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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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‘The settlers are winning now’: West Bank activists aiding Palestinians are increasingly targets themselves
DUMA, WEST BANK — For three decades, Rabbi Arik Ascherman has devoted himself largely to helping Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank. He heads Torat Zedek, which means Torah of Justice — a group that is out in the field trying to protect them from one of the most intensive waves of settler violence since 1967.
Judging from what he sees, hears and documents during his daily forays, things are going very badly for those in the way of Israel and its massive settlement project, which includes proliferating outposts and sheep farms that serve, he says, as staging grounds for violence against Palestinians.
“The settlers are winning now,” Ascherman says, driving past outposts southeast of Nablus that are illegal according to both international and Israeli law “Outposts are expanding and Palestinian communities are disappearing.”
Fifty-nine Palestinian communities have been displaced by settler violence since Oct. 7, 2023, with another 16 communities losing about half of their residents, according to the human rights organization B’tselem. About 170 new outposts have been established during that period, it says.
Violence is the engine of that process, with Palestinians and their property becoming exposed targets in remote Bedouin areas and increasingly around larger locales, rights groups say. According to UN figures, settler violence reached a 20-year high in March, just after the outbreak of the Iran war. This has rippled into greater risk for protective presence activists like Ascherman. Two volunteers say they were almost burned alive in their sleep on April 9 in Mukhmas village.
Activists say they feel much more frustrated and less effective because the army is now increasingly barring them from key areas they used to protect. The army says the new restrictions are necessary to prevent friction and disturbances, but activists say locking out outside advocates leaves Palestinians even more exposed to settler violence.
“In Duma there have been days the army comes looking for us. It was never like this before,” said Ascherman, who was hospitalized in June after being beaten with a rifle butt and club by settlers. “We can’t protect people. Instead of protecting people, the situation becomes that the Palestinians feel they need to hide us. Then the question is: At what point do you risk arrest?”
In the June incident, Ascherman and others carrying out protective presence in Mukhmas were attacked by a gang of six settlers, he told the Jewish Chronicle at the time, adding that two volunteers suffered broken elbows. The IDF described the incident as a “violent confrontation” involving Palestinians accompanied by Israelis and other Israeli citizens “that included stonethrowing and mutual physical assaults.”
Ascherman stresses that there have been waves of settler violence throughout his years as an activist. For decades, settlements went through a formal Israeli government approval process, even as Amnesty International and other human rights groups declared they violate international law prohibitions against an occupying power transferring its nationals into the occupied territory.
But he views the start of the Iran war as an inflection point similar to Oct. 7, which too was followed by a major surge of settler attacks. In both cases, settlers “cynically exploited” the distraction from the West Bank caused by wars to act more violently, he says.
Thirteen Palestinians have been killed during settler incursions since March 1, according to Haaretz, the latest being 29-year-old Odeh Awawdeh near Ramallah on Wednesday a day after 14-year old Aws Hamdi al-Nassan and Marzouq Abu Naim, 32, were killed, also in the Ramallah vicinity.
The UN Office for the Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs says March saw the highest number of Palestinian injuries caused by settlers during the last 20 years. In the week between March 31 and April 6 alone, at least 23 Palestinians were injured by settlers during 47 attacks on persons and/or property, according to the office. The attacks involved arson, physical assaults, stonethrowing and vandalism, it said in a report.
“Attacks on residential areas, on villages, cities and roads are a constant threat to the lives of Palestinians,” says Ramallah-based analyst Jehad Harb, former senior researcher at the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. The violence is not haphazard, instead serving a state goal of “ethnic cleansing” in stages, he alleges. Ascherman likewise sees the violence as part of an intensified government dispossession effort, citing what he sees as unprecedentedly tight cooperation during the last several months among settlers, the army and police.
For the perpetrators, the violence is not about claims to a specific property nor is it violence for violence’s sake. Rather, it stems from belief that God endowed the territory of the West Bank to the Jews, making them exclusive owners of all the land there, with the Palestinians seen not only as trespassers but as terrorists, according to Shabtay Bendet, formerly a prominent settler who in 1995 was one of the first permanent residents of the West Bank outpost Rehelim but years later decided to leave the fold and now gives lectures about what he sees as the need to end the occupation.
Direct causes for violence, he says, include “desire to seize more territory and drive away Palestinians, vengeance in the belief that all Palestinians are supporters of terrorism and, for a small minority, a belief that the IDF is not deterring the Palestinians.”
‘Why weren’t you here?’
Torat Zedek, one of the more prominent groups in the field, gives protection by serving as non-violent human shields during settler violence, documenting it, notifying the army, police and media, and funding fences to protect Palestinians and their property, Ascherman says. He adds that he has “too few” volunteers, with between 15 and 20 whom he calls “particularly active.”
The spiraling violence is broad in geographical scope and becoming so recurrent that it is increasingly getting coverage in mainstream Israeli media. Last month, dozens of settlers raided the Bedouin area of Khirbet Humza in the northern Jordan Valley. Settlers sexually assaulted a man in front of his family, beat girls and threatened to kill children and rape women, according to witnesses quoted by Haaretz. In one tent, six masked settlers used clubs to beat a resident and two protective presence activists, who were among six people that needed to be treated at a hospital, according to one of the activists who had been assaulted.
Qusra village, in the Nablus district, suffered three settler attacks during the week beginning March 31, according to the UN, which said settlers killed a Palestinian man there and injured eight people. The UN said settlers attacked houses, stole sheep and vandalized vehicles.
For Ascherman, an emotional turning point came even before the war, when a settler fatally shot a 19-year old Palestinian-American, Nasrallah Abu Siyam, in Mukhmas, in an incident that his family said had started with armed settlers stealing goats. Mukhmas is a place Torat Zedek tries to help, but Ascherman was elsewhere at the time. “I felt guilty that I was not there. Palestinians asked me ‘Why weren’t you here?’”
The army spokesman’s office sent a statement to the Forward stating that the army’s mission in the area “is to maintain the security of all residents of the area” while preventing terrorism and harm to Israeli citizens.
But members of the ruling Israeli government coalition are being more brazen in voicing intent to oust Palestinians. The senior Israeli minister for Judea and Samaria, Bezalel Smotrich, who also holds the finance portfolio and is head of the Religious Zionism party, told a party meeting in late February that the government should “encourage migration” of the Palestinians in the West Bank. Last year he unveiled a map showing the Palestinians would be confined in the future to six disjointed urban clusters on less than a fifth of the West Bank.
Settlers and their backers say that Palestinian attacks that are launched against Israeli targets are the main problem in Judea and Samaria, the biblical names of the West Bank area. The protective presence activists just make the situation worse, according to Moshe Solomon, a member of the Knesset from Religious Zionism.
“They work against Jews in Judea and Samaria, which is the heritage of our forefathers. They come to harm the fabric there. I’m against violence against them but their provocations can’t be allowed,” he said. Solomon said that where he used to live in the Gush Etzion bloc of settlements south of Jerusalem, “non-Jewish locals” got along with Jews until the moment when “external actors, whether Jewish or European, would arrive and cause ferment and chaos.”
‘Fire dripping like water’
The activists stress that the Palestinians bear the real cost of the mayhem and bloodshed. But they themselves — some Israelis and some international visitors, are themselves increasingly targeted.
On April 7, two volunteers were nearly burned alive on the outskirts of Mukhmas village, northeast of Jerusalem, at around 2 a.m. on a hill overlooking a chicken farm that settlers often pelt with stones, they told the Forward. Noah Benninga, 48, said he awoke to see “fire dripping like water from the ceiling,” which was made of nylon.
“I started to shout. Later we understood they had poured gasoline and lit it. There was a strong smell of gasoline. They may have poured around, but only the nylon caught fire,” he said in an interview.
“I’m not sure they knew there were Israelis inside and I don’t think they care. For them it’s all the same thing,” he added.
After he shouted for help, Palestinians rushed to put out the embers, which had not spread to nearby wood, he recalled. He attributed what he considers a narrow escape to the arsonists not having enough time to complete their job.
“More serious things have also happened there to us: burning of buildings, injuring activists. One of our women activists was beaten unconscious,” Benninga said. He called the police but they did not come, he said. He then filed a complaint, sharing with the Forward the police’s confirmation of receiving it. The Israel Police’s spokesperson’s office did not respond to questions about the incident.
Two days later, when Ascherman and this reporter visited the area, settlers in black were again descending towards the chicken farm. This time they contented themselves with a show of presence, but they have often attacked the property, Ascherman said.
Frozen zones
The army is now making it much harder for activists to reach areas that need protection, according to Ascherman. He shared with the Forward closed military zone orders applicable to protective presence personnel. With the West Bank under military occupation, the army is entitled to declare zones closed to everyone except security forces and others at the discretion of commanders. In practice they are not enforced against settlers, creating a situation where Palestinians lose their protective presence and face greater danger, activists and Palestinians say. On initial closure, those excluded are required to leave the area. If they make a return entry, they are subject to arrest.
The army, citing what it said is the need to prevent friction and disturbances, recently issued a one-year closure order for parts of Duma, effectively depriving of protective presence the tiny Bedouin community of Sheqara, which, according to Torat Zedek activists, had been intensively targeted by settlers bent on using violence to drive out the Palestinians.
When the activists had to leave, the 12 families of Sheqara, fearing for their safety, also relocated — ending up in other places in Duma or in the town of Salfit.
“The solidarity activists were prevented from being with us and without them we couldn’t stay” and face the violence alone, said Deif-Allah Arare, who had a permit to work in Israel prior to Oct. 7, 2023, and like many others in the West Bank has been without a job since. A settler’s vehicle could be seen in his former living compound on April 9, while he had moved to a tiny concrete rental apartment on the other side of Duma. “How would you feel if there is a settler in your house?” he asked. “He stole not only the house, but the entire life, there is no life now. My land is gone, my house is gone, the place of my children. They stole everything.”
“My children all the time say, we want to be in Sheqara,” he added “They destroyed our lives.”
The IDF spokesman’s office denied the army allows settlers to remain in closed zones while excluding activists “As a rule, the IDF enforces the closed zone equally against anyone who violates it. The purpose of the enforcement is to maintain order and prevent friction in the area.” it said in a written response to a query by the Forward.
Herd of Justice, a group that documents settler violence, provided the Forward with video showing settlers running through Sheqara and one of them pepper spraying activist Yael Rozmarin in the face during a March 1 confrontation that was followed by another confrontation on March 2. Rozmarin said both confrontations and others at the site previously were started by the settlers. “On March 1 the soldiers joined the attack and on March 2 they did not prevent it from continuing.” she said A settler was photographed armed with a rifle in what Herd of Justice said was the March 1 confrontation.
The IDF, in its response, did not address the events of March 1, but it said that on March 2 “forces were dispatched to the area following a report of Palestinians hurling rocks at Israeli civilians. Upon arrival, the soldiers acted to disperse both Israeli and Palestinian civilians.”
The IDF added: “There were other incidents reported, including Israeli civilians vandalizing property in Duma and Israeli civilians attacking Palestinians in the area, for which a local security coordinator was dispatched and conducted a search but found no evidence substantiating the claims.” Local security coordinators in the West Bank are local settlers who are employed by the ministry of defense.
Doron Meinrath, a retired IDF colonel turned protective presence activist, alleges that the Israeli army has no qualms about violent dispossession of Palestinians by settlers. “In general the army very much supports what the settlers are doing,” said Meinrath, who is part of the group Looking the Occupation in the Eye. He used to be director of planning in the IDF General Staff and before that a commander of troops in the West Bank.
“I don’t think the army supports the most severe forms of violence, like murder. But ongoing violence, theft, harassment and anything that makes people’s lives more hard to bear, it does support.”
In area C, the rural territory under full Israeli control that comprises most of the West Bank, “the army has no problem with harassments. The opposite is the case. It would be happy if area C was empty of Palestinians and also area B,” said Meinrath, referring to places that are under Israeli security control and Palestinian Authority civil control. That would leave Palestinians only in area A, the non-contiguous urban clusters in Smotrich’s plan.
Meinrath said his experience shows that the IDF’s attitude towards the protection activists is “very negative and hostile. If there are activists and settlers, the settlers are favored. Socially, the soldiers pal around with the settlers and in practical terms when they make a closed military zone they enforce it against the activists, not the settlers.”
The IDF spokesman’s office, in a statement sent to the Forward, declares that the military opposes settler violence. It says police, who are members of the same police force that operates inside sovereign Israeli territory, bear primary responsibility for dealing with violations of the law by Israeli citizens. But, the statement said, soldiers are required to stop violations “and if necessary to delay or detain the suspects until the police arrive.”
“In situations where soldiers fail to adhere to IDF orders, the incidents are thoroughly reviewed and disciplinary actions are implemented” the IDF statement said.
Meanwhile, Benninga, the activist who described being almost set on fire in Duma, says he will return there. ”It was the first time I experienced such a thing. Maybe it can be an educational experience for activists to help them understand what Palestinians go through all day, every day.”
The post ‘The settlers are winning now’: West Bank activists aiding Palestinians are increasingly targets themselves appeared first on The Forward.
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These American teens ranked high in Israel’s International Bible Quiz, in strongest US showing in 50 years
(JTA) — While many of his classmates at his Orthodox high school in Los Angeles spent the last year juggling school and social life, Jackson Shrier was studying the Tanach, or Hebrew Bible, for five hours a day.
He was training for the Chidon HaTanach, or International Bible Quiz, a centerpiece of Israel’s Independence Day festivities that was founded by the first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, and held annually for over 60 years.
That dedication paid off last week, when Shrier placed second in the competition, fending off Jewish teens from around the world who similarly had prevailed in local competitions.
Shrier, 15, went by his Hebrew name, Akiva, during the competition and wowed the judges with his Hebrew proficiency. He was not the only American to place highly in the contest: Joshua Appelbaum of Washington, D.C., finished in third place, while Hadassah Esther Ritch of Highland Park, New Jersey, came in fourth.
In fact, While the winner of the showdown was Hodaya Cohen, an Israeli 11th-grader, this year marked a banner showing for the Americans, their strongest performance since 1973.
“When you’re an American, you know, usually the top American is like third or fourth, maybe fifth, but second place is like a special either way,” Shrier said. “So when I got second place, I was just quite a bit shocked.”
Shrier, who attends YULA High School in Los Angeles, said that, unlike in the United States, many of the Israeli competitors attend religious schools where preparation for the contest is built into the school day, sometimes for as many as 10 to 12 hours.
After first learning about the competition from a camp counselor before entering sixth grade, Shrier steadily ramped up his study. He escalated his investment even more following his win at the American Nationals last May.
The intense preparation paid off for Shrier, who said he felt well prepared to answer a spate of questions that included knowing which of four ancient Israeli cities “appeared exactly twice in the book of Judges” and, in the days of King Ahab, “what was a sinful build that happened.”
“I was very happy,” Shrier said of the moment he learned he had placed second, following a lightning-round face-off with Cohen. “It was a little shocking for me.”
During the competition, all of the American participants spoke in Hebrew, a feat that drew praise from the competition’s judges and host, the Israeli news anchor Sarah Beck.
“It’s very exciting to hear a young man from America quote pesukim in Hebrew,” said Liron Ben-Moshe, a past winner who writes the questions for the quiz and sits on its judging panel, using the Hebrew word for Bible verses. Ben-Moshe was one of several judges this year who, in addition to being steeped in Bible knowledge, lost close family during Israel’s recent wars.
“When they see the kids quote pesukim in Hebrew, they were very surprised,” said Ritch’s mother, Avigail. She adding that the judges had offered to give the students a “bonus” for their fluency in the language.
For Ritch, who is an 11th-grader at Bruriah High School for Girls in New Jersey, studying for the competition had been a worthwhile time commitment.
“I love learning Tanach and often spend time reading it because I gain so much from it,” Ritch said in a text message. “Tanach is a core part of Jewish identity, and studying it brings guidance and meaning into everyday life. Participating in Chidon has changed me forever and deepened my connection to it.”
This year, the competition included 16 participants from seven countries outside of the United States and Israel, including the United Kingdom, South Africa, Mexico, Panama and Canada.
“The quiz is far more than a knowledge competition — the Bible is the cultural and moral identity of the Jewish people, a compass that has guided us throughout the generations,” Israeli Education Minister Yoav Kisch said during the broadcast.
While some of the international participants attended the competition remotely due to the tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Iran, Shrier and his American counterparts all made it to Jerusalem for the contest, which was taped in advance of Independence Day on Wednesday.
“I wasn’t really thinking about that so much, just because I really wanted to come,” he said about the war. “I’d been studying for the Chidon a long time, so, you know, for me, just the main focus was getting here.”
For Shrier’s mother, Abigail, a writer with roles at the Manhattan Institute and The Free Press, the experience carried both pride and concern. She joined her son in Israel for the competition.
“We’re always concerned that there might be war when our kids are in Israel,” she said. “But Jack was absolutely single minded and determined to participate in this to the full extent, and we watched him really show dedication that my husband and I have never seen before.”
While in Jerusalem for the competition, the students are hosted by the Bible Quiz Camp, where they are able to study together and connect with peers who share their intense focus on Tanakh.
“Every time before this, I have been the one person to find myself around Tanakh, and that’s nice and all, but there’s not really a lot of people to talk to,” Appelbaum said. “So it’s nice having other people who have the same shared interest, and also just generally being in Israel is nice. It’s nice to be in the place that I’ve been studying about.”
For Abigail Shrier, watching her son compete reflected a moment of connection and shared purpose for Jewish teens around the world.
“There’s a lot of negative forces right now acting on the Jewish people, but there are also a lot of positive things happening,” she said. “And this worldwide Jewish competition, to learn as much Tanakh as you can, to cheer for each other and study together and learn as much as you can of the Tanakh is, is really one of the most positive things.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post These American teens ranked high in Israel’s International Bible Quiz, in strongest US showing in 50 years appeared first on The Forward.
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Trump Says Iran Can Phone If It Wants to talk; Iranian Minister Heads to Russia
US President Donald Trump speaks about research into mental health treatments in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, April 18, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Nathan Howard
President Donald Trump said on Sunday Iran could telephone if it wants to negotiate an end to their two-month war and stressed it can never have a nuclear weapon, after Tehran said the US should remove obstacles to a deal, including its blockade of Iran’s ports.
Hopes of reviving peace efforts receded on Saturday when Trump scrapped a visit to Islamabad by his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi shuttled to and from mediators Pakistan and Oman on Sunday before heading to Russia, where he is due to meet President Vladimir Putin.
Oil prices rose, the dollar inched higher and US stock futures wobbled lower in early Asia trade on Monday after the peace talks stalled, leaving Gulf shipping blocked.
“If they want to talk, they can come to us, or they can call us. You know, there is a telephone. We have nice, secure lines,” Trump told “The Sunday Briefing” on Fox News.
“They know what has to be in the agreement. It’s very simple: They cannot have a nuclear weapon, otherwise there’s no reason to meet,” Trump said.
Axios reported on Sunday, citing an unnamed US official and two sources with knowledge of the matter, that Iran gave the US a new proposal through Pakistani mediators on reopening the Strait of Hormuz and the ending of the war, with nuclear negotiations postponed for a later stage. The US State Department and White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the report.
Iran has long demanded Washington acknowledge its right to enrich uranium, which Tehran says it only seeks for peaceful purposes, but which Western powers say is aimed at building nuclear weapons.
Although a ceasefire has paused full‑scale fighting in the conflict, which began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28, no agreement has been reached on terms to end a war that has killed thousands, driven up oil prices, fueled inflation and darkened the outlook for global growth.
TRUMP FACES DOMESTIC PRESSURE TO END WAR
With his approval ratings falling, Trump faces domestic pressure to end the unpopular war. Iran’s leaders, though weakened militarily, have found leverage in negotiations with their ability to stop shipping in the economically vital Strait of Hormuz, which normally carries a fifth of global oil shipments.
Tehran has largely closed the strait while Washington has imposed a blockade of Iranian ports.
Before heading to Russia, Araqchi returned to Islamabad after holding talks on Sunday in Oman.
Iranian state media said Araqchi discussed security in the strait with Omani leader Haitham bin Tariq al-Said and called for a regional security framework free of outside interference.
Araqchi said on X that the focus of his Oman talks “included ways to ensure safe transit that is to benefit of all dear neighbors and the world.”
Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said topics for Araqchi’s talks with Pakistani officials included “implementing a new legal regime over the Strait of Hormuz, receiving compensation, guaranteeing no renewed military aggression by warmongers, and lifting the naval blockade.”
Iran’s envoy in Russia, Kazem Jalali, said in a post on X that Araqchi would meet with Putin “in continuation of the diplomatic jihad to advance the country’s interests and amid external threats.”
“Iran and Russia are present in a united front in the campaign of the world’s totalitarian forces against independent and justice-seeking countries, as well as countries that seek a world free from unilateralism and Western domination,” Jalali said.
On Saturday, Trump said he canceled his envoys’ visit due to too much travel and expense for what he considered an inadequate Iranian offer. Iran “offered a lot, but not enough,” he said.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif by phone on Saturday that Tehran would not enter “imposed negotiations” under threats or blockade, an Iranian statement said.
He said the United States should first remove obstacles, including its maritime blockade, before negotiators could begin laying the groundwork for a settlement.
US AND IRAN HAVE EXTENSIVE DISAGREEMENTS
Disagreements between the US and Iran extend beyond Tehran’s nuclear program and control of the strait.
Trump wants to limit Iran’s support for its regional proxies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, and curb its ability to strike US allies with ballistic missiles. Iran wants sanctions lifted and an end to Israeli attacks on Hezbollah.
After the latest diplomatic trip was called off, two US Air Force C-17s carrying security staff, equipment and vehicles used to protect US officials flew out of Pakistan, two Pakistani government sources told Reuters on Sunday.
Trump said on Saturday there was “tremendous infighting and confusion” within Iran’s leadership.
Pezeshkian said last week there were “no hardliners or moderates” in Tehran and that the country stood united behind its supreme leader.
The war has destabilized the Middle East. Iran has struck its Gulf neighbors and conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon has been reignited.
In Lebanon, Israeli strikes killed 14 people and wounded 37 on Sunday, the health ministry said.