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Enemies Can Become Friends; Until Then, We Must Defend Ourselves
Reading from a Torah scroll in accordance with Sephardi tradition. Photo: Sagie Maoz via Wikimedia Commons.
In last week’s Torah portion, we read about how Isaac and Ishmael came together to bury their father. And in fact, they lived together at the same place, Be’er Lechai Roi. Their coming together seems to have been complete.
This week we are introduced to the rivalry between Esau and Jacob. The character of Esau is complex. He is a hunter; his father prefers him to stay-at-home. Esau betrays character faults that hint at why Rebecca thinks that Jacob would be the better heir. It is true that Esau honors, respects, and serves his father, but he is impulsive, demanding what Jacob is eating when he could so easily have turned to the other tents where at lunchtime his and other mothers were serving up lunch. He marries the first time against his parents’ wishes, even if he tried to make up for it the second time. When he realizes he will not get his father’s blessings, he weeps and yet follows this by swearing he will kill his brother. We know that in due course he will make peace with Jacob. Even so, in rabbinic literature, Esau is described very negatively as the everlasting enemy of Israel.
There is a well known Midrash, “Rebbi Shimon Bar Yochai says it is well known (or it is a rule) that Esau will always hate Israel” (Midrash Sifri Bamidbar 69).
Rebbi Shimon lived during the reigns of two Roman emperors, Trajan and Hadrian, whose anti-Jewish decrees and persecution led to the Bar Kochba uprising from 132- 135 CE. And Esau became associated with Roman oppression. Why Esau? Because he was also called Edom, after the red lentils of the soup that Jacob had made. Red appears as a symbolic color in many ancient warrior peoples. In Roman mythology, it was associated with blood and courage. It was the color of the god of war, Mars, and the color of the army. Roman soldiers wore red tunics, gladiators were adorned in it.
And yet, according to the Talmud, the two succeeding emperors, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, had very good relations with R. Judah the Prince, the head of the Jewish community in the Land of Israel.
Things have changed a lot in Christianity these past hundred years since, particularly in the Catholic world. And although some liberal churches have joined the children of Stalin in attacking the Jews for having a homeland, most have not. And some are even our greatest supporters. So, it may be time to re-consider our history with them.
Today, we have new challenges — largely Arabic and Muslim mobs that have been chanting antisemitic slogans throughout the streets of the world. They don’t represent all Muslims, but it is clear many of the people we are seeing are endemically antisemitic.
We must not let hatred demean us or drag us down to the worst level of humanity. I pray that one day, enemies will become friends, and such expressions of antipathy will disappear altogether. But in the meantime, we must defend ourselves.
The author is a writer and rabbi, currently based in New York.
The post Enemies Can Become Friends; Until Then, We Must Defend Ourselves first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Kurdish-led SDF Say Five Members Killed During Attack by Islamic State in Syria
Islamic State slogans painted along the walls of the tunnel was used by Islamic State militants as an underground training camp in the hillside overlooking Mosul, Iraq, March 4, 2017. Photo: via Reuters Connect.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said on Sunday that five of its members had been killed during an attack by Islamic State militants on a checkpoint in eastern Syria’s Deir el-Zor on July 31.
The SDF was the main fighting force allied to the United States in Syria during fighting that defeated Islamic State in 2019 after the group declared a caliphate across swathes of Syria and Iraq.
The Islamic State has been trying to stage a comeback in the Middle East, the West and Asia. Deir el-Zor city was captured by Islamic State in 2014, but the Syrian army retook it in 2017.
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Armed Groups Attack Security Force Personnel in Syria’s Sweida, Killing One, State TV Reports
People ride a motorcycle past a burned-out military vehicle, following deadly clashes between Druze fighters, Sunni Bedouin tribes, and government forces, in Syria’s predominantly Druze city of Sweida, Syria, July 25, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Armed groups attacked personnel from Syria’s internal security forces in Sweida, killing one member and wounding others, and fired shells at several villages in the violence-hit southern province, state-run Ekhbariya TV reported on Sunday.
The report cited a security source as saying the armed groups had violated the ceasefire agreed in the predominantly Druze region, where factional bloodshed killed hundreds of people last month.
Violence in Sweida erupted on July 13 between tribal fighters and Druze factions. Government forces were sent to quell the fighting, but the bloodshed worsened, and Israel carried out strikes on Syrian troops in the name of the Druze.
The Druze are a minority offshoot of Islam with followers in Syria, Lebanon and Israel. Sweida province is predominantly Druze but is also home to Sunni tribes, and the communities have had long-standing tensions over land and other resources.
A US-brokered truce ended the fighting, which had raged in Sweida city and surrounding towns for nearly a week. Syria said it would investigate the clashes, setting up a committee to investigate the attacks.
The Sweida bloodshed last month was a major test for interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, after a wave of sectarian violence in March that killed hundreds of Alawite citizens in the coastal region.
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Netanyahu Urges Red Cross to Aid Gaza Hostages
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference, in Jerusalem, May 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun/Pool
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he spoke with the International Red Cross’s regional head, Julien Lerisson, and requested his involvement in providing food and medical care to hostages held in Gaza.