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From ‘how to’ to ‘why bother?’: Michael Strassfeld writes a new guide to being Jewish
(JTA) — “What the son wishes to forget the grandson wishes to remember.” That’s known as Hansen’s Law, named for the historian Marcus Lee Hansen, who observed that while the children of immigrants tend to run away from their ethnicity in order to join the mainstream, the third generation often wants to learn the “old ways” of their grandparents.
In 1973, “The Jewish Catalog” turned Hansen’s Law into a “do-it-yourself kit” for young Jews who wanted to practice the traditions of their grandparents but weren’t exactly sure how. Imagine “The Joy of Cooking,” but instead of recipes the guide to Jewish living had friendly instructions for hosting Shabbat, building a sukkah and taking part in Jewish rituals from birth to death. Co-edited by Michael Strassfeld, Sharon Strassfeld and the late Richard Siegel, it went on to sell 300,000 copies and remains in print today.
Fifty years later, Rabbi Michael Strassfeld has written a new book that he calls a “bookend” to “The Jewish Catalog.” If the first book is a Jewish “how to,” the latest asks, he says, “why bother?” “Judaism Disrupted: A Spiritual Manifesto for the 21st Century” asserts that an open society and egalitarian ethics leave most Jews skeptical of the rituals and beliefs of Jewish tradition. In the face of this resistance, he argues that the purpose of Judaism is not obedience to Torah and its rituals for their own sake or mere “continuity,” but to “encourage and remind us to strive to live a life of compassion, loving relationships, and devotion to our ideals.”
Strassfeld, 73, grew up in an Orthodox home in Boston and got his master’s degree in Jewish studies at Brandeis University. Coming to doubt the “faith claims” of Orthodoxy, he became a regular at nearby Havurat Shalom, an “intentional community” that pioneered the havurah movement’s liberal, hands-on approach to traditional practice. He earned rabbinical ordination from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College when he was 41 and went on to serve as the rabbi of Congregation Ansche Chesed on the Upper West Side and later the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, the Manhattan flagship of Reconstructionist Judaism.
“To be disrupted is to experience a break with the past and simultaneously reconnect in a new way to that past,” writes Strassfeld, who retired from the pulpit in 2015. This week, we spoke about why people might find Jewish ritual empty, how he thinks Jewish practices can enrich their lives and how Passover — which begins Wednesday night — could be the key to unlocking the central idea of Judaism.
Our conversation was edited for length and clarity.
Jewish Telegraphic Agency: I wanted to start with the 50th anniversary of the “Jewish Catalog.” What connects the new book with the work you did back then on the “Catalog,” which was a do-it-yourself guide for Jews who were trying to reclaim the stuff they either did or didn’t learn in Hebrew school?
Michael Strassfeld: I see them as bookends. Basically, I keep on writing the same book over and over again. [Laughs] Except no, I’m different and the world is different. I’m always trying to make Judaism accessible to people. In the “Catalog” I was providing the resources on how to live a Jewish life when the resources weren’t easily accessible.
The new book is less about “how to” than “why bother?” That’s the challenge. I think a lot of people take pride in being Jewish, but it’s a small part of their identity because it doesn’t feel relevant. I want to say to people like that that Judaism is about living a life with meaning and purpose. It’s not about doing what I call the “Jewishly Jewish” things, like keeping kosher and going to synagogue. Judaism is wisdom and practices to live life with meaning and purpose. The purpose of Judaism isn’t to be a good Jew, despite all the surveys that give you 10 points for, you know, lighting Shabbat candles. It’s about being a good person.
So that brings up your relationship to the commandments and mitzvot, the traditional acts and behaviors that an Orthodox Jew or a committed Conservative Jew feels commanded to do, from prayer to keeping kosher to observing the Sabbath and the holidays. They might argue that doing these things is what makes you Jewish, but you’re arguing something different. If someone doesn’t feel bound by these obligations, why do them at all?
I don’t have the faith or beliefs that underlie such an attitude [of obligation]. Halacha, or Jewish law, is not in reality law. It’s really unlike American law where you know that if you’re violating it, you could be prosecuted. What I’m trying to do in the book is reframe rituals as an awareness practice, that is, bringing awareness to various aspects of our lives. So it could be paying attention to food, or cultivating attitudes of gratitude, or generosity, or satisfaction. My broad understanding of the festival cycle, for example, is that you can focus on those attitudes all year long, but the festivals provide a period of time once in the year to really focus on, in the case of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, for example, saying sorry and repairing relationships.
In “Judaism Disrupted: A Spiritual Manifesto for the 21st Century,” Michael Strassfeld argues that the challenge of each generation’s Jews is to create the Judaism that is needed in their time. (Ben Yehuda Press)
Passover is coming. Probably no holiday asks its practitioners to do so much stuff in preparation, from cleaning the house of every trace of unleavened food to hosting, in many homes, two different catered seminars on Jewish history. Describe how Passover cultivates awareness, especially of the idea of freedom, which plays an important part thematically in your boo
The Sefat Emet [a 19th-century Hasidic master] says Torah is all about one thing: freedom. But there’s a variety of obstacles in the way. There are temptations. There’s the inner issues that you struggle with, and the bad things that are out of your control. The Sefat Emet says the 613 commandments are 613 etzot, or advice, that teach us how to live a life of freedom. The focus of Passover is trying to free yourself from the chains of the things that hold you back from being the person that you could be, not getting caught up in materiality or envy, free from unnecessary anxieties — all these things that distract us or keep us from being who we could be.
The Passover seder is one of the great rituals of Judaism. We’re trying to do a very ambitious thing by saying, not, like, “let’s remember when our ancestors were freed from Egypt,” but rather that we were slaves in Egypt and we went free. And at the seder we actually ingest that. We experience the bitterness by eating maror, the bitter herb. We experience the freedom by drinking wine. We don’t want it just to be an intellectual exercise.
Unfortunately the seder has become rote. But Passover is about this huge theme of freedom that is central to Judaism.
I think some people bristle against ritual because they find it empty. But you’re saying there’s another way to approach rituals which is to think of them as tools or instruments that can help you focus on core principles — you actually list 11 — which include finding holiness everywhere, caring for the planet and engaging in social justice, to name a few. But that invites the criticism, which I think was also leveled at the “Catalog,” that Judaism shouldn’t be instrumental, because if you treat it as a means to an end that’s self-serving and individualistic.
Certainly rituals are tools, but tools in the best sense of the word. They help us pay attention to things in our lives and things in the world that need repair. And people use them not to get ahead in the world, but because they want to be a somewhat better person. I talk a lot these days about having a brief morning practice, and in the book I write about the mezuzah. For most Jews it’s become wallpaper, but what if you take the moment that you leave in the morning, and there’s a transition from home to the outside and to work perhaps, and take a moment at the doorpost to spiritually frame your day? What are the major principles that you want to keep in your mind when you know you’re gonna be stuck in traffic or a difficult meeting?
And a lot of traditional rituals are instrumental. Saying a blessing before you eat is a gratitude practice.
But why do I need a particular Jewish ritual or practice to help me feel gratitude or order my day? Aren’t there other traditions I can use to accomplish the same things?
Anybody who is a pluralist, which I am, knows that the Jewish way is not the only way. If I grew up in India or Indonesia and my parents were locals I probably wouldn’t be a rabbi and writing these books.
But a partial answer to your question is that Judaism is one of the oldest wisdom traditions in the world, and that there has been a 3,000-year conversation by the Jewish people about what it means to live in this tradition and to live in the world. And so I think there’s a lot of wisdom there.
So much in Jewish tradition says boundaries are good, and that it’s important to draw distinctions between what’s Jewish behavior and what’s not Jewish behavior, between the holy and the mundane, and that making those distinctions is a value in itself. But you argue strongly in an early chapter that that kind of binary thinking is not Judaism as you see it.
Underlying the book is the notion that Rabbinic Judaism carried the Jewish people for 2,000 years or so. But we’re living in a very different context, and the binaries, the dualities — too often they lead to hierarchy, so that, for example, men matter more than women in Jewish life. And we’ve tried to change that. We are living in an open society where we want to be more inclusive, not less inclusive. We don’t want to live in ghettos. Now, the ultra-Orthodox say, “No, we realize the danger of trying to live like that. We don’t think there’s anything of value in that modern world. And it’s all to be rejected.” And it would be foolish not to admit that in this very open world the Jews, as a minority, could kind of disappear. But I think that Judaism has so much value and wisdom and practices to offer to people that Judaism will continue to be part of the fabric of this world — the way, for example, we have given Shabbat as a concept to the world.
You know, in the first 11 chapters of the Torah, there are no Jews. So clearly, Jews and Judaism are not essential for the world to exist. And that’s a good, humbling message.
OK, but one could argue that while Jews aren’t necessary for the world to exist, Judaism is necessary for Jews to exist. And you write in your book, “If the Jewish people is to be a people, we need to have a commonly held tradition.” I think the pushback to the kind of openness and permeability you describe is that Jews can be so open and so permeable that they just fall through the holes.
It certainly is a possibility. And it’s also a possibility that the only Jews who will be around will be ultra-Orthodox Jews.
But if Judaism can only survive by being separatist, then I question whether it’s really worthwhile. That becomes a distorted vision of Judaism, and withdrawing is not what it’s meant to be. I think we’re meant to be in the world.
Your book is called “Judaism Disrupted.” What is disruptive about the Judaism that you’re proposing?
I meant it in two ways. First, Judaism is being disrupted by this very different world we’re living in. The contents of the ocean we swim in is very different than in the Middle Ages. But I’m also using it to say that Judaism is meant to disrupt our lives in a positive way, which is to say, “Wake up, pay attention.” You are here to live a life of meaning and purpose, and to continue as co-creators with God of the universe. You’re here to make the world better, to be kind and compassionate to people, to work on yourself. In my mind it is a shofar, “Wake up, sleepers, from your sleep!” “Judaism Disrupted” says you have to pay attention to issues like food, and justice, and teshuva [repentance].
You were ordained as a Reconstructionist rabbi. Do you think your book falls neatly into any of our current denominational categories?
[Reconstructionist founder] Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan’s notion of Judaism as an evolving religious civilization is the one that I feel closest to. But I feel that the denominational structure isn’t particularly useful anymore. There’s basically two categories, Orthodox and the various kinds of liberal Judaism, within a spectrum. The modern world is so fundamentally different in its relationship to Jews and Judaism that what we’re seeing is a variety of attempts to figure out how to respond. And that will then become the Judaism for the next millennium. It’s time for a lot of experimentation. I think that’s required and out of that will come a new “Minhag America,” to use Isaac Mayer Wise’s phrase for the emerging custom of American Jews [Wise was a Reform rabbi in the late 19th century]. And we don’t need to have everybody doing it one way. As long as people feel committed to Judaism, the Jewish tradition, even if they’re doing it very differently than the Jews of the past, they will be writing themselves into the conversation.
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Iran Faces Economic Disaster as US Blockade Suffocates Regime’s Oil Lifeline
Ships and boats in the Strait of Hormuz, Musandam, Oman, April 22, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
As intensifying US pressure squeezes the Iranian energy sector, Iran’s oil lifeline is fraying — exports are sliding, storage is nearing capacity, and mounting economic strain is fueling the risk of renewed internal unrest that could further test the regime’s grip on power.
According to a newly released report from commodity analytics firm Kpler, Iran’s oil exports fell sharply after a US naval blockade on Iranian ports took hold in mid-April, dropping from an average of just over 2 million barrels per day earlier this month and 1.85 million in March to only five tracked cargoes and roughly 567,000 barrels per day in the past two weeks.
Even with Iran’s national oil company already cutting output to avoid dangerous bottlenecks as storage approaches capacity limits, the country is running out of space quickly, with Kpler estimating remaining storage could be exhausted within 12 to 22 days.
Despite Iranian officials claiming that 31 tankers have escaped the blockade zone, there is no evidence of any successful transits, with vessels reportedly passing through the Strait of Hormuz only to be stopped short of the US blockade further south between the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea.
The US blockade has prevented the regime from exporting energy through the Strait of Hormuz — a critical global energy chokepoint through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil supply passes.
Amid a collapse in exports of more than 70 percent, the Iranian government has been forced to start cutting production, signaling a deepening economic crisis. Now the regime faces a critical choice between shutting wells and risking long-term damage to critical fields.
Sudden and prolonged shutdowns at oil production plants can cause lasting damage to reservoirs by disrupting pressure systems and flow dynamics, making it increasingly difficult — and in some cases impossible — to restart operations and restore production levels to their previous capacity, often costing millions to reverse.
According to Homayoun Falakshahi, head of Kpler’s crude oil analysis team, Iran’s oil sector has long suffered from underinvestment and poor reservoir management, resulting in an average recovery rate of just 25 percent. This means only about a quarter of the oil in a field can typically be extracted before production must be halted, and once wells are shut, restarting them makes it harder and less efficient to recover what remains.
Even though Kpler’s report estimates Tehran may not feel the full revenue hit for another three to four months due to payment delays and pre-existing sales flows, the regime is expected to face a heavy blow, with losses potentially reaching $200–250 million per day.
In an effort to prevent a wider infrastructure breakdown and avoid sharper production slowdowns, Iran is turning to improvised oil storage and alternative export routes.
Specifically, the regime is reportedly turning to disused “junk storage” sites, makeshift containers, floating storage on vessels, and even rail shipments of crude to China as export bottlenecks continue to build.
After repeated efforts to bring Iran back to the negotiating table to discuss its nuclear and missile programs and support for terrorism, the Trump administration escalated pressure on the Islamist regime earlier this month by imposing a naval blockade against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas, aiming to reach a deal that would bring an end to the conflict.
Trump told aides this week to prepare for an extended blockade of Iran until the regime agrees to a favorable deal, according to multiple reports.
Since the start of the war with joint US-Israeli strikes earlier this year, Iran has used control over the Strait of Hormuz as a major source of leverage, militarizing the waterway and sharply restricting maritime traffic through one of the world’s most critical shipping corridors. However, the US blockade as taken away much of that leverage, with the calculus that the regime can only hold out for so long as Iran faces total economic collapse.
Adding to an already crippling economy, Iran’s national rial currency hit a record low Wednesday of 1.8 million to the dollar. The fall is expected to trigger further fuel inflation.
Meanwhile, Iran’s foreign trade has also collapsed sharply during the first month of the conflict, deepening the country’s isolation from global markets.
Official customs data shows non-oil trade dropped to just $6.4 billion last month, a 30 percent decline from the previous month and 50 percent lower than a year earlier, before the war, Iran International reported.
As the country’s industrial base — a target of US-Israeli strikes before the ceasefire took effect earlier this month — comes under strain, the Iranian government has been forced to halt petrochemical and steel exports, sectors that account for more than a third of its non-oil revenue.
On Monday, the Iran Trade Promotion Organization ordered a suspension of steel slab and sheet exports until May 30, putting at risk industries that generate up to $20 billion annually.
With domestic tensions rising and the internal economic crisis worsening, Iranian officials are increasingly wary that renewed protests could erupt in the coming days, further destabilizing an already volatile situation.
Iran International reported that, this week, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council held an emergency meeting amid growing concern over a possible resurgence of protests, warning of renewed unrest following the nationwide anti-government demonstrations earlier this year, which security forces violently crushed, leaving tens of thousands of demonstrators tortured, imprisoned, or killed.
Officials now reportedly warn that worsening economic hardship, driven by inflation, rising unemployment, and damage to key industries such as petrochemicals and steel, could ignite the next wave of unrest.
According to Israeli intelligence assessments, widespread damage to Iran’s petrochemical and defense sectors has already wiped out an estimated 100,000 jobs.
Iranian security officials estimate that nationwide internet shutdowns have also left around 20 percent of online-dependent workers unemployed, warning that up to two million more private-sector jobs could be lost by the end of spring.
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Lebanon Must Reform its Army or Lose American Aid
Lebanese army members stand on a military vehicle during a Lebanese army media tour, to review the army’s operations in the southern Litani sector, in Alma Al-Shaab, near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, Nov. 28, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Aziz Taher
Washington is working on establishing a system “where vetted units within the Lebanese Armed Forces [LAF] have the training, the equipment, and the capability to go after elements of Hezbollah and dismantle them,” according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose statement echoed growing frustration in Congress that Beirut should reform its military, or lose American aid.
On Capitol Hill, frustrated Senate powerhouses Roger Wicker (R-MS), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and Jim Risch (R-ID), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, seem to have lost all patience with the LAF. After funneling more than $3 billion in US taxpayer dollars into the force since 2004, the returns have been virtually zero.
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who once threw the LAF commander out of his office for refusing to call Hezbollah a terrorist organization, is now issuing a blunt ultimatum: not one more American cent unless the LAF undergoes genuine, verifiable, and immediate reform.
That reform must begin right now with the LAF enforcing the Lebanese cabinet’s March 2 resolution ordering the military to disband Hezbollah and prohibit all its military activities.
Five days after that vote, however, LAF Commander Rudolph Haykal met with his top generals and declared that “preventing civil war” was their priority, code for refusing to disarm Hezbollah. The LAF has gone rogue, openly defying the elected civilian government it is sworn to obey.
Under Haykal, the LAF is not worth another dollar of American money. Graham is correct: real reform starts with firing Haykal and purging the senior ranks. Most top officers are compromised by or aligned with Hezbollah. They must be replaced by patriotic ones who put Lebanon first.
But leadership change is only the start. Washington must demand two non-negotiable structural reforms before releasing another dime: a complete reorientation of the LAF’s military doctrine and a rigorous, fully independent audit of its finances and operations.
The Lebanese Army was founded in 1946, with a doctrine that matched the vision of the country’s founders: a sovereign, predominantly Christian nation in a hostile Sunni Arab Levant.
Lebanon’s Christians deliberately carved out a distinct identity, distancing the country from the Arab-Islamic narrative and even emphasizing its European cultural roots.
For decades, the LAF performed its core mission with honor, defending Lebanon’s independence and neutrality against neighbors determined to absorb it into Greater Syria or a pan-Arab or Islamic superstate. Until 1991, every battle it fought served Lebanese sovereignty.
That mission was betrayed in 1991. Eager to reshape the post-Cold War Middle East, the United States rewarded Syrian dictator Hafez al-Assad for joining the Gulf War coalition by handing him control of Lebanon.
Assad wasted no time. He purged patriotic officers and gutted the army’s doctrine. The LAF was no longer a defender of Lebanese independence. It became a tool for radical Arab “causes” — above all, an obsessive, unrelenting hostility toward Israel, which was recast from a peaceful neighbor into an existential enemy.
Worse, the new doctrine cynically embraced Hezbollah as a legitimate “popular resistance” group supposedly sanctioned by international law — a grotesque lie, especially after Israel’s unilateral, UN-certified withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000.
This situation lasted far too long. Hezbollah’s decision on October 8, 2023, to attack Israel “in support of Gaza” finally changed the equation. Israel’s devastating 2024 campaign weakened the militia’s leadership, including the elimination of Hassan Nasrallah.
With Hezbollah gravely weakened, Lebanon’s parliament elected President Joseph Aoun in December 2024 and quickly approved Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s cabinet, both openly committed to disarming the Iranian proxy. Yet cabinet resolutions are meaningless if the LAF refuses to obey the government it is supposed to serve.
The army’s excuses for inaction are unconvincing.
It claims Shia soldiers would mutiny and defect. That’s false. Hezbollah’s fighters are almost exclusively Shia, and the militia offers far better pay and benefits than the cash-strapped LAF. Many military-age Shia men have already joined the proxy, leaving the regular army disproportionately Sunni and Christian. There simply aren’t enough Shia left in the ranks to cause a serious split.
Surveys repeatedly show that at least one in four Lebanese Shia oppose Hezbollah’s armament. Those who choose the national army over the militia’s lavish incentives are among the most patriotic, and the least likely to follow Hezbollah’s orders.
Hezbollah’s real grip on the LAF comes through corruption, not numbers. The militia has co-opted dozens of non-Shia senior officers by securing their promotions and protecting their graft. Corruption is rampant. Lebanon ranks 153rd on Transparency International’s corruption index. Applicants to the military academy routinely pay bribes of at least $30,000 just to get in, according to word on the street.
Before any more US money flows, the LAF must submit to a thorough, independent international audit.
The path is clear and uncompromising. Replace Haykal and his compromised lieutenants. Restore a doctrine centered solely on defending Lebanese sovereignty and neutrality. Conduct a full independent audit.
Only then should America resume, and dramatically increase, its aid to build a professional, sovereign, and accountable Lebanese national army. A reformed LAF would finally be worth supporting. The current version is not.
Hussain Abdul-Hussain is a research fellow at The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD).
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Mamdani fails first political test in Manhattan race. Here’s why it matters to Jews
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani was dealt a political blow Tuesday in a closely watched special election, a result that could reshape a high-stakes fight over protest protections that has galvanized the city’s Jewish community.
The race for an open Manhattan Council seat pitted Carl Wilson, an establishment candidate with deep ties to the district and backing from Council Speaker Julie Menin and City Comptroller Mark Levine, against Lindsey Boylan, a former aide to Andrew Cuomo and the first of multiple women to accuse Cuomo of sexual harassment. Boylan joined the Democratic Socialists of America last year — inspired by Mamdani — and has since emerged as a vocal critic of Israel.
The race took on outsized significance, with allies of Menin and establishment Democrats coalescing behind Wilson, a former chief of staff to ex-Councilmember Erik Bottcher, who vacated the seat after winning a special election to the state legislature in February. Meanwhile, activists aligned with Mamdani rallied behind Boylan. The district, in Chelsea and Greenwich Village, is a hub of the city’s LGBTQ+ community that includes the iconic Stonewall Inn.
Mamdani issued a late endorsement after early voting began last week, and quickly leaned in, campaigning with Boylan repeatedly and framing the race as a proving ground for his political operation. Mamdani is also seeking to extend that influence beyond City Hall, deploying top campaign aides and aggressively backing allies including Brad Lander and Claire Valdez in competitive June primaries for Congress.
Tuesday’s outcome — Wilson beating Boylan 43-25 in the ranked-choice contest, according to unofficial results — is being interpreted as a setback for Mamdani’s endorsement power and a sign that his electoral reach may be more limited than his rapid rise suggested.
Next NYC, a newly created super PAC tied to Cuomo, former city comptroller Scott Stringer and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, invested heavily in the contest to counter Mamdani’s influence. Stringer, who ran in last year’s mayoral race and has emerged as a prominent Jewish critic of Mamdani, framed the broader political goal as defeating candidates aligned with the mayor. “One down,” Stringer posted on X earlier this week ahead of the election, predicting Boylan’s defeat.
Mamdani’s setback boosts override push
Symbolism aside, the election could have some immediate legislative consequences for New York City, home to the largest concentration of Jewish voters in the U.S. At issue is a Council bill requiring safety plans for protests near schools. The legislation, referred to as a “buffer zone” measure, was strongly supported by many Jewish groups amid concerns about demonstrations targeting Jewish institutions.
The schools bill ran into opposition from progressive groups that raised objections connected to restricting free speech, especially on college campuses. It passed the City Council 30-19, which is not a veto-proof majority. Mamdani vetoed the measure on Friday, his first veto since taking office.
A similar bill concerning protests at houses of worship passed with a 44–5 veto-proof majority in the 51-member chamber, and can now become law.
Wilson backs the schools bill. Boylan sided with Mamdani.
With Wilson’s victory, Menin’s allies are now within striking distance of overriding the schools bill veto. The Council currently stands at 31 votes of the 34 needed. Manhattan Councilmember Gale Brewer, who abstained, is viewed as a potential swing vote. Leadership could now flip just two “no” votes to secure an override, an easier task in the wake of Mamdani’s political setback in Boylan’s loss.
If successful, it would mark a significant legislative defeat for the mayor and strengthen Menin’s hand in the Council. It will also embolden critics within the Jewish community, already uneasy over Mamdani’s responses to antisemitism and pro-Palestinian protests.
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