In response to a landmark congressional letter to President Trump led by Senator Adam Schiff (Democrat – California) and signed by 46 Democratic Senators (all but Senator Futterman of Pennsylvania) voicing clear opposition to potential Israeli annexation of the West Bank or Gaza, J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami issued the following statement:
“This is a tremendous show of unity across the Democratic caucus. Together, Democrats are sending a clear message to extremists in the Israeli government: If they think they can get away with annexation without consequences, it’s time to think again.
The letter demonstrates a broad, principled commitment to Israel’s long-term security, aspirations for Palestinian statehood, a viable path to peace, and a sustainable US-Israel relationship rooted in shared democratic values. We applaud the senators’ leadership in making clear that illegal, unilateral annexation runs counter to American values and would harm Israel’s interests by reversing the progress toward regional integration achieved by the Gaza ceasefire and weakening the US-Israel relationship.
J Street has long believed that Israel’s future as a secure, democratic homeland for the Jewish people depends on the Palestinian people’s ability to live in freedom and dignity in a state of their own in the West Bank and Gaza. Extremists who want to claim the entire land for Israel are pursuing annexation to make that outcome impossible, locking in endless conflict, destroying Israel’s democratic character and entrenching Israel’s status as a pariah state.
We urge the Trump Administration to continue making clear that any steps toward annexation are unacceptable and undermine progress made through the ceasefire, and to prioritize the pursuit of a renewed diplomatic effort to achieve a regional peace.”
Note: J Street is a pro-Israel, pro-democracy and pro-peace political organization in Washington, D.C. that affirms that only a negotiated resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is agreed to by Israelis and Palestinians peacefully working together can the legitimate needs and national aspirations of both peoples be met. J Street endorses more than 200 Members of Congress and has chapters in most major American cities as well as chapters on more than 40 college and university campuses across the country. For more information about J Street policies and advocacy work, go to http://www.Jstreet.org.
I signed onto this important letter as a proud American Jew and Reform Rabbi, liberal Zionist and supporter of the people and State of Israel, despite my strong criticism of the most extreme right-wing messianic and anti-democratic government in the history of the State of Israel. As I discussed in detail in my Kol Nidre sermon at Temple Israel of Hollywood (for those interested, you can view it on YouTube here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28uW3QLeE28), I believe that this is the time for the American Jewish community and especially young liberal and progressive American Jews who feel alienated from Israel and the organized American Jewish community, to stay engaged with Judaism, the Jewish people and the State of Israel at this most horrific inflection moment in modern Jewish history and in the context of the dramatic increase of antisemitism in the United States and around the world in decades. To date, hundreds of American Rabbis have signed onto the following letter and more are signing on every day. It will be released soon. No letter of this kind has been written or signed before by so many American rabbis.
“As rabbis from across the United States committed to the security and prosperity of the Jewish people, we are writing in our personal capacities to declare that we cannot remain silent in the face of rising anti-Zionism and its political normalization throughout our nation. When public figures like New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani refuse to condemn violent slogans, deny Israel’s legitimacy, and accuse the Jewish state of genocide, they, in the words of New York Board of Rabbis president Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, “Delegitimize the Jewish community and encourage and exacerbate hostility toward Judaism and Jews.”
As prominent New York City Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove stated in a recent sermon, “Zionism, Israel, Jewish self-determination—these are not political preferences or partisan talking points. They are constituent building blocks and inseparable strands of my Jewish identity. To accept me as a Jew but to ask me to check my concern for the people and state of Israel at the door is a nonsensical proposition and an offensive one, no different than asking me to reject God, Torah, mitzvot, or any other pillar of my faith.”
We will not accept a culture that treats Jewish self-determination as a negotiable ideal or Jewish inclusion as something to be “granted.” The safety and dignity of Jews in every city depend on rejecting that false choice.
Therefore, we call on all Americans who value peace and equality to participate fully in the democratic process in order to stand up for candidates who reject antisemitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric, and who affirm Israel’s right to exist in peace and security.
We also call on our interfaith and communal partners to stand with the Jewish community in rejecting this dangerous rhetoric and to affirm the rights of Jews to live securely and with dignity.
Now is the time for everyone to unite across political and moral divides, and to reject the language that seeks to delegitimize our Jewish identity and our community.”
I posted the following description of a TYRANT during the first Trump Administration from a book worthy to be read by anyone interested in how a very small and petty man can take power over a nation. The book is Tyrant – Shakespeare on Politics (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2018) pages 53-54 by Stephen Greenblatt, the John Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University.
I offer Professor Greenblatt’s insights again the day after “No Kings Day” (October 18, 2025) celebrated by millions of Americans in thousands of locations across the United States.
“Shakespeare’s Richard III brilliantly develops the personality features of the aspiring tyrant already sketched in the Henry VI trilogy: the limitless self-regard, the law-breaking, the pleasure in inflicting pain, the compulsive desire to dominate. He is pathologically narcissistic and supremely arrogant. He has a grotesque sense of entitlement, never doubting that he can do whatever he chooses. He loves to bark orders and to watch underlings scurry to carry them out. He expects absolute loyalty, but he is incapable of gratitude. The feelings of others mean nothing to him. He has no natural grace, no sense of shared humanity, no decency.
He is not merely indifferent to the law; he hates it and takes pleasure in breaking it. He hates it because it gets in his way and because it stands for a notion of the public good that he holds in contempt. He divides the world into winners and losers. The winners arouse his regard insofar as he can use them for his own ends; the losers arouse only his scorn. The public good is something only losers like to talk about. What he likes to talk about is winning.
He has always had wealth; he was born into it and makes ample use of it. But though he enjoys having what money can get him, it is not what most excites him. What excites him is the joy of domination. He is a bully. Easily enraged, he strikes out at anyone who stands in his way. He enjoys seeing others cringe, tremble, or wince with pain. He is gifted at detecting weakness and deft at mockery and insult. These skills attract followers who are drawn to the same cruel delight, even if they cannot have it to his unmatched degree. Though they know that he is dangerous, the followers help him advance to his goal, which is the possession of supreme power.
His possession of power includes the domination of women, but he despises them far more than desires them. Sexual conquest excites him, but only for the endlessly reiterated proof that he can have anything he likes. He knows that those he grabs hate him. For that matter, once he has succeeded in seizing the control that so attracts him, in politics as in sex, he knows that virtually everyone hates him. At first that knowledge energizes him, making him feverishly alert to rivals and conspiracies. But it soon begins to eat away at him and exhaust him.
Sooner or later, he is brought down. He dies unloved and un-lamented. He leaves behind only wreckage. It would have been better had Richard III never been born.”
I am 75 years old. The last time I attended a massive march was in 1987 in Washington, D.C. on behalf of the right of Soviet Jews to immigrate to Israel or to the United States. Before that I was a frequent public protester against American involvement against the Vietnam War and in civil rights demonstrations in the 1960s. Since then, after serving as a congregational rabbi for more than 40 years, my social justice activism has been expressed in the context of my community’s activism and in my writings. But, I will be at one of Los Angeles’ No Kings Rallies with my children and grandchildren this weekend because my outrage at what Trump is doing to innocent Americans and to our democracy needs outward expression.
The only actions that are now making a difference and protecting our democracy are the many court cases and judges who are rejecting in rulings Trump’s illegal executive orders. Also, we have to be grateful to the many Democratic state governors who are courageously resisting Trump in their states and the Democratic Congressional Representatives and Senators who are doing everything they can to resist the malignancies of Trump.
The only action we American citizens can take before the mid-term election that might begin to persuade Trump and his sycophantic Congress and the many voters who voted for Trump in the 2024 election but who are now appalled by his excesses and immorality is to participate in non-violent demonstrations throughout the country and support financially candidates for election in the mid-terms whose values align with our own.
I am at once excited and anxious to participate in a No Kings Rally this weekend. I’m not anxious for my own safety, but on account of my fear that Trump’s minions will be sent deliberately in plain clothes to violently disrupt peaceful demonstrations and give Trump the excuse he wants to send more federal soldiers into “blue cities and states” to quell what he characterizes as “anti-American traitors.”
I urge everyone to attend one of these rallies. If more than ten million Americans turn out, which I heard is one goal of the organizers, we will be furthering the movement to take back our democracy in the mid-terms and to break through the “ice” of the MAGA movement.
No matter what the provocations we might encounter, everyone who attends these rallies must remain absolutely non-violent.
The videos of the 20 returning Israeli hostages with their families in Israel show the love and depth of fulfillment they feared would never happen.
We mourn with the families of all those hostages who died/were murdered in captivity, with the families of the 1200 souls murdered on October 7, 2023, and with the families of the 1000 Israeli soldiers who were killed fighting Hamas in the past two years. May all their memories be a blessing.
The returning hostages are:
Alon Ohel, Ziv and Gali Berman, Matan Angrest, Guy Gilboa-Dalal, Omri Miran, Eitan Mor, Yosef Chaim Ohana, Bar Kuperstein, Evyatar David, Segev Kalfon, Avinatan Or, Elkana Buhbot, Maksim Herkin, Nimrod Cohen, Matan Zangauker, David and Ariel Cunio, Eitan Horn and Rom Breslavski.
May you all find a way to heal from the trauma of captivity and the brutality that you experienced. The Jewish people around the world are with you as are all decent human beings of every nation.
This war has been a nightmare for Israelis and for the masses of Palestinian civilians who have suffered and been injured in body, heart, mind, and soul – may they all and their loved ones find the path to heal from their losses.
May the future for both of our peoples be one of peace and security and the end of terror and war.
The recent death of the remarkable anthropologist, primatologist, ethologist, climate activist, humanitarian, and author Dr. Jane Goodall (1934-2025) is a huge loss to the world and to all those who have respected, admired and loved her for her foundational work with chimpanzees in Tanzania and her teachings about the relationship between the primate species and how we humans ought to regard who we are in relationship to the natural world. In recent years, she spoke in a series of interviews about aging and what was important to her that enabled her to live a life of meaning and significance that sustained her until the day she died this month. The following is a list of what she strove to do every day:
Learn new things;
Avoid stress by accepting whatever happened to her as a part of the natural process of living;
Accept death as the next great experience;
Spend substantial time in nature;
Clarify her sense of purpose and strive to make a difference in the world;
Walk and exercise;
Eat a plant-based diet;
Surround her life with animals thereby enhancing her joy, empathy and comfort (she loved dogs most of all);
Take time to “step back, recalibrate, and maintain balance in my life”;
Build strong relationships with the people she loved and trusted – family, colleagues and young activists in her Roots & Shoots youth program;
Travel (she was on the road 300 days a year);
Live simply without acquiring unnecessary things that cluttered her life;
Feel gratitude for what she had without focusing on what she lacked;
Be hopeful, optimistic and think positively. She once said: “Hope is what enables us to keep going in the face of adversity. It is what we desire to happen, but we must be prepared to work hard to make it so.”
As the “Baby-Boom” generation (those of us born between 1946 and 1964) enters our senior years (73 million Americans) along with those of older living generations, I offer the following quotations of writers, thinkers, and religious figures on the theme of aging. Taken together, I hope they are as meaningful and inspiring to you as they are to me:
“There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of the people you love.” -Sophia Loren (b. 1934)
“In youth we learn; in age we understand.” -Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830-1916)
“Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.” -Mark Twain (1835-1910)
“One day, you will look back and see that all along, you were blooming.” -Morgan Harper Nichols (b. 1990)
“The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.” -Madeleine L’Engle (1918-2007)
“No one is as old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.” -Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
“Know that you are the perfect age. Each year is special and precious, for you shall only live it once.” –Louise Hay (1926-2017)
“The more the bodily faculties weaken and the fire of the passions subsides, the intellect is strengthened, its lights extend outward, its apprehension is purified, and [the soul] rejoices in what it apprehends. [This continues] until the…individual is advanced in years…[and] grows very powerful, and the joy in that apprehension and an ardent love for that which is apprehended grows [with it]...” -Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (AKA Maimonides or RAMBAM) (12th-13th century C.E.)
“Nothing is inherently and invincibly young except spirit. And spirit can enter a human being perhaps better in the quiet of old age and dwell there more undisturbed than in the turmoil of adventure.” -George Santayana (1863-1962)
Maria Branyas Morera believed her longevity stemmed from “order, tranquility, good connection with family and friends, contact with nature, emotional stability, no worries, no regrets, lots of positivity and staying away from toxic people.” –Maria Branyas died at the age of 117 (1907-2024). She was at the time of her death the oldest person in the world.
“A person is not old until his/her regrets take the place of dreams.” -Yiddish proverb
“You are only as old as you feel.” –President Jimmy Carter (1924-2024)
“One who greets an elder is as though s/he has greeted the face of the Shechinah [the face of the Divine].” –Midrash, Genesis Rabbah 63.6 (400-500 CE)
“Accept her counsel and do not despise her on account of her old age, for she has experienced many things and knows well how to dispense proper counsel. On this account, the sages of blessed memory have said: ‘An old woman in the house bodes well for the house.’” –Israel ibn al-Nakawa (14th century CE)
“Scholars, at the time of their old age, decrepitude,and bodily deterioration, grow in knowledge, strengthen in intellect, and increase in perfection, as it says, ‘Wisdom is with elders and understanding comes with length of days.’” –Maimonides (12-13th century CE)
“Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.” -Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)
Introductory Note: I delivered this sermon on Kol Nidre at Temple Israel of Hollywood where I served as Senior Rabbi from 1988 to 2019. The YouTube above is available to watch or the written text below.
Shanah tovah.
It’s so good to look out from this bimah once again and see so many friendly faces. I’ve missed you.
I thank our Board of Trustees and my clergy colleagues for extending to me the invitation to speak with you on this holiest of nights. I’m honored to have this privilege. The adage that you can’t go home again doesn’t apply to me here. Temple Israel was and remains a home away from home for my family and me. Our sons were educated here, and now our two grandchildren are enrolled in our schools. L’dor va-dor.
Since I became Rabbi Emeritus six-plus years ago so much has happened in each of our lives and our families, in the life of this community, in our country, Israel and the Middle East, and around the world.
And here we are, together again at this annual reunion, as we begin Yom Kippur and Temple Israel’s 100th anniversary year.
Tonight commences our day of fasting, reflection, self-criticism, and renewal, and is an opportunity to count our blessings too, to cherish each other, to remember those who have passed on who have been dear to us, and those who built this community and left it to us as part of their legacy.
Particularly in these soul-crushing and heart-breaking times in which we’re trying to make moral sense in this new era that began on October 7th two years ago, it’s important to remind ourselves who we are and who we’ve been as Jews over our long history.
Judaism includes many things, a moral and legal tradition founded upon the principle of tikun olam (repairing the world), a religion and faith, a culture, history, languages, a Homeland, literature, art and music.
Though twice we were forcibly exiled from the Land of Israel, we’ve kept the Holy City of Jerusalem in our hearts. In exile we’ve suffered persecutions, but we survived as Jews despite all those who sought to destroy us.
Our liturgies, philosophies, theologies, and ideologies evolved as we’ve lived and adapted in lands throughout the world.
We are therefore not a religious and faith community alone. We’re a people and civilization distinguished by our moral values, ideas, and sense of community, lived experience and history no less significant than the Greek, Roman, Ottoman, and British empires, though we’ve never occupied as much territory as any of them.
I was asked to speak tonight about Israel, the war, Zionism, and our relationship as American Jews to the Jewish State, and I confess that after accepting the invitation, I asked myself how I ought to speak about this most horrific inflection moment in modern Jewish history and in the history of Israel.
To start, the 20-point peace plan unveiled on Monday at the White House, has many good things in it, including an end to the war, the immediate return of the hostages, a plan for the day after in Gaza, the surrender of Hamas, a surge of humanitarian aid, no forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, an eventual Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, a recognition of the Palestinian aspiration of self-determination and a “credible pathway” toward statehood, and the support of the Arab world, not a small thing at all.
The proposal needs Hamas to support it and we’ll know soon enough if it does. Word is that it intends to reject it, but even if Hamas accepts the plan, it’s likely that Prime Minister Netanyahu and Hamas’ leadership will, for their own domestic political reasons, drag their feet and put obstacles in the way, or even derail the initiative altogether.
A significant weakness of the plan is that no Palestinians were involved in developing the agreement and there was no mention of the future of the West Bank. For true peace and a two-state solution ever to emerge, Israelis and the Palestinians must work face-to-face, from the ground up, not top down with one of the parties excluded, as Trump’s plan does.
After the press conference, PM Netanyahu, speaking in Hebrew, rejected Palestinian statehood as he has done throughout his political career.
I fear, therefore, that the status quo before Monday’s announcement hasn’t really changed, though I would love to be wrong.
My initial intent in speaking with you tonight was not to talk policy; rather, to reflect about who we are as Jews, and what impact the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 and these two years of war have had on our identity as liberal American Jews, our Jewish values, and our relationship with the people and State of Israel.
Since October 7th, like so many of you, I have continually felt despondent, outraged, grief-stricken, vengeful, and deeply worried about the families of those murdered on that day, the well-being of our hostages and young soldiers and their families, and about the thousands of innocent Gazans who have lost their loved ones, homes, and communities.
I’ve been a Zionist since my earliest years. My family was among the earliest pioneers to Palestine starting in 1880, and I have many dear Israeli friends. I’ve studied, taught and written about Zionism, the State of Israel, and Jewish history, about Jewish texts, literature and values. But, nothing has pierced my heart and soul like what we have experienced during these past two years. Consequently, no sermon I have ever given has been more difficult and painful for me to write than this one.
The founding of the State of Israel only three years after the greatest tragedy ever to befall our people, transformed who we were to become as Jews in this era. The new state returned us to our ancient Homeland and to history. Israel gave us confidence and agency. It restored our pride as a people. It offered us protection from antisemitic hate and violence. And it became a laboratory in which our people’s ethical tradition could be tested in the context of our attaining power and sovereignty for the first time in two thousand years.
But, what happened on October 7th represented the greatest existential threat in most of our lifetimes to everything we have been as a people in the modern era.
Israeli commanders feared in the initial days after the attack not only that Hamas would continue its savage rampage going north killing Jews with the ultimate goal of destroying the Jewish state, but that Israel’s enemies on all sides would join the war in a coordinated attack. Such a combined assault would have overwhelmed Israel’s defensive capacity.
Even before that awful day, Zionism and the State of Israel had come to be regarded by many in the United States and around the world cynically, with derision and in the most pejorative terms. That downward trend intensified and metastasized almost immediately as Israel began fighting back. Those hostile to Israel have for years sought to re-frame Israel’s narrative as discriminatory, racist, colonialist, and as a cancerous foreign element in the heart of the Islamic Middle East that had no legitimate right to exist.
An increasing number of progressive left-wing Americans, people many of us thought were our friends and social justice allies, agreed openly with the harshest Israel critics, justifying morally what Hamas did and some even celebrating Hamas by calling its brutal and savage terrorists, inexplicably, “freedom fighters.”
Every people has the right of self-definition, and we liberal American Jews and Zionists who support and love the State of Israel have that right as well. Especially now after two years of war, a dramatic rise in antisemitism around the world, and Israel being labeled a pariah nation, we Jews cannot allow Israel haters, antisemites and right-wing extremist Jews to define us or to determine the inner life of the Jewish people. We need to be able to restate our liberal Jewish narrative and lead with it whenever we discuss with those who know much or little about the history of the Jewish people, Judaism, Zionism, and the State of Israel.
I want to express to you tonight as clearly as I can, from the deepest place in my being, in an effort to reclaim our narrative, why I remain a liberal American Jew, a liberal Zionist and a supporter of the people and State of Israel despite my very strong protest against the policies of the most extremist, anti-democratic, right-wing, messianic, and myopic ruling coalition government in the history of the Jewish state.
As a liberal American Jew, I believe in the right of the Jewish people to a state of our own in our historic Homeland and in the right of Israel militarily to defend itself whenever it’s attacked by terrorists and hostile states set on its destruction.
As a liberal American Jew, I affirm that the universal humanitarian values advocated by the ancient prophets of Israel, developed by rabbinic tradition over the past two millennia, and included in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, including equality, justice, compassion, empathy, human rights, and peace – all foundational virtues in Judaism – must be the core values guiding all of the Israeli government’s policies and reforms, its military and civil society.
As an American Jew, I acknowledge that I am not an Israeli citizen. I do not pay Israeli taxes nor do I send my children and grandchildren to the Israeli military. Nor do many of us American Jews know people who were murdered on October 7, though two of the young people killed at the Supernova music festival, Norelle and Roya Manzuri (aleihen b’shalom), grew up here in our own Briskin Elementary School.
Few American Jews have family members who were taken as hostages, and few among us have been subjected to missile attacks forcing us to run quickly with our children and babies in our arms into shelters with only seconds to spare before the explosions and the walls of our home shake.
Only Israeli citizens have the right to take the hard decisions that impact their lives and well-being. However, as an American Jew who loves Israel and who cares deeply about Israel’s citizens and future, I insist that I do have the right to share my ideas and criticism of Israeli government policies and trends that I believe are harmful to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, that threaten our security and well-being as Diaspora Jews, and are contrary to our liberal Jewish and democratic values.
I had little doubt that Israel had to respond militarily in order dramatically to reduce Hamas as a military threat to enable Israelis safely to return to their homes in southern Israel, just as Israel had to defang Hezbollah in Lebanon to allow Israelis to return safely to their homes in the north.
However, I’ve been haunted ever since I read words written soon after the war began by a dear Israeli friend, Nadav Tamir, who wrote:
“After October 7th, I understood the anger and desire for revenge, but I feared Hamas would win the battle for our souls if they succeeded in making us as murderous and vengeful as they are…” (1)
I knew Hamas couldn’t win this war on the battlefield. Thankfully, Israel is too strong and strategic a military power, but like my friend, I worried too that Hamas would succeed in corrupting the heart and soul of the Jewish people.
This war began as a just war of self-defense against a cruel and vicious enemy that committed massive war crimes against our people. Israel’s initial war goals were to bring the hostages home and to degrade Hamas’ ability ever to attack Israel again as it did on that day.
Like many Israelis and American Jews, I too have felt the need for revenge, but I’ve asked myself at what cost to my heart and soul and to the soul of the Jewish people should I or any of us continue to harbor such self-destructive emotions? And at what moral cost to our people have these two years of violence and killing had upon Israelis and the Jewish people around the world?
Earlier this year, 600 retired Israeli security military and intelligence officials wrote to President Trump to urge him to apply pressure on Israel to end the war because they believed that Hamas was no longer a military or strategic threat to Israel and that there was nothing more to be gained in continuing the battle, that the war was harming Israel’s international legitimacy, causing immense suffering for Gazan civilians, and that the war was no longer a “just war.”
But, despite their advice and expertise, the fighting has gone on and on. Though Trump has now tried to end this war, over the past two years, Israeli bombers, missiles and tanks have utterly destroyed Gaza, house after house, apartment building after apartment building. Water, electricity and sewage infrastructure no longer exist. It’s estimated that 90 percent of all homes, 436,000 residences, are either destroyed or damaged beyond repair with tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians dead – men, women, children, babies, the elderly, entire families wiped from the face of the earth. They and so many of our own Israeli soldiers and hostages that have been killed could have been saved had the war ended long ago.
If all of this isn’t awful enough, from March to May of this year, the Israeli government withheld all humanitarian aid from Gaza allegedly to force Hamas to release the hostages and to surrender. But that tactic backfired. We’ve seen the images of starving children. Even if Hamas doctored some of the photographs for its corrupt propaganda purposes, is there really any doubt that thousands of children were starving because Israel used humanitarian aid as a weapon of war? This tactic was not only immoral and un-Jewish, but according to international law, a war crime.
After heavy criticism from the United States, Israel opened the gates and aid began flowing again on hundreds of trucks daily into Gaza, but far more is needed to address the horrific long-term effects of famine.
It is American policy that Israel and all recipients of United States’ weapons must adhere by law to standards concerning humanitarian aid and the use of force. As painful as it is for me to say this because I have always supported American military aid to Israel throughout my life, I support those 27 Democratic Party Senators who in July voted to block the sale of U.S.-made heavy bombs, guidance kits for bombs, and assault rifles to stem Israel’s use of these offensive weapons to harm civilians, block humanitarian aid, and contribute to mass starvation in Gaza. Though the bill didn’t pass in the Senate, the intent of those Senators was to put maximum pressure on President Trump, Prime Minister Netanyahu and his extremist government to end this war.
Those 27 Senators are friends of Israel. In their vote to withhold offensive weapons they carefully distinguished between those weapons and the defensive weapon systems of Iron Dome, Arrow, and David’s Sling that save Israeli lives. These Senators should not be accused of being anti-Israel as some in the American Jewish community have done. They are not that. They instead should be praised for acting on behalf of the best interests of Israel and the Palestinian civilians of Gaza and for applying necessary pressure on the Israeli government to do what is just and compassionate.
Many of us are aware also of the organized right-wing extremist settler violence and murder of Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, the demolition and burning of their homes, orchards and fields with impunity and often with the participation of uniformed Israeli soldiers. The intent of these violent settlers, with the backing of this extremist Israeli government, is to drive Palestinians out of the West Bank altogether, from their homes and villages in which they have lived for generations, to make way for more Jewish settlements and the eventual annexation of the West Bank into a Greater Israel, also contrary to international law.
Several weeks ago, I was stunned when Prime Minister Netanyahu arrogantly boasted that Israel will become “Super Sparta” – a reference to the ancient hyper-militaristic, self-reliant society that was isolated from the rest of the world. The “Super Sparta” vision prizes armed-force prowess above all else and is not a vision for Israel’s future that most of us would recognize or of what early Zionists hoped for Israel to become as a nation amongst nations. It’s a road-map to deepen Israel’s pariah status around the world and to accelerate Israel’s moral and political decline.
It ought to be clear by now that given the massive destruction and killing that continues day after day that Israel has crossed red lines and committed war crimes. War crimes are committed in every war, and in this war, it’s likely that rogue commanders and rogue soldiers have shot civilians without provocation, and missiles and bombs have destroyed buildings inhabited by Hamas commanders without nearly enough concern for the number of civilians who would certainly be killed. Those commanders and soldiers should be held accountable when the war is over.
We Jews know better. Our own people have been the victims of war crimes throughout our history. Judaism gave the world a system of justice and a moral tradition of compassion based upon the principle that every human being is created b’tzelem Elohim, in the divine image, and therefore is of infinite value and worth.
Israeli soldiers have long been trained in what’s called Tohar HaNeshek, purity of arms, meaning that every means and every effort must be taken at all times by every commander and soldier to preserve innocent human life. (2)
To their great moral credit, hundreds of Israeli reserve soldiers are now refusing to report for military duty because they know that Israel is now fighting a cruel and unjust war. The vast majority of Israelis too, according to polls, are demanding that the war, killing and suffering end, and the remaining hostages be returned home.
This war has shaken Israelis and world Jewry to our core. The wounds of each of our peoples, of Israel and Palestine, are going to be difficult to heal or overcome for generations.
In the United States and around the world, we Jews are dealing also with a rise of antisemitism – much of it exacerbated by this war – that most Jews alive today have never seen, experienced or imagined before.
The Palestinian-Israeli struggle is amongst the oldest unresolved conflicts in the world. The Israeli historian and writer Fania Oz-Salzberger put it exactly right when she wrote a month ago:
“Here’s a truth to reckon with: neither Israelis nor Palestinians are going to disappear any time soon. No one can destroy their respective claims to a sovereign state in their ancestral homeland, which happens to be the same land. Barring a cataclysmic event, there will be no river-to-sea Palestine and no Greater Israel. This is a conflict that can only be solved by territorial and political compromise.” (3)
There are serious ideas, in addition to what we heard on Monday, that have been developed over the last number of years between Palestinians and Israelis working together, from the bottom-up, who recognize and accept each other’s legitimate national aspirations, needs and rights. Despite whatever despondency I have felt, there are two related ideas that I actually find hopeful and visionary.
One is called “Eretz L’kulam – A Land for All: Two States, One Homeland”, a political vision developed by Israeli Jews and Israeli Palestinian Arab citizens. The proponents of the idea envision two democratic and sovereign states alongside each other – Israel and Palestine – linked together in a confederation much the way the European Union functions. (4)
The second idea is a “23-State Solution” that includes all the western Arab states and Israel in coalition with each other, complete recognition of Israel for the first time in Israel’s history by most of the Arab and Muslim world, and the creation of a demilitarized Palestinian state, perhaps as part of the confederal model. (5)
This isn’t the time or place to discuss the details of these ideas, but it’s important to know that there are creative and pragmatic ideas that can offer hope and a way forward. After the holidays, this sermon will be posted on our synagogue’s website and on my personal blog (6), and I will include links to both of these proposals that spell out the details, if you are interested.
All ideas about how to resolve this conflict are, of course, not risk-free, but the status quo is unsustainable. Violent rejectionist Jewish Israelis and violent rejectionist Palestinian Arabs will have to be controlled harshly by each state’s respective police forces in any future negotiated agreement.
To be Jewish, especially in these times, means, in part, to lift ourselves up out of the morass of confusion and despair, to reclaim our virtue as critical and creative thinkers who raise moral questions and seek practical solutions, and who can argue with one another without withdrawing from the fight or being intimidated by Israeli zealots or their supporters in the United States who slander us as self-hating Jews, antisemites, Kapos, and traitors because we dare to be critical of Israeli policies and actions as a matter of conscience and moral outrage about this war that long ago should have ended.
We Jews have always viewed our purpose through an aspirational lens. We have striven as a people to be better than we are, that we do not ever settle for the status quo, and that we stay committed to correct moral wrongs and move forward as best we can.
Some of our own young liberal and progressive American Jews, however, are decoupling the State of Israel from their Jewish identity, and others are closing the door behind them and disavowing being Jewish altogether. Many are walking away from the American Jewish community because they believe that we rabbis and teachers, Jewish leaders of synagogues, national Jewish organizations and Jewish summer camps, who taught them Judaism’s moral principles emphasizing compassion and empathy, justice, human rights, and peace are, in their minds, hypocrites because we have not been nearly critical enough, or critical at all, of Israel’s bad behavior in this never-ending war.
I want to speak now to you, our young generation of Jews.
I understand how many of you feel and why you feel as you do. But, I believe that this is not the time to turn your backs on our people, on Judaism, on liberal Zionism, or on the State of Israel.
Our Jewish moral and ethical principles transcend any specific point in time or series of events. Judaism is not what we see in war or as a consequence of our having to cope with antisemitism, though both can teach us much about ourselves as Jews.
Judaism is what we rabbis, teachers, synagogues and Jewish summer camps tried to impart to you, our young people, about the vitality in living an enriched Jewish life, about the multitude of ways to be spiritual beings within Jewish community, about the wisdom our sages, mystics, and great thinkers have left for us, about ways to live the rhythms of our holidays and life cycles, and about the meaning of the establishment of the State of Israel as the greatest single accomplishment of the Jewish people in two thousand years.
Though you may wish to turn away, I hope you will decide to stay engaged in whatever way is meaningful to you because we need you, your way of thinking, and your critical moral voice.
Another thing about us Jews – our struggles are nothing new. We are, after all, Yisrael – a people who wrestles with God and with the moral challenges and complexities we face every day as individuals and as a people.
We Jews have always recognized the wide chasm between what is and what ought to be. The best of us, however, have not sat on the side-lines nor given up without entering the fight on behalf of our people and for human rights, justice and peace for all peoples and nations, including the Palestinians.
We live in a violent and corrupt world. It’s understandable that so many of us want to turn away from the news out of the Middle East and throw up our hands and shout “enough already!”
But, once we do that and we’ve had a chance to breathe and restore our moral and emotional equilibrium, it’s better for us to draw close to one another again and reaffirm our Jewish identity, our age-old principles and values, and our faith that eventually there will be a better day for Israelis and the Palestinians.
I keep reminding myself that history swings like a pendulum, from the death of the spirit to renewed life, from division to unity, from war to peace, from despair to hope, and that we Jews have lived this swinging back and forth over and over again throughout our history.
I remind myself that every human-made problem has a human solution if we apply critical and creative thinking, our understanding of the needs and truths of the “other,” and the will to compromise in order to solve the seemingly unsolvable.
As a Jewish community, each of us has the right to think what we want and to feel what we feel – as I have shared with you my thoughts and feelings here tonight – and the Jewish community ought to be a safe space for everyone to find their place and their voice, to argue with one another passionately but respectfully, to disagree without becoming disagreeable, and where even our harshly contrasting ideas and perspectives, our many different life experiences, and our generational distinctions can live alongside each other with humility as we engage in discussion, argument, criticism, and self-criticism.
Our people’s safety valve is that we talk and discuss and argue, and hopefully that we also listen to each other, especially to those with whom we disagree the most.
Our challenge as American Jews in these days is to find ways to come together and to affirm our foundational Jewish values as we struggle to cope in these painful and disturbing times and not to become numb to the barrage of terrible events that are all around us.
And it’s our challenge as well to look to the future with fortitude and hope. Our history of survival as a people teaches us to do so.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wrote:
“To be a Jew is to be an agent of hope in a world serially threatened by despair …No Jew knowing Jewish history can be an optimist, but no Jew worthy of the name abandons hope.” (7)
This new era in Jewish history begins with a darkly written chapter, but this is not the last chapter. It’s upon us, all of us, to write what comes next.
I wish us all the strength, perseverance, thoughtfulness, and moral courage necessary in this New Year.
I often sign-off my emails to my Israeli friends saying:
“Stay safe and sane. With love – John.”
And I say to you too, my beloved congregation:
Stay safe, sane and strong. And most importantly, hold those whom you cherish very close. We need each other.
With love – John.
G’mar chatimah tovah.
Notes:
Nadav Tamir, “Never Again”, The Times of Israel, August 22, 2025.
Soren Kierkegaard said: “It is perfectly true, as philosophers say, that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other proposition, that it must be lived forwards.”
Though we’re always living forward, the life lessons we learn can help to shape our future. Since this is the season of self-examination leading to the High Holidays, I offer a list of 32 life lessons I’ve learned – there are others, but the number 32 is significant in Jewish mystical tradition. It equals the 22 letters of the Hebrew א-ב (aleph-bet) plus the 10 “words” of the covenant (aka 10 Commandments), and is the number equivalent for the Hebrew word לב (heart – lev: lamed – bet) which the mystics teach are the number of pathways to God.
I offer the following as a hedge against the toxicity in today’s American political environment, the Hamas-Israel war, and the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza in these days leading to the High Holidays. Some of the following I borrowed 15-20 years ago, gratefully, from a then 90 year-old lady named Regina Brett that were published in the Plain Dealer from Cleveland, Ohio (hers are in italics).
They’re not necessarily a way to God, but a means to a healthier, wiser, and more sacred way of living, at least as I’ve come to believe in them.
God gave us life and our natural abilities only – everything else is either up to us or a result of dumb luck.
Life isn’t always fair, but it’s still good.
Life is short, so cut your losses early.
Begin planning for retirement as a teen by developing your passions and interests, for they will sustain you when you get old.
Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up your present.
You don’t have to win every argument, so at a certain point stop arguing.
Love your spouse/partner, children and grandchildren above all other people and things. If you aren’t married or do not have children, nurture the special friendships in your life.
Don’t compare your life to anyone else’s as you have no idea what their journey has been all about.
If you can’t publish what you want to say or do on the front page of The New York Times because doing so would be slanderous of someone else or less than dignified, don’t say or do or post it anywhere, including on social media.
Try not to speak ill of anyone, but if you must, do so only with trusted family and friends and then only so as to understand better how to cope with people like that.
Don’t procrastinate to see doctors. It may save your life (note: it saved mine).
Carpe diem. Take pleasure in this day and do what inspires you for we don’t know what tomorrow will bring.
When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
Breathe deeply as it calms the body, mind, heart, and soul.
Take your shoes off whenever possible as studies indicate that doing so will prolong your life.
Too much alcohol and drugs (in fact – any amount of alcohol and drugs) dull the mind and loosen the lips compelling us to say things we may mean but don’t want said and to say things we may not mean at all.
Get a dog or a cat for the love for and from such a creature is unlike anything else we will ever know.
Over prepare, and then go with the flow.
It’s not what you say; it’s how you say it.
Speak the truth but only when you know you can be effective and only if it doesn’t cause another person unnecessary harm or hurt. Otherwise, be quiet.
Stand up to bullies wherever they are and whenever you encounter them, personally and in work, organizational and political life.
Time does heal almost everything.
Don’t fear or resist change for it is natural, necessary, and an opportunity for growth.
Don’t envy other people’s talent, job, wealth, circumstances or life – you likely already have everything you need.
Love isn’t just a matter of the heart – it requires concrete acts of altruism (no quid pro quo) in support of others.
Learn Torah, read great literature, view great art, and listen to great music as often as you can – they will enrich, change, and enhance your life and will inspire you (hopefully) to do what you might never choose to do otherwise.
Support the State of Israel as the democracy and Jewish State that it is regardless of its imperfections and corruptions, for Israel remains the best hope for the Jewish people to create a utopia worthy of the ethics of the Biblical prophets, the compassionate teachings in rabbinic and modern writings, and the vision as articulated in Israel’s Declaration of Independence (see https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/israel.asp).
This Hebrew month of Elul is the “get ready” month before the High Holidays commence, this year on the evening of September 23. It can be a period of corrective generally and specifically in these challenging times. The more we do in advance of the holidays, the more we can benefit during that most intensive period of introspection that the upcoming “Days of Awe” offer us.
A number of years ago, ala David Letterman, I offered to my congregation 10 suggestions in descending order (but not necessarily in importance) to help us in our Elul process of teshuvah (loosely translated “repentance”) leading up to the High Holydays. I reread them this week, and thought to offer them again, with adjustments.
#10 – Break your daily routine in some small way. Identify one bad habit you want to break in this next year (don’t try and do more than one because habits are hard to break, and if we’re successful in doing one, we will feel satisfied and a true sense of agency). If you find yourself, for example, being critical of everyone around you, stop yourself, at least some of the time and think of their good qualities. If you are holding onto anger, resentment, and hurt because of something someone did to you once upon a time, work hard to just let it go. If your words are overly coarse and you find yourself too often resorting to explosions of expletives, language you would never say in front of a child or your mother, strive to stop using it.
#9 – Take your shoes off the first chance you get and at every opportunity. Remember what God told Moses? “Remove your sandals from your feet for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” (Exodus 3:5) A study reported years ago in USA Today revealed that those who habitually kick off their shoes under the dining-room table, desk or pew tend to live three years longer than the average American. Think of the feet as a metaphor for the soul. Feet bound for too long begin to stink. Cloistered souls not allowed the light of consciousness pick up spiritual sludge and keep the divine light from shining.
#8 – Meditate – According to the American Institute on Stress, 75-90% of all visits to primary care physicians are for stress-related complaints. Meditation is nothing more than a means to become more aware and conscious of ourselves and our environment. A meditative state can be achieved at any time during the day, when listening to or making music, looking at or creating fine art, reading or writing a book or poetry, exercising, taking a walk, or sitting still. Meditation trains us in how to listen better to what is happening within and around us, how to be present and less distracted with our loved ones, to identify our deeper truths and thereby be more honest, straightforward and, hopefully, more kind.
#7 – Exercise each day – Impose upon yourself the discipline to walk, swim, ride a bicycle, do a workout, Tai-chi, Yoga, or Pilates, and keep your body toned. Whenever possible, don’t take elevators or escalators. Walk the stairs. When looking for a place to park, don’t take the closest space to your destination. Park at the far end of a parking lot and force yourself to walk the extra distance. The number of calories we burn in these simple acts will result in the loss of pounds over the course of a year (assuming you eat less too). It will also lower your heart rate, reduce your blood pressure, create a healthier physique, and enable us to feel a greater sense of well-being.
#6 – Do one “wild” thing each day, such as:
Eat ice cream instead of frozen yogurt.
Don’t hesitate to eat chocolate anything.
Leave your checking account un-reconciled – but after a couple of weeks, reconcile it or you’ll get into trouble.
Buy a loved one a gift for no good reason at unexpected times.
Laugh more.
Stretch every morning, at your desk and everywhere in the middle of the day.
Sing in the shower.
Scream in your car.
Talk to yourself in public and don’t worry that someone may tag you as deranged.
Say hello and smile at a stranger.
Be kind for no reason.
Let the guy cut in front of you in traffic, and if you are walking and a driver let’s you pass in front of their car, wave a thank you as you pass by.
Pet a dog (or cat) and look into its eyes – it is as sweet a sight as you are ever likely to see.
Ride a horse.
Play golf, tennis anything!
Take a wave or walk into a beautiful natural setting.
#5 – Learn to say “No” more often, especially when you are feeling overtaxed and exhausted. As Thoreau said – “Simplify, simplify, simplify” your life and spend more time doing the things that feed your soul, give you spiritual strength and help you feel closer to the people you love. Read great literature. Find the great teachers who open the soul and heart. Do more mitzvot that require pure motives and accentuate kindness, and do not do anything thinking that you will benefit by something in return. Do it lishma – for its own sake.
#4 – Give tzedakahand do acts of gemilut chassadim (Loving Kindness) to every beggar on the street or at freeway off-ramps and don’t question their motives or worthiness. Visit or call someone who is ill or alone. Physically touch and hug an elderly person who might not have been touched in a very long while. Be kind and generous at all times.
#3 – Strengthen a friendship with someone you’ve been meaning to get to know better – don’t stop yourself from expressing your gratitude to the people you care about – say it to them out loud and often whenever you feel so moved.
#2 – Make a commitment to challenge your mind, especially if you are older – learn a language, do puzzles, fill out cross-word puzzles, learn to play a musical instrument, read about something you have wanted to learn and understand but never had the time before.
#1 – Read great Jewish literature and deepen your understanding of at least one great Jewish book, writer or scholar, such as: The Hebrew Bible; Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel; Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. While you are at it, avoid social media as much as is reasonable.
I wish you well in fulfilling one or more of the above. May it be time well spent as together we enter the New Year with the goal of bringing greater kindness and wholeness (Heb: shleimut) into the world.
Introductory Note: I am not a New Yorker, but I have been waiting for someone to express the truth about NY’s Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s true positions about Israel and why his hostility to the State of Israel is so upsetting to me.
My friend and the former President of the Union for Reform Judaism, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, is as astute an observer and moral voice of American Jewish life and Israel as there is in the American Jewish community. He writes semi-frequently on pressing issues facing world Jewry in Israel’s newspaper Haaretz. The following piece appeared today, and I thank Eric for writing it. It ought to be read by every Jewish New Yorker before the election. If you have Jewish friends in New York, please share this with them.
Sept. 4, 2025
Before and after the election, my plea to the Jewish citizens of New York City is: Use mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s Democratic Party primary victory to educate people about Israel.
Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor, is charming, attractive, bright and a natural politician. Energetic, enormously talented and only thirty-three years old, in the Democratic primary he ran a brilliant campaign.
Is Mamdani too good to be true? Unfortunately, he is.
Despite his many virtues, this attractive, articulate man, with the popular touch and Trumpian feel for politics, is a virulent, relentless anti-Zionist.
Like most New Yorkers, I was profoundly impressed by Mamdani and by his remarkable ability to reach voters of different age groups and ethnicities. I was impressed too by his message: He did not offer platitudes or complicated position papers, but hammered home the point that the cost of living is killing ordinary people. Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and his other establishment rivals never had a chance; coming across as stodgy and out-of-touch, they lost to their dynamic younger rival by double digits.
But his beliefs about Israel are clear. Mamdani has expressed them repeatedly, and without equivocation. From his earliest days as a political activist as a student at Bowdoin College, he has declined to say that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state. He held this view on the day of the deadly massacres of October 7, and held it just as strongly on October 8.
When he became a candidate for mayor of New York, a city with 1.5 million Jews, Mamdani was obligated to spell out specifically how he would deal with Israel issues. His refusal during the Democratic primary to condemn the use of the phrase “globalize the intifada” drew the most attention. He claimed that the term did no more than express solidarity with the Palestinians, but many Democrats and others, and certainly many Jews, rightly insisted that what it meant was “kill the Jews.”
Responding to the pressure, Mamdani said that he would discourage the use of the phrase but would not denounce it, a tweak that satisfied few of his critics. If the phrase was offensive, why not condemn it outright?
His hostility to Israel was expressed in many other ways as well. He indicated that as mayor, he would implement some form of boycott against Israel, and has advocated an academic boycott of Israel’s universities, consistent with his support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. He promised not to visit Israel if elected mayor, breaking a longstanding precedent.
To the surprise of many, most have not seemed overly concerned, or at least less concerned than one might expect. The reasons for this are not entirely clear.
One possibility is that most of New York’s 700,000 Jewish voters, like most other New Yorkers, think it is a foregone conclusion that Mamdani will win, and therefore a “wait-and-see” approach may make sense. After all, his major competitors are New York’s corrupt current mayor, a no-name Republican and a former Democratic governor of New York who has lots of baggage and barely seems to want the job. It would take a near miracle for any of them to beat Mamdani.
Another possibility is that the majority of Jewish New Yorkers – myself included – tend to be left-leaning in their politics, and therefore are sympathetic to Mamdani’s progressive views on domestic politics. It is these issues that have dominated the public discussion until now.
To be sure, attempts have been made to draw away Jewish support from Mamdani by painting him as a domestic radical, if not a raving socialist lunatic. Most Jews are not radicals, and would not support Mamdani if they saw him as the dangerous extremist that his opponents claim he is. Despite what Republicans say, New Yorkers are not clamoring for Lenin; in an economy made unstable by Trump’s tariffs, what they want is to get ahead and support their families, and Mamdani is promising to move them in that direction.
In short, Mamdani is an attractive candidate with an attractive platform. And while Jewish leaders have tried to raise the alarm about his Israel views, it has been difficult, in the quiet summer months to generate interest and concern among the broader Jewish community about this candidate’s relationship to Israel.
This issue is even more fraught in the current moment, as it appeals strongly to young Jews in particular, many of whom are justifiably furious at Israel’s actions in Gaza. These same young Jews often argue that as mayor Mamdani will have no foreign policy role. They therefore resent any effort to criticize their candidate for his Israel views. “Why are we even talking about this?” is a question that is often heard. “This race is about New York, not Israel.”
Are we to conclude from all of this that Mamdani will pay no price for his opposition to a Jewish state?
It is hard to say. There is no denying that Jewish support for Israel has declined as the war in Gaza drags on and the death toll of innocents grows. New York Jews are angry at Israel, furious about Gaza and sickened by the Kahanists who sit in Israel’s cabinet. And we should remember that despite his outspokenness on Israel, Mamdani won a decisive victory in the Democratic primary.
Nonetheless, I believe that in the two months that remain before the general election, as the election heats up and Mamdani’s views are subjected to far more intensive scrutiny, the dynamics of the race will change.
Support for Israel has declined, but it has hardly disappeared, and Jewish voters who have not been paying attention to the mayoral race – and that is the majority – will begin listening to what the candidates have to say. And I am betting that when they do, they will not like at all what they hear from Mamdani.
Mamdani, in my view, is playing an ugly little game with Jewish voters. In the Gaza era, presided over by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it is not a problem to be a critic of Israel. Critics are everywhere, particularly in the Democratic Party, and even Israel’s most stalwart supporters are calling for more “balance” in America’s approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Some of Mamdani’s supporters, taking advantage of the growing debate, are slyly suggesting that he is simply another critic among many amid the ongoing war.
If this were true, of course, there would be little or no controversy. If Mamdani were promoting some form of a two-state solution, I would be voting for him myself.
But Mamdani is not a critic of Israel, he is a hater of Israel. Despite some very minor rhetorical adjustments, he remains what he has always been, an opponent of a Jewish state. His toxic disdain for Israel puts him so far out of the mainstream of the Jewish community that it will not be easy for Jews with even minimal attachment to Israel to support him. And while some will, given the alternatives, they will do so with reluctance and concern.
It is also true that Mamdani has said not a word about Islam’s miserable record in promoting both democracy and religious pluralism. Israel, where 20 percent of its citizens are non-Jews has a better than average record in that regard. Since Mamdani opposes the Jewish character of Israel, he should have the decency to speak up about Pakistan and other countries in the Muslim world that are neither democratic nor pluralistic.
What should Jews do in this election? I don’t tell people how to vote, and as I have indicated, I believe it is almost certain that Mamdani will be elected.
But both before and after the election, my plea to the Jewish citizens of New York City is: educate, educate, educate. Use Mr. Mamdani’s primary victory as an occasion to educate the people of New York about Israel.
This means making it clear that thoughtful criticism of Israel at this difficult moment is both welcome and necessary, and will be encouraged from all candidates. This means offering our own criticism, and calling for a resumption of diplomacy and an end to the war in Gaza. This means demanding that Mamdani stop the word games and be honest, finally, about what he really expects Israel to be and do.
And this means saying to the citizens of New York and the people of the world that there must be a Jewish state, and that saying there should not be a Jewish state is an act of hostility against the Jewish community and Jews everywhere.
Rabbi John Rosove's Blog 