Believers or Heretics? | Thoughts on the ceasefire

These headlines are presented as a snapshot of what our Jewish neighbors are thinking and feeling and to provide data as you pray about these issues. CMJ USA does not necessarily agree with the opinions expressed in these articles.

🫨The Shock of Faith: It’s Nothing Like I Thought  It Would Be   (David Brooks/New York Times)

“Today, I feel more Jewish than ever, but as I once told some friends, I can’t unread Matthew. For me, the Beatitudes are the part of the Bible where the celestial grandeur most dazzlingly shines through. So these days I’m enchanted by both Judaism and Christianity. I assent to the whole shebang. My Jewish friends, who have been universally generous and forbearing, point out that when you believe in both the Old and New Testaments, you’ve crossed over to Team Christian, which is a fair point.”

Editor’s note: I’m sorry to send you to a link with a paywall. Take a trial subscription if you can. It is an important read. Or you can read a summary by a Kentucky pastor.

🙅🏻What David Brooks and Bob Dylan teach Jews about heresy   (JTA)

Jewish celebrities who find solace in the New Testament ignite Jewish fears about assimilation and antisemitism.

A Jewish response to Jews coming to faith in Jesus. Do people ‘convert’ only because they want to fit in or not stick out?

😅At a ‘Havdalah for the Hostages,’ New Yorkers feel cautious optimism about ceasefire deal   (JTA)

Jewish New Yorkers have been gathering on Saturday evenings at the Marlene Meyerson JCC since the Israel-Hamas War began. But this weekend, the mood was different.

⛓️‍💥What Are the Takeaways from the Prisoner Exchange?  (Compiled by Jewish Journal)

The Israel-Hamas ceasefire began on Sunday with the exchange of 90 Palestinian prisoners for 3 Israeli hostages. The deal sparks debate about its moral implications and impact on victims’ families.

• An Embarrassing Equation, David Suissa, Jewish Journal: “…by treating human lives with the cold calculus of economics, both sides fall into a moral trap. Israel insults Palestinians by showing how one Israeli life is worth numerous Palestinian lives, while Palestinians are forced to swallow the humiliation of that immoral equation.”
• An Unbearable Price, Sherri Mandell, Times of Israel: “Terror victims know that the danger of releasing Palestinian killers is not theoretical but real. The hostages need to be released, and most of us are not naïve about the price. We know that we cannot bear for our people to be hostages in Gaza, but we also know that the price we have to pay is unbearable…”
• A Bad Message, Alex Traiman, JNS: “That Israel would negotiate with terrorists represents a failure to alter the paradigm of hostage taking. Giving back 1,700 Palestinian prisoners to get back fewer than three dozen hostages will teach terrorists across the Middle East, and the world over, that taking hostages is a strategy that works.”

💼Jewish and Israeli Americans Face Discrimination in the Job Market   (ADL)

⚠️46% of Adults Worldwide Hold Significant Antisemitic Beliefs, ADL Poll Finds   (ADL)

🐤Canaries in the coal mine: The rise of workplace bias against Jews   (JNS)

It is morally wrong and against the law.

📈Jews were targeted by the majority of hate crimes in NYC last year, NYPD says   (JTA)

Data compiled by the department showed that there were 345 anti-Jewish hate crimes across the city in 2024, nearly 54% of the 641 total hate crimes tallied.

🗣️My friend is making antisemitic comments. What should I say? PS: I’m not Jewish   (Forward)

Bintel says call her out, draw your boundaries and walk away if necessary

🤔My grandmother fled Hitler in 1938. She’d be skeptical of panic over antisemitism today   (Forward)

Yes, antisemitism is on the rise — but that doesn’t always mean what we might think

☝🏻Everyone has a plan to fight antisemitism. Few have studied what actually works   (JTA)

A behavioral social scientist at the Anti-Defamation League is partnering with universities on an ambitious research agenda.

🌊Knowing Humanity: Exodus and today’s antisemitism   (Hebrew College)

Excerpt: The new king who knew Josef neither by deed nor by reputation had no way of understanding that it was because of Josef’s skill and foresight that famine didn’t wipe out the entire known world. To this new king, Josef’s Israelite descendents were a nuisance, a growing minority, a foreign presence. To this new king, they were immigrants, outsiders.

The fifteenth-century Rabbi Avraham Saba, known as the Tzror haMor, interprets the new king with disdain for the Egyptian citizenry. His view was that the Egyptians wanted nothing to do with any king who might have favored Josef. Therefore they purposely disrupted the typical hereditary transfer of power and installed a new king, one who was purposely chosen because he knew not Josef.

🧑🏻‍🍳Jewish Food Influencers Grapple With Politics in the Kitchen   (Tablet)

Since Oct. 7, popular chefs and online culinary personalities have leaned into their Jewishness, even as they’ve faced a backlash from some followers

📨I accuse: An open letter to Pope Francis   (JNS)

Through a vast digital pulpit, the Catholic Church has become a global megaphone for those who weaponize antisemitism under the guise of supporting the oppressed.

✡️Finding Faith After a Cancer Diagnosis   (Tablet)

I stopped talking to God during my pregnancy when I found out I had multiple myeloma. The Book of Job helped renew my connection.  

🔥‘I can’t picture myself without going to the temple’: LA teens mourn their synagogue’s destruction   (JTA)

The Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, which burned in the Eaton Fire, was a second home for Jewish teens in the California city.

🔥Celebrating Shabbat in Los Angeles: Amid the fires, a still, small voice   (JTA

The rabbi of a congregation displaced by fire describes carving out a holy day amid trauma and anxiety.

🤔What Does It Mean to Be a “Chosen People”?  (Completed by Jewish Journal)

Explore three unique perspectives on the concept of Jewish chosenness, one of Judaism’s most profound and debated ideas.

• Chosen to Bless the World, Shlomo Vile, JNS: “The Jews’ chosenness is not an entitlement to special privilege; it’s an obligation to bestow blessing. As God told our forefather, Abraham: “Through your descendants, all the nations of the earth will be blessed.” The Jews are the people committed to bringing blessings to humankind.”
• Chosen for a Reason, Jeremy England, Tablet Magazine:Most American Jews start to shvitz when hearing their chosenness declared aloud. Acknowledging exceptionalism complicates the American brand of Judaism that focuses solely on the most abstracted themes of Passover… The only problem is that the actual demand made to Pharaoh was “Let My people go, that they may serve Me.”
• Chosen Along with Other Peoples, Rabbi Dr. Samuel Lebens, Aish: “A second, and surprising aspect of chosenness in the Bible is that it isn’t exclusive… I’m talking about the passage in Isaiah, in which God declares, “Blessed be My people Egypt, My handiwork Assyria, and My inheritance Israel.” Is it shocking to see God talk about other people as his own? It shouldn’t be.”

🙄Alamo Drafthouse employees petition to scrap screenings of 1972 Munich film ‘September 5’   (Forward)

The petition calls the film ‘Zionist propaganda’

✈️35,000 Jews have immigrated to Israel since last year's Hamas Oct 7 terror attack   (All Israel)

“Since the start of the war, there has been a 300% increase in aliyah applications from France, a 150% jump from Canada, a 100% rise from the United States and a 40% increase from the United Kingdom,” the Jewish News Syndicate reported last February.

😤The Growing Rift between Holocaust Scholars over Israel/Palestine   (Journal of Genocide Research)

🔀How Has the Definition of Genocide Been Distorted? (complied Jewish Journal)

The word “genocide” was coined by a Jewish lawyer to describe the horrors of the Holocaust. Now the word is being retooled to smear the Jewish state.

• Uncritical Observations, Verena Buser, Jewish Journal: “The opinions by Holocaust and genocide scholars are misleading as they are taken as facts and they lack source criticism, for example with regard to Palestinian deaths in Gaza, provided by the Hamas-led Health ministry, which are uncritically spread by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).”
• Diluted Meanings, Aviya Kushner, Forward: “I am concerned that the growing use of the word “genocide” to describe war may dilute the term’s meaning, and weaken its direct connection to the Holocaust.”
• Cynical Intentions, Staff, AJC: “Of course, the implied hypocrisy that the survivors of genocide are now committing one of their own makes for a powerful talking point in the war of words surrounding the conflict between Israel and Gaza. But it’s simply not true.”