RSS
Rosh Hashanah and the Jewish Pioneers of Democracy
Rabbi Eli C. Freedman, Senior Rabbi Jill L. Maderer, and Cantor Bradley Hyman lead a service marking Erev Rosh Hashanah at Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US, Sept. 6, 2021. REUTERS/Rachel Wisniewski
Rosh Hashanah symbolizes the evolution of the Jewish people and Israel, unlike any other holy days. The harvest festivals were all celebrated years before the Israelites appeared on earth. And they were adopted and adapted. But what we now call Rosh Hashanah is different. It was based on the Babylonian “King’s Day” on the First of the Babylonian month of Tishrei.
Indeed, all the months we now name in the Hebrew calendar were borrowed from Babylonia. But Rosh Hashanah is unique in what it tells us about politics and Judaism’s contribution to the evolution of democracy.
The Torah represents the dawn of egalitarian thought. In Europe, only in the revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries do we find the rejection of the privileges of rank and nobility that led to the collapse of the caste, feudal, and slave systems. Greece and Rome had their respective reformers, yet nowhere in the classical world do we find a struggle to do away with class distinctions.
The Torah, however, did this well before Greece and Athens — it is the world’s first blueprint for a social and religious order that seeks to lessen stratification and hierarchy, and to place an unprecedented emphasis on the well-being and status of the common person.
The Torah addresses citizens in the second person — “you.” It was a written, public text, applicable and accessible to all. All public institutions in the Torah — the judiciary, the priesthood, the monarchy, the institution of prophecy — were subject to the law. The Torah specifies no nominating body for appointing leaders or representatives. Rather, the collective, the people, choose a king and appoint judges.
What the Torah proposes is the Western tradition’s first prescription for an economic order that seeks to minimize the distinctions of class based on wealth, and instead to ensure the economic benefit of the common citizen.
The Torah rejects land holding for either a king or priest. Instead, nearly the entire land is given to the people themselves, in an association of free farmers and herdsmen, subsumed within a single social class. The Torah further legislates that one type of tax, the ma’aser ani, the Poor Tithe, should not be paid to the Temple at all, but rather distributed to the needy. This is the first example of taxation legislated for a social purpose (Deut. 14:28–29).
Almost none of this is found within the so-called democracy of Athens to which it is universally assumed we owe the concept of democracy.
The democracy of Athens was not egalitarian. Women, the poor, and slaves, had no role in deciding how to govern or indeed what the laws of the land should be. And although it is true that in Athens the people were supposed to be the ones responsible for legislation, the record of how they quite randomly appointed a person to rule and then deposed and often murdered him on a whim, indicates that it was a system very far removed from one in which every person matters.
As the Mishnah says in talking about Rosh Hashanah for the first time, rather than the first of the seventh month, “It is the day when all human beings pass before God.” Instead of being the King’s Day, as in Babylon, it is the people’s day, when we are reminded that we are all the children of one God and are called upon to remember and reflect on this, and examine who we are, what we do, and how we relate to other people.
Shabbat Shalom, Shana Tovah, and may this year bring peace.
The author is a writer and rabbi based in New York.
RSS
After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
RSS
Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
RSS
Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.