Much of the attention on the Balfour Declaration—issued on November 2, 1917—focuses on the United Kingdom’s pledge to “facilitate” “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” Israel-haters rage at this clause, claiming that Jews had no historical connection to their ancestral homeland and that Britain had no right to “hand over” immigration rights from local Arabs to Jews.
Balfour Declaration
On the anniversary of the Declaration in 1943, Heinrich Himmler of Nazi Germany sent a telegram to the “Grand Mufti” of Jerusalem that Nazis and Arabs had the same enemies – Jewish invaders. In 2016, the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas demanded an apology and reparations from Britain for issuing the Balfour Declaration, having repeatedly failed to destroy the Jewish State.
Telegram from Heinrich Himmler to Amin al-Husseini on November 2, 1943
But there’s another part of that same document that antisemites also detest. The closing line reads:
“…nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
That final clause—protecting Jews’ rights around the world—is precisely what modern antisemitic movements are trying to undermine. Groups like Within Our Lifetime, CAIR, and the Democratic Socialists of America openly campaign to dismantle what they deride as “Jewish power” in America.
They smear Jews as self-serving “capitalists,” accuse them of exploiting “Black and Brown bodies” for profit (as Rep. Rashida Tlaib has said), and seek to push Jews to the margins of public life—all because Jews affirm that the land of Israel is their homeland.
A century after the Balfour Declaration, its promise remains under attack—not only in the Jewish homeland but wherever Jews dare to live proud and free.
Obama’s warning has become the Democratic nightmare in New York City
When Barack Obama commented in 2016 that Democrats were seen as “coastal, liberal, latte-sipping, politically correct, out-of-touch folks,” it was a wink to the party’s reputation — cultured, ironic, and comfortably detached. He meant it as a warning. But nine years later, the call about paying attention to Middle America has become prophecy about the edges. The latte-sippers have soured and radicalized on the coasts.
In New York City, the same college-educated progressives who once debated justice over cold brew now chant “Globalize the Intifada.” State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, a proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America, leads the charge. What began as a movement which could generously be described as advocating inclusion and equity has evolved into a campaign to dismantle the American order itself. Mamdani and his allies call for the end of “empire” — by which they mean capitalism, policing, private property, and even the current structure of education and governance.
Obama’s gentle caricature of the latte class — earnest but insulated — has given way to something angrier and openly revolutionary. The Democratic Socialists’ worldview is not about reforming the system; it’s about replacing it. They seek a complete redistribution of wealth and power — not by persuasion, but by restructuring society’s foundations. Police are rebranded as “colonial enforcers.” Public schools become “sites of decolonization.” Private ownership itself is treated as moral corruption. It demands a “new economic order,” “new international solidarity,” “new moral vision,” “new global governance,” “new global organizations,” and a “new political era.”
This is not the politics of compassion, but of confrontation. The privileged class that once signaled virtue with hashtags and slogans now preaches a theology of resentment. They speak of liberation but demand obedience; they denounce power while pursuing it ruthlessly through intimidation and ideology. In the name of justice, they aim to burn down the very structures that made justice possible.
Nowhere is this more visible than in the 2025 New York City mayoral race, where Mamdani and the DSA have moved from campus protests to the ballot box. Their platform is sweeping: defund and “reimagine” the police, end merit-based education, socialize housing, and impose vast new public ownership schemes. It is a manifesto for the redistribution not just of wealth, but of control — from elected institutions to activist networks.
The symbolism is staggering. The city that once embodied liberal ambition — the energy of Wall Street, the art of Broadway, the immigrant striving that defined America — now flirts with an ideology that condemns its own success. From Columbia’s lecture halls to Brooklyn’s activist collectives, the heirs of Obama’s “latte-sipping liberals” now view the American dream as a capitalist fraud.
If Mamdani’s movement captures City Hall, it won’t just transform New York’s politics; it will mark the moment when the Democratic Party’s indulgence of its radical wing becomes surrender. The centrism of Obama and Clinton — built on pragmatism and incremental reform — is being replaced by the revolutionary certainties of those who see compromise as corruption.
Obama once teased his party for sipping lattes on the coasts, detached from ordinary life. Today, those same hands are clenched into fists. The mugs are gone, replaced by megaphones and manifestos. The “latte-sippers” have become the street revolutionaries — no longer content to mock the system, but determined to overthrow it.
As New York teeters between order and upheaval, the rest of the country would do well to take heed — and look right.
ACTION ITEMS
Register as a Democrat – regardless of your politics – in deeply blue cities and towns
Vote – and get out the vote – in the Democratic primaries for moderate candidates. Do not let the DSA take over your town
Vote Republican in the general November election. Keep your city and town from one party rule
Enlist popular moderate politicians to run who will keep the race between two individuals – extremists win in elections with numerous candidates
Local grassroots organization is key. It starts now, not weeks before elections
The first words God ever spoke to the first Jew were not of comfort, but command:
“Go forth from your country, from your birthplace, and from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you.” (Genesis 12:1)
Abraham was told to leave everything that gave him safety — his home, his family, his people — and to walk alone to a foreign and unknown land.
That is the Jewish story. And it remains Israel’s story today.
Abraham Ortelius map “Journey of Abraham”, 1595
The Call to Walk Alone
Lech Lecha is more than a journey of geography; it is a test of courage. Abraham separated from a world that had lost its moral compass. He stood against the idols of his age.
Israel does the same now. The world pities the violent. It demands “restraint” from the victim and “understanding” for the murderer. Israel stands almost alone — mocked, pressured, condemned — for defending its people from those who glory in death.
Lech Lecha reminds us that holiness begins with separation. To follow conscience sometimes means turning your back on the crowd.
The Lonely Battle
When Abraham heard that his nephew Lot was taken captive, he didn’t wait for permission. He gathered a few hundred men and faced an army of kings. Outnumbered, he fought — and won.
That is Israel today. A small nation surrounded by hostile powers, fighting not for conquest but survival. Like Abraham, it refuses to wait for global approval before rescuing its own.
The Modern Lech Lecha
To stand alone is never easy. It is lonely, painful, and exhausting. But moral isolation is not failure — it is faith.
Abraham began our story by walking away from a world gone mad. Israel continues it by standing firm in one.
Lech Lecha — Go forth. Fight on. Even if you walk alone.
There are signs on the streets of London that read “LOOK RIGHT.” They are painted boldly on the pavement to protect visitors—especially Americans—who are used to glancing left before stepping into the street. In the U.K., traffic comes from the opposite direction, and those who rely on old instincts can find themselves in sudden danger.
So it is now with American Jews.
For generations, they have turned instinctively to the Democratic Party—to the left—out of habit, heritage, and a deep belief that liberal ideals best protected minorities. But the political landscape has shifted beneath their feet. The party that once championed freedom, tolerance, and support for Israel has been co-opted by radicals: anti-Israel voices, socialists, and anarchists who now wield growing influence in its ranks.
These are not the Democrats of old. They are activists who view capitalism as oppression, who denounce Israel as colonial, and who see Jews not as a vulnerable minority but as part of a power structure to be dismantled. They are coming for capitalism—and for the Jews who helped build and sustain it.
This election, American Jews must recognize that the public square is not what it used to be. The political traffic now comes from the right direction—but the danger comes from the left.
When Government Champions Some, and Leaves Jews to Defend Themselves
Westchester County, NY, like much of America, has learned the vocabulary of inclusion. It now boasts a tapestry of advisory boards, task forces, and community liaisons — each designed to protect and empower those who have known prejudice.
There is a Westchester County Asian American Advisory Board, formed after a surge of anti-Asian hate crimes during COVID. It partners with the District Attorney’s office on the #SpeakUpWestchester campaign, translating safety materials into Korean, Mandarin, and Japanese so that no one’s fear goes unheard.
There is also an LGBTQ+ Advisory Board, formally empowered to advise the County Executive, coordinate events, and oversee inclusivity training. The county even facilitated an LGBTQ+-affirming senior housing complex in downtown White Plains with The LOFT Community Center at its core — an unprecedented public-private partnership to create safe spaces for queer residents.
But there is one group that still has to do it all on its own: Jews.
There is no County Jewish Advisory Board. No county liaison for antisemitism. No government program translating “Never Again” into action.
While Asian and LGBTQ+ residents have been given official seats inside government, Jews have been told — quietly, politely — to use their own.
Even the collection of antisemitic incident data — which rose 22 percent in Westchester in 2024 — is largely managed by private watchdogs, not public offices.
The disparity is not just institutional; it is measurable.
Westchester County has 1 million residents, including about 137,000 Jews (14% of the population) and about 65,000 Asian Americans (7%).
According to state hate-crime data and ADL monitoring, there were about 40 antisemitic incidents and 8 anti-Asian incidents reported in Westchester in 2024. That translates to an estimated 29 antisemitic incidents per 100,000 Jewish residents versus roughly 12 per 100,000 Asian residents — a per-capita rate more than twice as high.
Rather than address the antisemitism squarely, Westchester District Attorney Susan Cacace made an inclusive Hate Crimes Advisory Board which had its inaugural meeting on September 29. Cacace was proud of the giant tent and said “the communities represented on this board are broad and diverse, and board members will be able to provide me with direct input from their constituents so that my office may more readily address their concerns.”
The Westchester County District Attorney’s Office’s new Hate Crimes Advisory Board
The all-Democratic Westchester establishment seemed to echo the Democratically-led House of Representatives which refused to condemn antisemitism without adding language about Islamophobia in 2019. Jew protection cannot exist in isolation for some reason for the Blue Team. It seemingly repulses them so much, that when Republicans target antisemitism, they argue that President Trump is “weaponizing antisemitism” and not really concerned about Jews at all.
No one begrudges others their protection. Jews, more than anyone, know the cost of silence. But the imbalance is glaring.
When the Asian community faced hate during COVID, Westchester created a formal board within months. When LGBTQ+ residents sought recognition, government became a partner in building physical spaces of affirmation. But when antisemitic assaults, harassment, and vandalism spiked across campuses, streets, and synagogues, the government offered sympathy — not structure.
Graffiti on Jewish stores in Scarsdale, NY, January 2024
The Jewish paradox
Jews are trapped in a paradox. Their success is cited as proof they don’t need help; their vulnerability dismissed as self-inflicted. They are “white” enough to be privileged, but “Jewish” enough to be blamed.
And so, when antisemitism surges, the reflex of government is not to protect but to delegate — to community partners, to philanthropists, to the victims themselves. Or to give the general feeling of blanket protection alongside others, masking the fact that they are persecuted more frequently than every other minority group.
For centuries, Jews have thrived where societies upheld justice and faltered where governments outsourced their duty.
Antisemites have no issue singling out Jews for attack, yet government officials are loathe to single out Jews for protection which they do so for every other group. It begs the question as to why: are current government leaders antisemitic, or are Jewish leaders telling the government that Jews don’t want special treatment, just to be like everybody else.
If so, what does that mean when “everybody else” gets special treatment?
Why can California, with its Democratic super-majority, advance a mandatory ethnic studies curriculum which empowers Black, Brown, Latin, Asian and Native American communities but disparages Jews?
While Democrats are correct, that Jews would rather be treated the same as everyone else, they cannot sit on the side when special privileges and protections are afforded to every group except Jews, especially while they are under attack. To exclude Jews in favor of victims of preference – or just constituents of preference – is deeply antisemitic.
Jews Must Rise Above America’s Political Polarization
For Jews, the political spectrum no longer runs right or left — it runs above and below the line.
America once resembled a bell curve, a society centered in moderation. But over the last decade, that middle has collapsed into a barbell nation, with weight piling up at the extremes. And history has shown: whenever societies polarize, Jews suffer at both ends.
On the left, antisemitism festers in universities and coastal enclaves, driven by a socialist–jihadi alliance that paints Jews as colonial thieves and privileged elites. On the right, particularly across America’s heartland, antisemitism takes the form of nationalist resentment, depicting Jews as cunning manipulators steering the country toward decay.
The Jewish community now faces hostility from Justice Democrats and the Democratic Socialists on one side, and Christian nationalists and conspiratorial populists on the other. As America sorts itself into partisan tribes, Jews are politically homeless — stranded in what might be called Team White, surrounded by Red and Blue armies locked in mortal combat.
It is a moment that demands clarity: Jews must not follow the crowd, nor celebrate the likes of Zohran Mamdani or Marjorie Taylor Greene simply because they shout loudest. Safety will not be found at the edges.
NYC mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani with the extremist group Democratic Socialists of America
Instead, Jews must think on the Y-axis and rise above the line — where decency, truth, and moral courage define political identity, not the toxic binaries of today’s discourse. The task is to build bridges among the decent left, right, and center, and to undermine the machinery of polarization itself.
Be counter-algorithm. Social media algorithms are built on inflaming passions and feeding extremism. Get kids away from social media including banning phones in schools. Encourage people to spend less time on the platforms or to promote moderate posts.
Invest in institutions that elevate, not inflame. Support schools, media, and synagogues that model dialogue over division.
Be models of decency. Civility is countercultural today — make it contagious. Argue without anger, engage without hatred, and remind others that moral clarity does not require moral superiority.
Rebuild community and trust. Host conversations, bridge gaps, and welcome allies who differ politically but share ethical ground. Strength grows in connection, not isolation.
Be proudly above the line. Celebrate being moderate, balanced, and reasonable. The middle is not weakness — it is wisdom earned through restraint.
Expose extremists, even within. Call out the Jewish radicals who justify Hamas and the October 7 pogrom, as well as those who echo conspiratorial nationalism. Moral consistency demands internal accountability.
Teach Jewish ethics loudly. The Torah’s call to pursue justice and peace should echo in civic spaces — as a guide for repairing the world, not tearing it further apart.
A polarized society is a society on edge — brittle, unstable, and eager for scapegoats. Extremists will portray Jews as symbols of what’s wrong, a convenient vessel for resentment. As a minority-minority, Jews become easy targets when the center collapses.
The survival of the Jewish people in America depends not on joining the mobs below the line, but on lifting others above it — where truth, civility, and unity still have a fighting chance.
In the Garden of Eden, God brought every creature before Adam to find him a mate. Yet “for Adam, no fitting helper was found.” Only then did God cast him into a deep sleep and create Eve from his side — not from the dust like the animals, but from within him. The relationship itself became sacred, a reflection of divine unity.
Ten generations later, when the world sank into corruption, Noah was told to gather the animals in pairs into the ark. Humanity, which had once never contemplated the holiness of distinctive companionship, was now preserved precisely through those who respected it. Adam searched for love among the animals; Noah safeguarded them. The story of creation evolved from seeking connection to sustaining it.
The Animals entering Noah’s Ark, Jacopo Bassano (1510–1592)
Our sages teach that “Hakadosh Baruch Hu moshiv yehidim baita” — the Holy One, blessed be He, makes returns single people to their homes [finds them a match] (Sotah 2a). The Talmud even imagines a heavenly voice proclaiming forty days before a child’s birth, “The daughter of so-and-so is destined for so-and-so.” God, as eternal matchmaker, continues the work He began in Eden — binding souls and sustaining worlds.
But if God is busy creating couples, perhaps mankind should be busy preserving them. Jewish life places enormous focus on shidduchim — helping singles find their match. Entire communities dedicate themselves to it, often lamenting the so-called “shidduch crisis.” Yet where is the equal effort for those already joined?
If marriages were more visibly nurtured — their holiness cherished, their struggles handled with care, their perseverance admired — perhaps the next generation would see marriage not as a fragile structure to fear, but as a sacred vessel worth building.
Maybe the remedy to the shidduch crisis is not exclusively with matchmaking, but with modeling. When society sees sanctification in marriage — not perfection, but devotion — it rekindles faith in the possibility of love itself. The story of Adam reminds us of the importance of a mate; the story of Noah teaches us to protect the bond once found. From creation to covenant, God builds the world through couples — and invites us to do the same.
May our generation learn to honor both halves of the divine equation — to help the lonely find their other, and to help the found remain together.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, declares that it operates on four humanitarian principles — humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence. It is none of those things.
UNRWA is unlike any other UN agency. It is not the UNHCR, which manages refugees from every nation and conflict on earth. UNRWA is a creature of exception — created for a particular people, in a particular region, in a particular war.
The agency claims it was established to address the plight of refugees from Palestine following the 1948–49 Arab-Israeli War. But was that truly its purpose? When the fighting ended, thousands of Jews were also expelled from their homes east of the 1949 Armistice Lines (E49AL) — from Jerusalem’s Old City, from Hebron, and across Transjordan’s illegally occupied territory. They, too, were refugees from Palestine. Did UNRWA help any of them? No.
Jews expelled from the Old City of Jerusalem via the Zion Gate by the army of Transjordan
From its inception, UNRWA was built to serve Arabs alone. Even when those same Arabs became full Jordanian citizens, the agency continued to provide them with housing, food, education, and medical care — benefits that by any logical standard should have ended once citizenship was granted. Instead, UNRWA preserved refugeehood as an inheritance, not a temporary condition.
Over time, UNRWA’s mission has morphed from relief to perpetuation. It has shown itself highly partisan, politically entangled, and morally compromised. Its schools and clinics may operate under the UN flag, but the agency’s allegiance is often indistinguishable from the politics of rejectionism that dominate its host territories.
During the 2023 Gaza war, UNRWA boasted that only it had the infrastructure to provide food, education, and healthcare to the Gazan population. Yet when 250 Israelis were dragged into Gaza as hostages, where was this agency of “humanity”? Did it deliver a single bandage or calorie to the kidnapped Israelis held underground? Did it condemn their abduction, or even acknowledge their suffering? It did not. UNRWA’s humanity proved selective, its independence nonexistent.
Its operations in Gaza function only through integration with Hamas, the political-terrorist organization that rules the territory. Schools double as weapons depots; employees have been implicated in massacres; aid is distributed by political loyalty, not human need. Leaders at the OCHA, another UN “humanitarian” group, are not shy to say they view Hamas a legitimate political representatives of Palestinians, not as a terrorist group.
UNRWA now has additional offices outside of its field operations. It opened an office in Turkey to “expand its political and financial support base,” backed by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a political group. Very political. Neither independent nor neutral.
UNRWA is not a neutral humanitarian actor. It is a political instrument masquerading as one. It fails every principle it proclaims.
So long as UNRWA exists, it will preserve resentment, dependency and hatred. That agency founded in the shadow of war is the leading obstacle to peace.
To visit Poland is to walk among ghosts. The thriving Jewish civilization that once filled its towns and marketplaces was almost completely erased. Three million Jews were targeted for extermination — a number too vast to grasp by walking through silent cemeteries. The absence alone cannot speak the full horror.
To stand where synagogues were razed, where schools once taught Torah and arithmetic, where playgrounds once rang with Yiddish laughter, is to feel the emptiness press against your chest. It forces the imagination to repopulate the void — to summon the Jewish ghosts who linger, waiting for conscience to remember them.
It is easier to look at the living. Many Poles today are the grandchildren of those who watched as their Jewish neighbors were rounded up — and sometimes finished the work themselves when survivors returned seeking their homes. They became stand-ins for the killers of yesteryear, heirs to silence, envy, and complicity.
Now another people walks amid ruins. In Gaza, millions return to their shattered neighborhoods under a ceasefire, and we are told they have survived a “genocide” at the hands of Jews. Yet the number of Palestinian Arabs has grown, not diminished — a population larger than before the war they themselves began. They tread among the skeletons of broken buildings built atop their army’s tunnels, while ghosts — Israeli civilians burned alive in their kibbutzim and those taken hostage and murdered in Gaza — cry out from the ashes.
I ponder the ghosts of genocide: the murdered and the murderers; the societies that spawned the slaughter; the peaceful towns that became infernos.
Infrastructure shelters ghosts. Societies are haunted by the ones they create, both killer and killed. The unseen dead can no longer showcase their dancing on the one hand, or lust to murder, on the other.
There are scarcely any Jews left in Poland; their ghosts appear only to those who seek them. In Gaza, the ghosts are not gone. They walk the streets, armed and unrepentant — not spirits of victims, but kinsmen of murderers, now turning on one another.
Poland’s haunting is one of silence — an absence so total it chills the air. The ghosts there do not cry out; they wait to be remembered. Gaza’s haunting is the opposite: a cacophony of rage that refuses reflection. Its ghosts are not silent but screaming — not victims unburied, but hatreds unrepented.
Poland’s soil holds the murdered; Gaza’s streets still host the spirit of the murderers. One ghost asks to be mourned; the other demands to be judged.
The haunting does not end with time. It lingers wherever truth is buried, and it deepens each time the living deny the past that shaped them.
Only when a people can face its ghosts — naming both the murdered and the murderers — can it begin to live freely again.
For decades, Arab and Muslim leaders have fed their people a poisonous myth — that Israel dreams of ruling the Middle East, that it seeks to drive out Arabs and Muslims, that its goal is a genocidal “Greater Israel.” They have said it from Cairo pulpits and Riyadh conferences, shouted it at the United Nations, and woven it into the political DNA of generations.
Yet reality told a different story — 230 straight days of restraint.
From October 26, 2024, when Israel obliterated Iran’s air-defense network, until June 13, 2025, when it finally struck Iran’s nuclear weapons sites, Israel had total air supremacy over the Islamic Republic. For more than seven months, Israel could have flattened Tehran, crippled the oil fields of Khuzestan, or plunged the country into darkness by bombing power plants and airports. Instead, it waited.
The Iranian regime — the self-declared spearhead of the “Axis of Resistance” — had launched a multi-front war: Hezbollah in the north, the Houthis from the south, militias in Iraq, drones from Syria. Yet Israel responded surgically, destroying Iran’s air defenses and exposing the regime’s weakness. Then it stopped. No mass civilian targets, no vengeance against cities — only vigilance.
When Israel finally acted again, its aim was limited and precise: the nuclear enrichment facilities that Tehran had openly threatened to use to annihilate the Jewish state. The operation was not about conquest; it was about survival.
Had the situation been reversed — had Iran dismantled Israel’s air defenses — the results would have been catastrophic. Iran’s own rhetoric, and its record of missile and drone attacks on Israeli cities, show exactly what it would have done: unleashed devastation on civilian population centers. Annihilating the “Zionist regime” as an excuse for eliminating the the threat of a “Greater Israel.”
For 230 days, Israel had the power to destroy Iran and chose not to, just as it could have obliterated Gaza from the first day of the war. Those months are the clearest refutation of the propaganda long sold across the Muslim world about “Greater Israel” and “genocide.” Israel does not seek domination or extermination — it seeks to live.
Two hundred thirty days of restraint. Two hundred thirty days of truth.
First One Through 