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2025’s Jewish highlights — from ‘Marty Supreme’ to Max Fried’s menschy move
Jews have been in the spotlight in the past years for all kinds of reasons, many of them less-than-fun: Gaza, war, hostages, protests. But looking back, we wanted to boil it down into highlights. Or at least things that were just really, really Jewish. Basically, everything we thought was worth making note of in the last year, whether for its merits, its lack thereof, or just for its pure oddity.
You may notice reading that there seem to be a few doubles in these categories. But, you see, the “best Jewish movie” is not necessarily the “most Jewish movie.” That’s because there has been a glut of loudly Jewish content that’s awfully hard to ignore, screaming for our attention. That doesn’t mean it’s good, but it’s notable.
So read on for the Jewish things you should remember — whether you want to or not — from 2025.
Best Jewish movie
It’s apparently a Safdie family tradition to induce anxiety in movie-going Jews on Christmas. (Uncut Gems arrived Dec. 25, 2019.) Josh Safdie’s film, about salesman-hustler-table-tennis dynamo Marty Mauser, accumulates Yiddishkeit as it goes, including a brief cameo by a Forward delivery truck. Timothée Chalamet dons thick-rim glasses and hangs a Magen David over his chest as he jousts with a Holocaust survivor opponent (there were a few ping-pong champs who did, in fact, survive Auschwitz). A character in the tradition of Sammy Glick and Duddy Kravitz, Marty is as magnetic as he is entitled. While the film’s concerns are universal, it is perhaps primarily a portrait of the New Jew, not of the Nordau school, but the American one, who regarded success as something he’s owed.
Most Jewish movie
These days, there is such a glut of Holocaust content that each new book, movie or show has to find a unique niche. Nuremberg did so by focusing on the relationship between Hermann Goering, Hitler’s right-hand man, and the psychiatrist assigned to analyze him before the eponymous trials, a man who hoped to find some genetic or mental component for evil that he can diagnose.
But the movie is so intent on being informative that it neglects to actually develop its characters and give real insight into Goering’s mind and motivations, or anyone else’s. Though it purports to be a movie about the banality of evil, it was actually just banal. It culminates in the shocking realization that evil has no genetic component, and most of its reveals carry just as little weight. Its most impactful moment is actually a piece of another film: the archival footage shown during the actual trial, which the movie excerpts.
Most Jewish movie that isn’t actually Jewish
Sentimental Value
In Joachim Trier’s film, which won the Grand Prix prize at Cannes, aging filmmaker Gustav Borg pursues reconciliation with his daughters by trying to cast them in his next film, which is a dramatization of his life. He wants the younger sister Nora, a theater actress who battles crippling anxiety, to play his mother who died by suicide; he’s cast the preteen son of Agnes, the elder sister, as a younger version of himself.
The Norwegian family depicted in this film isn’t Jewish. But Trier introduces all the classic beats of Jewish cultural concern: inherited trauma, the artist’s struggle, and the allure/disappointment of goyish blondes (this one played distractingly by Elle Fanning).
(Bonus points for Jewish musical-comedy darling Catherine Cohen’s bit part as Fanning’s phone-addicted manager.)
Most Jewish TV
The second season of Netflix’s Hot Rabbi hit rom-com, once again dominated Jewish conversations — and the streamer’s most-watched list. But much like its huge first season, the second left something to be desired in terms of its representation of Jews, who once again seemed to be incredibly limited by their religious identity and beliefs, and yet simultaneously eager to cast them off given the right opportunity. Stereotypes — like Jews being bad at sports or good at complaining — do a lot of the work of making the show Jewish. The effect is that Nobody Wants This doesn’t feel Jewish so much as it screams at the audience “this is a Jewish show!”
The show’s approach to Jewishness is perhaps best captured by the fact that menorahs, inexplicably, constantly appear in the background, even though it’s not Hanukkah at any point in either season. But without a hanukkiah on display — and, sometimes, lit — how would we know it’s Jewish?
Best Jewish TV
Long Story Short
The animated show from the creator of the surrealist show Bojack Horseman, Raphael Bob-Waksberg, managed to avoid the pitfalls that so often plague very Jewish media — namely heavy-handedness around Israel, or antisemitism, or leaning on clumsy exposition to define Jewish practices for a gentile audience. Instead, the show just lets its Jewish family be, while also showcasing a wide range of Jewish diversity; the family includes a Black Jewish convert, both a ba’al teshuva son and another son who struggles to connect with his Jewishness, and a queer couple. Each character feels deeply familiar to anyone who spends time in Jewish community, but the show doesn’t try to make the jokes easy to read to non-Jews. Maybe that means some of them fly over the heads of anyone not in the tribe, but that means it’s pitch-perfect for those of us looking for a deeper, subtler representation of Jewish life.
Most Jewish play
The latest play from writer and actress Liba Vaynberg, imagines how six of the Biblical matriarchs — Miriam, Sara, Rebecca, Rachel, Leah and Tziporrah — would have lived today. Set over the course of decades, the girls start the play as 13-year olds and end it in the late stages of adulthood. Each girl’s path is a smart imitation of their matriarch’s actual story, transposed into the modern day. Sara struggles with infertility. Miriam becomes a rabbi, believing that studying Torah will help her lead a good life and avoid misfortune. Leah’s mandrake root is substituted by weed edibles. With humor and an impressive amount of Jewish references that only those steeped in biblical expertise might catch, the play asks: Why is life full of sacrifices, especially ones that seem unjustified? Vaynberg is not interested in giving a solid answer, but still provides a satisfying ending, assuring that life, no matter what it brings, is meant to be lived in full.
Best Jewish play
Slam Frank
Ragebait maestro Andrew Fox’s opus, which reimagines Anne Frank as Anna Franco, a pansexual Latinx immigrant from the “barrios of Frankfurt,” is a piece with many moving parts: a social media campaign that shames the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum for not including chanclas in their mountains of shoes and, yes, also a “real musical,” despite the doubts of many online who assumed it was pure trolling. In fact, it’s a lucid commentary on the state of woke, where identity boxes serve as proxies for character development, and stops just short of being a full referendum on inclusion.
The piece, riffing on nearly every virtue-signalled mega-musical of the last two decades, is at its most knotty when it takes on Jewishness; Fox knows being Jewish doesn’t map neatly to the fashionable formulas of white privilege and oppressor-oppressed. In the end, it is the reimagined attic residents’ existence as Jews that unravels the simple binaries of progressive politics.
Most Jewish book
Sam Sussman’s novel takes the author’s own nebulous biography as its subject — and the suspicion that Bob Dylan may be his father. If this wasn’t Jewish enough, the initial meeting of his mother and the future-Nobel Laureate took place in the studio of painter Norman Raeben, whose father was Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich (aka Sholem Aleichem). The book generated a lot of interest as a work of a promising debut from a young novelist.
Another extremely Jewish book
Kaplan’s Plot
A rollicking story that toggles between a Ukrainian mobster scraping by and a modern-day tech worker digging through family history, essayist and memoirist Jason Diamond’s first novel digs into Jewish Chicago. Really, as any good Jewish story spanning generations, the book is an examination of the impact of inherited trauma, but it’s not too heavy; it crackles with fast-paced Yiddishisms and the propulsive plot of a thriller. Jewishness isn’t the book’s subject as much as it is its entire ethos.
Funniest Jewish newsletter
One of the brightest and least-talked-about trends in the Jewish world right now is the second wave of Substack newsletters introducing new perspectives on Jewish life. (Read about the first wave here.) Bagel Emoji, a semiregular dispatch from a semi-anonymous, gay semi-Orthodox Jew who lives in Los Angeles, delivers feverish, meandering riffs on niche trends like AI content in Jewish print publications and the notorious odor of a particular kosher grocer to say something deeper about frum life. Bagel’s general sass — thinly masking affection, I think — makes each entry essential reading.
Spiciest Jewish newsletter
Picture a newsletter about Israel discourse so hot it must be handled with gloves. That’s NonZionism, a regular rant from an Israel-based writer who goes by the pen-name Mascil Bina. Skewering the excesses and hollowness of both pro-Israel and anti-Israel ideology, the author’s perspective offers a third position: That Israel is “something that wasn’t inevitable, but cannot now be undone.” His takes are unsparing, and unexpected — one week, it’s the case for Bibi Netanyahu; the next, it’s a withering critique of hasbara titled “Zionism turns your brain to mush.” Just recommending it feels risky.
Best Jewish music moment
Streisand and Dylan duet
Streisand announced an album of duets, The Secret Of Life: Partners, Volume Two, with the likes of Hozier, Paul McCartney, Mariah Carey, Ariana Grande and — finally — Bob Dylan, resolving decades of a great musical will-they-won’t-they.
“The track opens with the sound of harmonica, a sound often associated with Dylan,” wrote the Forward’s Seth Rogovoy. “But this harmonica sounds nothing like Dylan’s style, and it is definitely not Dylan playing.” He is singing though, and Barb comes in by the fourth line. Unfortunately, they have yet to duet on “Lay Lady Lay,” a song Dylan purportedly wrote with Barb in mind.
Best “Good for the Jews” moment
Britney Spears admiring the beards of Chabadniks playing chess
The Instagram post was rizz recognizing rizz.
Best Jewish Food Moment
Manischewitz launches food truck
Since 1888, the Manischewitz Company has been a Jewish household staple. But now, it’s taking its signature products on the road. The Manischewitz Deli on Wheels, an orange truck that serves rugelach, hot dogs, vegetarian egg rolls, and matzo ball soup, launched this March as part of the brand’s plan to market to younger audiences. Last year, the company launched a frozen food line that emphasized convenience, a quality they are also trying to capture in their truck. Manischewitz has a city-wide license and plans to take the truck all over New York and New Jersey. Its creative branding and warm servings of classic Jewish comfort food are a welcome addition to the already bustling food-truck scene.
Most Jewish Food Moment
New York City sets a new record for the world’s biggest Shabbat dinner
On Nov. 20, more than 2,500 Jews — 2,761 to be exact — sat down at the Javits Convention Center in Manhattan and broke the record for the world’s biggest Shabbat dinner. The previous record had been set by Berlin in 2015 with a dinner of 2,322 people. The Forward’s Hannah Feuer was in attendance to get all the details — and do her best to eat all the food served over the multi-course meal. The event included 811 pounds of kugel, 402 challahs, and 22,500 hors d’oeuvres and, in an AI generated video, Albert Einstein, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Golda Meir and the Hebrew patriarch Abraham offered commentary on the dinner. For entertainment, a woman in a leotard, suspended by wires from the ceiling, played “If I Were a Rich Man” on the violin and the Jewish a capella group Six13 sang “We Are the Champions” to celebrate the victorious occasion.
Biggest Jewish sports disaster
A bicycle blowup
Canadian-Israeli billionaire Sylvan Adams had a hobby — competitive cycling — and a dream: using the sport to bolster Israel’s image abroad. That dream crashed hard into reality this summer at the Spanish Vuelta, where Adams’ team — called Israel-Premier Tech, and featuring zero Israeli or Jewish riders — turned out thousands of anti-Israel protesters.
Several of the race’s stages were altered or cancelled, including the final, which was halted several miles short of the finish line. By the Vuelta’s conclusion, some of the other riders were openly campaigning for Israel-Premier Tech’s exclusion and the team had removed “Israel” from its jerseys. The team’s demise became official this month when it was announced that retired Spanish footballer Andres Iniesta had bought IPT and, er, rechristened it.
Best Jewish sports performance
Avdija delivers
Deni Avdija was not supposed to be this good. Yet in his sixth season, the Portland Trail Blazers’ forward has been producing like an All-Star — he’s averaging 26 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists per game as of this writing, with borderline elite efficiency — and with any justice, he’ll soon become one.
Most heartwarming Jewish sports moment
A very Jewish draft
It’s gotta be the back-to-back selections of Jewish Brooklyn Nets rookies Ben Saraf and Danny Wolf at June’s NBA Draft. Some draft prognosticators were expecting Wolf, a dynamic seven-footer who led Michigan to the Sweet 16, to be picked early in the first round — before Saraf, a spindly Israeli point guard. Instead, when Nets took Saraf with the 26th pick, the Wolf ganze mishpoche was still twiddling their thumbs. Moments later, though, Commissioner Adam Silver called Wolf’s name, sending older brother Jake Wolf into full-blown sobs — and into the unofficial sports meme hall of fame.
Menschiest Jewish athlete
Max Fried
The Yankees ace called reigning Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal to tell him he deserved to start the All-Star game in his stead. “It’s a very professional thing to do, and you got a ton of respect for guys that do stuff like that,” Skubal later told reporters. What we were thinking: This kid must have great parents!
The post 2025’s Jewish highlights — from ‘Marty Supreme’ to Max Fried’s menschy move appeared first on The Forward.
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Why Trump’s new ‘Red Scare’ tactics could spell trouble for Jews
If a time traveler from late Weimar Germany materialized in America today, they would instantly recognize the spiteful rhetoric pouring from Donald Trump and his lieutenants — language that echoes what Adolf Hitler and the Nazis deployed a century ago.
“The radical left is actively trying to destroy our children’s future with the disaster known as (dramatic pause) communism,” according to Trump. “This isn’t a social democrat. These are communists by another name.”
Facing a possible fiasco in the November midterms, Trump and his allies have reached for one of the oldest scare tactics in the book: trying to persuade Americans that communists — perfidiously disguised as progressive Democrats — are plotting to destroy the country.
“This new fixation on the word communist is an effort to save himself in the mid-terms by creating an emergency. Basically he’s trying to revive the old red scare tactics of the 1950s,” author Gil Duran said on a recent episode of NPR’s On The Media titled “The Red Scare, but Dumber.”
“It’s not clear that it’ll work. But they’re certainly trying,” said Duran, founder of the newsletter The Nerd Reich.
It is a dangerous strategy — one that figuratively paints targets on the backs of Democrats, especially those belonging to the Democratic Socialists of America. It also has the potential to imperil Jews by rebooting what historian Paul Hanebrink calls the Judeo-Bolshevism myth.
“Nationalist extremists and far-right movements on both sides of the Atlantic have made the idea of Judeo-Bolshevism — the belief that Communism was a Jewish plot — a prominent element in their worldview,” Hanebrink wrote in his 2018 book A Specter Haunting Europe: The Myth of Judeo-Bolshevism.
The seeds of this are visible in Trump’s America — in the alarming rise of antisemitism, in attacks on synagogues and individuals, in killings, and in fascist manifestos like Unhumans: The Secret History of Communist Revolutions (and How to Crush Them).
Hanebrink’s book chillingly documents how the Judeo-Bolshevism myth fueled mass deportations, pogroms, and massacres from World War I through the interwar period — from Tsarist Russia’s expulsions to the White Army’s slaughter of Ukrainian Jews.
Rhetoric and propaganda from those times can sound remarkably like slogans in use by today’s extremists, including in the U.S.
“Bolshevism is striding toward conquest of the world. Bolshevism is truly the living embodiment and manifestation of the Antichrist on earth,” Poland’s Catholic bishops wrote in a globally distributed letter in 1920.
Hanebrink tells of the Judeo-Bolshevism myth being carried west by White Army soldiers fleeing the Red Army, and its influence on Adolf Hitler. “Judeo-Bolshevism made Adolf Hitler,” Hanebrink writes. “Hitler believed it was the German people’s historic calling to protect the world from Judeo-Bolshevik evil.”
Another historian, Omar Bartov, has pointed out the pivotal role of Hitler’s genocidal hatred of Jews in the Nazi leader’s decision to invade the Soviet Union in 1941.
“Popular memory tends to separate the Holocaust and the German war against the Soviet Union, but for the Nazi regime they were two faces of the same undertaking,” Bartov writes in the latest issue of The New York Review of Books. “It was a few weeks after the invasion of the USSR in late June that the mass murder of Jews began” with Einsatzgruppen “murdering entire communities from the Baltic states to Ukraine,” according to Bartov.
The myth didn’t die with the Nazis. It resurfaced in postwar America during the Red Scare, when Sen. Joe McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee pursued communists — and, not incidentally, Jews. Of the 10 Hollywood screenwriters and directors who were jailed after refusing to answer questioning before HUAC, six were Jews.
“The hearings that took place in Los Angeles and in Washington between 1947 and the mid-’50s were as much (some would say more) antisemitic as anti-Communist,” Michael Freedland wrote for The Jewish Chronicle in 2009.
“Hollywood was chosen for the attack because of the great publicity value the movie capital offered. It was also a great opportunity to get at the Jews of Hollywood,” wrote Freedland, author of Witch Hunt in Hollywood.
So where does Donald Trump’s efforts to foment a new red scare in America fit into this long and heinous tradition?
Trump insists he is not antisemitic — and points to his Jewish family members — yet he has repeatedly shown little willingness to confront the frightening rise in antisemitic violence. He has pardoned Jan. 6 rioters, including known white supremacists. He dined with Hitler admirer Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago in 2022, later claiming he didn’t know who Fuentes was. In 2017, after the violence in Charlottesville, Va., he declined to condemn the white supremacists responsible and instead spoke of violence “on many sides.” He has tolerated officials accused of antisemitism, and he has used antisemitic terminology, including invoking the centuries-old trope of Jews as greedy moneylenders.
The greater danger to American Jews likely comes not from Trump, but from the vast, fetid cesspool of extremists whose growing influence imperils Jews not just in the United States but around the globe.
An example of this is the aforementioned book Unhumans, in which the authors, Jack Posobiec and Joshua Lisec, essentially argue that leftists are plotting a communist takeover and do not deserve to be treated like human beings.
It should be noted that the word “unhuman” is close to the word “subhuman,” a Nazi epithet for Jews and Slavs.
“The unhumans want you dead,” Posobiec told his far-right fans on Real America’s Voice two years ago. “They want your way of life dead. They want to see your children lobotomized and converted to their mindless, lawless and godless ways. “
The words could have come from another century, another continent — and they are just as dangerous now as they were then.
The post Why Trump’s new ‘Red Scare’ tactics could spell trouble for Jews appeared first on The Forward.
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Here I’m the boss
צווישן די סיבות פֿאַר וואָס אַ מענטש פֿילט אַנגסט און דעפּרעסיע זענען אָפֿט מאָל אָבסעסיווע מחשבֿות. ווער עס לײַדט דערפֿון, אָדער קען עמעצן וואָס לײַדט דערפֿון, דאַרף נישט קיין סך דערקלערונגען כּדי צו פֿאַרשטיין וויפֿל דאָס קען פֿאַרקריפּלען אַ מענטשן. ווי אַזוי קען מען זיך באַפֿרײַען פֿון אָבסעסיווע מחשבֿות וואָס פּאַראַליזירן דעם מענטש?
פֿאַרשטייט זיך, אויב עס האַנדלט זיך וועגן ערנסטע פּראָבלעמען אינעם לעבן דאַרף מען זיי נישט איגנאָרירן; מע דאַרף זיך טאַקע אָפּגעבן מיט זיי. דאָ רעדן מיר וועגן אַזעלכע מחשבֿות וואָס פֿירן נישט צו קיין שום לייזונג, וואָס פֿארדרייען דעם קאָפּ און לאָזן נישט לעבן.
מען דערציילט וועגן אַ געוויסן חסיד וואָס האָט זיך געמוטשעט מיט אַזוינע אײַנדרינגלעכע נעגאַטיווע מחשבֿות. ער איז געגאַנגען זיך באַראַטן מיטן אַלטן רבי׳ן, דעם גרינדער פֿון חב״ד. דער רבי האָט אים געשיקט זיך באַראַטן מיט אַן עלטערן, דערפֿאַרענעם האָלצהעקער וואָס האָט געוווינט אין אַ נאָענטן וואַלד.
„ער וועט דיר קענען העלפֿן פֿאַרשטיין ווי אַזוי מען קען קאָנטראָלירן אומגעוווּנטשענע מחשבֿות,“ האָט דער רבי געזאָגט.
דער חסיד, אָנגעפֿילט מיט האָפֿענונג, איז גלײַך אַרויסגעגאַנגען צום הויז פֿון דעם אַלטן האָלצהעקער. ווען ער איז אָנגעקומען, איז די טיר געווען פֿאַרשלאָסן, כאָטש ער האָט געזען אַז אינעווייניק ברענט אַ ליכט.
האָט ער אָנגעהויבן קלאַפּן אין דער טיר, אָבער קיינער האָט נישט געעפֿנט. האָט ער געקלאַפּט נאָך שטאַרקער. גאָרנישט. האָט ער גענומען שרײַען: „עפֿנט מיר די טיר! איך פֿאַרפֿריר דאָ!“
גאָרנישט.
נישט האָבנדיק קיין אַנדער ברירה, האָט ער זיך אַוועקגעלייגט אין אַ ווינקל צו שלאָפֿן.
אין דער פֿרי האָט דער בעל־הבית געעפֿנט די טיר און באַגריסט דעם חסיד.
„וואָס ברענגט אײַך צו מײַן הויז?“ האָט ער געפֿרעגט.
„איך בין געקומען אײַך עפּעס פֿרעגן,“ האָט דער חסיד געענטפֿערט. „אָבער איידער איך שטעל מײַן שאלה, וויל איך וויסן פֿאַרוואָס איר האָט מיר נעכטן בײַ נאַכט נישט געעפֿנט די טיר. איך האָב לאַנג געקלאַפּט און געשריגן. וווּ איז אײַער מיטגעפֿיל און הכנסת־אורחים?“
„זעט,“ האָט דער האָלצהעקער געענטפֿערט, „דאָס איז מײַן הויז, און אין מײַן הויז בין איך דער בעל־הבית. איך באַשליס וועמען אַרײַנצולאָזן און ווען. עס אינטערעסירט מיר נישט וויפֿל מען שרײַט, קלאַפּט אָדער מאַכט אַ גאַנצן טומל. אין מײַן הויז באַפֿעל איך. נו, וואָס איז אײַער שאלה?“
„אַ דאַנק. איר האָט מיר שוין געגעבן דעם ענטפֿער וואָס איך האָב געזוכט,“ האָט דער חסיד געזאָגט, בשעת דער האָלצהעקער האָט אים אָנגעקוקט מיט פֿאַרוווּנדערונג.
די סדרה פֿון דער וואָך, שופטים, הייבט זיך אָן מיטן ג־טלעכן באַפֿעל:
„שופטים ושוטרים תתן לך בכל שעריך“ — „ריכטער און פּאָליציאַנטן זאָלסטו שטעלן אין אַלע דײַנע טויערן.“
לויטן פּשוטן באַדײַט רעדט זיך וועגן דעם אַחריות פֿון דער קהילה צו שטעלן ריכטער בײַ די טויערן פֿון די שטעט, כּדי צו באַשטימען וואָס איז דער ריכטיקער אויפֿפֿירונגס־וועג, און פּאָליציאַנטן, וועמענס אויפֿגאַבע איז צו פֿאַרזיכערן אַז מע פֿאָלגט די פּסקים פֿונעם בית־דין.
אונדזערע חכמים דערקלערן אַז דער באַפֿעל האָט אויך אַ פּערזענלעכן באַדײַט און אַן אָנווענדונג אין יעדנס לעבן. דער מענטש איז ווי אַ קליינע שטאָט. די זיבן „טויערן“, דורך וועלכע זאַכן קומען אַרײַן אין דער פּערזענלעכער „שטאָט“ און גייען אַרויס פֿון איר, זענען די צוויי אויגן, צוויי אויערן, צוויי נאָזלעכער און דאָס מויל.
עס איז אונדזער אַחריות צו שטעלן „ריכטער און פּאָליציאַנטן“ בײַ די דאָזיקע טויערן. מיר דאַרפֿן באַשטימען וואָס מיר וועלן דערלויבן אַרײַנצוקומען אין אונדזער „שטאָט“ און וואָס מיר וועלן דערלויבן אַרויסצוגיין פֿון איר.
דערפֿאַר דאַרף מען צוויי זאַכן: „ריכטער“, כּדי צו באַשטימען וואָס מען טאָר און וואָס מען טאָר נישט זען, הערן און עסן, און וואָס מען זאָל אָדער זאָל נישט אַרויסלאָזן פֿונעם מויל; און „פּאָליציאַנטן“, כּדי צו פֿאַרזיכערן אַז די באַשלוסן פֿון די ריכטער ווערן טאַקע דורכגעפֿירט.
עס איז נישט אַזוי שווער צו באַשטימען וואָס איז ריכטיק אין יעדער סיטואַציע. דערפֿאַר דאַרף מען פּשוט אַרײַנקוקן אין שולחן־ערוך אָדער זיך באַראַטן מיט אַ קאָמפּעטענטן רב. די שוועריקייט איז דורכצופֿירן דאָס וואָס מיר ווייסן אַז מיר דאַרפֿן טאָן. יעדער איינער וואָס האָט אַמאָל אָנגעהויבן אַ נײַע דיעטע ווייסט גוט דעם מרחק צווישן וויסן און טאָן.
ווי אַזוי ברענגען מיר אין דער פּראַקטיק די מסקנות פֿון אונדזערע „ריכטער“?
מיר דאַרפֿן פּאָליציי.
בשעת אַ „ריכטער“ שטעלט פֿאָר שׂכל, טענות און לאָגיק, שטעלט דער „פּאָליציאַנט“ פֿאָר פּונקט דאָס פאַרקערטע: אַ צווינגענדיקע דורכפֿירונג, אָן טענות. אין דעם פּערזענלעכן לעבן מיינט דאָס דיסציפּלין: זיך מחייבֿ צו זײַן זיך אויפֿצופֿירן לויט דעם וועג וואָס מען פֿאַרשטייט ווי ריכטיק — לויט דער אָביעקטיווקייט פֿון דער הלכה — אַפֿילו ווען די אינסטינקטן און געפֿילן, די אייגענע סוביעקטיוויטעט, שטעלן זיך אַנטקעגן.
„איך בין דער בעל־הבית פֿון מײַן הויז, און איך באַשליס ווער און וואָס מעג אַרײַנקומען.“
עס בלײַבט נאָך צו דערקלערן ווי אַזוי מיר אידענטיפֿיצירן דעם „איך“, דעם בעל־הבית, און זײַן אמתן ווילן. אָבער דאָס איז שוין אַן אַנדער טעמע…
צום סוף וויל איך מיטטיילן דעם בליק פֿונעם ליובאַוויטשער רבי׳ן — זכותו יגן עלינו — וועגן נעגאַטיווע מחשבֿות.
אין אַ סך פֿאַלן, ווען מענטשן האָבן זיך געווענדט צום רבי׳ן וועגן דעם ענין, האָט דער רבי געראָטן אַז דער בעסטער אופֿן זיך אַן עצה צו געבן מיט די מחשבֿות איז דורך אַריבערפֿירן דעם געדאַנק צו אַן אַנדער זאַך און זיי נישט אַרײַנלאָזן. דער אופֿן הייסט „היסח הדעת“, דאָס הייסט אָפּצולענקען דעם באַוווּסטזײַן אין אַן אַנדער ריכטונג.
דאָס איז אַ גאָר אַנדער צוגאַנג ווי אַרײַנצוקריכן אָן אַ סוף אין די נעגאַטיווע געדאַנקען און אין זייערע מעגלעכע סיבות — אַ זאַך וואָס זייער אָפֿט פֿאַרשטאַרקט זיי נאָר און גיט זיי נאָך מער שעדלעכע באַטײַטונג אין אונדזער לעבן.
תכלית גערעדט:
ווען אָבסעסיווע מחשבֿות קלאַפּן אין דער טיר, דאַרף מען געדענקען אַז דער מענטש איז דער בעל־הבית און קען „אַרײַנלאָזן“ וועמען ער וויל. ווען מע קלײַבט אויס אָנצופֿילן דעם קאָפּ מיט אַ פּאָזיטיוון געדאַנק, בלײַבט במילא נישט קיין אָרט פֿאַרן נעגאַטיוון.
The post Here I’m the boss appeared first on The Forward.
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Netanyahu should have said yes to Trump’s Gaza exit plan
Israel has every reason to distrust Hamas. The massacre of October 7, 2023, settled any lingering question about the organization’s intentions, and the possibility that Hamas might exploit a ceasefire, conceal weapons or rebuild its military capacity belongs at the center of Israeli security planning.
That is an argument for vigilance, for verification, for demanding that Hamas actually disarm rather than merely announce that it is willing to do so. It is a very poor argument for Netanyahu’s categorical rejection, over the weekend, of the new 15-point Gaza plan from President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace.
Netanyahu likes to speak directly to his voters, sidestepping any journalists who might possess critical thinking, and anyone listening to him might imagine that Trump is asking Israel to withdraw from Gaza and trust Hamas to disarm afterward. But the plan says something quite different.
Under Trump’s proposal, Hamas’s heavy weapons, weapons factories, depots and tunnels are to be decommissioned through a “gradual, sequential and time-bound” process, monitored by an International Verification Committee and supported by an international stabilization force. Each phase depends upon verified completion of the previous phase. Israeli withdrawal is linked to that process and proceeds in stages alongside it — and essentially the details remain to be set.
In other words, Israel is being asked to trade verified steps toward Hamas’s disarmament for phased withdrawals. Netanyahu wants Hamas completely disarmed before Israel relinquishes any further territory. His position offers a certain intuitive appeal after Oct. 7. It also risks making a workable agreement impossible by demanding the final result before the reciprocal process designed to produce that result can begin. There is nothing sacrosanct or critical for security in the exact positions held by the IDF, which currently controls over 60% of Gaza, an area that has mostly been depopulated.
Israel should have said yes — coupled with an insistence on rigorous verification, clearly defined benchmarks and an immediate response to violations. That would protect Israeli security while beginning the desperately needed transition from war to something resembling a future.
There is a moral imperative here that Israel should embrace rather than evade. Gaza has been devastated. Its people need homes, hospitals, schools, electricity, water and an economy. Reconstruction should begin as quickly as security permits. The plan provides for that, under a new technocratic Palestinian administration rather than Hamas, with the Board of Peace supervising reconstruction and international financing.
There is also an Israeli interest in reconstruction. Israel cannot benefit from having two million people on its border living indefinitely amid ruins, poverty, rage and hopelessness. Every apartment rebuilt, every functioning business and every family with something tangible to lose creates at least the possibility of diminishing the reservoir of hatred from which Hamas and its successors recruit. Palestinians need a stake in what comes next. Israelis should want them to have one.
Israel also needs to reckon with the catastrophic deterioration of its international standing. Some of the condemnation has been grotesquely one-sided, and some of it stems from outright hostility toward Israel itself — even, in my view, classic antisemitism. That makes the underlying strategic problem no less real: Israel has spent enormous diplomatic capital during this war, and accepting an American plan that removes Hamas from power, disarms its militias, introduces international security guarantees and begins reconstruction would allow Israel to demonstrate that its objective is security rather than permanent occupation or endless conflict.
Netanyahu instead compounded the damage by coupling his rejection of the plan with another declaration: “As long as I am prime minister, no Palestinian state will be established — not in Gaza and not in the West Bank.”
This is especially cynical because the original 20-point Trump plan, unveiled in September 2025, explicitly envisioned the possibility of Palestinian statehood. Israel accepted that plan, because Trump proved more powerful than Netanyahu’s far-right coalition allies, who preferred continuing the war, sacrificing hostages and resettling Gaza with Jews.
That plan, indeed, said that as Gaza was redeveloped and the Palestinian Authority reformed, conditions could emerge for “a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.” Netanyahu accepted Trump’s plan at the time. The new 15-point roadmap carries the same concept forward, adding nothing.
This requires some honesty. Israel controls millions of Palestinians in the West Bank and cannot indefinitely combine permanent control of the territory with both democracy and a Jewish majority. Eventually, the choices converge on partition or some form of binational reality. The details of partition can be negotiated, conditioned and secured. The Palestinian leadership can be required to reform. Palestine, under any borders, should be demilitarized. Israel can demand extraordinary security arrangements after Oct. 7. But pretending the underlying demographic and political equation has disappeared is denial as strategy.
Netanyahu understands the politics perfectly well. Israelis understandably fear that a Palestinian state in the West Bank could become another platform for an Oct. 7-style attack, this time overlooking Israel’s population centers. By declaring Palestinian statehood permanently impossible, Netanyahu can try to force his domestic opponents into the politically poisonous position of appearing to champion it during an election campaign. They will presumably be too smart to accept the bait.
That is precisely the problem. A decision of enormous strategic consequence is being folded into Netanyahu’s electoral survival.
Israel needs a government capable of distinguishing between legitimate security fears and the political exploitation of those fears. It needs leaders capable of recognizing an imperfect opportunity and improving it rather than destroying it.
Netanyahu has instead reached instinctively for the categorical no.
If current political trends hold, Israeli voters will turn him out when they vote on Oct. 27. He appears determined to leave office much as he has governed in recent years: recklessly, irresponsibly and without a coherent strategy for Israel’s future. Trump should stop indulging him and lay down the law: negotiate the safeguards, enforce every provision, hold Hamas ruthlessly to its commitments — and get on with the deal.
The post Netanyahu should have said yes to Trump’s Gaza exit plan appeared first on The Forward.
