News

So you are doing Pesach the traditional way - at home with the generations. You’ve cleaned the house, taken out your Pesach utensils, cooked the traditional dishes, and prepared for the guests, both family and friends. The table is set with fancy accoutrements, and new holiday clothing is ready.

Most of us are focused on getting to Pesach at this time of year. We are cleaning, shopping, cooking, and preparing for company with long task lists to accomplish. Our goal is coming to seder night with a chometz-free home, to tell the story of our redemption from Egypt and our formation as a holy nation with our generations at our sides. Our goal is to perform the mitzvos of the  night together with grandparents and grandchildren.

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

 New York City Mayor Eric Adams suspended his re-election bid, less than five weeks before Election Day, citing relentless media scrutiny and a Campaign Finance Board decision to withhold millions in funds that hampered fundraising efforts.