Can we watch and pray with Jesus one more hour?

🕯️Our Hersh (Tablet)

My own son shares a name with the American hostage killed by Hamas this week—a named steeped in meaning and Jewish history

Excerpt: “Hersh is a Yiddish name meaning deer; the Hebrew equivalent is Tzvi. Deer are fast, powerful animals. They can run as fast as 40 miles per hour. They shed their antlers and grow new ones each year. They’re known to be swift, and a symbol for spiritual renewal.”

🪑Thanks to his mother, we are all sitting shiva for Hersh Goldberg-Polin (Forward)

For 330 days, Hersh became a brother, son and friend to us through the tireless advocacy of Rachel Goldberg-Polin

👨🏽‍💻 The Palestinian ‘Traitor’ Risking Everything to Speak Out (The Free Press)

He condemned the Hamas massacre. Now, his life is in danger. ‘I’m scared as hell. But this is how change happens.’

The center of his story, the reason he spoke out, is heartbreakingly beautiful. He read the Holocaust testimony of Viktor Frankel and it inspired him to dream beyond his Palestinian village. His studies took him South Korea from where he saw the beautiful hope that is the nation of Israel.

 👊🏻 Should I have lied to the antisemite who attacked me? (Times of Israel)

He didn't know I was Jewish – but even under threat I couldn't pretend not to be

🏴Hamas, Hezbollah flags flown at NYC anti-Israel march (JNS)

The White House condemned "any individual associating with the repugnant terrorist organization Hamas."

🏫 Separating anti-Zionists from antisemites on campus (Foward)

A new study found little overlap between students hostile toward Israel and those hostile to Jews, though the lead researcher says that’s only part of the story

Excerpt: “Maybe we have to be a little less focused on calling out antisemitism and work harder to actually educate people about who Jews are.”

😩Campus Anxiety (Jewish Journal)

In the wake of last year’s onslaught against Jewish college students, multiple groups across the country are mobilizing to make sure the students get more support this year.

😰For Jewish students at McGill like me, our return to campus is filled with dread (Forward)

The Canadian university is home to regular pro-Palestinian protests, often with virulent antisemitic rhetoric

🪧How universities have changed their policies on protest because of the war in Gaza (Forward)

Students returning to campuses will find bans on tents, rules regarding masks and training around antisemitism

🤜🏻For the 900th time, an antisemitic attack is an attack on all of France (Forward)

Exceprt: On a Saturday morning, a young Algerian male exploded a small bomb outside the synagogue in La Grande Motte, a resort and retirement town on the Mediterranean coast. The explosion torched two cars parked just outside the synagogue, but failed to reach the building, where services were scheduled to start in 30 minutes. A few hours later, the acting prime minister Gabriel Attal had arrived at the scene. Surrounded by public officials wearing the tricolored sash of the French Republic, Attal forcefully announced that “an attack on a French Jew is an attack on all French.”

✈️ Unprecedented surge in aliyah: 29,000 Jews immigrate to Israel amid Gaza war and global antisemitism (All Israel)

😢 New York Jewish man charged with hate crimes against Muslim neighbor (JNS)

Police say Izak Kadosh burgled Ahmed Chebira’s apartment, vandalized his property and tried to kill him.

Sad to see such hate. The suspect’s family name is Kadosh, Hebrew for Holy. His actions are anything but.

✡️ American Jews are winning – big time (Jewish Chronicle)

Jewish infrastructure in life continues to grow.

Excerpt: “American Jews are adjusting to a new reality, seeing who our true friends and allies are, fighting back and rethinking the direction of our investments. We are here to stay and will not tolerate discrimination or bigotry.”

📣SA Chief Rabbi denounces Welby and Francis for abandoning the Bible (Arutz7)

The Anglican Archbishop and the Pope are silent in the face of jihadi threat engulfing Europe, indifferent to the murder of Christians in Africa and hostile to Israel’s attempts to battle the forces of terrorism, claims South Africa's Chief Rabbi Goldstein in hard-hitting address.

I learned of this story through Anglican Ink, though it originated with Arutz7, a right-leaning Israeli news site. I share it because it gives another view of Christianity through Jewish eyes. I asked CMJ South Africa director Rev. Peter Houston about this video. He responded:

"Chief Rabbi is spot on with his main argument. Palestine is not mentioned in any scriptures, either Tanakh or New Testament. Palestine has never been a separate kingdom or nation. So, Church leaders are anachronistic in their pronouncements or worse. Some Church leaders believe that modern Jews are not related to Biblical Jews, thus undermining their Jewish claim to being the indigenous peoples of Israel. This is an antisemitic myth and conspiracy.

"Some of the chief rabbi's political applications to Western civilization are a bit simplistic, and I think it is far more complicated, even morally. For instance, Christian Europe gave us the Holocaust.

"This oversimplification applies to the chief rabbi's judgment of the Archbishop of Canterbury's motivation, too. The Archbishop made that statement on Palestinian human rights because he was responding to the ongoing detention-without-trial of a young Anglican Palestinian woman by Israel. So he was standing up, defending Christians - the very thing the chief rabbi says the Archbishop doesn't do. The real problem is that the Archbishop of Canterbury is not also defending Jews!"

Rev. Houston has also called out South African church leaders for their antisemitic exceptionalism.

🙏🏻‘God is dramatically answering Evangelical prayers for Israel’s safety’  (All Israel)

Joel Rosenberg tells Moody Radio why Christians should keep praying for the Jewish nation

👩🏾 7 Things About Hagar That Nobody Talks About (Inherit)

She was a complex woman who now represents a complex history. And it’s one that uniquely interests the author, a Jewish-Arab woman contending with her dual identities

🕎 Three decades without their luminaries, Chabad and Modern Orthodoxy handle power vacuums differently (JNS)

“Chabad has embraced their Rebbe-less ecosystem,” while Modern Orthodoxy sought a successor to the Rav, according to Gratz College president Zev Eleff.

This story leaves out a very consequential detail that would explain the different relationships the two movements have with their respective leaders. Many in the Chabad movement believe that Rebbe Schneerson is the soon-to-be resurrected Messiah. Modern Orthodoxy had no such belief in Zev Eleff. There is an element of faith that keeps Chabad moving in the direction Schneerson initiated because many expect him to return. In that Chabad’s messianism parallels Christianity/Messianic Judaism's expectant hope of a returning Messiah.

🤔Why Did This Jewish Director Accuse Israel of Genocide? (compiled by Jewish Journal)

Winning an award at the prestigious Venice Film Festival, Jewish director Sarah Friedland used the opportunity to accuse Israel of “75 years of occupation” and “genocide.”

• Throwing Fellow Jews Under the Bus, Ben-Dror Yemini, YNET: 
  Never, but never, have we heard a Muslim or Arab winner take the stage and condemn the jihad that kills Arabs. We’ve never heard an Arab woman take the stage and condemn the oppression of women in the Muslim world. But always, almost without exception, it will be a Jewish winner who condemns the Jewish state.

• A Symptom of Jewish-American Privilege, David Christopher Kaufman, Jerusalem Post:
  It’s easy to find fault with house Jews like Friedland – to cast them aside as horrific and dishonorable. And they are. But in many ways, they’re not to blame. American Jews have had a spectacularly stellar ride within the New World with little to prepare them for the avalanches of antisemitism that have swept the nation – and the world – since October 7.

• A Clear Case of Jewish Self-Hatred, Arsen Ostrovsky, X:
  I hate using the phrase ‘self-hating Jew’, but have no issue doing so here, as Jewish director Sarah Friedland (@motionxpictures) received an award at #VeniceFilmFestival and then proceeded to spout lies against Israel and essentially call for genocide of the Jewish state.