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From Moses to Memphis, the work of liberation remains unfinished
(JTA) — Rereading Exodus this month in synagogue reminds me of when I first learned about Moses’ role in freeing the Children of Israel who had been enslaved to Pharaoh. I grew up in Monsey, New York. My mother was Black and my father was white; my family identified with the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. I discovered the Passover story through ultra-Orthodox coloring books that depicted the liberation of the ancient Israelites from bondage in Egypt.
One illustration depicted Moses as an 18th-century Hasidic Jew clad in a shtreimel (fur hat) and long kapote (robe), with abundant sidelocks flowing down to his shoulders. I brought home my masterpiece, fully crayoned in purple, and showed it proudly to my mother. She gave me a puzzled look and said, “You know, Moses didn’t look like this. He had brown skin like mine.”
It was an enlightening idea that hit me like a thunderbolt. Seeing Moses as a Black person changed my whole idea of Jewish history and religion in one fell swoop — it made me feel my Black and Jewish roots even more profoundly, and that I was a descendant of great Jewish and African men and women who founded our tradition.
As time went on, though, and I went “all in” and studied to become a rabbi, I realized that Moses’ skin color mattered much less than his role as a liberator. Although many Jews do see in color, Judaism does not. The way to follow in his footsteps, I grasped, was to become an educator, a leader and a champion for freedom. I’ve devoted my career to empowering Jewish communities across the continent to become more welcoming and inclusive, to overcome racism and prejudice, and to create a more just, equitable and loving society.
The Biblical narrative of the Exodus is a call to stand for freedom and against tyranny in every generation. It says, in effect, “You are able to speak, and to be carried away on the wings of words from millennia ago, bound to no Pharaoh’s story, but liberated by your own.”
Neither my Black nor Jewish forebears could have imagined how far their descendants would come in terms of participation and even leadership in our society. As the Black visual artist Brandon Odums has reflected, “We are our ancestors’ wildest dreams.”
But there is, alas, still so far to go, as last month’s brutal killing of Tyre Nichols at the hands of the police in Memphis reminds us. Both Black History Month and the Book of Exodus teach that we can only fulfill our destiny if we fight for the liberation of all peoples.
Earlier this month, we celebrated Shabbat Shira, in which we read about the Children of Israel’s miraculous escape from Egypt by crossing the Red Sea. I was reminded of what the late 20th-century Slonimer Rebbe, Sholom Noach Berezovsky, said about the ancient Hebrews wading into the water because they had faith not just in their hearts and minds, but in their bodies — in their very bones, he said.
What does it mean to believe with your bones? The Prophet Jeremiah declared that the word of God was like “fire shut up in his bones” (20:9). Dr. Martin Luther King quoted Jeremiah in his last speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” saying, “Somehow the preacher must have a kind of fire shut up in his bones. And whenever injustice is around, he tell it.” King gave that speech on April 3, 1968 — in Memphis — on the night before he was assassinated.
Early in the speech, King imagined “God’s children in their magnificent trek from the dark dungeons of Egypt through, or rather across, the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the Promised Land.” He concluded with these uncannily prescient words: “I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the Promised Land. So, I’m happy tonight, I’m not worried about anything, I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”
Our commitment to creating a better world — making it to the Promised Land — must always be so much more than merely skin deep. Only when we believe in our bones that change is possible, and that we can be agents of that change, will fear melt away and we will be able to defeat the Pharaohs who seek to deprive us of our dignity, whether in Memphis or anywhere in our land.
We shall reach the Promised Land — someday. We shall recognize that we are all God’s children—someday. We shall overcome — someday.
May that day be very soon and may we all unite in joy, peace and celebration to usher it in.
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The post From Moses to Memphis, the work of liberation remains unfinished appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Qatari PM Meets Iran’s Larijani in Tehran, Discusses Easing Regional Tensions
Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani speaks after a meeting with the Lebanese president at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon February 4, 2025. REUTERS/Emilie Madi
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani met with top Iranian security official Ali Larijani in Tehran and reviewed efforts to de-escalate tensions in the region, Qatar’s foreign ministry said on Saturday in a statement.
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Tesla Receives Approval to Test Autonomous Driving in Israel
March 12, 2025, Seattle, Washington, USA: A row of brand-new Tesla Cybertrucks stands in a Tesla Motors Logistics Drop Zone in Seattle, Washington, USA, on Wed., March 12, 2025. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
i24 News – The Ministry of Transport announced on Sunday that it has granted Tesla official approval to conduct trials of its autonomous driving system on Israel’s roads. The move comes as part of an effort to examine how the car manufacturer’s advanced technology can be integrated into the local driving environment, with full support from the ministry.
The trials will focus on Tesla’s Fully Self-Driving (FSD) system, a supervised autonomous driving platform. Under the terms of the approval, a driver must remain present in the vehicle at all times to supervise the system, despite its autonomous capabilities. This ensures safety while allowing the technology to be tested in real-world conditions.
The Ministry of Transport described the approval as a significant step toward advancing vehicle regulation in Israel. Officials said the initiative aims to create a regulatory framework that will allow for the routine, supervised use of autonomous driving systems in the future, safely and efficiently.
Tesla will use the trials to assess how the FSD system interacts with Israel’s road infrastructure, traffic patterns, and local driving behaviors. Data collected during the experiment will help refine the system and inform potential regulatory updates to accommodate autonomous vehicles.
The ministry emphasized that the pilot program is limited in scope and strictly monitored. It noted that all necessary safety protocols are in place and that public safety remains the top priority throughout the testing period.
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Reopening of Gaza’s Rafah Crossing Expected Monday, Officials Say
An aid truck moves on a road after entering Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, February 1, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Gaza’s main border crossing in Rafah will reopen for Palestinians on Monday, Israel said, with preparations underway at the war-ravaged enclave’s main gateway that has been largely shut for almost two years.
Before the war, the Rafah border crossing with Egypt was the only direct exit point for most Gazans to reach the outside world as well as a key entry point for aid into the territory. It has been largely shut since May 2024 and under Israeli military control on the Gazan side.
COGAT, the Israeli military unit that oversees humanitarian coordination, said the crossing will reopen in both directions for Gaza residents on foot only and its operation will be coordinated with Egypt and the European Union.
“Today, a pilot is underway to test and assess the operation of the crossing. The movement of residents in both directions, entry and exit to and from Gaza, is expected to begin tomorrow,” COGAT said in a statement.
A Palestinian official and a European source close to the EU mission confirmed the details. The Egyptian foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
STRICT SECURITY CHECKS
Israel has said the crossing would open under stringent security checks only for Palestinians who wish to leave the war-ravaged enclave and for those who fled the fighting in the first months of the war to return.
Many of those expected to leave are sick and wounded Gazans in need of medical care abroad. The Palestinian health ministry has said that there are 20,000 patients waiting to leave Gaza.
An Israeli defense official said that the crossing can hold between 150-200 people altogether in both directions. There will be more people leaving than returning because patients leave together with escorts, the official added.
“(The Rafah crossing) is the lifeline for us, the patients. We don’t have the resources to be treated in Gaza,” said Moustafa Abdel Hadi, a kidney patient in a central Gaza hospital, awaiting a transplant abroad.
“If the war impacted a healthy person by 1 percent, it has impacted us 200 percent,” he said, sitting as he received dialysis treatment at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. His travel request, he said, has been approved.
Two Egyptian officials said that at least 50 Palestinian patients will be processed on Sunday to cross Rafah into Egypt for treatment. In the first few days around 200 people, patients and their family members, will cross daily into Egypt, the officials said, with 50 people returning to Gaza per day.
Lists of Gazans set to pass through the crossing have been submitted by Egypt and approved by Israel, the official said.
NEXT PHASE OF TRUMP’S GAZA PLAN
Reopening the border crossing was a key requirement of the first phase of US President Donald Trump’s plan to end the Israel-Hamas war.
But the ceasefire, which came into effect in October after two years of fighting, has been repeatedly shaken by rounds of violence.
On Saturday, Israel launched some of its most intense airstrikes since the ceasefire, killing at least 30 people, in what it said was a response to a Hamas violation of the truce on Friday when militants emerged from a tunnel in Rafah.
The next phases of Trump’s plan for Gaza foresee governance being handed to Palestinian technocrats, Hamas laying down its weapons and Israeli troops withdrawing from the territory while an international force keeps the peace and Gaza is rebuilt.
Hamas has so far rejected disarmament and Israel has repeatedly indicated that if the Islamist terrorist group is not disarmed peacefully, it will use force to make it do so.