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Synagogues are joining the ‘effective altruism’ movement. Will the Sam Bankman-Fried scandal stop them?
(JTA) — A few years ago, Adam Azari was frustrated over how little he could do to alleviate suffering in the world with his modest income as a writer and caretaker for people with disabilities.
He kept thinking about a set of statistics and ideas he had encountered during his graduate studies in philosophy. For example, he remembered reading that for the price of training a guide dog for the blind in the United States, one could prevent hundreds of cases of blindness in the developing world.
This hyper-rational way of thinking about doing good was called effective altruism, and it was growing into a movement, known as E.A. for short. Some proponents were even opting to pursue lucrative careers in finance and tech that they otherwise might not have chosen so they would have more money to give away.
Azari, meanwhile, had become a believer who was stuck on the sidelines. Then, one day, he had what he calls a “personal eureka moment.” Azari would return to his roots as the son of a Reform rabbi in Tel Aviv and spread the word of E.A. across the Jewish denomination and among its millions of followers.
“It suddenly hit me that the Reform movement has this crazy untapped potential to save thousands and thousands of lives by simply informing Jews about effective giving,” he recalled.
He badgered his father, Rabbi Meir Azari, and, for a moment, thought of becoming a rabbi himself. But he abandoned the idea and focused on pitching E.A. to the Reform movement’s international arm, the World Union for Progressive Judaism. Azari found an ally in WUPJ’s president, Rabbi Sergio Bergman, and the organization soon decided to sponsor his efforts, paying him a salary for his work.
Over the past year, Azari’s Jewish Effective Giving Initiative has presented to about 100 rabbis and secured pledges from 37 Reform congregations to donate at least $3,000 to charities rated as the most impactful by E.A. advocates and which aid poor people in the developing world. Per E.A. calculations, it costs $3,000 to $5,000 to save a single life.
“Progressive Judaism inspires us to carry out tikkun olam, our concrete action to make the world better and repair its injustices,” Bergman said. “With this call we not only do what the heart dictates in values, but also do it effectively to be efficient and responsible for saving a life.”
This charitable philosophy appears to be gaining traction in the Jewish world just as one of the figures most associated with it, who happens to be Jewish, has become engulfed in scandal.
Sam Bankman-Fried built a cryptocurrency empire worth billions, amassing a fortune he pledged to give away to causes such as artificial intelligence, combatting biohazards and climate change, all selected on criteria developed by the proponents of effective altruism.
A few weeks ago, Bankman-Fried’s fortune evaporated amid suspicions of financial misconduct and revelations of improper oversight at his company, FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange that was worth as much as $32 billion before a run of withdrawals ultimately left it illiquid. The situation has drawn comparisons to the implosion of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, and authorities investigating the situation have said Bankman-Fried could face criminal penalties over his role.
In the wake of FTX’s collapse, Bankman-Fried has suggested that his embrace of E.A. was insincere, a tactic to bolster his reputation.
But Azari and the organizer of another initiative, a growing reading and discussion group called Effective Altruism for Jews, are undaunted and don’t believe the scandal should taint the underlying principles of the movement.
“Whether you call it E.A. or just directly donating to global health and development, it doesn’t matter,” Azari said. “The basic idea is to support these wonderful charities, and I don’t think the FTX scandal changes any of that. Malaria nets, vitamin A supplements and vaccine distribution are still super cost-effective, evidence-based ways of helping others.”
Azari added that he has had several meetings with rabbis since the news about Bankman-Fried broke and that no one has asked him about it.
“I don’t think people are making the connection,” he said. “And to me, there is no connection between us and FTX.”
When talking to rabbis about why E.A. would make a good fit with their congregation’s charitable mission, Azari cites the Jewish value of tikkun olam, a mandate to “repair the world” often used to implore people to care for others. He explains that donating to charities with a proven track record is a concrete way to fulfill a Jewish responsibility.
That kind of thinking proved attractive to Steven Pinker, the prominent Harvard psychologist, who has endorsed Azari’s initiative. In a recorded discussion with Azari and others last year, Pinker recalled his Reform upbringing, which included Hebrew school, summer camp and synagogue services.
“The thing I remember most is how much of my so-called religious education was like a university course in moral philosophy,” Pinker said. “We chewed over moral dilemmas.”
As an adult, Pinker returned to Jewish teachings on charity and, in particular, those of the medieval philosopher Maimonides, examining these ideas through the lens of E.A. He began to wonder about the implications of Maimonides’ focus on evaluating charity based on the motives of the donor. That focus, he concluded, doesn’t always lead to the best outcomes for the beneficiary.
“What ultimately ought to count in tzedakah, in charity, is, are you making people better off?” he said.
Also on the panel with Azari and Pinker was the man credited with authoring the foundational texts upon which E.A. is built. Peter Singer, who is also Jewish and whose grandfather died in the Holocaust, teaches bioethics at Princeton. Starting in the 1970s, Singer wrote a series of books in which he argues for a utilitarian approach to ethics, namely, that we should forgo luxuries and spend our money to save lives. The extremes to which he has taken his thinking include suggesting that parents of newborn babies with severe disabilities be permitted to kill them.
From Bankman-Fried to Singer, the list of Jews who have either promoted E.A. or lead its institutions is long. With their estimated fortune of $11.3 billion, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and his wife Cari Tuna have eclipsed Bankman-Fried as the wealthiest Jews in the field. There’s also popular philosopher Sam Harris and New York Times columnist Ezra Klein, who have each dedicated episodes of their podcast to the topic.
The website LessWrong, which defines itself as “a community blog devoted to refining the art of rationality,” is seen as an important early influence; it was founded by Eliezer Yudkowsky, an artificial intelligence researcher who grew up in a Modern Orthodox household but does not identify religiously as a Jew anymore. Two other Jews, Holden Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld, left the hedge fund world to establish GiveWell, a group whose research is considered the premier authority on which charities are deserving of E.A. donations.
The prevalence of Jews in the movement caught the attention of E.A. enthusiast Ben Schifman, an environmental lawyer for the federal government in Washington, D.C. About two years ago, Schifman proposed creating a group for like-minded individuals in hope of helping grow the movement. In an online post, he laid out the history of Jewish involvement and wrote a brief introduction to the topic of Judaism and charity.
Today, Schifmam runs a group called Effective Altruism for Jews, whose main program is an eight-week fellowship involving a reading and discussion group with designated facilitators. Schifman said about 70 people spread across 10 cohorts are currently participating. There’s also a Shabbat dinner program to bring people together for informal meetings with funding available for hosts.
Participants discuss how ideas that are popular in E.A. might relate to Jewish traditions and concepts, and also brainstorm ways to popularize the movement in the wider Jewish community, according to Schifman.
“There’s a lot of low-hanging fruit with regards to the Jewish community and sharing some of the ideas of Effective Altruism, like through giving circles at synagogues or, during the holidays, offering charities that are effective,” Schifman said in an interview that took place before the Bankman-Fried scandal broke.
Asked to discuss the mood in the community following the collapse of Bankman-Fried’s company and an affiliated charity, FTX Future Fund, Schifman provided a brief statement expressing continued confidence in his project.
He said, “While we’re shocked by the news and our hearts go out to all those affected, as an organization EA for Jews isn’t funded by FTX Future Fund or otherwise connected to FTX. We don’t expect our work will be impacted.”
Even if Schifman and Azari are right that their movement is robust enough to withstand the downfall of a leading evangelist, a debate remains about what impact E.A. can or should have on philanthropy itself.
Andres Spokoiny, president and CEO of the Jewish Funders Network, wrote about the question with skepticism in an article published more than two years ago. He argued against “uncritically importing the values and assumptions” of effective altruists, whose emphasis on the “cold light of reason” struck him as detached from human nature.
In a recent interview, Spokoiny echoed similar concerns, noting that applying pure rationality to all charitable giving would mean the end of cherished programs such as PJ Library, which supplies children’s books for free to Jewish families, that may not directly save lives but do contribute to a community’s culture and sense of identity.
He also worries that too strong a focus on evidence of impact would steer money away from new ideas.
“Risky, creative ideas don’t tend to emerge from rational needs assessments,” he said. “It requires a transformative vision that goes beyond that.”
But Spokoiny also sounded more open to E.A. and said that as long as it does not try to replace traditional modes of philanthropy, it could be a useful tool of analysis for donors.
“If donors want to apply some of E.A. principles to their work, I’d say that is a good idea,” he said. “I am still waiting to see if this will be a fad or buzzword or something that will be incorporated into the practice of philanthropy.”
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Yiddish study and research in Amsterdam — a long history
אַמסטערדאַם און די ייִדישע שפּראַך האָבן אַ לאַנגע בשותּפֿותדיקע געשיכטע. ווייניק מענטשן ווייסן אַז ייִדיש־רעדערס לעבן אין האָלאַנד זײַט דעם 17טן יאָרהונדערט, און אַז זײַט דעם מיטן צװאַנציקסטן יאָרהונדערט װערט די שפּראַך געפֿאָרשט און, מיט איבעררײַסן, געלערנט, אינעם אַמסטערדאַמער אוניװערסיטעט.
לעצטנס האָט זיך געענדיקט די דרױסנדיקע סובװענץ, וואָס האָט געשטיצט די ייִדיש־פּראָגראַם אינעם אוניווערסיטעט און דעם קומענדיקן זמן װעט מען קײן ייִדיש־קורסן נישט לערנען. אַ נײַע דערװײַליקע לײזונג איז, דאַכט זיך נאָענט, נאָר די דאָצענטן און סטודענטן האָפֿן אַז די פֿאַקולטעט־פֿאַרװאַלטונג װעט װאָס פֿריִער גיבן די ייִדישע שפּראַך אַ פֿעסטן אָרט אין דער לערן־פּראָגראַם.
ס׳איז דאָ אַ סך צו דערציילן וועגן דער געשיכטע פֿון ייִדיש אין אַמסטערדאַם. אינעם 17טן און 18טן יאָרהונדערט איז די שטאָט געװען דער װעלטצענטער פֿון דער ייִדישער דרוקאַרבעט. די סאַמע ערשטע ייִדישע צײַטונג, די „דינסטאַגישע און פֿרײַטאַגישע קוראַנטן“, האָט מען טאַקע געדרוקט אין אַמסטערדאַם אין 1686 און 1687.
אין משך פֿונעם 19טן יאָרהונדערט, אונטער דער השפּעה פֿון דער דעמאָלט אײַנגעפֿירטער האָלענדישער שפּראַך־געזעץ־געבונג, איז דער דיאַלעקט מערבֿ־ייִדיש בהדרגהדיק פֿאַרשװוּנדן געװאָרן. לויטן געזעץ האָט מען קינדער געדאַרפֿט לערנען בלױז אױף האָלענדיש און די דרשות אין שיל האָט מען געמוזט האַלטן אױף האָלענדיש.
סוף 19טן יאָרהונדערט האָט זיך דער מצבֿ געביטן ווען ייִדישע אימיגראַנטן פֿון מיזרח־אײראָפּע האָבן מיטגעבראַכט זייער מיזרח־ייִדישן דיאַלעקט. ביזן הײַנטיקן טאָג קען מען הערן די השפּעה פֿון האָלענדיש ייִדיש אױף דער אַמסטערדאַמער גאַס ווי, צום בײַשפּיל, אינעם באַקאַנטן צונאָמען פֿון דער שטאָט אַמסטערדאַם: „מקום“ (אָרט).
דער אַרבעטער־קולטור־פֿאַראײן „אַנסקי“, וואָס איז געגרינדעט געוואָרן אין 1920, איז אַזש ביז אין די 1970ער יאָרן געװען אַ װיכטיקער קולטור־צענטער פֿאַר די ייִדיש־רעדערס אין האָלאַנד. דרײַ פֿערטל פֿון די ייִדן אין לאַנד האָבן נישט איבערגעלעבט דעם חורבן. פֿון דעסטוועגן איז אין האָלאַנד נאָך דער צװײטער װעלט־מלחמה אַלע מאָל געװען אַ קלײנער סכום ייִדיש־רעדערס. עד־היום לערנט מען אַ טייל פֿון די לעקציעס אין דער פֿרומער ייִדישער שול „חדר“ אױף ייִדיש.
דער אינטערעס צו דער שפּראַך האַלט אין איין װאַקסן. אַ צאָל װעלטלעכע ייִדיש־רעדערס, װאָס אַ גרױסער טײל פֿון זײ האָבן זיך געלערנט די שפּראַך ווי דערוואַקסענע, באַטײליקן זיך הײַנט אין ייִדיש־לײענקרײַזן אין פֿאַרשיידענע שטעט. במשך פֿון די לעצטע 20 יאָר זענען אַ רײ קלאַסישע ייִדישע ליטעראַרישע װערק איבערגעזעצט געװאָרן אױף האָלענדיש. עס װערט אַרױסגעגעבן די ליטעראַרישע צײַטשריפֿט „די גאָלדענע פּאַװע“ (דער המשך פֿונעם אַמאָליקן זשורנאַל „גרינע מדינה“) און די שפּראַכקורסן אינעם אַמסטערדאַמער אוניװערסיטעט האָבן זיך די פֿאַרגאַנגענע פֿיר יאָר אַרױסגעװיזן פּאָפּולער ביז גאָר.
זײַט די 1960ער יאָרן האָט זיך אַמסטערדאַם אויך אַנטװיקלט ווי אַ לעבעדיקער און פּראָדוקטיװער פֿאָרשצענטער פֿון דער ייִדישער שפּראַך. טאָגטעגלעך אַרבעט מען איבערן סאַמע גרעסטן צוויישפּראַכיקן ייִדישן װערטערבוך — דעם אָנלײַן „ייִדיש־האָלענדישן װערטערבוך“, צונויפֿגעשטעלט פֿון יוסטוס וואַן דער קאַמפּ. אָנהייב מײַ זענען אַרײַנהאַקערס אָנגעפֿאַלן אויפֿן ווערק אָבער הײַנט איז עס שוין ווידער צוטריטלעך. װאַן דער קאַמפּ האָט געזאָגט, אַז קײן דאַטן זענען, צום גליק, נישט פֿאַרלױרן געגאַנגען.
במשך פֿון דער געשיכטע האָבן אַ רײ ייִדיש־רעדערס אין אַמסטערדאַם געזאַמלט אָרטיקע ייִדישע אױסדרוקן און וועלטסווערטלעך. אין מיטן 19טן יאָרהונדערט האָט יונה ל. פֿאָרזאַנגער צונויפֿגעקליבן חנעװדיקע װערטלעך פֿון די האלענדישע ייִדן און זײ געניצט אין אַ מעשׂה װעגן די איבערלעבונגען פֿון אַן אָרעמען גאַסן־מוזיקאַנט. אַ סך פֿון די שפּריכװערטער זענען שפּעטער אַריבער אױף האָלענדיש, לדוגמא „זײַן תּחת ברענט, מוז ער אױף די בלאָסטערס זיצן“ (װער עס טוט שלעכטס, מוז „טראָגן“ די קאָנסעקװענצן).
אין אַנדערע אױסדרוקן זענען ייִדיש און האָלענדיש צונױפֿגעמישט געװאָרן, ווי למשל אין דעם װערטל װאָס כאַראַקטעריזירט די באַציִונגען אין דער אַמסטערדאַמער ייִדישער קהילה: „װען קהל שפּילט דע באַס (בעל־הבית), שנעלט מער דער פּרנס פֿאָר דען נאַז.“ (װען קהל שאַפֿט זיך, שנעלט מען דעם פּרנס אין דער נאָז.)
אין אַ סך ייִדישע שטיבער קען מען געפֿינען האַרטאָג בײמס ביכער װעגן דעם האָלענדיש־ייִדישן װאָקאַבולאַר. ביים, אַ האָלענדישער לערער היסטאָריקער, האָט צונױפֿגעשטעלט אַ װערטערביכל פֿונעם האָלענדישן ייִדיש (Resten van een taal) און אַ זאַמלונג אױסדרוקן און שפּריכװערטער (Jerosche). די צװײ ביכער זענען געװען באַליבט בײַם ברײטן ייִדישן עולם.
זײַט 1964 זענען אַ צאָל געניטע ייִדיש־לערערס געווען אויפֿן פֿאַקולטעט פֿונעם אוניווערסיטעט: צו ערשט, לעאָ פֿוקס, און דערנאָך — רענאַ פֿוקס מאַנספֿעלד. אין 2005 האָט שלמה בערגער פֿאַרנומען די פּראָפֿעסור „ייִדישע שפּראַך און קולטור“ ביז ער איז ניפֿטר געװאָרן אין 2015.
אַ רײ דיסערטאַציעס װעגן ייִדיש זענען די פֿאַרגאַנגענע יאָרצענדליקער פֿאַרטײדיקט געװאָרן. הילדע פּאַך האָט געפֿאָרשט די ערשטע ייִדישע צײַטונג אין האָלאַנד, „די דינסטאַגישע און פֿרײַטאַגישע קוראַנטן“. באַרט װאַלעט האָט אַנאַליזירט די ייִדישע היסטאָריאָגראַפֿיע אין האָלאַנד; זײַדמאַן מאַוער האָט אָנגעשריבן אַ דאָקטאָר־אַרבעט װעגן פֿרי־מאָדערנער מעדיצינישער ליטעראַטור און אָקערשט האָט מאַריאַנע אָסטינג באַקומען אַ דאָקטאָראַט פֿאַר איר שטודיע װעגן דעם ניסתּרס ראָמאַן „די משפּחה מאַשבער“.
אין אַן אַרטיקל אינעם „פֿאָרװערטס“ דעם פֿאַרגאַנגענעם מײַ האָט פֿיליפּ שוואַרץ געשריבן אַז די אַמסטערדאַמער פֿאָרשערס פֿון ייִדיש און ייִדישע לימודים האָבן זיך ביז אַהער אײַנגעשפּאַרט „אין העלפֿאַנדבײן־טורעמס“. איך בין נישט מסכּים. אַדרבא, עס זענען כּסדר געװען און אַנטשטאַנען נײַע פֿאַרבינדונגען צװישן ייִדיש־רעדערס און דער ייִדיש־פֿאָרשונג און צװישן דער ייִדישער קולטור־ירושה און דער לעבעדיקער שפּראַך.
פֿון 2023 ביז 2025 האָבן די אַמסטערדאַמער ייִדיש־סטודענטן אין אײנעם מיט זײַדמאַן מאַוער צוגעגרייט און אויפֿגעפֿירט פּורים־שפּילן אױף ייִדיש: קודם־כּל אין אַ קלאַסצימער אין אוניװערסיטעט, און אין 2025 — אין טעאַטער. זײ האָבן באַװיזן צוצוציִען צוקוקערס פֿון האָלאַנד, דײַטשלאַנד און ישׂראל. אינעם פּראָיעקט „די ייִדישע שטאָט“ האָבן פֿאָרשערס און אײַנװױנערס פֿון אַמסטערדאַם צוזאַמענגעאַרבעט, פּובליקירט פּאָדקאַסטן און מיט עפֿנלטעכן סוכּה־פּראָיעקט אין 2023 און 2024 ממש צוריק אַרײַנגעשטעלט די ייִדישע געשיכטע אין שטאָט.
אַ סך סטודענטן און לערער זענען שטאַרק אַנטוישט וואָס מע האָט אָפּגעשאַפֿן די ייִדיש־קורסן און זײַדמאַן מאַוער וועט אָנהייבנדיק אין סעפּטעמבער לערנען אינעם בר־אילן אוניװערסיטעט אין ישׂראל.
„די ייִדישע שפּראַך איז אַן אינטעגראַלער טײל פֿון די ייִדישע לימודים אינעם אַמסטערדאַמער אוניװערסיטעט,“ האָט געזאָגט באַרט װאַלעט, אַ פּראָפֿעסאָר דאָרט פֿון ייִדישע לימודים. „כּדי אױפֿצוזיגלען די רײַכע אַמסטערדאַמער ייִדישע קאָלעקציעס קען מען זיך נישט באַגײן אָן אַ קענשאַפֿט פֿון דער ייִדישער שפּראַך.“
אירענע זװיפּ, אַ פּראָפֿעסאָרין פֿון העברעיִש און אַראַמיש, האָט צוגעגעבן אַז זי און אַנדערע האָבן גוטע האָפֿענונגען אױף פֿינאַנציעלן שטיץ דורך ברײטהאַרציקע יחידים.
„די געשיכטע פֿון ייִדיש אין אַמסטערדאַם האָט זיך נאָך לאַנג נישט געענדיקט,“ האָט וואַלעט געזאָגט.
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A smaller, scarred Maccabiah Games opens in Israel, carrying the weight of Oct. 7 and war
(JTA) — JERUSALEM — Just days before the start of the Maccabiah Games, the Jewish sports competition held every four years in Israel, Australia was officially out of the competition.
Australia had canceled its official delegation — typically one of the largest — during Israel’s war with Iran. In early June, its organizing group said it could not flout the Australian government’s designation of Israel as a danger zone.
But on Sunday, with the war on hold amid peace deals announced by the United States, Maccabi Australia reversed course. On Wednesday, 14 Australian athletes marched behind the Australian flag into Teddy Stadium in Jerusalem, where they are competing in six sports across two weeks of play.
Australia’s about-face reflects the uncertainty that has plagued the quadrennial “Jewish Olympics” for more than a year, diminishing the number of athletes and countries participating and making it unusually challenging for their supporters to attend from abroad. Organizers say about 5,000 athletes are competing from 55 countries, compared to 10,000 in 2022, when U.S. President Joe Biden joined the opening festivities.
The 2022 Games marked a triumphal return after a year’s delay due to the pandemic. This year’s competition, too, followed a delay: Three weeks before play was set to start in 2025, organizers understood there was no way to bring thousands of Jewish athletes to Israel. Israel was at war with Iran, the government had declared an emergency, and airlines had stopped flying. They postponed — never expecting that conditions would be similar in the months ahead of the Games.
“We were sure that things would be much better by now,” said Roy Hessing, Maccabiah’s chief executive. “The only really good thing that has happened since then is that all the hostages are back.”
Signs of the postponement, and the wrenching years since the last Maccabiah, were omnipresent at Wednesday night’s opening event, starting with the logo for the Games, which features a “25.”
Former hostages took part in the ceremony, including IDF spotter Daniella Gilboa and the American-Israeli soldier Edan Alexander, who both performed with Israeli singer-songwriter Idan Raichel.
The ceremony also included wounded soldiers and representatives of Irgun Nechei Zahal, Israel’s official organization for disabled veterans, as well as recognition of several athletes, including swimmer Eden Zimri, who were killed on Oct. 7.
Members of the French delegation carried shirts featuring Dan Elkayam, their football teammate who was killed in December’s shooting attack on a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney.
“Welcome to your home away from home,” Israeli President Isaac Herzog told attendees. “Your gathering together in Jerusalem, in this beautiful event, fills us with pride and charges this stadium with magnificent energy. … Each of you here is a winner, and I know you will have a great Maccabiah together, in unity and in love of Israel.”
In a sign of Israel’s internal tensions, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu drew both applause and audible boos as he took the podium. The ceremony took place on the eve of the 1000th day since Oct. 7, with an election looming and the vast majority of Israelis critical of Netanyahu’s refusal to open a state commission of inquiry into the failures that led to the historic attack.
Netanyahu said he had “only one message” for attendees: “In the face of antisemitism, stand tall, stand proud, do not bend, do not bow, stand strong, stand together, and together we shall win. You are all winners here, we shall be winners in the world.”
Hessing said the decision to postpone rather than cancel the Games was essential as the event has only grown more important for Jewish communities abroad, where he said “antisemitism is raging,” and for Israelis still living with the fallout of Oct. 7 and the wars that followed.
“We must have some events that will give us some joy and hope,” he said.
About 3,000 athletes arrived from the Diaspora, joined by about 2,000 Israelis. Taiwan and the Philippines sent athletes for the first time, while the largest overseas delegation came from the United States, with more than 900 athletes, ranging in age from 14 to 87.
The U.S. cheering section is smaller than it might have been, as scarce and historically costly flights have made it hard for supporters to make the trip. Einav Rabinovitch Fox told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency from her home in Ohio that she and her family had hoped to accompany her son Adam, who is on the U15 football team, to the competition. But she was not eager to bring her family into a war zone, and then she could not secure plane tickets once hostilities ended.
“It was a) really expensive and b) a transportation nightmare,” she said. “It just became impossible.”
At the opening ceremony, a mother who came from Los Angeles to support her son, also on a soccer team, told JTA that she had lucked out by purchasing El Al tickets in 2025, well before prices shot up. But when her husband went to book his own tickets last month, the only options available cost more than $10,000. He stayed home.
In total, organizers expect the Games to bring roughly 9,000 visitors from overseas, many fewer than in 2022.
But Hessing said he was looking on the bright side: “We’re still talking about thousands of tourists that will come to Israel, will support the state of Israel, will be part of amazing ceremonies, amazing trips, volunteering, and the competitions, of course,” he said.
Over the past year, there were many moments when Hessing questioned whether the Games could or should go ahead.
“We had very tough times,” he said, pointing to March’s second round of fighting with Iran and ongoing hostilities on the northern border. “I said to myself, oh my gosh, are we doing the right thing?”
The postponement made the budget harder to close. Propelled in part by war, the dollar fell from about 3.7 shekels last summer to about 2.9 today, reducing the value of money raised abroad, while flight prices climbed sharply amid widespread cancellations and rising oil prices.
The combination raised costs for both the organization and the delegations, forcing the Maccabiah to secure additional funding from the Israeli government, philanthropists and the private sector companies to close the gap.
Meanwhile, it took months of reassurance to persuade some delegation leaders to come to Israel amid security concerns. Then, hundreds of athletes from around the world backed out in March, and some countries were unable to send official delegations because of travel warnings and insurance restrictions tied to Israel’s status as a war zone.
Some athletes from those countries decided to come anyway, Hessing said, competing as individuals rather than as part of a national delegation. But Great Britain canceled its youth delegation, sending only adult athat least a dozen countries that competed last time are not represented this year, including Canada, whose 700 athletes were the fourth-largest delegation in 2022.
“While we are saddened that our more than 300 delegates were unable to take part this year, our Maccabi spirit remains as strong as ever,” Maccabi Canada posted in an Instagram story on Wednesday promoting a livestream of the opening event. “Join us in watching the opening ceremony and cheering on all those competing.”
The only recent precedent for a much smaller Maccabiah, Hessing said, was in 2001, during the Second Intifada, when about 2,000 athletes came as suicide bombings were hitting Israeli buses and cities.
The Maccabiah began in 1932 with 390 Jewish athletes from 18 countries competing. More than nine decades later, Hessing said, the Games are still judged not only by the competitions but by what participants take back with them.
This year, he said, success will mean turning those who chose to come in wartime into “great ambassadors to the state of Israel,” sending them back to their communities “as leaders, as members, with pride, and most important, with a much stronger connection to Israel.”
For many participants, it will be their first time in the country, he said, with first-time visitors typically making up 65% to 70% of the Maccabiah and about 5% later immigrating to Israel.
For Hessing, the first test has already been met. The message he hears most often from athletes and their families is that they are grateful the Maccabiah was happening.
“The first thing people are saying when they land is thank you for not canceling the Games,” he said. “It’s going to be two weeks they will never forget.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Looking for a precedent for the Supreme Court’s decisions? Try Germany in the 1930s.
In October 1936, German law professors held their annual meeting in Berlin. In his welcoming address, the meeting’s chairperson turned to the pressing issue of Jewish influence. “The Jew’s relationship to our intellectual work is parasitical, tactical and commercial,” he warned. Thanks to the Nazi state’s “healthy exorcism” of this malign presence from their profession, though, German “ethnic honor” would triumph over Jewish “cruelty and impudence.”
The chairperson was Carl Schmitt, the political philosopher whose prominence during the Nazi era earned him the moniker of the “crown jurist.” Neither his name nor his jurisprudence was cited by the Supreme Court’s Chief Justice John Roberts in his majority opinion in this week’s ruling in the case of Trump v. Slaughter. Nevertheless, this decision that, by neutering the independence of federal agencies like the FTC and FCC and stretching the already expansive powers of the president, makes for a distinct Schmittian chill.
As a young professor of constitutional law in Weimar Germany, Schmitt was as ambitious as he was accomplished, as prolific in his writings as he was pessimistic about parliamentary democracy. Nevertheless, though critical of the Weimar constitution, Schmitt was even more critical not just of the rise of political violence, but the concomitant rise of the Nazi Party and its leader, Adolf Hitler.
Come 1933, however, when Germany found itself under new management, Schmitt joined the Nazi Party and became one of Hitler’s most ardent advocates — a position that neatly dovetailed with his equally ardent hatred of Jews. As the political theorist Richard Wolin has noted in Theory and Society, Schmitt did not think the Nuremberg Laws went far enough; he demanded that existing marriages between Jews and non-Jews also be annulled and urged his fellow jurists, when quoting from works written by Jews, to label the authors as “Jewish.” (Published during the 2000s, Schmitt’s private diaries are a trove of antisemitic bilge.)
Though Schmitt distanced himself from politics in 1936 — scholars still debate the reasons — he never distanced himself from his support of the Nazi regime or its policies. With the defeat of the Third Reich in 1944, Schmitt was arrested not once, not twice, but three times as a possible candidate for the Nuremberg trials. Though his case was ultimately dismissed, he incurred a lifetime ban from teaching — a sentence that did not prevent the unrepentant Schmitt from continuing to write, transforming himself into the éminence grise of German conservative thought.
Since his death in 1985, Schmitt has enjoyed a growing reputation among arch conservative political and legal theorists — including dozens of applicants to the Heritage Foundation — to the dismay of liberal theorists like the late Jurgen Habermas. Schmitt’s early works in particular — Political Theology, The Concept of the Political, and The Guardian of the Constitution — have much bearing upon the jury-rigged jurisprudence of the six Republican sages who now sit on our Supreme Court.
Political Theology opens with a famous and oracular line: “Sovereign is he who decides the exception.” By this statement, Schmitt locates the source of sovereignty not with the people — after all, he did not write “Sovereign are they” — but with the individual who, by charisma and conviction, lays claim to power. If this sounds familiar, it should: Schmitt was a fan of the 17th century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, whose book The Leviathan, makes the case for an authoritarian ruler.
In a word, Schmitt dismisses the legitimacy of natural law, which posits that our rights are found in human nature. But he also swats away positive law, which affirms that rights, not necessarily found in nature, are established and enforced by the state. For Schmitt, sovereign authority is instead embodied by that charismatic individual who cancels what had been law and employs violence, if necessary, to enforce his power and normalize the situation. Any binding order, Schmitt insists, is based not on natural rights or legal norms, but solely on that individual’s authority.
Such a claim echoes Hobbes’ line from the Leviathan that it “is not Wisdom but Authority that makes a law.” Not that the three justices named to the court by Trump would ever have the chutzpah to describe him as a fount of wisdom. But along with their Republican colleagues, they did have the chutzpah to dismiss nearly a century of legal precedent concerning the powers of independent federal agencies, and instead double down on their earlier decisions that had already, thanks to their dubious unitary executive theory, expanded the executive branch’s powers.
Schmitt’s The Concept of the Political reveals the danger of the fast and furious pace of these court decisions. Schmitt argues that the most fundamental political distinction is that between friends and enemies. This distinction has nothing to do with morality and everything to do with seeking and maintaining power. As the legal scholar Lars Vinx notes, Schmitt insisted that the essence of great leadership is to decide “which approach to legality or its opposite and which set of public enemies is in the interest of the nation.”
Few lines better capture the essence of politics according to Trump, just as it captures the foolishness and fearfulness of the majority on the Supreme Court. For the past 18 months, it has done its best to avoid being labeled a public enemy by our president. That it has so far been successful is a measure of just how far it has failed to defend our same nation and its constitution.
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