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Mayim Bialik’s guide to embracing the new Jewish year
This article originally appeared in Kveller.
(JTA) — The Hebrew month of Elul — which leads up to Rosh Hashanah — is when I like to take stock of my previous year, and a part of me feels like I say the same thing every single time: Heck of a year. Another part of me wonders if this is the year I’m actually really right, though. Because this year seems like it was exceptionally challenging.
And I don’t just mean for me. I’m no climate scientist, but it seems like this year has had more catastrophic fires, storms and earthquakes than feels normal, but I could be wrong. I’m no political analyst, but it seems the right and the left, the Democrats and Republicans and everyone in between, is going crazy, with corruption rampant everywhere we look. And I’m no therapist, but the mental health of this nation and the world at large is approaching staggering statistics as diseases of despair and loneliness strike younger and younger and with more and more fatal consequences. It seems there is not a community that cultural turmoil regarding race, class and gender has not threatened this year.
But also, for me, it’s been a heck of a year. The details of my personal life will remain for the most part personal, but my decision to not cross the Writers Guild of America picket line, which continues to guide my career, has been subject to public scrutiny and it’s been a trying year emotionally.
Of course, there have been many bright spots this year, for our nation, our world, and for each of us individually. Here’s a highlight: My older son finally got his driver’s license (at almost 18 — slow and steady wins the race!), which means I can send him to the market for yeast when my first attempt at challah fails. Also big news from this summer: Both of my sons had a beautiful Jewish summer camp experience — and are now taller than me!
But I know I am not alone in hoping for a less challenging year to come. As Rosh Hashanah approaches, I’m taking a closer look at what I want to shift as we enter 5784. Here’s what’s in store for me as the New Year is upon us, given the year we’ve all had and the year that stands waiting to be tackled. Maybe you’ll want to try out some of these changes, too.
Unplug. This is partly what led me to a two-week complete digital/phone/social media/social interaction detox just before Elul began. I detailed my main revelations on my YouTube channel, but the lessons I learned from that voluntary isolation have stayed with me and feel like my guiding principles not only for a detox, but for an entire perspective shift I think many of us are in need of.
I gained an understanding of myself that includes the fact that not everyone can manage the amount of information that comes at us from the current media world at the pace that we have been told is “normal.” I regained the gift of unstructured time, which led to a lot of creativity and the rediscovery of literature, poetry and intellectual stimulation that is not attached to a screen.
Unplugging is a Jewish notion in that Shabbat gives us that opportunity weekly, and I more and more seek to embrace the spirit of Shabbat: to focus at least one day a week to being a human being, and not a human doing. Unplugging is more critical than ever as we (and our children) increasingly spend hours of their lives plugged in. It’s a boundary I plan to hold them and myself to in 5784.
Slow down. I operate really well in black and white. I don’t really do grey. So in the past, when I worked — when I was plugged in — I would run hard and fast from 7 a.m. until 11 p.m. Constant appointments, phone calls while driving to “personal” lunches or yoga class — every minute filled. I started using a wearable device that measures things like heart rate variability, recovery index and sleep patterns and I had a health scare this past year. It’s because I did not know what it meant to slow down. Now I know. It’s as simple as saying “no” to things I can’t do without rushing to or from them. It’s as complicated as tolerating the down time that results when you make space to think and wonder.
Dream. This is something children innately know how to do. Most of us adults forget how to do it, but it’s a critically thrilling and significant aspect of our human experience that we have been taught has no place in adult life. For those of us who spend time as artists and creatives, we have more “right” to dream, but I am a firm believer that even people who are “settled down” in life and are told that they have no time or reason to dream are precisely the people who need to do it most.
I’m not advocating for abdicating responsibility for your duties at home or at work, and I’m not suggesting you leave all that is secure and familiar. But I am suggesting you tap into the wonder of your childhood, no matter what that looks like. It might look like taking an art class. It might look like getting back to reading fiction or writing poetry or spending time in nature among flowers and trees. Whatever it looks like to step outside of your current reality is what dreaming is. We need more of it.
Find God — or something like it. I’ve held for a long time that everyone finds their own path and for many, that path doesn’t include religious belief. I know the pitfalls of organized religion, especially the monotheistic patriarchal variety. And I’ve known many “Godless” people with wonderful morals, a true sense of a path and a satisfying life. But as I continued to do the deepest therapeutic work of my life this past year, I found that for me, true healing — no matter what we have overcome or think we don’t need to deal with — comes from an exploration of one sort or another into the Divine.
For some, this might mean traditional ritual in a religious tradition. For others, it might mean learning about breathwork or meditation practices that seek to specifically get you in touch with something greater than yourself. I took up Kundalini yoga in the past few months and this practice, which I once considered “out there” and irrelevant to my life, has put me in touch with a sense of Oneness that has been a wonderful addition to my understanding of my place in the universe as a spiritual being.
Every year we get the opportunity to start again, to try again and to reinvent ourselves. It’s not a time to look back at the ways we have failed in self-criticism; rather, it is a time to look forward with a lens of hope, self-compassion and joy. Perhaps as we individually look with this lens, our ability to center ourselves, to slow down, to dream and to find inspiration from a power greater than ourselves, we can share hope, compassion and peace with our families, our communities, our nation and even the world. I believe it’s possible. If you will it, it is no dream.
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The post Mayim Bialik’s guide to embracing the new Jewish year appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Anti-Jewish Hate Crimes Hit Record High in 2024, FBI Data Shows
FBI agents and NYPD officers work near the scene of a reported shooter situation in the Manhattan borough of New York City, US, July 28, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
Antisemitic hate crimes in the US continued to add up to record-setting and harrowing statistical figures in 2024, according to the latest data issued by the FBI on Tuesday, prompting calls by Jewish leaders for a society-wide intervention.
Even as hate crimes decreased overall, those perpetrated against Jews increased by 5.8 percent in 2024 to 1,938, the largest total recorded in over 30 years of the FBI’s counting them. Jewish American groups noted that this surge, which included 178 assaults, has been experienced by a demographic group which composes just 2 percent of the US population.
“As the Jewish community is still reeling from two deadly antisemitic attacks in the past few months, the record-high number of anti-Jewish hate crime incidents tracked by the FBI in 2024 is consistent with ADL’s reporting and, more importantly, with the Jewish community’s current lived experience,” Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive officer of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), said in a statement on Tuesday. “Since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre in Israel, Jewish Americans have not had a moment of respite and have experienced antisemitism at K-12 school, on college campuses, in the public square, at work, and Jewish institutions.”
Ted Deutch, chief executive officer of the American Jewish Committee (AJC), also commented, saying, “Leaders of every kind — teachers, law enforcement officers, government officials, business owners, university presidents — must confront antisemitism head-on. Jews are being targeted not just out of hate, but because some wrongly believe that violence or intimidation is justified by global events.”
A striking 69 percent of all religion-based hate crimes that were reported to the FBI in 2024 targeted Jews, with 2,041 out of 2,942 total such incidents being antisemitic in nature. Muslims were targeted the next highest amount as the victims of 256 offences, or about 9 percent of the total.
Antisemitic hate crimes kept federal and local law enforcement agents busy throughout 2024, as previously reported by The Algemeiner.
In November, for example, the US Department of Justice secured the conviction of a Massachusetts man, Joh Reardon, 59, who threatened to perpetrate mass killings of Jews. Over several months, Reardon called Jewish institutions across Massachusetts, proclaiming that he would kill Jewish men, women, and children in their houses of worship. His terroristic menacing included promises to plant bombs in synagogues in the cities of Sharon and Attleboro, as well as making 98 calls to the Israeli Consulate in Boston, a behavior which began on Oct. 7, 2023, and ended just days before his apprehension by law enforcement in January.
In New York City, meanwhile, the Jewish community in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn endured a violent series of robberies and other attacks. In one instance, three masked men attempted to rob a Hasidic man after stalking him through the neighborhood. Before then, two men beat a middle-aged Hasidic man after he refused to surrender his cell phone in compliance with what appears to have been an attempted robbery. Additionally, an African American male smacked a 13-year-old Jewish boy who was commuting to school on his bike in the heavily Jewish neighborhood, and less than a week earlier, an assailant slashed a visibly Jewish man in the face.
The wave of hatred has not relented in 2025.
In June, a gunman murdered two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, while they exited an event at the Capital Jewish Museum hosted by the American Jewish Committee. The suspect charged for the double murder, 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, yelled “Free Palestine” while being arrested by police after the shooting, according to video of the incident. The FBI affidavit supporting the criminal charges against Rodriguez stated that he told law enforcement he “did it for Gaza.”
Less than two weeks later, a man firebombed a crowd of people who were participating in a demonstration to raise awareness of the Israeli hostages who remain imprisoned by Hamas in Gaza. A victim of the attack, Karen Diamond, 82, later died, having sustained severe, fatal injuries.
Another antisemitic incident motivated by anti-Zionism occurred in San Francisco, where an assailant identified by law enforcement as Juan Diaz-Rivas and others allegedly beat up a Jewish victim in the middle of the night. Diaz-Rivas and his friends approached the victim while shouting “F—k the Jews, Free Palestine,” according to local prosecutors.
“[O]ne of them punched the victim, who fell to the ground, hit his head and lost consciousness,” the San Francisco district attorney’s office said in a statement. “Allegedly, Mr. Diaz-Rivas and others in the group continued to punch and kick the victim while he was down. A worker at a nearby business heard the altercation and antisemitic language and attempted to intervene. While trying to help the victim, he was kicked and punched.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Families of Oct. 7 Victims Sue Meta for $1 Billion Over Hamas Terror Livestreams
Meta logo is seen in this illustration taken Aug. 22, 2022. Photo: Reuters
Family members whose loved ones’ suffering and murders were streamed on Facebook or Instagram on Oct. 7, 2023, during the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, filed a lawsuit in Tel Aviv District Court on Monday against the social media platforms’ parent company.
The plaintiffs assert that Meta facilitated terrorism by failing to block the live video and also violated the victims’ right to privacy. They seek 4 billion shekels (about $1.15 billion) in damages.
“Our hearts go out to the families affected by Hamas terrorism,” Meta said in a statement responding to the suit. “Our policy designates Hamas as a proscribed organization, and we remove content that supports or glorifies Hamas or the Oct. 7 terrorist attack.”
The lawsuit states that the videos from the attack “trampled the petitioners’ rights in the most harrowing way imaginable” and that “these scenes of brutality, humiliation, and terror are permanently etched into the memories of the victims’ families and the Israeli public as the final moments of their loved ones’ lives.”
Many of the videos remained on the sites for hours after their initial broadcast, according to the lawsuit, which argues that “Facebook and Instagram violated the privacy of the victims, and continue to do so, by enabling the distribution of terror content for profit.”
One of the plaintiffs, Mor Bayder, wrote on Oct. 8, 2023, that “my grandmother, a resident of Kibbutz Nir Oz all her life, was murdered yesterday in a brutal murder by a terrorist in her home … A terrorist came home to her, killed her, took her phone, filmed the horror, and published it on Facebook. This is how we found out.”
Another individual signed on to the suit is Gali Idan, who Hamas held captive for hours and said was “filming constantly.” She stated that “it was clear the livestreaming was part of their operational plan — propaganda aimed at spreading fear. They filmed Maayan’s [her daughter’s] murder, our desperation, our children’s trauma, and forced [her husband] Tsahi to speak into the camera. All of it was broadcast.”
Idan calls Meta “complicit in the infrastructure of terror.”
Stav Arava also came on board as a plaintiff after seeing video of his brother Tomer forced at gunpoint to try and persuade neighbors to exit their home.
Other plaintiffs include families who did not have loved ones at the attacks, but whose minor children witnessed the videos, many of which continue to circulate today. The suit warns that the videos represent “grave harm to the dignity and psychological well-being of platform users — especially youth — who were exposed to raw acts of terror amplified by Meta’s systems.”
On June 6, a group of 41 US lawmakers sent a letter expressing concerns about “disturbing and inflammatory content circulating on your platforms in support of violence and terrorism” to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, then-X CEO Linda Yaccarino, and TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew. “We strongly urge Meta, TikTok, and X to take decisive and transparent steps to curb these dangerous trends and protect all users from the effects of hate and incitement to violence online,” the legislators wrote to the tech leaders.
“For far too long, social media platforms have allowed harmful messages, hashtags, and conspiracy theories to fester and proliferate online, targeting different communities,” the letter stated. “Following Meta’s decision earlier this year to roll back its trust and safety policies, one estimate noted this could lead to individuals encountering at least 277 million more instances of hate speech and other harmful content each year on its platforms. Since these changes, on Facebook alone, Jewish Members of Congress have experienced a fivefold increase of antisemitic harassment on the platform.”
Zuckerberg acknowledged in January when making the change in moderation policies that “this is a trade-off” and “it means that we’re going to catch less bad stuff, but we’ll also reduce the number of innocent people’s posts and accounts that we accidentally take down.”
In a report analyzing the impact of the policy change, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) explained how “it is also possible that the policy change has signaled to hateful users that such abuse will now be tolerated. By allowing hateful content to remain on the platform, Meta is in effect encouraging this content on its platforms.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of ADL, said in a Jan. 7 statement that “it is mind blowing how one of the most profitable companies in the world, operating with such sophisticated technology, is taking significant steps back in terms of addressing antisemitism, hate, misinformation and protecting vulnerable & marginalized groups online. The only winner here is Meta’s bottom line and as a result, all of society will suffer.”
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International Muaythai Federation Bans Israeli Representation at All Competitions
People stand next to flags on the day the bodies of deceased Israeli hostages, Oded Lifschitz, Shiri Bibas, and her two children Kfir and Ariel Bibas, who were kidnapped during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, are handed over under the terms of a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Feb. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
The International Federation of Muaythai Associations (IFMA) has banned all representation of Israel at its events and said Israeli athletes must compete under neutral status, following the alleged death of a Palestinian boy who was a member of the Palestinian national Muaythai team.
Ammar Mutaz Hamayel, 13, was allegedly shot in the back by an Israeli soldier near Ramallah in the West Bank, Palestinian media claimed. Soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were also accused of detaining Hamayel for two hours before handing him over to a Palestinian ambulance that took him to the hospital, where he was allegedly pronounced dead. Israel has not verified or commented on Hamayel’s death.
The IFMA published a tribute to Hamayel after his alleged death, saluting him as a “young warrior” and saying that “his passion for Muaythai was matched only by the warmth and kindness he shared with all who knew him.” In honor of Hamayel, the IFMA flew its flags at half-mast, its social media profiles went dark, and a moment of silence was held for him at the final of the Asian Championships on June 25. Stephan Fox, the general secretary of IFMA, posted his own tribute to Hameyel on social media.
“When a child, a youth peace ambassador, is killed, silence is no longer an option,” said IFMA President Dr. Sakchye Tapsuwan. “This is not just a tragedy – it is a call to action. We cannot stand by when the innocent pay the price of conflict,” he added. “Sport is meant to protect, empower, and unite – especially for the young. Ammar believed in that. We honor his memory not with silence, but with a stand for justice.”
The IFMA, which is the world governing body for the Thai martial arts and combat sport, published a policy report on July 18 announcing that effective immediately, Israeli national symbols – including the flag, anthem, and emblems – will be “strictly prohibited” at all IFMA-organized and IFMA-sanctioned events. Israeli athletes, team officials, coaches, and delegation members must participate under the status of Authorized Individual Neutrals (AIN), a designation also applied to individuals from Russia and Belarus. “They must not represent their country in any capacity,” according to the new policy. Also, no IFMA or IFMA-affiliated events will be hosted in or supported within Israel until further notice.
The new policy will remain in place until repealed or amended by the IFMA Executive Committee. “The policy reflects IFMA’s commitment to fair play, neutrality, and the protection of the values and integrity of sport in the current complex geopolitical landscape and recent developments,” the organization stated.
The IFMA added that the new policy will not impact the 2025 Youth World Championships in Abu Dhabi set for September. Israeli delegations may compete in the championships with Israeli representation but “all subsequent events will enforce the full neutrality conditions set forth in this policy.”
Muaythai originated hundreds of years ago in Thailand, a Southeast Asian country whose citizens have been constantly impacted by the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. During the Hamas-led deadly massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, terrorists killed more than 40 Thais and kidnapped 31 Thai laborers, some of whom died in captivity, according to the Thai government. Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists abducted more than 250 people in total, including Israelis and foreign nationals.
In June, Israeli military forces retrieved the body of a Thai hostage, Nattapong Pinta, who had been held in Gaza since the attack on Oct. 7, 2023. Pinta was abducted alive from Kibbutz Nir Oz, and was killed during captivity. Last year, four Thai nationals were killed and one was injured in northern Israel by rockets fired from the Lebanon-based terrorist group Hezbollah.