Category Archives: Jews

Every Jewish Holiday Leads Back to Jerusalem

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For many people, Jewish holidays are family traditions: apples and honey on Rosh Hashanah, a Passover Seder, Hanukkah candles, or a sukkah in the backyard. Yet beneath these customs lies the deeper reality that every major Jewish holiday is connected in some way to the Temple in Jerusalem.

The Temple was not simply a house of worship. It was the spiritual, national, and legal center of Jewish life. Pilgrimages, sacrifices, priestly service, national assemblies, and the calendar itself revolved around Jerusalem. Even after the Temple’s destruction in 70CE, the holidays preserved its memory and continue to point toward it.

Rosh Hashanah marks the Jewish New Year and the sounding of the shofar. In Temple times, witnesses testified before the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem to establish the new month, and the shofar echoed through the Temple courts. Today, Jews still pray that God’s kingship will once again be recognized from Zion.

Yom Kippur is inseparable from the Temple. The High Priest entered the Holy of Holies only once a year to seek atonement for the nation. Modern synagogue services painstakingly recount the Temple ritual, preserving the memory of the day’s most sacred service.

Sukkot was one of the three pilgrimage festivals when Jews ascended to Jerusalem. The Temple hosted the joyous water-drawing ceremony (Simchat Beit HaShoeva), accompanied by music, dancing, and water libations on the altar. Rabbinic tradition describes it as one of the greatest celebrations ever witnessed.

Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah conclude the festival cycle begun at the Temple with Sukkot. While Simchat Torah developed later, it celebrates the Torah that was publicly taught and read in Jerusalem.

“Ki mitzion tetze torah” (כִּי מִצִּיּוֹן תֵּצֵא תוֹרָה). “For instruction shall come forth from Zion, The word of God from Jerusalem.” – Isaiah (Chapter 2, Verse 3)

Hanukkah commemorates the rededication of the Second Temple after it was reclaimed from the Seleucid Greeks. Every candle recalls the restoration of Jewish worship in Jerusalem.

Tu BiShvat, the New Year for Trees, determined agricultural laws whose tithes and first fruits were ultimately brought to the Temple.

Purim is the only holiday without a direct Temple ritual, yet its story ensured the survival of the Jewish people who would rebuild and worship in the Second Temple. Jerusalem itself celebrates Purim a day later, preserving its ancient status as a walled city.

Passover was the greatest pilgrimage festival. Hundreds of thousands ascended to Jerusalem to offer the Passover sacrifice before gathering in homes throughout the city for the Seder. Even today Jews conclude the Seder with the words, “Next year in Jerusalem.”

Tens of thousands of Jews at the Kotel Plaza in the Old City of Jerusalem during Passover, as they cannot ascend to the Temple Mount today

Shavuot celebrated the first fruits brought to the Temple in elaborate processions from across the Land of Israel. Farmers entered Jerusalem carrying decorated baskets while choirs sang Psalms of thanksgiving.

Tisha B’Av mourns above all the destruction of both the First and Second Temples. It is the day on which Jews sit on the floor, recite Lamentations, and remember the loss of Jerusalem’s spiritual heart.

Even holidays with no formal Temple ceremony ultimately orbit Jerusalem. They celebrate the survival of the Jewish people, the covenant, the Land of Israel, and the hope of restoration.

Jerusalem is not merely Judaism’s holiest city; it is the organizing principle of the Jewish calendar itself. The cycle of holidays begins and ends with memories of Temple worship, pilgrimages, offerings, repentance, thanksgiving, and national gathering in one place.

For centuries Jews prayed facing Jerusalem, broke a glass at weddings to remember its destruction, left part of a home unfinished in mourning, and ended the Passover Seder and Yom Kippur with the same aspiration: “Next year in Jerusalem.”

The Jewish calendar is more than a record of sacred time. It is a map whose destination is Jerusalem, carrying the memory of the Temple from one generation to the next.

Related articles:

The Prayer That Never Left Jerusalem (May 2026)

Stop With the Hanukkah Miracle and Declare the Hanukkah MESSAGE (December 2025)

Eight Attestations On Jerusalem (December 2021)

The OIC’s Hamas Exception

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Founded in 1969, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is a coalition of 57 Muslim-majority nations, making it the second-largest intergovernmental organization in the world after the United Nations. Stretching from Morocco to Indonesia, and from Kazakhstan to Nigeria, it represents roughly a quarter of the world’s countries and speaks collectively on issues affecting the Muslim world.

OIC Member states

One of the organization’s longstanding positions is that extremist groups claiming to act in the name of Islam do not represent Islam. Over the years, the OIC has repeatedly condemned organizations such as:

  • ISIS (Daesh) — for attacks across Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, and Nigeria, all OIC member states.
  • Al-Qaeda — for attacks in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, and other Muslim-majority countries.
  • Boko Haram — for its insurgency in Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon.
  • Al-Shabaab — for attacks centered in Somalia and extending into neighboring countries.
  • ISIS-K (Islamic State Khorasan Province) — for terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
  • Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) — for its campaign against the government and civilians of Pakistan.

The common thread is unmistakable. Every one of these organizations has waged war against governments, civilians, or institutions in Muslim-majority countries, mostly members of the OIC itself.

The OIC has consistently argued that Muslims have been among the principal victims of jihadist terrorism. These groups bomb mosques, seek to overthrow Muslim governments, and destabilize OIC member states are denounced as terrorists and rejected as contrary to Islam.

Yet one jihadi terrorist groups is not called out. It is embraced.

Hamas is an Islamist movement whose founding charter and rhetoric have long drawn on jihadist themes and whose October 7, 2023, attack deliberately targeted civilians. Nevertheless, the OIC has not designated Hamas as a terrorist organization or issued the kind of sweeping institutional condemnations that it has directed at ISIS, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab, ISIS-K, or TTP.

The most obvious distinction is not the use of Islamist ideology or armed violence. It is the target: Israel, the Jewish State.

For an organization that frequently states that terrorism has no religion and that Muslims are among terrorism’s greatest victims, its record reveals a clear pattern. When jihadist groups attack the Muslim world, the OIC is unequivocal in its condemnation. When an Islamist movement wages jihad against the Jewish state, the organization’s response is support.

Every Generation Has a Jordan River

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Every graduation marks the end of one chapter and the beginning of another.

Parshat Devarim, read each year during the Nine Days before Tisha B’Av, opens at precisely such a moment. The Jewish people stand on the banks of the Jordan River. After forty years in the wilderness, they are finally ready to enter the Land of Israel. Moses is delivering his final address. One might expect him to unveil a military strategy, an economic vision, or a blueprint for nation-building.

Instead, he teaches history.

For three chapters, Moses reviews the defining moments of the previous forty years: the appointment of judges, the sin of the spies, the years of wandering, and the victories over Sihon and Og. This is not nostalgia but preparation. Before Israel can build its future, it must first understand its past.

Moses sees the promised land from afar, 1902 by James Tissot (1836-1902)

That lesson feels especially relevant for this year’s Jewish college graduates.

Like the Israelites, they are crossing into a new world. They are leaving the structured environment of school and entering workplaces, neighborhoods, and communities where they will make their own decisions and assume new responsibilities.

The past few years have given many Jewish students an education that extended far beyond the classroom. They witnessed campuses wrestle with antisemitism. They watched administrators make revealing choices. They saw professors, classmates, elected officials, employers, and civic leaders respond in different ways when Jewish students felt threatened or isolated.

Whether those responses inspired confidence or disappointment, they were lessons.

Moses understood that the moments just before entering a new chapter are precisely when history matters most. The question is not simply, What happened? It is, What have you learned that should shape the future you are about to build?

For today’s graduates, those lessons should inform more than career decisions. They should influence how they participate in civic and Jewish life.

  • Who has earned your trust through actions rather than slogans?
  • Which institutions proved resilient under pressure?
  • How will you respond if antisemitism appears in your workplace?
  • What kind of community do you want to help build?

Graduation should also mark the beginning of Jewish adulthood. That means becoming more than an occasional participant. Join a synagogue by becoming a dues-paying member. Vote in local, state, and national elections. Volunteer and mentor younger students. Strengthen the institutions that strengthened you, and build the ones you wished had existed.

The Jewish calendar reinforces this idea. Before we reach the season of renewal – before Elul, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur – we pause for the Nine Days and Tisha B’Av. Before looking ahead, we look back. Before rebuilding, we reflect.

That is exactly what Moses was doing on the edge of the Jordan.

Every generation has its own Jordan River.

Before crossing into tomorrow, Moses offers one final piece of advice: study yesterday. Not to dwell on it, but to be equipped by it. History is not simply something to remember. It is something to carry forward as you begin writing the next chapter of your own story – and of the Jewish people.

Checkpoint in California and Checkpoint in the West Bank. Only One Sparked Outrage.

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There are many ways to measure whether politicians are guided by principle or politics. One is to compare what provokes their outrage and what does not.

In April 2024, a Jewish student at UCLA tried to walk across his own campus.

Pro-Palestinian protesters physically blocked his path and decided, on their own authority, who could and could not pass. UCLA security officers stood by and did nothing. A federal judge later ruled that UCLA could not permit Jewish students to be excluded from parts of campus because of their identity or beliefs, calling such exclusion “unimaginable” and “abhorrent.”

Where were California’s Democratic members of Congress about the incident? Other “progressive” members of Congress? Where were the press conferences, the demands for investigations and the flood of social media condemnations?

Their silence was striking.

Then came Rep. Ro Khanna’s recent 7,500-mile trip to the West Bank in July 2026.

Khanna claimed that armed settlers and Israeli soldiers prevented his delegation from proceeding and that U.S. Embassy involvement helped resolve the situation. Israeli officials, the U.S. embassy, and various parties dispute key parts of that account, saying the delegation entered a restricted security area without proper coordination and denying Khanna’s characterization of the encounter.

Yet progressive members of Congress like Ilhan Omar quickly rallied behind Khanna, condemning Israel and amplifying his account around the world.

The comparison is not between two people who were blocked. It is between two very different reasons for being blocked and the reactions that followed.

At UCLA, private protesters established their own checkpoint and allegedly decided which Americans could pass based on who they were or what they believed. A federal court concluded that a public university could not allow that to happen.

In the West Bank, the issue was about security. The area was subject to access restrictions because it was an active conflict zone. The dispute is over whether those security measures were properly applied not whether Ro Khanna had a right to unrestricted entry.

One concerns equal treatment under American law, the other concerns the exercise of security authority in a foreign conflict zone. Yet the louder political outrage came in response to the latter.

If elected officials cannot summon the same moral urgency when a Jewish American student is excluded from his own campus as they do when a colleague encounters a disputed security checkpoint overseas, the question is no longer whether they oppose injustice. It is what kinds of injustice – and for whom – they choose to notice.

We are witnessing more and more of the elected progressive wing marking American and Israeli Jews as “absolutely vile” people unworthy of basic protections and rights who “must be stopped.”

The Jewish Anti-Zionist Congress and the Divide on the Future of Israeli Jews

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From June 26–28, 2026, activists, academics, politicians, lawyers, and religious figures gathered in Dublin, Ireland for the Second Jewish Anti-Zionist Congress (JAZIC). The stated purpose was to build an international movement dedicated to dismantling Zionism and replacing the State of Israel with a different political order in the region of historic Palestine.

Despite its name, the congress was far from exclusively Jewish. The program featured well-known Jewish anti-Zionists such as Rabbi Brant Rosen, Ilan Pappé, Haim Bresheeth-Žabner, Ronnie Barkan, and Andrew Feinstein alongside prominent non-Jewish figures including Palestinian journalist Ramzy Baroud, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, former UN official Craig Mokhiber, rocker Roger Waters, Irish parliamentarians, South African activists, and other international advocates.

On the central questions, there was remarkable agreement: Jewish and non-Jewish speakers alike described Israel as an apartheid state engaged in genocide. Both groups rejected Zionism as the legitimate expression of Jewish self-determination. Both endorsed Palestinian Arab “liberation” and opposed the continued existence of Israel as a Jewish state. Discussions of Hamas were comparatively limited; the conference overwhelmingly focused on Israeli conduct rather than Hamas’s governance of Gaza or the October 7 massacre. They spoke about the defeat of Zionism as the key to dismantling “western imperialism.”

Yet beneath this broad consensus was a subtle but revealing difference.

The Jewish speakers generally spent considerable time describing what they believed should replace Israel. Rabbi Brant Rosen, Ilan Pappé, and others spoke of a single democratic state in which Jews and Palestinians would remain together as equal citizens. Whether one finds that vision realistic or not, it was at least an attempt to answer a fundamental question: If Israel ceases to exist as a Jewish state, what becomes of the millions of Jews who live there?

In contrast, most of the non-Jewish speakers spoke of “liberation,” “decolonization,” “resistance,” “return,” and dismantling Zionism. In almost all of these presentations, the future political status, security, and place of Israel’s Jewish population after “decolonization” received little or no attention.

The silence is significant. If a movement calls for replacing an existing state, one of its most basic responsibilities is to explain what protections, rights, and security will exist for the people who currently live there. At JAZIC, that question received far more attention from the Jewish speakers than from their non-Jewish counterparts.

Many progressive Zionist Jews in the United States woke up on October 8, 2023 to realize that the people with whom they had fought together as allies really wanted them dead. At some point in the future, far-left anti-Zionist Jews will have their own awakening of their current comrades-in-arms.

Palestinians and Their Supporters in the Global South Hunt Jews

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On June 27, 1976, Palestinian terrorists hijacked Air France Flight 139, a civilian airliner traveling from Tel Aviv to Paris. The operation by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine‘s external operations network diverted the aircraft to Entebbe, Uganda, where the hijackers, aided by Idi Amin’s regime, held more than one hundred civilians hostage while demanding the release of imprisoned terrorists.

Then came the moment that revealed the deeper nature of the conflict.

The hijackers separated Israeli and non-Israeli Jewish passengers from the rest of those on board. Many other passengers were eventually released. The Israelis and Jews remained in captivity.

Had nationality been the only issue, non-Israeli Jews would have been released alongside the other foreign passengers. Instead, Jewish identity itself became grounds for continued imprisonment. The selection demonstrated that the target extended beyond the State of Israel to the Jewish people themselves. Decades after the Holocaust, Jewish civilians once again found themselves sorted from their fellow passengers because they were Jews.

The crimes committed during the hijacking were numerous. Palestinian terrorists seized a civilian aircraft, held innocent men, women and children hostage, threatened mass murder to secure political concessions, and singled out Jews for continued captivity. Three hostages died during the Israeli rescue operation, and Dora Bloch, an elderly Jewish hostage who had been taken to a hospital in Kampala, was later murdered by Ugandan authorities.

Hostages saved from Palestinian terrorists in Entebbe Airport, Uganda, July 4, 1976

Palestinian terrorists and their sympathizers have often come for non-Israeli Jews. Synagogues and Jewish community centers were attacked in cities far removed from the Middle East battlefield. Rome. Athens. Istanbul. Hezbollah and Iran often acted in support of Palestinian Arabs, just as they have since October 7, 2023.

Palestinian Arab opened fire in the Great Synagogue in Rome, Italy October, 1982, killing a 2-year old and wounding 37

And the Palestinian Arabs don’t hide it. The 1988 Hamas Charter is not simply a terrorist manifesto, but a deeply antisemitic one. Palestinians voted Hamas to 56% of parliament with such screed and continue to vote for the group over Fatah in every poll.

Fifty years ago, on July 4, 1976, the Israeli Defense Forces saved over 100 Israeli and non-Israeli Jews who were held hostage by terrorists. The rescue operation only killed Ugandan soldiers and the terrorists themselves – no Ugandan nor Gazan civilian was harmed.

Yet countries still rebuked Israel in the week that followed:

  • Libya: “Israel’s wanton aggression is a serious and grave crime against international law.”
  • Benin: “act of aggression committed by Israel against Uganda.”
  • Somalia: “Israel’s flagrant aggression against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Uganda.”
  • Cuba: “The action of Israel… unquestionably constitutes a flagrant violation of the basic provisions of the United Nations Charter.”
  • Mauritius: “act of aggression.”
  • Pakistan: “the Council should demand that compensation for the great loss of life and property caused by the Israeli action be paid to Uganda.”
  • Mauritania, sponsored the complaint on behalf of the African Group.

“the Western Powers have manifested a racist and fanatic solidarity with the white minority settlement in Palestine. For them, the Israeli aggression merely demonstrated a highly successful operation performed by the white man against the blacks of Africa and against the browns of the Arab lands -against the blacks and the browns of another and hostile world, that of the Arab-African community.” – Libya regarding Israeli rescue of 100+ hostages held by Palestinian Arabs in Uganda

The total populations of Uganda and the countries above is roughly 373 million. The Jewish population in all of these countries combined is under 5,000, 0.001%. They are unwelcome and unwanted.

Wheelchair-bound, 69-year old American Leon Klinghoffer, killed by Palestinian terrorists October 8, 1985

Palestinian Arabs and their supporters in the Global South are ingrained with a deeply hostile view of Jews and the Global North. The latest manifestation has been seen since the barbaric attacks of October 7, 2023, but can be seen just as clearly fifty years ago, when Israel rescued other Jewish hostages.

Why Is Jewish Identity Treated Differently?

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New York has embraced an important idea: identity deserves respect.

Its laws explicitly protect both gender identity and gender expression, recognizing that identity is not merely an internal characteristic but something people live and communicate publicly through appearance, speech, names, clothing, and behavior.

That principle is admirable but is it applied consistently?

The Jewish people also possess an identity that is both internal and external. Jews express that identity through religion, language, holidays, history, culture, family traditions, symbols, and connection to their ancestral homeland.

For many Jews, that expression includes Zionism.

Contrary to its frequent caricature, Zionism is not a political opinion. It rests on two historical facts and one political principle: Jews are a people; they originated in the Land of Israel; and therefore they are entitled to national self-determination and sovereignty in their ancestral homeland.

Like wearing a kippah, lighting Shabbat candles, speaking Hebrew, or displaying a Star of David, affirming the Jewish people’s right to their homeland is, for many Jews, a basic expression of Jewish identity.

Yet this expression is increasingly treated as unacceptable.

President Biden’s U.S. Deputy Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism at the State Department, told Jews to hide expressions of their Judaism on May 21, 2021

Across universities, workplaces, and public institutions, “Zionist” is often used to describe a political viewpoint and as a label for exclusion. Students are told Zionists are unwelcome. Employees are pressured to distance themselves from Zionism. Organizations adopt anti-Zionist litmus tests that, for many Jews, require repudiating a central expression of their identity.

New York City subway where anti-Israel protestors call for Zionists to get out

If society recognizes that identity includes both who a person is and how that person expresses that identity, why should that principle stop with gender?

No one should be expected to abandon a central expression of identity in order to participate in public life, attend a university, or feel welcome in a workplace.

“Zionists don’t deserve to live,” and “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.” – Columbia University student Khymani James

This is not a request for special treatment. It is a request for consistency.

If identity deserves dignity, then every community’s identity deserves dignity. If expression deserves respect, then that principle should not end where Jewish identity begins.

A Pact for the Future of Religious Heritage

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The United Nations has a Pact for the Future. It looks ahead to artificial intelligence, digital governance, climate change, sustainable development, financing, debt and even discussions of global taxation. The underlying premise is that humanity faces challenges unlike those of previous generations and that international cooperation must evolve accordingly.

Yet there is one omission that is difficult to ignore. While the international community has developed increasingly sophisticated frameworks to protect biodiversity, endangered languages, cultural artifacts and World Heritage Sites, it has produced no comparable vision for preserving one of humanity’s oldest living inheritances: its religions.

We have become remarkably good at preserving the products of civilization. Archaeologists restore temples after earthquakes. UNESCO protects historic churches, synagogues and mosques. Museums conserve ancient manuscripts while linguists race to document disappearing languages before the last native speakers die. We understand instinctively that once these treasures are lost, they cannot truly be recreated. Yet we devote far less attention to the living communities that gave those monuments meaning. A restored monastery is no substitute for the monks who once prayed there. An ancient synagogue is just beautiful stone if the Jewish community that sustained it for centuries has vanished. Preserving the architecture while allowing the faith itself to disappear is to save the shell while losing the civilization.

This is no longer a hypothetical concern. In only a generation, ISIS nearly exterminated the Yazidis while devastating ancient Christian communities whose roots stretched back to the earliest centuries of Christianity. The Taliban’s return to power accelerated the disappearance of Afghanistan’s Hindu and Sikh communities and forced Christians even deeper underground. Across parts of Africa, jihadist movements have burned churches, murdered clergy and displaced entire Christian villages. Indigenous and tribal religions continue to fade through modernization, migration and demographic collapse, while Jewish communities that had flourished across much of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) for two millennia have largely disappeared. These are different stories unfolding on different continents, but together they reveal the same pattern: humanity’s religious diversity is steadily shrinking.

There were once an estimated 250,000 Jews in Morocco. They are have almost all left since 1948

Recent years have demonstrated how fragile minority religious and ethnic groups can be. Christians have seen ancient churches destroyed or emptied by war. Pilgrimages have been disrupted by conflict in multiple regions. Jews continue to be barred from praying openly at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the holiest site in Judaism.

The legal foundations for religious liberty already exist. Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes the freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including the right to change one’s religion. Yet millions still live where that freedom exists only on paper. Apostasy remains punishable under law or through the application of religious law in several countries, while blasphemy laws continue to imprison people or expose them to severe punishment simply for changing or expressing their beliefs. At the same time, digital surveillance, online incitement and transnational extremist movements have created entirely new forms of religious persecution that the architects of the postwar human rights system could scarcely have imagined.

Radical Islamists call for killing converts from Islam

Perhaps the world needs a Pact for the Future of Religious Heritage – one that treats living religious communities with the same urgency that we reserve for endangered species, disappearing languages and historic monuments. Such a framework would protect sacred sites, preserve endangered faith traditions, defend freedom of conscience, encourage the repeal of laws criminalizing apostasy and blasphemy, establish rapid international responses to religious persecution, and affirm that followers of every religion should be able to freely, safely and openly worship at their sacred sites and undertake traditional pilgrimages.

Civilizations are remembered not only for the monuments they leave behind, but for the beliefs that inspired them and the communities that kept those beliefs alive. Humanity has learned to preserve forests, wildlife, manuscripts and archaeological treasures. The next step is to preserve something even older and even more fragile: the living faiths that have shaped civilizations for thousands of years.

Was the JNS International Policy Summit Worthwhile?

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A friend noticed I had attended the JNS International Policy Summit in Jerusalem and asked if it was worthwhile.

I paused. “That’s actually a harder question than it sounds. I have too many thoughts for a text message.”

This article is my answer.

The event. Alex Traiman, CEO of JNS, and Richard Heideman, Chairman of the JNS International Policy Summit, assembled an impressive three-day program. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog, U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee, the “Green Prince” Mosab Hassan Yousef and dozens of leading policymakers, legal experts and advocates discussed nearly every dimension of Israel’s current challenges.

Topics: The summit covered twelve main topics with a few breakaway panels for each so people could listen to various subjects. It covered everything from antisemitism and regional security to international law, Judea and Samaria, Israel’s democracy, Christian-Israel relations and the narrative war playing out across traditional and social media.

JNS panel discussion on Regional Security

What makes a conference worthwhile? Many conferences share the discussions online – as did JNS – so people often question the value of devoting so much time to listening to so many speakers. I usually attend conferences to become energized and to meet like-minded people. That has been my experience at Tikvah events in New York, for example. I will share that it was not my feeling at this JNS conference.

For one thing, the attendees here were much more engaged in politics professionally than at a Tikvah Leadership Conference. Most of the people at the Waldorf Astoria knew everyone on the panels, worked with them and could have joined any of the discussions. It felt like the crowd was full of understudies ready to assume an empty chair on stage, or ready to have working sessions in side rooms. It made talking to fellow attendees extremely interesting for anyone looking to fully engage in the various subject matters.

However, the vibe of the Jerusalem News Syndicate conference was much more right-wing than I had anticipated. I had thought of JNS as simply an alternative to AP and Reuters, providing an Israeli perspective on the news. While I expected it to be right-of-center, I was surprised at how many deeply right-wing people were both speakers and attendees.

Two Themes: Trump-Iran/Lebanon: The backdrop for the event must be set, as events in the Middle East move quickly.

At the time of the conference, June 21-23, it appeared that the Trump Administration was striking a deal with Iran that was viewed by the speakers as profoundly weak regarding Iran, and deeply flawed as it related to Israel’s war with Hezbollah. Speakers went out of their way to say how much they love Donald Trump and Israel could never ask for a better friend, so such a skilled negotiator obviously just needed to buy time through July 4 celebrations and the World Cup, and would then return to finishing the Iranian nuclear and ballistic threats. Speakers avoided smearing Vice President JD Vance in public, but the quiet discussions near the cookies in the hallway were that they would like to see Marco Rubio as the president after Trump.

The opinions were definitely hawkish: Israel needs to maintain a buffer in Lebanon until Hezbollah is disarmed and terrorist infrastructure is removed. The same format is required in Gaza for Hamas. Iran must continue to be attacked until a long-term favorable deal can be struck.

It was interesting to hear how the various speakers thought of the regimes and people in each theater: In Iran, the government is horrible and must be removed while the people are intelligent and wonderful allies-in-waiting. Hezbollah is a rogue Iranian proxy that must be expunged so Israel can develop a long-term peace with the legitimate government of Lebanon. However, the situation in Gaza had no rainbow at the end. While the determination to finish Hamas and disarm it was viewed as non-negotiable, the prognosis for peace with everyday Gazans was viewed as so distant in the future to not even warrant near-term discussions.

Antisemitism/ Narrative: The “eighth front” of the current war is sometimes referred to as the narrative war in the global media and social media by Netanyahu. I believe Israel’s deteriorating image around the world has fueled antisemitism, even if hostility toward Israel and hatred of Jews ultimately remain distinct phenomena.

Michal Cotler-Wunsh, CEO of the International Legal Forum, called “October 7 the Kristallnacht of our times” that will ultimately “come for all democracies.” Lori Lowenthal Marcus of the Deborah Project said that “teacher unions are like the Hamas tunnels in American education,” part of an insidious infrastructure that systemically vilifies Israel. David Brog of the Maccabee Task Force suggested bringing social media influencers to Israel to see the truth, and that those people will become strong advocates when they realize that they’ve been fed lies for years. Miss Israel, Melanie Shiraz suggested changing the entire dynamic: to engage in sports, cultural events and other places where people engage directly in a common arena. “Let them see Israel, not as an argument to be won but a beauty to be shared…. Not with better corrections but better invitations.”

Sara Friedman, CEO WJC Israel; Lori Lowenthal Marcus, Legal Director of the Deborah Project; David Brog, Executive Director of Macabee task Force, and Elan Carr, CEO Israeli-American Council

She received one of only a handful of standing ovations.

So, was the JNS International Policy Summit worthwhile?

Yes, but not for the reason I expected.

The speeches were informative, and many are available online for anyone willing to invest the time. What cannot be livestreamed are the conversations over lunch, the chance encounters in the hallway, and the immersion in an ecosystem of people who have dedicated their lives to defending Israel and Jews in ways most of us never see. Some fight in courtrooms. Others rewrite school textbooks, monitor the United Nations, expose campus antisemitism, advocate for terror victims, build alliances with Christians, or wage the daily battle for truth on social media.

Miss Israel, Melanie Shiraz, surprised the crowd with passionate advocacy for greater cultural exchanges and received a standing ovation

Like any gathering of passionate people, I did not agree with everyone. Some speakers left me inspired; others left me shaking my head. But perhaps that is part of the value of attending in person. A conference is not worthwhile because it confirms everything you already believe. It is worthwhile because it exposes you to the people, personalities, and competing ideas that shape a movement.

The summit reminded me that the defense of Israel and Jewish people around the world is no longer just the work of soldiers and diplomats. It is also carried by lawyers, educators, journalists, researchers, politicians, influencers, and ordinary citizens who understand that ideas, narratives, and public opinion have become battlefields of their own.

That, more than any individual panel, was the lasting lesson I brought home from Jerusalem.

Who Gets to Define the Jewish People?

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Parashat Balak contains one of the most unusual narratives in the Torah. For almost the entire portion, the Jewish people disappear from the story.

Throughout the Torah, we experience events through Moses, the Israelites, or God speaking directly to His people. This week is different. The Israelites continue their journey completely unaware of the drama unfolding around them. Instead, the Torah lifts us to the mountaintops of Moab, where King Balak and the prophet Balaam stand overlooking the Israelite camp below.

For the only time in the Torah, we see the Jewish people entirely through the eyes of outsiders.

That perspective is striking. The story told reminds us that long before anyone attempts to destroy a people, they first seek to define them.

Balak does not look upon Israel and see the descendants of Abraham returning to the land God promised their forefathers. He does not see a nation recently liberated from slavery or a people carrying a covenant that would shape the moral foundations of civilization. Looking down from the mountain, he sees only a threat. Once he reaches that conclusion, everything else follows naturally. A dangerous people deserve to be weakened. A dangerous people deserve to be cursed.

Before there is violence, there is narrative.

Balak understands that words have power. If Israel can be portrayed as an illegitimate menace, hostility becomes easier to justify. He therefore summons Balaam, believing that the right words can reshape reality itself.

But the Torah teaches exactly the opposite lesson.

Each time Balaam opens his mouth to curse Israel, God compels him to describe what he actually sees rather than what Balak wishes were true. The curses become blessings. The accusations become admiration. Instead of condemning Israel, Balaam proclaims, “How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel.”

The battle in Parashat Balak is ultimately not over land or military strength. It is over definition. Who has the authority to describe the Jewish people? A fearful king looking down from a distant mountain, or the God who entered into covenant with them?

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn’s “Balaam’s Ass”, 1626

That ancient struggle continues today.

Many of the loudest voices speaking about the Jewish people insist on defining them for themselves. Jewish history is recast as though the connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel were a modern political invention rather than the foundation of Jewish civilization. Jerusalem is detached from the people who have been praying toward it for thousands of years. The descendants of ancient Israel become foreign colonizers in the very land where their national story began.

“European Jewish Zionists claimed to be descendants of the ancient Palestinian Hebrews and to be merely “returning” to their ancient land.” – Columbia University professor Joseph Massad, July 2022

The same impulse appears in discussions of antisemitism. Increasingly, others claim the authority to determine what Jews should consider antisemitic while dismissing the experience of Jewish communities themselves. The people who are the object of hatred are told they cannot define the hatred directed against them.

The pattern is remarkably familiar.

Balak first decided the Israelites were a threat and concluded they deserved condemnation. The false identity justified the action.

The Torah overturns that process.

The only outsider whose words are remembered for eternity is the one whom God compels to abandon prejudice and speak truth. Balaam climbed the mountain intending to curse Israel, but he remained a prophet. He still recognized that there was a Judge above him. When God commanded him to bless, his own desires gave way to a higher truth.

Today’s loudest critics acknowledge no such authority beyond themselves. They do not seek God’s judgment but the approval of crowds, political movements, or academic fashions. Their words may echo through universities, international institutions, social media, and the halls of government, but they carry no weight in Heaven. They resonate only among fellow travelers who have already chosen contempt over truth.

Three thousand years ago, God refused to allow those who hated Israel to define Israel. That remains the enduring lesson of Parashat Balak. The Jewish people are not who their enemies say they are. They are who God says they are.