Monthly Archives: September 2025

Names and Narrative: “Pro-Palestinian” and “Anti-Jews”

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Words aren’t decoration.  They frame a story. They tilt the field before the debate even begins.

No paper knows this better than The New York Times and no example shows it more clearly than how it writes about two of the most polarizing issues of our time—abortion and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

On abortion, the Times refuses the label protestors with their preferred title of “pro-life” and insists on “anti-abortion.” The paper’s label defines the movement by what it resists, not what it values. It subtly paints millions of people as opponents instead of advocates.

But when protests are aimed at Jews, the Times flips its rule. It happily uses the demonstrators’ own term: “pro-Palestinian,” even when the protestors’ behavior has nothing to do with seeking coexistence or statehood—and everything to do with targeting Jews.

The case in Teaneck, New Jersey laid the hypocrisy bare. A synagogue held a program for diaspora Jews interested in buying homes in the land of Israel—an act tied to faith and heritage, not to any government or war. Demonstrators showed up to block them.
They shrieked through vuvuzelas inches from people’s ears.
They set off stink bombs.
They mocked their religion.
They shoved and harassed them at the very doors of a house of prayer.

“Protestors” including leaders from Within Our Lifetime come to harass Jews at New Jersey synagogue, screaming “long live the intifada!”

The Justice Department sued under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act—a law that protects people entering both abortion clinics and houses of worship. The law exists to defend basic civil rights: to seek medical care, to pray, to gather without harassment.

Yet the Times reported the incident as a “pro-Palestinian protest,” not “anti-Jewish intimidation.”

It claimed that the law was being “repurposed” by the Trump administration which as “taking a side” in a “dispute” against “advocacy groups.”

The New York Times on September 29, 2025

For the far left media, one group—pro-life advocates—is defined by opposition; the other—those harassing Jews at worship—is defined by aspiration.

That is not journalism. That is narrative management.

Language molds the story before the facts are even heard. By choosing which side’s self-description to honor, the Times signals which side it wants readers to sympathize with. It is the Times that has taken sides, not the Trump administration. The U.S. is simply enforcing a law written to protect houses of worship which are increasingly under attack.

Police surround St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, including a SWAT team with machine guns at the entrance, on September 29, 2025

A standard worth trusting would be consistent. Either call both movements by their chosen names, or describe both by their actions. But don’t dignify harassment with the protestors’ preferred brand while stripping advocacy of its own.

In the case of the NJ synagogue, the hypocrisy is worse and laid out as evil. Pro-life demonstrators don’t want ANYONE to have an abortion; the “pro-Palestinian” protestors only want JEWS to be banned from buying homes in the land of Israel. They would happily promote Arabs buying every apartment unit that was showcased at the event. They are clearly “anti-Jews” and should labeled as such.

Yet the Times rewrites the story as one about “pro-Palestinian speech” and “First amendment rights.” It pretends that the FACE law isn’t specifically about religious freedom.

The NY Times wrote that FACE was about exercising First Amendment rights at a place of worship – leading a reader to think it was about Free Speech – but FACE is about “right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship.” A sinister misdirection.

The power of the press lies not just in what it reports but in how it names things.
A double standard in language is a double standard in truth.

The left-wing media is lying to its readers that people who harass Jews are simply “pro-Palestinian” and not “Anti-Jews.” The New York Times is complicit in antisemitism.

The Sins That Sink

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On Shabbat Shuva, the Sabbath between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the haftarah proclaims:

“You will again have compassion on us;
    you will tread our sins underfoot
    and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea..”
— Micah 7:19

That verse frames the season. At the start of the Ten Days of Repentance, we gather by a river or lake for Tashlich, casting crumbs into the current as a sign of casting off our wrongs.
It is not superstition but a declaration of hope: the sinner is not the sin; the two can be parted.

Jonah’s Descent

At the other end of the Ten Days, on Yom Kippur afternoon, we read the story of Jonah — the counter-story.

Jonah fled from God’s call aboard a ship. A storm raged over the ship until the sailors, reluctantly, cast him overboard, and suddenly the sea grew calm. By all natural expectation, Jonah should have floated. Instead, he sank. He recounts:

“The waters closed in over me;
the deep engulfed me;
weeds were wrapped around my head.”
— Jonah 2:5

Jonah could not separate from his defiance; he was dragged to the bottom with it.

Then God sent the great fish — not as a punishment but as a chamber of mercy, a hollow where Jonah could face his failing, pray, and be restored to life. The fish shows that even in the depths, repentance is still possible.

“Jonah Thrown to the Whale” by Johannes Sadeler I, circa 1582. In the background, another ship can be seen sailing in calm waters, showing that the boat with Jonah was targeted for punishment. Jonah’s head faces the roaring sea, accepting his fate.

Two Fish, One Lesson

Many have the custom to recite Tashlich at a stream that has living fish. Some suggest it is a symbol of good luck while others suggest that the fish “consume” the symbolic sins, carrying them away like a scapegoat.

Placed against the story of Jonah, the image deepens: the fish in the stream greet us at the gates of the Ten Days; the great fish of Jonah meets us at their close. The small fish beneath the ripples hint at an easy parting from our minor failings; the great fish is the last-chance refuge for those who waited too long.

The High Holiday season sets the choice before us:

At the opening, we can cast our sins away and watch them sink while we stand free on the shore. At the closing, if we still cling to them, we risk being dragged under — yet even then there is mercy, a chance to pray and rise again.

The waters of Micah and Jonah teach the same truth: our sins can drown without dragging us under — if we will let them go.

Let us all attempt to separate ourselves from sin, and cast them into the depths of the water and be blessed with a new year of health and opportunity.

“Jonah Spat up by the Whale” by Johannes Sadeler I, circa 1582, with the sun seemingly rising in the background to highlight Jonah living to see a new day. Jonah stares at the heavens seeing that the storm has passed.

The Two Witnesses of Vayelech

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In Vayelech, as Moses nears the end of his life, he does not leave the Israelites with swords, maps, or battle plans.
He leaves them two witnesses.

“…so that this song may be for Me a witness against the children of Israel.” (Deut. 31:19)

“Take this Book of the Torah… and place it beside the Ark… and it shall be there as a witness against you.” (Deut. 31:26)

Two witnesses. One to sing. One to see.

The Private Witness: A Song to Internalize

The first witness is the Song of Moses.
It is not carved in stone or locked in a chest.
It is taught to the people, meant to be recited, memorized, carried in the heart and on the lips.

A song reaches places that statutes cannot.
It does not merely command; it shapes the soul.
It reminds each individual of the covenant — in good times and in hardship — and demands that a person take responsibility for his or her own faithfulness.

This witness lives in the quiet spaces of life, where no physical judge or priest is watching.
It whispers: “You know what is right. Act accordingly.”

The Public Witness: A Testament to See

The second witness is the Torah scroll.
It is set beside the Ark, in the very center of the national camp.
It is the visible, enduring reference point — the community’s constitution.

While the song stirs the conscience, the scroll sets the standard.
It unites the people under a single covenantal banner, a guide to which the entire nation can point and say:
“This is who we are. This is what we have pledged together.”

Two Responsibilities, One Blessing

Vayelech teaches that the covenant’s blessing flows only when both witnesses are honored:

  • The private witness — internalizing the principle, carrying it daily.
  • The public witness — keeping the community anchored to the same course.

A society that prizes the public witness alone risks becoming a hollow bureaucracy.
A society that trusts only the private witness descends into scattered individualism.

Blessing comes from both: each person singing the song of covenantal responsibility,
and all together respecting the scroll that binds the nation.

The Enduring Lesson — and a Voice from Rabbi Sacks

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks captured this dual dimension of covenant beautifully:

“Covenant is more than law. It is law internalized, turned into song.
We need the public voice of law and the private voice of conscience, for only together do they sustain a free society.”
— Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Covenant & Conversation: Deuteronomy, Parashat Vayelech (2008)

On the eve of entering the Land, Moses anchored Israel’s future not in military tactics but in responsibility.
The first step toward national blessing was not conquest but character — personal and collective.

The Song calls us to self-discipline.
The Scroll calls us to shared fidelity.

When we heed both — the witness in the heart and the witness before the eyes — we walk the road of blessing.
Ignore either, and the covenant frays.

That is the enduring message of Vayelech: A people’s future depends on individuals taking responsibility for themselves and on the community staying the course together.

Peter Paul Rubens (1577 – 1640), “King David Playing the harp”

The Copyrights of Winnie the Pooh and Jews

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When Winnie-the-Pooh entered the public domain in 2022, the cultural floodgates opened. A once-beloved children’s character, wrapped in honey jars and innocent nostalgia, was immediately remade into a monster. “Blood and Honey” turned Pooh into a savage killer. Games, parodies, and dark pastiches flooded the market. The comforting bear was no longer safe; he had been transformed into a canvas for other people’s fears, cynicism, and jokes.

It feels eerily familiar.

For two thousand years, Jews have been cast into the public domain. Stripped of the right to define their own story, they became available for anyone’s use. And abuse. Once known as the people of the Book, bearers of commandments, prophets, and a covenant, their identity was seized and rewritten. Medieval Christians branded them Christ-killers. Islamic empires reduced them to dhimmis. The Enlightenment caricatured them as rootless and ruthless bankers. In the modern age, they became “colonizers,” “supremacists,” and the avatars of “genocide.”

The Jews never sold the copyright to their name or history, but the world took it anyway. Just as horror producers found amusement in twisting Pooh into a monster, antisemites—left, right, secular, religious—have scribbled their darkest nightmares onto Jewish bodies. Pogroms, expulsions, inquisitions, and now, boycotts and campus rallies all stem from a warped creativity that insists Jews cannot own their own narrative.

Israel’s rebirth was supposed to end this. After all, if you reclaim your home, revive your language, rebuild your state, surely you also reassert your identity. But even here, the appropriation continues. Israel was smeared as “apartheid,” “genocide,” “ethnic cleansing,” “racist,” and “colonial” decades before Hamas launched its latest genocidal war. “Jewish self-determination” is rewritten as oppression. “Defending children” is recast as war crimes. The oldest continuous nation on earth is treated as a villain in someone else’s morality play.

The difference between Winnie-the-Pooh and the Jews is stark. The fictitious character Pooh was released into the public domain by the natural passage of time, his copyright protection simply expiring. The Jews were thrust into the public domain by malice—by the unwillingness of societies to allow them ownership of their story. The Jewish Bible was rebranded as the Old Testament, out of copyright protection. Blood libels took hold on the bleached pages of Jewish foundational documents.

The current Jewish year is 5786. Traditionally, Jews write the date in Hebrew letters like Roman numerals and drop the 5 as being well understood. The letters for 86 spell “Pooh” in Hebrew, so now is as good a time as any to attempt a change that the 1948 reestablishment of the Jewish State did not provide.

One simple action is for everyone to write a large ‘5’ before the date, making clear to themselves and others that their faith predates all others, and continues still.

Challenge every use of the phrase “Promised Land” as a vicious varietal of cultural appropriation, which strips Jewish indigenous people from their divine heritage.

More dramatic is to reclaim Jewish rights on the Temple Mount. Why should the world care about Jewish faith and feelings if the majority of Jews treat the center of its religious devotion as a vestigial organ instead of the beating heart? Are we a living people or a hollow chamber for others to draw upon?

We must not countenance the free license for others to slander, parody, or profit off the Jewish name. The Jewish people are not public property. They are the authors and owners of their own identity—and it is time for them to act as such.

Children of a Lesser God, on the Temple Mount

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Mark Medoff titled his play Children of a Lesser God to expose the way society infantilized the deaf, treating them as incomplete people. The phrase still burns because it names the humiliation: being allowed to exist but denied equal dignity.

That is precisely the status of Jews on the Temple Mount. The holiest place in Judaism, the very ground of the First and Second Temples, the site of the binding of Isaac. Yet Jews are barred from uttering a prayer there. Visitors, reluctantly and barely; worshipers, never. The “status quo” enforced by the Jordanian Waqf with United Nations’ support dictates that Jews must keep their mouths shut.

It is a civic cruelty disguised as compromise. Jews are told they may stand in the place of their ancestors, but only as tourists in a museum, not as children before God. Muslims pray freely on the Mount by the millions, but Jews are gagged at their own holiest site. That is not neutrality — it is Islamic Imperialism.

The excuses are familiar: security, stability, avoiding unrest. But those words simply sanctify discrimination as pragmatism. As every Jew is expelled for moving lips in silent prayer, the world is reminded: some children are still treated as children of a “lesser” god.

At the very moment Jews prayed in synagogues over Rosh Hashanah 5786 in September 2025, reading the story of Abraham binding Isaac on the Temple Mount and repeatedly praying for a complete Jerusalem, the Islamic world – from as far away as Pakistan and Indonesia – made demands of the United States that it would ensure that Israel maintains the “status quo” on the Mount. The despicable continued humiliation of Jews was essential for them even under the guise of stopping the Hamas war. Even above “humanitarian aid to Gaza.”

Islamic world makes demands on the United States to stop the war – and Jews attempting to pray at their holiest location

International diplomacy has institutionalized the humiliation of Jews. The so-called status quo is nothing but a permanent statement of inequality.

Medoff’s play forced audiences to confront a society that silenced the deaf. The Temple Mount forces us to confront a world that silences Jews. While both are intolerable, the latter is demanded at the anti-Jewish United Nations.

“Free Palestine” Means Dead Jews

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Words earn their meaning in how they are used. When a slogan is repeatedly screamed as an incitement to burn, stab, gun down, and terrorize people because of who they are or whom they support, it ceases to be mere rhetoric. It becomes a battle cry — and its meaning is what the battle cry does.

We have painful, recent proof of the sickness. In several separate, well-documented attacks in the United States, suspects shouted “Free Palestine” while carrying out murderous attacks. Investigations and prosecutions have treated these shouts not as abstract political slogans but as part of a violent intent to harm people identified as Jewish, Zionist, or supporters of Israel.

Man shoots people, killing one in New Hampshire yelling “Free Palestine”

When the slogan is used repeatedly for arson, firebombs, knives and bullets, its practical meaning is indisputable: it is a call for violence against Jews and Israel supporters. Institutions that track antisemitic violence warn that normalizing chants tied to violence contributes directly to more attacks. We see that “Free Palestine” is a call to murder.

Man burns people alive, killing one in Boulder, CO, shouting “Free Palestine”

That ugly truth cannot be dressed up in euphemisms or by pleading free-speech. “Free Palestine” is the current moment’s “Allahu Akbar,” the chant of radical jihadists intent on killing “infidels.” For the assailants, today’s infidels are Jews and Israel supporters.

Couple killed in Washington, DC by man yelling “Free Palestine”

It begs the question of what a “Free Palestine” means when used so frequently in murderous rampages. Are there zealots killing because they want a peaceful Palestine, or is it more likely that they seek a Palestine that is free to kill Jews the way thousands of Gazans did on October 7, 2023?

Man tries to kill Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and his family on Passover over “Palestine”

The one area that became a “Free Palestine” was Gaza when Israel left the region in 2005. Within a year, the political-terrorist group Hamas won 58% of the Palestinian parliament election and a year later took over Gaza. In the aftermath of the October 7 massacre in Israel, 72% of Palestinian Arabs supported the attack and the majority still want Hamas to rule according to Palestinian polls.

“Free Palestine” means death to Israel supporters outside of Israel, and death to Jews inside of Israel. Knowing this, are western countries recognizing a Palestinian State to both get a more proportionate death toll in the war and to kill more Jews in their own countries?

Palestinian terrorism has gone global. The question is whether the Palestinian Authority’s “Martyr’s Fund” start to pay killers of Israel supporters globally (as predicted on these pages in August 2023).

De-Islamification, The Twin of Decolonization

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“Decolonization” has become one of the most fashionable buzzwords of the modern age. It is taught in schools, shouted in protests, and deployed at the United Nations as a moral bludgeon against the West. European imperialists, we are told, robbed indigenous peoples of their land, stripped them of their culture, and erected foreign regimes on stolen soil. The work of decolonization — dismantling those legacies and restoring dignity — has been cast as the great ethical project of our time.

But what of the other colonial power that swept across continents, subjugating peoples and erasing their sacred spaces? What of Islamic imperialism, which invaded the Jewish promised land centuries ago, laying claim to sites that predated Muhammad’s birth by millennia?

Consider Hebron, the resting place of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, and Leah. For Jews, it is the Ma’arat HaMachpelah, the Cave of the Jewish Matriarchs and Patriarchs — a holy site woven into the very text of Genesis. When Muslim conquerors took over, they renamed it the “Ibrahimi Mosque,” transformed it into a shrine for their own creed, and barred Jews from entering. For seven hundred years, Jews were not even allowed to set foot past the seventh step of the building.

This was not preservation; it was expropriation. A classic colonial tactic: erase the indigenous name, overwrite the meaning, and forbid the natives from practicing their own faith.

But unlike the narratives drilled into young students about European settlers in Africa or Asia, the Jewish story is not told.

In 1967, Israel liberated Hebron, and Jews once again could pray at the burial site of their patriarchs and matriarchs. Slowly, painstakingly, the work of de-Islamification has begun — not by erasing the Muslim presence, but by restoring Jewish rights. Jews may now pray, Jews may now enter, Jews may now sanctify their ancestral home.

And in June 2025, a historic step was taken: the Israeli government transferred administration of the second holiest site in Judaism to Jewish leaders in Kiryat Arba, removing it from the sole control of the Islamic waqf. This was neither vengeance nor displacement. It was simple justice — the recognition that all of those buried at the site are the founders of Judaism (while only one is revered by Muslims), and Jews are the indigenous people in the land as proven by that fact.

Decolonization movements have received global endorsement. Universities run entire programs on “postcolonial studies.” Yet when Jews engage in the parallel project of reclaiming their holy spaces from centuries of Islamic imperial rule, the world looks away — or worse, condemns.

Why should “decolonization” be celebrated while “de-Islamification” is scorned? Both are projects of justice. Both undo centuries of cultural theft. Both restore indigenous peoples to their rightful heritage.

If the United Nations were consistent, it would champion de-Islamification alongside decolonization. It would recognize Jewish efforts as authentic acts of restoration, not “provocations.” Schools should teach children that just as Africans reclaimed their lands from European empires, Jews are reclaiming their sacred spaces from Islamic erasure.

Instead, the UN gives its platform to radical jihadists who claim that Israel is trying to “Judaize” the Jewish holy sites in Jerusalem and Hebron. It’s an offensive smear deliberately made to try to erase the reality of their Islamic imperialism, colonization, ethic cleansing and cultural appropriation.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas talking about the “Judaization” of Jerusalem to conceal that Islamic cultural appropriation.

The jihadists fear that after Hebron, the Jews will come for the site they know is really Jewish – Jerusalem. They are calling the transfer of the Cave of the Jewish Matriarchs and Patriarchs from the Hebron Waqf to Jewish authorities a “rehearsal for al Aqsa” in Jerusalem. They know the Jewish Temple Mount is the holiest site for Jews and Muslims invaded and took the site. They are proud of the feat and fear a reversal would legitimize a people they consider “sons of apes and pigs.“

There is no “Judaization” of Jerusalem and Hebron. There is de-Islamification.

Decolonization may be decades old, but de-Islamification is still in its early chapters. It deserves not only legitimacy, but applause.

Beyond The Battle Plan

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For the last several parshas, Moses has been addressing the children of Israel with a constant refrain: follow the commandments in the land, and you will be blessed; stray from them, and you will lose your inheritance. To us today, these verses are about mitzvot — the commandments that define Jewish life. But to the Israelites standing on the banks of the Jordan, the charge must have sounded different.

They had just watched an entire generation die in the desert. The memory of the spies still lingered — those men who declared that the land was too difficult to conquer, that the people within were too mighty to destroy. Could such whispers have been forgotten? Surely the children had heard rumors of what their parents had repeated around campfires for forty years. And now, standing on the edge of the land, they might have expected Moses to lay out the strategy, the order of battle, the plan of conquest.

Instead, Moses did something else entirely. He skipped the war. He jumped straight to what life would look like after. The rules of worship, the rhythms of daily life, the blessings and curses of obedience. It was as if the battles ahead — Jericho’s walls, Ai’s ambush, the wars against mighty kings — would be non-events.

Imagine a coach gathering his team before kickoff and skipping the playbook. Instead, he passes out dinner menus for the victory banquet to follow. No Xs and Os. No defensive schemes. Only a vision of celebration after the game.

Why? Perhaps it was Joshua’s role to direct the war, the next chapter of the Tanach already waiting to be written. Perhaps Moses, who knew he would not enter the land, wanted to leave the people with principles for the future. Or perhaps Moses was teaching something deeper: that the wars were only one part of securing a peaceful future. That the real challenge was not in winning the land, but in living faithfully within it.

The truth is, the dream of the land was already realized — even if the Israelites didn’t know it. Hundreds of years of diaspora were ending. The promise was being fulfilled before their eyes, not through a war plan but through divine decree. The land would be theirs. The victory was guaranteed. What remained in doubt was whether they would keep it.

Moses understood: the conquest would be won by God’s hand, but the inheritance would be maintained only through God’s law. The spies had feared giants and fortified cities, but the true danger was disobedience and forgetfulness once the land was secured. That is why Moses spoke not of how to conquer, but of how to live.

The people knew that Joshua would lead them to battle, just as he had over Amalek. And they had seen that Moses was their intermediary with God, who prayed for their success (Exodus 17:10-13). Now Moses was telling the people: you no longer need me as your agent; you are they keys to victory. Prayers during battle to secure victory; obedience thereafter to keep the peace.

Aaron and Hur hold up the hands of Moses in prayer as he grew tired, asking God’s help for Joshua to lead the people to victory in battle

And so it is today. The battles of our time are real, but they are only part of the threat. We must not be complacent. We must not assume that everything is on the battlefield. Beyond the battle plans lies our own responsibilities in living a meaningful life and knowing the source of our strength.

ACTION PLAN

Go to the United Nations and sing outside the line from Al Tira, “Utzu Etza”: “Take counsel together, and it shall come to nought; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us.”

The Wisdom of Waiting

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The ability to delay gratification has long been seen as a mark of intelligence. The famous “marshmallow test” placed children in front of a single treat and offered a simple bargain: eat it now, or wait and get two. Those who resisted often went on to succeed academically, socially, even financially. Patience was not just a virtue; it was predictive.

Yet it turns out this trait is not uniquely human. In a Cambridge experiment, cuttlefish were given a similar choice — a mediocre meal immediately or a shrimp, their favorite, if they waited. They waited. In fact, they sometimes endured two full minutes of temptation, holding out for the better prize. Even more remarkable: those same cuttlefish who delayed showed sharper learning in other tests. Intelligence, it seems, wears many disguises.

This was the first time this kind of patience was found in an invertebrate. Chimpanzees, crows and parrots have long been known to delay satisfaction in order to save food for later.

What makes this discovery all the more striking is that cuttlefish are solitary creatures. They do not form schools, build social bonds, or raise their young. Their patience evolved for the hunt — the advantage of waiting for the better prey, of holding still in camouflage until the perfect strike. Their foresight is purely individual, a strategy of survival.

Humans, by contrast, require patience not just for survival but for flourishing. Patience is what allows us to build together — to trust one another, to undertake projects that span generations, to cultivate communities and civilizations. Our ancestors planted trees whose shade they would never sit under and built cathedrals that took centuries to complete, as an extension of delayed satisfaction – a commitment towards a future society they would never enjoy.

But in our age of instant messages, instant news, and instant outrage, society no longer prizes waiting. Why suffer a moment of discomfort when a thousand distractions beckon from a glowing screen? Why wrestle with the silence of patience when clicks deliver dopamine now? Where our forebears saw wisdom in restraint, we see boredom. Where they saw the dignity of discipline, we see inconvenience.

Patience as a virtue is not just about self-control; it is the very condition that allows for deep thought and deep bonds. To abandon patience is to abdicate our gifts of reflection, to trade away the ability to imagine futures greater than the present moment. In our hurry, we become more animalistic, lunging at whatever stimulus flashes before us. And unlike the cuttlefish, whose patience serves survival, we squander patience’s higher purpose — the power to build not only buildings that endure, but bonds that sustain.

Are we in the process of losing our basic survival skills – in both the present and future? Are we burying our ability to ponder to be led like dolts to an unsuspecting danger?

The irony is sharp: solitary cuttlefish wait with foresight, while humans — the only creature who truly needs patience to hold communities together — are in danger of forgetting how. Delayed gratification once built civilizations. Instant gratification now tears at their foundations.

The cuttlefish reminds us that intelligence is not about speed but foresight. A creature with no interest in faith, family, or future still knows the wisdom of waiting. The question that remains is whether we do.

Pilgrims or Provocateurs?

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A Muslim who visits Mecca is called a Hajji. It is one of the highest honors in Islam, the completion of the Hajj pilgrimage, celebrated by family and community as a sacred accomplishment.

A Catholic who travels to the Vatican is a pilgrim. For centuries, the faithful have journeyed to Rome, walking into St. Peter’s Square with reverence, greeted with blessing and legitimacy.

And a Jew who goes to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem — the very place where the First and Second Temples once stood, the holiest site in Judaism? That Jew is branded a provocateur. Not a pilgrim, not a worshiper, not a faithful soul ascending to pray — but an instigator, an agitator, an accused trespasser, a “settler” on their own sacred ground.

The disparity could not be starker. What is celebrated as devotion for others is condemned as incitement for Jews. For Muslims, the Hajj is a right; for Catholics, Vatican pilgrimage is honored; but for Jews, even quiet prayer on the Temple Mount is labeled an offense — by the United Nations, NGOs, and international bodies.

It is not only hypocrisy; it is erasure. To deny Jews the name of pilgrim is to deny Jewish history, Jewish identity, and Jewish legitimacy. It casts the holiest place in Judaism as alien to Jews themselves, a desecration of memory turned into policy.

And why? Because the world has normalized the jihad. It has allowed Islamic Supremacy to dictate permissible behavior, even in the Jewish holy land.

The truth is simple: a Jew ascending the Temple Mount is not incitement. It is the most ancient pilgrimage of them all — the echo of three millennia of devotion, commanded in Torah, rooted in covenant, and carried in every prayer whispered toward Jerusalem, before Islam was even created.

The real provocation is not the Jew who prays on the Temple Mount but a world that dares to tell Jews they don’t belong at the center of their faith.

ACTION ITEM

Come to the United Nations in New York City and demand Jewish rights and freedom of religious assembly in Jerusalem.