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Who Is Testing Us?
“Abraham and Isaac,” oil on canvas, Anthony van Dyck, circa 1617. Photo: National Gallery Prague via Wikimedia Commons.
JNS.org – On Shabbat, we will read the Torah portion Vayera and the poignant drama of the akeidah, the binding of Isaac, which is the 10th, and most difficult, test of faith that our father Abraham had to face in life. Would he be prepared to sacrifice his beloved son Yitzchak, Isaac, on the altar of God, especially since he waited so many years for this son to be born to his wife, our matriarch, Sarah?
Why is this famous act of near-martyrdom so special? What makes Abraham and Isaac so unique? Haven’t there been many millions of Jewish martyrs throughout our long and torturous history? Only one generation ago, 6 million martyrs, including more than 1 million innocent children, were killed. And one year ago, 1,200 of our finest—young and old—were martyred by Hamas.
So why, I ask, is the near martyrdom of Abraham and Isaac so special?
There are many famous answers to this question, but I would like to share with you an unconventional answer that I believe speaks to us today and has a very relevant and personal message to us all.
This section in the Torah begins with these words: “And it came to pass after these things, and God tested Abraham.”
That’s it. I just gave you the answer. Did you get it? No? You missed it? OK, let me repeat it. “And God tested Abraham.” Did you hear the emphasis this time? God himself was testing Abraham.
What is my point? Tragically, we Jews are all too accustomed to martyrdom. We are used to giving up our lives and our children’s lives when we are threatened and attacked by our enemies, by antisemites and by the vicious villains of history. We understand that life is a battle between good and evil. In this epic confrontation, we have all too often given our very lives for our faith, for our principles, and for God so that the forces of light would vanquish the forces of darkness and evil.
So for Abraham to be called upon to give his life, or his son’s life, in a battle against, say, the mighty King Nimrod would be understandable. But here, Abraham was not being tested by Nimrod or Hitler or Hamas. Here, Abraham is facing off against God. God Himself was testing Abraham!
That the antisemite wants to take your child’s life is a reality we are, sadly, all too familiar with. But God? God is threatening my child’s life? This, we cannot come to terms with so easily.
But Abraham said nothing. Not a word. He got up early the next morning and went on this mission with total faith in God. He did not demand any answers to the many questions he could have asked.
The unique test of Abraham was whether he would become disillusioned by the clear contradiction in God’s own words.
“Hey God! One minute, you tell me you are giving me a crown prince and that he will be my heir and the next link in the founding fathers of the Jewish people, and the next minute, you’re telling me to sacrifice him? And he hasn’t yet married or fathered any children. I don’t get it, God.”
Abraham could have said that, but he didn’t. He never wavered. Not for a moment. And that is part of his immortality. That is why his sacrifice remains unique, even after millions and millions of heroic acts of Jewish martyrdom throughout the generations.
God was testing Abraham. Not the antisemite. Not Hamas. God. And Abraham passed the test with flying colors.
Disillusionment is a very big test in life, especially if it comes from an unexpected source—like God.
We are often faced with tests of disillusionment, and not only for the big events, like the Holocaust or Oct. 7.
I can understand why my competitor is hurting my sales. He wants to. But why is God allowing this to happen to my business? I’ve been good. I come to shul. I give tzedakah. Didn’t God promise in the Bible that if we are good to Him, He would be good to us? Why is He killing my whole business?
That is a big test. Will we allow ourselves to wallow in disillusion?
Furthermore, the word “Elokim” doesn’t only mean God, it can also mean the godly. The godly, too, can sometimes cause us to be tested.
Like the rabbi! The rabbi is supposed to be a man of God. “Well, he didn’t say good morning to me or Shabbat Shalom or wish me a chag sameach. He didn’t visit me when I was in hospital or when I had the flu.” If the rabbi did not live up to one’s expectations of a spiritual leader—to the high standards people expect of a man of God—then one can become disillusioned. Many people worldwide have left synagogues because they became disillusioned with their man of God, their rabbi.
That, too, is a test.
And then there is the most common test of all. I must have heard this one at least a thousand times!
“Rabbi, I know a guy who goes to shul 10 times a day. He prays, he shukels (shakes) up a storm, and he makes it like he is the holiest guy in town. And when it comes to business, he is a rip-off artist! A gonif (thief)! If he represents religion, I don’t want to have anything to do with it!”
You know what? Personally, I can understand people having that reaction when they see such blatant cases of shameful hypocrisy. The so-called “godly” people may be testing us again.
But to tell you the truth, I’m tired of all those old stories about religious rip-off artists. Let’s assume you are right, and that fellow is indeed a pious swindler. Good in shul and terrible at work. So what? What does that have to do with you? Just because someone else failed his tests in life, why should you fail yours?
Whether we become disillusioned by the so-called “godly” among us, who behave unethically, may well be a test of our own faith.
Every one of us has a direct relationship with God. Jews don’t need intermediaries. If so and so is a crook, that’s his problem, not mine. And if Mr. X is a hypocrite, is God not God? Is Torah, not Torah? Is Judaism, not Judaism?
Why should someone else’s behavior weaken my relationship with God? Does that release me from my obligations and responsibilities?
A Jew’s connection to God is holy, inviolate and non-negotiable, irrespective of the behavior of others, even the “godly” among us. The seeming inconsistencies in the behavior of a rabbi, chazzan, rebbetzin, gabbai or some crook who happens to dress “religious” are entirely irrelevant.
Let me end with a story. At the end of World War II, after the U.S. Army liberated the Mauthausen concentration camp, Rabbi Eliezer Silver, a well-known leader of the American rabbinate, went to help the survivors. He arranged a prayer service with all the inmates where they said Kaddish for their fallen family members and thanked God for their survival. The rabbi noticed one survivor turned his back on the prayers and wouldn’t participate, so he went over to him and invited him to join them. The man told the rabbi why he wasn’t going to pray.
“In our camp, one Jew had managed to sneak a siddur into the camp. Whenever it was safe, Jews would get in line for a chance to hold the siddur in their hands and offer a prayer. At first, I respected him greatly for that noble act of courage and sacrifice. But then I saw that the fellow with the siddur was charging for it! He would take a quarter of the people’s daily food rations as payment for his siddur. How despicable! It was then that I lost my faith and decided never to pray again. How could a Jew do such a thing?!”
The wise rabbi put his arm around the survivor and said: “So, let me ask you a question. Why do you look only at the one shameful Jew who charged his poor brothers for his siddur? Why do you not look at the dozens of holy Jews who were prepared to give up a quarter of their meager rations and risk their lives just for a moment of prayer with the siddur? Why don’t you look at them and be inspired by them?”
The survivor acknowledged that the rabbi had a point. To his credit, he turned around and joined the rabbi in the prayers. That survivor was none other than the famous Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal.
Whether our fellow Jews, even supposedly “godly” Jews, behave correctly or not, let’s make sure we still do the right thing.
The post Who Is Testing Us? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Imposes New Sanctions on Houthis After Redesignating Iran-Backed Rebels in Yemen as Terror Group
A Houthi fighter mans a machine gun mounted on a truck during a parade for people who attended Houthi military training as part of a mobilization campaign, in Sanaa, Yemen, Dec. 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
The United States has imposed sanctions on seven senior members of the Houthis, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday, one day after the Trump administration officially redesignated the Iran-backed rebels in Yemen as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO).
The newly sanctioned individuals smuggled military-grade items and weapon systems into Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and negotiated buying weapons from Russia, according to the Treasury Department. Abdulwali Abdoh Hasan Al-Jabri and his company, Al-Jabri General Trading and Investment Co, were also designated for recruiting Yemenis to fight in Ukraine on behalf of Russia and raised money to support Houthi military operations.
“The US government is committed to holding the Houthis accountable for acquiring weapons and weapons components from suppliers in Russia, China, and Iran to threaten Red Sea security,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said in a statement.
The latest sanctions came after the US State Department on Tuesday officially redesignated the Yemeni rebels as an FTO, following an executive order signed by President Donald Trump shortly after he took office.
Trump’s executive order in late January followed repeated attacks by the Houthis, also known as Ansarallah, against Israel since October 2023, including the launch of over 200 missiles and 170 attack drones.
“The Houthis’ activities threaten the security of American civilians and personnel in the Middle East, the safety of our closest regional partners, and the stability of global maritime trade,” the executive order reads.
The United States formally designates Ansarallah, commonly referred to as the Houthis, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization pic.twitter.com/jsmNw6k1ew
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) March 4, 2025
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar praised Washington’s redesignation of the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization in a post on X, urging for the eradication of terrorism.
“The Houthis, an Iranian proxy, unprovokedly launched hundreds of missile and drone attacks at Israeli citizens and communities, disrupted international shipping routes and upended global stability,” Sa’ar wrote.
I commend the decision by @POTUS and @SecRubio to designate the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
The Houthis, an Iranian proxy, unprovokedly launched hundreds of missile and drone attacks at Israeli citizens and communities, disrupted international shipping routes… pic.twitter.com/Oxrs8FwqoT— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) March 4, 2025
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday announced the department’s official designation, which restores sanctions that legally prevent American individuals and organizations from providing “material support” to the Yemeni terrorist group.
Trump’s order also calls for the destruction of the Houthis’ military capabilities and for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to inspect all partners and programs in Yemen to ensure funds do not reach the terrorist group.
Additionally, the US announced a reward offer of up to $15 million and possible re-location for information leading to the disruption of the Yemeni group’s financial mechanisms.
“Since 2023, the Houthis have launched hundreds of attacks against commercial vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, as well as US service members defending freedom of navigation and our regional partners,” Rubio said in a statement. “Most recently, the Houthis spared Chinese-flagged ships while targeting American and allied vessels.”
The FTO designation makes non-citizen members and representatives of the Houthis eligible for deportation and requires any US financial institution with ties to the group to report to the Office of Foreign Assets Control in the US Treasury Department.
Since the Israel-Hamas war began in October 2023, the Houthis — whose slogan is “death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews, and victory to Islam” — have targeted over 100 merchant vessels in the Red Sea. They asserted that these attacks and disruption of global trade were a show of support for Palestinians in Gaza following Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
In January, the group signaled it would limit its attacks in the Red Sea corridor to only Israeli-affiliated ships after a ceasefire began in the Gaza Strip but warned that broader assaults could resume if necessary. Reports have indicated that the Houthis used Iranian-supplied ballistic and cruise missiles to carry out these attacks.
In 2021, the Biden administration reversed Trump’s previous decision to designate the Houthis as an FTO, citing a desire to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into Yemen.
In his statement, Rubio stated that this concern over humanitarian aid is no longer an issue, saying that the US would no longer “tolerate any country engaging with terrorist organizations like the Houthis in the name of practicing legitimate international business.”
Several countries — including Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Israel — currently designate the Houthis as terrorists.
Last month, the United Nations announced it suspended its humanitarian operations in areas controlled by Houthi rebels, after they detained dozens of UN staffers, who remain unreleased.
The Houthis have been waging an insurgency in Yemen for two decades in a bid to overthrow the Yemeni government. They have controlled a significant portion of the country’s land in the north and along the Red Sea since 2014, when they captured it in the midst of a civil war.
The post US Imposes New Sanctions on Houthis After Redesignating Iran-Backed Rebels in Yemen as Terror Group first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Barnard College President Blasts Anti-Zionist Columbia Group as Trump Sets Campus Antisemitism in Crosshairs
Pro-Hamas protesters at Columbia University on April 19, 2024. Photo: Melissa Bender via Reuters Connect
Barnard College president Laura Rosenbury has issued a scorching rebuke of the anti-Zionist campus group Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), accusing it of causing $30,000 in damages during a recent protest and betraying “the goals and sanctity of higher education.”
Rosenbury — whose June 2023 ascension to Barnard’s presidency took place just months before anti-Israel activists upended higher education by staging mass, unauthorized demonstrations and other disruptive activities to express support for Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel — issued the censorious statements in an op-ed published on Monday by The Chronicle of Higher Education.
“They [CUAD] operate in the shadows, hiding behind masks and Instagram posts with Molotov cocktails aimed at Barnard buildings, antisemitic tropes about wealth, influence, and ‘Zionist billionaires,’ and calls for violence and disruption at any cost,” Rosenbury wrote, citing CUAD’s involvement in a January incident in which several of its members disrupted Columbia professor Avi Shilon’s course on modern Israeli history to spew pro-Hamas propaganda. “They claim Columbia University’s name, but the truth is, because their members wear masks, no one really knows whose interests they serve. Columbia has disavowed the group.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, CUAD stormed and occupied the Milbank Hall administrative building at Barnard College last week to protest the expulsion of two students who participated in disrupting Shilon’s course. During the demonstration, a staff member was assaulted so severely as to require hospitalization, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.
In Monday’s op-ed, Rosenbury enumerated a slew of other offenses the group allegedly committed.
“They broke into our Access Barnard offices, where first-generation, low-income, and international students come for academic and social support, food pantry access, and supplemental funding,” she continued. “They berated the dean of the college — who spent hours working in good faith to de-escalate —for simply seeking access to a bathroom. They caused $30,000 in damages to a building that houses not just the offices of the president and the dean of the college, but also multiple classrooms and the offices that seek to further diversity, equity, and inclusion at Barnard.”
She continued, “Even though all of the disruptors wore masks, we now know the identity of many of them and are continuing to identify the rest.”
The college president went on to assert her imperviousness to “enormous pressure groups,” defending her previous decision to expel the students and vowing to impose the same measure on anyone else who would “refuse to share our value of respect, inclusion, and academic excellence.”
Concluding one of the harshest commentaries on anti-Zionist demonstrations from an elite college official since Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities, Rosenbury said, “Barnard had the courage to take a stand. To protect and defend higher education, others must do the same.”
Rosenbury’s op-ed came just one day before US President Donald Trump vowed to suspend federal funding to any educational institution that refuses to quell riotous demonstrations, a punitive measure which continues his administration’s pledge to crack down on campus antisemitism and the pro-Hamas activists fostering it. The administration also announced pending action against Columbia University, of which Barnard College is an affiliate while maintaining its status as a separate financial and legal entity.
“All federal funding will stop for any college, school, or university that allows illegal protests,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social, the social media platform he founded in 2022. “Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested.”
He continued, “No masks! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
Hours earlier, a Task Force to Combat Antisemitism that the Trump administration created in January said that several federal agencies —including the departments of education and human and health service and the General Services Administration — will review over $5 billion worth of federal contracts, grants, and other financial support to Columbia University to “ensure the university is in compliance with federal regulations, including its civil rights responsibilities.”
As The Algemeiner has previously reported, Columbia University remains one of the most hostile campuses for Jews employed by or enrolled in an institution of higher education. Since Oct. 7, 2023, it has produced several indelible examples of campus antisemitism, including a student who proclaimed that Zionist Jews deserve to be murdered and are lucky he is not doing so himself, brutal gang-assaults on Jewish students, and administrative officials who, outraged at the notion that Jews organized to resist anti-Zionism, participated in a group chat in which each member took turns sharing antisemitic tropes that described Jews as privileged and grafting.
“Americans have watched in horror for more than a year now, as Jewish students have been assaulted and harassed on elite university campuses — repeatedly overrun by antisemitic students and agitators,” US Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a press release announcing the pending action. “Institutions that receive federal funds have a responsibility to protect all students from discrimination. Columbia’s apparent failure to uphold their end of this basic agreement raises very questions about the institution’s fitness to continue doing business with the United States government.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Barnard College President Blasts Anti-Zionist Columbia Group as Trump Sets Campus Antisemitism in Crosshairs first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Holds Secret Talks With Hamas on Gaza Hostages, Source Says
Demonstrators hold signs and pictures of hostages, as relatives and supporters of Israeli hostages kidnapped during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas protest demanding the release of all hostages in Tel Aviv, Israel, Feb. 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Itai Ron
The Trump administration has been conducting secret talks with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas on the possibility of releasing US hostages being held in Gaza, two sources briefed on the conversations told Reuters.
US special envoy for hostage affairs Adam Boehler has been holding the direct talks with Hamas in recent weeks in Doha, the sources said, confirming a report by Axios.
Until recently the US had avoided direct discussions with the Islamist group. The US State Department designated Hamas as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997.
Such talks run counter to long-standing US policy against direct contacts with groups that Washington lists as terrorist organizations.
The previous US role in helping to secure a ceasefire and hostage release deal in the Gaza war has been dealing with Israel and Qatari and Egyptian mediators but without any known direct communications between Washington and Hamas.
The Israeli embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Boehler’s office declined to comment.
It was unclear when or how the Israeli government was informed of the talks.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did representatives for Hamas.
The sources said the talks have focused on gaining the release of American hostages still held in Gaza, but one said they also have included discussions about a broader deal to release all remaining hostages and how to reach a long-term truce.
One of the sources said the effort includes an attempt to gain the release of Edan Alexander, of Tenafly, New Jersey, believed to be the last living American hostage held by Hamas.
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff plans to return to the region in coming days to work out a way to either extend the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal or advance to the second phase, a State Department spokesperson said on Monday.
The post US Holds Secret Talks With Hamas on Gaza Hostages, Source Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.