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How Ramban Can Offer Hope in Dark Times for Israel’s Future
A report in January revealed that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) was experiencing significant mental health issues with some of their members as a result of the October 7th massacre and war in Gaza, with some requiring in-patient treatment. Most of the affected soldiers had been exposed to the gruesome aftermath of the Hamas attack in southern Israel, seeing tortured and mutilated bodies, as well as witnessing their friends dying or wounded in the effort to clear the area of Hamas operatives.
According to the January report, 90 soldiers were deemed unable to continue their service and had been discharged from duty. The IDF’s mental health experts also expressed concerns about the broader psychological repercussions of the massacre and war over time, particularly for reservists who needed to transition back to civilian life. They warned of the potential for “functioning difficulties” and a pervasive sense of meaninglessness in daily life after active service in urban warfare situations, and voiced concerns for the long-term welfare of those who were serving and continued to serve.
Three months later, the grisly six-month anniversary since October 7th has come and gone. Sadly, the situation has not improved, and indeed, it may have worsened. Moreover, with many of the reservists now back in civilian life, the predicted malaise has filtered its way into Israel’s population. Add to that those affected by the massacre and war through displacement and bereavement, plus the uncertainty of a war that isn’t over and a very uncertain political situation, and clearly Israel is not in a good place.
The bitter taste left by the audacious terrorism of the massacre itself, which exposed a vulnerability that most Israelis had convinced themselves had been mitigated by impenetrable defenses, has been compounded by months of war, IDF personnel killed, growing dissatisfaction with Israel’s leadership, and an acute awareness that the world-at-large is not on the same page as Israel regarding the threats it faces.
Early last month, it was announced that the official state ceremony for Israel’s 76th Independence Day in May will not feature the customary fireworks display due to the ongoing conflict. Miri Regev, the government minister overseeing the celebrations, explained that the adjustments to the ceremony’s format were in response to the October 7th massacre and the ongoing war. She also called on municipal leaders across Israel to omit fireworks from their local celebrations.
This week, Regev revealed that the official state-sponsored Independence Day ceremony will take place without a live audience, and will be pre-recorded. This set-piece event, usually held at Mount Herzl as the country transitions from Memorial Day to Independence Day, will be held in advance and then broadcast as Independence Day begins — the first time this has ever happened since Israel’s establishment in 1948, marking a significant departure from tradition.
Against this backdrop of strife and difficulty, we must reflect on the deeper spiritual and historical essence of Eretz Yisrael, the land of Jewish heritage that has been at the center of Jewish faith and identity for millennia, and at the same time, a place of immense sacrifice and suffering. To this end, Ramban (Nahmanides) offers a profound insight in his commentary on tzara’at, the malady described in detail in Tazria and Metzora.
Tzara’at can only occur in the Land of Israel — which means, says Ramban, that it is not a natural disease, but rather a miraculous manifestation of Divine providence, highlighting the unique spiritual stature of Eretz Yisrael, where Divine presence is most acutely felt. Ramban also mentions that tzara’at on houses only came into effect in Eretz Yisrael after the Israelites, led by Joshua, had completed the full fourteen years of conquest and division of the land after crossing the Jordan River following Moses’ death.
If you paused at that point in Ramban’s commentary, you might think that this rule is connected to his previous point — namely that tzara’at is a manifestation of the Divine status of Eretz Yisrael. Given that the full sanctity of the land wasn’t achieved until after 14 years had passed—a period after which regulations like tithes and offerings began to apply –you might assume that the laws regarding tzara’at on houses followed a similar pattern, appearing only when the land’s full sanctity had been established.
However, Ramban offers a far more meaningful insight to explain this phenomenon: the reason why afflictions on houses did not occur during the period of conquest was not due to a lack of sanctity, but because a heightened state of God-consciousness is essential for witnessing a divine intervention like tzara’at.
But in times of war, when survival dominates thought and action, achieving such a level of spiritual awareness is nearly impossible. The fog of war not only obscures the ordinary course of events in day-to-day life, it also puts up a barrier between us and God — and in that state we are incapable of being sensitive to the sanctity that is so obvious in times of peace.
Over the past few months, as the fog of war has descended upon us and clouded our minds, I have worried that the incredible miracle of Israel will recede from our consciousness. We are all in survival mode, even those who live in the Diaspora — all of us fielding unbridled hatred, and wondering how it will all end. In moments of doubt, we wonder what lies ahead for Israel in the long term, now that the existential threat has been revealed as ever-present and far more vigorous than we had ever previously imagined.
It is in exactly times like these that we must remember the resilient spirit and sacred essence of Eretz Yisrael. As we reflect upon our current hardships, we must draw strength from the profound wisdom of Ramban. His teaching regarding those 14 foundational years must remind us that even when the fog of war obscures the holiness of the land, that holiness remains, waiting to reemerge once peace is restored. Just as Joshua and the Israelites persisted through years of conquest so that they could bask in the land’s holiness and glory, we too must persevere, maintaining faith that the trials we face today are but temporary shadows over the enduring light of our nation.
Israel’s story is one of overcoming great adversities, the unbreakable spirit of its people, and the deep, abiding connection to Eretz Yisrael. The challenges of war and social discord cannot and will not diminish the sanctity of Eretz Yisrael, nor can they permanently cloud the divine providence that has guided our history. The current conflict, as harrowing as it is, presents an opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to this sacred land, recognizing it as a source of strength and hope for us all.
As we approach the period in our Jewish calendar celebrating redemption and the formation of our nation, both in ancient history and in modern times, and while we endure the greatest challenges we have faced for generations, let this be a time of reflection and renewal.
We must hold fast to the belief that peace will return, and with it, the full expression of our land’s holiness and elevation. In the spirit of those who came before us, let us bear these trials with dignity and strength, looking forward to a future where Israel can once again shine as a light unto the nations, its sanctity fully rekindled.
The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California.
The post How Ramban Can Offer Hope in Dark Times for Israel’s Future first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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University of California Rejects Ethnic Studies Admissions Requirement in Faculty Assembly Vote

Demonstrators holding a “Stand Up for Internationals” rally on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, in Berkeley, California, US, April 17, 2025. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect.
The University of California (UC) Faculty Assembly has rejected a proposal to establish passing ethnic studies in high school as a requirement for admission to its 10 taxpayer-funded schools for undergraduates.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the campaign for the measure — defeated overwhelmingly 29-12 with 12 abstaining — was spearheaded by Christine Hong, chair of the Critical Race and Ethnic Studies department at UC Santa Cruz. Hong believes that Zionism is a “colonial racial project” and that Israel is a “settler colonial state.” Moreover, she holds that anti-Zionism is “part and parcel” of the ethnic studies discipline.
Ethnic studies activists like Hong throughout the University of California system coveted the admissions requirement because it would have facilitated their aligning ethnic studies curricula at the K-12 level with “liberated ethnic studies,” an extreme revolutionary project that was rejected by California Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2023. Had the proposal been successful, school officials of both public and private schools would have been forced to comply with their standard of what constitutes ethnic studies to qualify their students for admission to UC.
Being indoctrinated into anti-Zionism and “hating Jews” would essentially have become a prerequisite for becoming a UC student had the Faculty Assembly approved the measure, Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, executive director of antisemitism watchdog AMCHA Initiative, told The Algemeiner on Friday. AMCHA Initiative first raised the alarm about the proposal in 2023, calling it “a deeply frightening prospect.”
“Ethnic studies never intended to be like any other discipline or subject. It was always intended to be a political project for fomenting revolution according to the dictates of however the activists behind the subject defined it,” Rossman-Benjamin explained. “And anti-Zionism has been at the core of the field, and this became especially clear after Oct. 7. Most of the anti-Zionist mania on campuses that day — the support for the encampments, the Faculty for Justice in Palestine chapters — it was a project of Ethnic Studies. At UC Santa Cruz, 60 percent of Faculty for Justice in Palestine members were pulled from the ethnic studies department.”
Founded in the 1960s to provide an alternative curriculum for beneficiaries of racial preferences whose retention rates lagged behind traditional college students, ethnic studies is based on anti-capitalist, anti-liberal, and anti-Western ideologies found in the writings of, among others, Franz Fanon, Huey Newton, Simone de Beauvoir, and Karl Marx. Its principal ideological target in the 20th century was the remains of European imperialism in Africa and the Middle East, but overtime it identified new “systems of oppression,” most notably the emergent superpower that was the US after World War II and the nation that became its closest ally in the Middle East: Israel.
UC Santa Cruz’s Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES) department is a case study in how the ideology leads inexorably to anti-Zionist antisemitism, AMCHA Initiative argued in a 2024 study.
Following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, CRES issued a statement rationalizing the terrorist group’s atrocities as political resistance. Additionally, the department days later participated in a “Call for a Global General Strike,” refusing to work because Israel mounted a military response to Hamas’s atrocities — an action CRES called “Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza.” Later, the department held an event titled, “The Genocide in Gaza in our [sic] Classrooms: A Teaching Palestine Workshop,” in which professors and teaching assistants were trained in how to persuade students that Zionism is a racist and genocidal endeavor.
Imposing such noxious views on all California students would have been catastrophic, Rossman-Benjamin told The Algemeiner.
“The goal of admissions requirements is to make sure that students are adequately prepared for college,” she noted. “Their goal was to use their power to force students to take the kind of Critical Ethnic Studies that is taught at the university, with the goal of revolutionizing society. The idea should have been dead on arrival, being rejected on the grounds that there is no evidence that it is a worthwhile subject that should be required for admission to the University of California.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post University of California Rejects Ethnic Studies Admissions Requirement in Faculty Assembly Vote first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israeli FM Praises Paraguay Decision to Label Iran’s IRGC, Proxies Hamas and Hezbollah as Terrorist Organizations

Paraguayan President Santiago Peña praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Dec. 12, 2024. Photo: The Western Wall Heritage Foundation
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar praised Paraguay’s decision to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, and to broaden the country’s previous designation to include all factions of Hamas and Hezbollah.
The top Israeli diplomat congratulated the South American country and described President Santiago Peña’s decision as a “landmark move” in addressing security challenges and fostering international peace.
“Iran is the world’s leading exporter of terrorism and extremism, and together with its terror proxies, it threatens regional stability and global peace,” Sa’ar wrote in a post on X. “More countries should follow suit and join the fight against Iranian aggression and terrorism.”
I commend Paraguay and @SantiPenap for the landmark decision to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hamas, and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations.
Iran is the world’s leading exporter of terrorism and extremism, and together with its terror proxies, it threatens… https://t.co/OzWACbWcno— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) April 24, 2025
On Thursday, Peña issued an executive order designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization “for its systematic violations of peace, human rights, and the security of the international community.”
The executive order also expanded Paraguay’s 2019 proscription of the armed wings of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, the al-Qassam Brigades, and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terrorist group in Lebanon, to encompass the entirety of both organizations, including their political wings.
“With this decision, Paraguay reaffirms its unwavering commitment to peace, international security, and the unconditional respect for human rights, solidifying its position within the international community as a country firmly opposed to all forms of terrorism and strengthening its relations with allied nations in this fight,” Peña wrote in a post on X, emphasizing the country’s strategic relationship with the United States and Israel.
Iran is the chief international backer of Hamas and Hezbollah, providing the Islamist terror groups with weapons, funding, and training. According to media reports based on documents seized by the Israeli military in Gaza last year, Iran had been informed about Hamas’s plan to launch the Oct. 7 attack months in advance.
Last year, Peña reopened Paraguay’s embassy in Jerusalem, making it the sixth nation — after the US, Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, and Papua New Guinea — to establish its embassy in the Israeli capital. During the same visit, he condemned the Hamas-led massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, calling the perpetrators “criminals” in a speech at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.
The Trump administration also praised Paraguay’s decision to officially label the IRGC as a terrorist organization, describing it as a major blow to Iran’s terror network in the Western Hemisphere.
“Iran remains the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world and has financed and directed numerous terrorist attacks and activities globally, through its IRGC-Qods Force and proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas,” US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a statement.
The US official said Paraguay’s action will help disrupt Iran’s ability to finance terrorism and operate in Latin America — particularly in the Tri-Border Area, where Paraguay borders Argentina and Brazil, a region long regarded as a financial hub for Hezbollah-linked operatives.
“The important steps Paraguay has taken will help cut off the ability of the Iranian regime and its proxies to plot terrorist attacks and raise money for its malignant and destabilizing activity,” the statement read.
“The United States will continue to work with partners such as Paraguay to confront global security threats,” Bruce added. “We call on all countries to hold the Iranian regime accountable and prevent its operatives, recruiters, financiers, and proxies from operating in their territories.”
During his first administration, Trump designated the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), citing the Iranian regime’s use of the IRGC to “engage in terrorist activities since its inception 40 years ago.”
At the time, Trump said this designation “recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a state sponsor of terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft.”
“The IRGC is the Iranian government’s primary means of directing and implementing its global terrorist campaign,” he continued.
The post Israeli FM Praises Paraguay Decision to Label Iran’s IRGC, Proxies Hamas and Hezbollah as Terrorist Organizations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Yale’s Silence Is Allowing Blatant Campus Antisemitism — and Betraying the Promise of ‘Never Again’

Yale University students at the corner of Grove and College Streets in New Haven, Connecticut, U.S., April 22, 2024. Photo: Melanie Stengel via Reuters Connect.
As darkness fell over Yale University on Wednesday evening, Jewish students faced intimidation that echoed history’s darkest chapters. The following day, as the sun rose on Holocaust Remembrance Day, the world solemnly reflected on the devastating consequences of unchecked hatred.
Yet, disturbingly, at Yale, the shadows of that same hatred linger once again.
For several nights now, radical anti-Israel activists, primarily organized by “Yalies for Palestine,” an anti-Israel hate group, have targeted Jewish students at Yale — in many cases, based solely on their outwardly Jewish appearance.
On Wednesday, protestors blocked walkways, physically intimidated Jewish students, and hurled bottles and sprayed liquids at them — all while campus police stood by and did nothing.
One Jewish student described her chilling encounter with the protesters the night before, on Tuesday: “When I tried to get through, they blocked me, ignored my requests to pass, and handed out masks to those obstructing me. Yale security told me they couldn’t help.”
The immediate trigger for this harassment is the invitation extended by Shabtai, a Yale Jewish society, to Itamar Ben-Gvir, an Israeli government minister. Whether one supports or opposes Ben-Gvir’s politics is beside the point. Notably, Naftali Bennett, a former Israeli prime minister, was also protested and disrupted during a separate campus event in February, underscoring a broader trend of hostility toward Israeli speakers regardless of their political affiliation.
These events signal more than isolated protests; they constitute a redux of hatred that historically escalates when met with institutional silence or indifference.
Yale’s administration, under President Maurie McInnis and Dean Pericles Lewis, has failed to adequately respond. Though Yale revoked official recognition from Yalies for Palestine, its tepid actions have not halted the dangerous slide toward overt hostility. The silence — from both the university and the Slifka Center, Yale’s center for Jewish life — is deafening.
This isn’t the first troubling instance at Yale. A year ago, similar demonstrators disrupted campus life with vitriolic anti-Israel rhetoric, silencing dialogue and fostering an atmosphere hostile to Jewish students.
Earlier this year, CAMERA on Campus documented Yale’s Slifka Center pressuring students to erase evidence of anti-Jewish harassment during a pro-Israel event, effectively whitewashing antisemitism and emboldening extremists.
As CAMERA’s Ricki Hollander has powerfully documented, the rhetoric of anti-Zionism today often revives the antisemitic patterns of the past, particularly those propagated by the Nazi regime in the 1930s. These tactics, she explains, echo Nazi-era propaganda that portrayed Jews as subhuman, sinister, and uniquely malevolent — a narrative used to justify marginalization and, ultimately, genocide.
These dynamics — scapegoating, dehumanizing, and ostracizing Jews under the guise of “anti-Zionism” — are not relics of history. They are alive and active across elite American campuses. And now, unmistakably, they have taken root at Yale.
McInnis must break the silence and condemn the open harassment and assault of Jewish students. She must also hold the perpetrators of the heinous actions and those responsible for the safety of students accountable for their inaction.
This week has revealed a grave failure of moral and institutional duty on many fronts. When law enforcement stands by as Jewish students face intimidation and assault, it sends a chilling message: their safety matters less.
We must demand a full investigation and real accountability. Condemnations of antisemitism are not enough. Policies must be changed to ensure Jewish students and organizations can freely exercise their right to free expression without being subject to harassment and assault. Anything less would betray Yale’s stated values — and the promise of “never again.”
Douglas Sandoval is the Managing Director for CAMERA on Campus.
The post Yale’s Silence Is Allowing Blatant Campus Antisemitism — and Betraying the Promise of ‘Never Again’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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