Changing the Map, Changing the Politics

Posted on July 28, 2026 by First.One.Through

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as frozen. It isn’t.

Both Israelis and Palestinians appear to believe that now is NOT the moment for a final peace agreement. Instead of negotiating, each side is using this period to improve its position for whatever comes next.

They have adopted two very different strategies.

Israel’s strategy is physical.

The settlement movement is racing to create new facts on the ground – approving settlements, establishing outposts, extending infrastructure, and expanding the Israeli presence in disputed territory of Judea and Samaria. The calculation is straightforward: when negotiations eventually resume, the map itself will have changed.

The pace has been striking.

ACTION	2025	2026 (through April)	What it Measures
Official settlements approved	54	34 additional approvals (bringing the current government’s total to 102 since January 2023)	Government approval of new settlements or legalization of existing communities.
New unauthorized outposts established	86	Total outposts reached 363, with 212 created under the current government	New communities established before formal authorization.
Agricultural (herding) outposts	60	Continued expansion	Agricultural communities that often extend practical control over large surrounding areas through grazing, roads, fencing, and infrastructure.

*Outposts established in Judea and Samaria since 1991, according to Peace Now*

Every month that passes without negotiations leaves more roads, homes, infrastructure, and communities for future negotiators to contend with.

*New communities in Judea and Samaria approved by Israel according to Peace Now*

The Palestinian strategy is political.

Rather than altering the geography, Palestinian leaders have concentrated on shifting international opinion. They have sought additional recognition from foreign governments, expanded support within international organizations, pursued legal and diplomatic campaigns against Israel, and strengthened ties with constituencies – particularly within the U.S. Democratic Party – that may wield greater influence under a future American administration. Their calculation is equally straightforward: when negotiations eventually resume, the political environment will have changed.

That effort has also produced measurable gains.

Diplomatic Milestone	Since October 7, 2023	Why It Matters
New recognitions (2024)	Norway, Ireland, Spain, Slovenia, Armenia, Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago	Expanded formal recognition beyond the Global South.
Major Western powers (2025)	France, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia	First major Western/G7 countries to recognize Palestine, signaling a shift among traditional allies of Israel.
International legal initiatives	Expanded	Increased reliance on the UN, the International Court of Justice, and the International Criminal Court to advance Palestinian objectives.
Political support	Increased	Growing support in parts of Europe and among segments of the U.S. Democratic Party.

Measured by their own objectives, both sides can point to progress. Israel has expanded its physical footprint while the Palestinians have expanded their diplomatic footprint. One strategy seeks to change the map while the other seeks to change the politics surrounding the map.

What is striking is what neither side is emphasizing.

Neither is devoting comparable energy to the difficult work of strengthening governance at home: confronting corruption, reforming institutions, addressing political dysfunction, or building the domestic political consensus that any lasting agreement would ultimately require.

Instead, each is attempting to improve its negotiating position by changing the external environment. It is a race between geography and diplomacy.

The next round of negotiations will not begin where the last one ended. It will begin with a new map and a new political landscape.

New York’s Supermajority: The Real Election Is the Legislature

Posted on July 28, 2026 by First.One.Through

Worried about New York City Mayor Mamdani’s politics going statewide and national? You need to do a lot more than show up to a protest with placards.

New York is not simply a Democratic state. It is a Democratic supermajority state.

The governor, Governor Kathy Hochul is a Democrat. Democrats hold 41 of the State Senate’s 63 seats and 103 of the Assembly’s 150 seats—more than enough for a veto-proof supermajority in the Assembly and just one seat shy of one in the Senate. The practical result is that currently, Republicans have little ability to force negotiation or compromise. The state’s most important political debates now occur almost entirely within the Democratic Party.

That is critical at a moment like this.

When organizations such as the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) succeed in electing candidates or moving Democratic primaries to the far-left, the effects are no longer confined to activist circles. Ideas that gain traction within the Democratic caucus can become state policy without needing bipartisan support. Whether the issue is criminal justice, taxation, housing, energy, education, labor regulation, or Israel policy, the decisive battle is often the Democratic primary, not the general election.

This does not mean every progressive proposal becomes law. Democratic legislators disagree on many issues. But a supermajority means there are fewer institutional checks when one faction gains influence.

For New Yorkers who want a different direction than being advanced by the DSA and NYC Mayor Mamdani, the answer is not simply to oppose legislation after it is introduced. It is to change the composition of the Legislature itself.

That is why a relatively small number of competitive districts carry outsized importance this year.

Competitive legislative races do more than elect a senator or assemblymember. They build volunteer networks, raise money, increase turnout, and strengthen candidates throughout the ticket.

Congressman Mike Lawler’s race in the Hudson Valley is a prime example. His campaign in New York’s 17th Congressional District is again expected to be one of the nation’s most competitive House races. A strong Republican legislative effort in the region can reinforce his campaign, just as a strong Lawler campaign can help Republican candidates for the State Senate and Assembly. The same dynamic applies across Long Island, Staten Island, and other competitive suburban districts.

Among the key legislative opportunities Republicans will target are suburban Senate districts on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley, along with competitive Assembly districts in Nassau and Suffolk Counties, Staten Island, Monroe County, Onondaga County, and the Capital Region.

Every election cycle, voters are told that one legislative seat cannot make much difference. In New York, the opposite is true.

A handful of seats in New York’s election can determine whether the Legislature remains a near-unchecked trifecta supermajority allowing radical far-left motions to become law or becomes a body where broader consensus is once again required. Those races will shape not only who governs in Albany, but how New York is governed.

The Antisemitic Status Quo Must End

Posted on July 28, 2026 by First.One.Through

The United Nations speaks constantly of justice, equality and freedom of worship in Jerusalem. Yet when confronted with the denial of the most basic religious freedom at Judaism’s holiest site, it demands that the discrimination continue.

This is not the position of one committee or one conference. It is the official position of the United Nations.

Following a recent visit by Israel’s National Security Minister to the Temple Mount, Secretary-General António Guterres declared that “the status quo at the Holy Sites must be upheld.” His spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, went further on July 23, insisting that “there is a status quo regarding the holy sites of Judaism, Christianity and, of course, Islam in Jerusalem” and that “the faithful of all religions are able to interact with those sites… in a free manner.”

Those statements cannot both be true.

On the Temple Mount—the holiest site in Judaism—the “status quo” bars Jews from praying openly. Jews may visit during limited hours, but they are prohibited from conducting public prayer under the religious administration of the Islamic Waqf.

The United Nations therefore advocates preserving a system that denies Jews the freedom to pray at their holiest site while simultaneously claiming that people of all faiths are able to worship freely.

That is not religious equality. It is institutionalized religious discrimination.

Imagine the United Nations calling for the preservation of a system that prohibited Christians from praying at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre or Muslims from praying at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Such a position would rightly be condemned around the world. Yet when the restriction applies to Jews, it is described as preserving the “status quo.”

The phrase has become a euphemism for unequal rights. For sanctioned antisemitism.

*The UN states that the “Palestinian people” have “inalienable rights” in Jerusalem, while insisting that Jews have none*

Peace is not built by requiring one religion alone to surrender the right to pray at its holiest place.

The United Nations should stop demanding preservation of the Temple Mount status quo and instead demand its reform.

The UN Human Rights Council should establish a permanent agenda item asking a single question: Why are Jews still barred from praying openly at Judaism’s holiest site?
Every report by the Secretary-General on Jerusalem should state whether that prohibition remains in force.
Every General Assembly debate on Jerusalem should require Jordan and the Islamic Waqf to explain why the ban continues and what concrete steps are being taken to end it.
Every UNESCO discussion of the Temple Mount should address not only Jewish history at the site, but whether Jewish freedom of worship is being respected there today.
Every UN conference on Jerusalem should repeat the same demand until the answer changes:

End the prohibition on peaceful Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount.

The United Nations cannot credibly champion freedom of worship while defending a religious order that denies Jews that very freedom at Judaism’s holiest site.

The antisemitic status quo must end.

Coalitions Don’t Survive Purity Tests

Posted on July 27, 2026 by First.One.Through

One of the more curious developments in American politics is watching mainstream Democrats increasingly tailor their positions to satisfy activists who still refuse to support them.

The answer lies in understanding the difference between a coalition and an ideology.

A coalition exists to win elections. It is broad by design. People disagree on taxes, immigration, foreign policy, and the Middle East, yet work together because they share enough common ground to govern. Coalitions ask one question: Can we work together despite our differences?

An ideological movement asks a different question: Do you believe what we believe?

That distinction changes everything.

Purity tests are not an accident of ideological movements; they are their natural consequence. If your goal is to advance a comprehensive worldview, disagreement is no longer just a different opinion but evidence that someone has failed the test.

This helps explain the relationship between the Democratic Party and organizations such as the Democratic Socialists of America. The Democratic Party is trying to hold together one of the broadest electoral coalitions in America. The DSA is advancing an ideology. It has shown little hesitation about opposing Democratic incumbents who fail its litmus tests, whether on capitalism, Israel, policing, or other defining issues.

Israel illustrates the divide clearly. Within a coalition, someone can support Israel’s defensive war while criticizing particular government officials or military actions. Within an ideological movement, those distinctions may not be enough.

That is why the political response of some mainstream Democrats is so puzzling. They often behave as though they are negotiating with another coalition partner. They are not. They are seeking approval from a movement whose purpose is to distinguish believers from non-believers. Incremental concessions rarely earn lasting acceptance. They simply establish a new baseline for the next demand.

The DSA’s own long-term political vision underscores the point. It has argued that America’s two-party system should ultimately be replaced by a multi-party parliamentary democracy. That is an entirely coherent position for an ideological movement. But it also reveals why the tension is so persistent. A movement that seeks its own distinct ideological party will naturally find itself in conflict with a broad coalition whose purpose is to assemble majorities among people who disagree on fundamental questions. The friction is inevitable.

Perhaps the better response for mainstream Democrats is not to seek the DSA endorsement at all.

Every endorsement tells voters something about shared values. If an organization rejects your belief in a market economy, your support for the Jewish State’s continued existence, or your willingness to govern through compromise rather than ideological purity, why should the DSA’s endorsement be considered a prize? A politician should not be embarrassed to say, “We simply have different visions for the country.”

In fact, the willingness to disappoint ideological movements may be one of the clearest signs that a politician still understands the difference between governing and evangelizing.

*Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) is a mainstream Democrats who has not been bullied into positions at odds with his belief*

There is a lesson here for the pro-Israel community as well.

Politics rewards participation, not nostalgia. Elected officials respond to the people who organize, communicate with their offices, volunteer, build local networks, and vote. If supporters of the U.S.-Israel relationship want their voices heard, they must become a consistently visible part of the political coalition—not merely assume their support will be taken for granted.

Building coalitions by attempting to contort to the demands of extremist ideologues will be a painful exercise to watch. And to live with. It has made many Democrats feel abandoned by their party as it chases the far-left which despises most of the coalition.

Coalitions are built by persuading people who disagree to work together. Ideologies are built by deciding who belongs. The Democratic Party will remain a relevant governing party only if it remembers which one it is.

Hamas and the DSA: Ideology + Grassroots Mobilization to Power + Destruction (January 2026)

The Revolutionary Theology Has Gone Operational (December 2025)

You No Longer Have to Listen Closely

Posted on July 27, 2026 by First.One.Through

When I wrote I’m Offended, You’re Dead in 2015, I argued that the West fundamentally misunderstood violent jihadism. It was routinely described as the work of a tiny fringe because Western observers were looking almost exclusively at Europe and North America. But that was never where most Muslims lived or where most of the violence occured.

The view that a few “extremists” have hijacked Islam and are attacking the freedom of press is both myopic in terms of history and geography, and hazy in terms of numbers and scope.

In the Global North, Muslims make up only about 2.6% of the population. Across the Global South, they account for roughly 28%. Excluding Latin America and China, that figure rises to about 42%. The attitudes that gave rise to violent jihadism were therefore never confined to a handful of isolated extremists. Across large parts of the Muslim world, Islamist movements and deeply illiberal religious doctrines already exercised enormous influence and persecute people attempting to live with basic human rights. The West mistook a geographic illusion for an ideological one.

Terrorist movements do not emerge in an ideological vacuum. An ideology does not need majority support to convince a determined minority that violence is both righteous and necessary.

And you no longer have to listen carefully to hear that message.

Over the past decade, migration, social media, and global communications have brought that ideological current into the daily background of Western life. Many will be alarmed and others will feel called. Either way, it has become ever-present and one no longer needs to search to find it.

The attacks increasingly follow a familiar pattern because they spring from the same worldview.

The gay patrons of the Pulse nightclub in Orlando were condemned as morally corrupt and massacred by a man with ties to al Qaeda and Hezbollah. This week, a Berlin Pride parade became the target of a man who had reportedly sought to join ISIS. Christmas markets in Germany have repeatedly been attacked by men invoking Islamist causes. Trucks and cars have been used as weapons against civilians in France, Germany, and Israel. In Manhattan, a deranged man allegedly shouted “Allahu Akbar” while carrying out a stabbing spree.

*Moses Grunhaus after he was stabbed by a man yelling “Allahu Akbar.” He was in New York City to clear out his apartment to move to Florida because of the election of Mayor Zohran Mamdani*

Different countries. Different perpetrators. Different personal histories.

*Official Palestinian media produced cartoons calling for Arabs to run over Jews*

Yet the underlying message is strikingly similar: for the jihadists, those who offend do not merely deserve criticism – they deserve elimination.

That is the lesson many in the West still refuse to absorb. We continue to interpret these attacks through the lens of isolated extremism, mental illness, or individual grievance. Those factors may help explain why one person acts and another does not. They do not explain why the same religious slogans, the same enemies – the West, and the same methods appear again and again across continents.

The lesson of I’m Offended, You’re Dead is even more relevant today than it was a decade ago. The argument was never that every Muslim is a jihadist. It was that an ideology can become pervasive enough to inspire violence far beyond the ranks of organized terrorist groups. Even beyond “lone wolves.” It becomes the default language of the street.

*Islamic radicals riot in Paris, France*

The West believes it is engaged in an argument over speech and tolerance. About the quantitative size of immigration and the culture of new arrivals. Because that is the culture of the West – to debate, to find compromise, to coexist.

But violent jihadism is engaged in something else entirely. It is not trying to persuade those it finds offensive. It seeks to destroy them.

A decade ago, you had to look for that message, to parse that difference. Today, you don’t.

The call of “Allahu Akbar” is no longer confined to jihadi groups or even “lone wolf” radicals as they commit attacks. Because the anti-West lexicon has become normalized on the angry streets, hunting people perceived of as “monsters.”

The Grave, Person and Prayer

Posted on July 26, 2026 by First.One.Through

I have a somewhat different view of cemeteries from many people in Orthodox Jewish circles.

Many Jews visit the graves of famous rabbis and holy figures to pray. Friends travel to the Ohel in Queens, where the last Lubavitcher Rebbe is buried, or to the graves of Maimonides and other celebrated rabbis in Israel. I have never felt comfortable doing so.

My inclination begins with the Bible’s account of Moses. He died alone, outside the Land of Israel, and his burial place remains unknown. That detail does not appear incidental. In the Torah’s final lines, it seems almost deliberate: Moses was the greatest prophet, yet his grave was not to become a shrine. His teachings were to remain sacred, but his physical remains were not to become a destination or an intermediary.

When I asked friends why they visit the graves of holy people, they offered several explanations.

The first was that a righteous person enjoyed a special relationship with God, and that the place where such a person is buried therefore offers a closer portal to the divine.

The second was that a place where people have gathered in prayer for generations acquires a special spiritual character.

The third was that traveling deliberately to a particular place changes the visitor. The journey creates focus, humility and a frame of mind that may be difficult to achieve in ordinary surroundings.

The first explanation, I believe, is both the most common and the most troubling. The suggestion that the physical remains of a holy person can function as a medium to God comes dangerously close to the very impulse the Torah appears to guard against by concealing Moses’s grave. It risks replacing the person’s teachings with the person’s body.

A better way to preserve a righteous person’s connection to God is to study that person’s work, absorb his ideas and live according to his example. His thoughts, not his remains, should serve as the conduit. A grave contains the body he left behind. His Torah contains what he gave the world.

The second and third explanations are different. They do not necessarily treat the deceased as an intermediary. Instead, they recognize the power of place.

A site shaped by centuries of prayer may carry historical and emotional meaning. A family grave may help a child remember a parent, confront loss, express gratitude or recover a sense of continuity. Some people can reach that state of reflection anywhere. Others need a physical place that separates the moment from ordinary life.

And here is where the role of rabbis becomes interesting. How to handle a common situation and desire whose motivation is the dividing line between something permissible and not?

Orthodox Judaism frequently erects legal fences around conduct that may lead toward something prohibited. The belief that a deceased holy person can provide privileged access to God would seem to warrant precisely such caution. The practice risks sliding from remembrance into mediation, and from reverence into something uncomfortably close to worship.

But visiting a grave for memory, history, mourning or personal reflection does not necessarily carry the same danger. The distinction lies in what the visitor believes is happening there. Is the dead person being asked to act, or is the living person being moved to remember, think and pray?

That distinction deserves serious consideration as the Jewish community buries soldiers and victims of terror, cares for those carrying lasting injuries, remembers those who uplifted and supported the community, and confronts antisemitism on a scale not experienced in decades. Cemeteries will inevitably become increasingly powerful places of collective visitation and reflection.

They can remind us of sacrifice, courage, wisdom and the unfinished obligations of the living. But the grave should point beyond itself. It should direct us not toward the power of the dead, but toward the lives they led, the ideas they carried and the responsibilities they have left to us.

From Tisha B’Av to the Shema

Posted on July 24, 2026 by First.One.Through

Every year, just days after Tisha B’Av, when Jews mourn the destruction of the First and Second Temples, comes Shabbat Nachamu—the Sabbath of Consolation. The haftarah opens with God’s promise: “Comfort, comfort My people.” And the Torah portion is always Va’etchanan, containing perhaps the most important words in Judaism:

Shema Yisrael, Hashem Elokeinu, Hashem Echad. – Deuteronomy 6:4

The timing is remarkable.

The parasha begins with one of the Torah’s most poignant moments. Moses pleads to enter the Promised Land, but God refuses. He will see the Land from afar, yet die alone on the eastern bank of the Jordan, separated from both the land he longed to enter and the people who would continue without him. Rather than dwell on what he has lost, Moses spends his final days giving Israel what can never be taken away.

Just after today’s Jews remember what was destroyed on Tisha B’Av, the Torah turns to the covenant between God and the Jewish people.

The Shema is recited every morning upon waking and every evening before sleep, fulfilling the Torah’s command to speak these words “when you lie down and when you rise.” Many Jews have long sought to make it their final words before death. The Shema frames a Jewish life—from its first waking moments to its final conscious breath.

Before reciting its opening verse, Jews traditionally cover their eyes.

One explanation is that removing visual distractions allows the words to be heard more completely. But perhaps the custom also captures something about the moment itself.

With eyes covered, we become vulnerable. For an instant we stand alone, unable to rely on what we can see. It is precisely then that we declare: Hashem Echad—the Lord is One.

Not better than another. Not merely the only God. Simply One: singular, indivisible.

At that moment, the person saying the Shema also stands as one—alone before the One. The moment becomes a deeply personal connection; in Genesis, created in the image of God, and today, retiring together with God.

That may be the deepest consolation after Tisha B’Av.

Enormous empires destroyed the Temple and powerful armies scattered the Jewish people. Yet they could not destroy the simple words Moses taught. They are still whispered every morning, every night, before sleep and, if blessed, with a final breath.

Judaism is designed to be a humble faith, one in which individuals know that their God is not only there to empower them when they need to fight, but console them when they are bereft and alone.

Shabbat Nachamu reminds us that consolation does not begin with rebuilt stones or a visit to Moses’ gravesite. It begins with a people who still know they can close their eyes and connect with God as they say Shema Yisrael, Hashem Elokeinu, Hashem Echad.

The Guardian’s Vilification of Jews on the Temple Mount

Posted on July 24, 2026 by First.One.Through

Thousands of Jews visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem this week during normal visiting hours on Tisha B’Av, the day commemorating the destruction of the First and Second Jewish Temples that once stood on that very site.

That is the basic fact. Everything that follows depends on how news organizations chose to describe it.

Outlet	Who?	Place	Action
The Guardian	“Jewish extremists“; “far-right” ministers	“Al-Aqsa mosque compound”	“Storm”
Reuters	“Israel’s Ben Gvir”; “National Security Minister”	“Al-Aqsa Mosque compound” (also notes Jews call it the Temple Mount in article)	“Visits”
Haaretz	“Far right Israeli acitivists“	“Al-Aqsa/Temple Mount Compound”	“Visit”
Arab & Palestinian media	“Settlers,” “far-right” or “extremists“	“Al-Aqsa Mosque“	“Raid” / “Storm“

The pattern is clear. The same event is transformed through language in the Muslim and Arab world: Temple Mount becomes Al-Aqsa; Jewish worshippers become “settlers” or “extremists”; a regulated religious visit during visiting hours becomes a “raid” or “storming.” And the results are laid out as “very dangerous” and “the global community has a shared responsibility to prevent Netanyahu’s ‘provocative acts.'”

This has a long ugly history and is expected in the radical Muslim press.

What is becoming more commonplace is for Europe to join this antisemitic framing. The United Kingdom’s The Guardian reported on the visit with the shrill tone and narrative of the Islamic world in a news article, not an opinion piece.

The visitors did not storm the site. They entered through Israeli security during established visiting hours. The Jews never entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque itself. They visited the Temple Mount – the holiest place in Judaism and site of the First and Second Jewish Temples – on a Jewish holiday about that specific location.

Calling thousands of Jewish worshippers “extremists” because they ascended Judaism’s holiest site on Tisha B’Av is itself an extraordinary editorial choice. The remarkable inversion is that the descendants of the people whose temples stood there are portrayed as intruders, while their religious observance is framed as an act of aggression.

Newspapers do not report that Muslims “stormed Mecca” during the Hajj or that Christians “stormed” the Vatican during Easter. Yet when Jews gather at Judaism’s holiest site, peaceful pilgrimage suddenly becomes an extremist assault.

This is especially troubling in Britain, where antisemitism has surged since October 7. British officials have repeatedly warned that the demonization of Israel spills into the demonization of British Jews, while chants of “jihad” and “intifada” have echoed through the country’s streets. The concern is no longer theoretical. Britain’s deadliest recent synagogue attack was carried out by an Islamic State adherent whose communications revealed deeply antisemitic views. More than half of Britain’s recorded antisemitic incidents in 2025 referenced Israel, “Palestine,” Hamas or the Gaza war.

The Guardian is not simply another British newspaper. It is one of the world’s most influential English-language news organizations, with most of its readership now outside Britain, including Ireland and Australia. Its reporting helps shape how millions understand events in Israel. Media watchdogs including CAMERA and HonestReporting have repeatedly criticized its language and framing on Israel and Jerusalem. Yet despite years of such criticism—and against the backdrop of rising antisemitism and repeated attacks on Jews in Britain—the newspaper chose to describe Jews observing one of Judaism’s most solemn days at their holiest site as fanatical Jews coming for Islamic holy sites. That framing does not remain confined to Britain. It travels with The Guardian‘s global audience.

Journalism’s first obligation is to help readers understand reality before interpreting it. When The Guardian abandons that duty in favor of inflammatory framing, it bears responsibility for contributing to the climate of hostility that encourages anti-Jewish hatred and violence.

ACTION ITEM

Contact The Guardian either through guardian.letters@theguardian.com or guardian.readers@theguardian.com and voicemail +44 (0)20 3353 4736 and opinion@theguardian.com

Storming Words, Not Mosques (April 2026)

The Dangerous ‘Settlers Storming Al Aqsa’ Fiction (October 2023)

Will This Be the Last Fast of Tisha B’Av?

Posted on July 23, 2026 by First.One.Through

For nearly 2,000 years, Jews have fasted on Tisha B’Av to mourn the destruction of the First and Second Temples, the loss of Jewish sovereignty, exile from Jerusalem, and a long chain of national tragedies.

Jewish tradition also teaches that the fast will not last forever. The prophet Zechariah envisioned a day when the fasts commemorating Jerusalem’s destruction would become days of “joy and gladness and cheerful festivals.” Many rabbis have understood that era to arrive with the rebuilding of the Temple.

No one knows when that day will come.

Yet the last century has witnessed changes that generations of Jews scarcely dared imagine.

The Jewish people returned to their ancestral homeland. The State of Israel was reborn (1948). Jerusalem was reunited under Jewish sovereignty (1967). For the first time in nearly two thousand years, Israel is home to the world’s largest Jewish population (2012).

Israel has also become increasingly accepted by its Arab and Muslim neighbors, establishing diplomatic relations with Egypt (1979), Jordan (1994), the United Arab Emirates (2020), Bahrain (2020), Morocco (2020), Sudan (2020, pending implementation), and Kosovo (2021). Meanwhile, the United States (2018), Guatemala (2018), Honduras (2021), Kosovo (2021), Papua New Guinea (2023), Paraguay (2024), and Fiji (2024) have moved their embassies to Jerusalem, while other countries (Slovenia and Nauru) are considering doing the same.

Last year (2025), more than 75,000 Jews ascended the Temple Mount – a modern record that would have been unimaginable only a generation ago.

*The Golden Gate in Jerusalem’s Old City exterior wall (photo: First One through)*

The Temple remains unbuilt and Tisha B’Av remains a day of mourning.

But it does raise a question that previous generations could scarcely have imagined asking: Will this be the last Tisha B’Av fast?

Perhaps Jews a century from now will still be asking the same question. Or perhaps they will look back and realize that ours was among the last generations to mourn the destruction rather than celebrate the restoration.

For almost two thousand years, that possibility seemed unimaginable. Today, it no longer does.

The Vessels We Carry

Posted on July 23, 2026 by First.One.Through

There is something profoundly human about gathering related things into a single vessel.

We do it with photo albums, where a lifetime of moments is gathered into one book. We do it with museums, where centuries of artifacts are brought together under one roof.

The Jewish calendar does the same with time.

Tisha B’Av is not merely the anniversary of the destruction of the First and Second Temples. Over centuries it became the vessel into which Jewish history poured its sorrows – from the destruction of the Temples to the expulsions from England and Spain, to catastrophes that culminated in the Holocaust. Generations found in Tisha B’Av a place large enough to hold them all.

*The Nuremberg Chronicle showing the destruction of Jerusalem*

The Temple Mount in Jerusalem became another vessel. Of place.

For much of history, Jerusalem was known as the city of the Jewish Temple. But over time it gathered far more meaning. It became the location of the near sacrifice of Isaac, the destination of pilgrimage, the focus of exile, and the direction toward which Jews have prayed for thousands of years.

Other faiths also poured meaning into Jerusalem. Christians revere it as the place of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. Muslims honor it as the destination of Muhammad’s Night Journey. Layer upon layer, century upon century, Jerusalem became more than a city. It became a vessel carrying humanity’s deepest convictions, hopes, and conflicts.

*Temple Mount at dawn (photo: First One Through)*

And then there is a unique people.

The Jewish people became a vessel unlike any other. Across thousands of years they carried covenant, exile, learning, persecution, survival, and hope. They preserved ancient language, sacred texts, melodies, customs, and memory across continents and generations. They became the vessel through which memory survived when kingdoms fell, empires vanished, and even the Temple itself lay in ruins.

Every vessel carries something. Some carry water. Some carry treasure. Some carry ashes. The greatest vessels carry what cannot be touched: memory, identity, covenant, and hope.

And that is what the Jewish people, Jerusalem, and Tisha B’Av have become. Three vessels in one elaborate story.

Every generation poured something more into those vessels: not only grief, but hope.

Within them rests the hope captured in the Israeli national anthem, Hatikvah: that the Jewish people will live as a free people in their own land, with Jerusalem at its heart.

And on Tisha B’Av in particular, the vessel holds one additional hope above all others: the rebuilding of the Beit HaMikdash. Not because Jews long merely for stones and walls, but because it represents the restoration of wholeness – between God and humanity, a people and their land, memory and redemption.

Every Tisha B’Av, Jews gather into one day the grief of centuries, turn toward one city, and renew one hope. As they do, they recognize that this is more than a story of three fused vessels. It is that together they carry one enduring promise.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: