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The Passover lesson we need most after devastating years of war
During my family’s Passover seder we will drip wine from our glasses as we recite each plague suffered by the Egyptians, a tradition that partly symbolizes regret at the suffering of innocents.
Perhaps the most fundamental lesson of Passover, as Rabbi Lauren Metzger wrote in 2025, is that “you must have empathy for others because you know what it means to suffer.” This year, Jews and non-Jews alike need that lesson more than ever.
Shortly before the onset of the war with Iran I was in Baka, Jerusalem, visiting my Israeli relatives. Stickers around the neighborhood memorialized soldiers killed in Gaza. Fortunately, none of my nephews who had served in the reserves are represented in these memorials. They survived hostile fire, and attended funerals for fallen comrades.
It struck me that there were no references to the civilians killed in Gaza.
In an August, 2025 poll, 62% of Israelis agreed with the claim that there weren’t any innocents in Gaza. One Israeli peace activist I knew, who was living in Brooklyn for a few months, told me shortly after the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023 that he had lost sympathy for Gaza’s non-combatants.
Besides some small protests against what former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called “war crimes” in Gaza, and others against the violent rampages by West Bank settlers, Israelis have shown little interest in Palestinian suffering. Such moral blindness will make it difficult for them to internalize the symbolism of dripping wine onto their Seder plates.
Israelis are suffering from a kind of collective PTSD from the savagery of Oct. 7, the war against Hamas, and decades of terrorism. I imagine that the war with Iran will exacerbate their sense of vulnerability, preventing them from seeing beyond their anger and fear.
Their traumas leave little room for the empathy demanded by Passover.
In Baka I spoke to one of my relatives, who had served more than 300 days in the reserves. “At first there was no question about serving,” he said. “The stakes were existential.” Many of his fellow-reservists, he said, were no longer serving because of PTSD, or because their families were falling apart without them.
My brother-in-law showed me the bomb shelter where he had spent nights during last year’s 12-day missile exchange with Iran. This time around, he rides his bicycle to visit his grandchildren, carrying with him a map marking the shelters on his route.
But as much of the world condemns Israelis for insufficient empathy for Palestinians, it also showcases a remarkable lack of empathy for the ordeals experienced by Israelis themselves.
My Park Slope, Brooklyn neighborhood is dotted with “Free Palestine” signs. Just as there were no references in Baka to the slaughter in Gaza, the displays on the houses of my pro-Palestinian neighbors are silent about the atrocities of Oct. 7, an omission that has me doubting the thoughtfulness of their protest.
But while anti-Zionism has attracted its share of hypocrites, the Jewish communal establishment has largely overlooked Israel’s misdeeds.
The prevailing mantra is that anti-Zionism is antisemitism — an overly broad formulation that lumps supporters of Hamas in with advocates for a bi-national state.
In practice, too much of the Jewish community has treated all of Israel’s politically progressive detractors as illegitimate messengers. Approaching the progressive left’s accusations around Israel with wholesale disregard has allowed many of my co-religionists to duck the moral questions that have arisen in these devastating years of war. In this way, we mirror our Israeli counterparts.
Polling shows that more Americans now favor the Palestinians over the Israelis — a radical inversion from even a year ago. Unless the Jewish community fully acknowledges the role Israel’s behavior has played in this shift, we will become isolated from the political mainstream. We will also lose the credibility needed to assume the type of ethical leadership that has marked Jewish-American history.
Israel is also trending towards isolation. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for his country to become a militaristic “super Sparta.” Embracing that vision would alienate most of the world community, as well as many younger Jewish Americans, who are already disillusioned by Israel’s illiberalism.
The antidote to isolation is for Jews to do the difficult work of confronting the reality of ongoing suffering in Gaza, as well as the anguish of innocents in Lebanon, Iran and the West Bank — and to find empathy. In 2026, this is the work that Passover demands of us.
In the Passover story God hardens Pharaoh’s heart, leading to his downfall. We must embrace the holiday’s call for empathy, or risk, like Pharaoh, becoming slaves to fear and self-imposed insularity.
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UK adopts sweeping measures against antisemitism in schools
(JTA) — The U.K. has adopted sweeping measures to combat antisemitism in English schools, prompting pushback from the country’s largest teachers’ union.
The move came after a new government-commissioned review found that three in five Jewish students reported experiencing antisemitism in English schools. The most common incidents were jokes, stereotypes and comments about Jewish people. About half of respondents who witnessed or experienced antisemitism said the incidents were not reported, most often because they did not think they would be taken seriously.
The government on Wednesday accepted 27 recommendations from the report, including dedicated antisemitism training for leaders and staff, improved recording of antisemitic incidents and moves to build a better understanding of Jewish life, identity and contemporary antisemitism.
The government commissioned the report following a spate of high-profile attacks on Jews in Britain, including an attack on a synagogue in Manchester last year that left two men dead.
The report’s author, Sir David Bell, the vice chancellor of the University of Sunderland and former chief inspector of schools in England, recommended addressing antisemitism distinctly from other forms of racism. He argued that antisemitism was a “uniquely complex” problem because of intertwined racial and religious dimensions, since Jewish identity can encompass both an ethnicity and a religion, along with expressions of prejudice that hold all Jews responsible for the actions of Israel.
The government will also encourage English schools to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. The definition is supported by many mainstream Jewish organizations and has been adopted by 47 countries, including the U.K., but critics say that it conflates some forms of antisemitism with criticism of Israel.
British Education Secretary Lucy Powell called Bell’s review a “generational moment” and said that “implementation is now my priority.”
However, the National Education Union, the largest union representing teachers, lecturers, teaching assistants and support staff in the United Kingdom and Europe, raised concerns on Wednesday about recommending the IHRA definition for schools. NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede said in a statement that the definition “risks deepening the problem rather than tackling it, and actively undermining efforts to confront antisemitism.”
“The IHRA’s contested framing risks blurring the line between antisemitism and legitimate criticism of the Israeli government and the genocide in Gaza, leaving teachers with uncertainty when they need clarity,” said Kebede. He cited a risk that “children who cannot critically explore issues through classroom discussion will instead seek their answers in online and unsafe groups.”
Kebede also encouraged Britain’s Department for Education to strengthen guidance on all forms of racism, not only antisemitism, saying that 65% of teachers report they have not received any antiracism training in the past year.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews, an umbrella organization for British Jewish communities, celebrated the antisemitism report and the government’s adoption of its proposed measures. The group specifically praised the report’s “clear recommendations that schools and local authorities follow government guidelines by adopting the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism as a tool to deepen understanding of contemporary antisemitism.”
“We remain concerned about undue external influence on schools driven by narrow political agendas, and tendentious materials seeping into schools and increasing disharmony, and we will continue to press for vigilance against this,” said the Board of Deputies.
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Orthodox Jewish man stabbed in midtown Manhattan
(New York Jewish Week) — An Orthodox Jewish man is in stable condition after being stabbed on Wednesday evening in the Diamond District of midtown Manhattan. Police are investigating the attack as a possible hate crime.
Police told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating the incident as a possible antisemitic attack, and Manhattan Shomrim — the Jewish community watch group — has asked people to share footage as police search for the suspect. No arrests have been made.
The victim was identified by police as a 26-year-old man, and Orthodox Jewish outlet COLLive identified him as a resident of Crown Heights, the neighborhood that is home to the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement’s headquarters.
He was taken to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition. Police said they were called at about 5:50 p.m. on Wednesday after the man was stabbed in the back with “an unknown sharp object” on 47th Street near Fifth Avenue. ABC7 reported that the victim told investigators he believed he was stabbed with a needle or syringe.
According to the Chabad website, which published an interview with the victim, he is a recently ordained Hasidic rabbi named Joseph, who commutes to Midtown each day to wrap tefillin with Jewish merchants. The attacker, Joseph told the website, was a woman who seemed to be following him prior to the stabbing.
The attack comes as Jewish New Yorkers have been targeted in more than half of the hate crimes committed in New York City this year, despite making up about 12% of the city’s population.
In July, an assailant stabbed two men on the Upper West Side, including one who was leaving a synagogue, while yelling “Allahu akbar,” and was charged with committing hate crimes.
Louis Keene contributed reporting.
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VIDEO: A Hasid gives us a tour of Morocco in Yiddish
דער ירושלימער יוטוב־שטערן וועלוול קירשנבוים האָט לעצטנס אַרויסגעשטעלט אַ ווידעאָ אויף ייִדיש פֿון אַ פּרעכטיקן וויזיט, וואָס ער האָט געמאַכט אין מאַראָקאָ. עס באַגלייט אים זײַן חבֿר אַבֿרהם פּרץ.
אינעם ווידעאָ זעט מען ווי קירשנבוים דאַוונט שחרית מיט די אָרטיקע ייִדן און באַזוכט אַ גוט אָפּגעהיטענעם בית־עולם, וווּ עס ליגן באַערדיקט גרויסע צדיקים ווי למשל הרבֿ חיים בן עתר (1696–1743), באַקאַנט ווי דער „אור החיים“. „מענטשן מיינען, אַז נאָר אין אייראָפּע זענען דאָ קבֿרים פֿון צדיקים!“ זאָגט קירשנבוים.
מיר זעען אַ גרויסע, שיינע שיל מיט אַ פֿײַנער אַרכיטעקטור אין קאַזאַבלאַנקאַ; דעם גרויסן אַראַבישן שוק, וווּ קירשנבוים קויפֿט זיך אײַן מלבושים פּונקט ווי די מאַראָקאַנער גייען אָנגעטאָן. ער באַוווּנדערט אויך די שיינע טיי־גלעזער און טשײַניקן, וואָס מע פֿאַרקויפֿט דאָרט, און באַקענט זיך מיט אַ ייִדישן סוחר וואָס האַנדלט מיט זילבער און גאָלד, פּונקט אַזוי ווי זײַן טאַטע און זיידע האָבן געטאָן פֿאַר דור־דורות.
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