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Judaism doesn’t want you to wander and live just anywhere — or does it?
(JTA) — I was a remote worker long before the pandemic made it a thing, but it was only last month that I really took advantage of it. Early on the morning of New Year’s Day, I boarded a plane from Connecticut bound for Mexico, where I spent a full month sleeping in thatch-roofed palapas, eating more tacos than was probably wise and bathing every day in the Pacific. I’ll spare you the glorious details, but suffice it to say, it wasn’t a bad way to spend a January.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, I found myself again and again coming into contact with expats who had traded in their urban lives in northern climes for a more laid-back life in the tropics. There was the recently divorced motorcycle enthusiast slowly wending his way southward by bike as he continued to work a design job for a major American bank. There was the yoga instructor born not far from where I live in Massachusetts who owned an open-air rooftop studio just steps from the waves. There were the countless couples who had chosen to spend their days running beachfront bars or small hotels on the sand. And then there were the seemingly endless number and variety of middle-aged northerners rebooting their lives in perpetual sunshine.
Such people have long mystified me. It’s not hard to understand the lure of beachside living, and part of me envies the freedom to design your own life from the ground up. But there’s also something scary about it. Arriving in middle age in a country where you know nobody, whose language is not your own, whose laws and cultural mores, seasons and flora, are all unfamiliar — it feels like the essence of shallow-rootedness, like a life devoid of all the things that give one (or at least me) a sense of comfort and security and place. The thought of exercising the right to live literally anywhere and any way I choose opens up a space so vast and limitless it provokes an almost vertiginous fear of disconnection and a life adrift.
Clearly, this feeling isn’t universally shared. And the fact that I have it probably owes a lot to my upbringing. I grew up in an Orthodox family, which by necessity meant life was lived in a fairly small bubble. Our house was within walking distance of our synagogue, as it had to be since walking was the only way to get there on Shabbat and holidays. I attended a small Jewish day school, where virtually all of my friends came from families with similar religious commitments. Keeping kosher and the other constraints of a religious life had a similarly narrowing effect on the horizons of my world and thus my sense of life’s possibilities. Or at least that’s how it often felt.
What must it be like — pardon the non-kosher expression — to feel as if the world is your oyster? That you could live anywhere, love anyone, eat anything and make your life whatever you want it to be? Thrilling, yes — but also frightening. The sense of boundless possibility I could feel emanating from those sun-baked Mexicans-by-choice was seductive, but tempered by aversion to a life so unmoored.
The tension between freedom and obligation is baked into Jewish life. The twin poles of our national narrative are the Exodus from Egypt and the revelation at Sinai, each commemorated by festivals separated by exactly seven weeks in the calendar, starting with Passover. The conventional understanding is that this juxtaposition isn’t accidental. God didn’t liberate the Israelites from slavery so they could live free of encumbrances on the Mayan Riviera. Freedom had a purpose, expressed in the giving of the Torah at Sinai, with all its attendant rules and restrictions and obligations. Freedom is a central value of Jewish life — Jews are commanded to remember the Exodus every day. But Jewish freedom doesn’t mean the right to live however you want.
Except it might mean the right to live any place you want. In the 25th chapter of Leviticus, God gives the Israelites the commandment of the Jubilee year, known as yovel in Hebrew. Observed every 50 years in biblical times, the Jubilee has many similarities to the shmita (sabbatical) year, but with some additional rituals. The text instructs: “And you shall hallow the 50th year. You shall proclaim liberty throughout the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: each of you shall return to your holding and each of you shall return to your family.”
Among the requirements of the Jubilee was that ancestral lands be returned to their original owners. Yet the word for liberty is a curious one: “d’ror.” The Talmud explains its etymology this way: “It is like a man who dwells [medayer] in any dwelling and moves merchandise around the entire country” (Rosh Hashanah 9b).
The liberty of the Jubilee year could thus be said to have two contrary meanings — individuals had the right to return to their ancestral lands, but they were also free not to. They could live in any dwelling they chose. The sense of liberty connoted by the biblical text is a specifically residential one: the freedom to live where one chooses. Which pretty well describes the world we live in today. Jewish ancestral lands are freely available to any Jew who wants to live there. And roughly half the Jews of the world choose not to.
Clearly, I’m among them. And while I technically could live anywhere, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to. I like where I live — not because of any particular qualities of this place, though I do love its seasons and its smells and its proximity to the people I care about and the few weeks every fall when the trees become a riotous kaleidoscope. But mostly because it’s mine.
A version of this essay appeared in My Jewish Learning’s Recharge Shabbat newsletter. Subscribe here.
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French Jewish Girl Assaulted Near Paris, Adolescents Arrested for Antisemitic Attack
Sign reading “+1000% of Antisemitic Acts: These Are Not Just Numbers” during a march against antisemitism, in Lyon, France, June 25, 2024. Photo: Romain Costaseca / Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect
Three teenage boys assaulted a 14-year-old Jewish girl and threatened to kill her in the Parisian suburb of Sarcelles on Friday, police said, resulting in a trip to the hospital for the victim and arrests for two of the 12-year-old suspects.
The incident began when three younger boys approached an older teenage girl to ask why she failed to observe Ramadan, according to local media reports. After she disclosed her Jewish identity, the three reportedly began calling her a “dirty Jew” and one threatened, “I’ll kill you on the Koran.” They then allegedly beat her, especially on her face.
The assault required a trip to the emergency room, where hospital staff described her as in a state of shock.
Paris law enforcement arrested two suspects that evening and seek to identify the third.
Another suburb of Paris also saw an antisemitic incident on Sunday when vandals hit a Kosher restaurant in Levallois-Perret, spray-painting “dirty Jew” in red across the building’s windows.
A kosher restaurant in Levallois-Perret, near Paris vandalized with antisemitic graffiti reading “Dirty Jew.” Photo: Screenshot
Antisemitic vandals hit Kokoriko, another Kosher restaurant in Paris, just two weeks earlier. Investigators say the criminals sprayed acid on tables, walls, and the floor, rendering silverware and plates unusable.
That attack came just days after the French Interior Ministry last month released its annual report on anti-religious acts, revealing a troubling rise in antisemitic incidents documented in a joint dataset compiled with the Jewish Community Protection Service.
Antisemitism in France remained at alarmingly high levels last year, with 1,320 incidents recorded nationwide, as Jews and Israelis faced several targeted attacks, according to the data.
Although the total number of antisemitic outrages in 2025 fell by 16 percent compared to 2024’s second highest ever total of 1,570 cases, the newly released report warned that antisemitism remained “historically high,” with more than 3.5 attacks occurring every day.
Even though Jews make up less than 1 percent of France’s population, they accounted for 53 percent of all religiously motivated crimes last year.
Between 2022 and 2025, antisemitic attacks across France quadrupled.
The most recent figure of total antisemitic incidents represents a 21 percent decline from 2023’s record high of 1,676 incidents, but a 203 percent increase from the 436 antisemitic acts recorded in 2022, before the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
The surge in antisemitism appears to have carried into this year. Last month, a 13-year-old boy on his way to synagogue in Paris was brutally beaten by a knife-wielding assailant.
“How do you find the words to explain to a 13-year-old child that he is being attacked because he is Jewish? Who will be able to restore his confidence in the future tomorrow?” Yonathan Arfi, president of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF), said of the incident.
One-third of last year’s antisemitic incidents in France explicitly referencing Palestine or the war in Gaza, indicting that anti-Israel rhetoric is fueling antisemitism.
The prominence of anti-Zionist forms of antisemitism has prompted French leaders to propose legislation combating this type of hate, as announced by French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu last month at CRIF’s annual gathering,
“To define oneself as anti-Zionist is to question Israel’s right to exist. It’s a call for the destruction of an entire people under the guise of ideology,” Lecornu said, announcing that the government would introduce a bill to criminalize anti-Zionism. “There is a difference between legitimate criticism of the Israeli government and rejecting the very existence of the Jewish state. This ‘blurring’ must stop.”
Lecornu declared that “hatred of Jews is hatred of the Republic and a stain on France.”
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Belgian Synagogue Damaged in Blast Considered Antisemitic Attack
Police secure the site of a synagogue damaged by an explosion early on Monday, in Liege, Belgium, March 9, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
An explosion hit a synagogue in the Belgian city of Liege early on Monday in what authorities said was an antisemitic attack that caused damage but no injuries.
The explosion, which happened around 4 am (0300 GMT), blew out the windows of the synagogue, as well as those of a building on the opposite side of the road, public broadcaster RTBF said.
The cause was not clear, but prosecutors said the case had been passed to federal authorities, which normally investigate incidents linked to terrorism or organized crime.
Belgian Interior Minister Bernard Quintin called the explosion “a despicable antisemitic act that directly targeted the Jewish community of Belgium.”
He said security measures around similar sites will continue to be reinforced.
Eitan Bergman, Vice-President of the Coordinating Committee of Jewish Organizations in Belgium (CCOJB), said the targeting of the synagogue was deeply shocking.
“Liege is home to a very small but vibrant Jewish community where I personally grew up. Today, the feelings among our community members are a mixture of sadness, worry and profound shock,” he told Reuters.
Police have cordoned off the largely residential street on the bank of the river Meuse opposite Liege city center.
Federal prosecutors declined to give further details of the incident.
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Much of Iran’s Near-Bomb-Grade Uranium Likely to Be in Isfahan, IAEA’s Grossi Says
A satellite image shows a closer view of the destroyed tunnel entrances at Isfahan missile complex after reported airstrikes, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Isfahan, Isfahan Province, Iran, March 8, 2026. Photo: Vantor/Handout via REUTERS
Almost half of Iran’s uranium enriched to up to 60% purity, a short step from weapons-grade, was stored in a tunnel complex at Isfahan and is probably still there, UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said on Monday.
The tunnel complex is the only target that appears not to have been badly damaged in attacks last June by Israel and the US on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Diplomats have long said Isfahan has been used to store 60% uranium, which the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in a report to member states last month, without saying how much was there.
IRAN STILL HAS HIGHLY ENRICHED URANIUM STOCKS
The IAEA estimates that when Israel launched its first attacks in June, Iran had 440.9 kg of 60% uranium. If enriched further, that would provide the explosive needed for 10 nuclear weapons, according to an IAEA yardstick.
“What we believe is that Isfahan had until our last inspection a bit more than 200 kg, maybe a little bit more than that, of 60% uranium,” IAEA chief Rafael Grossi told reporters in Paris.
He said the stock was “mainly” at Isfahan, and some held elsewhere may have been destroyed.
“The widespread assumption is that the material is still there. So, we haven’t seen – and not only us, I think in general all those observing the facility through satellite imagery and other means to see what’s going on there – movement indicating that the material could have been transferred,” Grossi said.
Iran has not informed the IAEA of the status or whereabouts of its highly enriched uranium since the June attacks, nor has it let IAEA inspectors return to its bombed facilities.
Iran’s nuclear program is one reason Israel and the US have given for their current attacks on Iran, arguing that it was getting too close to being able to produce a bomb, despite Trump saying in June that US strikes had obliterated the program. The IAEA has said it has no credible indication of a coordinated nuclear weapons program.
All three Iranian uranium-enrichment plants known to have been operating – two at Natanz and one at Fordow – were destroyed or badly damaged in June.
“There is an amount [of 60% uranium] in Natanz also, which we believe is still there,” Grossi said.