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Multiple efforts in Jewish sovereignty have self-destructed after 75 years. Can Israel defy history — again?
(JTA) — This week marks Yom Haatzmaut, our beloved Israel’s 75th birthday — the day on the Hebrew calendar when David Ben-Gurion proclaimed “the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate” by establishing a Jewish state in the land of Israel. Together with countless Jews around the world, we express our gratitude to be alive at this moment in history when the Jewish people have sovereignty and a nation to call their own.
But on this anniversary, Yom Haatzmaut’s special prayers and festive afternoon barbecues fail to capture the fraught feelings many of us are experiencing. Jews across the globe in all our different peculiarities and particularities — from all political orientations, religious and secular, progressive and conservative, for and against the judicial overhaul being proposed by the current government — are reeling.
The past few months of terrible turmoil in Israel surrounding the judicial overhaul proposal have shown us how fragile our singular and precious Jewish state is. While Israel’s history is replete with instances when external forces threatened its people, this moment is unique in revealing internal threats to its democracy and social cohesion. We have seen toxic hatred rising among Israeli Jews, with fears of a civil war at an all-time high.
How, then, are we supposed to celebrate Israel on its 75th birthday?
The answer to this question lies at the heart of Jewish history and reveals that now is the moment for a new Zionist revolution led by both Israeli and Diaspora Jews.
Zionism was never just about establishing a Jewish state. It was about defying Jewish history. In 1948, when Ben-Gurion and his fellow Zionist leaders declared Israeli independence, it was nothing less than a radical assault on diasporic Jewish history. It defied the thousands of years of Jews being a minority in other countries, subject to the whims and caprice of other rulers. It defied the image of the weak and defenseless Jew. It even defied Jewish tradition itself, which for centuries was understood by many of its adherents to demand passivity by Jews as they waited for divine deliverance.
For two millennia, Jewish existence was one of vulnerability and victimhood — most often either hiding who we are or suffering for it. The Zionism of 1948 defied diasporic Jewish history by giving Jews power, self-determination and sovereignty to respond to external threats and establish a Jewish state.
Understandably, most of the work of early Zionism was focused on mere survival — establishing a state, providing safe refuge to the millions of Jews fleeing inhospitable lands and contending with enemy countries sworn to destroy the new nation. It succeeded beyond any of the wildest imaginations of its founders. The first 75 years of Israel, in which it has become a powerful and thriving state, are a testament to the success of Zionism in defying diasporic Jewish history.
But the next 75 years of Zionism present and impose on us a different task: To be Zionists today means we must defy a different chapter of Jewish history — one that might be called sovereign Jewish history.
Historians and educators have pointed out a critically important pattern in the history of Jewish self-rule. There are two pre-modern eras in which the Jewish nation enjoyed sovereignty in the land of Israel: at the end of the 11th century BCE with the Davidic Kingdom and the first Temple in Jerusalem, and in 140 BCE when the Hasmonean dynasty reestablished Jewish independence in Judea. But as each approached their 75th year of existence, each started to disintegrate because of internal strife and infighting. The Davidic reign over a united Israel effectively ended when it was split into the two competing kingdoms of Judea and Israel. The Hasmonean kingdom began to fall apart due to infighting between the sons of Alexander and Shlomtzion, the rulers of Judea in the first century BCE.
Sovereign Jewish history tells us that at around the 75th year, experiments in Jewish self-determination faced the most dangerous threat of all: self-destruction.
On its 75th birthday, Israel and its supporters face the internal tensions of sovereignty: What does it mean for Israel to be both a Jewish and democratic state and a home to all its citizens? How can Israel be both at home in the Middle East while modeled on Western democracies? How should its leaders balance majority Jewish culture with minority rights?
The concerns of the old Zionism certainly still exist: how to pursue peace even as Jewish vulnerability and safety continue to be threatened. But they take on a new character in this day and age, forcing us to ask how we can manage and embrace conflicting visions of Jewishness and Israeliness while nurturing social solidarity and cooperation across deep and painful divides.
This Yom Haatzmaut comes at a moment of rupture. But the current crisis in Israel represents an opportunity – a moment for our generation to ensure this rupture defies the pattern of sovereign Jewish history. The generations before us proved that we can rewrite diasporic history, turning a tale of vulnerability and weakness into one of strength and power. Our generation and those that follow must likewise defy sovereign Jewish history and prove that we can protect our Jewish state from the internal threats it faces. Our generation’s task is to overcome our divisions and not let fraternal hatred destroy our shared home.
On this 75th birthday, then, let us learn from our past and look forward toward a new future. Let us continue to celebrate the incredible success by writing a new chapter in the magnificent story of Israel and Zionism.
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Jewish real estate magnate Steven Roth likens Mamdani’s ‘tax the rich’ rhetoric to ‘from the river to the sea’
(New York Jewish Week) — Jewish real estate mogul Steven Roth compared New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s “tax the rich” rhetoric this week to racial slurs and pro-Palestinian rhetoric on an earnings call for his company, Vornado Realty Trust.
“I consider the phrase ‘tax the rich’ when spit out with anger and contempt by politicians both here and across the country, to be just as hateful as some disgusting racial slurs and even the phrase, ‘from the river to the sea,’” Roth said, referring to the phrase commonly used at pro-Palestinian protests that many Jewish groups consider antisemitic.
The remark by Roth, who has long been a notable philanthropist to Jewish causes, adds to mounting tensions between New York business leaders and Mamdani over his recently announced “pied-à-terre” tax on second homes valued at more than $5 million.
During the call Tuesday, Roth also expressed support for Ken Griffin, the CEO of Citadel, whose $238 million dollar penthouse was featured in a video by Mamdani announcing plans for the tax last month.
“We are all shocked that our young mayor would pull this stunt in front of Ken’s home and single him out for ridicule,” Roth said. “The ugly, unnecessary video stunt is personal for Ken and sort of personal for me.”
Roth’s comments touched on a longstanding source of friction between Mamdani and some New York Jewish leaders, who have criticized the mayor over his views on Israel and his previous defense of the phrase “globalize the intifada,” another common pro-Palestinian slogan viewed by some as a call to violence against Jews.
In the wake of Mamdani’s election, some Jewish business leaders, including Dave Portnoy, the Jewish founder of Barstool Sports, said that they planned to leave the city altogether, citing the mayor’s fiscal policies and concerns about antisemitism under his leadership.
In a statement responding to Roth’s comments, Mamdani’s office said that he wanted all New Yorkers to succeed, including “business owners and entrepreneurs who create good-paying jobs and make this city the economic engine of America.”
“That does not negate the fact, however, that our tax system is fundamentally broken. It rewards extreme wealth while working people are pushed to the brink,” the statement continued. “The status quo is unsustainable and unjust. If we want this city to become a place that working people can afford, we need meaningful tax reform that includes the wealthiest New Yorkers contributing their fair share.”
The post Jewish real estate magnate Steven Roth likens Mamdani’s ‘tax the rich’ rhetoric to ‘from the river to the sea’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Man who firebombed Boulder Israeli hostage march sentenced to life in prison
(JTA) — The man charged with carrying out a deadly firebombing attack on a march for Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado, last year was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Thursday after pleading guilty to muder and dozens of other charges.
Mohamed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian national who was arrested at the scene of the attack on the demonstrators last June, pleaded guilty to 101 charges, including 52 counts of attempted murder and one count of murder for the death of Karen Diamond, an 82-year-old victim of the attack who later died of her wounds.
During the June attack, Soliman shouted “free Palestine” and threw two molotov cocktails at the group, Run for Their Lives, injuring over a dozen people. According to an earlier court filing, Soliman said that he had staged the attack, which prosecutors said he planned for a year, because he “wanted to kill all Zionist people and wished they were all dead.”
Soliman has separately pleaded not guilty to federal hate crime charges, for which prosecutors could potentially seek the death penalty.
“If I went back, I would not have done this as this is not according to the teaching of Islam,” Soliman said during the sentencing hearing, adding that he wanted federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty. “What I did came out of myself and only myself.”
During his remarks, Soliman argued that he had not been driven by anti-Jewish animus. He later said that Zionism was “the enemy” and that it was his “right” to be against Israel.
Chief District Judge Nancy W. Salomone rejected Mr. Soliman’s arguments, telling him that his “choices were acts of terror, and they victimized an entire community,” according to the New York Times.
“You chose to victimize these people because they were members of the Jewish community,” she said.
In a statement read earlier in court by a prosecutor, Diamond’s sons, Andrew and Ethan Diamond, asked that Soliman not be allowed to see his family again “since he is responsible for our mother never seeing her family again,” according to the Associated Press.
They said that Diamond had suffered “indescribable pain” for over three weeks before her death, adding that “in those weeks, we learned the full meaning of the expressions ‘living hell’ and ‘fate worse than death.’”
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LA Orthodox school’s former guidance counselor will avoid jail time in sex abuse case
An Orthodox Jewish high school’s former director of academic support will avoid jail after pleading no contest Thursday to sexual abuse charges involving a student in her charge at the school’s boys’ division.
Julie Tichon, 38, was working at YULA Boys High School in May 2024 when two students reported having separate sexual relationships with her. The LA-based school fired Tichon and referred the matter to the police department. Tichon was charged four months later in connection with one of the students, who was 16 at the time of their alleged encounters.
Tichon will face two years of probation and will be registered as a sex offender for a minimum of 10 years.
In exchange for Tichon’s no contest pleas to one count of felony sexual intercourse with a minor and one count of felony oral copulation with a minor, the court dismissed the two other counts against her, also felony sexual intercourse with a minor. Tichon will also be required to pay restitution to the victim, an amount that will be determined at a sentencing hearing May 28, and to undergo 52 weeks of counseling.
She had faced up to five years in prison.
Speaking outside the Los Angeles Airport Courthouse after the hearing, Tichon said she was sorry for the pain caused to her victim in the case.
She said her mistake came at a time in her life when she was experiencing immense personal trauma, and that that context had informed the district attorney’s decision not to pursue state custody. She declined to elaborate on what the trauma was, but said it was not connected to the case. Since then, she had been receiving therapy, she said.
“The way I was feeling when this happened, like the dark place I was in, I don’t think I’m ever gonna feel that way again,” Tichon said.
She said forced registration felt personally “shameful and embarrassing,” and purely punitive in nature. But she said she accepted the district attorney’s terms “as a sacrifice I have to make for a better life.”
“She is taking responsibility for this,” said Tariq Khero, Tichon’s attorney. “She’s made some terrible mistakes, and she’s not making those mistakes again.”
The family of the victim, which was in court as the plea was presented to the judge, declined to comment.
Tichon’s no contest plea means that any victims won’t be able to use her plea as a form of proof in civil suits against her, though no such cases have been filed. But her agreement does not close the affair for the school where she once worked.
A second student, now aged 20, has separately filed a lawsuit against YULA that alleges years of sexual abuse by Tichon that the school should have taken action to stop.
It claims the school kept Tichon on staff despite knowing of Tichon’s inappropriate sexual conduct with a student’s parent, and that rumors were circulating in the student body of Tichon’s sexual abuse of students as early as the 2021-22 school year.
In the lawsuit, filed in September 2025, the student alleges that Tichon’s sexual harassment and abuse began in 2020, when he was a freshman assigned to her for academic support, and continued through 2024.
The lawsuit claimed Tichon abused the plaintiff by showing him nude and pornographic videos of herself, describing previous sexual encounters to him and performing oral sex on him despite his refusal. (Tichon, who is not named as a defendant in the suit, declined to comment on it Thursday.)
Tichon also harassed the student, he alleged in the lawsuit, by driving to his family’s home and insisting on seeing him; telling other people they were in a relationship; and telling him that if he ever reported her abuse, she would get him in trouble with the school.
The plaintiff also alleged that the school administration knew of an alleged affair Tichon had in 2023 with the married father of a YULA student.
“YULA knew of this sexual relationship, but did nothing to investigate Tichon’s conduct or take any action to inform the students’ parents of Tichon’s conduct,” the lawsuit alleges.
It claims the school made Tichon’s behavior possible by allowing her to give students rides in her car and have additional unsupervised time with students. YULA also did not have any trainings of students or teachers or protocols to prevent child sexual abuse and to prevent educator sexual misconduct, the suit alleges.
It was unclear why the second student’s allegations did not lead to additional charges from the district attorney. The D.A.’s office did not immediately respond to an inquiry.
YULA’s head of school, Rabbi Arye Sufrin, did not respond to an inquiry.
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