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Miracle on the Mountain

The Prophets of Baal Are Slaughtered” by Gustave Doré, 1866. Photo: Wikimedia

JNS.orgThis week we had the unusual opportunity of marking the leap day of Feb. 29. But Jews, who are characteristically generous, don’t have just a leap day. We have a whole extra month.

With a full 13th month of Adar II, the Haftarah read in shul this week will be a well-known biblical story from the First Book of Kings, which is not usually read in an ordinary calendar year. It is the famous story of Elijah the prophet, and his fight against the idolatrous King Ahab and his heathen wife Queen Jezebel, who actively promoted paganism in the Holy Land and had many of the Hebrew prophets put to death.

The Israelites were wavering between the worship of Baal and the worship of the true God of Israel. Elijah decides that dramatic action is needed to bring his people back from idolatry and confusion to monotheism and faith in the one God. He challenges Ahab to a duel, not with Colt .45s, but with prayer.

The 450 prophets of the idol Baal and Elijah—the one prophet of the one God of Israel—ascended Mount Carmel. Each side was to prepare an animal offering on an altar and pray to their deity. The one whose offering would be consumed by a fire from heaven would have proven the authenticity of their God.

“Give us two bulls and let them [the prophets of Baal] choose one bull for themselves and cut it up and place it on the wood, but fire they shall not put; and I will prepare one bull, and I will put it on the wood, and fire will I not place. And you will call out in the name of your deity, and I will call out in the name of the Lord, and it shall be that the one who will answer with fire, he is the true God.” (First Kings 18:20-39)

The prophets of Baal agreed to the challenge and many thousands gathered on the mountain to watch the dramatic showdown. This would be the final faceoff to determine who was the one true God.

The prophets of Baal went first. Naturally, their prayers and entreaties went unanswered. Elijah even taunted them: “Perhaps your god is sleeping or on a journey. Pray more loudly, perhaps he doesn’t hear you.” Of course, despite all their prayers, incantations and shenanigans, there was no reply from above.

As evening approached, Elijah took center stage. He built an altar, placed the animal upon it, poured water all around the altar and offered a short but powerful prayer: “Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel. Let it be known this day that You are God in Israel and that I am Your servant, and at Your word have I done all these things. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, and this people shall know that You are the Lord God.”

As Elijah finished his prayer, a fire descended from heaven and consumed his offering: “And all the people saw and fell on their faces, and they said, ‘The Lord is God, the Lord is God.’”

It is with these very words that, to this day, we conclude the sacred Neilah prayer at the end of every Yom Kippur.

This is a powerful, inspirational story. Just as it demonstrated to the Jews of that generation that the one God alone is worthy of our worship, so does its stirring message speak to us today.

But I am not here to marvel at God’s miracles. To God, miracles are nothing special, just an everyday routine matter. To me, the bigger and more moving miracle is how one mortal man of flesh and blood stood up to the most powerful ruler in the land. Ahab was the king and had an army at his beck and call. Elijah was one lone voice in the wilderness. He had been persecuted, was on the run and almost all his righteous compatriots had been murdered by the king and queen’s forces. Still, he spoke truth to power.

It would have been so much simpler and easier for Elijah to change his tune and go along with the popular thinking of the time. No doubt there were plenty of Jews who must have told him, “Don’t be such a fanatic. Why are you so rigid and inflexible? So what if they dabble a bit with Baal? Everyone is doing it these days. If you cooperate with the king, you may even become the chief prophet of the land!”

But Elijah remained faithful to his beliefs and stuck to his principles. In the end, his prayer was answered, the miracle happened, and he was able to inspire and turn his entire nation back to God.

So, to my mind, bigger than a fire coming down from heaven is the miracle of Elijah’s faith, fortitude, strength of character and courage of his convictions.

Today, the prophets of Baal are gone without a trace, but Elijah—Eliyahu Hanavi—has gone down in history as one of the greatest prophets of all time. He continues to be remembered at every bris and Pesach seder around the world, down through the generations. One dissenting opinion, one man of principle who took the long hard road, lives on forever.

Falsehood may be fashionable, but truth is timeless. Lies, like any fad, soon go out of fashion, but truth is eternal. Compromising principles for popularity works in the short term, but soon leaves us emptyhanded and chastened.

Elijah teaches us a lesson for every generation, including our own. No wonder we are told that Elijah will be the precursor to the ultimate Messenger of Peace who will herald the Messianic Age. He is the harbinger of Moshiach. Ultimately, principled living will bring peace much sooner than pandering to the whims of the moment, as popular as they may be.

We have seen the success of peace through strength. We also need peace through truth.

The post Miracle on the Mountain first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Defying West, China’s Xi Gathers ‘Axis of Upheaval’ at Military Parade

Soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China attend a training ahead of a military parade to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two, in Beijing, China, Aug. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

Chinese President Xi Jinping will be flanked by leaders of some of the world’s most heavily sanctioned nations – Russia, North Korea, Iran, and Myanmar – at a military parade next week in Beijing, in a show of solidarity against the West.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un will attend “Victory Day” parade on September 3 marking the end of World War II after Japan’s formal surrender – the first time they have appeared in public alongside Xi.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is also expected to be on the dais as tens of thousands of troops march through the Chinese capital, completing a quartet that Western political and economic analysts have described as the Axis of Upheaval.

Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing, who rarely travels abroad, will also attend, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Thursday.

Almost no Western leaders will be among the 26 foreign heads of state or government attending the parade, which political analysts say will demonstrate Xi‘s influence over nations intent on reshaping the Western-led global order.

Xi Jinping is trying to showcase that he is very strong, that he is still powerful and well received in China,” said Alfred Wu, Associate Professor, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore.

“When Xi was just a regional leader, he looked up to Putin, and saw the kind of leader he could learn from – and now he is a global leader. Having Kim alongside him, as well, highlights how Xi is now also a global leader.”

A loose coalition of states bent on reshaping the Western-led global order, the “Axis of Upheaval” has sought to undermine US interests, whether over Taiwan or by blocking shipping lanes, and sought to undermine Western sanctions by providing economic lifelines to each other, the analysts say.

The only Western heads of state or government attending the events in Beijing are Robert Fico, the prime minister of European Union member state Slovakia, and Aleksander Vucic, the president of Serbia.

Fico has been an opponent of sanctioning Russia for its war against Ukraine and has broken ranks with the EU by visiting Moscow. Vucic also visited Moscow in May and wants good relations with Russia and China but says Serbia remains committed to joining the EU.

STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP

Russia, which Beijing counts as a strategic partner, has been hit by multiple rounds of Western sanctions imposed after its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with its economy on the brink of slipping into recession.

Putin, wanted by the International Criminal Court over accusations of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine, last traveled in China in 2024. He is largely ostracized by the West and avoided making major concessions over Ukraine as US President Donald Trump struggles to end the war there.

North Korea, a formal treaty ally of China’s, has been under United Nations Security Council sanctions since 2006 over its development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Kim last visited China in January 2019.

China, the world’s second-largest economy, buys some 90 percent of Iran’s sanctioned oil exports, and continues to source rare earth metals critical to the manufacture of wind turbines, medical devices, and electric vehicles from Myanmar.

Other leaders attending what will be one of China’s largest parades in years include Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, and South Korea’s National Assembly Speaker, Woo Won-shik, Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Hong Lei told a press conference.

The United Nations will be represented by Under-Secretary-General Li Junhua, who previously served in various capacities at the Chinese foreign ministry, including time as the Chinese ambassador to Italy, San Marino and Myanmar.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama will attend the parade, Hong said. He did not mention any guests from Italy or Germany, the two other Axis Powers during World War II.

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The Ballot Box Is the Key to Preserving — or Losing — Our Current System

The Reichstag in Berlin, Germany, c. 1941. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

In 1856, Abraham Lincoln, that master of the pithy aphorism, noted that “the ballot is stronger than the bullet.” So sharply observed, and it is one of those deceptively simple truths that history has confirmed time and again.

When Adolf Hitler burst into a Munich beer hall in 1923 with his ragtag band of brownshirts, he believed power in Germany could be seized at gunpoint. It was an utter fiasco. The so-called Beer Hall Putsch collapsed within hours, and Hitler found himself humiliated, imprisoned, and widely dismissed as a political clown. 

But prison became Hitler’s classroom. He studied, he reflected, and he came to the same conclusion as Lincoln — though with infinitely darker intent. The lesson was clear: brute force might win a battle, but ballots could win a nation. The real prize, Hitler realized, lay in working the system.

So Hitler traded the stormtrooper’s fist for the politician’s handshake. Over the next few years, he rebranded himself as a man of law and order, and the Nazis as a party of national revival and unbridled German pride. Critically, he played the parliamentary game with unnerving patience, slowly but surely building up popular support and parliamentary representation. 

By January 1933, the Nazi Party held only about a third of the seats in the Reichstag. But in a fractured political system, having the largest party in parliament was enough to be taken seriously. And once Hitler had that foothold, the unraveling was swift: the Reichstag Fire, the Enabling Act, the Night of the Long Knives, and finally, the death of President Hindenburg.

Within 18 months, Germany slid from democracy into dictatorship — and German democracy was no more. Lincoln was right. The ballot is stronger than the bullet. And Hitler proved it.

For centuries, the advance of Islamic power into Europe was checked on the battlefield. Charles Martel stopped the Muslim armies at Tours, France, in 732. Centuries later, Ferdinand and Isabella completed the Reconquista, driving the Moors out of Spain.

In 1683, the Ottomans were pushed back at the gates of Vienna, their imperial ambitions halted by a coalition of Christian armies. Each time, the clash was settled by soldiers, swords, and strategy. Whoever had the bigger, better army prevailed.

But today, the battlefield looks entirely different. In the twenty-first century, there are no cavalry charges across the plains of France or desperate last stands outside Vienna. The weapons have changed. The new battlefield is the ballot box, and the weapon of choice is demographics. 

Open immigration policies and an eagerness to celebrate multiculturalism in post-modern Europe and across the Western world have unwittingly created the conditions for a different kind of conquest. This is not a battle fought with sabers and cannons; instead, it is fought with voter registration and parliamentary seats. No longer is it the army with the most soldiers that wins — it is the community with the most ballots to cast.

And, as Hitler discovered, you don’t need an outright majority to shift the balance – you just need enough votes to be taken seriously. As long as there are enough voters to force the system to adapt around you, your agenda can no longer be ignored. 

The evidence is everywhere. In Britain’s recent election, a record-breaking 25 Muslim MPs were voted into the House of Commons — up from 19 in 2019. It may be a tiny fraction of seats overall, but it’s enough to mark a turning point. Most were Labour, although a handful came from across the political spectrum, including independents who campaigned almost exclusively on the issue of Gaza. 

The key thing is this — many don’t campaign as British patriots who happen to be Muslims, they campaign openly as Muslims first and everything else second. And with just 3.4 million Muslims in the UK — roughly six percent of the population — their representation in parliament is already beginning to punch above its weight.

In Canada, the 2025 federal election brought another milestone. Thirteen Muslim MPs entered parliament, up from eleven. The electoral success wasn’t accidental. Muslim advocacy groups coordinated nationally, launching websites and endorsements, rallying communities around a shared platform: “Free Palestine.”

In a Parliament of 343 seats, 13 members may sound like a rounding error. But in the Greater Toronto Area, where Muslims now comprise up to 14 percent of the population, the trend line is obvious. Bloc voting works, and the future is ominous.

In France, it’s the same story. Nineteen Muslim MPs were elected in 2024, mainly through alliances with left-wing parties determined to block Marine Le Pen’s far-right surge. France prides itself on strict secularism, but demography speaks louder than ideology — and particularly when Muslim candidates use their Islamic faith as their number one selling point. 

With Muslim voters already 10 percent of the French population, their influence is set to grow — and politics is re-calibrating to reflect that reality. It’s not for nothing that France, along with Canada and the UK, is set to recognize “Palestine” — the tail is wagging the national political dog.

The pattern is unmistakable. What once failed on the battlefield is now succeeding at the ballot box. A minority population, strategically mobilized, has become the kingmaker. You don’t need to conquer the palace gates with military might when you can simply walk through the front door with votes.

At the dawn of Jewish history, Moses warned the Jewish people to protect themselves from those who might use the system to undermine the moral conscience of national destiny. In Parshat Shoftim, he instructs them (Deut. 16:18): “Appoint for yourself judges and officers in all your gates…” 

The Torah’s vision of governance was never naïve. It is understood that no matter how inspired a nation may be, its ideals are only as strong as the safeguards that protect its core citizens. Every city gate needed gatekeepers. 

The medieval commentator Ramban notes that the verse places responsibility not just on leaders, but on the people themselves: it is “for yourself” — in the singular – meaning that every member of society has to be vigilant in ensuring that the values that matter are protected. 

Rav Hirsch goes even further, explaining that judges and officers are never meant to be mere bureaucrats. They must be guardians of the community’s moral center, ensuring that the law is not hijacked or twisted to serve destructive ends.

Moses knew what we so easily forget: freedom is fragile, and stability is a mirage. A nation can lose its way not only when enemies attack from outside, but when insiders exploit the system from within. That is why he delivered the crucial message that the system must be protected from enemies who might undermine it. Leave the city unguarded from these snakes in the grass, and sooner or later, everything you value will be gone — dismantled piece by piece.

Abraham Lincoln warned that the ballot is stronger than the bullet. He was right; Hitler proved it, and today’s Islamist movements are exploiting the same lesson. They no longer need to storm the gates with armies — they can stroll through them with votes. And once inside, all they need is enough useful idiots willing to go along with their twisted ideas.

Moses warned us long ago. He understood that the greatest danger to a nation is not necessarily foreign invasion, but the slow corrosion of values from within. That is why he insisted on vigilance. Judges and officers at every gate are not symbolic placeholders, but guardians against those who would manipulate the system to destructive ends. 

History’s harshest lesson is that freedom without awareness, and without the will to act, is always an invitation to tyranny. Hitler taught it in blood. The West seems to be in the midst of learning it again, the hard way. 

Which is why the Torah’s reminder — that unless we guard our gates, freedom itself can be dismantled — has never been more urgent.

The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California. 

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Palestinian Authority: Pay Terrorists First! Then Teachers (If Anything Is Left)

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas holds a leadership meeting in Ramallah, in the West Bank, April 23, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Torokman

As the school year is about to start, the Palestinian Authority (PA) is again showing its priorities. While it continues paying monthly salaries to imprisoned terrorists and “Martyrs”‘ families, costing $30 million/month (the “Pay-for-Slay” program) — teachers are forced to manage on a fraction of their salaries.

Because of international cuts in funding and cuts in Israeli tax transfers — due to the PA’s paying terror rewards — the PA has not paid full salaries to its civil servants since March 2019. At times, salaries were not paid at all, and now the PA is almost two months late in paying salaries.

Now, Palestinian teachers have had enough and are threatening a full strike if the PA does not pay them.

The General Union of Palestinian Teachers warned the PA:

Posted text: “The Union of [Palestinian] Teachers:

If the teachers’ salaries are paid before the start of the school year, the schools will operate as usual.
If the salaries are not paid before the start of the school year, the opening of the [school] year will be postponed until further notice.
If 70% of the salary is paid, the school week will be from Sunday to Wednesday.
In the case of less than 70% [salary], the school week will be from Sunday to Tuesday.”

[“Salaries of the State of Palestine – Private,” Telegram channel, Aug. 18, 2025]

This is not the first time that the PA teachers are striking.

On Feb 5, 2023, the PA teachers started a long strike until the PA returned satisfactory pay.

The PA is still in a grave financial crisis, due to its “terrorists first” ideology.

PA leader Mahmoud and PA officials have stressed numerous times that the PA’s top priority is rewarding the imprisoned terrorists and the dead terrorist “Martyrs’” families.

In January of this year, desperate for international acceptance, the PA announced for the world to hear that terror rewards would cease, and prisoners would be paid like all social welfare cases.

But a month later, Abbas retracted that in a speech to Palestinian leaders:

Click to play

Abbas at a meeting of the Fatah Revolutionary Council: I stand by my word: Even if we have [only] one penny left, it is for the prisoners and Martyrs.

I will not agree, and you will not agree, to reduce any obligation, any interest, or any penny given to them. They must receive everything, as it was in the past, and they are more precious than all of us!” [emphasis added]

[PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, YouTube channel, Feb. 21, 2025]

Terrorist mass murderers are the PA’s most precious people. And this is the government some Western countries want to recognize as a state!

The author is the Founder and Director of Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared. 

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