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Blessings, Curses and Opportunities
Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Photo: Wiki Commons.
JNS.org – The prominent Yiddish writer B.Z. Goldberg once visited the Lubavitcher Rebbe and, as he entered the Rebbe’s study, he said, “Lubavitcher Rebbe, you look well.”
The Rebbe responded, “Since when is that a Jewish compliment? Usually, Jews ask each other why they look so bad.”
The Rebbe’s sense of humor notwithstanding, it does seem traditional for Jews to complain. God knows, we’ve had ample reason to over the centuries, including right now. Has there ever been a time in our history when there’s been a shortage of Yiddishe Tzorres, problems and persecutions, troubles and torment?
This Shabbat, we read in the final chapters of Vayikra that if we follow the way of God our lives will be blessed, but should we stray from the good path we will experience curses and calamities second to none.
Parshat Bechukotai opens with a wonderful promise: “If you will follow My decrees and observe My commandments … the rains will come in time … and the land will give its produce … and you will dwell securely in your land.”
But is that really true? What about all the righteous who have suffered and the wicked who have prospered? Is life really so simple? And doesn’t the Talmud state that reward and punishment are reserved for the next world?
Rambam, the great Maimonides, explains it this way: These blessings are not the reward for our good behavior. Rather, they are how God provides us with the necessary tools to live a full Jewish life.
You might think, “It’s hard to be a Jew,” but if you have no money, it’s much harder! Living Jewishly can be expensive. Just recently, a congregant who has fallen on hard times confessed that they stopped keeping kosher because it was too expensive. Tuition fees at Jewish day schools are much higher than state schooling. The prices of matzah and an etrog keep going up, and so on.
And yet the Rambam says the blessings at the beginning of our parsha are not our reward, but rather God giving us the material means by which we will be able to afford to live a Godly life.
When do we earn these blessings? When we indicate by our concrete actions that it is our desire and intent to live such a Godly life. When the Almighty sees our sincere and genuine good intentions, He then assists us in fulfilling these righteous desires by providing us with the necessary wherewithal to do so.
Concrete action means more than just “joining the club.” We must indicate our genuine commitment to following the good path in real, tangible terms. It’s more than just standing up to be counted. We need to put these ideals into practice in our daily lives.
Here are two examples: People want to keep Shabbat, but work often gets in the way. I knew a plumber who once confessed that he was trying to observe Shabbat but, somehow, every Saturday he would get an emergency call. It took him a while, but he finally worked out a system with other people on standby. He has now been a serene Sabbath observer for many years. But he made the commitment first.
Too many of our young people are struggling to find their bashert, their life partner in marriage. Sadly, many have succumbed to the “easier” solution and broadened their search beyond the Jewish community. Yet I have seen many who held their ground and never lost focus, as difficult as it was, and eventually did find a wonderful Jewish partner in life. Again, they made the commitment, stuck to it through thick and thin, and in time, they were blessed.
Yes, Shabbat can appear to be a challenge to our seeming prosperity. Having strict shidduch principles can seem like an obstacle to getting married. But in the end, if we stick to our values and principles, God Almighty will come to our assistance, sometimes in ways we would never have imagined.
True stories abound. I see it all the time. Those who exhibited faith and trust in God and closed the shop on Saturdays survived and flourished, even though the numbers didn’t add up. Those who refused to compromise in their courtships are today happily married and raising beautiful Jewish families.
There is a relevant line in this week’s Haftorah from the Prophet Jeremiah: “Baruch hagever, blessed is the man who trusts in Hashem, then Hashem will be his security.”
Some years ago, this line became a popular song. May we sing it and, more importantly, live it.
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Trump Defends Plan to Accept $400 Million Jet From Qatar
US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters at the White House in Washington, DC, US, April 23, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
US President Donald Trump on Monday defended his controversial decision to accept a $400 million luxury jet from Qatar, lauding the overture from Doha as “a great gesture.”
“I think it’s a great gesture from Qatar. I appreciate it very much,” Trump said while speaking to reporters in the Oval Office. “I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer. I mean, I could be a stupid person and say, ‘No, we don’t want a free, very expensive airplane.’ But it was — I thought it was a great gesture.”
The US president argued that the Qatari government gifted him the jet because he has “helped them a lot over the years in terms of security and safety.”
Trump announced on Sunday night that the US Department of Defense would receive a luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet as a “gift, free of charge” from Qatar. According to Trump, the jet will serve as a replacement to “the 40-year-old Air Force One.” The jet will be considered property of the US federal government until the end of Trump’s term in office, after which ownership of the aircraft will be transferred to the Trump presidential library foundation.
Trump’s decision to accept the gift from Qatar sparked immediate backlash, with critics accusing the president of violating the Emoluments Clause of the US Constitution, which prohibits federal officials from accepting gifts from foreign countries without the consent of Congress, and compromising national security.
The president’s plan to accept the lavish gift from Qatar has raised concern among foreign policy experts who worry that Doha could influence American policy in the Middle East. Qatar, a wealthy Gulf nation with substantial investments in US real estate and infrastructure, maintains a complex relationship with the Trump administration. Last month, Trump struck a deal to build a full 18-hole golf course in Qatar.
Moreover, Qatar maintains extensive financial links with Hamas, the terrorist group that triggered the ongoing war in Gaza after slaughtering 1,200 people in Israel and taking 251 hostages on Oct. 7, 2023. Qatar has transferred an estimated $1.8 billion to the Hamas terror organization, according to reports. Doha also contributed $30 million per month to Hamas from 2012 to 2023, according to a Qatari official interviewed by Der Spiegel.
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Students for Justice in Palestine Awarded ‘Best’ Campus Group by University of California, Davis Newspaper
University of California, Davis in Davis, California, on May 28, 2024. Photo: Penny Collins/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect
The University of California, Davis’s (UC Davis) official campus newspaper has named the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter the “Best Student-Run Organization or Club” for the second consecutive year, despite the group’s history of calling for violence against Jews and Israelis.
The Aggie defended granting SJP one of its highest annual honors, describing it as having “led some of the most prominent political organizing efforts at UC Davis” and fostering students’ interest in “global justice and university accountability.” The paper did not mention SJP’s links to Islamist terrorist organizations or its efforts across the US to advocate for the destruction of both America and Israel.
It continued, “Their advocacy, however, goes far beyond protest. Throughout the year, SSJP hosted film screenings, teach-ins, and information panels aimed at educating students on the historical and ongoing occupation of Palestine. They also continued to call out the University of California system’s financial ties to companies profiting from violence against Palestinians — pressuring administrators to divest and pushing for transparency in how student tuition is spent.”
SJP thanked The Aggie for the award.
“We are honored to receive this acknowledgement and humbled to be held in the high esteem of our peers,” the group said in a statement. “This acknowledgement is not ours alone — it belongs to everyone who continues to show up, speak out, and do the vital work in their communities. It is their dedication that shapes who we are.”
The Aggie has not responded to The Algemeiner‘srequest for comment on this story.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, UC Davis is a hub of anti-Zionist extremism in which faculty and staff regularly call for the destruction of Israel and acts of violence cheered as “resistance.” Following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, for example, the university kept on staff a professor who appeared to call for violence against Jewish journalists and their children.
“One group of ppl [sic] we have easy access to in the US is all these Zionist journalists who spread propaganda & misinformation,” American Studies assistant professor Jemma Decristo wrote on the X social media platform. “They have houses [with] addresses, kids in school. They can fear their bosses, but they should fear us more.” The message was followed by images of a knife, an axe, and three blood-drop emojis.
In 2024, UC Davis’s student government (ASUSD) passed legislation adopting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement and falsely accusing Israel of genocide.
“This bill prohibits the purchase of products from corporations identified as profiting from the genocide and occupation of the Palestinian people by the BDS National Committee,” said the measure, titled Senate Bill (SB) #52. “This bill seeks to address the human rights violations of the nation-state and government of Israel and establish a guideline of ethical spending.”
Puma, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Airbnb, Disney, and Sabra are all named on Students for Justice in Palestine’s “BDS List.”
Powers enumerated in the bill included veto power over all vendor contracts, which SJP specifically applied to “purchase orders for custom t-shirts,” a provision that may affect pro-Israel groups on campus. Such policies will be guided by a “BDS List” of targeted companies curated by SJP. The language of the legislation gives ASUCD the right to add more to it.
Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of California, Davis is one of many SJP chapters that justified Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attacks In a chilling statement posted after the world became aware of the terrorist group’s atrocities on that day, which included hundreds of civilian murders and sexual assaults, the group said “the responsibility for the current escalation of violence is entirely on the Israeli occupation.”
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), SJP chapters — which have said in their communications that Israeli civilians deserve to be murdered for being “settlers” — lead the way in promoting a campus environment hostile to Jewish and pro-Israel voices. Their aim, the civil rights group explained in an open letter published in December 2023, is to “exclude and marginalize Jewish students,” whom they describe as “oppressors,” and encourage “confrontation” with them.
The ADL has urged colleges and universities to protect Jewish students from the group’s behavior, which, in many cases, has allegedly violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Students for Justice in Palestine Awarded ‘Best’ Campus Group by University of California, Davis Newspaper first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jewish Communities in France, Germany, UK Form New ‘JE3’ Alliance Amid Surge in Antisemitism
From left to right: President Phil Rosenberg of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Josef Schuster of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, and Yonathan Arfi of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF). Photo: Screenshot
The leading representative bodies of Jewish communities in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom have formed a new alliance to amplify Jewish perspectives in international debates, amid a troubling rise in antisemitism across all three countries.
On Monday, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF), and the Central Council of Jews in Germany announced the formation of the new “JE3” alliance during a conference of the Anti-Defamation League’s J7 Task Force — the largest international initiative against antisemitism — held in Berlin.
This new alliance, inspired by the E3 diplomatic format that unites France, Germany, and the UK to coordinate on key geopolitical issues such as nuclear negotiations with Iran and peace in the Middle East, aims to provide a united Jewish communal voice on these and other pressing international matters.
The newly formed group also seeks to strengthen existing umbrella organizations, such as the World Jewish Congress, the European Jewish Congress, and the J7 initiative — a coalition of Jewish organizations in Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the UK, and the United States.
“It is our hope that the JE3 will become a powerful voice for our communities on issues that we care about together,” Josef Schuster of the Central Council, Phil Rosenberg of the Board of Deputies, and Yonathan Arfi of CRIF said in a joint statement.
“It is particularly significant that we brought together the new grouping in Berlin, 80 years after the end of the Holocaust,” the statement continued. “This is a show of intent by our three flourishing communities that we are committed to boosting Jewish life in our respective countries, cooperating in the fight against antisemitism, and enhancing bilateral and multilateral relations between our countries and Israel.”
Berlin: The largest representative organisations of European Jewish communities in France, Germany, and the UK have today launched a new ‘JE3‘ alliance. @Le_CRIF @ZentralratJuden pic.twitter.com/hXotcz6RDb
— Board of Deputies of British Jews (@BoardofDeputies) May 12, 2025
This new JE3 initiative comes as France, Germany, and the UK, as well as other countries across Europe and around the world, have reported record spikes in antisemitic activity in recent years, largely fueled by a wave of anti-Jewish sentiment following Hamas’s launch of its war against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Last week, the J7 Task Force released its first Annual Report on Antisemitism, coinciding with the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, when Nazi Germany formally surrendered to Allied forces on May 8, marking the end of World War II and the Holocaust.
The report, which echoes findings from recent studies, revealed a dramatic rise in antisemitic incidents between 2021 and 2023. These increases include 11 percent in Australia, 23 percent in Argentina, 75 percent in Germany, 82 percent in the UK, 83 percent in Canada, 185 percent in France, and 227 percent in the US. Those numbers continued to spike to record levels in the aftermath of the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7.
Additionally, the data showed a concerning rise on a per-capita basis, with Germany reporting over 38 incidents per 1,000 Jews, and the UK seeing 13 per 1,000.
The seven communities identified several common trends, including a surge in violent incidents, recurring attacks on Jewish institutions, a rise in online hate speech, and growing fear among Jews, which has led many to conceal their Jewish identity.
The post Jewish Communities in France, Germany, UK Form New ‘JE3’ Alliance Amid Surge in Antisemitism first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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