Photo Fiasco Update

Some interesting information about how the New York Times’ Gaza sausage is made was presented recently by Semafor, a news website founded in 2022 by Ben Smith, a former media columnist at the Times, and Justin B. Smith, the former CEO of Bloomberg Media Group.

A piece on the site written by its media editor Max Tani disclosed that the Times had originally wanted to run images of Youssef Matar, a young child in Gaza with cerebral palsy, alongside its July 24 story that cited doctors in Gaza finding that “an increasing number of their patients are suffering and dying – from starvation.” While the child may, sadly, have been malnourished (ultimately, Hamas’ fault – and its intention, since Gazans’ suffering does wonders for its p.r.), his shocking physical state was mainly due to the ravages of his disease.

Responsibly, though, the report notes, the Times’ topmost editors wanted to err on the side of caution. According to communications viewed by Semafor, they worried that running the photos might call into question the paper’s reporting (smart guys!). Especially since the article claimed that many of the children suffering from hunger had been healthy kids, without preexisting diseases.

According to internal messages obtained by Semafor, the paper’s managing editor Marc Lacey expressed his concern. “Do we want to use a photo,” he asked “that will be the subject of debate when there is presumably no shortage of images of children who were not malnourished before the war and currently are?”

Sagely, executive editor Joe Kahn agreed, writing that “The story isn’t framed around people with special needs and the lead art[icle] really should not do that, either.”

And so they wisely opted not to publish Youssef’s photos. Instead, they ran, as noted last week in this space, those of Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, an 18-month-old child in Gaza, whose tiny, emaciated body was the perfect accompaniment to the news story. At least, that’s what the editors thought.

Problem was, of course, that Mohammed was also suffering from serious diseases, cerebral palsy and a suspected genetic disorder, a fact that, when publicized and called to the Times’s attention, was shared in an “Editor’s Note” (posted to the original story, not on the paper’s main social media account) four days after the article appeared and the photo of the “born healthy” child had been widely and irresponsibly republished by other media.

So, let’s recap, just to be clear: The head honchos at the “paper of record” recognized how journalistically irresponsible it would have been to accompany an article saying that healthy Gazan children were being reduced to skeletal shadows of their former selves with a photo of a child with a serious medical condition, the main cause of his sad state. And then went ahead and did precisely that, choosing a different child with a serious medical condition.

As the saying goes, you can’t make this stuff up.

If Mr. Lacey, as quoted above, is correct in his contention that “there is presumably no shortage of images of children who were not malnourished before the war and currently are,” it’s odd that no other clearly malnourished, wasting away young people have had their photographs plastered on his paper’s front page. Could it be that there may indeed be such a shortage?

I don’t know. There is certainly great need in Gaza, and Israel and the U.S. are taking serious steps to ensure that aid to residents isn’t intercepted by Hamas and criminal gangs.

What I do know is that there was a strong desire on 8th Avenue to publish some photo of an ostensibly starving child. So strong that the Old Gray Lady tripped on her skirt and fell face-first into an omelet.

As Semafor reported further, “One thing that pro-Israel critics of the Times and some staff at the paper agree on is that there is a large contingent of staff at the paper who are opposed to the war in Gaza, and blame Israel for the crisis.”

It would seem that, at least on the West Side of Manhattan, objectivity, like irony, is dead.

© 2025 Ami Magazine

Eikev – Handed-Down History

The Talmud uses the term “pischon peh,” literally, “an opening of the mouth,” to describe the ability to put forth a compelling argument or excuse.

The pesukim that relay Hashem’s message to our ancestors: “Know this day that it was not your children” who saw Hashem’s majesty and experienced all of the miracles in Mitzrayim and during the exodus thereof and those during the desert years, but, rather, it was “your [own] eyes that saw” Hashem’s great acts (Devarim 11, 2-7), offer us alive today such an argument.

Because our ancestors directly experienced Hashem’s might and direction, and were thus rightly accountable to recognize the import of the same on their behavior. But we, their mere descendants, did not witness the exodus and subsequent wonders. What, then, compels us? Do we not have a pischon peh here, an excuse?

Key here is the vital importance of mesorah, the “handed-down,” usually used colloquially to refer to the handed-down law but no less applicable to “handed-down history.”

No one in his right mind today, despite not having been alive then, denies the event we call World War I, or the one we call the Civil War, or the existence of ancient Rome or ancient Greece. That is because history is handed down to us from when it happened.

And ancient Jewish history, with all of its miracles, has been faithfully handed down to us. We were therefore, in a sense and for all practical purposes, “there.” Our eyes, too – those of every Jew who has ever sat at a Pesach seder – witnessed the exodus from Mitzrayim.

What is more, we have something our ancestors had not: Compelling evidence of Hashem’s might: the fulfillment of Hashem’s words.

The Torah predicts Klal Yisrael’s failures and its exile from its land. It predicts our scattering across the world and our persecutions. All of which we, not our ancestors, can attest to having happened. So while they may have personally experienced Hashem’s hand, we have experienced the fulfillment of His promise.

And the Torah predicts, too, the full return of Klal Yisrael to the Torah and to the land (already begun), and the ultimate redemption. May it come speedily, in our day.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Vo’eschanan – Requited Love

The obvious problem posed by the commandment to love Hashem (Devarim 6:5) is that love is an emotion. How can one possibly be told to love?

One understanding of that commandment is provided by Abaye in the Talmud (Yoma 86a): “That [one should cause] the name of Heaven to be beloved [by others] through you.”

He explains that if one conducts himself properly, studying Torah, serving scholars and conducting business with honesty, people will say “Fortunate is his father who taught him Torah, fortunate is his teacher who taught him Torah” – thereby engendering observers’ love for Hashem.

The Rambam (Yesodei HaTorah 5:11) echoes that statement, adding the importance of taking care to not “separate [oneself] too far [from normal life]”.

Causing others to love Hashem is arguably easier today than ever. Since society is so often crass and rude, even conducting oneself in a normal, reasonable way does not go unnoticed. A “please” or “thank you” or “good morning,” not to mention a smile, stands out. And if offered by an identifiable Jew, can create love for Hashem.

Another approach to the mitzvah of loving Hashem is recorded in the name of Rav Akiva Eger, based on the fact that emotions can be cultivated and harnessed.

A key to observing the “love Hashem” commandment, he suggests, is provided each day just before we recite the Shma, which introduces it. The final brachah before krias Shma in the morning ends with “Who chooses His nation Yisrael with love”; and the one before the evening recitation, with “the One who loves His nation Yisrael.”

In other words, recognizing Hashem’s love for us yields reciprocal love for Him.

As Shlomo Hamelech teaches in Mishlei (27: 19), Kamayim hapanim lapanim… – “As water reflects a face back to a face, so is one’s heart reflected back to him by another.”

What is true in human relationships is equally true in our relationship with our Creator.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Devarim – No Losses

It’s natural to feel disappointment when one loses – be it a court case, a job, a shidduch or an opportunity.

But it’s a pointless sentiment, and not only because it’s irreversible, like spilled milk. But because it is a denial, in a subtle but real sense, of Hashem.

A seemingly superfluous phrase, or, at least one whose intention is not clear, is appended to the Torah’s admonition “You shall not be partial in judgment. Hear out minor and major matters [or people] alike. Fear not any man.” The pasuk then adds: “For judgment is Hashem’s” (Devarim 1:17).

That phrase could be understood as meaning “For you are doing Hashem’s work, and must do so with pure objectivity.” Or, “For you are but instruments of Hashem.”  But Rashi, basing his words on Sanhedrin 8a, writes:

“Whatever you take from this man unjustly you will compel Me to restore to him; it follows, therefore, that you have thwarted judgment from Me.”

In other words, the phrase implies that an unjust judgment will be divinely rectified. And, it follows that if one judges properly, even if that means that a wealthy party is the winner of a financial case and a destitute party the loser, the judge needn’t fret. If the destitute party is meant to thrive, Hashem will see to it that he does, in some other way.

The implications of that idea – the truism that Hashem can and ultimately does run the show – go well beyond court proceedings. In life, no negative outcome is final, at least not in the larger scheme of things. And so, angst over losing, in any way, is unwarranted.

One can be deprived of a job, shidduch or opportunity. But the “loss” is illusory. And so, angst is pointless; it even borders on heretical, since one must recognize that, if Hashem’s “rectification” of a seemingly unfair verdict or happening is merited, it will happen.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

“‘Zionist’ Contains Multitudes” — WSJ

An opinion piece of mine appeared in the Wall St. Journal. Its text is below:

I am a Zionist. I am not a Zionist.

Both statements are true, because the word, something of a war cry these days, has lost its meaning. Or, better, has multiple meanings. And it’s worth the while of anyone who cares about the Middle East, antisemitism or religion to tease out the details of the multiplicity.

As a haredi, or “ultra-Orthodox” (we dislike that pejorative), Jew, I do not subscribe to the foundational principle of the movement created by Theodor Herzl in the late nineteenth century that resulted in the establishment of the state of Israel.

Before Israel’s founding, in 1948, the religious leaders to whom most haredim like me looked for guidance opposed the establishment of a political state for Jews, even one self-defined as “Jewish.”

Theologically, they insisted, the return of Jews en masse to the Holy Land needed to await the arrival of the messiah predicted by the Jewish prophets of old (Herzl, an avowed secularist, didn’t quite fit the bill). And from a practical standpoint, they feared that a “Jewish state” would only serve to spur the hatred of Jews that forever lurks and seeks some excuse to express itself, often with violence.

So, as a Jew who believes that the Jewish religion, not any political state, is the essential expression of Judaism, I’m not a Zionist, at least not if one defines the word in its historical sense, as a believer in the Herzlian Zionist program.

At the same time, just as the religious leaders who did not back the creation of Israel in the end accepted the state once it became a fait accompli, and urged their followers in the Holy Land to participate in the country’s civil and political processes, I feel a connection with Israel and a deep concern for the welfare and safety of its citizens, many of whom are my friends or (closer or more distant) relatives.

So I am a Zionist, at least if one defines the word as a “accepter and supporter of Israel.”

There is, though, a third definition of Zionist, a new one, this one a slur, intended to refer to anyone who supports Israel’s current war against her enemies.

How Israel is waging that war is rightly open to criticism, but it is subject, too, to reasoned defense. When  “Zionist!” is angrily shouted at those who seek to offer the latter, the word is used to portray defenders of Israel as moral monsters – for the slurred’s conviction that Hamas and other terrorist entities need to be destroyed, the Israeli government’s goal.

When that government’s goal is characterized, instead, as genocide, the accusers have gone from righterous protesters to ignorant haters. And when they vent their animus by intimidating random Jews or attacking them or their synagogues or institutions, they expose themselves as nothing short of old-fashioned antisemites hiding behind kaffiyehs.

It is unfortunate – no, tragic – that a terrible toll on civilians is so often taken in the prosecution of justifiable, even necessary, wars. And eradicating the engines of terrorism in Gaza necessitates attacking the places from which they operate (including, sadly, hospitals and mosques).

But, in the end, whatever one may think of Israel’s actions, if words are to have meanings, “Zionist” can only mean either a subscriber to Herzl’s vision or a rejector of the same  who nevertheless supports the security of Israel’s citizens. When the word  is twisted to mean murderers, the twisters reveal nothing about Israel, and much about themselves,

(c) 2025 WSJ

Letter Published by The New York Times

To the Editor:

In his lengthy lamentation about Israel’s ostensible descent into genocide, Omer Bartov somehow overlooks a most germane distinction between Israel’s war to vanquish an enemy bent on its destruction and murderous campaigns like those that took place in Bosnia, Darfur, Armenia, Rwanda and Cambodia — and certainly the one carried out by Nazi Germany.

How Israel is waging its war against an enemy that has loudly declared its genocidal intentions is rightly open to criticism, and subject, too, to a reasoned defense. But it is a strange sort of “genocide” that can end immediately with the rulers of the attacked region simply laying down their arms, releasing those they kidnapped who are still alive and leaving the scene.

(Rabbi) Avi Shafran

Staten Island

Matos – Thrice Upon a Word

“Even Ataros and Divon” is the extent of the Gemara’s directive about the halachah (duly codified in the Shulchan Aruch) that Jewish men recite shnayim mikra vi’echad targum – each pasuk of the week’s Torah portion twice and its Targum Onkelos rendering once (Berachos 8b).

The “even,” of course, refers to the fact that Ataros and Divon, as names of places, are proper nouns and hence no different in targum than in mikra. All the same, Rav Huna bar Yehuda in the name of Rabbi Ami says, they, too, must be recited a third time.

Although Rashi explains that the places in that pasuk are rendered the same in Targum Onkelos, our Chumashim do indeed have different  renderings of those names (with the exception of the final one, Be’on), As do the Targum Yonason ben Uziel and the Targum Yerushalmi, with variations.

What’s more, there are dozens of names of places and people throughout the Torah that are rendered the same in targum as in mikra. Why would the Gemara seize particularly upon Ataros and Divon (especially since they do in fact have targum)? And there are other psukim in the Torah that, like Ataros and Divon, consist entirely of proper nouns.

Tosfos (ibid) say that the Gemara’s intention is to direct us to use the alternate targumim even though there is no non-repetitive Onkelos one. (And, presumably, publishers, somewhat misleadingly, included one of those targumim in our editions of Targum Onkelos itself.)

Interesting, though, is the fact that the targum renderings of the names the Gemara mentions, Ataros and Divon, the ones we have in our Chumashim, whether they are Onkelos’ or not, are machlelta and malbeshta, words whose roots seem to mean  “inclusion” and “cloaked.”

I wonder if those renderings may be meant to signify that the Torah includes much more in its words than their simple meanings; and that deeper meanings are cloaked in its every word. And, thus, that repeating even a proper noun a third time is indicated.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Pinchas – Dark Side of the Moon

Have you ever wondered why, in the Mussaf Amidah of a Jewish leap year (when there are two Adars), we add the phrase ulichaparas posha, “and for atonement for sin”? It is a 13th phrase in the list of brachos at whose end it is added, which makes sense for a year with 13 months. But why “atonement of sin”? The Nachlas Tzvi has a fascinating suggestion.

Our parsha lists a number of special communal korbanos. On Rosh Chodesh, the day of the new moon, among other sacrifices, a chatas, a sin-offering, is brought (Bamidbar 28:15).  Unlike other chata’os brought on holidays, though, it alone is called a chatas laHashem. The halachic import of that fact, as Rashi notes, is that it atones for tum’ah contamination of the mikdash or kodoshim that no person ever knew about, only Hashem.

But the Midrash (also cited by Rashi) says something flabbergasting, that the korban is brought as an “atonement” – whatever that might mean – on behalf of Hashem, for His having “lessened” the moon. The reference, of course, is to the Midrash’s account of how the moon complained that “two kings cannot wear one crown” and, as a result, was divinely demoted.

The reason for a Jewish leap year, says the Nachlas Tzvi, is that the Jewish calendar, which is essentially lunar, requires an occasional additional month, to bring the Jewish months into alignment with the seasons (which are the result of the sun’s rays’ angle toward the hemispheres of an axis-tilted earth). The Nachalas Tzvi suggests  that the “lessening” of the moon may refer not only to a muting of brightness or size but also to the fact that it takes less time for our satellite to orbit around the earth 12 times than it takes the earth to revolve around the sun, rendering a lunar year “less,” in a temporal sense – shorter – than a solar one.

He sees the “atonement” as being for the moon’s complaint. But it would seem that it might better refer to the confounding Midrash cited that Rashi cites, whatever it might mean.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran