacher,—Vital asked Anav to inquire of the maggid why Luria was not
responding to him. He reports in his entry for that day (each entry
begins with a date as is the style of diaries):
ספר החזיונות יום י׳ לאב. שאלתי לה ע״י אביה: למה נמנע הצדיק הנודע לי לדבר עמי ומה שמו ואם יש תקוה להחזירו.
Book of Visions “The tenth of Ab. I asked her via her father: Why does the righteous one (tzaddiq)
known to me (=Luria) refuse to speak to me? What is his (=the spirit’s)
name, and is there any hope that he (Luria) will return?
Vital had assumed that he would be able to communicate with Luria after his death through the yiḥudim
(unifications, a type of mystical meditation) that he had been taught
by Luria. Yet he had not been able to communicate with Luria. Now
somebody comes who is a heavenly messenger, but is not Luria. Vital is
confused and asks who is this messenger that he did not know?
Vital writes in his next entry that the maggid responds that Luria is angry with Vital:
ותשיבני כי ליל י״א לאב לא ראתה למורי ז״ל
ויאמר לה: אמרי לו משמי, שלא ישאל עוד שאלות אלו כ״כ פעמים ואיני יכול
להשיב לו תשובה כי אם זאת, הלא הם ג׳ תיבות אלו: אשר״י מתי״ם בבית״ך והוא
יבין מעצמו פירוש הדברים.
She responded that on the night of the
eleventh of Ab she saw my teacher and he said to her: “Tell him in my
name, that he should not ask these questions so many times. I cannot
answer him, except for these three words: ‘Happy are the dead in your
house.’[6] He will understand the meaning of these words himself.”
Vital, however, does not understand what Luria is referring to, and Anav’s daughter explains this to Luria in her next dream:
ליל י״ב אב: ראתה בחלום למורי ז״ל במערה א׳ ויאמר לה: מה השיבך הר׳ חיים? ותאמר לו: אמר לי שלא הבין אותן הג׳ תיבות.
The night of the twelfth of Ab. In a
dream, she saw my teacher z"l in a cave, and he said to her: “What did
R. Hayyim reply to you?” She said to him: “He told me that he did not
understand the three words.”
This response annoys Luria’s spirit, who speaks contemptuously of Vital’s perspicacity here:
ויאמר לה: וכי דבר נקל כזה. נאטם שכלו ולא הבין? ואיה החכמה שלמדתיו?!
He said to her: “Such an easy thing. Has his
intellect become so dense that he did not understand? Where is the
wisdom that I taught him?”
Luria’s spirit continues by having her remind Vital of an incident that took place years before:
וזכור יזכור אותו הרוח רעה שהוצאתי ממנו...
Remind him of the evil spirit [ruaḥ ha-raʿah] that I expelled from him.
Luria’s spirit continues with his criticism:
והנה ד׳ שנים שאינו אותי בחלום. ועתה חשבתי לחזור אליו וכיון שלא הבין דברי תשובתי, איני רוצה לחזור אליו.
It has been four years that he has not seen
me in a dream. Now I planned to return to him, but since he does not
understand my response. I do not want to return to him.
Though Vital never really understands what Luria wants from him, he
does, at least, finally understand that his master is referring to the
incident near Kfar Akhbara, on the road from Safed to Meron:
ונ[ראה] לע[ניות] ד[עתי] פי[רוש] ענין הרוח
רעה הנז[כר], שהוא ענין תחיית המתים. שהחייני בלכתנו לכפר עכברא, מפני
שהזיקני אותו הרוח שנקבר הגוי...
In my humble opinion, the meaning of the above-mentioned evil spirit (ruaḥ raʿah)
concerns the resurrection of the dead. He revived me on our journey to
Kfar Akhbara (“Mouse Village”) because of the injury done to me by a
spirit who was in the grave, the gentile…[7]
The story of how this evil spirit attacked Vital appears in a different work, the שער הגלגולים Shaʿar HaGilgulim “Gates of Transmigration.”[8]
The Spirit of Jesus Possesses Hayyim Vital
Vital describes how he and Luria passed by the grave of an ancient goy (gentile) whose spirit saw that of Vital’s:
ויטאל שער הגלגולים לח בשנת של״ב, יצאנו אל השדה, ועברנו על קבר גוי אחד קדמון יותר מאלף שנים. וראה נפשי על ציונו, ובקש להמיתני ולהזיני.
Vital, Shaʿar HaGilgulim §38 In the year 5332 [1572],
we went out in the fields, and we passed the ancient grave of a gentile
[goy] that was more than a thousand years old. He saw my spirit (nefesh) from his tombstone and he tried to harm me and kill me.
Who is this thousand-year-old spirit, powerful enough to overcome Hayyim Vital? While Vital calls him a goy, according to Vital’s own kabbalistic understanding of the soul, only a Jew has a spirit [ruaḥ] that can possess another Jew,[9] which would imply that goy here is meant as a dismissive insult and not as an actual description of the person.
As first suggested by Pinchas Giller, the spirit seems to be none other than Jesus of Nazareth.[10] In the previous section of Shaʿar HaGilgulim,
where Vital describes how Luria wandered around the environs
surrounding Safed with his disciples, “identifying” the graves of a wide
variety of biblical, Talmudic, and Zoharic figures through
mystical/kabbalistic means, one such grave was that of Jesus:
חיים ויטאל שער הגלגולים לז לצפון
צפת ת[בנה] ו[תכונן] ב[מהרה] ב[ימינו], בלכתך מצפת לצד צפון ללכת אל כפר
עין זייתון, דרך אילן אחד של חרוב, שם קבור יש"ו הנוצרי.
Vital, Shaʿar HaGilgulim §37 To the north of Safed, may it be rebuilt and reestablished in our day,[11]
going from Safed in a northern direction to the village of Ein Zeitun
[Spring of Olives], there is path to a carob tree, which is where Jesus
the Nazarene is buried.[12]
Kfar Akhbara is on the way from Safed to Ein Zeitun, so they would have passed this grave on the way.[13]
Vital’s note that the grave is near a carob tree is likely related to
the traditions concerning Judas Iscariot. The Gospel of Matthew (27:5)
has Judas hang himself after betraying Jesus, and Christian folklore,
going back at least to the 15th century, says it was from a carob tree.[14] Indeed, one species of carob tree is called “the Judas tree.”[15]
This “demonic” site was likely first understood as the burial place of
Judas among local Christians, and then, with only a vague familiarity
with Christianity and its characters, it morphed among local Jews to
become the site where Jesus is buried. Given that Jews understood Jesus
as the first Christian (rather than a first century Jew with heterodox
beliefs), Vital calling Jesus a non-Jew is hardly surprising.
As the story continues, other Jewish spirits were present to defend Vital from this (Jesus’) spirit:
והיו מלאכים רבים, ונשמות צדיקים שלא ישוערו, מימיני ומשמאלי, ולא יכול לי.
There were many angels and innumerable souls [neshamot] of the righteous arrayed to my right and left and he was powerless to harm me.[16]
Luria recommends Vital avoid that grave, but this does not help, since the spirit follows him:
ויצוני מורי ז״ל, שבחזרתי לא אחזור בדרך הזה עוד. ואח״כ הלך עמי נפש הגוי רחוקה ממני.
My teacher commanded me that when I return, I
should not do so on that road. But afterwards, the spirit of that
gentile followed me from a distance.
In a moment of spiritual weakness, when Vital succumbs to his anger in a fight with Rabbi Judah Mishan,[17] the spirit is able to possess him:
ושם בשדה נכעסתי עם הרב יהודה משען, ותחל נפש הגוי להתחבר בי, ותחטאני עוד. ולא רציתי לשמוע דרשת מורי ז״ל.
There in the field I became angry with Rabbi Judah Mishan and the spirit (nefesh) of the gentile began to attach itself to me and cause me to sin[18] even more and I did not want to listen to my teacher's z"l teachings.
Luria is distraught at Vital’s possession, worried that the spirit
might kill him and thus end Luria’s quest to use Vital to bring the
messiah, as Luria believed that he was the Messiah of Joseph and Vital
might be the Messiah of David:[19]
והתחיל לבכות ויאמר: "הנה כל הנשמות הצדיקים
והמלאכים הלכו להם, ע״י הכעס. ולפיכך שלט בו הנפש ההיא. ומה אעשה, והלואי
שיזקוהו ויניחוהו חי, כי אוכל לרפאתו. אבל ירא אני פן ימותוהו, ולא יתקיים
כל מה שאני חושב שיתוקן העולם על ידו כנודע לי. ואיני יכול להגיד כי לא
ניתן רשות להגיד, וכי לריק יגעתי, ונחרב העולם."
He began to cry and said: “All the souls and angels have left him because of the anger and as a result that spirit (nefesh)
rules over him. What shall I do? I wish that he would [merely] harm him
and let him remain living; then I will be able to heal him. However, I
fear that he will kill him and everything that I think will repair the
world will not be accomplished by him, as is known to me. I could not
tell, since I had not been given permission, whether I have struggled
for nothing and the world would be destroyed.”
Luria’s concern is that, if Vital dies, it would put an end to his
messianic mission to bring repentance and redemption to the Jews.
ולא אכל כל הלילה מרוב צערו ודאגתו.
He did not eat the whole night out of anguish and worry.
Possessed, Vital returns to the gravesite of the possessing spirit, where he is sent flying in the air[20] until he reaches total exhaustion, only barely able to drag himself to Luria’s home afterwards:
והלכתי וחזרתי הדרך ההוא לבדי. וכשהגעתי על
קברו, רוח נשאתני ממש, וראיתי עצמי רץ באויר גבוה עשרים קומה מעל גבי
הקרקע, עד שהגעתי בעת צאת הכוכבים, והניחוני שם. והלכתי לישן בריא עד אור
הבקר. ורציתי לקום, והיו איברי נחלשים אחד לאחד והרגישו בי, והוליכנו עד
פתח מורי ז״ל לאט לאט.
I returned on that road alone. When I reached his grave, the wind (or “the spirit”) lifted me[21]
and I saw myself in the air, running twenty stories above the ground
until I reached (land again) at nightfall and was left there. I slept
soundly until morning. I wanted to get up, but all of my limbs were very
weak and painful, but they brought me slowly to the door of my teacher z”l.
Luckily, Luria is able to save Vital:
ובהגיע שם, לא נותרה בי נשמה כלל כענין יונה.
והשכיבני מורי ז״ל על מטתו, וסגר הדלת, והתפלל. ואח״כ נכנס לאותו בית הוא
לבד, והיה הולך בבית וחוזר על המטה, וגוהר עלי בה. וכה עשה עד חצי היום
שהייתי מת לגמרי. ובחצי היום ראיתי בעצמי, כי חזרה נשמתי בי מעט מעט, עד
שפתחתי עיני. וקמתי וברכתי ברכת מחיה המתים.
When I arrived, I was barely alive, like
Jonah, and my teacher laid me on his bed, closed the door, and prayed.
Afterwards, he entered the house alone, walked around the house,
returned to the bed, and stretched himself over me.[22]
He did this until noon, when I was almost dead, and at noon I saw
myself that my soul was slowly returning to me until I opened my eyes,
got up, and recited the blessing “He who resurrects the dead.”[23]
וכל זה אמת ויציב[24] בלי שום ספק.
All this is absolutely and undoubtedly true.
The spirit’s tenacity in following Vital implies that the great kabbalist was purposefully targeted.
Inverting the Trope of Jesus as Exorcist
One irony in a story about Jesus as a possessing spirit is that, in
Christian tradition, Jesus performs successful exorcisms. For example,
the Gospel of Mark tells how Jesus travelled over the Sea of Galilee to
the region of the Gerasenes, where he was met by a man possessed by a
demon:
Mark 5:2 And when he had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. 5:3 He lived among the tombs, and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain, 5:4 for
he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains
he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces, and no one had
the strength to subdue him. 5:5 Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones. (NRSVue)
The demon, however, knows he cannot resist Jesus:
Mark 5:6 When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him, 5:7 and
he shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me,
Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment
me.” 5:8 For he had said to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” 5:9 Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” 5:10 He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the region.
Jesus removes the demons from the man, but agrees to allow them to
possess a local herd of pigs. The man himself, however, is cured, and
return to his town to tell everyone of the miracle.[25]
While Vital’s story concerns possession by an evil spirit (ruaḥ raʿah) rather than a demon,[26]
it is a polemical inversion of the gospel story. In Christianity, Jesus
begins as a Jewish itinerant prophet from the Second Temple period,
famous for his powers of removing demons, and eventually revealed to be
the messiah, son of God. In contrast, these kabbalists present Jesus as a
dangerous and powerful “gentile” spirit, who haunts local Jews by none
other than demonic possession.
The spirit targets Vital, perhaps because of the pivotal role Vital
plays in Luria’s plan to bring the messiah, a plan which undermines the
Christian belief that Jesus, the messiah, has already come. And who
could have enough spiritual power to exorcise a being as powerful as
Jesus? None other than the great kabbalist, the Arizal, whose goal was
to bring forward, through Vital, the “real” messianic age.
