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A Hanukkah menorah in the window for eight days? Try an Israeli flag for two years
There’s a robust online debate over whether Jews this year should publicly display their menorahs given the rise in antisemitism. Here’s my suggestion: Ask Elon Rubin.
Rubin owns Sundays Cycles, a custom bicycle shop in Santa Monica, California, that since Oct. 7, 2023, features a large Israeli flag in its window. Every time I drive down Main Street, passing boutiques, restaurants, nail salons and Pilates studios, I see that flag, draped inside several square feet of the glass storefront. It is meant to be seen.
“I’m an Israeli citizen,” Rubin told me when I met him at his store last month. “After everything that happened on Oct. 7, it was the least I could do.”
What drew me into the store was the simple, quiet defiance of Rubin’s decision, which stands in stark blue-and-white contrast to the constant, hand-wringing debate American Jews are engaged in over such symbols.
Those concerns bubble up to the surface like sufganiyot in hot oil around Hanukkah, when Jews are commanded to place their menorahs in windows so that they are visible to all.
The Talmud says the menorahs must be displayed to “publicize the miracle” of Hanukkah.
But more and more American Jews are worried — as their European Jews have been for many years now — about announcing their Jewishness to the outside world.
Some 42% of Jewish Americans report feeling unsafe wearing or displaying Jewish symbols in public since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, and 40% have avoided doing so, up from 26% in 2023.
Those fears aren’t new, but they have risen as have antisemitic attacks, anti-Israel protests and online threats.
When I walked into Rubin’s spacious, hospital-clean bike shop, I asked if he shared those fears.
“There’s nothing to be scared of,” he said.
One look at Rubin and here’s the obvious rebuttal: That’s easy for you to say. The 46-year-old, born in Herzliya to an American mother and a father from Libya, came to the United States in 1998 and made a profession of his cycling obsession. He is shaved, muscled, tattooed and speaks in rapid, commanding sentences.
Over the years, numerous people have shouted at him from outside the store to take down the flag.
“I say, ‘Come in here, let’s have a conversation,’” he said. “Not a single person has come in.”
Other reactions have not been as passive. Graffiti reading “Free Palestine” has appeared on the store window, and vandals have thrown numerous eggs at the place. He’s had death threats on his phone messages, including, ”I hope you die Jew” and “Your days are numbered.”
His Yelp and Google review rankings have been tanked by malicious one-star reviews.
Last March, a Jewish anti-Israel activist, Medea Benjamin, entered his store and called the Israeli flag shameful.
“What about the genocide?” she asked Rubin.
“There is no genocide,” he said.
Her Instagram post of the incident, which racked up 127,719 likes, prompted a deluge of negative reports to Instagram about the bike shop’s account. Instagram suspended his account, Rubin said, and has yet to reactivate it.
“Ten years of organic growth, gone,” he said.
But Rubin said the flag has also generated support. “For every negative,” he said, “we’d probably get two or three positives.”
Israeli tourists detoured inside to meet Rubin and thank him. American Jews, and some non-Jews, told him they appreciated the show of support.
The oddest reaction, he said, are from Jews who have urged him to take the flag down because, they said, it incites hate.
“Like it’s the new swastika,” he said.
But Rubin evinces neither fear nor loathing.
He doesn’t have “blind support” for the current Israeli government, he said, but he loves his country. Just because someone flies the American flag doesn’t mean they support President Trump, he pointed out.
It’s true that the Israeli flag, the symbol of a country embodied in conflict, is not exactly comparable to a menorah, seen largely as a religious symbol. Congregations have been divided over whether to display it on the bimah, as some congregants found it loathsome.
But someone prone to attack Jews might not make the fine distinctions between a menorah, a flag with a Star of David, and a Star of David hanging around a child’s neck, or on a Torah ark. The lines between these symbols are often blurry, but so is the logic of people who attack others just for displaying them.
I asked Rubin if he ever, in the past two years, considered taking down the flag, lighting the menorah in the backyard, so to speak.
“So then what are you?” he said. “You’re a Jew in silence, you’re a Jew in secret.”
Symbols aren’t arguments. They demonstrate but rarely convince, and nuance is not their strong suit. But to Rubin, their power lies not in the message they send to others, but in what they say to ourselves.
“Together,” he said, “we have more strength than we realize.”
The post A Hanukkah menorah in the window for eight days? Try an Israeli flag for two years appeared first on The Forward.
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Trump Says Gas Prices May Remain High Through November Midterm Election
U.S. President Donald Trump takes questions from reporters while Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio look on, as they attend a meeting with oil industry executives, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 9, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the price of oil and gasoline may remain high through November’s midterm elections, a rare acknowledgement of the potential political fallout from his decision to attack Iran six weeks ago.
“It could be, or the same, or maybe a little bit higher, but it should be around the same,” Trump, who is in Miami for the weekend, told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo” when asked whether the cost of oil and gas would be lower by the fall.
The average price for regular gas at US service stations has exceeded $4 per gallon for most of April, according to data from GasBuddy. Trump’s comments on Sunday came after weeks of asserting that the spike in prices is a short-term phenomenon, though his top advisers are cognizant of the war’s economic impacts, officials have said.
Earlier on Sunday, Trump announced on social media that the US Navy would blockade the Strait of Hormuz and intercept any ship that paid a crossing fee to Iran, after marathon talks between the US and Iran in Pakistan over the weekend did not yield a peace deal.
“No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas,” he wrote on Truth Social.
Any US blockade is likely to add more uncertainty to the eventual resolution of the conflict, which is currently subject to a tenuous two-week ceasefire. The new tactic is in response to Iran’s own closure of the strait’s critical shipping lanes, which has caused global oil prices to skyrocket about 50%.
UNPOPULAR WAR HITS TRUMP’S APPROVAL
The war began on February 28, when the US launched a joint bombing campaign with Israel against Iran. The scope quickly expanded as Iran and its allies attacked nearby countries, while Israel targeted Hezbollah with massive strikes in Lebanon.
The war has buffeted global financial markets and caused thousands of civilian deaths, mostly in Iran and Lebanon.
Trump’s political standing at home has suffered, with polls showing the war is unpopular among most Americans, who are frustrated by rising gasoline prices.
The president’s approval rating has hit the lowest levels of his second term in office, raising concern among Republicans that his party is poised to lose control of Congress in the midterm elections. A Democratic majority in either chamber could launch investigations into the Trump administration while blocking much of his legislative agenda.
US Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, questioned the strategy behind Trump’s planned blockade.
“I don’t understand how blockading the strait is going to somehow push the Iranians into opening it,” he told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
In a separate appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Warner said the blockade would not undermine Iranian control of the waterway.
“The Iranians have hundreds of speedboats where they can still mine the strait or put bombs against tankers in closing the strait,” he said. “How is that going to ever bring down gas prices?”
Although Trump has repeatedly said that the war would be over soon, Republican US Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin told ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday that achieving US aims in Iran “could take a long time.”
“It’s going to be a long-term project,” said Johnson, who was not asked about Trump’s proposed blockade. “I never thought this would be easy.”
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Israel’s Ben-Gvir Visits Flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound
Israeli politician Itamar Ben-Gvir walks inside the Knesset, in Jerusalem, Oct. 13, 2025. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Pool via REUTERS
Israel’s far-right police minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visited the flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem on Sunday, saying he was seeking greater access for Jewish worshipers and drawing condemnation from Jordan and the Palestinians.
The compound in Jerusalem’s walled Old City is one of the most sensitive sites in the Middle East. Known to Jews as Temple Mount, it is the most sacred site in Judaism and is Islam’s third-holiest site.
Under a delicate, decades-old arrangement with Muslim authorities, it is administered by a Jordanian religious foundation and Jews can visit but may not pray there.
Suggestions that Israel would alter the rules have sparked outrage among Muslims and ignited violence in the past.
“Today, I feel like the owner here,” National Security Minister Ben-Gvir said in a video filmed at the site and distributed by his office. “There is still more to do, more to improve. I keep pushing the Prime Minister (Benjamin Netanyahu) to do more and more — we must keep rising higher and higher.”
A statement from the Jordanian foreign ministry said it considered Ben-Gvir’s visit to be a violation of the status quo agreement at the site and “a desecration of its sanctity, a condemnable escalation and an unacceptable provocation.”
The office of Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said such actions could further destabilize the region.
Ben-Gvir’s spokesman said the minister was seeking greater access and prayer permits for Jewish visitors. He also said that Ben-Gvir had prayed at the site.
There was no immediate comment from Netanyahu’s office. Previous such visits and statements by Ben-Gvir have prompted Netanyahu announcements saying that there is no change in Israel’s policy of keeping the status quo.
Muslim, Christian and Jewish sites, including Al-Aqsa had been largely closed to the public during the Iran war. There was no immediate sign of unrest on Sunday after Ben-Gvir’s visit.
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Netanyahu Visits Troops Fighting Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference at the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem, Aug. 10, 2025. Photo: ABIR SULTAN/Pool via REUTERS
i24 News – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Israeli forces operating in southern Lebanon on Sunday as military operations against Hezbollah-linked targets continue.
Netanyahu toured forward positions alongside Defense Minister Yisrael Katz, Eyal Zamir, and Northern Command Commander Rafi Milo, meeting troops and receiving operational briefings from commanders on the ground.
Speaking to soldiers, Netanyahu praised their performance and said operations in the Lebanese security zone were ongoing.
“The war continues, including within the security zone in Lebanon,” he said, adding that Israeli forces were working to prevent infiltration attempts and neutralize threats such as anti-tank fire and missiles.
He described the northern campaign as part of a broader regional struggle involving Iran and its allies, saying Israel’s adversaries were now “fighting for their survival” following sustained Israeli military pressure.