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OneTable reimagines Shabbat dinner program amid safety concerns, layoffs and budget crisis
(JTA) — When the Shabbat-dinner nonprofit OneTable slashed a quarter of its staff last month, it wasn’t only because of a budget crisis.
It’s true that fundraising was way down. But the group was also responding to what it sees as important shifts in how Jews gather, citing its growing sense that Gen Z is less likely than others to want to open doors to their home.
Now, OneTable is revealing a raft of new pilot programs and policies, including a move away from its defining practice of subsidizing dinners; a new policy barring anti-Israel events; a renewed focus on young Jews; and a shift toward partnerships with emergent Shabbat “clubs” to lift the burden and risk of hosting at home.
“In this world right now, the idea of welcoming something, someone into your home is scary to people,” said OneTable’s new CEO, Sarah Abramson, who joined the company in May. “All of these things are actually creating barriers to people wanting to host in their homes, and so we know that we need to bring OneTable out into the world.”
At the same time, the group is centralizing its operations. While the 14 layoffs took place across the company, Abramson said OneTable had focused in part on field managers, who served as regional liaisons with hosts and potential hosts.
“If a person in that community really saw that field manager as the face of OneTable, and for whatever reason, did not feel like that person spoke to them or was not aligned with their Jewish values and how they want to Shabbat, then often they would kind of discount OneTable,” she said.
The changes come as Israel looms large over Jewish nonprofits, influencing fundraising and engagement while also at times laying a minefield, especially for younger Jews who are increasingly divided in their sentiments.
OneTable says the number of people participating annually in Shabbat dinners it supports doubled after Oct. 7, 2023, in keeping with a “surge” of Jewish engagement that many organizations observed following Hamas’ attack on Israel. Before the resulting war in Gaza, 42,000 people a year were attending OneTable dinners. After, the number reached 80,000, according to the group.
But the group struggled to keep pace when it came to fundraising. In 2024, OneTable ran a deficit of more than $900,000, spending about $10.6 million while bringing in just over $9 million in contributions, according to their tax filings that year. That represented a sharp decline in funding from 2023, when the organization reported nearly $12 million in contributions and ended the year in a surplus.
“In full transparency, our philanthropy has not kept pace with the volume,” Abramson said.
Prior to joining OneTable, Abramson worked as the executive vice president for strategy and impact at Combined Jewish Philanthropies, Boston’s Jewish federation. There, she oversaw grantmaking as well as the nonprofit’s $60 million post-Oct. 7 Israel emergency fund.
As Jews across the United States flooded funds like that with nearly $1 billion, concerns quickly emerged about whether the donations would supplant other giving. The answer at OneTable, at least, appears to be yes, Abramson said.
“Eighty thousand participants requires so much more philanthropic support at a time where, rightly, philanthropic support for the Jewish community was directed towards Israel, and really thinking about other priorities,” she said.
Gali Cooks, the president and CEO of Leading Edge, a nonprofit that provides training, research and support for Jewish nonprofits, said that there was also a “tricky confluence right now of rising demands and rising costs” within the Jewish nonprofit sector.
Cooks said that, across the sector, nonprofit leaders were realizing that they have to “think smaller and bigger at the same time” — as OneTable says it is doing.
“Within each organization, leaders are trying to achieve more focus and clarity and streamlining toward the mission,” said Cooks. “But between organizations, they’re striving for more collaboration, more partnerships, shared infrastructure, and shared planning. That’s true in the conversation about talent, board excellence, and leadership development, but I think it’s also true about things like antisemitism, security, Israel engagement, and more.”
The changes underway at OneTable include formalizing a stance on Israel for the first time. Earlier this month, the organization added a list of its “core commitments” to its website that included a section outlining drawing a hard line against anti-Israel advocacy.
“We do not formally partner with, or support, any organization, Shabbat dinners, or gatherings that call for Israel’s destruction or in any way question Israel’s right to exist,” the section reads. “We do not fund dinners that align with any political party or candidate.”
At the same time, the group is aiming to stoke Israel talk at the Shabbat table. The group has a new partnership with Resetting the Table, a Jewish nonprofit that teaches dialogue skills, to “allow our Shabbat tables to become nuanced places for hard conversations,” Abramson said during a presentation about at the Jewish Federations of North America annual conference in November.
“We also are doing a lot of pilots based on research that enable the skill of hard conversations for Shabbat,” Abramson told JTA. “For example, we have a pilot right now with Resetting the Table, helping a lot of our hosts think through, how do you actually have deep, meaningful conversations, often about Israel, but not only, particularly in the American context right now.”
For some, the changes mark an unhappy end to OneTable as a respite for young Jews from the pitched ideological divides over Israel that increasingly characterize Jewish experiences.
Alexis Fosco, a former OneTable employee, posted on LinkedIn last month in an announcement of her departure that she was “frustrated at Jewish funders withdrawing from diaspora-focused work, leaving the staff who are already subsidizing their causes to absorb the impact.” She indicated that she had not been among the laid-off workers.
“I keep thinking about how funding-driven scope creep takes hold,” continued Fosco. “It’s heartbreaking and spiritually exhausting to pour yourself into an organization and walk away realizing the work no longer aligns with what you set out to build or believe in.”
Three former field managers did not respond to JTA requests for comment.
Abramson said the nonprofit’s new initiatives would be rolled out as pilots over the coming year. But even if the tests are temporary, they mark a significant shift for the nonprofit that has long been synonymous with underwriting the costs of serving Shabbat dinner at home. Hosts have historically received $10 stipends for each registered guest at their OneTable dinners.
An analysis of host patterns found that a small number of repeat hosts were racking up disproportionate subsidies.
In September, after one former OneTable host posted about their dismissal from the program on Facebook, Dani Kohanzadeh, OneTable’s senior director of field, told JTA that it had let go of just under 50 hosts in one week. But she said that the decision was not primarily financial.
“It’s not about balancing the budget,” said Kohanzadeh. “We didn’t make this decision based on the financial cutoff, it’s based on the overall experience with our support.”
Now, Abramson said the organization plans on rolling out alternative incentives for hosting Shabbat, including a “point” system in which points can be exchanged for prizes including, potentially, trips to Israel and elsewhere.
“OneTable’s model really works for a lot of people … so we want to ensure that people who are finding a lot of meaning and financial support through nourishment continue to be able to choose that, we won’t be taking that away,” she said.
Abramson said the company was also shifting away from its recent focus on older Jewish adults to center its programming on younger Jews.
“OneTable was founded as an organization designed to provide Friday night Shabbat experiences for young adults,” she said. “This is really going back to our roots and ensuring that we are evolving the way in which young adults want to be reached.”
The post OneTable reimagines Shabbat dinner program amid safety concerns, layoffs and budget crisis appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel’s upcoming election could damage the country irreversibly
We live in an age of political hyperbole, when it can seem as if every election is described as the most important ever and each defeat as an existential catastrophe, and after years of hearing these warnings it is understandable that voters have become numb to them.
Thomas Friedman recently issued such a pronouncement in The New York Times, placing the coming American midterms and Israeli general election alongside each other, arguing that in both the future of democracy itself is on the ballot. But while the comparison captures the stakes, it also understates an important distinction between the two countries.
Countries are generally more resilient than their politicians, and even terrible administrations eventually end. With that in mind, I believe the United States – a globally impactful behemoth – can survive the madness Donald Trump is imposing on the Western alliance and on the norms and sanity of American political life, however long-lasting the damage may be.
But Israel faces a different order of danger. Another victory by Benjamin Netanyahu would, in the view of many people, carry the country past a point at which a subsequent election can realistically restore the developed Western democracy Israelis and the world have known. There are geopolitical and demographic issues that mean time is running out to undo the grievous damage caused by his rightist-religious coalition.
Another four years of Netanyahu could change the country’s democratic institutions, population, economy and international position so profoundly that the conditions for reversing course will substantially disappear. The choice concerns which population, which institutions and which conception of the state will define Israel for the generation ahead.
The danger lies in how these trends reinforce one another: institutional erosion enables political entrenchment, demographic change makes it more durable, emigration weakens its opponents, and international isolation compounds the damage.
For people who care about Israel, the stakes could hardly be higher.
The ‘Putinization’ of Israel
Almost immediately after Netanyahu returned to power at the end of 2022, his rightist-religious coalition embarked on the “Putinization” of Israel: a systematic effort to weaken the independent institutions capable of restraining elected power. They hoped to transform Israel’s system of liberal democracy into something closer to an elected autocracy. “Liberal”has nothing to do with leftism, as it does in America, and everything to do with the concept of checks and balances.
The original attempted judicial overhaul would have given politicians almost total control over judicial appointments and allowed a simple parliamentary majority to override Supreme Court decisions – an extraordinary concentration of power in a country with no written constitution, no second legislative chamber, no federal system and few institutional checks on the government except for the courts.
Hundreds of thousands ofIsraelis understood the implications, and throughout 2023 filled the streets week after week. Reservists threatened to stop volunteering for duty, technology leaders warned of economic consequences and the country descended into the deepest internal crisis in its history. Then came Oct. 7, shattering the country and redirecting virtually all national attention toward war, hostages and survival.
But the interruption increasingly looks like a postponement. The legislative blitz of recent months has revived the same project through measures targeting the attorney general, government legal advisers, judicial authority, independent regulators – and blocking a real investigation of Oct. 7.
This time Netanyahu’s aim is not to fool the other side (which is no longer possible) but to fire up his base. So he is campaigning on his true program – completing the judicial overhaul, exempting the Haredim from the draft and entrenching their privileges, and effectively creating a situation that would enable him to force an end to his corruption trials. A victory would not only be interpreted as a mandate for this madness – it would be an endorsement of it.
The Haredi draft exemption is especially important because it shows how institutional, political and demographic change reinforce one another. Throughout the war, Netanyahu’s government repeatedly sought to codify broad draft exemptions for the Haredi population even as Israel fought a prolonged, multi-front war and the military was howling about an acute shortage of soldiers. But Haredi parties are indispensable to Netanyahu’s coalition, and their political leverage will grow with their population. The exemption bill is now lined up.
The consequences extend far beyond the moral obscenity of unequal military service. This rapidly growing population – a sixth of the population today and perhaps a third in 20 years – receives extensive state support while participating at comparatively low rates in the workforce, and frequently educates its boys without the mathematics, English and science required by a sophisticated modern economy and society. It creates a demographic and fiscal structure that cannot sustain itself.
Israel’s predicament becomes particularly dangerous because the people most capable of carrying the burden of funding and defending the country for a while longer are also the people most capable of leaving.
The demographic dilemma
Almost 300,000 Israelis have left the country during the Netanyahu years, and many more are essentially waiting for the election. They overwhelmingly belong to the perhaps one million people who drive the tech and innovation and security sectors, medicine, academia, entrepreneurship, business and the arts. Their skills generate a disproportionate share of the investment, tax revenue, innovation and international connections that sustain Israel as a first-world economy capable of financing one of the world’s most sophisticated militaries.
They are mostly secular, or moderately observant, and they would have an increasingly difficult time living under right-wing rule, given how the right has changed. The Israeli right that created Netanyahu was substantially secular, nationalist and security-minded, while the emerging version is increasingly religious, ethnonationalist and hostile to the liberal restraints that once commanded broad support in Israel.
Demography accelerates that transformation. Haredi Israelis have vastly more children on average than secular Israelis, while religious Zionists (who are not Haredi) also maintain larger families. Religiosity has consequently become one of the strongest predictors of political allegiance among Israeli Jews: Haredim overwhelmingly support Haredi parties, non-Haredi religious voters (known as the “national religious”) overwhelmingly support the right, and secular Israelis lean heavily toward the parties opposing Netanyahu.
Elections in such a reality therefore increasingly resemble a census between populations with incompatible ideas about the basic organization of the country, from military service and education to civil marriage, public transportation on Shabbat, women’s equality, the authority of religious law and the character of constitutional democracy.
Netanyahu himself may ultimately prove a transitional figure in this transformation. He remains personally secular, cosmopolitan and Western, a product of the classic Israeli center-right, while the notorious firebrand National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir more closely resembles the constituency the right is becoming: religious, ethnonationalist, impatient with liberal constraints and comfortable making Jewish supremacy throughout the land an organizing political principle – essentially, the idea that Arabs need not have equal rights.
For Israelis with foreign passports, global careers, transferable skills and children who can study abroad, emigration is a practical option. Even the departure of a fraction of this group could create a vicious cycle: a shrinking productive population faces higher taxes and greater military burdens while losing political influence, encouraging still more to leave.
Four years can therefore change the electorate twice: through demographic growth among the religious right and through selective emigration among the secular, liberal and highly productive population most alienated by the direction of the state.
The international implications
The same feedback loop operates internationally. Israel’s prosperity and military strength depend on integration with the Western economic and diplomatic system, and especially on the extraordinary strategic protection provided by the United States. Washington’s diplomatic umbrella, particularly at the United Nations Security Council, has long helped protect Israel from forms of international isolation capable of producing serious economic consequences.
A more religious, nationalist and institutionally illiberal Israel permanently ruling millions of Palestinians will become progressively harder for Western governments to defend. A future American administration willing to withdraw that protection could expose Israel to sanctions, boycotts and other forms of economic pressure precisely when demographic change and the departure of productive Israelis have weakened its capacity to absorb them.
The danger therefore lies in the convergence of these trends: weakened institutions make sectarian policies easier to entrench; those policies strengthen the religious coalition; demographic change makes that coalition more durable; emigration weakens its opponents; economic deterioration encourages further emigration; and international isolation magnifies every domestic weakness.
Israel’s secular and moderately traditional population still constitutes a majority and remains overwhelmingly central to the country’s economic, technological, scientific, military and cultural life, which means the political future remains open today even as the demographic trajectory increasingly favors the religious right.That window can close.
I predict the opposition will win, and will take steps to reverse the damage of the judicial overhaul and integrate the Haredim properly. But much could go wrong – in the vote itself and in the comportment of the divided opposition in victory.
If Netanyahu wins
An outright Netanyahu victory could be an extinction event. It would provide four uninterrupted years for institutional devastation, Haredi entrenchment, demographic sorting, brain drain and international estrangement until elections themselves become increasingly incapable of producing fundamental change.
Israel would continue to exist, sure – with considerable military power and technological sophistication for some time, while the country that emerged would bear progressively less resemblance to the liberal, globally integrated, Western-oriented society that generated its extraordinary success. But the writing will be on the wall, and the effects would snowball.
The question facing Israelis in October therefore reaches beyond Netanyahu and his corruption scandals, the Oct. 7 breakdown and the Gaza war, judicial appointments or any individual controversy, because the choice concerns which population, which institutions and which conception of the state will define Israel for the generation ahead.
My brilliant longtime friend Larry Derner recently wrote,: “When I think of Netanyahu winning the October 27 election, I think of my two 30-ish sons and the older one’s wife, and how their future in Israel will be ruined. I say that because they are Israeli patriots. … I don’t think it’s possible to remain patriotic about your country once it gets taken over permanently by a force of evil, which is what my sons, daughter-in-law and masses of other Israeli patriots see in Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir … the settler pogromists and their kind. And if they win this election, these people and others like them will indeed run the country permanently.”
He’s dead right. Countries survive bad elections because another election provides another chance, while Israel is approaching an election in which the most consequential result of another Netanyahu victory is permanence for something catastrophic.
An Israel that is shorn of its productive center and run by fanatically religious and nationalistic politicians – lording over millions of stateless Arabs, and quite probably under international sanctions – will be gradually impoverished. It will project a vulnerability greater than it did on the eve of Oct. 7, and eventually invite a far greater attack. In such a scenario, I doubt Israel will reach its hundredth birthday in 2048. This – even more than its vilification by many progressives and denigration by antisemitic far-right agitators – would be the ultimate tragedy of Zionism.
The post Israel’s upcoming election could damage the country irreversibly appeared first on The Forward.
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How wrong I was about the young Ukrainian with the Chabad yarmulke
מײַן מאַמע, עליה השלום, פֿלעגט מיר זאָגן, אַז בעסער איז טראַכטן גוטס וועגן אַ שלעכטן מענטשן, איידער שלעכטס — וועגן אַ גוטן.
ניט איין מאָל אין פֿאַרלויף פֿון מײַן לעבן האָב איך זיך אָנגעמאַכט צרות און צומאָל זיך צעקלאַפּט ביז בלוט מײַן אייגענעם פּרצוף, זיך באַמיִענדיק פֿאָלגן די דאָזיקע עצה. עס זײַנען געווען פֿאַלן, ווען איך בין אָפּגעטראָטן פֿון דעם דאָזיקן פּרינציפּ, און איך באַדויער דאָס טאַקע.
הײַנט אַרבעט איך ווי אַ פֿאָרשטייער פֿון דער ייִדישער אַגענץ אין מאָלדאָווע מיט ייִדישע — און צומאָל מיט ניט־ייִדישע — פּליטים פֿון אוקראַיִנע. מײַן אויפֿגאַבע איז פֿאַרשנעלערן דעם פּראָצעס פֿון זייער אַרויספֿאָרן קיין ישׂראל. הונדערטער פּנימער, הונדערטער גורלות. כּמעט אויסשליסלעך — פֿרויען מיט קינדער און זקנים. ניט זעלטן זקנים, וועלכע האָבן איבערגעלעבט אַלס קינדער די צווייטע וועלט־מלחמה. צו מאָל — קינדער, וועלכע שרעקן זיך פֿון דעם, וואָס איך רעד אויף רוסיש מיט אַ מאָסקווער אויסשפּראַך. אַזוי רעדן דאָך רוסישע מערדער.
דאָס גאַנצע באַזיניקטע לעבן מײַנס בין איך געווען אַ ייִדישער נאַציאָנאַליסט און איך בלײַב אַזאַ ביז איצט. איך בין ניט קיין „רוסישער“ ייִד, הגם איך בין געבוירן געוואָרן אין מאָסקווע און רעד רוסיש, ווי אַ מאָסקווער גוי. איך בין ניט קיין „אוקראַיִנישער“ ייִד, הגם מײַן מאַמע איז געבוירן געוואָרן אין פּיריאַטין אין דער פּאָלטאַווער געגנט, און איך רעד גאַנץ נישקשה אוקראַיִניש.
איך בין אַ ייִדישער ייִד. מײַן היימלאַנד אינעם סאַמע טיפֿסטן זין פֿונעם וואָרט „היים“ איז ישׂראל, און קיין שום בירגערשאַפֿט, חוץ דער ישׂראלדיקער, האָב איך ניט און דאַרף איך ניט. אָבער דאָ און איצט זע איך אַן אַבסאָלוט בייז און אַן אַבסאָלוט גוטס, וועלכע מעקן אָפּ גרענעצן פֿון נאַציאָנאַליטעטן און צווינגען זיך צו דערמאָנען, אַז מיר אַלע זײַנען בני־אָדם, אַז מיר זײַנען געבוירן געוואָרן מענטשן און מוזן שטרעבן צו בלײַבן מענטשן. טאַקע יענץ, וואָס אויף ייִדיש רופֿט מען „אַ מענטש“.
זיך אומקערנדיק צום אָנהייב, צו מײַן מאַמעס עצה — שלאָג איך זיך על־חטא: נעכטן אין איינעם פֿון די פּונקטן אין אוקראַיִנע, וווּ עס זײַנען צײַטווײַליק אײַנגעאָרדנט די ייִדישע פּליטים, האָב איך זיך פֿאַרנומען מיט מײַן אַרבעט. צו מיר איז געווען אַ גאַנץ גרויסע ריי. צווישן די, וואָס האָבן געוואַרט אין דער ריי, האָט זיך געוואָרפֿן אין די אויגן אַ יוגנטלעכער מיט אַ חב״דישער יאַרמלקע. „מסתּמא אַ דעזערטיר, וואָס אַנטלויפֿט פֿון מאָביליזאַציע אין דער אוקראַיִנישער אַרמיי,“ האָב איך אַ טראַכט געטאָן און דערפֿילט אַן אַנטיפּאַטיע צו אים.
ניט לאַנג צוריק האָב איך באַזוכט מערבֿ־אוקראַיִנע און געטראָפֿן דאָרט עטלעכע מאַנצבילן — אוקראַיִנישע בירגער, בתוכם ייִדן, וועלכע האָבן זיך באַמיט אויסמײַדן מאָביליזאַציע אין דער אוקראַיִנישער אַרמיי, געגנבֿעט די גרענעץ צווישן אוקראַיִנע און מאָלדאָווע. איך האָב געמיינט, אַז דער דאָזיקער יונגער חב״דניק איז איינער פֿון יענע, וואָס האָבן באַוויזן זיך אַרויסצושמוגלען.
אָבער איך האָב אַ טעות געהאַט. ס׳האָט זיך אַרויסגעוויזן, אַז ער איז בכלל אַ רוסלענדישער בירגער פֿון איינער פֿון די צוויי הויפּטשטעט. צופֿעליק איז ער געווען צוליב זײַנע חב״דישע ענינים אין אוקראַיִנע, אין קיִעוו, ווען עס האָט זיך אָנגעהויבן די מלחמה. דער בחור איז געבליבן אַלס וואָלונטיר אין דער אָרטיקער ייִדישער קהילה. במשך פֿון אַ חודש האָט ער געהאָלפֿן אַרויספֿירן ייִדישע פּליטים פֿון דער שטאָט דער באַשאָסענער מיט ראַקעטן, אין בײַשטעט פֿון וועלכער ס׳איז שוין אַרײַן דאָס רוסישע מיליטער. בלויז איצט, ווען די באַוואָפֿנטע כּוחות פֿון אוקראַיִנע הייבן אָן איבערצוגיין אין דער קיִעווער געגנט צו אַ קאָנטער־אָנגריף, איז ער אַוועקגעפֿאָרן פֿון אוקראַיִנע קיין מאָלדאָווע כּדי עולה זײַן קיין ישׂראל.
הײַנט וועט דער דאָזיקר יונגער חב״דניק מיט גאָטס הילף זײַן אין ישׂראל.
זײַ מיר מוחל, בחור אין דער חב״דישער יאַרמלקע. איך זאָג צו צו האַלטן זיך אין דער צוקונפֿט שטרענגער בײַ דער עצה פֿון מײַן מאַמען: בעסער איז טראַכטן גוטס וועגן אַ שלעכטן מענטשן, איידער שלעכטס — וועגן אַ גוטן.
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Teenager eulogizes slain father who saved his life in West Bank terror attack just before Yom Kippur
(JTA) — Standing at his father’s grave after Yom Kippur 16-year-old Yoav Shukron thanked him for the warning that saved his life a day earlier, when a Palestinian gunman opened fire on the two of them at a West Bank spring.
“Dad, I want to say thank you for 16 years together. Thank you for giving me life,” Yoav said on Monday night as his father, Netanel Shukron, 48, was laid to rest in the West Bank settlement of Alei Zahav.
“Thank you for shouting out to me during the attack, when the terrorist came in. I don’t remember what you said to me, and I ran,” he added, in remarks carried by Channel 12 news.
Yoav had accompanied his father to the Ein Riya spring near the settlement of Neve Tzuf on Sunday to immerse ahead of Yom Kippur when the attack took place.
Yoav escaped unharmed. Shukron, a father of six, was critically wounded and later pronounced dead at Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva.
Hundreds of relatives, friends and residents attended the funeral, held after the Yom Kippur fast ended.
“Nati was the most involved father in the world,” his wife, Merav Shukron, said.
Reflecting on their 18-year marriage, she said, “We came from different families, but that didn’t stop us from being soulmates. Nati, our family is perfect, everything was perfect.”
The couple had six children, ages 4 to 16. Shukron worked as an information systems analyst at Hachshara Insurance Company, while Merav Shukron is a lecturer at Ariel University.
Merav said the family had been due to travel abroad the following week and that her husband had carefully planned the trip around spending time together, including packing a sukkah and food for the holiday.
According to the Israeli military’s preliminary investigation, the Palestinian attacker drove to the spring and opened fire. An Israeli military tracker who was nearby in an armored vehicle returned fire and wounded the gunman, preventing him from continuing the attack.
The attacker fled and was located several hours later receiving treatment at a hospital near Ramallah, where soldiers from the elite Duvdevan unit arrested him.
Israeli security officials identified the suspected attacker as Qadri Samara, a resident of the Palestinian town of Biddu who is affiliated with the Hamas terror group and was previously known to Israeli security forces, according to Channel 13. Investigators said he had visited the spring the previous day and determined that large numbers of people would be there to immerse in its waters ahead of Yom Kippur, a practice observed by some Jews before the fast.
In the aftermath of the attack, Israeli troops carried out a large operation in Biddu, mapping Samara’s home ahead of its possible demolition, searching about 100 locations and questioning about 90 suspects. The military also reinforced its forces across the West Bank, including by deploying the elite Egoz unit to the area.
About an hour after the shooting, soldiers thwarted a separate attempted car-ramming attack at the Ganim military post in the northern West Bank. One attacker was killed and a second was arrested, Channel 13 reported, adding that no soldiers were wounded.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a post on X, “No terrorist is immune, neither are those who assist them; we will settle scores with all of them – in Gaza, in Lebanon, and in Judea and Samaria,” using the biblical term for the West Bank.
President Isaac Herzog noted that the attack came “on the eve of Yom Kippur, as the people of Israel gather for the holy day.”
“Terror will not break us or shake our spirit,” he said. “We will stand against it together, united, determined and full of faith.”
Shukron’s killing has also become the first case in which Israeli officials are considering applying a death penalty law approved by the Knesset in March, according to the KAN public broadcaster.
The law, long championed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and his far-right Otzma Yehudit party, makes death the default sentence for non-Israelis convicted in Israeli military courts of carrying out deadly nationalist attacks, while allowing judges to impose life imprisonment in “special circumstances.” It passed the Knesset 62-48 and immediately drew a High Court challenge.
Ben-Gvir raised the possibility of applying the law to Samara during a security meeting before Yom Kippur, arguing that the case was the first to meet the law’s criteria. Netanyahu did not rule out the proposal and asked IDF representatives for their position on applying the law, which they said they saw no impediment to doing, according to KAN, though the report noted that the military advocate general was not present at the meeting. The issue is expected to be discussed again in a smaller cabinet forum with the IDF’s legal chief present, the report said.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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