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The settlers’ attack on Huwara is not the Orthodox Judaism I grew up on
(JTA) — Nighttime in Huwara, a small Palestinian town in the West Bank. Jews in large skullcaps and sidelocks, prayer fringes dangling from their waists, responding loudly to the cantor: “Yehei shmei raba mevurach leolam u’leolmei olmaya” (“May His great name be blessed, forever and ever”) — the words of Kaddish, a regular daily prayer that can also be said to mourn the dead.
The gloom outside is illuminated by an enormous bonfire of cars, shops and homes belonging to the Palestinian residents of the village, which the Kaddish-reciters have set on fire, in revenge for the horrific and heartrending murders, hours before the pogrom, of brothers Hillel and Yagel Yaniv (may their memory be a blessing) and for other recent terror attacks in the area.
One Palestinian was killed during the rioting by these Jewish settlers. Dozens of wounded Palestinians were evacuated to hospitals, some from smoke inhalation, others from beatings and stabbings. A family was evacuated by IDF troops, moments before they might have perished in the flames that took their home.
This wasn’t just any Kaddish, yet another one of those said and repeated by any observant Jew multiple times a day, sometimes in mumbling fashion. This time it was a Kaddish for Judaism itself.
I grew up in a small town in central Israel, in a classic “dati leumi” or national religious community whose ideology combines Zionism and Orthodox Judaism. I studied in typical religious institutions: a school in the state-religious education stream, a high school yeshiva and a “hesder yeshiva,” which combines advanced religious studies with military service. I was also very active in the religious Zionist Bnei Akiva youth movement, as an educator and leader.
Even today I live in a religious community in Jerusalem, and my young children study in schools that belong to the state-religious education stream.
The Judaism that I know and by which I try to live is a Judaism that operates according to the commandment “walk in His ways” (Deuteronomy 11:22) and the Talmud: “As He is gracious you should also be gracious, as He is compassionate you should also be compassionate” (Shabbat 133b:4-6). This Judaism operates according to the verse from Leviticus, “The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land belongs to Me, for you are strangers and [temporary] residents with Me.”
By contrast, the Judaism that the militant settlers imbibed — or distorted — led one of the pogromchiks, he too in skullcap and sidelocks, to speak in Hebrew words I understood but whose language I could not not comprehend. “There is something very moving here,” he told a reporter. “Jews won’t be silent. What the army can’t do, what the police will never do, simple Jews come and carry out a simple act of vengeance, setting fire to anything they can.”
The same Judaism led Davidi Ben Zion, deputy head of the Samaria Regional Council, also an observant Jew, to say blithely, shortly before the pogrom, that “Huwara should be wiped off the earth — no room for mercy,” and “the [Jewish] guys in Huwara right now are behaving precisely like guys whose brothers were massacred in cold blood at point-blank. The idea that a Jew in Samaria is a diasporic Jew who will be stabbed in the heart and politely say thank you, is childish naivete.”
That same Judaism led Israel’s finance minister, Betzalel Smotrich, the de facto governor of the West Bank, to publicly support a tweet by another coalition member calling to “wipe out” the village.
In the name of this Judaism, denizens of hills and outposts abuse the Palestinians daily, with the aid or under the blind eye of the IDF. A national Jewish settlement endeavor has been taking place for two generations now, which despite the good intentions of some of its practitioners, has included land theft, institutionalized discrimination, killing and hatred. An endeavor under which the current coalition, the most observant ever, only grows and intensifies.
In ordinary times life is not black and white. The Palestinian side also has a significant part in the story. The violence comes in great force and cruelty from there as well, and its many victims and circles burn the soul and draw many good people into the cycle of vengeance. The solution, too, is complex and hard to see, even far off on the horizon. But there are moments when things are actually very clear, clarifying the gray areas, when the choices are between life and death, and good and evil.
This evil version of Judaism is a lethal drug, which through a historical twist of fate gained ascendance over our ancient tradition. Combined with nationalism and majority hegemony in the Land of Israel, it has become a conflagration, one that has long since spread beyond religious Zionism — what Americans might refer to as “Modern Orthodox” — to the haredi, or ultra-Orthodox sector, and Israeli society in general.
An entire generation of Jews has been raised on this Judaism of hate, contemptuous of anyone who is not Jewish, of any display of weakness, of compassion. To whom Judaism is not the keeping and continuation of our tradition, observing commandments or studying Torah, but a worship of “Jewish might” (“Otzma Yehudit,” the name of a far-right political party) and limitless greed. In this Judaism, traditional values like modesty, pity and charity are signs of weakness, or remnants of a pathetic and feeble Christian morality that under no circumstances are to be shown to a stranger, the other, those who are not like us.
What we need now is not accommodation, nor soft words and platitudes. Neither will an obvious and empty condemnation of the pogrom do a bit of good. What we need now — having seen the elected officials who represent this religious population, having witnessed their nationalist Judaism — is a policy rooted in a tradition they abandoned. We should treat those who distort Judaism as the Mishnah tells us to treat all evildoers: “Distance yourself from an evil neighbor, and do not cleave to a wicked person” (Ethics of the Fathers 1:7). We need to announce that we want no part in the feral growth that has sprung up here, that this is not the tradition we grew up on, this is not the Torah we studied, and this is not how we wish to live our lives and raise our children.
Let us return to tradition and start over.
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The post The settlers’ attack on Huwara is not the Orthodox Judaism I grew up on appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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YouTuber Ms. Rachel Apologizes for ‘Accidentally’ Liking Instagram Comment Calling to ‘Free America From Jews’
Ms. Rachel. Photo: Wiki Commons.
Children’s educator and YouTuber Ms. Rachel admitted on Wednesday that she “accidentally” liked an antisemitic comment on Instagram that called for America to be “free from the Jews.”
The YouTube star, who creates toddler learning videos, apologized for the apparent mistake after a social media user privately messaged her on Instagram and pointed out that Ms. Rachel liked the antisemitic comment left on one of her posts. The private message promoted Ms. Rachel, 43, to issue a public apology in a video that she posted Wednesday on Instagram for her 4.8 million followers.
The YouTuber, whose real name is Rachel Griffin Accurso, explained that she thought she deleted the hateful comment but accidentally hit “like and hide” instead. The avid critic of Israel, who has shared online posts accusing the Jewish state of “genocide” and has 18.6 million subscribers on her YouTube channel, got emotional in an Instagram video while explaining what happened.
“I thought I deleted a comment, and I accidentally hit ‘like’ and hide,’” she said in an Instagram video. “I don’t know how or why. I’ve accidentally liked comments before. It happens. I’m a human who makes mistakes. I would never agree with an antisemitic thing like the comment. We have Jewish family, a lot of my friends are Jewish. I delete antisemitic comments.”
The issue reportedly began when Ms. Rachel shared a statement from her notes app on Instagram that read “Free Palestine, Free Sudan, Free Congo, Free Iran.” A social media user who replied to the post wrote, “Free America from the Jews” and the comment garnered four likes including from Ms. Rachel, according to screenshots cited by the New York Post.
The children’s YouTube star insisted she was “so broken over” the incident.
“I feel like we can’t be human anymore online,” she complained in the video. “And I’m so sorry for the confusion it caused. I’m so sorry if anyone thought that I would ever agree with something horrible and antisemitic like that. I don’t.”
“I want to say that it’s OK to be human and it’s OK to make mistakes and I’m old, so I am not as good with touching things online, I guess. I have liked things by accident before,” she added. “Everyone who knows me knows I would never like that.”
In an earlier Instagram post about the incident, Ms. Rachel wrote that “people are allowed to make mistakes” and that she was “super sorry for any confusion it caused.”
“I delete antisemitism ANY time I see it. I am against all forms of hate including antisemitism against the Jewish people,” she added.
The watchdog group StopAntisemitism.org has previously accused Ms. Rachel of spreading Hamas propaganda and false information about Israel’s military actions in the Gaza Strip during the Israel-Hamas war.
Ms. Rachel lives in New York City and her husband is Broadway music director and composer Aron Accurso.
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Discussion: Growing up Hasidic in Vienna
זונטיק דעם 25סטן יאַנואַר וועט אויף זום פֿאָרקומען אַ שמועס מיט איידל מלובֿיצקי (מאַלאָוויצקי), אַ צאַנזער־רביש אייניקל וואָס איז געבוירן און דערצויגן געוואָרן בײַ אַ חסידישער סלאָנימער משפּחה אין ווין, עסטרײַך.
אלי בענעדיקט, וואָס וועט פֿירן דעם אינטערוויו און איז אַליין פֿון אַ חסידישער משפּחה, האָט געזאָגט אַז איידל מלוביצקי „טראָגט אין זיך אַ לעבעדיק לעבנבילד פֿון אַ חסידישער וועלט אין אַ מאָדערנער שטאָט. אין איר דערציילן פֿאַרבינדן זיך פּערזענלעכע זכרונות מיט קהילות־געשיכטע, און ייִדיש בלײַבט די שליסלשפּראַך פֿאַר ביידע.“
די דיסקוסיע ווערט געשטיצט פֿון דער ייִדיש־ליגע.
איידל מלובֿיצקי איז הײַנט אַ ייִדיש־לערערין און קולטור־פֿיגור, אַקטיוו אין פֿאַרשידענע אינסטיטוציעס — צווישן זיי: דער ווינער אוניווערסיטעט, „יונג־ייִדיש־ווין“ און „ייִדיש־זומער־ווײַמאַר“. זי איז אויך אַ וועגווײַזערין און גיט לעקציעס וועגן דער ייִדישער געשיכטע פֿון ווין, וועגן דער חסידישער געשיכטע בכלל, און די געשיכטע פֿון דער חסידישער קהילה אין ווין בפֿרט. בקרובֿ וועט אויך אַרויס אַ דאָקומענטאַר וועגן די בית־יעקבֿ־שולן, וווּ זי ווערט אויך אינטערוויוירט.
דער שמועס, וואָס איז פֿרײַ פֿון אָפּצאָל, וועט פֿאָרקומען זונטיק, דעם 25סטן יאַנואַר, 2 אַ זייגער נאָך מיטאָג ניו־יאָרקער צײַט. כּדי זיך צו רעגיסטרירן גיט אַ קוועטש דאָ.
The post Discussion: Growing up Hasidic in Vienna appeared first on The Forward.
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Australia PM Albanese ‘Profoundly Sorry’ for Failing to Prevent Bondi Beach Attack
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks at the Sydney Opera House during a National Day of Mourning for the victims of the Dec. 14, 2025, mass shooting at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach, in Sydney, Australia, Jan. 22, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Jeremy Piper
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Thursday he was “profoundly sorry” for his failure to prevent the Bondi Beach mass shooting, as the country observed a day of mourning for the victims of the attack.
Police say a father and son opened fire at an event celebrating the Jewish festival of Hanukkah on Dec. 14, killing 15 people in Australia‘s worst mass shooting in decades.
They say the two men were inspired by Islamic State to carry out the attack, which the government has called an act of terrorism against Jewish people.
Flags were flown at half-mast across the country ahead of a memorial event at Sydney’s iconic Opera House, where Albanese apologized to the relatives of the victims in the audience.
“You came to celebrate a festival of light and freedom and you left with the violence of hatred. I am deeply and profoundly sorry that we could not protect your loved ones from this evil,” Albanese said to sustained applause in his speech at the event.
Last month, the prime minister said he was “sorry for what the Jewish community and our nation as a whole has experienced” – an apology that some relatives said was insufficient.
A minute’s silence, including on the country’s main television channels, was held across the nation just after 7 pm in Sydney (0800 GMT) as the memorial event began.
Event attendees lit candles and heard speeches from other lawmakers, as well as Jewish prayers and video tributes.
Buildings across the country, including cricket stadiums in Melbourne and Perth, were also illuminated, while play was paused during the Australian Open tennis tournament to observe the minute’s silence.
The Bondi attack shocked the nation and led to calls for tougher action on antisemitism and gun control, with critics of Albanese saying he had not done enough to crack down on a spate of attacks on the Jewish community in recent years.
The government disputes this, and has already passed legislation tightening background checks for gun licenses, as well as separate legislation that would lower the threshold for prosecuting hate speech offenses.