News

I am always very appreciative of the positive feedback for my articles that I receive over time. A recurrent theme I hear that is very meaningful to me is that I write what most people are thinking. That might be the most important role of a columnist: to express that which most people believe but don’t find the ability or venue to express.

Ask the average lettered Jew: Which instances does the Torah explicitly describe the reward of long life for performing a mitzvah. The odds are heavily that they will respond with Kibud Av VaEim, honoring parents (Sh’mos 20:12), and Shiluach HaKein, sending away the mother bird when taking her chicks (D’varim 22:7).

A few years ago, I wrote an article titled “How Crazy Are We?” In the article, I decry the fact that so many Jews, including those with yarmulkes, are seen protesting Trump and his policy on immigration. I was upset that these Jewish kids had shown no appreciation to Donald Trump, warts and all, for all that he had done for Israel, but instead chose to trash him. I was also upset that these same kids did not see the need for legal immigration the way our parents and grandparents arrived in this country.

The rising tide of anti-Semitism sweeping across Europe, bringing in its wake propaganda and physical attacks eerily reminiscent of the years before the Holocaust; the fanatic hatred of fundamentalists towards the State of Israel and the Jewish people in general; the readiness of nations to appease tyrannical regimes such as Iran rather than face them down… all drive home the clear message that the world community is yet willing to tolerate the demonization and destruction of entire peoples.

Although it’s been less than three months since the October 7 massacre, which has changed Israel and the world, we should at this point begin to learn some very important lessons. I know that it is not up to me to preach to the public, but I am entitled to express my analyses of what is happening.

Late last week, a man came over to me in shul in Baltimore and said to me that he knew my father’s yahrzeit was approaching (27 Kislev). He then told me that he misses my father’s wisdom terribly. He said he wondered what my father would have said about the current situation with the Israel-Hamas War and the unfolding anti-Semitism in the American street and campuses. I asked the gentleman where he knew my father from, and he said that many years ago he lived in KGH, but I could not place him. He thinks of my father constantly, he said.