RSS
We need to talk about Israel. Tisha B’Av’s central text suggests ‘how.’
(JTA) — This week, the Knesset began the process of overhauling Israel’s judiciary, removing the only checks and balances that currently exist in Israel’s government. It has done so with the slimmest of possible majorities, in defiance of the months of demonstrations, hundreds of thousands of protestors and international condemnation, including from some American Jewish institutions.
As Israeli democracy is shaken to its core, I have received other messages from the American Jewish community — messages that acknowledge little about the judicial overhaul, nothing about protests, and less about increasingly emboldened settler violence that has unfolded between Purim and Tisha B’Av, I say to myself: “How? How can this be?”
As the words leave my mouth, I realize that the first word of the Book of Lamentations, the central text of this week’s Tisha B’Av fast, is “eicha,” or how, and gives the book its Hebrew title. “How does the city sit solitary, that was full of people!” it begins in disbelief.
Many of us in the Jewish community are echoing this cry of “Eicha — How?” as we seek to understand the monumental, anti-democratic shifts going on right now within the Israeli government, or try to address Israeli human rights abuses of Palestinians.
For years now, one of the central tenets of our communal and educational institutions is that if we just continue repeating the same talking points about a shiny, illusory Israel, rehearsing them for ourselves and inculcating our children with them, then no matter what is actually happening on the ground, they will be true. This fixation on only one side of the picture belies the growing fear and pain expressed by the very people these institutions serve: Israel may no longer be a democracy, and for some, it has never been.
This eve of Tisha B’av provides a moment to consider the rabbis’ thoughts about this exclamation, “How?” as they reflected on the destruction of Jerusalem. In the first chapter of the rabbinic commentary on Lamentations (Eicha Rabbah), some of the commentators understood the initial cry as God’s. In need of a model for mourning after the destruction of the Temple, God was looking for direction and asked the angels, “How does a king of flesh and blood mourn?” The angels reply, “‘He sits in silence” and “He sits and weeps.”
“That is what I will do,” God replies, according to the commentary.
We must find a way to shift from the paralyzed silence of the “how” in Lamentations to the frankness and honesty of “how” we should be speaking with one another. None of us should find ourselves sitting in silence, alone and in mourning. We must rededicate ourselves to critical conversations, so we can openly confront the pain of Israel’s reality and find a path forward together.
We have been in the silence for a while already, and it’s part of what has brought us to this place. Tonight and tomorrow we may need to sit in deep lamentation, but what about the day after Tisha B’av?
We have a collective fear that if we start to deal dynamically with the reality on the ground, the picture of the world we have so carefully constructed will fall apart. But we can’t make violence go away by pretending we don’t see it. Only by confronting hard truths together do we stand a chance of keeping our real world from falling apart.
So we ask once again, “Eicha? How?” How do we move from paralysis to action? The first step must be to find constructive rather than destructive ways of engaging.
We already have models in our community for opening conversations about the really hard things that matter to help us hear one another and face reality together. In my work at NewGround: a Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change, we convene groups across a wide spectrum of differences to break down polarizing terms that obscure our understanding of one another and what is at stake for our communities, and we broaden our perspectives through listening to one another’s experiences and stories.
Resetting the Table, another group focused on facilitating hard conversations, uses its “core technology” to help communities “grapple, argue, and learn across political differences” in Hillels, synagogues, federations and, increasingly, churches, throughout the country. Libby Lenkinski of the New Israel Fund and anti-racism educator Jonah Canner, in their article “The Elephant in the Bunk,” remind us that summer camp can be a place where young Jews seeking to define their Jewishness are invited to think, feel and listen to one another about why and how Israel matters to them.
At the end of Tisha B’av, we get up from mourning and move toward the reflective month of Elul, toward Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It is never too late for teshuvah, for repair. But we must do the work, which means we have to engage these communal questions together and reflect upon our own complicity. To continue to sit in silence is but to bring on more destruction. Reckoning with reality is the only way to bring redemption.
—
The post We need to talk about Israel. Tisha B’Av’s central text suggests ‘how.’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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.