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The Orthodox world has abandoned its values by abandoning Palestinians
In parts of the Orthodox world, racist rhetoric has been normalized.
Rabbis speaking from the bimah refer to Palestinians as Amalek. Calls to block humanitarian aid are incorporated into divrei torah. One might hear that “Smotrich, Ben-Gvir and their parties speak for the great majority of the religious Zionist community” — a terrifying normalization of religious extremists — or even that the Palestinian people do not exist.
We know where this kind of rhetoric leads. After undercover Israeli border police killed four members of the Bani Odeh family as they drove home from a shopping trip in Nablus in mid-March, one of the two surviving sons recounted being pulled from the car and beaten by a soldier who told a friend, “we killed the dogs.” That boy is only 11 years old; he will live the rest of his life with the memory of seeing his parents and two of his siblings killed in front of him.
The scale of Palestinian suffering in Gaza and the West Bank cannot be justified or ignored. However, in much of the American Orthodox and observant Jewish community — of which both of us are proud members — this pain is barely acknowledged, let alone condemned.
We know that these are deeply painful times for Israelis, who have endured two years of terror, fear and loss. But we believe our community has a moral imperative to empathize with Israelis and Palestinians alike — not one at the exclusion of the other.
The silence we see in our communities is neither incidental nor neutral. It is structural and communal, reinforced by political and institutional pressures.
Our tradition teaches “shetikah ke-hoda’ah” — that silence is tantamount to approval. We have seen this truth manifest in our modern world, through political upheavals like the #MeToo movement and the continuing Jeffrey Epstein scandal. These moments have proven that silence in the face of known misdeeds is not neutral.
Yet even with this clarity, too many forces in our community currently push for silence when it comes to the suffering of Palestinians. Among them are demands by funders who see supporting Israel as inconsistent with holding empathy for Palestinians, and cultural norms that suggest unquestioning support for Israel is a central principle of contemporary Orthodox life.
This communal silence allows us to ignore scathing reports of Israeli human rights and international law violations, including many issued by Israeli nonprofits such as B’Tselem, Physicians for Human Rights Israel, Yesh Din and Peace Now.
What fills that vacuum should alarm anyone committed to principles of humanity and basic decency.
As Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller warned at a recent conference organized by Smol Emuni, the Orthodox left group we co-founded, if we cannot speak against Israeli war crimes or settler violence “it appears as if Judaism supports the massacre of innocents, the stealing of land and sheep, the burning of homes, the uprooting of olive trees, and the murder of children.”
Our tradition has been distorted by those, like Ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who speak the language of revenge and supremacy.
Now, more than 900 days after the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, it is time for the Orthodox community to refocus on the heart of our tradition. We must answer the biblical question: What does God demand of us right now?
How do we, as religious Jews, respond to horrific violence perpetrated by Jews? How do we face this historical moment in which Jewish people have killed more civilians than ever in modern history?
The horror inflicted on the Bani Odeh family is not an isolated incident. It is part of a sharp escalation of Israeli military and settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. In March to date, seven Palestinians have been killed by Jewish extremists. That’s on top of the more than 68,000 people killed in Gaza during the war, including at least 20,000 children. (The total estimated death toll in Gaza includes both combatants and civilians.)
Where are the public reckoning with Jewish-led violence, and the demand for moral accountability? The sermons, communal statements, the school assemblies? Why aren’t rabbis invoking the most basic commandments: “thou shalt not kill,” “thou shalt not steal”?
Where is the Torah that teaches that every human being is created in the image of God? The Torah that commands us to “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly before God”?
In many Jewish spaces, we acknowledge Jewish suffering, condemning Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah and antisemitism. But a moral and religious life demands that we ask not only what has been done to us, but what wrongs we have done to others.
We must create more communal spaces for pain to be heard and questions to be raised, a reprieve from the isolation many of Orthodox Jews horrified by Israel’s abuse of Palestinians experience in our communities. We must elevate voices within our tradition that reflect a different set of values, values centered on humility and compassion and a commitment to share the land with all those living on it. For every rabbinc teaching that celebrates force, we must quote others sources that demand kindness. When we hear “He who is kind to the cruel will become cruel to the kind,” we must answer “Walk in God’s ways — just as God is merciful, so too you must be merciful.”
And we must learn to listen to the voices of people on all sides of this conflict, even those that are unsettling. Because without hearing from others we cannot learn to live with them.
We co-founded Smol Emuni U.S. as a grassroots movement for those who share a deep commitment to and love for the land and people of Israel, and who believe in the essential Jewish principle that all humans are created in the image of God. We see the pursuit of justice and equality as an essential expression of Judaism. As Rabbi Mikhael Manekin, founder of HaSmol HaEmuni in Israel, often says “we are ‘smol’” — Hebrew for “left” — “not despite our faith, but because of it.”
Decades of occupation, ongoing war, and the erosion of Israeli democracy have not only strained Israeli society but strained Judaism itself. We need, in response, to invest in an Orthodox Judaism that is brave enough to be humble, and faithful enough to be self critical. We need a Judaism for those seeking an authentic Torah vision that insists that justice, equality and human dignity are not departures from our tradition, but its very core.
We need to pursue justice and teshuva returning to God’s call to “swerve from evil, to do good, and to pursue peace.”
The post The Orthodox world has abandoned its values by abandoning Palestinians appeared first on The Forward.
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Rubio Says Iran War to Last ‘Weeks Not Months,’ No US Ground Troops Needed
A view of a residential building damaged by a strike, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Tehran, Iran, March 23, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
The US expects its operation against Iran to conclude within weeks, not months, and Washington can meet all its objectives without using ground troops, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday.
Rubio told reporters after meeting G7 counterparts in France that Washington was “on or ahead of schedule in that operation, and expect to conclude it at the appropriate time here – a matter of weeks, not months.”
While he said Washington could achieve its aims without ground troops, he acknowledged it was deploying some to the region “to give the president maximum optionality and maximum opportunity to adjust the contingencies, should they emerge.”
Washington has dispatched two contingents of thousands of Marines to the region, the first of which is due to arrive around the end of March aboard a huge amphibious assault ship. The Pentagon is also expected to deploy thousands of elite airborne soldiers.
The deployments have raised concerns that the war, which the US and Israel launched on Feb. 28 with airstrikes that killed Iran‘s supreme leader and other top officials, could turn into a prolonged ground battle. Iran‘s response, striking US and Israeli targets in the region as well as civilian targets in Gulf Arab nations and shipping, has severely disrupted global trade in energy and other commodities, raising fears of rising prices and recession.
US President Donald Trump has appeared anxious to wind down the unpopular war, and emphasized this week what he has described as productive negotiations aimed at a diplomatic solution to the war, despite repeated assertions from Tehran that no such talks have begun. On Thursday, Trump extended a deadline by 10 days for Iran to reopen the blockaded Strait of Hormuz or face attacks against its civilian energy grid.
Rubio discussed with G7 foreign ministers the possibility that Iran, even after the conflict ends, could try to impose shipping tolls through the Strait of Hormuz. Rubio said European and Asian countries that benefit from trade through the waterway should contribute to efforts to secure free passage through the strait, downplaying the US dependence on the trade.
NEW STRIKES ON IRAN
Iranian media reported strikes on Iran‘s decommissioned heavy-water nuclear research reactor and a factory producing yellowcake uranium late on Friday, and said there were no radiation leaks or danger arising from either attack. Iran informed the International Atomic Energy Agency there was no increase in off-site radiation levels at the yellowcake facility, the IAEA said on X, adding that it would look into the report.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on X that Israel, in coordination with the US, had also hit two steel factories and a power plant. “Attack contradicts POTUS extended deadline for diplomacy. Iran will exact HEAVY price for Israeli crimes,” Araqchi said, using an acronym for the president.
A senior Iranian told Reuters that Tehran had not decided whether to respond to a 15-point proposal the US sent this week after attacks on industrial and nuclear infrastructure on Friday. The official said Iran had expected its response to be delivered on Friday or Saturday, but said the continuing strikes while the US was seeking talks was “intolerable.”
The US proposal, sent via Pakistan two days ago, is reported to include demands ranging from dismantling Iran‘s nuclear and missile programs to relinquishing control of the world’s most important trade route for energy supplies.
The war has spread across the Middle East, killing thousands of people and causing a major disruption to energy supplies, hitting the global economy with soaring oil, gas, and fertilizer prices that have fueled inflation fears.
In Iran, more than 1,900 people have been killed and at least 20,000 injured, said Maria Martinez of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
Attacks on Israel by Iran‘s Lebanese ally Hezbollah have also prompted an Israeli campaign that has displaced a fifth of Lebanon’s population.
IRAN STILL POSSESSES MISSILES
The United States, which has set out to neutralize Iran‘s long-range strike capabilities, can only confirm that about a third of the country’s missile arsenal has been destroyed, five people familiar with the US intelligence told Reuters.
As the damage mounts, Gulf Arab states are telling the US that any deal must not merely end the war but also permanently curb Iran‘s missile and drone capabilities and ensure global energy supplies are never again weaponized, four Gulf sources said.
Far from being laid low, Iran‘s clerical rulers and the increasingly powerful Guards are still peppering the region with airstrikes, driving up energy prices and roiling financial markets.
While a third of Iran‘s missile stock may still be available for use, another third is likely to be damaged or buried in tunnels, some of which could be recovered once fighting stops, said four of the sources familiar with US intelligence, who asked to remain anonymous.
One source said the intelligence on Iran‘s drone capability was similar, with about a third most likely destroyed.
Stock markets continued their slide on Friday, while the Brent crude oil benchmark topped $112, having risen more than 50% since the war began.
In the US. where Trump is politically vulnerable to rising fuel prices, diesel in California hit an all-time high at an average $7.17 a gallon, the American Automobile Association said.
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More Than 400 Hezbollah Fighters Killed in New War With Israel So Far, Sources Say
Smoke rises after an Israeli strike, amid escalating hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, as the US-Israeli conflict with Iran continues, in southern Lebanon, March 24, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
More than 400 fighters from Hezbollah have been killed since the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist group launched the opening salvoes of a new war with Israel on March 2, two sources familiar with Hezbollah‘s count told Reuters.
The figure was the first overall toll provided of Hezbollah fighters killed in Israel‘s expanding air and ground campaign in Lebanon. The group has issued sporadic notices for a few individual fighters but has not provided an official overall toll.
In a 2023-2024 war with Israel, Hezbollah issued daily death notices for each fighter killed and said after the war that some 5,000 had been killed in total.
The Israeli military gave a higher toll of the group’s latest losses than the sources, saying this week it has killed at least 700 Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon, including hundreds of members of the group’s elite Radwan Force.
Lebanon’s health ministry said on Friday that Israeli strikes and ground operations had killed 1,142 people in Lebanon. They include 122 children, 83 women, and 42 medical personnel. The health ministry does not otherwise distinguish between civilians and combatants.
On Friday, the Israeli military said that a soldier and a combat officer had been severely injured overnight during its operations in Lebanon. The military has previously said four of its soldiers have been killed in fighting in southern Lebanon.
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Iran-Linked Hackers Breach FBI Director’s Personal Email, Publish Photos and Documents
The website used by the Handala Hack Team, an Iran-linked hacker group which has claimed credit for the breach of FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal email, is shown on a screen in Washington DC, US, March 27, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Raphael Satter
Iran–linked hackers have broken into FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal email inbox, publishing photographs of the director and other documents to the internet, the hackers and the bureau said on Friday.
On their website, the hacker group Handala Hack Team said Patel “will now find his name among the list of successfully hacked victims.” The hackers published a series of personal photographs of Patel sniffing and smoking cigars, riding in an antique convertible, and making a face while taking a picture of himself in the mirror with a large bottle of rum.
The FBI confirmed Patel’s emails had been targeted. In a statement, bureau spokesman Ben Williamson said, “we have taken all necessary steps to mitigate potential risks associated with this activity” and that the data involved was “historical in nature and involves no government information.”
Handala, which presents itself as a group of pro-Palestinian vigilante hackers, is considered by Western researchers to be one of several personas used by Iranian government cyber-intelligence units. Handala recently claimed the hack of Michigan-based medical devices and services provider Stryker on March 11, saying they had deleted a massive trove of company data.
Handala did not return messages. Reuters could not access its website late on Friday.
Alongside the photographs of Patel, the hackers published a sample of more than 300 emails, which appear to show a mix of personal and work correspondence dating between 2010 and 2019.
Reuters was not able to independently authenticate the Patel messages, but the personal Gmail address that Handala claims to have broken into matches the address linked to Patel in previous data breaches preserved by the dark web intelligence firm District 4 Labs. Alphabet -owned Google, which runs Gmail, did not respond to a request for comment.
‘MAKE THEM FEEL VULNERABLE’
Iran–linked hackers – who initially kept a low profile after the United States and Israel launched coordinated strikes against the Islamic Republic last month – have increasingly boasted of their cyber operations as the conflict drags on.
In addition to the hack against Stryker, Handala on Thursday claimed to have published the personal data of dozens of defense company Lockheed Martin employees stationed in the Middle East. In a statement, Lockheed Martin said it was aware of the reports and had policies and procedures in place “to mitigate cyber threats to our business.”
Gil Messing, chief of staff at Israeli cybersecurity company Check Point, said the hack-and-leak operation against Patel was part of Iran‘s strategy to embarrass US officials and “make them feel vulnerable.”
The Iranians, he said, are “firing whatever they have.”
It is not unusual for foreign hackers to target senior officials’ personal emails, and breaches and leaks both happen periodically. Hackers famously broke into Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s personal Gmail account ahead of the 2016 election and published much of the data to the WikiLeaks site. In 2015, teenage hackers broke into then-CIA director John Brennan’s personal AOL account and leaked data about US intelligence officials.
Relatively unsophisticated breaches of this nature are in line with a U. intelligence assessment reviewed by Reuters on March 2. The assessment said Iran and its proxies could respond to the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with low-level hacks against US digital networks.
Iran–linked hackers may have other emails in reserve.
Last year, another group operating under the pseudonym “Robert” told Reuters it was considering disclosing 100 gigabytes of data stolen from White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and other figures close to US President Donald Trump.
Reuters has not been able to verify the claim and the group has not responded to messages in several months.