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Jewish students at NYU raise $22,000 for Israel in 24 hours
(New York Jewish Week) — Like so many Jews across the country, Ruthie Yudelson was celebrating Shabbat and the holiday of Shemini Atzeret when the news began to trickle in about terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7.
A junior at New York University, Yudelson, 21, was with her peers at New York University’s Bronfman Center for Jewish Life, which houses the school’s Hillel, when the news broke. Immediately, people were trying to piece together the little bits of information they could from friends and family in Israel, she recalled.
By the afternoon, Yudelson had organized a group of students to say Tehillim, or psalms, which Jews recite on behalf of the sick and in times of danger. “I expected it to be some five or six people,” Yudelson said. To her surprise, 25 students showed up to sing, talk and be together.
That small crowd on Saturday afternoon, Yudelson said, was the first hint of the potential organizing power of her campus community, something that the Jewish students demonstrated again just over a week later. For exactly one day beginning at midnight on Sunday, Yudelson and a group of fellow Jewish NYU students came together for “24 hours of service” to raise money for Israel via UJA-New York’s Israel Emergency Fund, which disseminated some $22 million in grants to Israeli nonprofits as of Monday.
At the end of the fundraiser, at midnight on Monday, the initiative, which has involved some 40 students, raised $22,000 from donors Yudelson described as a mix of “friends, family, local businesses and nonprofit philanthropies.”
“We see in the students’ eyes a ton of anger, fear, sadness and angst. Nobody’s able to sleep or eat or go to class,” said sophomore Benji Meppen, a co-organizer of the event. “We wanted to capitalize on that and say let’s take that nervous energy and put it towards something good. Let’s be in the building, let’s be in community, Let’s be together and raise money while doing something meaningful.”
Yudelson and a team of fellow undergrads — Meppin, Jake Bengelsdorf, Adina Levin and Zoe Kimmelman — began organizing the fundraiser last Tuesday, pitching potential donors on a 24-hour event where students would work on a variety of volunteer projects at the Bronfman Center — including writing cards for Israeli soldiers, staffing a support hotline for students affected by the war and knitting baby clothes for attack victims. They also committed to studying Torah and saying Tehillim in memory of the victims. While the students engaged in that activism, donors would sponsor their efforts and send money to Israel.
“What we’re aiming to do is to bring people together, not just around concepts of solidarity but around practical, actionable good,” Yudelson told the New York Jewish Week Monday as the fundraiser reached its midpoint. “The idea is that we can make cards for displaced children, we can bake rice krispie treats for soldiers’ families and we can write letters to individuals grieving terror attacks — and that people will be inspired by these actions in a way that compels them to donate actual effective amounts of money.”
Throughout Sunday night and Monday, “there’s been a lot of energy, and it’s been really great to see,” Meppin said. “Personally, I find every moment that I’m not doing something, I sit on my couch or sit on my bed and look at the news or I read WhatsApp that I don’t want to read. I become incredibly angry and sad just as everybody else is. It’s been great to stay in the building and do something meaningful.”
Yudelson, a environmental sociology major, holds a variety of leadership positions within the Bronfman Center, including at the Israel Journal, an online publication at the school “dedicated to clearing up the conversation around Israel,” as well as in the school’s Orthodox and Conservative Jewish student groups. She also works as a service engagement intern at the center, organizing community service programs throughout the year. Meppin, a film major, is on the student executive board of NYU Hillel and is the co-president of the Israel Journal.
Following the attacks, Yudelson — a Teaneck, New Jersey native who also has Israeli citizenship — said that she immediately began to think about how the Bronfman Center could become a space where students can express feelings, gather information and come together in a particularly fraught time. “The first way that this uncertainty and fear was metabolized for me was communally,” she said.
“I have a lot of cousins who are fighting in Gaza. I have friends from high school, people that I grew up with who are in a tank right now,” Meppin, who is from Los Angeles, said. “For me, to be a 19-year-old in film school, I feel rather meaningless. We hope that this event will help relieve people of some of those feelings while still raising money for UJA.”
NYU has been one of a handful of campuses across the country that has drawn scrutiny in the wake of Hamas’ attack, largely after the president of the law school’s Student Bar Association wrote a letter in the school’s newsletter stating, among other things, that “Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life.”
But Yudelson says the Bronfman Center fundraiser hasn’t yet faced the same kind of pushback.The wider NYU community has been supportive, she said.
Yudelson surmised that the reason for the lack of criticism is that the fundraiser is focused on humanitarian aid, or because it is not “the most political” as far campus actions go, although she did stress that “all the aid that we are collecting is going to Israel.” She also said she wasn’t sure how much the larger undergraduate campus population was aware that the fundraiser was happening.
“It’s been wonderful to be a part of,” Yudelson said. “Right now it is a very weird time in our current cultural moment and it’s hard to be hopeful, but being a part of this fundraiser, I’ve been mostly hopeful and excited.”
For college students — who tend to have low bank account balances — “it’s hard to imagine ourselves as having any sort of effective or important piece in the larger geopolitical struggles happening right now,” she said.
But that does not mean that they should not try, said Meppin. “As Jewish college students in New York City, we can choose to take an active role in this conflict and ensure the future Jewish people,” he said. “I’m very happy that we are currently doing that as we speak.”
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The post Jewish students at NYU raise $22,000 for Israel in 24 hours appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself. Really?
JNS.org – If I asked you to name the most famous line in the Bible, what would you answer? While Shema Yisrael (“Hear O’Israel”) might get many votes, I imagine that the winning line would be “love thy neighbor as thyself” (Leviticus 19:18). Some religions refer to it as the Golden Rule, but all would agree that it is fundamental to any moral lifestyle. And it appears this week in our Torah reading, Kedoshim.
This is quite a tall order. Can we be expected to love other people as much as we love ourselves? Surely, this is an idealistic expectation. And yet, the Creator knows us better than we know ourselves. How can His Torah be so unrealistic?
The biblical commentaries offer a variety of explanations. Some, like Rambam (Maimonides), say that the focus should be on our behavior, rather than our feelings. We are expected to try our best or to treat others “as if” we genuinely love them.
Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, in his classic text called the Tanya, argues that the actual feelings of love are, in fact, achievable provided that we focus on a person’s spirituality rather than how they present themselves physically. If we can put the soul over the body, we can do it.
Allow me to share the interpretation of the Ramban (Nachmanides), a 13th-century Torah scholar from Spain. His interpretation of the verses preceding love thy neighbor is classic and powerful, yet simple and straightforward.
“Do not hate your brother in your heart. You shall rebuke him, but do not bear a sin because of him” by embarrassing him in public. “Do not take revenge, and do not bear a grudge against your people. You shall love your fellow as yourself, I am God” (Leviticus 19:17-18).
What is the connection between these verses? Why is revenge and grudge-bearing in the same paragraph as love your fellow as yourself?
A careful reading shows that within these two verses are no less than six biblical commandments. But what is their sequence all about, and what is the connection between them?
The Ramban explains it beautifully, showing how the sequence of verses is deliberate and highlighting the Torah’s profound yet practical advice on how to maintain healthy relationships.
Someone wronged you? Don’t hate him in your heart. Speak to him. Don’t let it fester until it bursts, and makes you bitter and sick.
Instead, talk it out. Confront the person. Of course, do it respectfully. Don’t embarrass anyone in public, so that you don’t bear a sin because of them. But don’t let your hurt eat you up. Communicate!
If you approach the person who wronged you—not with hate in your heart but with respectful reproof—one of two things will happen. Either he or she will apologize and explain their perspective on the matter. Or that it was a misunderstanding and will get sorted out between you. Either way, you will feel happier and healthier.
Then you will not feel the need to take revenge or even to bear a grudge.
Here, says the Ramban, is the connection between these two verses. And if you follow this advice, only then will you be able to observe the commandment to Love Thy Neighbor. If you never tell him why you are upset, another may be completely unaware of his or her wrongdoing, and it will remain as a wound inside you and may never go away.
To sum up: Honest communication is the key to loving people.
Now, tell me the truth. Did you know that not taking revenge is a biblical commandment? In some cultures in Africa, revenge is a mitzvah! I’ve heard radio talk-show hosts invite listeners to share how they took “sweet revenge” on someone, as if it’s some kind of accomplishment.
Furthermore, did you know that bearing a grudge is forbidden by biblical law?
Here in South Africa, people refer to a grudge by its Yiddish name, a faribel. In other countries, people call it a broiges. Whatever the terminology, the Torah states explicitly: “Thou shalt not bear a grudge!” Do not keep a faribel, a broiges or resentment of any kind toward someone you believe wronged you. Talk to that person. Share your feelings honestly. If you do it respectfully and do not demean the other’s dignity, then it can be resolved. Only then will you be able to love your fellow as yourself.
May all our grudges and feelings of resentment toward others be dealt with honestly and respectfully. May all our grudges be resolved as soon as possible. Then we will all be in a much better position to love our neighbors as ourselves.
The post Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself. Really? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘Nonsense’: Huckabee Shoots Down Report Trump to Endorse Palestinian Statehood
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee looks on during the day he visits the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee on Saturday dismissed as nonsensical the report that President Donald Trump would endorse Palestinian statehood during his tour to the Persian Gulf this week.
“This report is nonsense,” Huckabee harrumphed on his X account, blasting the Jerusalem Post as needing better sourced reporting. “Israel doesn’t have a better friend than the president of the United States.”
Trump is set to visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. The leader’s first trip overseas since he took office comes as Trump seeks the Gulf countries’ support in regional conflicts, including the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and curbing Iran’s advancing nuclear program.
However, reports citing administration insiders claimed that Trump has also set his sights on the ambitious goal of expanding the Abraham Accords. These agreements, initially signed in 2020, normalized relations between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan. The accords are widely held to be among the most important achievements of the first Trump administration.
The post ‘Nonsense’: Huckabee Shoots Down Report Trump to Endorse Palestinian Statehood first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US to Put Military Option Back on Table If No Immediate Progress in Iran Talks
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy-designate Steve Witkoff gives a speech at the inaugural parade inside Capital One Arena on the inauguration day of Trump’s second presidential term, in Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
i24 News – Unless significant progress is registered in Sunday’s round of nuclear talks with Iran, the US will consider putting the military option back on the table, sources close to US envoy Steve Witkoff told i24NEWS.
American and Iranian representatives voiced optimism after the previous talks that took place in Oman and Rome, saying there was a friendly atmosphere despite the two countries’ decades of enmity.
However the two sides are not believed to have thrashed out the all-important technical details, and basic questions remain.
The source has also underscored the significance of the administration’s choice of Michael Anton, the State Department’s policy planning director, as the lead representative in the nuclear talks’ technical phases.
Anton is “an Iran expert and someone who knows how to cut a deal with Iran,” the source said, saying that the choice reflected Trump’s desire to secure the deal.
The post US to Put Military Option Back on Table If No Immediate Progress in Iran Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.