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Meir Shalev and Yehonatan Geffen were Israeli cultural royalty. Their deaths leave a hole on the left.
(JTA) — Over the last few months, since the far-right government announced its plans for an overarching constitutional overhaul, Israel’s embattled liberal camp has experienced a renaissance. Unprecedented mobilization on the part of protesting masses, business leaders and the IDF vanguard has left the government in disarray and, in the wake of a seemingly endless string of electoral defeats, invigorated the left to an extent that it had not seen since the 1990s. The left may be dead, but it is not quite buried yet.
But amid this process of rejuvenation and weeks before Israel celebrated its 75th anniversary, the Israeli left experienced two symbolic blows in ironic proximity when two cultural titans died within days of each other.
Meir Shalev, an eminent novelist, and Yehonatan Geffen, an incredibly prolific journalist, author and songwriter, were also prominent public intellectuals. Both had spent decades dabbling in current affairs as columnists for the mass-circulation dailies Yedioth Aharonoth and Maariv, respectively.
Shalev was 74 when he died on April 11. Geffen, who died on April 19, was 76.
The symbolism did not stop at their premature and almost simultaneous passing. It was, rather, the final chapter of two lives that also began in great proximity: Shalev and Geffen were born a little over a year apart in the agricultural community of Nahalal, the Camelot of the Labor Zionism movement. Both were descendants of Zionist aristocracy: Shalev’s father was the Jerusalemite author and educator Yithzak Shalev, and Geffen’s maternal uncle the legendary general-turned-politician Moshe Dayan. Like many of their cohort, they were groomed for the driving seat of the newborn State of Israel.
Their formidable life’s work, thus, was largely an ongoing attempt to deal with the burden bestowed upon them by their pedigrees. And this is where they differ, despite the eerie similarities in their biographies.
Many of Shalev’s novels, especially the earlier ones, were loving tributes to his lineage. They included “A Pigeon and A Boy,” which is set during the War of Independence and won the National Jewish Book Award in 2006, and “The Blue Mountain,” set on a moshav (an agricultural cooperative) shortly before the founding of Israel. Though never overly sentimental and always strewn with a heavy dose of irony, Shalev’s writings were adoring accounts of a bygone generation, complete with their shtick and quirks and foibles. His protagonists were shrouded in a certain mythology, which Shalev did not labor to deconstruct entirely; he was just attempting to humanize and bring them down to earth.
But while Shalev looked up to his parents’ generation, Geffen blew a raspberry in their faces. He was part of a tight cohort of musicians and artists who grew up in Israel post-independence — a tribe that included David Broza, Arik Einstein, Gidi Gov, Shalom Hanoch and Yehudit Ravitz, all household names in Israel. Geffen’s song “Could It Be Over?”, featured on Arik Einstein’s 1973 album sporting the deliberately ironic title “Good Old Israel,” exemplifies the challenging relationship. From the opening line (“They say it was fun before I was born, and everything was just splendid until I arrived”), the song is a mischievous and self-deprecating take on Israel’s founding myths. Enumerating them one by one — the draining of the swamps, the heroic battles for Jewish sovereignty, the nascent Hebrew culture in the pre-state Yishuv — Geffen sarcastically concludes: “They had a reason to get up in the morning.”
More broadly, Geffen was bent on smashing every aspect of the Zionist ethos. In defiance of the image of the Hebrew warrior, of which his uncle Moshe was the poster boy, Geffen was an adamant pacifist as well as, famously, a very bad soldier himself. Having been called for reserve service during the first Lebanon War, in 1982, he was performing for soldiers ahead of the IDF offensive on Beirut when he was dragged off stage by the commanding officer for calling on the troops to refuse. His song “The Little Prince of Company B” (sung by Shem-Tov Levy), about a timid and frail fallen soldier praised as a hero against his will, was one of the first and best-remembered anti-war songs in the Hebrew canon.
Geffen’s counterculture instincts were informed by his great American heroes — notably the Jewish iconoclasts Bob Dylan and Lenny Bruce — and this admiration was in itself a jab at his upbringing, characterized by vain parochialism masquerading as self-sufficiency. Geffen felt more at home in New York (where he spent several years) and Tel Aviv than in the fields of the Jezreel Valley; his tools were not a sickle and a plow, but rather a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of whisky.
Shalev, in his political writing, also advocated for left-of-center politics that is sometimes derisively described as “Ashkenazi”: moderate, civil, Western in its orientation, calling to rally around a common good — a type of political discourse that, as recent events show, speaks to fewer and fewer Israelis. “The Israeli public is moving more and more to the right. The war in 1967 may have destroyed Israel,” he told an interviewer in 2017. “We took a big bite that is now suffocating us. All Israel has done since 1967 is deal with aspects of the occupation. Israel has not been dealing with the things I feel it should deal with. With my political views, I am a minority in Israel.”
Shalev was a pastor of sorts; Geffen was sometimes a Jeremiah and sometimes a court jester, and often both.
They were representatives of two distinct streams within the traditionally fragmented Israeli left; the very same left that, despite the current resurgence, seems too often to have more streams than members.
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YouTuber Ms. Rachel Apologizes for ‘Accidentally’ Liking Instagram Comment Calling to ‘Free America From Jews’
Ms. Rachel. Photo: Wiki Commons.
Children’s educator and YouTuber Ms. Rachel admitted on Wednesday that she “accidentally” liked an antisemitic comment on Instagram that called for America to be “free from the Jews.”
The YouTube star, who creates toddler learning videos, apologized for the apparent mistake after a social media user privately messaged her on Instagram and pointed out that Ms. Rachel liked the antisemitic comment left on one of her posts. The private message promoted Ms. Rachel, 43, to issue a public apology in a video that she posted Wednesday on Instagram for her 4.8 million followers.
The YouTuber, whose real name is Rachel Griffin Accurso, explained that she thought she deleted the hateful comment but accidentally hit “like and hide” instead. The avid critic of Israel, who has shared online posts accusing the Jewish state of “genocide” and has 18.6 million subscribers on her YouTube channel, got emotional in an Instagram video while explaining what happened.
“I thought I deleted a comment, and I accidentally hit ‘like’ and hide,’” she said in an Instagram video. “I don’t know how or why. I’ve accidentally liked comments before. It happens. I’m a human who makes mistakes. I would never agree with an antisemitic thing like the comment. We have Jewish family, a lot of my friends are Jewish. I delete antisemitic comments.”
The issue reportedly began when Ms. Rachel shared a statement from her notes app on Instagram that read “Free Palestine, Free Sudan, Free Congo, Free Iran.” A social media user who replied to the post wrote, “Free America from the Jews” and the comment garnered four likes including from Ms. Rachel, according to screenshots cited by the New York Post.
The children’s YouTube star insisted she was “so broken over” the incident.
“I feel like we can’t be human anymore online,” she complained in the video. “And I’m so sorry for the confusion it caused. I’m so sorry if anyone thought that I would ever agree with something horrible and antisemitic like that. I don’t.”
“I want to say that it’s OK to be human and it’s OK to make mistakes and I’m old, so I am not as good with touching things online, I guess. I have liked things by accident before,” she added. “Everyone who knows me knows I would never like that.”
In an earlier Instagram post about the incident, Ms. Rachel wrote that “people are allowed to make mistakes” and that she was “super sorry for any confusion it caused.”
“I delete antisemitism ANY time I see it. I am against all forms of hate including antisemitism against the Jewish people,” she added.
The watchdog group StopAntisemitism.org has previously accused Ms. Rachel of spreading Hamas propaganda and false information about Israel’s military actions in the Gaza Strip during the Israel-Hamas war.
Ms. Rachel lives in New York City and her husband is Broadway music director and composer Aron Accurso.
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Discussion: Growing up Hasidic in Vienna
זונטיק דעם 25סטן יאַנואַר וועט אויף זום פֿאָרקומען אַ שמועס מיט איידל מלובֿיצקי (מאַלאָוויצקי), אַ צאַנזער־רביש אייניקל וואָס איז געבוירן און דערצויגן געוואָרן בײַ אַ חסידישער סלאָנימער משפּחה אין ווין, עסטרײַך.
אלי בענעדיקט, וואָס וועט פֿירן דעם אינטערוויו און איז אַליין פֿון אַ חסידישער משפּחה, האָט געזאָגט אַז איידל מלוביצקי „טראָגט אין זיך אַ לעבעדיק לעבנבילד פֿון אַ חסידישער וועלט אין אַ מאָדערנער שטאָט. אין איר דערציילן פֿאַרבינדן זיך פּערזענלעכע זכרונות מיט קהילות־געשיכטע, און ייִדיש בלײַבט די שליסלשפּראַך פֿאַר ביידע.“
די דיסקוסיע ווערט געשטיצט פֿון דער ייִדיש־ליגע.
איידל מלובֿיצקי איז הײַנט אַ ייִדיש־לערערין און קולטור־פֿיגור, אַקטיוו אין פֿאַרשידענע אינסטיטוציעס — צווישן זיי: דער ווינער אוניווערסיטעט, „יונג־ייִדיש־ווין“ און „ייִדיש־זומער־ווײַמאַר“. זי איז אויך אַ וועגווײַזערין און גיט לעקציעס וועגן דער ייִדישער געשיכטע פֿון ווין, וועגן דער חסידישער געשיכטע בכלל, און די געשיכטע פֿון דער חסידישער קהילה אין ווין בפֿרט. בקרובֿ וועט אויך אַרויס אַ דאָקומענטאַר וועגן די בית־יעקבֿ־שולן, וווּ זי ווערט אויך אינטערוויוירט.
דער שמועס, וואָס איז פֿרײַ פֿון אָפּצאָל, וועט פֿאָרקומען זונטיק, דעם 25סטן יאַנואַר, 2 אַ זייגער נאָך מיטאָג ניו־יאָרקער צײַט. כּדי זיך צו רעגיסטרירן גיט אַ קוועטש דאָ.
The post Discussion: Growing up Hasidic in Vienna appeared first on The Forward.
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Australia PM Albanese ‘Profoundly Sorry’ for Failing to Prevent Bondi Beach Attack
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks at the Sydney Opera House during a National Day of Mourning for the victims of the Dec. 14, 2025, mass shooting at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach, in Sydney, Australia, Jan. 22, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Jeremy Piper
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Thursday he was “profoundly sorry” for his failure to prevent the Bondi Beach mass shooting, as the country observed a day of mourning for the victims of the attack.
Police say a father and son opened fire at an event celebrating the Jewish festival of Hanukkah on Dec. 14, killing 15 people in Australia‘s worst mass shooting in decades.
They say the two men were inspired by Islamic State to carry out the attack, which the government has called an act of terrorism against Jewish people.
Flags were flown at half-mast across the country ahead of a memorial event at Sydney’s iconic Opera House, where Albanese apologized to the relatives of the victims in the audience.
“You came to celebrate a festival of light and freedom and you left with the violence of hatred. I am deeply and profoundly sorry that we could not protect your loved ones from this evil,” Albanese said to sustained applause in his speech at the event.
Last month, the prime minister said he was “sorry for what the Jewish community and our nation as a whole has experienced” – an apology that some relatives said was insufficient.
A minute’s silence, including on the country’s main television channels, was held across the nation just after 7 pm in Sydney (0800 GMT) as the memorial event began.
Event attendees lit candles and heard speeches from other lawmakers, as well as Jewish prayers and video tributes.
Buildings across the country, including cricket stadiums in Melbourne and Perth, were also illuminated, while play was paused during the Australian Open tennis tournament to observe the minute’s silence.
The Bondi attack shocked the nation and led to calls for tougher action on antisemitism and gun control, with critics of Albanese saying he had not done enough to crack down on a spate of attacks on the Jewish community in recent years.
The government disputes this, and has already passed legislation tightening background checks for gun licenses, as well as separate legislation that would lower the threshold for prosecuting hate speech offenses.