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The Light has Dawned
The Four Questions from The Haggadah. Łódź, 1935. Source: Irvin Ungar
JNS.org – Jews have always been fond of answering one question with another. In fact, Golda Meir was once asked by a journalist, “Why do Jews always answer one question with another question?” She replied, “Why not?”
So here’s Question 1: Moses is the hero and main protagonist of the story of Pesach and the Exodus from Egypt. Yet the Haggadah hardly mentions his name at all. There is only one passing mention of him in a quotation of the verse, “And they believed in God and in Moses, His servant.”
That’s not exactly getting his name in lights. But surely, Moses is the “star of the show” and deserves to be highlighted throughout the narrative. Why is he all but absent from the Haggadah?
Allow me to answer that question with another.
One of the most famous passages from the Haggadah recounts a story: Some of the greatest sages of the time gathered in Bnai Brak for the Pesach seder. “They were discussing the Exodus from Egypt all that night until their students came and told them: ‘Our Masters, the time has come for reciting the morning Shema.’”
Question 2: If your rabbi was giving a shiur (“lesson”) and he was going on a bit, sunset was approaching, and it was time to daven Mincha, would you interrupt and tell him? I can say with certainty that if I was listening to my teacher and mentor—the Lubavitcher Rebbe—and he was giving a talk and sunset was approaching, I would remain absolutely shtum. I would never have the chutzpah to interrupt my saintly teacher.
And the Haggadah story involves some of the greatest sages of their generation: Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah, Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Tarfon. How did these young students have the cheek and audacity to show them their watch and tell them to hurry and finish their discussions as it was getting late to recite the Shema?
I once came across an interpretation that answers this question beautifully. It is somewhat tangential, but it is in the classic mode of drush, what we call “homiletics.” It is where the word drosha comes from—meaning a sermon. In sermons, rabbis often employ the methodology of drush to expound on and interpret a Torah verse in an original, creative way. This gives the congregation a meaningful message beyond the simple, straightforward explanation of the Torah verse.
Now, in the Haggadah passage, if we move a comma just one word forward, it sheds completely new light on the story. The traditional understanding is that the rabbis were discussing the Exodus all night and in the morning their students arrived and said, “Our Masters, the time has come for reciting the morning Shema.”
However, if we move the comma just one word later, the passage would read: “The rabbis were discussing the Exodus all that night, until their students came and our rabbis told them, the time for the morning Shema has arrived.”
In other words, the statement about the time for the morning Shema was not made by the students, but by the rabbis themselves.
You see, these great rabbis were awake all Pesach night discussing the Exodus story, and its deepest meaning and interpretation. Night symbolizes darkness. Indeed, they were living in the dark, depressing era after the Romans had destroyed the Second Temple and were brutally occupying Israel. No doubt the rabbis were bemoaning the state of the Holy Land and its Jewish community in that terrible era. Would there be a future for Judaism? Could the Jewish people rebuild and regenerate after such a calamitous tragedy? These must have been the questions they were grappling with.
Then morning dawned, and their students arrived. Suddenly, the rabbis were encouraged, and their mood lightened. The arrival of a group of young Torah scholars hungry to learn brought the rabbis new hope for the Jewish people. They saw a brighter future, assured by a new generation of dedicated students eager to keep the faith and study the Torah. “The morning has arrived!” the rabbis gratefully proclaimed. They beheld a new light that gave them new hope for and confidence in the Jewish future through the dawning of a new generation.
Thus, we can better appreciate the absence of Moses’s name from the Haggadah story. While there is barely any mention of him, there is another prophet who does feature prominently at the seder table: Eliyahu Hanavi, Elijah the Prophet. He is prominent in every Jewish home on seder night. There is the very visible Fifth Cup of Elijah, and in the latter part of the Haggadah recital, we open the door for Elijah.
Moses is described as our first redeemer. Elijah, however, represents the final redemption. In Jewish tradition, Elijah is the harbinger of the Messiah. The prophet will arrive and announce the great redeemer’s imminent arrival, please God. “Behold, I will send you Elijah the Prophet before that great, awesome day,” says the verse from the Book of Malachi that we read on Shabbat Hagadol just before Pesach. Elijah will be the herald of the final redemption.
The rabbis of old were comforted and reassured by the arrival of a new crop of young Torah students. At our own seder tables, we want to focus our attention not only on the past but on the future—not only on the redemption from Egypt, but on the final redemption of the Messiah. Hopefully, this can help us to better understand why, at the seder, Elijah gets more coverage than Moses.
Like Rabbi Akiva and his colleagues, we also live in the shadow of destruction—in our case, that of European Jewry and the Holocaust. Nor are we yet finished with Hamas, Iran & Co. But despite all our challenges, we are heartened by the emergence of a new generation dedicated to Torah study and Jewish continuity. Like the rabbis at their seder, we, too, have reason to be confident that a new dawn has risen, a generation that will proudly proclaim the Shema Yisrael and the eternal Oneness of God.
I wish all my readers a chag kasher v’sameach. Wherever we may be celebrating Pesach this year, may we all be together “Next Year in Jerusalem!”
The post The Light has Dawned first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Al Jazeera Hit With Defamation Lawsuit by Syrian Jewish Ex-Refugee
The Al Jazeera Media Network logo is seen on its headquarters building in Doha, Qatar, June 8, 2017. Photo: REUTERS/Naseem Zeitoon
A defamation lawsuit was filed against the Qatar-based Al Jazeera media network on Wednesday by Abraham Hamra, a Syrian pro-Israel advocate and lawyer.
According to the lawsuit, which was filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Hamra “is a Jewish refugee from Syria, born in Damascus. He fled Syria with his parents and siblings in 1994 at the age of eight, following the partial lifting of restrictions on Jewish emigration by the Syrian regime under President Hafez al-Assad in 1992.”
The Algemeiner obtained a copy of the complaint, which explains that, on Aug. 25, Al Jazeera posted a video claiming that Hamra was paid by the Israeli government to visit an aid site of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an Israel- and US-backed program that delivers aid directly to Palestinians, operating independently from UN-backed mechanisms.
“This accusation is false in its entirety. Plaintiff has never received any payment, compensation, or financial incentive from the Israeli government or any affiliated entity for visiting aid sites in Gaza,” the lawsuit claims.
“The visit by Plaintiff related to Israel and Gaza was undertaken independently, in his personal capacity, on his own dime, as an advocate for his community and to bear witness against misinformation,” the suit continues.
The UN and critics of Israel have expressed concerns that the GHF’s approach forces civilians to risk their safety by traveling long distances across active conflict zones to reach one of its four food distribution points, at times creating chaotic scenes where Israeli forces have used gunfire to control the crowd.
However, supporters of the GHF argue that it bypasses the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which often steals humanitarian supplies for its own purposes and sells the rest at inflated prices. The GHF has called on the UN to publicly condemn the killing of aid workers in Gaza and to collaborate in order to provide relief to the enclave’s population, accusing the UN of perpetuating a “vast disinformation campaign” aimed at tarnishing the foundation’s image.
The lawsuit notes that the social media post from Al Jazeera, which included the image of Hamra, “cites no sources for the ‘reportedly paid’ claim, and publicly available information about Plaintiff, including his professional bio, social media posts, and known activities, demonstrates he is an independent US attorney with no financial ties to foreign governments.”
Al Jazeera also “failed to conduct even basic fact-checking, such as contacting Plaintiff for comment or verifying the allegation, despite their status as a major media network with resources to do so,” according to the lawsuit.
Al Jazeera did not respond to a request for comment from The Algemeiner.
The lawsuit argues why the allegedly false claim rises to the level of libel, saying it “constitutes libel per se under New York law because it accuses Plaintiff of committing a serious crime, namely, violating FARA [the Foreign Agents Registration Act] by acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Israel, and tends to injure him in his profession as a lawyer.”
“FARA requires individuals acting as agents of foreign principals to register with the US Department of Justice, and failure to do so is a federal offense punishable by fines and imprisonment,” the suit says. “By falsely alleging Plaintiff was paid by a foreign government to promote its interests, the statement implies criminal conduct and undermines his professional integrity.”
Consequently, Hamra is seeking payment for damages of at least $1,00,000 and requesting a trial by jury.
Read the lawsuit here: Hamra v Al Jazeera ECF No. 1 Complaint
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US Lawmakers Launch Investigation Into Wikipedia Over Claims of Systemic Anti-Israel Bias
US Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC). Photo: Reuters
The US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has opened an investigation into the nonprofit that operates the Wikipedia website, demanding answers over concerns that hostile foreign actors are exploiting the popular online encyclopedia to spread anti-Israel propaganda and antisemitic narratives.
Republican Reps James Comer (KY), who chairs the committee, and Nancy Mace (SC), who chairs the panel’s subcommittee on cybersecurity, information technology, and government innovation, on Wednesday sent a letter to Maryana Iskander, chief executive of the Wikimedia Foundation, asking the nonprofit to turn over records showing how the platform polices disinformation campaigns that target articles related to Israel and the Middle East.
The lawmakers cited studies showing that pro-Russia networks and other state-backed operations have sought to manipulate Wikipedia entries on conflicts involving Israel, often by inserting anti-Israel or antisemitic framing designed to sway Western audiences. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), for example, published a report earlier this year arguing that “malicious” Wikipedia editors have inserted anti-Israel bias onto the site, oftentimes violating the organization’s neutrality policies in the process.
Meanwhile, a report from the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab found evidence of Russian-linked attempts to shape narratives used to train AI chatbots by twisting information about Israel.
“The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is investigating the efforts of foreign operations and individuals at academic institutions subsidized by US taxpayer dollars to influence US public opinion,” Comer and Mace wrote. They emphasized the importance of stopping organized attempts to “inject bias into important and sensitive topics.”
Specifically, the committee is demanding records on possible coordination by nation-states or academic institutions to influence Wikipedia pages, internal arbitration files documenting how the site has handled editor misconduct, identifying data for accounts flagged for suspicious activity, and any analysis showing patterns of manipulation tied to antisemitism or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The letter also requests details of Wikipedia’s editorial policies to ensure neutrality and prevent the spread of bias.
Although the committee acknowledged that most online platforms face disinformation threats, the letter stressed that Wikipedia’s outsized influence as one of the most visited websites in the world and a key training source for artificial intelligence systems makes it especially important to prevent anti-Israel narratives from taking root unchecked.
The Wikimedia Foundation has previously stated that it takes action against volunteer editors who violate neutrality rules, but lawmakers say further transparency is needed to guarantee accountability.
However, a detailed investigation by Pirate Wires in October 2024 revealed that a powerful group of roughly 40 Wikipedia editors coordinated to “delegitimize Israel, present radical Islamist groups in a favorable light, and reshape the narrative around Israel with alarming influence,” particularly after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel. Notably, one editor removed mention of Hamas’s 1988 charter, which calls for the killing of Jews and the destruction of Israel, from the Hamas article just six weeks after the attack. The group also reportedly sought to suppress documented human-rights abuses by Iran, and a related effort by a Discord-based collective known as “Tech For Palestine” coordinated mass editing of articles related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
According to a report by the Jewish Journal, Wikipedia’s arbitration committee (ArbCom) permanently banned two editors outright for engaging in off-platform coordination tied to the “Tech for Palestine” Discord campaign, citing violations of policies. Additionally, the committee imposed indefinite topic bans on eight editors in the Israeli-Palestinian area for disruptive behavior such as non-neutral editing, personal insults, and misrepresentation of sources. In December 2024, ArbCom permanently banned two anti-Israel editors and placed restrictions on three others for violation of site policies in the Israeli-Palestinian topic area.
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Tunisian Brothers to Face Trial for Cutting Down Olive Tree Honoring Murdered Jew Ilan Halimi in France
A crowd gathers at the Jardin Ilan Halimi in Paris on Feb. 14, 2021, to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Halimi’s kidnapping and murder. Photo: Reuters/Xose Bouzas/Hans Lucas
Two Tunisian twin brothers have been arrested in France after allegedly cutting down an olive tree that had been planted to honor Ilan Halimi, a young French Jewish man tortured to death nearly a decade ago.
According to the Bobigny prosecutor’s office, two 19-year-old undocumented men with prior convictions for theft and violence were arrested for vandalizing Halimi’s memorial in the northern Paris suburb of Épinay-sur-Seine.
Both brothers appeared in criminal court on Wednesday and were remanded in custody pending their trial, scheduled for Oct. 22.
They will face trial on charges of “aggravated destruction of property” and “desecration of a monument dedicated to the memory of the dead on the basis of race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion,” offenses that, according to prosecutors, carry a sentence of up to two years in prison.
Both suspects were taken into custody around noon on Monday while returning to the crime scene, French media reported.
Investigators tracked them down after discovering two slices of watermelon left by the perpetrators at the base of the olive tree, which contained their DNA.
Halimi was abducted, held captive, and tortured in January 2006 by a gang of about 20 people in a low-income housing estate in the Paris suburb of Bagneux.
Three weeks later, Halimi was found in Essonne, south of Paris, naked, gagged, and handcuffed, with clear signs of torture and burns. The 23-year-old died on the way to the hospital.
In 2011, an olive tree was planted in Halimi’s memory. Earlier this month, the memorial was found felled — probably with a chainsaw — in the northern Paris suburb of Epinay-sur-Seine.
Halimi’s memory has faced attacks before, with two other trees planted in his honor vandalized in 2019 in Essonne, where he was found dying near a railway track.
Hervé Chevreau, the mayor of Épinay, announced that a new memorial tree will be planted in the second half of September.
After the attack, French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the incident, vowing that the perpetrators would be brought to justice.
“Felling the tree in honor of Ilan Halimi is a second attempt on his life,” the French leader said in a post on X.
Halimi’s sister, Anne-Laure Abitbol, also condemned the incident, warning that public denunciations are no longer enough and calling for concrete action.
“In France, we are no longer safe, neither alive nor dead,” Abitbol told RTL in an interview.
“I feel less safe in France,” she said. “By recognizing a Palestinian state, Macron is encouraging antisemitism and failing to take action against antisemitic attacks in the country.”
Last month, Macron announced that France will recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly in September as part of its “commitment to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.”
Israeli officials have criticized the move, which was followed by several other Western countries, calling it a “reward for terrorism.”
France’s Jewish community has faced a troubling surge in antisemitic incidents and anti-Israel sentiment since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Jewish leaders have consistently called on authorities to take swift action against the rising wave of targeted attacks and anti-Jewish hate crimes they continue to face.
According to the French Interior Ministry, 646 antisemitic incidents were recorded from January to June this year — a drop from the previous year’s first-half record high but a 112.5 percent increase compared with the same period in 2023, when 304 incidents were reported.