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How a Don McLean Concert Gave Me Insight Into the Torah
The American singer-songwriter Don McLean at the Oxford Union, May 2025. Photo: Screenshot
Last Saturday night, I went to a Don McLean concert at the Saban Theater. Yes, that Don McLean, icon of popular culture, poster child of whimsical 1970s music. As the lights dimmed and a palpable buzz of excitement murmured through the crowd, I felt the nostalgic anticipation bubble within me, knowing exactly why I was there.
You don’t attend a Don McLean concert to hear something new, and you certainly don’t go for a sound-and-light show. You go to pay tribute to a musical hero, to show up for someone who occupies a real, almost mythic place in the popular culture of your youth.
Don McLean isn’t merely another aging performer touring on old hits. He’s a cultural marker. His No. 1 hit, “American Pie,” isn’t simply a song — it’s a time capsule. Eight and a half minutes meditating on the loss of American innocence: the death of Buddy Holly, the shattering of postwar optimism, the uneasy coming-of-age of an entire generation.
People have been arguing about its meaning for decades — precisely because it meant something. Deeply.
Then there’s “Vincent” — better known as “Starry, Starry Night” — a song about Vincent van Gogh so restrained and tender it somehow made a 19th-century painter’s inner torment feel intimate to late-20th-century listeners.
Very few songwriters have managed to do this without tipping into cloying, overcooked sentimentality. McLean did it effortlessly — no theatrics, no emotional manipulation — and it worked. To this day, “Starry, Starry Night” is played regularly at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, quietly soundtracking the experience of standing before the real thing.
Don McLean, born and bred in the bedroom town of New Rochelle, NY — hardly a breeding ground for folk-music greatness — has somehow come to embody the American folk tradition. Mentored and befriended by legends like Josh White, he absorbed the moral seriousness that defines folk music: the sense that songs can carry memory, protest, grief, and conscience all at once.
And he did it without tipping into angry remonstration or cloying sentimentality. Mclean was never flashy, and certainly never cool in the trendy sense. But he mattered. And for many people, he still does.
There is also something meaningful about the fact that McLean has long been openly supportive of Israel, without apology and without hedging — a position that has become increasingly rare in the showbiz world.
At one point, his significant other was Israeli, a connection that deepened his ties to the country. He has written a song about Jerusalem and another — “Dreidel” — built around the familiar Hanukkah game, and he has never been coy or evasive about where he stands.
Unashamedly pro-Israel and a genuine friend of the Jewish community, McLean belongs to that rare group of artists — including, sadly, only some Jewish ones — who don’t feel the need to hide in the herd, and are openly positive about the miracle of Israel.
So, when I walked into the packed theater — a full house, brimming with goodwill toward an 80-year-old legend of American pop music — I wasn’t just going to a concert. I was acknowledging a nostalgic moment in my own life. A time when songs didn’t merely play in the background but actively framed how I understood the world. Which is precisely why the letdown was such a disappointment.
McLean is long past his sell-by date. His energy was low. The singing was often flat and unenthusiastic. Long stretches felt labored and passionless, as though he was simply going through the motions. Even the comb-over hairstyle — epic in its own stubborn way — felt like an unintentional symbol: a refusal to surrender to time, even when time has clearly won.
And then came “American Pie” — the showpiece, the emotional climax, the song everyone had been waiting for — and it simply didn’t land. You could feel the audience willing it to work, wanting to be generous, desperate to preserve the magic. But there was no magic.
We clapped respectfully. We reminded ourselves that legends age, and that memory is often kinder than reality. And we were forced to confront an uncomfortable truth: maybe some things are better left in the mind’s eye as pristine nostalgia.
Maybe seeing a hero of your youth in a diminished state doesn’t deepen the experience — it diminishes it. Walking out of the theater, that was the thought that lingered most.
And that’s when it hit me: our Jewish sourcebook, the Torah, does something very similar to us — almost intervention-style — in Parshat Mishpatim. This is the portion that comes immediately after the revelation at Sinai, the greatest spiritual moment in Jewish history: thunder and lightning, followed by God speaking directly to His newly born nation.
We’re swept into a moment that is dazzling and overwhelming, the kind of experience every believing Jew would love to freeze in time and relive.
But we barely have time to savor it before the Torah pivots sharply. There’s no lingering on the drama, and no attempt to recreate the high. Instead, we’re dropped straight into the mundane reality of law: damages and injuries, loans and workers’ rights, lost property and personal responsibility.
Mishpatim is dry. It’s technical. And, on the surface at least, it’s deeply uninspiring. The juxtaposition feels like a comedown — a real downer.
But that whiplash is entirely deliberate. Inspiration is always a flash. Even the greatest moments in time are just that: moments. Sinai, like a great song or the vigor of youth, cannot be sustained indefinitely. You can’t live forever in a suspended state of awe, and you certainly can’t build a day-to-day life on peak experiences.
Reality is the true engine of our lives. And reality includes fatigue, complexity, disappointment, human weakness, and long stretches that feel decidedly unremarkable. But it is in these moments that there’s a chance for everyday holiness. The Torah, unlike nostalgia, refuses to pretend otherwise.
Mishpatim is the reminder that the spectacular visions that may once have animated our faith are incapable of sustaining us once those moments have passed.
The Torah is teaching us a crucial life lesson: you were inspired — now let’s see what you do with it. Not when God’s voice is thundering from the mountain, but when you’re arguing over financial liability and damages. Not when everything feels elevated and transcendent, but when life is stubbornly ordinary.
Inspirational experiences define moments. But moments age badly if that’s all they are. Which is why Judaism doesn’t try to recreate the emotional experience of Sinai.
There is no commandment to feel revelation. Instead, the Torah translates revelation into structure — into obligations that don’t depend on energy, charisma, or being at your peak. What ultimately matters is how we conduct our lives once inspiration has faded.
God doesn’t want Sinai to be remembered as an unattainable peak, a moment so overwhelming that everything afterward feels like decline. It was never meant to become the yardstick by which all future religious experience is judged, or the excuse for disengagement from the present.
Sinai only has meaning if it translates into better people, expressed through our loyalty to the laws of the Torah that were given there.
So maybe it was good to go to that concert after all. Not because it preserved the magic — it didn’t — but because it clarified something deeper. I don’t need Don McLean to be great now for his impact on my life to remain meaningful now.
The music fades, the voice weakens, the moment passes. What remains is whether what once inspired me is strong enough to shape how my life is lived once the applause has died away.
The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California.
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50 years after the Dirty War, Argentinians remember the Jews who ‘disappeared’
(JTA) — BUENOS AIRES — As Argentina marks the 50th anniversary of the 1976 military coup, a lesser-known aspect of the dictatorship is gaining attention: the disproportionate number of Jews among the disappeared.
Estimates suggest that as many as 1,900 Jews were abducted, tortured and murdered by the military junta during the six-year Dirty War, when many sources say 30,000 people were disappeared. Depending on the source, Jews represented 5% to 8% of the total, even though Jews made up less than 1% of Argentina’s population at the time.
That grim history is being explored in educational initiatives by Argentina’s Jewish community, aimed at younger generations and focused on understanding how the dictatorship operated and the disproportionate suffering it inflicted on Jews.
“The Jews were subjected to a particular form of treatment that resulted in greater brutality on the part of the repressive forces,” according to a new curriculum released by the education department of AMIA, the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. “The experience of Jewish Argentines who were victims of state terrorism was marked by a strong antisemitic imprint among many members of the task forces.”
The AMIA project includes meetings between Jewish youth and relatives of the Jewish “disappeared,” as well as visits to memorial sites. Some 1,000 students are expected to take part this month.
A parallel digital project, Eduiot (“Testimonies”), documents the stories of Jewish victims of the military dictatorship and includes meetings between relatives of the disappeared and high school students.
The materials rely on personal testimonies to explain the human impact of the dictatorship and to put individual stories in the broader historical context.
Eduiot includes the story of Fernando Ruben Brodsky, a 22-year-old student who disappeared in 1979, including accounts from relatives who continue to seek answers. His mother, Sarah Brodsky, shares accounts of her son, a psychology student and kindergarten teacher who was abducted from his home on Aug. 8 and never seen again.
The testimonials relate how security forces subjected Jews to antisemitic abuse when they were kidnapped or detained, including Nazi language and symbols and “special” interrogations reserved for Jews.
The anniversary comes amid renewed debate over how Argentina interprets the dictatorship. President Javier Milei’s government has called for a broader account that also includes victims of left-wing guerrilla violence, which some suggest is a way to minimize the crimes of the dictatorship. Milei and other voices close to the government have also questioned the 30,000-victim figure, promoting a lower number (often 9,000).
Under the junta, the military and state security forces targeted suspected left-wing sympathizers, including students, unionists, journalists and activists.
In 1979, Jewish advocacy groups such as the Anti‑Defamation League expressed grave concern over the disappearances, focusing on the Jewish victims, and Jewish families in Argentina and abroad helped compile lists of the missing. According to an ADL official at the time, “Jews are not specifically targeted as Jews. However, the security agents tend to be suspicious of Jews.”
The best-known Jewish target of the state was journalist Jacobo Timerman, who published a left-leaning newspaper, La Opinion. In 1977, the generals who ruled Argentina shut down the paper and imprisoned Timerman. Among other things, Timerman was accused of masterminding a plot to establish a Jewish homeland in the remote Patagonia region of southern Argentina.
He survived, and in his 1981 memoir, “Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number,” he recounted how he was subjected to torture during his 2 1/2 years in confinement.
According to Eduiot, Jewish advocacy for the disappeared “proved effective in bringing early attention to human rights violations.” The U.S. Congress launched investigations, and in a 1978 article in Le Monde, novelist and Holocaust survivor Marek Halter compared the persecution of Argentine Jews to Nazi-era atrocities.
The Eduiot site includes photographs and audiovisual material, and features the accounts of parents, siblings, cousins, nephews and nieces of Jews persecuted and disappeared under the dictatorship.
“Because every testimony matters and holds great value,” according to its website. “Because these dark episodes of our history must never be repeated, and because we want each of the disappeared to have a space of remembrance on this site, helping families sustain their memory and uphold the call for justice.”
The post 50 years after the Dirty War, Argentinians remember the Jews who ‘disappeared’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Fortnite tops ADL’s new ‘leaderboard’ ranking video games on antisemitism safeguards
(JTA) — The online video game Fortnite tops the Anti-Defamation League’s “leaderboard” ranking online video game companies on their efforts to curb antisemitism and extremism on their platforms.
The Online Gaming Leaderboard, which the antisemitism watchdog billed as the “first comprehensive public evaluation” of how online multiplayer games address antisemitism, ranked 10 popular online games based on safety features, moderation, player protections and written policies meant to address antisemitism and hate.
Fortnite was followed at the top of the rankings by Grand Theft Auto Online, Call of Duty and Minecraft. Games labeled as having “limited protection” by the ADL included Counter-Strike 2 and PUBG: Battlegrounds.
Madden NFL, Valorant, Clash Royale and Roblox, a collaborative computer gaming platform for children as young as 7, were ranked as having “moderate protection.”
“Without strong safeguards, these platforms can become breeding grounds for harassment and hateful activity that harms players directly, normalizes hateful ideologies and damages trust,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the ADL, said in a statement Wednesday. “This leaderboard provides the transparency that parents, gamers and the industry need to understand where companies are succeeding and where urgent improvements are necessary.”
The leaderboard’s release coincided with a landmark Los Angeles jury verdict finding Meta and YouTube liable for harming a young user through addictive design features.
In the virtual worlds of online gaming, players have posted abusive messages in chats, created antisemitic imagery and even given themselves bigoted usernames.
While Fortnite ranked first, the popular online game has also previously faced scrutiny over allegations that it enabled antisemitic content. Last September, it disabled a character dance feature after users said its gestures resembled a swastika.
Roblox, which has long faced criticism over content moderation, has also been the subject of controversy, including in 2022 when it removed a user-created simulation of a Nazi gas chamber. In the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks in 2023, the Israeli government also urged users to report pro-Palestinian activity in the game that it said included antisemitic content.
The post Fortnite tops ADL’s new ‘leaderboard’ ranking video games on antisemitism safeguards appeared first on The Forward.
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Iran Posts AI Video Showing Missile Striking Statue of Liberty
An Israeli air defense system intercepts a ballistic missile barrage launched from Iran to central Israel during the missile attack, February 27, 2026. Photo: Eli Basri / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
Iran on Tuesday released an AI-generated video depicting a missile striking the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, a global symbol of American freedom and democracy, in one of the regime’s latest propaganda efforts to influence public perception abroad.
Shared by Iranian state broadcaster IRIB as well as a Telegram channel affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the minute-long video ends with the slogan “One vengeance for all.”
IRGC Official Telegram Channel Releases AI Video Depicting Iranian Ballistic Missile Strike on United States, Hitting New York City and Toppling Statue of Liberty Shown as Idol of Baal Holding Babylonian Talmud pic.twitter.com/JhgNgHW2Zz
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) March 25, 2026
The video was also circulated by Russian state outlet RT, in what appears to be a stark and symbolic threat against the United States.
‘ONE VENGEANCE FOR ALL’ — Iran ‘bombs’ the Statue of Liberty WITH THE HEAD OF BAAL pic.twitter.com/6tPH15fqkZ
— RT (@RT_com) March 25, 2026
Since the start of the US-Israel war with Iran, which began on Feb. 28, Iranian officials have ramped up their propaganda and disinformation efforts, trying to portray Washington and Jerusalem as responsible for decades of regional conflict while seeking to influence left-leaning Americans to mobilize domestic opposition to the war.
This latest widely circulated video presents a striking sequence portraying the United States as the world’s enemy, drawing on imagery from the dispossession of Native Americans and the atomic bombings of Japan to the Vietnam War and more recent Middle Eastern conflicts to craft a sweeping narrative of American aggression.
The clip also features footage alluding to a child on Jeffrey Epstein’s private island — a recurring theme in Iran’s messaging used to suggest that US President Donald Trump launched the current war to distract the public from the Epstein scandal, in which the late financier was convicted of running a sex-trafficking ring involving underage girls and, allegedly, various influential figures.
Later in the video, AI-generated figures of Iran’s former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the late Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani are shown gazing skyward. Khamenei was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Feb. 28, and Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike in 2020.
The final sequence of the video depicts a missile in Iranian colors striking the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, whose head has been replaced with that of Baal, a false god from the Bible, while the statue holds the Talmud, a key collection of Jewish religious teachings and laws.
This video is the latest example of AI-generated propaganda released since the start of the war with Iran.
Last week, Chinese state television CCTV released a separate AI-generated clip illustrating Beijing’s perspective on the Strait of Hormuz crisis, featuring Persian cats in martial arts combat and an eagle-headed human representing the United States.
Experts note that Russian dissemination of Tehran’s video reflects a broader coordinated effort to use visual propaganda to challenge US foreign policy and influence global perceptions amid rising regional tensions.
The latest video came as the US and Iran began engaging in diplomacy over a possible resolution to the war, although Tehran has reportedly responded negatively to Washington’s proposal.