יום שישי, י״א תמוז תשפ״וFriday, June 26, 2026
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Halachic authorities caution against overburdening mourners, and many contemporary guides acknowledge the legitimacy of firm visiting hours or limited access based on the mourner’s needs. Yet even these measures do not always suffice.
Hungary is one of Israel’s closest allies in Europe. It consistently supports Israel’s right to use force in Gaza, regularly blocks or dilutes EU and UN statements critical of Israeli actions, and has initiated a withdrawal from the ICC after its obscene attempt to issue an arrest warrant for Netanyahu. When the pullout is completed, Hungary will be the first EU country to have left the Israel-bashing kangaroo court.
One of the overarching themes in Sefer Bereishis is sibling rivalry. The outcome of each successive conflict propels the narrative forward, shaping our destiny through events that are sometimes confusing and surprising – especially since the reason why the Torah doesn’t begin with mitzvos and laws is so that we can learn from the actions of our forefathers.
What was sold in the late 1970s and ‘80s as “playing the Islam card” – treating Islamist insurgents as potential partners and aligning with them to weaken the Soviet Union – produced a recurring cycle of blowback that neither the U.S. nor its allies have been able to escape.
Yitzchak was not universally loved – but he was respected. He was not a trickster or fugitive; he was prosperous, assertive, blessed, and openly acknowledged as such by his neighbors.
Our public square has shifted to social media platforms built to amplify outrage, not accuracy. TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and X reward emotional impact over context, speed over verification, and frictionless sharing over reflection.
For the Orthodox Jew, Thanksgiving presents a rare opportunity. It is not a religious holiday. It does not ask us to compromise halacha or identity. Instead, it calls us to practice something Jews know almost intuitively: gratitude (hakarat ha-tov).
The central engine behind this effort is Iran, the only UN member whose leaders declare openly that another member state must be wiped out.
Our isolation stems from the unique responsibility we have been given in this world.
By Aaron Oppenheim and Yosef Baker
In your pocket or purse, you may be carrying the modern descendant of that ancient Jewish coin, still copper-colored, still the smallest denomination, still somehow essential despite all logic.
Every map needs margins. The halachic imagination admits this with elegant honesty. It names the unknown – safek, doubt – and gives it rules of its own.
The idea that religion is a personal choice that can be separated from every other identity marker in your life is a fundamentally non-Jewish way of seeing the world.
He is an unabashed anti-capitalist who will be the chief executive of the city that is the center of the nation’s financial industry – and for generations has symbolized Jewish success and civic influence.
Any doubt about the direction of Democratic Party discourse has been removed by the current New York City mayoral campaign in which Mamdani has been largely embraced by the Democratic establishment, despite his vocal antisemitic stands, not to mention his Marxist economic program.
Repeating a falsehood again and again doesn’t make it true.
For a nation its size, Israel’s medical innovation is breathtaking – and deeply moral in its reach, extending humanitarian aid and expertise to developing countries, disaster zones, and conflict areas worldwide.
By Alan Zeitlin
People test the waters to see what they can get away with in the world of public opinion. Be sure there are bots praising both Carlson and Fuentes. But there are real people also, posting antisemitic things.
Nichum aveilim is indeed a mitzvah, but it is not like eating matzah or shaking a lulav, where the mitzvah is fulfilled through contact with an object.
By Rabbi Shlomo Brody and Rabbi Aaron Glatt
The National Council on Disability published a study that detailed the dangers of assisted suicide laws to people with disabilities. It found that safeguards in these laws are ineffective and often fail to protect patients.
What stood out for my mother, as relayed to me, was how difficult it was for Gretel to heal from the assault on her integrity and character by a Nazi regime that discriminated against her because of their unbridled hatred for Jews.
Before you study, clarify your question. As you study, speak the words. After you study, note one connection to something you've learned before.
By Jeff Cohen
Rabbi Hauer epitomized loving every Jew and making everyone feel like the most important person in the world when he spoke with you.
Before his national acclaim as a leader within the Orthodox Union, Rabbi Hauer built something enduring here in Baltimore – a model of what a synagogue rabbi could and should be.
We were all still in euphoria from Hoshana Rabbah, and the return of the hostages, so we went into the holiday in a very happy frame of mind.
An important figure on the postcolonial left for decades, Mahmood Mamdani has called Israel an apartheid state, championed the BDS movement, and portrayed America as the fountainhead of global evil.
We coronate Hakadosh Baruch Hu and ask for His forgiveness together, not as individuals. Hashem is truly king only when we coronate Him together.
The revenues that Hamas controlled were large enough to transform Gaza into a thriving Mediterranean enclave – a model for Palestinian society. But the Islamist group chose a different path. Prioritizing terrorism and military spending, it invested staggering sums in tunnels and weapons, including rockets and rocket factories.
Throughout history, Torah has at times stood as a Divine, untouchable document, and at other times woven into the currents of Jewish experience, carried and shaped by the people of Israel. Its dual nature – both Divine and national – has been reflected in every generation’s approach to learning, observance, and communal life.
By Zvi S. Rosen
One would have to be a moral idiot to think the death of 60,000, many of them fighters, is worth comparing or mentioning in the same breath as the industrial murder of 6,000,000 based on ethnicity.
It was especially haunting to see this image: Rabbi Daniel Walker, who valiantly protected his synagogue and tended to his congregants amidst the horrific violence, wearing his traditional white kittel, stained by blood at the bottom. And yet, in the face of this terrible destruction, we see another model of holiness. Sometimes, when the evil cannot be banished, the High Priest must deal with it directly, even if he gets bloodied in the process.
The late Rabbi Dr. Lord Jonathan Sacks, during Germany’s attempted ban on brit milah in 2012, pointed out the root of the problem. He deemed the move to be an attack on the Jewish people.
Like the other peace initiatives, the Palestinians have been offered over the past decades, the problem is that it’s by no means clear that they regard a chance to end their long war against the Jewish presence in the land of Israel or even the latest chapter of it that began two years ago as a desirable outcome.
That history is worth remembering now. It is what happens when leaders handcuff the police and abandon law-abiding citizens. And it will happen again if Mamdani wins the mayoralty. The cycle will repeat, and more brutally than before.
Some will argue that silence is cowardice, that in critical times rabbis must declare who to vote for. That is nonsense.
Most kids tell you what they need, even if they don’t have the words. If we hover over their homework and they can’t say ‘stop pressuring me’ or ‘trust me to do it,’ they might say something disrespectful. But they always try to tell us what they need.
Teshuvah is a dark and harrowing descent into the self, a journey through the hidden recesses of personality. It demands that we confront our failures and flaws without disguise.
College campuses once served as places for open dialogue, where students could freely explore diverse ideas. But for Jewish students today, these spaces often feel hostile. From verbal assaults on Israel to an environment where their Jewish identity is marginalized or attacked, it’s clear that something profound has shifted.
Every single time I get into the ice bath I don’t want to. But I do it anyway and when I do, I am rewiring and changing my brain, not metaphorically or symbolically, but literally.
The inevitable result will be emigration – an exodus of Jewish New Yorkers comparable to or greater than that of the 1960s and ‘70s when rising crime rates, collapsing public schools and a weakening economy drove families away.
The attack of October 7 and the unleashing of antisemitism have had a paradoxical effect: while they brought violence and tragedy, they also drew many hearts closer to Hashem, to religion, and to tradition.
Young conservatives are disillusioned with politics, hostile to institutions, and suspicious of anything that sounds prepackaged. If you try to silence dissent, they tune you out.
We mourn the moment that it became fatally dangerous in the United States of America to express an opinion.
We realize, too, when we are davening on Rosh Hashana that we have no idea how to articulate our wants and needs. What if you need a car? How does one phrase such a mundane request to Hashem? Like Elkanah, we can’t say nothing, but if we do say something, what should it be?
The larger Jewish community he’d spent his career serving helped him in his time of need. It wasn’t easy for him to let someone else take the helm, but it meant so much to be taken care of.
The fight has also been distorted by the actions of left-wing and left-leaning media outlets that applied a magnifying glass to Israel’s every move while blindly accepting casualty figures from the Hamas health ministry, relying on the claims of so-called journalists who were in reality Hamas operatives and agents of influence.
Although protesters feel justified blocking highways and disturbing the families and neighbors of elected officials, many Israelis find the practice abhorrent.
According to the DSA, terrorists have legitimate grievances, and the root cause of terrorism is – you guessed it – America’s “imperialist” foreign policy. In the eyes of Mamdani’s comrades – DSA members actually call each other that – the nation’s power, prestige, global reach and influence is a menace.
Elul is a deep dive into ourselves, into the hidden recesses of who we are. Without this introspection, we cannot grow into better people. Even as the national situation rightly demands our attention, we must not forget this personal journey into the inner worlds that shape us.
To equate Munich and Yalta isn’t just sloppy history. It erases the essential difference between surrender and solidarity in the face of total war.
By Jason Ciment
Elul has started. It’s the time of year when we find ourselves reflecting on the past, hoping we didn’t mess up too badly, and wondering if we’ll make it through the U’netaneh Tokef of Rosh Hashana with a clean slate. The end of the year is a great catalyst to thinking about goals – […]
By Alan Zeitlin
The idea that the entire country of Israel is immoral is a fantasy of Jew-haters.
As the weeks went on, it became disappointingly apparent to me that my father and I were not inspired by the same things. I desperately wanted to connect to the ideas that he thought worthy of preservation, and while I was able to appreciate them intellectually, my heart remained perversely neutral.
Roosevelt knew his words had to do more than rally the public – they had to silence powerful and influential Americans who still imagined a deal with Germany might be possible.
Western liberals have shown a troubling tolerance for these totalitarians.
It is truly heartbreaking that in the midst of a devastating war – nearly 1,000 brave Israeli soldiers have been killed, thousands more wounded, tens of thousands of families remain displaced, and the country is torn apart emotionally and ideologically over the seemingly irreconcilable goals of rescuing the long-suffering hostages and defeating Hamas – another battle has been declared.
This wasn’t just anti-Israel opinion; it was a call for the elimination of an entire nation and its people. This type of speech has no place in civilized discourse, and defending it as a form of free expression only emboldens those who seek to delegitimize Israel and harm Jewish communities.
I am not saying I know exactly how Israel should or should not act, what the day after plan should be, which leaders or parties know best, or so on.
Our people now embark on a project greater than the Great Wall of China – not forged from stone and mortar, but carved deep into the fabric of history.
Some might argue that the old democratic socialists were comfortable with an Israel governed by the Labor Party – then a proud member of the Socialist International – during an era when the kibbutz movement still loomed large, and that they would have felt far less affinity for today’s capitalist “Startup Nation.”
By Avi Ciment
Why would anyone follow the Torah if they didn’t believe in its Divine authorship?
Recollection is a deeply human act. It asks us to step beyond the immediacy of the present and re-enter the chambers of earlier experience.
Bret Stephens’s recent New York Times column, “No, Israel Is Not Committing a Genocide in Gaza,” attempts to dispel this inflammatory charge against the Jewish state. His argument is that those who make this claim must answer one fundamental question: why, after 22 months, is even Hamas’s purported death toll so low? However, that […]
By Adina Broder
One might wonder how a person like Nevuzardan could be absolved for his many heinous crimes. The answer is that Hashem forgives anyone who is sincere in his repentance.
The influential Columbia University professor and Palestinian political activist, Edward Said, characterized Israel’s founding as a manifestation of Western imperialism.
Though less stringent and with their fated character not having been painfully reinforced over and over again, those other dates do not have an antipode, an escape hatch, if you will, embedded within them as Tisha B’Av does: the consolation that the day holds the potential for – indeed the promise of – total transformation.
By Jim Walden
The most troubling part of Mamdani’s past – his clearly expressed terrorist sympathies – has gotten almost no attention from the press.
So why did I move? I am in a wheelchair and have a very good caretaker, but on a daily basis, I was lonely. I discovered that if I don’t have conversations with people every day, I was not only forgetting my Hebrew, but I was losing some English as well.
By Adina Broder
Being ungrateful is not simply a bad characteristic; it is antithetical to Judaism.
In short, a Mamdani mayoralty would likely turn New York City into the global epicenter of anti-Israel agitation, activism and propaganda. his isn’t mere speculation. It’s a projection based on Mamdani’s record, worldview and political affiliation.
Rav Amital brought the words of Tanach and prophecy to life. He used prophecy as a lens to interpret our unfolding reality, breathing relevance into its eternal words.
Aliyah is not about taking. It’s about giving. It’s about building.
We must not be discouraged or lose heart in the face of the long arc of life in Israel.
By Adina Broder
When confronted by Leah’s harsh words, Rachel certainly could have argued back, showing how she, not Leah, was the victim in this situation. She now had to share her husband, when she could have had him all to herself.
If rabbis begin to offer public endorsements, especially from the pulpit, will those who disagree with his conclusion still feel comfortable being part of that shul?
It’s no accident that the universities with the most radical anti-Israel protests – in which bloodthirsty slogans in support of Hamas are commonplace – are also among those with the largest foreign student enrollments.
Despite the beautiful blue summer skies above and the warm sun that shines down on our earth, our army is still fighting in Gaza.
By Adina Broder
The respect component of the relationship comes from appreciating the other person’s differences – when you admire, or at least accept, the qualities your spouse has that you don’t.
Every Jew should view themselves as a messianist.
In a safe and secure future, Israel will not be dependent for its protection on the goodwill of foreign peoples, and its fate will not hinge on their empty and aimless predictions and theories about us.
This deliberate targeting of civilians – the very definition of terrorism – is why Israeli officials, human rights experts and many international observers have categorized the October 7 attack as a mass atrocity constituting crimes against humanity.
By Guest Author
In game theory, there is a well-known strategy called the "ticking time bomb": a threat of destructive action against an adversary that may also harm the threatening player themselves
Today, countries such as the UAE and Bahrain regularly seek U.S.-made weapons. But what will happen if the dictatorial rulers of these nations are replaced by forces hostile to America and Israel?
Churches and shuls started placing flags in their sanctuaries around World War I. In addition to it being a time of nationalistic fervor, it was especially important for religious groups that were being accused of being sympathetic to enemies of the United States to demonstrate how patriotic they were.
From the earliest days of the city’s founding, Jews have helped shape the identity and vitality of New York. As immigrants, merchants, educators, philanthropists, laborers, artists and industrialists, Jewish New Yorkers have given much – and asked for little beyond the freedom to contribute.
Maybe being a stepmom is my chok. A path that defies neat halachic categories but still carves out something sacred. It doesn’t always feel certain. It rarely feels understood. But it is real. And it loves. And it is absurd.
By Ariela Davis
Each month, the Kotel plaza looks different from the one before as there is constant excavation and construction happening, an incredible sign of each incremental step coming closer to the Geulah.
By Matt Solomon
Bannon claims that Bibi pushed for the attack on Iran for the most crass political motives, and in the process destabilized the region and brought the US into the mess.
Having devoted so much time myself to defending Israel since Oct 7, I’m beginning to question the value of these debates.
The fact that the Israelis are still capturing terrorists decades after the PA agreed to fight Arab terrorism exposes the truth: the PA’s so-called anti-terror stance is a fraud.
These visits were not merely symbolic; they were listening tours. I sat down one-on-one with students, hosted roundtable discussions, and bore witness to their personal stories.
Will people who criticize Islam be dragged through the courts by a desperate regime, while those who outspokenly fantasize about murdering Jews are granted a blank check?
By Sara Lehmann
Mamdani’s voters either are unaware or choose to ignore the failure of socialism around the globe for over a century. Worse, they ignore how socialism and communism always morph into the very fascism they decry.
By Ruthie Blum
The claim that the Israeli prime minister crafted the U.S. president’s Truth Social post is as laughable as it is a lie.
By Jewish News Syndicate (JNS)
That doesn’t mean we stop caring about other causes. It does mean we stop sacrificing ourselves at the altar of movements that see us as expendable.
My father didn’t strut his rank; he carried it. Quietly, firmly, and with gravity. His leadership taught me that being a leader wasn’t about elevation, but rather it was about bearing the weight of others.
Data shows that physical pain is not the primary motivator for choosing death. Rather, it is loss of autonomy, fear of being a burden, or the inability to engage in enjoyable activities.
It's an act of heroism to go out to essential services, like a doctor's office, the pharmacy, the supermarket. You never know where you will be when the next alert goes off.
Trump's decision to use military force to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons program is a historic turning point for world peace and the legacy of a president who has used
This past week feels like more than just a miracle. It feels like a breakthrough moment in Jewish history. It seems as if Hashem hasn’t merely intervened but is actively relandscaping history and redrawing geopolitical realities.
June 19, 2026 
