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There’s always something worthy of discussing.

I don’t have rabbinic ordination, though one of my graduate school professors suggested that I become a rabbi. When a synagogue needs a new rabbi, it generally performs a search. It may invite candidates, each one for a separate visit in order to gauge his level of Torah knowledge as well as his interactions with his potential future flock. There is a story from over 200 years ago about a synagogue in Europe going through this process. One of their standard tests was to give a young rabbi an envelope on the Sabbath. Enclosed was a topic, and he was expected to give a detailed and intellectually inspired talk on the surprise subject just handed to him. So, in the synagogue in question, there were members who did not particularly like one of the fellows who was interviewing for the job. Just before his arrival, they took out the card with his speech topic and replaced it with a blank piece of paper. They figured that they would embarrass him and that would be the end of his candidacy. When it came time for the young fellow’s speech, he removed the paper only to see nothing written on it. Without losing a beat, he declared, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty…” He went on to give a brilliant speech, got the job, and became a well-known rabbi whose books we still study today.

When I sit to write, I work on a couple of assumptions. There is always some topic that is worthy of a few words. Next, if there is a subject that could be of interest to Townhall readers, then I should be able to figure out how to put the subject and relevant arguments to page in a clear and truthful manner. The next step is the writing, which I usually do early in the morning before I get too caught up in work and other activities. In such an amazing world, it’s hard to believe that there is no subject that deserves some attention. I hope that I never reach Bob Dole’s position, where he said that day after he lost to Bill Clinton that it was the first time in his life that he found himself with nothing to do.

The demonization of Israel has metastasized to the demonization of Jews in general. One can find stories of people like this Cornell student saying that he does not want to work for a Jew or someone demurring from taking free stuff because its owner is Jewish. All of this hatred is an outflow of the Muslim Brotherhood/left/Woke Reich's endless attacks on Israel. One of Tucker Carlson’s favorite claims is that Israel and more particularly Bibi Netanyahu control Donald Trump. It would be a laugh to think that, except for Melania, anybody could tell Donald Trump what to do. Why is Iran not attacking Israel at this time, while she sends missiles and drones at Bahrain, Kuwait, and beyond? The simple answer is that the IRGC knows that Israel will take any attack as a cue to pummel Iran in a crushing blow. But why is Israel not attacking Iran? Because Donald Trump is still holding his “Stop” sign in front of Bibi’s face. Israel would love to empty its target bank and has rested pilots and rejuvenated planes all ready to drop endless tons of bombs on Iranian targets. But it is the supposedly controlled president who is telling the Israelis to sit tight at this stage, while America has undertaken two weeks of bombings on the mullahs. The USAF has 90 aerial tankers in Israel, so—as always—Israel is doing its job as a true friend and reliable ally of the United States.

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Most people in Israel expect the country to once again be at war soon. Many already expected the horrible telephone warnings often followed by the heart attack-inducing air raid sirens. My son asked if I slept last night with my shoes on. I told him no, but that the shoes were pointing toward the front door of our home. We’re probably a little rusty for getting out of the house in five minutes, though loud explosions overhead can make one get up to speed pretty quickly. Our local parking lot/bomb shelter surprisingly had its large metal gates closed on the Sabbath, though national bomb shelters had officially been opened last week. Additionally, hospitals have been told to move to their underground operating theaters and ambulance crews have been instructed to have their vehicles fully stocked. I have zero doubt that Vice President JD Vance attempted in all good faith to negotiate a deal with the Iranians. The problem is that deals involve two parties, and the Iranians know good faith like they know good Jews. Their only goal is survival so as to continue the jihad. It’s hard for those in the West whose major interest is scoring a $10,000 World Cup final ticket to understand that there are still people fully committed to and driven by religious imperatives. We have such people in the West, such as religious leaders who set aside their own lives and well-being in order to help those in need. But with the strain of Islam that seems present throughout the globe, jihad means that everything else is secondary. Everyone knows that the Palestinians could have much better lives if they would only give up violence against Israel. No can do. Their hatred of Israel and the Jews is simply too much to let them accept a better and more comfortable life as the tradeoff for putting down their Kalashnikovs. That hatred now infects Westerners who suddenly say that Jews (not just Israelis or Zionists) are not welcome at their business establishments.

There’s a story of an Israeli who attended a political rally in Boston during the 1950s. He didn’t know much English but did his best to be a good participant. The candidate for mayor came on stage. The crowd started to scream, “Hoorah! Hoorah!” Well, it turns out that “hu ra” in Hebrew means, “He is evil.” And that is what this fellow thought the crowd was screaming: this guy on the stage is pure evil. So he started to scream, “Hoorah” with all of his heart and soul. The people who now attack Jews, like the latest Allahu Akhbar screwdriver guy in New York, all had some kernel of Jew distaste. Maybe it never rose to the top because it was bad for business, or it was unseemly in a place with lots of Jews, or the guy never thought much about Jews or Israel. But with the October 7 massacre and the massive, and at times, violent anti-Israel response, people can let their Jew hatred out. Put on a keffiyeh representing Hamas terrorists who raped Israeli women, even after they had already murdered them. Tear down a hostage poster, though the family was desperate to see their loved one again. Demand “intifada revolution,” though 1,100 Israelis were murdered during the second intifada 20 years ago. Write bad things about your Jewish colleagues on the company Slack group. Watch Tucker and Piers Morgan endlessly claim that Israel committed genocide, while Hamas itself admits that 50,000 of the 70,000 killed were its own terrorists.

One could argue that the stabbing of a Jew could have happened under Michael Bloomberg. No way to prove either way, but when the New York mayor calls the head of the world’s only Jewish state a “war criminal,” would it be such a big surprise if someone saw the opportunity to attack a Jew as doing the right thing? Jew hatred will continue unabated until the personal price becomes too high.

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