A Torah scroll. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

“Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great awesome Day of God, and he will reconcile fathers to children and children to fathers” (Malachi 3:24).

This is part of the Haftorah for Shabbat HaGadol, the Shabbat before Pesach. But who exactly was Elijah? It is true that in terms of stature and his place in our tradition, he was the greatest of the prophets, even if no book is attributed to him. His public victory over the prophets of Baal during the reign of Ahab and Jezebel was his most famous triumph. But just as significant was the Chariot of Fire that took him up to Heaven when he died, which became the symbol of mysticism with which he was always associated.

In the Talmud, Elijah figures prominently in the debates about messianism and whether he was to be the messiah, or the pathfinder and precursor. Eventually, it was settled that Elijah would pave the way for a messianic era and instruct us what to do and what parts of our tradition would be revived or survive when it came about.

In the Talmud, there are many episodes in which Elijah is said to appear to rabbis and guide them, and he is associated with solving unresolved halachic issues.

Elijah has multiple associations with Pesach. The most obvious being when towards the end of the Seder, we dedicate the fifth cup of wine to Elijah, and we invoke his presence in asking God to remove our enemies.

Why is this fifth cup specifically Eliyahu’s?

Explanations range from the rational to the mystical. According to Maimonides, the coming of the messiah is a time in which oppression and hatred are removed, and we are free to explore our spiritual lives unimpeded. That’s the mystical.

Practically, there is a debate about if we should drink four or five cups of wine at the Seder. Those who advocate for four cups say it is done for the four terms used in the Torah to describe the process that gave us our freedom from slavery — “I freed you, I saved you, I redeemed you, I took you out.” But others believe “I brought you” counts as a fifth.

Are there four or five words, and should there be four or five cups?

The debate is left unanswered. Although we are obliged to have four cups of wine, we add an extra one just in case — and our tradition happened to dedicate that one to Elijah.

This year we have much to be sad about. So many beautiful young and not-so-young lives have been killed by our enemies. So many more lives have been injured or ruined. And yet there have been so many examples of deliverance, self-sacrifice, and heroism.

Is this the year the messiah will come? We can hope. But in the meantime, we have to do our best to reconcile and heal the chasms amongst us, and to come together to go forward united with pride and joy. Thank you, Eliyahu.

The author is a writer and rabbi based in New York.

Palestinians, including children, celebrating the Second Intifada. Photo: Screenshot.

The Palestinian Authority Security Forces (PASF) had the largest number of terrorists in the Second Intifada, boasted a senior PA official.

PA Tulkarem District Governor Abdallah Kmeil bragged how the number of PASF members killed fighting Israel far exceeded the number killed by other terror organizations combined during the PA-led terror campaign of 2000-2005:

“Tulkarem District Governor Abdallah Kmeil: Let’s speak in a scientific language, in the language of numbers, which is the strongest language. There were 2,089 Martyrs from the [PA] Security Forces in the second Intifada … The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades of Fatah had 632 Martyrs, the Al-Quds Brigades of the [Islamic] Jihad had 415 Martyrs, and the [Izz A-Din] Al-Qassam Brigades of Hamas had 378 Martyrs.”

[Tulkarem Governorate, Facebook page, Feb. 13, 2026]

By comparing PASF casualties to those of recognized terror groups, Kmeil showed that the PA Security Forces — who were trained and funded by the West to fight terror — were actually the leaders of Palestinian terror.

The Second Intifada was the PA-directed and controlled terror campaign, during which Palestinians carried out thousands of terror attacks, including suicide bombings on buses, in shopping malls, and on main streets, murdering more than 1,100 Israelis.

Last year, PA TV aired an interview with a PASF member jailed by Israel for terror offenses during the Second Intifada, who explained that the PASF “responded to this call” — to join the terror organizations in fighting Israel:

Released PA Security Forces terrorist prisoner Naji Arar: “I was a member of the Security Forces, of the security establishment. When we responded to the call of the homeland – we responded to this call through the Security Forces.

Do you remember the Al-Aqsa Intifada? The ones who resisted there were the Security Forces members, of course, in cooperation with our people and the factions.

I was arrested in Ramallah and sentenced to 18 years… It was shocking. But for Palestine, everything is insignificant. We were released… and met the security establishment through which we launched [our activity back then]. It welcomed us.”

[Official PA TV, Giants of Endurance, May 30, 2025 and Sept. 20, 2025]

Most importantly, the PASF leadership role in terror continues today unabated, as exposed in the June 2025 report by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) titled “Terrorists in Uniform.”

In 2023, after calling the killing of 12 Israelis that year “acts of resistance,” Fatah-run Adwah TV reported that “the members of Fatah and the Security Forces form the core and the arms of the resistance [i.e., terror] groups in the West Bank, together with the other Palestinian factions.”

PMW has likewise documented Fatah honoring dead PASF members who were terrorists killed while attacking Israelis.

Therefore, Kmeil’s words were surely no slip of the tongue. They were a public expression of what the PA and Fatah know: that PA Security Forces members take a leading role in Palestinian terror, a role that is a source of pride, to be celebrated.

This is all the more reason why any talk of parts of Gaza being handed over to the PASF to police the Strip is misguided and unacceptable, since it would be simply replacing one terror group, Hamas, with another — PA Security Forces.

Itamar Marcus is the Founder and Director of Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). Ahron Shapiro is a contributor to PMW, where a version of this article first appeared.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani delivers a speech during his inauguration ceremony in New York City, US, Jan. 1, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Kylie Cooper

This year’s news cycle is evolving at an unprecedented pace, making mere months feel like a lifetime in today’s political environment.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani will soon hit 90 days in office, and the young politician has managed to fill his short time as leader of one of America’s most important cities with a litany of policies and positions that would make any anti-Israel Democratic Socialist proud.

Many left-leaning Jewish voters who cast their vote for Mamdani, believing that the ambitious, inexperienced mayor would be far too consumed with learning to manage the largest municipal budget in the country to indulge his anti-Zionist objectives, are now facing the consequences of their electoral choices.

Within minutes of taking office, the new mayor got to work signing several executive orders that removed critical protections for Jews, including revoking New York City’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism.

A surge in antisemitic attacks soon took hold, with hate crimes against Jews increasing 182 percent during Mamdani’s first month in office compared to the same period from the previous year. It’s hard to believe there is not some correlation between the two.

Mamdani displays no signs of retreating from his radicalism. On the contrary, he appears to be hardening his ideological, anti-Israel fixations, while using his platform to demonize the Jewish State.

It comes as no shock that the mayor — who refuses to condemn the slogan “Globalize the Intifada,” a rallying cry calling for the murder of Jews — is stacking his administration with leading anti-American figures, including appointing Ramzi Kassem, a lawyer who defended an Al-Qaeda terrorist and anti-Israel Columbia grad, Mahmoud Khalil, as Chief Counsel.

It’s also worth noting that Mamdani’s first three months as mayor coincided with the Islamic holiday of Ramadan.

The city’s first Muslim mayor could have used the nearly month-long observance period to promote interfaith dialogue or to channel the list of NYC functions commemorating Ramadan towards attaining his lofty promise to represent “all New Yorkers.”

Mamdani set the problematic tenor when he began Ramadan by being feted at an area mosque alongside Abudllah Akl, Political Director of the Muslim American Society of New York, who once called on Hamas to strike Tel Aviv, yet was granted the distinction of introducing Mamdani earlier this month.

Days after deliberately stoking confusion by refusing to denounce Islamic terrorism after two Muslims attempted to carry out a terror plot in front of Gracie Mansion on March 7, the mayor and his equally (and proudly) anti-Israel wife, Rama Duwaji, hosted Mahmoud Khalil and his spouse for an Iftar meal.

The released photo of the foursome dining together was appropriately dark, and accurately captured the unsettling moment in which Jewish New Yorkers now find themselves.

While Mamdani’s mayoral reign is still in its infancy, it’s clear that his Islamic roots (including a father who notoriously hates the Jewish State) and his animosity for Israel will blanket much of his rhetoric and decision-making.

Jewish New Yorkers are not only reckoning with a mayor whose destructive agenda fails to dent his popularity, but the city’s Jews must also accept the fact that Mamdani’s radical ideology gained purchase with neighbors, coworkers, and friends who ultimately comprised the mosaic of the nearly 50 percent of voters who propelled him to victory.

The Democratic Party’s energy now lies with its antisemitic activist base, as more liberal politicians, once considered so-called “moderates,” publicly flex their anti-Israel bona fides.

Eyeing the dynamic unfolding in New York City, several 2028 Democratic Presidential hopefuls are distancing themselves from previously held positions supporting Israel’s right to exist and praising its pluralistic society.

Having traveled to Israel shortly after the October 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in an act of solidarity, California Governor Gavin Newsom recently stated that he has never taken money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and, drawing inspiration from Mamdani, likened Israel to an “apartheid state.”  Newsom has since walked those comments back, but it’s clear in what direction he — and the party — are heading.

Newsom is no outlier in his lurch to the anti-Israel left, and pro-Israel Democrats seeking to engage constructively with politicians once thought to be their ideological allies may soon find that they have no pivotal part to play in a party once thought to be their political home.

Mamdani was always transparent about his disdain for Israel.

No longer restrained by the campaign guardrails, the mayor has grown bolder in his statements and actions.

Whether it’s breaking bread with activists who openly celebrate the slaughter of Jews or creating antisemitic spaces within government-run entities, Mamdani’s anti-Jewish agenda has only been strengthened over the last three months.

His political ambitions will not stop at New York City’s doorstep.

Mamdani is leveraging his popularity and easing the path for Democrats across America to follow his lead.

Irit Tratt is a writer residing in New York. Follow her on X @Irit_Tratt.