Shemini 5784

Shemini
Leviticus 9:1-11:47
Ezekiel 45:16-46:18

Who wants to hear another drash about strange fire?

I sure don’t feel like giving one. So let’s talk about something else instead.

Being raised by a parrothead, I often look at life through the late Jimmy Buffett’s lyrics. He had a witticism that was both honest and profound, and something I continue to enjoy to this day. It might be a song lamenting being away from home and missing it while engulfed in the hubbub of a big city, which I might recycle this reference for the next time I speak about Jonah. It could be a song about desiring what you’re denying yourself for your own good, which I could tie to some Pirkei Avot. Today it’s a small line: “The right word at the right time… that’s the difference between lightning and a harmless lightning bug.”

A description starts off as one thing, and then turns away to become something else.

In chapter 11, we learn which mammals are kosher and which aren’t. And each description of the mammals starts off with the positive sign that it would be kosher. The camel, hyrax, and rabbit all bring up their cud. The pig has a cloven hoof. But after each of them is introduced, the disqualifying attribute is listed.

There is a thought in the Midrash which I like. If you’re looking at this, you might think the kosher qualifier for these animals is not important, because it’s immediately negated by the disqualifier. And, of course, Torah is concise, except when it has a point to make. So there’s a point to be made here.

The Midrash points out that even when G-d is telling us how something is not fit for consumption, it still has positive attributes. These attributes are not something we necessarily care about in our day to day life, but it’s something G-d cares about, and if they say we should care about it, we should take note. A pig has a cloven hoof, good, but it doesn’t take up its cud, so it’s unclean for eating.

This parashah also talks about other forms of purity. Purity of action, and purity of body.

Again let’s look at Midrash. Aaron’s sons “each took”, which indicates joy, “their own fire pans” which tells they did not consult each other. They also didn’t talk to Moshe nor did they honor Aaron. This was of their own volition because they were so excited. But their excitement was outside the bounds of the commandments, and G-d killed them for violating it.

Their intentions were right but their execution was wrong. Just as cooking a meal for a loved one is a good intention, cooking it wrong can be disastrous. And of course we are a religion and people of action, not of intention.

Wait, am I giving a drash on strange fire now? Oops.

Nadav and Avihu could have easily avoided death if they had just talked with Moshe or Aaron before, to try and get permission. Instead they were swept up in excitement and it permanently changed their families.

Finally we talk about purity of contact. Of a carcass touching a water vessel, touching seeds and grains, touching water, and touching bodies. Water has a special place in Judaism. Moshe was discovered in a river and he did not enter Israel because of an outburst brought about by water. Soon we’ll have a seder which recounts how the Nile turned to blood.

Water is important. And I feel like I got a special insight as to how important it is last year. Finding stretches of 30+ miles without water in 90 degree heat. Not knowing for certain if a water cache would be open. Scooping snowmelt out of a shallow puddle with a swollen Jerusalem cricket in it just so you can filter it and have a drink for the first time in 10 miles. This story is for a different time, though.

Water is important. And Torah obviously emphasizes the importance of flowing water instead of still water. Of course we aren’t supposed to speculate on the reasoning behind what Torah says, but I’d be remiss to ignore how flowing water is less likely to harbor bacteria and other disease vectors than standing.

Water is so important that we are able to extrapolate the mikveh from this parashah. This is our final purity, the one of body, of touch. Washing is important to us and, indeed, it has saved us through history.

Our laws on how to handle trash saved our shtetls during the Plague. Laws of bathing put our hygiene centuries ahead of society, even before soap and germ theory. And laws on what is clean and unclean after touching things have helped protect us since before cross contamination was a phrase.

Our existence has always been labored. We have had to fight for every scrap of progress, of safety, and of autonomy. In the lands and societies we’ve gone into, some of us have assimilated, some have integrated, and some have refused to do either. Regardless, I would argue that any one of us who made these decisions did so with a pure heart, with pure intention, and with the desire to live our best Jewish lives as best as we can. And we continue to do so today, with alarmingly few people willing to raise their voices with us and willing to march with us.

This seems an appropriate parashah, to be speaking of cleanliness two weeks and change before Pesach, when we cleanse our houses of chametz. When we recount how we left Egypt to serve G-d with a clean slate, with pure intentions. When we dip herbs in salt water. When water cleansed Pharaoh’s army from the land.

May we find the good, notable things in what is ultimately unsuitable for us. May we find these with passion, with clarity, and with fervor. And may we always find our way back to cleanliness, to integrity, and to righteousness. Shabbat shalom.



5784, Terumah

Exodus 25:1-27:19 

Here we have another parsha that is less narrative and more instruction. And I like that. Just as we have four children and different answers for them during the Passover seder, we have different narrative styles for different people and different emphases on what we need to do as part of our family to exist.

We have instructions instead of storytime. Instructions on how to build the holiest artifacts we ever had. Instructions on who was to build them. Instructions on how they should look, where they should be placed, and what they should be composed of. Everything from inside to outside, the supports, the textures, the materials, the fibers, anything you can think of.

What stood out to me about this was the description of the menorah, specifically its organic inspirations. It’s described as branches from its sides, each ending in a cup, like a flower, surrounded by petals with a calyx underneath it, with the cups resembling almond blossoms.

Is this a surprise? Considering our Torah is our etz chayim, our tree of life. Considering our multiple holidays around and immersing ourselves in nature, including tisha b’av and Sukkot. Considering our commandments to feed our animals before we eat, not to salt fruit fields, and the myriad others to protect earth and reduce cruelty. Even our first prophet was lead to G-d by a plant. With all this, we could just as easily be called “people of the land” as easily as “people of the book.”

I want to talk about plants, specifically sage.

After moving back here in September, I picked up something that’s difficult to maintain while traveling and impossible to maintain while walking. A plant. Well, a bunch of plants. I picked up an aloe vera, a lavender, a lipstick sage, and a Jerusalem sage. What can I say, I love fragrant plants. One of my favorite hedonist pastimes is smelling every plant I can. Creosote and sages in the desert, different pines in the forest, every bright flower from manzanita to lupine. Different dirts have different scents and I loved each of them. Even air, walking along a mountain ridge and smelling clouds as they swirled over a rock outcropping around me.

There are at least 24 kinds of sage in the land of Israel, among them Salvia dominica, pungent sage; Salvia hierosolymitana, Jerusalem sage; and Salvia verbenaca, or vervain sage. The name “salvia” comes from the Latin “salveo” meaning “I save”. Unsurprisingly, these cousins of the mint family have been used medicinally for millennia.

Yes, Jews used plant medicine. And why wouldn’t we?

But beyond the medicine, many of these sages resemble the menorah. They have flowers at the top and come off a branch in multiple straight lines. Many of them have leaves below the stems, leaving them looking like a menorah when flattened out. Salvia judaica might be the most striking example, with broad leaves at its base, striking dark stems branching up from the central stalk, and vibrant lilac flowers lining those stems.

Plants, just like us, rely on much to exist. We need lessons, community, and knowledge to survive. Plants have different instructions encoded. They have physical triggers embedded in their seeds which, when set off properly, cause an eruption of life from soil. Soil is often not dead, though. There’s a vast network of mycelium, or fungal, networks helping support many seedlings, juvenile, and mature plants. There are insects, bacteria, birds, and any number of influences that prop up plant growth. 

It’s appropriate that our symbol might be modeled after a plant. Just last week Daniel Nyman said not one person can fulfill all the mitzvot, and I think it’s up to us as a people to fulfill them all. Not one organism can produce fruit, but a network of them can produce an orchard. We have Torah and Talmud and Pirkei Avot and modern thinkers, some of whom we agree with and many whom we don’t. All of it is important to sustain us and keep our lamps lit.

But what do we do with plants? What do we do with this botanical inspired menorah?

We place it next to the most ornate, valuable, heavy object we could conceive of making. An object of solid gold, heavy acacia wood, and fine materials possibly representing different elements of earth and nature. Again, with the nature. And we place these together, along with an altar and other important pieces inside our most holy room.

Can you even be surprised that many of us enjoy having houseplants when we have a menorah that looks like our desert plants inside the sanctuary? We have a special value for plants and, now that we’re no longer wandering, we can bring them inside with us. We can cultivate them. Plants are as much a part of civilization as our people, our laws, and our animals. Plants are so important to us that our prayer for Israel relates it to a plant:

Avinu shebashamayim, tzur Yisrael v’goalo. Barekh na et m’dinat Yisrael, reyshit tz’mikhat g’ulateynu.

Our father, who is in heaven, Rock and Redeemer, bless the state of Israel, the first sprouting of our redemption.

Thursday, in a profound example of bigoted cowardice, the Rialto Theater here in Tucson canceled a show by Pennsylvania musician and rapper, and Zionist Jew, Matisyahu. The Rock, a smaller venue, called up Matisyahu, and offered him a space to perform, for free. Word quickly got out that the show was on, and I was able to attend, along with a few other members of this synagogue. This show was amazing, Jews showed up for Jews, and we overcame.

This brings me back to the delights we can find in this parsha. As we are fashioned in G-d’s image, we are to fashion objects in images resembling the world we interact with. As a sagebrush fills the air with its complex perfume of spice, and earthy ground, and sweet; the menorah fills the room with light; and we must do the same with each other. Just as one branch on a plant can’t sustain the whole organism, one branch of a menorah cannot fulfill the mitzvah, and one person cannot sustain the community. But together, with all of us, we are the organism, we are the people Israel, we are the community, all of us, together.



5784, Vaera

Exodus 6:2-9:35

There’s much I can say to this parasha. The idea of escaping the corruption of the city for wilderness especially speaks to me. But today I want to focus on something else.

We learned last week that Pharaoh intentionally made the Israelites’ work more difficult by not supplying hay for bricks but keeping their quota the same. The hay was traditionally supplied by the Pharaoh’s state, allowing the workers to form the bricks faster. Forcing them to gather their own hay and keeping their quota the same is unnecessary and serves only to break their spirits.

We know what happens when people try to break our spirits.

This week, Moses, selected by G-d; and Aaron, selected by Moses, are to implore Pharaoh to free the Israelites so they can serve G-d. Pharaoh, who enjoys free labor, as many in power do, doesn’t want to lose it. Also, just like many in power, he doesn’t just want free labor, but to show off his power. This week it results in the first six, out of 10, plagues. If we’re breaking up 10 plagues, why six and not five? That’s a different drash.

Instead my question is this: what happens when oppressors try to show off their power to us, today? We have Iron Dome, we have the IDF, we have associations and organizations to advocate for us. We are no longer dhimmi, the status the Ottoman Empire gave us, rendering us legally powerless.

What happens when Pharaoh tries to show off his power to us, then? We have G-d, Moses, and Aaron.

It took me longer than I care to admit, which is Thursday, to understand why Pharaoh’s sorcerers replicated the plagues at first. It was to say “big deal, we can make plagues, too.” It was a play to invalidate the power of G-d.

What’s the difference then, between the plagues that Moses directed from Hashem, and the spells Pharaoh’s sorcerers cast? There is, of course, the source. One is divine, one is from mortals. Just like the difference between human ingenuity and AI, one creates, the other is diminutive.

Humans have the amazing ability to create ideas and art. Whether we paint a fresco depicting a wonder or write a melody which leaves us speechless, our hands, our minds, our mouths, and even our entire bodies are able to drive an emotion, story, or thought. This might be for ourselves in the privacy of our space or publicly, for an audience.

AI doesn’t have this ability. It can only take in data, mix it up, interpret it as data instead of emotions, and put out something that incorporates elements of everything else put in. It doesn’t create, it just reassables.

We’re made in G-d’s image. We can create. We have breath, just as G-d has breath.

Back to plagues versus spells. Hashem creates, sorcerers cast. The only thing sorcerers can put out is what is already in the nature that G-d created. On the other hand, the depth of plagues is vastly deeper than anything mankind can direct or conjure up.

Okay, so I’ve talked about plagues and the power that the sorcerers ultimately found lacking against G-d. Let’s talk about something else.

There’s an idea called “‘b’ eating crackers”. The ‘b’ is a diminutive word which rhymes with “ditch” or “stitch”. This phrase is for when you have such a deep loathing of someone that even something as innocuous as them eating crackers will drive you mad. This is, obviously, hardening one’s heart.

And we’ve all experienced the ‘b’ eating crackers. When we’re sitting at the airport or on a plane and can’t stand the person sitting next to us. Or when we’re on the bus. Or when someone says something and we just can’t stand it, that’s the ‘b’ eating crackers phenomenon.

Pharaoh didn’t like us standing up for ourselves. Does that sound familiar?

In her 2021 book, People Love Dead Jews, Dara Horn writes about how people love Jews when they’re dying, but hate the idea of us standing up for ourselves.

I don’t want to get too deep into current events because we all know too much about what’s going on. We all know the insipid, antisemitic response of the UN and the Hamas enabling UNRWA. We all know about how the UN’s commission on human rights is headed by some of the world’s most egregious violators of human rights.

Please bear with me as we take a detour, for context.

Pharaoh hardened his own heart against us during the first five plagues. Moses cast his staff and G-d enacted a plague. Pharaoh’s sorcerers cast their spells and Pharaoh said “see, you’re not special” for the first two plagues. At the third plague, the sorcerers couldn’t create lice. And suddenly they understood their limitations.

At the fifth plague, the sorcerers deeply understood that Hashem, the source behind the nature they used for spells, was out of their influence. During the sixth plague, the sorcerers were afflicted like all their kinsmen. They were unable to recreate the boils because they were in too much pain from their own.

Pharaoh relented, after the swarms of insects, and said he would allow the Israelites to go out of his city to sacrifice and serve G-d. However, as soon as it became convenient and he wasn’t under pressure, he reneged. We were about to escape the corruption of the city to the purity of the wilderness, something I’m deeply familiar with, when Pharaoh decided he didn’t want to let us have respite, after all.

Pharaoh had taken the one thing that those who would oppress us don’t have: he had taken our autonomy.

Let’s come back to eating crackers and hardening hearts.

It was only after the fifth plague that G-d started hardening Pharaoh’s heart. During the first five, Pharaoh made his own choices. He made the decision to hurt us. After that, G-d demonstrated the error of his ways to ensure he couldn’t do it again.

We have entire groups of people who’ve been quietly advocating against us for years. We also have groups of people and countries who have been vocally advocating against us. Both silent and loud people conspiring against us.

Finally, after October 7, for a reason that can only be attributed to the world’s oldest hatred, we were perceived to be eating crackers when we were just standing up for ourselves. All these groups of people who hardened their own hearts should be starting to realize their sorcerers, their advisors, their allies are against something they haven’t been able to imagine.

Then, as Ezekiel, in this week’s Haftarah said
“Thus, said G-d,
“I’m going to deal with you Pharaoh
“Who said ‘my Nile is my own, I made it for me.’”
We have people claiming a river, the Jordan, just as Pharaoh claimed the Nile, is for them, when it’s for all of us. And today, the Jordan River, just as with the Nile, we will not allow it to slip from us.

Somehow, despite the vocal antisemites in academia, despite the vocal antisemites on social media, despite the antisemitism latent in governments, and despite the antisemitic bent in so much media, support for Israel is up. We still have a long way to go, but what we’re up against is not unprecedented. 

The danger may not be unprecedented, though luckily we’re able to take unprecedented care of ourselves. Instead of stealing aid meant for others to line our pockets as Hamas does, we invest in each other and ourselves. We strive for a civilization, which takes care of each other, while those who would see us gone fight within each other while fighting us.

Hashem gave a corrupt leader plagues upon his people. We did not suffer these plagues, and I believe deep in my soul that it’s because we operate as a people and as a nation, not as an oligarchy or dictatorship. We’re here for each other and we continue to be.

Only by being here for each other can we get through this. Hashem gave us each other, and we are a nation, as one, alone.

Am Yisrael chai and Shabbat shalom.



Context on the Israel-Hamas war by a left leaning Jew

A Not-So-Brief Something on Israel and Hamas

Here I am, writing at 3 am as an attempt to put down my thoughts on Israel to combat antisemitic tropes I see repeated in social media, mostly from the left. These are people who are supposed to be my allies, who fight for human rights, social justice, and getting people safety in their native lands.

This is not to absolve Israel of any wrongdoings, not at all. Nor is this an indictment of Palestinians. This is simply to offer context that I see missing in so, so many spaces, especially leftist ones.

So often I see these causes turn against Jews, against 0.2% of the world’s population, against a people who, in 2021 in the US, account for 51% of religious inspired hate crimes. (source). This number is expected to have increased in the last weeks.

In this, I’m going to talk about the indigenousness of Jews in Israel, how Palestine got its name, how modern day Israel was founded, the origins of Zionism, the start of Hamas, what Hamas is doing now, and how Israel has been trying to deal with it. I’ll also give a brief history of antisemitism, mostly to give it a definition that’s actionable. Everything is easily verifiable, though I’ll try to include links where I can to back up what I say. If there’s any confusion, just google it. I am not an historian, but I do know history. While I often will list only one or two sources, it’s easy to find many more backing up what I’ll say, when it’s not opinion.

 Jews in Israel

Jews have been in Israel since 1,900 BCE. We’ve had a presence there since we split off of the Canaanites. We never fully left. This is almost 4,000 years of history.

The area had been taken control of by the Neo-Assyrians, Neo-Babylonians, Hellenists (under which the Maccabean revolt happened, creating the base for the holiday of Chanukah), and the Romans. The Romans maintained control from 64 BCE through the Jewish-Roman wars of 66-136 CE. These wars saw the creation of the Jewish diaspora due to their violence toward Jews. Violence, enslavement, forced conversion, and forced migration were the weapons the Roman, then the Byzantine empire used against us. This is one leg in the formation of the word “diaspora.” (sources: 1, 2)

The land has been through many names. Originally Canaan, then Judea, and then Palaestina. Palaestina was named by Roman emperor Hadrian to try and wrest away Jewish claim to the land after the failed Jewish revolt of 132 CE. This is the origin of the name Palestine. (source, but there are so many others) .

For modern history purposes, the Ottoman Empire controlled Israel, then called Palestine, from 1516 CE to 1918, save for a 9 year period, until the British took it over and called it British Mandate of Palestine. This changeover happened at the end of World War I.

Archeologically speaking, we are indigenous to Israel. Our ruins are there. Every year new areas are dug up with proto-Hebrew or Aramaic writings. Our presence in Israel is older than Christianity, and much older than Islam.

Every time Israel changed hands of controllers, it was due to colonialism. Whether it was the Romans, the Greeks, British, or Arabs, it was always an incursion onto Jewish land. For an exhaustively researched article diving deep into this, you can read this one by an historian of the region. I beg you to understand that not all colonizers are British.

If you’re looking at Jewish return to Israel, that’s exactly what it is: return. Jews have never tried to colonize an area. We’ve only been trying to get back to where we were forcefully run out of.

The founding of Modern Day Israel

To be clear, Jews were in Palestine. It derived from the name given to the region by Hadrian. They called themselves Palestinians, as did the Arabs that lived there. Anyone who lived there was Palestinian. Just like how I’m Jewish and call myself an American, Jews in then-Palestine called themselves Palestinians.

At the end of World War I, the British through the Balfour Declaration, sought to begin an “establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” This makes sense as we had been driven out of the land through millennia of colonization and violence into areas that then committed violence against us. More on this later, though.

Arabs were, famously, opposed to Jews migrating back to the land they’d been living in (or, occupied, if you want to talk about Arab colonialism). They started attacking Jews before the foundation of the modern state of Israel, when the British had made their intentions known. But this is recorded only because it’s when the founding of Israel started. I suspect that Jews were second class citizens under Arabic rule in then-Palestine. It tracks with history, though I cannot find any sources to verify this.

When Israel was founded, the surrounding Palestinians called it a “catastrophe” or nakba. Of course it was a tragedy to them, and of course it was painful. They lost territory and land they’d been on for generations. I would argue that this was enabled by Britain and further perpetuated by Hitler (see the next section). Remember that Jews had been there for generations, though had lost control through colonialism. More on their status and relations with the occupiers of the time in the penultimate section of this post.

Yes, Arabic Palestinians had been in the area for a while, but it was only when Jews started migrating there during the 1800s did the majority of Arab migration happen (source). Only one of those people had indigenous claim to it — the Jews. Arabs were indigenous to the Arabic Peninsula, and remain so.

On May 14, 1948 CE at 4pm, David Ben Gurion oversaw the official turnover of the area to Israel and became the first prime minister of it. The surrounding Arab states immediately attacked.

During that ensuing war, Israel brought in shiploads of displaced Jewish war refugees who needed food, shelter, and medical treatment. This was after the Holocaust, where over 6,000,000 Jews had been systemically murdered in the diaspora.

Since the founding of Israel and the slaughter of Jews in the diaspora are inextricably linked to World War II and the Holocaust, I need to touch on the Nazi influence in Palestine.

Hitler and Palestine

I’m pulling a lot of this from the Wikipedia article on this, mostly because it’s an easy compendium of information with oodles of footnotes and sources. So here’s the link if you want it: source. This is just a well understood relation for most historians, and often overlooked for the political left.

The thrust of the matter is that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini, and Iraqi prime minister Rashid Ali al-Gaylani worked with Nazis to try and kill Jews in their regions. Here’s one statement from Hitler to al-Husseini.

Germany stood for uncompromising war against the Jews. That naturally included active opposition to the Jewish national home in Palestine, which was nothing other than a center, in the form of a state, for the exercise of destructive influence by Jewish interests. … This was the decisive struggle; on the political plane, it presented itself in the main as a conflict between Germany and England, but ideologically it was a battle between National Socialism and the Jews. It went without saying that Germany would furnish positive and practical aid to the Arabs involved in the same struggle, because platonic promises were useless in a war for survival or destruction in which the Jews were able to mobilize all of England’s power for their ends….the Fuhrer would on his own give the Arab world the assurance that its hour of liberation had arrived. Germany’s objective would then be solely the destruction of the Jewish element residing in the Arab sphere under the protection of British power. In that hour the Mufti would be the most authoritative spokesman for the Arab world. It would then be his task to set off the Arab operations, which he had secretly prepared. When that time had come, Germany could also be indifferent to French reaction to such a declaration.

Hitler and the Arabic leadership were united in exterminating the Jews. Luckily, left leaning Arabs were opposed to this, but they were sadly not in power. Many of those left leaning Arabs, opposed to fascism, did also hide Jews.

Wars in Israel

After the founding of Israel, the surrounding countries attacked it. Israel was able to defend itself with the aid of allies.

For a comprehensive list of wars started by actors outside the territory of Palestine, click this source.

This is not going to be a list of wars in Israel. That’s not really relevant for why I’m writing this. For this section I want to highlight that there is one Jewish state in the entire world. There are many Muslim, Christian, and Catholic states and countries, but only one Jewish one. This, plus its history as the birthplace of two of the largest three religions (Christianity and Islam, with Hinduism being the third) make it a prime target for attempted colonization. This is evident looking back in history, again from the Greeks and Romans, to the Inquisition and Crusades, to Arabic colonialism.

The borders of Israel have moved more than any other country’s borders I’m aware of after World War II. I’m probably wrong and I’m sure someone will correct me, which is fine. I’m always open to better data. That said, each time the borders changed, it was because of an attack on Israel where they won, and then gained that land to have more defensible borders. Remember, they’re surrounded by hostile countries that don’t acknowledge their right to exist. In 2020 Arabic countries Algeria, Comoros, Djibouti, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen; ten non-Arab members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brunei, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Niger, and Pakistan; and finally Cuba, North Korea, and Venezuela all deny Israel as a state. 28 of those countries are members of the UN.

Most nascently, the Yom Kippur War of 1973, when Egypt and Syria attacked Israel on the holiest day of the Hebrew year, Yom Kippur. This surprise attack caused massive casualties to Israel and the US had to send aid via airlift, allowing Israel to survive. The UN brokered a ceasefire and Israel ceded land gained from Syria some of Sinai. This really showed how vulnerable Israel remained. (source)

Egypt and Israel would go on to sign a peace treaty March 26, 1979. From Wikipedia:

The main features of the treaty were mutual recognition, cessation of the state of war that had existed since the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, normalization of relations and the withdrawal by Israel of its armed forces and civilians from the Sinai Peninsula, which Israel had captured during the Six-Day War in 1967. Egypt agreed to leave the Sinai Peninsula demilitarized. The agreement provided for free passage of Israeli ships through the Suez Canal, and recognition of the Strait of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba as international waterways, which had been blockaded by Egypt in 1967. The agreement also called for an end to Israeli military rule over the Israeli-occupied territories and the establishment of full autonomy for the Palestinian inhabitants of the territories, terms that were not implemented but which became the basis for the Oslo Accords.

Let’s Talk about Gaza

The Gaza strip is an area of land bordering both Israel and Egypt. It is not recognized as any country, and, as I’ll talk about later, it hasn’t sought to be recognized unless as part of taking over the entire country of Israel (via its government, not its people).

Its population, along with Arab ethno-nationalists in the West Bank and Israel, are who call themselves Palestinians today. During politically stable times, up to 10% of the population of Gaza will cross over into Israel to work jobs there. These can be anything from tech work to factory work. As these day workers aren’t citizens and the border is so close, they are not allowed to stay overnight. Gaza’s internal industry is mostly agriculture, making cement, and textiles.

The government of Gaza is where things get dicey. The government of Gaza is a group called Hamas. Hamas is a terrorist group that was founded in 1988 and elected in 2006. Gaza hasn’t had an election since then. Hamas’ charter, their founding documents, have two incredibly concerning articles in it. These articles are basically what we would think of as amendments in our constitution. They’re guiding principles of the government. The full text of the charter can be found here: source.

Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it. (Preamble)

This states outright that their charter exists to destroy Israel.

[Peace] initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement… Those conferences are no more than a means to appoint the infidels as arbitrators in the lands of Islam… There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are but a waste of time, an exercise in futility. (Article 13)

 This states outright that they will refuse to participate in peace talks, they only wish to achieve their goal through war.

The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: “O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.” (Article 7)

They explicitly want to kill Jews. 

The enemies have been scheming for a long time … and have accumulated huge and influential material wealth. With their money, they took control of the world media… With their money they stirred revolutions in various parts of the globe… They stood behind the French Revolution, the Communist Revolution and most of the revolutions we hear about… With their money they formed secret organizations – such as the Freemasons, Rotary Clubs and the Lions – which are spreading around the world, in order to destroy societies and carry out Zionist interests… They stood behind World War I … and formed the League of Nations through which they could rule the world. They were behind World War II, through which they made huge financial gains… There is no war going on anywhere without them having their finger in it. (Article 22)

These are age old antisemitic tropes. Jews were not behind any of those revolutions, we didn’t found any of those organizations, we didn’t start World War I, we were victims in WWII, and we lost 6,000,000 people in the Holocaust not to mention countless businesses, property, and so much more. This is just antisemitic nonsense.

Zionism scheming has no end, and after Palestine, they will covet expansion from the Nile to the Euphrates River. When they have finished digesting the area on which they have laid their hand, they will look forward to more expansion. Their scheme has been laid out in the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”. (Article 32)

The “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” is antisemitic fiction written  in the late 1800s or early 1900s. You can learn more about it here: source. They also mischaracterize Zionism, which will have its own section in this page. The thrust of Zionism, for spoilers, is that us Jews want safety in our homeland.

Finally, in Hamas’ charter:

The HAMAS regards itself the spearhead and the vanguard of the circle of struggle against World Zionism… Islamic groups all over the Arab world should also do the same, since they are best equipped for their future role in the fight against the warmongering Jews. (Article 32)

 They not only want to eradicate Jews in the Middle East and destroy Israel, they want to kill all Jews worldwide.

Hamas changed their charter in 2017 to try and make it less-genocidal sounding. It keeps antisemitic tropes and still wants violence against Jews. You can read that here: source.

More about Hamas

Hamas is a brutal terrorist group. Not only do they oppress Jews, they oppress LGBT+ people. Hamas will imprison any queer person for up to 10 years, and you can easily find videos of them throwing gay people off buildings to execute them (no I’m not linking that, you can search for it if you really want to).

Hamas has a history of intercepting international aid to turn it into weapons to indiscriminately fire into Israeli cities.

The UN and Israel have a joint apparatus to supervise the use of the materials, but as Hamas is in control of the Strip, it has managed to overcome this obstacle. Fertilizer is used to produce explosives, for example, Michael says. In addition, medical equipment is disassembled for parts, and oxygen tanks intended for medical care are repurposed to serve the organization’s military needs. (Source)

 

Even just a day or two ago, the aid organization UN Rights and Work Agency (UNWRA) had a truck stolen by Hamas. Their agreement in the region states that anything they bring in is strictly to be used for humanitarian purposes. It was stolen. UNRWA even tweeted about it. It was confirmed multiple times that it was stolen, then something convinced them to delete that tweet (source).

Hamas builds legitimate military targets into hospitals, schools, and apartments. They do this to increase the number of civilian casualties when Israel retaliates, which Israel must do to protect their own people. Israel has been documenting this maneuver for years (source).

I want to emphasize this. Hamas is using their own infirm, their sick, their children, their residents as human shields. This is documented even by NATO (source). They do this to enrage sympathy for them.

When Israel retaliates, they warn these targets of strikes. They plead for people to evacuate. We don’t want deaths; we just want life. We want to be able to live in peace and we want our neighbors to be safe. But Hamas prevents people from evacuating these strike zones. Again, Israel is the main documenter of this because they see it going on and often adjust plans based on how effective evacuations are (source). The source I listed has every listed claim annotated and linked, if available.

 Hamas has called for the extermination of all Jews. They fire rockets into civilian areas of Israel and many of those rockets fall short, hitting Gazans.  My link here will be one of the few times I feel Human Rights Watch got it right (source).

Hamas and peace talks

If you remember Article 13 of their original charter, you’ll recall that they refuse to participate in peace talks. True to their word, they’ve lived up to this. They haven’t come to a table for peace talks in almost a decade, since 2016. Each time peace has been offered or proposed as part of a two-state solution, they’ve refused it. Remember, their charter, calls for the destruction of Israel, effectively advocating for a one-state, Palestinian only, “solution.” With that in mind, it really shouldn’t be a surprise they haven’t entered peace talks since 2016.

Hamas’ leadership

 The leaders of Hamas are well known for not repairing damage done in retaliation to their terrorism operations. Damage from operations in 2014 and 2021 have been left unrepaired, despite having resources to rebuild (source). Providing the materials for reconstruction is well within their means, and employing Gazans would boost their economy. Instead, as outlined earlier, they use these resources to build mechanisms of terror to attack Israeli civilians, Jews and Arabs alike.

The average daily wage of workers in late 2022 in Gaza was about 90.7 ILS or $26.6 USD each day. That’s despite unemployment rates over 51% (source). This is all while they bring in over $12,000,000 each month from taxing goods that come in from Egypt (source). Abu Marzook, the deputy chairman, is estimated to be worth $2-3 billion. Kahled Mashaal, head of their political wing, claims to be worth $2-5 billion. Hamas, again, siphons off donations of international aid, which is what constitutes the majority of their budget. They profit off of their smuggling organizations and even publish fake employees to international sponsors to collect salaries of fictitious people (source). 

Do the leaders even live in Gaza? Of course not. They’re stinking rich. They live in Qatar in luxury. And if you think my source for this is biased, it comes from The Arab Times (source).

While Gazans suffer at the hands of Hamas, while they starve from sanctions enacted to prevent terrorism from their government, while they languish unemployed and underpaid, their leaders don’t even have the decency to be there. Their situation is so that they’ve been abandoned and rejected by every Arab state, and even their own leaders.

This should well illustrate how Hamas is a terrorist organization whose sole mission is to kill every Jew they can, and every person who gets in their way. Their goal is peace, but for them peace means permanently silencing 7,000,000 Jews in the Middle East and another 8,000,000 around the world. If that’s the peace you want to support, then you’re not interested in human rights.

General antisemitism

I need to talk about antisemitism and it’s tropes, because this is something that keeps coming up. First, I want to address the term “antisemitism.”

Many people say “this doesn’t make sense, because Arabs are also Semites.”

Antisemitism isn’t hatred of Semitic peoples; it’s hatred of Jews. Every dictionary acknowledges this (source, source, source).

The origin of the word was created specifically to name Jews. From the Encyclopedia Britannica:

The term anti-Semitism was coined in 1879 by the German agitator Wilhelm Marr to designate the anti-Jewish campaigns underway in central Europe at that time. Nazi anti-Semitism, which culminated in the Holocaust, had a racist dimension in that it targeted Jews because of their supposed biological characteristics—even those who had themselves converted to other religions or whose parents were converts. This variety of anti-Jewish racism dates only to the emergence of so-called “scientific racism” in the 19th century and is different in nature from earlier anti-Jewish prejudices.

 

It was created to target Jews.

Antisemitic tropes 

 There are a number of antisemitic tropes that persist. That Jews run everything, including the media (there would be better shows if that was the case). That Jews are money hungry. That Jews are bloodthirsty.

I’m going to address these one at a time, maybe briefly.

Trope 1: Jews run the world

First, we don’t run everything. This was originally made up in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an antisemitic serial published in 1911. It purports to be the minutes of a meeting of the Learned Elders of Zion, a cabal (“cabal” being a word coined specifically for a secretive group of Jews) meeting and conspiring to destroy Russia and bring in capitalism. It was often referenced to promote antisemitic acts, including pogroms (violence against Jews) in Russia and Russian territories. You can read an English translation here: source.

Its conspiratorial nonsense made its way from Russia to England, then to America in 1920, where Henry Ford (yes, that Henry Ford) published them under the name “The International Jew: the World’s Foremost Problem”. This was used to foment antisemitism in the US (source).

The Third Reich seized on these publications that made their way around Europe to help Hitler enact the Holocaust.

While the Protocols of the Elders of Zion should be relegated to ugly parts of history, sadly it is still often quoted, even making an appearance in Hamas’ original charter.

Trope 2: Jews are money hungry

 This has a really unique historical origin.

During around 1,066 CE, Jews living in England and other parts of Europe, under British rule, were subjected to intense antisemitism. They were often wrongly accused of crimes and were often victims to riots which rose up and destroyed the little they owned. That’s not where this trope comes in, though.

They were not allowed to own land. The Christian Church deemed money lending with interest was unclean and, thus, illegal for Christians. It was not illegal for Jews to do that, though. It ended up being the only industry Jews could actually own stake in, as they could work farms but not own the land. In addition, their interest was taxed heavily (source).

This trope persisted for millennia, even being referenced in Alexander Dumas’ novels.

Trope 3: Blood Libel

Blood libel is a really unique one, and it started off as a specific idea and turned into something more general. It’s origin is in the rumor that Jews use Christian blood in rituals, especially for making matzoh (unleavened bread for Passover) (source). It’s patently false.

My personal opinion is that this has metastasized into something grosser and more insidious. That Jews are murderous and want to spill blood. I have no concrete proof of this, but it’s a trend I’ve seen emerge in the past 10 years or so.

Didn’t Jews and Muslims Get Along Before the British?

 No.

This is an often repeated idea I used to subscribe to. It seemed too good to be true, and I had to do a lot of research to go through an Instagram post I saw about this and verify it was true. The post can be found on Rootsmetals’s blog here (source). Additional information here with extra links (source).

Jews, under the Ottoman Empire, were denied full citizenship. They were given dhimmi status, which means they were second class citizens. New synagogues couldn’t be built and those which were, couldn’t be taller than nearby mosques. Jews had to show deference to Muslims, so if a Muslim wanted to be where a Jew was, the Jew was legally obligated to give up their space, like where they were sitting. 

Jews weren’t allowed to lead, govern, nor employ any Muslims. They had to pay a special tax called jizya. Their eyewitness testimony wasn’t allowed in court. It was built really similarly to South Africa’s apartheid.

These laws giving dhimmi status officially ended in 1856, but we all know how giving up bigoted laws can take time to unravel. Look at the period of time from when the US ended slavery to the end of Jim Crow. And we still have systemic racism baked into the country. Jews had been living under those laws for 1,200 years. Violence didn’t stop. Pogroms didn’t stop.

Jews had been taxed into poverty and many relied on money from people in the diaspora to get by.

Jews were not equals. They were second class citizens whose safety, property, and security could be taken away at any moment. They didn’t get along — they were subjugated.

Israel’s Response

The way I see it, Israel has three options to respond to the Simchat Torah massacre.

1. Do nothing and let Israelis die en masse.
2. Maraud into Gaza and kill wantonly.
3. Continue their normal route of warning civilian areas that had military targets built into them about strikes, and do what they can to minimize casualties.

I’m fond of the third option, considering Hamas’ call to kill everyone and never sit down for peace talks.

 



Challah recipe

Bread machine directions

1. 1 C (8 oz) room temperature water
2. 2 large eggs
3. ? C (3 oz) sugar
4. ? C oil (3 oz)
5. 1 ½ tsp salt
6. 1 ? C (8.7 oz) white wheat flour
7. 2 ? C (13.8) bread flour
8. 2 1/4 tsp yeast

(for glaze)
1 egg yolk
½ tsp water
pinch of sugar

Preheat oven to 325º.

Combine ingredients 1-5 in the container for a bread machine. Add the flours and make a well in the dry area of the flour. Put the yeast in the well.

Place container in the bread machine and set it to the dough cycle. If wanted, you can use a stand mixer and use 110 degree water instead of a bread machine.

After cycle is through divide dough into equal parts and form into desired shape (braid, yud-bet, 7 day, etc), glaze with beaten glaze ingredients, and bake.

Larger challahs (braid, yud-bet) bake 27-30 minutes on parchment paper lined stone
Smaller challas (rolls, smaller loaves) bake 17-20 minutes on parchment paper lined stone

For small ball pairs, divide into 16 even balls.

Non-bread machine

1. 1 C (8 oz) room temperature water
2. 2 large eggs
3. ? C (3 oz) sugar
4. ? C oil (3 oz)
5. 1 ½ tsp salt
6. 1 ? C (8.7 oz) white wheat flour
7. 2 ? C (13.8) bread flour
8. 2 1/4 tsp yeast

(for glaze)
1 egg yolk
½ tsp water
pinch of sugar

Preheat oven to 325º.

Proof yeast according to directions on package (or add yeast to slightly warm water [110ºF] with a pinch of honey, stir well, and wait for it to foam)

Combine ingredients 2-5 in a bowl. Add flours and yeast/water mixture

Mix dough until it forms well and you can stretch a piece of it thin enough to show light behind it without breaking.

Cover and let rest for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Punch dough down. Divide dough into equal parts and form into desired shape (braid, yud-bet, 7 day, etc), glaze with beaten glaze ingredients, and bake.

Larger challahs (braid, yud-bet) bake 27-30 minutes on parchment paper lined stone or sheet
Smaller challas (rolls, smaller loaves) bake 17-20 minutes on parchment paper lined stone or sheet

For small ball pairs, divide into 16 even balls.