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Good or Bad, Now or Later?
A man praying, wearing tefillin. Photo: wiki commons.
JNS.org – As a rule, when people choose to embrace their heritage and begin practicing their faith seriously, rabbis suggest a step-by-step approach. In our Jewish journeys, “instant Jews” and overnight sensations don’t usually last in the long run. But there are certainly times when a leap of faith may be in place and even recommended.
This week, we conclude the book of Genesis with the story of the end of Jacob’s life. Before Jacob dies, Joseph brings his two sons—Ephraim and Menashe—to be blessed by his father.
While bestowing his blessings on his grandsons, Jacob acts strangely. He puts his right hand over his left to bless the younger son, Ephraim, with his right hand and the older son, Menashe, with his left. Joseph tries to correct his father, but Jacob takes no notice and tells Joseph he knows exactly what he is doing. It wasn’t because his eyesight was failing, Jacob’s action was quite deliberate. Jacob manipulated his hands cleverly, saying that Ephraim’s descendants would rise higher than Menashe’s children.
I am grateful to Rabbi Yanki Tauber for bringing to my attention a teaching of one of my saintly ancestors, Rabbi Yitzchak Meir of Gur, also known by his work as the Chidushei HaRim.
There are two paths in the service of God, two ways in which to live our lives. Psalm 34 in Tehillim says, “Turn away from evil, and do good.” We mustn’t allow our evil inclinations to get the better of us. We must constantly work on improving our conduct and our character. We must fight the darkness. This is represented by Menashe. Joseph named him Menashe indicating that “God has made me forget all my toil and all of my father’s house.” The difficulties of the past have been dealt with and put aside.
Ephraim, however, means that “God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.” Ephraim speaks of positivity and being fruitful, doing good and adding light.
Although the verse in Psalms first says, “Turn away from evil” and then says “and do good,” there is considerable disagreement about whether the sequence is arbitrary or mandatory.
Joseph argued that we must first rid ourselves of our negative conduct and character traits, and then we can focus on acquiring positive merits and doing good. Whereas Jacob believed that we should begin to do good immediately, even if we are not yet refined, and the good deeds themselves will help us improve and we will naturally come to refine our character traits.
Rabbi Yitzchak Meir explains that this is why Joseph, who believed that the correct sequence in life should be to turn away from the bad and then do good, preferred Menashe to be blessed with Jacob’s right hand. Jacob, however, believed that one could very well begin by doing good, and thereafter turn away from evil, as represented by Ephraim, the younger son.
It’s a fascinating question that still rages among different Jewish schools of thought. Some argue strongly that it is wrong, and even ridiculous, for Jews who have not yet become observant suddenly to begin studying Jewish philosophy. You must first start with the “bread and butter” of Judaism before you get to the “meat and potatoes.” Others disagree and will gladly teach Jewish philosophy to even the most uninitiated.
Chabad is clearly in the latter camp. The traditional sequence is not a must. On the contrary, a little light dispels a great deal of darkness. One mitzvah, one good deed and one page of Torah can ignite a fire in the soul of any Jew. If we wait until people “clean up their act,” so to speak, we may wait a long time. One positive step, even if it doesn’t seem a logical first step, may inspire a dramatic spiritual makeover.
Should someone who is not yet fully observant begin to wear a kippah? Is it wrong? Is he giving a false impression of himself to the public?
Many might call it absurd. But others might encourage it, as it may be one more step in the right direction and keep the person motivated to continue his upward momentum, even if he is not yet formally “ready” for it. In the journey of the soul, we need not wait until we overcome all of our negative inclinations before we embark on doing good.
So, the Chabadniks will stand on the street encouraging Jewish men to put on tefillin. Do they know where the guy they are talking to just came from or where he is going? No, but they will still happily help him perform a mitzvah. Even if it remains a “one-off,” the mitzvah itself is real and valid. As is the Jew. We may never know what kind of positive effect the act of putting on tefillin may have on him in the future.
I always say that when they ask, “Excuse me, are you Jewish?” it makes people think. Even if people say “No,” or “I’m busy,” or “Not today,” it’s pretty much guaranteed that as they walk away with that thought on their minds. Even if they did not put on the tefillin, the question itself disrupts their status quo. It makes them think. “Am I Jewish?” “What have I done lately to make me Jewish?” Who knows what effect just the question may have on the individual passerby?
We live in a world with darkness and redoubled darkness. While there are many signs of light to come, at the moment, the darkness is thick. To me, one visible demonstration of the power of light over darkness is on college campuses worldwide. Since the terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, there have been violent, venomous marches and protests for the Palestinians, Hamas and terrorism. Yet Jewish students regularly stand up for themselves with honor, identity and pride, putting their arms together, standing shoulder to shoulder and singing “Am Yisrael Chai,” “Shema Yisrael” or “Oseh Shalom.”
I have a video of my son, Rabbi Nissen Goldman of Chabad on Campus, standing against a violent mob at the noxious University of Cape Town. His students wear their tallit and tefillin proudly. They are fighting hate with love, war with peace, and destruction with determination. We hope and pray that their light will dispel such darkness. Should they wait until they convince their antagonists of the justice of our cause? It may be a long wait.
So, it would seem that if you are ever inspired to do a mitzvah or study Jewish philosophy, don’t tell yourself you’re not ready or worthy of it. Every good deed is a ray of light that can illuminate the world. I am certain that the psalmist would be happy even if you first “did good” and then “turned away from evil.”
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New York City Jews Targeted for Most Hate Crimes in March, NYPD Stats Show
Orthodox Jewish man waiting for the train in the New York City subway. Photo: Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect.
Jews in New York City were victims of more hate crimes in March than any other group even as crime across the Five Boroughs fell to “historic” lows, according to statistics issued by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) on Thursday.
39 hate crimes targeted Jews last month, the Algemeiner reviewed data shows, outstripping the combined total of all other groups combined — 28 — and constituting 58 percent of all hate crimes reported to authorities. So far, there have born 85 antisemitic hate crimes in New York City through the first three months of 2025, with the month of February seeing a 100 percent increase in them over the previous year and March seeing no improvement at all.
The data continues a trend that has persisted for several years and concurred with a rise in antisemitic incidents across the US.
Jews represented a disproportionate share of hate crimes perpetrated in New York City in 2024 as well. Of the 641 total hate crimes tallied by the NYPD that year, Jews were victims of 345, which, in addition to being a 7 percent increase over the previous year, amounted to 54 percent of all hate crimes in the city.
As The Algemeiner has previously reported, antisemitic hate crimes have posed a major threat to the quality of life of New York City’s Orthodox Jewish community, which was the target in many of the incidents. In just eight days between the end of October and the beginning of November, three Hasidim, including children, were brutally assaulted in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. In one instance, an Orthodox man was accosted by two assailants, one masked, who “chased and beat him” after he refused to surrender his cellphone in compliance with what appeared to have been an attempted robbery.
In another incident, an African American male smacked a 13-year-old Jewish boy who was commuting to school on his bike in the heavily Jewish neighborhood. Less than a week earlier, an assailant slashed a visibly Jewish man in the face as he was walking in Brooklyn. Days after the week-long antisemitic hate crime spree, three men attempted to rob a Hasidic man after stalking him through the Crown Heights neighborhood.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post New York City Jews Targeted for Most Hate Crimes in March, NYPD Stats Show first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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NYC ‘Dyke March’ Bans Zionists From Participating in Annual Demonstration
(Source: Reuters)
NYC Dyke March, a public demonstration held by members of the lesbian community in New York City, has banned self-proclaimed “Zionists” from its annual event, citing a desire to stand against the so-called “genocide” occuring in Gaza.
The group revealed in a statement that their decision to ban Israel supporters from their ranks came after multiple members dropped out of the organization due to differences in “political beliefs and values.” After engaging in discussions with frustrated members, the NYC Dyke March committee agreed to adopt “an explicitly anti-Zionist position.” The organization claims that it will “strengthen our commitment” to fighting against Israel and advocating on behalf of Palestinians.
Last year, the NYC Dyke March previously came under scrutiny after organizers settled on “genocide” as the theme of its 2024 event. In a statement, decrying “ethnic cleansing, violence, and dehumanization,” the organization compared the ongoing war in Gaza, to the mass slaughters occurring in Ethiopia, Myanmar, and Sudan.
The organization plans on recycling the same theme for this year’s march, titling it “Dykes Against Genocide.” The group released a statement clarifying that Jews are allowed to attend and condemned the Oct. 7 slaughters as a “senseless loss of life.” After an apparent uproar from its members, the organization deleted the post and wrote that the group “unapologetically stands in support of Palestinian liberation.” In addition, the group affirmed that “anti-Zionism is not antisemitism and any language we put out which is not clearly opposed to a Zionist, imperialist agenda is harmful to us all.”
In the 17 months following the Hamas-led massacre of roughly 1200 people throughout Israel, the NYC Dyke March has produced numerous statements lambasting Israel and declaring “solidarity” with Palestinians amid their so-called “ongoing genocide.” The organization also accused Israel of engaging in supposed “pinkwashing” and “manipulative use of Jewish and queer identities,” with the aim of justifying its war efforts in Gaza.
Israel offers an expansive set of rights for members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transngender (LGBT) community, including recognition of same-sex marriages. Every year in June, Tel Aviv holds one of the largest LGBT Pride celebrations in the world. Meanwhile, members of the LGBT community are routinely imprisoned or murdered in other parts of the Middle East, including the Palestinian territories.
The NYC Dyke March’s announcement was met with widespread condemnation.
“You cannot exclude the majority of Jews and call yourself inclusive,” said the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in a post on X/Twitter, adding that the group “essentially equates Zionism with racism” in their announcement.
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Trump Administration Planning $510 Million Cut to Brown University Budget, Report Says
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with journalists onboard Air Force One en route to Miami, Florida, U.S., April 3, 2025. REUTERS/Kent Nishimura
The Trump administration reportedly plans to terminate $510 million worth of federal contracts and grants awarded to Brown University, according to media reports.
Brown University’s failure to mount a satisfactory response to the campus antisemitism crisis, as well as its embrace of the diversity, equity, and, inclusion (DEI) movement — perceived by many across the political spectrum as an assault on merit-based upward mobility and causing incidents of anti-White and anti-Asian discrimination — prompted the alleged pending action by the federal government, according to the right-leaning outlet The Daily Caller.
The announcement comes as Brown scrambles to cover a $46 million budget shortfall and other universities across the country have faced similar funding cuts.
Brown University officials, however, denied that the university had received any directives from the Trump Administration.
“We have no information to substantiate these rumors,” Brown University provost Francis Doyle issued a statement. “We are closely monitoring notifications related to grants, but have nothing more we can share as of now.”
Meanwhile, Brown’s Jewish community rushed to the university’s defense, issuing a joint statement with the Brown Corporation which said that the campus is “peaceful and supportive campus for its Jewish community.”
The letter, signed by members of the local Hillel International chapter and Chabad on College Hill, continued: “Brown University is a place where Jewish life not only exists but thrives. While there is more work to be done, Brown, through the dedicated efforts of its administration, leadership, and resilient spirit of its Jewish community, continues to uphold the principles of inclusion, tolerance, and intellectual freedom that have been central to its identity since 1764.”
Brown Divest Coalition — an anti-Zionist group which recently saw its campaign for the university to adopt the boycott, divest, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel defeated by the Brown Corporation — weighed in too, denouncing the reported cut as “a means of suppressing all forms of popular dissent to the renewed violence of the US war machine abroad.” US Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) also criticized the move, accusing the administration “of a broader pattern of behavior…that will negatively impact communities across the country and lead to layoffs, restrict research, and more.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the Trump administration is following through on its threats to inflict potentially catastrophic financial injuries on colleges and universities deemed as soft on antisemitism or excessively “woke.” The past six weeks has seen the policy imposed on elite universities including Harvard and Columbia, rattling a higher education establishment that has for better and worse operated for decades with little interference from the federal government even as it polarized the public and contributed to a growing sense that elites are contemptuous of Americans who live outside of their cultural enclaves.
In March, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon announced the cancellation of $400 million in federal contracts and grants for Columbia University, a measure that secured the school’s acceding to a slew of demands the administration put forth as preconditions for restoring the money. Later, the Trump administration disclosed its reviewing $9 billion worth of federal grants and contracts awarded to Harvard University, jeopardizing a substantial source of the school’s income over its alleged failure to quell antisemitic and pro-Hamas activity on campus following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel. Princeton University saw $210 million of its federal grants and funding suspended too, prompting its president, Christopher Eisgruber to say the institution is “committed to fighting antisemitism and all forms of discrimination.”
Additionally, 60 universities are being investigated by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights over their handling of campus antisemitism, a project that will serve as an early test of the administration’s ability to perform the essential functions of the agency after downsizing its workforce to increase its efficiency.
One of those universities, Northwestern University, on Monday touted its progress in addressing campus antisemitism, noting that it has adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, a reference tool which aids officials in determining what constitutes antisemitism, and begun holding “mandatory antisemitism training” sessions which “all students, faculty, and staff” must attend.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Trump Administration Planning $510 Million Cut to Brown University Budget, Report Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.