Style & Living

President Donald Trump and his administration have long been on a path to diminish Palestinian declarations of statehood. The Trump administration recognized the Golan Heights as part of Israel, and in a historic move relocated the American embassy to Yerushalayim. David Friedman, US Ambassador to Israel, is recognized for engaging the White House on such a transference, and must be commended for his painstaking efforts since assuming his position.

The recent comments by freshman Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib during a podcast have been discussed thoroughly in the Jewish, and non-Jewish, community. Tlaib, who spun an ahistorical lie that the surviving Jews of the Holocaust were welcomed with open arms by her Palestinian ancestors, has her defenders in the Democratic Party. The nefarious aspect of the defense tactics is not claiming that she is right; rather, they attack the criticizers themselves. By doing this, their goal is to silence their opponents, and this silence has a history all its own.

“Not only one has risen against us to annihilate us, but in every generation they rise against us to annihilate us.” These words, recited during the most emotional point of the Pesach Seder, still ring true, despite the incredible freedoms American Jews enjoy. Six months after the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, last week another shooting occurred at the Chabad in Poway, California. A few days earlier, The New York Times published a cartoon of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu depicted as a big-nosed dog with a Jewish star necklace leading a yarmulke-wearing, blind President Trump. Anti-Semitism rears its ugly head in many forms, and American Jews must be knowledgeable of who our enemies are and where they come from if we are to continue to survive.

NEW YORK NEWS

 Amidst the fury sparked by the vandalism of the Central Park World War I memorial by anti-Israel protesters, Mayor Eric Adams took a firm stance, expressing his love for America and pledging $5,000 of his own money to the reward offered for information leading to the arrest of the perpetrators. Emphasizing the importance of defending symbols of freedom, Adams condemned the desecration and stressed the need to speak out against such acts.

Recap: A blizzard started up while Akiva and Betzalel were in Mount McKinley National Park with Joe and the dog sled. Things are really going wrong. Akiva trips and hurts his ankle. Akiva is worried that his parents won’t be able to fly in from Seattle for his bar mitzvah because of the snow. He also hopes their Zeidy isn’t worried about them. Joe goes out to gather firewood because there’s a pack of wolves outside.

This week’s parshah is a powerful exhortation to live a life of k’dushah. Haftaras K’doshim links the rejection of k’dushah to Galus. If we Yidden fall into error – G-d forbid – then we are ejected from our Holy Land and thrown into the mouth of the lion.