Category Archives: News

Haazinu – Nations, Be Warned!

Most commentaries understand Devarim 32:43 as “Nations! Sing the praises of His people, for He will avenge the blood of His servants; He will bring retribution upon His enemies and He will appease His land and His people.”

It would thus refer to the end of history, when the nations of the world will be dazzled by a clarity that eluded them until that point. And so harninu, “sing the praises,” is an imperative (or a prediction, in the sense of “they will sing the praises”).

Rav Hirsch and the Alshich read the pasuk differently (and perhaps in a more grammatically defensible way). In Rav Hirsch’s words (the English translation of the German original), the words refer to the ongoing present: “Therefore, nations, make the lot of His people a happy one.”

As his commentary on the pasuk expands: “The treatment accorded to the Jews becomes the graduated scale by which the allegiance accorded on earth to Hashem is measured…”

So the words, read that way, are not a prediction but rather a warning – an informing of the nations of the world that they will be eventually judged by how they treat the Jews. Rav Hirsch adds that “It was anticipated – as has actually occurred – that this Book of Hashem’s teachings would become the common property of the world, through the hands of its scattered bearers.”

And that its “principles of the equality and brotherhood of all men and the duties of respecting justice and the rights of man… [be] brought into practice.”

Even if the ultimate judgment of the nations of the world will take place only in the future, the passing into extinction of some of the world’s most Jew-oppressive regimes has already occurred. The ancient Romans and Greeks, and more recent oppressors like the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, all molder in history’s compost bin.

Today, unfortunately, there persist not only nations but also forces within otherwise benevolent countries, including our own, that seek to slander and attack Jews, both verbally and physically.

They are all warned.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Vayeilech – Complementary Curses

The fact that the word tzaros in the phrase ra’os rabbos vitzaros – “many evils and troubles” (Devarim, 31:21) can mean not only “evils” but also “complementary” (for instance, as a description of the relationship of two wives of the same man – who are called tzaros) is seen as meaningful by Rav, in Chagiga 5a.

He explained that the Torah is predicting a time when some evils can be “complementary,” in the sense that addressing one will exacerbate the other, and vice versa.

The metaphor he cites is someone stung in the same place by both a hornet and a scorpion. The former sting’s pain is alleviated by a cold compress and intensified by a hot one; the latter’s, alleviated by a hot compress and intensified by a cold one. What can the stung person do? Whatever he chooses to do will leave him in greater pain.

To our anguish, we live in such times. The mortal danger that is Hamas, which is pledged to destroy the Jewish presence in our land, can only be “treated” by its utter destruction. And yet, seeing that goal to fruition is impossible without attacking the genocidal group’s forces, which are routinely embedded in hospitals and mosques, and among civilians.

Which means exacerbating world opinion, which chooses to see only the tragic but necessary wages of the war against Hamas and to ignore the terrorists’ declared goal.

We Jews in the U.S. are experiencing hornet and scorpion stings of our own. The polarization of American society leaves us with the impossible choice of supporting a political movement that largely has embraced us and Israel, which choice brands us as adversaries in the eyes of those who oppose that movement’s antidemocratic tendencies. And if we declare our fealty to the democratic institutions that have undergirded our security and prosperity for so long, we alienate those who have most strongly championed our rights and Israel’s.

To Americans who value respect for the rule of law and political propriety, the MAGA world is a dire threat. To the MAGA world, those upholders of law and liberal (in the best sense of the word) values are the hazard.

And Jews, who have always actively participated in the democratic system and who seek both security and respect for law and propriety, are viewed suspiciously by both camps. And utterly despised by the fringe of each.

We pray for the Divine intervention that alone can alleviate the pain born of galus.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Corrupt Chorus

The most comical reactions to Israel’s airstrike earlier this month on a building in Qatar’s capital Doha came from the group whose leaders were the strike’s targets.

That would be Hamas, which called the attack “a heinous crime, a blatant aggression, and a flagrant violation of all international norms and laws.” Words that nicely describe the goals and daily diet of the lynch mob itself.

Second place in risibility went to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which condemned the strike as a “blatant criminal act.” This, from a group whose dozens of terrorist attacks include detonating a bomb in a Hadera market in 2005, killing seven people and injuring 55; another one the following year in a Tel Aviv eatery that killed eleven and injured 70; and a suicide bombing at an Eilat bakery that killed three.

Then, of course, were the expected words of condemnation from the usual pack of wolves, like Iran, Pakistan, Lebanon, Iraq, Morocco, Syria, Sudan, Kuwait, Egypt, Algeria, Oman, Turkey, the UAE and Libya. And let’s not slight Kazakhstan, Mauritania and the Maldives.

Joining the clamoring canines were Jordan, Spain, Italy, Germany, the European Union, the United Kingdom and France.

And, at least perfunctorily, the U.S. too. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that “Unilaterally bombing inside Qatar, a sovereign nation and close ally of the United States that is working very hard and bravely taking risks with us to broker peace, does not advance Israel or America’s goals.” (We’ll leave the highly debatable description of the country unaddressed for now, due to space limitations.)

Ms. Leavitt did add, though, that “However, eliminating Hamas, who have profited off the misery of those living in Gaza, is a worthy goal.”

Nevertheless, the U.S. did join the other members of the United Nations Security Council in condemning the strike.

Ah, such short memories some have. Does no one recall how, on May 2, 2011, the Obama administration violated the territorial integrity of Pakistan, in Operation Neptune Spear, when SEAL Team Six members shot and killed a man named Osama bin Laden? You know, the founder of al-Qaeda and orchestrator of the recently commemorated September 11, 2001 attacks? Three other men and a woman in the attacked compound were also killed in that operation.

Or the first Trump administration’s violation of Iran’s space on January 3, 2020, when an American drone strike took out Iranian major general Qasem Soleimani, the second most powerful person in Iran at the time?

The world tut-tutting Israel for actions it has taken is, of course, nothing new. In fact, it’s become something of a new normal. But it goes back quite a long way, at least to 1960, when Mossad agents captured Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann in Argentina. (He was spirited to Israel, tried and found guilty of war crimes and executed in 1962.)

At the time, The Washington Post huffed that “anything connected with the indictment of Eichmann is tainted with lawlessness.” And The New York Times wrote that “No immoral or illegal act justifies another.”

And when, in 1981, Israel bombed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor near Baghdad, cries of woe were heard around the world (though Iran was gratified, having tried, and failed, to destroy the same facility a year earlier).

The New York Times called the attack “an act of inexcusable and short-sighted aggression.” The Los Angeles Times referred to it as “state sponsored terrorism.” The United Nations passed two resolutions rebuking Israel for its chutzpah.

The Reagan administration, too, voted in support of a U.N. Security Council resolution that strongly condemned the raid, and the president suspended the delivery of six F-16 fighter jets to Israel.

There are those who maintain that, justification aside, Israel’s attack on a perceived ally of the U.S. was a strategic mistake. Others claim that, in the end, the net result will be positive. I don’t claim the geopolitical savvy to make any judgment in the matter.

What I do claim, in light of history, is the right to point out that Western powers’ condemnations of the Israeli strike against Hamas members in Doha are somewhat (to employ a less charged word than the one that first occurs)… inconsistent.

© 2025 Ami Magazine

Ki Savo – The Future of Wood and Stone

It is said in the name of the Vilna Gaon that the “idols of wood and stone” that Klal Yisrael will come to worship, referenced in the tochacha (Devarim 28:36 and 28:64), are hints to the religions that would come to dominate much of mankind in the future. The “wood” refers to the cross; and the “stone,” to the kaaba, the stone building housing a revered stone, in Mecca.

Although there have been apostates among the Jewish people over the centuries, Rashi’s comment on the latter of the references above is germane. He writes: “[This does] not [mean] worship of their gods literally but rather the paying of tributes and taxes to their clergy.” Targum Onkelos (which Rashi cites) indeed translates the phrases as “You will worship [i.e. be subservient] to nations that worship wood and stone.”

And indeed, history has borne out the fact that our long galus has included subservience to Muslim rulers and Christian ones. Even at times when our ancestors were not being vilified and killed by those rulers and their societies, when we were “tolerated,” we were, well, tolerated, but always subjects – subjected, that is to say, to rules, regulations and whims of the dominant religion.

Even today, when human rights are seen, at least in theory and law, as encompassing Jewish rights, the de facto situation – imposed by members of societies if not necessarily rulers – sets Jews apart as worthy of scorn. Whether the animus is vomited forth from the mouths of people like Louis Farrakhan, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens or any of a host of similar deriders of Jews, or from Islamists the world over, we remain subservient – in the sense of victims – of champions and espousers of faiths that followed (indeed borrowed copiously from) our own.

As galus goes, the current victimization of Jews pales beside the horrific things that our ancestors, distant and not-so-distant, endured. We must hope that that signifies a weakening of the domination, a lessening of our subordination to others… and the advent of what the navi Tzephania foresaw when he channeled Hashem saying “For then I will convert the peoples to a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of Hashem, to serve him with a unified effort” (3:9).

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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