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Summer is almost here. It’s time to learn the Torah of the garden.
This article originally appeared on My Jewish Learning.
(JTA) — My mother died in February, and since then I’ve been caring for her home. At the time of her death, she had over a hundred plants — and that’s only inside the house. Outside, there were hundreds more — roses and lilacs and dahlias, lilies of the valley and irises and daffodils, violets and honeysuckle and sunflowers. They bloom in almost all seasons, from late winter to late autumn. Except when the ground is frozen, there is never a moment when something is not blooming in my mother’s garden. And she celebrated when they bloomed, whether once a season or once every 10 years. They were, in many ways, the great work of her life, and it’s powerful for me to be caring for them now.
I grew up surrounded by those plants. I ate wild strawberries, chestnuts and pears. I used pine needles for doll beds and hickory nuts for toy food. I slept (or pretended to) on carpets of moss and used branches of sumac as scepters. Once, I dug up some daffodils near the creek and moved them to my “garden” in the woods. My mother was furious (though those daffodils still bloom in the woods every spring). But my early plant experiences were mostly good. I planted peas with my father, and watched him guide the young bean plants up their poles. I noted when the violets came out and when the chestnuts fell from their trees. I particularly loved the wild roses that bloomed in June (in fact, they’re blooming now). For me, as for my mother, the plants are their own kind of people — beings I try to nurture, appreciate and understand.
So it’s moving to me that the Jewish tradition sees plants in a similar way — as beings with voices. Psalm 96:12 states: “Let the fields rejoice and all that is in them; let the trees of the forest sing for joy.” Psalm 17:33 proclaims: “Let the trees of the forest sing at the presence of God.” In Psalm 48:8, the fruit trees offer praise. In Isaiah 55:12, the trees clap hands.
Maimonides understood these verses to be metaphors, but the Midrash — writings that fill in gaps in biblical texts — claims that trees do in fact speak with one another and with other creatures, and that they discuss the earth and its well-being. The Jerusalem Talmud too understands these verses expansively, saying that when Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai began to teach mystical secrets, the trees started to sing. The Zohar, the mystical Torah commentary, imagines that when the Creator visits the Garden of Eden at midnight, the trees burst into song.
This description of plants is a reflection of the way many of us experience plants — as alive, and in relationship to us. And it’s likely they reflect how our ancestors did too. Many indigenous spiritual practitioners consider plants to possess intelligence, so it’s certainly possible our ancestors saw plants this way as well. And it might be time for us to be mindful of this too, given that we are breathing in what plants breathe out, and vice versa.
A team of researchers at Tel Aviv University has recently discovered that plants make sounds, albeit at a frequency we can’t hear, and that they make more sounds when distressed. This claim was made long ago in the Midrash, which teaches that when a tree is cut down, its cry goes from one end of the world to the other but no one hears. How differently might we act if we could hear the cries of trees and plants? And how much richer might we be if we could tune into their songs?
Indeed, this might not be as far-fetched as it sounds. In some kabbalistic understandings, we have plant consciousness inside us. According to the mystic Hayyim Vital, plants are a category of beings known as the tzomeach — the growing ones. They exist among four kinds of living creatures: humans, animals, plants and stones (yes, even stones are considered beings). Vital says that the human soul reflects all these kinds of beings, and so perhaps we are kin to all of them. Even God has plant-like aspects: The kabbalists call the structure of the divine personality the Tree of Life, and in the Zohar, the Divine Presence is called the gan, the garden, or the chekel detapuchin kadishin, the holy apple orchard.
My own small New York apartment has many fewer plants than my mother’s home, but I care for them lovingly. Once, while I was away, the cat sitter forgot to water the fuschia and when I came home it was nearly dead and had only five living leaves left. I slowly nurtured it back to health, watering often but not too much, and now, a year later, it has bloomed many times. I may not be able to hear its voice, but I can see its beauty and I can feel the power and persistence of its life-force. As the summer solstice approaches, I invite all of us to celebrate, protect and listen to these green beings, these creatures who eat light and who create the very air we breathe.
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The post Summer is almost here. It’s time to learn the Torah of the garden. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iran appoints AMIA bombing suspect to National Security Council
(JTA) —
For the second time this year, Iran has named a wanted suspect in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires to a top security role.
A spokesman for the Islamic Republic’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said Monday that Mohsen Rezaei had resigned as an adviser to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, and would assume the role of secretary of Iran’s powerful Supreme National Security Council. Rezaei is a former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Rezaei is wanted by Argentina and is subject to an Interpol Red Notice issued at Argentina’s request over his alleged role in the 1994 attack, which killed 85 people and remains the deadliest terrorist attack in Argentina’s history.
Earlier this year, Ahmad Vahidi, another suspect in the AMIA case and also the subject of an Interpol Red Notice, was appointed IRGC commander.
In a landmark ruling in 2024, an Argentine court held Iran and its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, responsible for the bombing, setting the stage for international legal action.
In June 2025, Argentina’s federal judiciary ordered that 10 Iranian and Lebanese suspects accused in connection with the deadly 1994 AMIA bombing be tried in absentia. Rezaei and Vahidi are among them.
The eight other suspects accused by the late AMIA special prosecutor, Alberto Nisman, are: former Iranian Intelligence Minister Ali Fallahijan, former Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, former Iranian ambassador Hadi Soleimanpour, former Iranian cultural attache in Buenos Aires Mohsen Rabbani and former Iranian diplomat Ahmad Reza Asghari, as well as suspected Hezbollah operatives Salman Raouf Salman, Abdallah Salman and Hussein Mounir Mouzannar.
The post Iran appoints AMIA bombing suspect to National Security Council appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel and AIPAC on the ballot in the Minnesota Senate and U.S. House races
(JTA) — A pair of Democratic primaries in Minnesota on Tuesday are among a string of high-profile battles between progressive and moderate candidates, where Israel and the pro-Israel lobby serve as key wedge issues.
The state’s highest-profile race is the U.S. Senate primary between Rep. Angie Craig, who has been endorsed by the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC, and Lieutenant Gov. Peggy Flanagan, who says she would reject AIPAC’s money and accuses Israel of committing a genocide.
The most recent data gathered in late July through early August has Craig with a 2-percentage point lead, within the 5.3% margin of error. Another poll, conducted in late July by a group supporting Flanagan, shows her with a 14-point lead. The Democratic nominee, whether it be Flanagan or Craig, is expected to win the general election in November.
The race, and the candidates’ sparring over AIPAC, comes as the lobby and Israel under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have become increasingly unpopular among Democratic voters. Israel is also an issue in the Democratic gubernatorial primary in neighboring Wisconsin taking place on Tuesday.
Flanagan has referred to Craig as “AIPAC’s candidate” in the Senate race, which prompted Craig to distance herself from the group’s spending during a TV debate in June.
“AIPAC has not contributed at all, the PAC, to my Senate campaign,” said Craig, whose wife, Cheryl Greene, is Jewish. “Not one penny.”
Flanagan countered that, while AIPAC itself has not donated to Craig’s campaign, it has held fundraisers for the four-term congresswoman. AIPAC did not respond to a request for comment.
Just last week in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, progressive Abdul El-Sayed defeated the moderate Rep. Haley Stevens, whose AIPAC endorsement was the frequent target of opposition attacks.
Flanagan has drawn the support of American Priorities, a pro-Palestinian super PAC that aims to counter AIPAC. The group spent about $54,000 on ads boosting her candidacy, according to FEC filings.
Flanagan’s platform includes blocking offensive weapons sales to Israel — a position that all but seven Senate Democrats voted for in April — and advancing a two-state solution that “allows for a secure Israel and Palestinian self-determination.”
Craig, who also backs a two-state outcome, voted against the recent amendment proposed by Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie that would have halted $3.3 billion in military aid to Israel.
In a statement explaining her vote, Craig panned Netanyahu and the war in Iran, but wrote that the amendment would endanger Israelis and American troops and allies in the region. After the vote, Flanagan wrote, “A vote to send $3.3 billion of taxpayer money to fund additional weapons of war to Benjamin Netanyahu is unconscionable. Enough.”
Craig has the endorsement of a number of Democrats in Congress and the Senate, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. She is also endorsed by lobbying group Democratic Majority for Israel, former Democratic presidential contender Pete Buttigieg, and Minneapolis’ Jewish mayor, Jacob Frey, who rose to national prominence for his response to the deadly results of the deployment of immigrant enforcement officials in his city.
Flanagan has drawn endorsements from a swath of major progressive figures including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and outspoken pro-Palestinian Reps. Ro Khanna of California and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. Flanagan is also endorsed by the state’s Democratic Party affiliate, the Democratic Farmer Labor Party.
On Sunday Sanders posted on X,”There is a reason why the super PACs and billionaires are flooding Minnesota with $20 million to defeat Peggy Flanagan. Same thing as Michigan. They do not want somebody in the Senate who will stand up for the working class.”
Spending by political action committees affiliated with AIPAC has also come to the fore in the Democratic primary race for the House seat that Craig is vacating.
The most moderate of the three leading candidates is State Sen. Matt Klein, who has expressed support for the U.S.-Israel relationship and is endorsed by DMFI. Last-minute spending by outside groups has sparked accusations that AIPAC is indirectly involved.
“AIPAC is coming after me,” said former Lakeville mayor Matt Little, one of Klein’s opponents, in a video.
Klein’s two opponents — Little and state Rep. Kaela Berg — both accuse Israel of committing a genocide, and have both speculated that AIPAC is behind some of the Klein spending.
Berg supports placing conditions on U.S. aid to Israel and halting weapons sales, and Little says the U.S. must end all military aid and weapons sales to the country. On the policy page of his campaign website, Little refers to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack as “an act of wanton slaughter against innocent civilians” and says that people should condemn “the anti-Semitism that followed.”
Berg is listed as “primary approved” by the liberal Jewish Middle East advocacy group J Street, while Little has been boosted by American Priorities, which has spent about $64,000 in his favor. He is also endorsed by the DFL and Congressional Progressive Caucus leader Rep. Pramila Jayapal.
The latest polling in the district — conducted at the end of May by a group that favors Klein — found Little leading Klein with a 7-percentage point lead, and Berg trailing by another 3 points. 39 percent of voters were undecided, and Little and Klein were about even after voters received more information about the three candidates.
Craig has declined to endorse any of the candidates to replace her.
The post Israel and AIPAC on the ballot in the Minnesota Senate and U.S. House races appeared first on The Forward.
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Sister of pro-Israel stalwart Lindsey Graham wins runoff slot
(JTA) — South Carolina Sen. Darline Graham and a second Republican candidate will advance to a special primary runoff in two weeks, when voters will decide which GOP candidate might take the vacant seat of her late brother Lindsey Graham.
Just over an hour after polls closed, at about 8:15 pm, the Associated Press declared that Darline Graham would advance to a runoff election, noting that “one additional candidate will also advance.” At that point Graham had secured 32.6% of the vote, with 39% of ballots counted.
Graham was up against nine fellow Republicans, with her biggest competition including U.S. House Reps. Ralph Norman and Russell Fry, who were closely vying for the second spot in the runoff at the time of the AP’s call. In South Carolina, the top contender would have needed to win a majority of votes in order to avoid the two-candidate runoff, scheduled for August 25.
In the November general election, the winner will face Democrat Annie Andrews, a pediatrician who is unlikely to prevail in this solidly Republican state.
Tuesday’s race marked the second time in two months that GOP voters came to the polls to select a Senate candidate, and now they will need to do so a third time. Longstanding Sen. Lindsey Graham, a top ally of Israel in the U.S. Senate and supporter of military action against Iran. won the original primary in June but died suddenly from an aortic dissection on July 11.
Graham, who was 71 years old, served 23 years in the Senate and eight in the U.S. House. He was a member of the Senate’s Armed Services and Budget committees and had traveled to Israel about a dozen times since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Heading into Tuesday’s primary, analysts expressed no doubt that the winner would be pro-Israel. They stressed, however, that matching Graham’s level of foreign policy experience and focus on Israel, a place he often visited, would be a formidable task.
“Whoever wins this is going to be an ally of Israel,” Christopher Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in the lead-up to the race. “The question is whether they will be the champion for Israel that Lindsey Graham was.”
A few days after Graham’s death, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, appointed Darline Graham to complete the late senator’s term. Despite having minimal policy experience, such as a past role on the South Carolina Commission for the Blind, she earned President Trump’s support and soon declared her candidacy in the full race.
While 10 candidates were running in the Tuesday primary, only about two others were considered serious competition for Graham, Norman and Fry: businessman Mark Lynch and Mark Sanford, whose governorship was plagued with scandals and who briefly ran against Trump in the 2020 presidential primaries.
The post Sister of pro-Israel stalwart Lindsey Graham wins runoff slot appeared first on The Forward.
