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What Does the Pharaoh Have in Common with Anti-Israel College Professors?
In this week’s Torah portion, we read about the process through which Moses and Aaron try to persuade the Pharaoh that he should let the children of Israel go. After all, Pharaoh was the absolute head of the most powerful state and civilization of that era. He had every reason to feel confident in his assumptions. When faced with a people who had no state, no power, and no authority, why would he take them seriously?
Initially, Moses and Aaron simply approached with an argument and a request. But when that was rejected, they began to use what we might look at as tricks, or magic, to get Pharaoh to change his mind — which is strange given that magic comes to be specifically forbidden by the Torah.
Aaron, as the spokesman, starts the process by using Moses’ stick, and turning it into a snake. Then Pharaoh called his magicians, or more accurately, necromancers, and they are able to do exactly the same thing. Except the snake that Aaron threw down swallowed theirs and Pharaoh was not persuaded. The next act was to strike the river so that everything would turn into blood. Once again, the magicians were able to do the same thing. The plague of frogs was also replicated by the magicians. Only this time, they were not able to remove the frogs, which was something that Moses was able to achieve. But Pharaoh was still not impressed.
Aaron then hit the ground, turning the dust into lice. This time the magicians were unable to replicate it, and for the first time, they admitted that there was something more powerful. Even so, Pharaoh was still not persuaded. Then the plague of wild beasts which does not affect the Israelites but still no progress. Plagues followed that struck Egyptian livestock, along with hail and boils, which finally convinced Pharaoh to think about freeing them.
One is bound to ask why Aaron and Moses started with signs that could be replicated? Why not start right away with the big ones?
One answer lies in how to break down prejudice, and get people to change their minds. You rarely get somebody who has an entrenched point of view to concede quickly. It is a process that takes time. Secondly, the basis on which Egyptians made decisions through magic or necromancy is non-rational and based on superstition. Most human beings are both non-rational and superstitious, so the first thing you have to do is to break down their certainties.
I think this lesson in persuasion is applicable to our current times, where we have witnessed how a whole generation of academics and teachers has turned against the Jewish State – and then encouraged their students to do the same.
It started slowly and imperceptibly, with contributions to universities to set up departments that would present a specifically anti-Israel narrative and appoint staff in other areas who would share such an agenda, until it became the accepted narrative. Then people who were focused entirely on race and an oppressor vs. oppressed mindset twisted the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to fit their agenda.
Pharaoh was never convinced he was wrong. Let us hope that this time, it might be different. We were commanded in the Bible not to hate the Egyptians for their destructive policies. However, we were encouraged to establish an alternative narrative. And that remains true to this day.
The author is a writer and rabbi, currently based in New York.
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Sephardic Jewish Film Festival in NYC to Feature Array of Movies Celebrating Culture, Tradition, History
A promotional image for the film “Giado: Holocaust in the Desert” being screened at the 2025 New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival. Photo: Provided
The New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival (NYSJFF), also known as the Sephardic Film Festival, returns to New York on Sunday for a week-long celebration of films that spotlight the traditions, cultures, and histories of Sephardic Jews.
This year’s festival will features documentaries, feature films, and shorts that highlight stories set in Israel, Morocco, France, Turkey, and more. It kicks off on Sunday night with a Pomegranate Awards ceremony, whose honorees will include French-born Israeli singer Yael Naim, Iranian-American writer Roya Hakakian, and French-Tunisian actor and screenwriter Michel Boujenah. Acclaimed Brazilian Jewish singer-songwriter Fortuna will receive the ASF Pomegranate Lifetime Achievement Award for Preservation of Sephardic Culture. Fortuna will also perform at the opening night ceremony with Trio Mediterraneo and special guest Frank London, a Grammy-winning trumpeter and co-founder of The Klezmatics.
NYSJFF is organized by the American Sephardic Federation.
A documentary about Naim will make its world premiere at the film festival on Monday and the screening will be followed by a Q&A with Naim and the film’s director, Jill Coulon. Also screening on Monday is the 1985 French comedy “Three Men and a Cradle” starring Boujenah, who will participate in a Q&A after the screening. Boujenah won the coveted César Award for best supporting actor for his role in the film, which is about three adult friends who are enjoying their single life until they get stuck taking care of a baby.
The Sephardic Film Festival will additionally feature the North American premiere of the films “The Last Righteous Man (Baba Sali)” and “Jinxed.” The latter is a Hebrew-language comedy, directed by Hanan Savyon and Guy Amir, about two repairmen who go to fix a television and instead find a dead body in a client’s apartment. They are then mistaken for murder suspects and get mixed up with the mafia and police investigations, as bad luck follows them around.
The Sephardic Film Festival will also host the New York premieres of “Matchmaking 2,” “Neuilly-Poissy” and “The 90s – The Revelry — Hillula,” which was a box office hit in Israel.
The film festival line-up includes “Over My Dead Body,” which explores Persian-American Jewish traditions; a documentary short about efforts to preserve the Ladino language spoken by Sephardic Jews; and a film that highlights the first-hand testimony of Yosef Dadosh who, at the age of 20, was one of 3,000 Libyan Jews deported by the Italians to the Giado concentration camp during the Holocaust.
This year, the Sephardic Film Festival is part of a new, larger cultural festival called Festival Sefarad, which will be a citywide celebration of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewish communities. Festival Sefarad will include film screening, musical performances, workshops, book talks, and Shabbat dinners throughout the month of June. The festival is organized by the American Sephardic Federation with support from the UJA-Federation of New York.
“Our inspiration to expand the 27th NY Sephardic Jewish Film Festival into the first-ever Festival Sefarad is the acute need, in the face of so much adversity and antisemitism, to create communal, intellectual, and cultural events that bring all Jews together,” Jason Guberman, executive director of the American Sephardi Federation, said in a statement. “With the support of the UJA-Federation of NY and 50 organizations throughout Brooklyn, Manhattan, Long Island, and Queens, the ASF is hosting over 40 events that showcase the dynamism, resilience, and joy of the Greater Sephardic world for Jews of all backgrounds and friends.”
The 27th New York Sephardic Jewish Film festival runs from June 8-June 15. The festival concludes with a live concert by legendary artist Enrico Macias. Tickets for the film festival are available online. The annual festival, which started in 1990, has previously screened films from Morocco, India, Yemen, Kurdistan, and more.
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Trump Administration Imposes Sanctions on Four ICC Judges Over ‘Baseless Actions’ Targeting US, Israel
An exterior view of the International Criminal Court in the Hague, Netherlands, March 31, 2021. Photo: REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
US President Donald Trump‘s administration on Thursday imposed sanctions on four judges at the International Criminal Court, an unprecedented retaliation over the war tribunal’s issuance of an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a past decision to open a case into alleged war crimes by US troops in Afghanistan.
Washington designated Solomy Balungi Bossa of Uganda, Luz del Carmen Ibanez Carranza of Peru, Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini Gansou of Benin, and Beti Hohler of Slovenia, according to a statement from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“As ICC judges, these four individuals have actively engaged in the ICC’s illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America or our close ally, Israel. The ICC is politicized and falsely claims unfettered discretion to investigate, charge, and prosecute nationals of the United States and our allies,” Rubio said.
The ICC slammed the move, saying it was an attempt to undermine the independence of an international judicial institution that provides hope and justice to millions of victims of “unimaginable atrocities.”
“It is with deep concern that we note the latest actions announced by the government of the United States … These … are regrettable attempts to impede the court and its personnel in the exercise of their independent judicial functions,” the ICC‘s governing body said in a statement on Friday.
Both judges Bossa and Ibanez Carranza have been on the ICC bench since 2018. In 2020 they were involved in an appeals chamber decision that allowed the ICC prosecutor to open a formal investigation into alleged war crimes by American troops in Afghanistan.
Since 2021, the court had deprioritized the investigation into American troops in Afghanistan and focused on alleged crimes committed by the Afghan government and the Taliban forces.
ICC judges also issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, former Israeli defense chief Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri last November for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Gaza conflict. Alapini Gansou and Hohler ruled to authorize the arrest warrant against Netanyahu and Gallant, Rubio said.
The move deepens the administration‘s animosity toward the court. During the first Trump administration in 2020, Washington imposed sanctions on then-prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and one of her top aides over the court’s work on Afghanistan.
The measures also follow a January vote at the US House of Representatives to punish the ICC in protest over its Netanyahu arrest warrant. The move underscored strong support among Trump‘s fellow Republicans for Israel’s government.
Sanctions severely hamper individuals’ abilities to carry out even routine financial transactions as any banks with ties to the United States, or that conduct transactions in dollars, are expected to have to comply with the restrictions.
But the Treasury Department also issued general licenses, including one allowing the wind-down of any existing transactions involving those targeted on Thursday until July 8, as long as any payment to them is made to a blocked, interest-bearing account located in the US.
The new sanctions come at a difficult time for the ICC, which is already reeling from earlier US sanctions against its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, who last month stepped aside temporarily amid a United Nations investigation into his alleged sexual misconduct.
The ICC, which was established in 2002, has international jurisdiction to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in member states or if a situation is referred by the UN Security Council.
However, the ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel as it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, which established the court. Other countries including the US have similarly not signed the ICC charter. Nonetheless, the ICC has asserted jurisdiction by accepting “Palestine” as a signatory in 2015, despite no such state being recognized under international law.
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US Issues New Round of Iran-Related Sanctions
USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, Sept. 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
The US has issued a new round of Iran–related sanctions targeting 10 individuals and 27 entities, including at least two companies it said were linked to Iran‘s national tanker company, the US Treasury Department said on Friday.
The sanctions, which target Iranian nationals and some entities in the United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong, were announced as US President Donald Trump’s administration is working to get a new nuclear deal with Tehran.
Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control added Ace Petrochem FZE, and Moderate General Trading LLC, both registered in the UAE, to its Specially Designated Nationals List, freezing any of their US assets. OFAC said they are both linked to the state-owned National Iranian Tanker Company which is under US sanctions for exporting oil.
Talks between Iran and the US that aim to resolve a decades-long dispute over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions have been stuck over disagreements about uranium enrichment.
Iran‘s mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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