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When a breast cancer diagnosis knocked me down, a network of Jewish women lifted me up
(JTA) — On the way home from the hospital where I was given my diagnosis of grade 2 invasive lobular breast cancer, I directed my husband, through my tears, to stop at the kosher store.
“I don’t want to see anyone right now,” I said, knowing the inevitability of running into someone we knew in the small Jewish community where we live, “so can you go in?” He pulled into the parking lot. “We need challah,” I reminded him. It was Thursday, after all. The next evening was Shabbat. Time doesn’t stand still for cancer.
My hospital appointment took place two days after the front page of the New York Times declared: “When Should Women Get Regular Mammograms: At 40, U.S. Panel Now Says.” I was 48. Breast cancer has long been the second most common cancer for women, after skin cancer. It is also the most lethal after lung cancer. Statistically, though, most women affected are postmenopausal, so unless there was a specific reason to test early, women were screened regularly from the age of 50. Now, the advice has changed. Breast cancer is rising in younger women. For women in their 40s, the rate of increase between 2015 and 2019 doubled from the previous decade to 2 per cent per year.
Why is this happening? Air pollution? Microplastics? Chemicals in our food? We don’t know.
In the days following my appointment, there was a proliferation of articles about the topic. Importantly, doctors explained that the cancer women are diagnosed with in their 40s tends to be a more aggressive type of cancer. Cancers in premenopausal women grow faster; many breast cancers, like mine, are hormone sensitive. (Got estrogen? Bad luck for you.)
When I posted the news about my diagnosis — on Facebook, because I’m an oversharing type — I was stunned by the number of friends my age, more discreet about their lives, who sent me messages to tell me they had recently gone through the same thing. Everyone had advice. “If you can do a lumpectomy, you’re very lucky. It’s not a major operation, and you’ll preserve your breast.” “Cut it all off! Immediately! Just get rid of all it and you’ll never worry again! Do you want to spend the rest of your life in mammogram scanxiety?” “Ask plastic surgeons for pictures, and pick the cutest new boobs out there. You won’t regret it.” “The radiation burns—that’s something no one ever tells you. Get yourself some Lubriderm and lidocaine, mix into a slurry, slap it on a panty liner, and tuck it in your sports bra.”
I’m not sure why I thought I was immune. Or maybe I didn’t — maybe I just never gave it much thought. Even when I found the lump on my breast, I was dismissive. I went to the doctor, and she asked if anyone in my family had had breast cancer. “Oh, who knows? They were all murdered,” I said blithely. Her eyes bugged. “In the Holocaust,” I added. “Your…mother? Grandmother? Sisters?” “Oh! No, no history of breast cancer in my immediate family.”
Add to that, my mother and sister both tested negative for the BRCA gene mutations, and that’s my Ashkenazi side. The thing is, though, most women who test positive for breast cancer have no family history of it.
But also, I’d done everything right! If you look through the preventative measures, I took all of them. I had three kids by 35, and I breastfed them. I have a healthy, mostly plant-based diet; I walk and cycle everywhere. I’m not a drinker or smoker. I eat so many blueberries!
Several of the articles that have been published in recent days are emphasizing the particular danger for Black women, with good reason: They have twice the mortality rate of white women. But as I did my research, I realized that Jewish women should also be on high alert. We’ve long known that one in forty Ashkenazi women has the BRCA gene mutation, significantly raising the risk of breast cancer (50% of women with the gene mutation will get breast cancer) as well ovarian cancer, which is much harder to detect and far more deadly. So many of my friends who reached out to me to tell me of their breast cancer experiences are Jewish; interestingly, not one has the BRCA mutation. Are these high numbers indicative or anecdotal? Are Jewish women generally more susceptible to breast cancer? This seems to be an important area of future research.
For me, that research will come too late — as did the guidance. For now, I have to accept that this cancer diagnosis is part of my life, that just as I will pick up challah every Thursday, I will wake every morning and take my hormone-blocking Tamoxifen. I will lose sleep every night about which surgery to have until I have the surgery, and then I will lose sleep every night about whether it was fully successful. And there’s plenty more in store for me that isn’t pretty; so it goes.
But here’s a good thing that’s already come out of this diagnosis: When the responses to my Facebook post flooded in, they were not only along the lines of “Refuah shleimah” and “I’ve just been through this too,” but also, “Thank you for sharing! I’m going to book my mammogram right now!”
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The Hardest Thing in Philanthropy Is Saying ‘No’
An aerial view of the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
When people ask what the hardest thing about working in philanthropy is, they expect to hear about challenges related to raising money or dealing with difficult donors or recipients in various situations.
In actuality, the answer is significantly more painful: The hardest thing in philanthropy is saying “no.”
We know when there is money available and when there isn’t. At the end of the day, someone needs to make decisions.
I recently looked into the origin of the word philanthropy. The word is derived from an ancient Greek word “philos,” which refers to love, and “anthropos,” which refers to people. Basically, philanthropy literally translates to the love of humanity.
Note that there is no mention of money or donations in this definition. This shows something profound: the basic necessity of philanthropy is having a genuine desire to help other people. Money is simply a tool.
Imagine two cases that come up on the same day: One person needs an urgent financial grant for food. The second person requests support for studies that will allow him to earn a decent living and become independent, helping him stand on his own two feet. The budget is only able to help one of them. Which would you choose?
What needs to be considered: Is it better to give someone a fish, or teach them how to fish? I believe that it’s better to invest in someone who will be able to stand on their own two feet tomorrow and potentially even help others in the future. True, we have to say “no” to someone else, but that’s part of the decision.
I’ve been working in fundraising for more than 40 years in the United States, Canada, and Israel. The money we transfer is not ours — it’s the money of other people who have trusted us. We are the faithful messengers, which means we must ask: What will the effects of this money be?
It’s also a matter of professional responsibility. Every dollar is scrutinized — is the organization legitimate? Does it comply with tax laws on both sides? Just a month ago, I had to explain to a donor that donations to military causes do not meet the definition of charity under US tax law. That’s the kind of guidance an intermediary organization should give — even when it means saying “no.”
At our foundation, we work as a bridge between donors in North America and nonprofits in Israel. A donor in Toronto or New York wants to help in Israel, but they need someone on the ground to check and verify their potential projects. True philanthropy begins with loving people, but continues with the understanding that you can’t help everyone. And when the moment comes to say “no” — and it always will — you have to remember that it’s part of the mission. Because if we say “yes” to everyone, it would prevent us from helping anyone.
Chaim Katz is the founder and CEO of the Ne’eman Foundation, which helps Israeli non-profits receive donations from North America.
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UC San Diego ‘Guardian’ Journalist Unfairly Attacks Study Abroad Program in Israel
The San Diego skyline. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Following the announcement of the UC San Diego study abroad program in Israel and Jordan this winter, some students — including UCSD Guardian senior staff writer Jaechan Preston Lee — expressed outrage at the Anthropology department’s decision to host the trip.
The critical article that Lee published in the university paper last month parades misinformation as truth, and exacerbates the already fragile climate on campus.
His article conveys Israel as a militaristic, vengeful, malevolent, and hateful state. And his argument promotes exclusion and discourages students from gaining a comprehensive understanding of perspectives they may not agree with.
Accepting Lee’s call to cancel the trip would undermine our school’s commitment to academic freedom, further demonize pro-Israel and Jewish community members, and allow his deeply distorted worldview to continue bullying its way into wider acceptance.
On Oct. 5, the UCSD Anthropology Department sent an email to all undergraduate students offering the opportunity to learn about the region’s “ancient and recent past” by “meeting people of very different religious and ethnic backgrounds.”
Two weeks later, Lee argued that the trip is “unethical and reckless” because it is “a form of American and Israeli soft power influence on the West’s perception of land rights and indigeneity in the Middle East.” He justifies his position in a number of ways, all of which collapse under even modest scrutiny.
First, it’s important to address his false claims. The characterization of Israel as an “apartheid state” and the current conflict with the Palestinians as a “genocide” are easily disproven.
Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel enjoy full and equal rights. They serve in every single level of society — from the Supreme Court and Knesset to all levels of civil life — and policies regarding the disputed territories are either temporary or a response to constant terror threats.
The genocide accusation is equally false. First, there was no intention to commit genocide — which is legally and morally required for the term to ever apply. Israel was fighting a war of self defense after the Oct. 7 massacre. Second, any arguments about population decline in Gaza cannot be proven — because the death tolls released by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry have been falsified and also debunked.
The genocide accusation is also a complete insult to populations that have undergone an actual genocide — since no “genocide” in history has included protective actions such as leaflet distribution to encourage evacuation, nor has it ended immediately after hostages were released. Israel had the fire power to kill hundreds of thousands, if not a million Gazans. If genocide were Israel’s true aim, why were none of these capabilities ever used?
What’s more, all of the sources that Lee offers have faced widespread criticism for being incredibly dishonest and systemically biased against Israel for decades.
The UN report Lee hyperlinks was co-written by a rapporteur who is so antisemitic that she is being sanctioned by the US government. Lee also cites Hamas-allied Qatari state media Al Jazeera to suggest that Israel attacked its neighboring countries unprovoked, without mention of Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, or jihadist activity in Syria.
Lee’s work follows a pattern in biased discourse where the lie of Israel’s unique evil is repeated until nobody questions if it’s true. Regardless of intent, Lee has become a mouthpiece for the propaganda that he claims to oppose.
One revealing argument targets Israel’s archaeological work, which Lee portrays as a means for the state to exert control over disputed land. By acknowledging Jewish artifacts beneath the soil, he implicitly affirms the deep historical Jewish roots in the region, yet dismisses that history as irrelevant to Jewish claims to the land. He also overlooks concerns that, under full Palestinian control, many of these sites and artifacts would risk neglect or destruction. The very existence of this debate underscores the importance of students seeing Israel’s archaeological realities firsthand.
Lee also fails to mention that the trip will include excursions in Jordan. The program is clearly designed to provide a balanced regional perspective rather than promote any single narrative.
At its core, the article is an excuse to attack Israel and isolate Zionist students. To deprive students of the opportunity to visit Israel is to attack our community’s freedom of choice and academic strength.
If the mere exposure to opposing perspectives derails your cause, perhaps it isn’t an honest one.
The campus culture at UCSD has been divisive and exclusionary towards Jews and Israelis since Oct. 7, 2023. Harmful narratives shut out anyone whose experiences do not align, and Lee’s piece will likely contribute to this trend.
By hosting this trip, the Anthropology Department takes a step toward changing that. It demonstrates a commitment to fostering global citizens and critical thinkers who inform their opinions through conversations with real people rather than 60-second videos on TikTok feeds.
I hope that the trip’s participants will show our campus what it means to engage rather than alienate. Maybe they will open the door for a generation of students who choose curiosity over banishment, and have the courage to see one another as people, not as sides of a centuries-old geopolitical conflict.
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The Netherlands Shows Her True Colors Once Again
A view shows the Peace Palace, which houses the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in The Hague, Netherlands, April 28, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
I never thought I would write these words, but I have lost respect for my own country. I say that with sadness, not anger. For years, I believed in the Dutch reputation for fairness, nuance, and moral clarity. Today, that image has crumbled. The way Dutch media covers Israel is not just biased; it is intellectually lazy, historically empty, and socially dangerous. Worst of all, it fuels a rising wave of antisemitism in a nation that should know exactly where that road leads.
The most recent example came from Trouw, a newspaper that once claimed to value journalistic integrity. It published an uncritical article praising the views of Ta-Nehisi Coates, who labeled Israel an “apartheid state.” That accusation was presented to readers as if it were self-evident truth, not an opinion. No context. No history. No pushback. No mention of equal rights for all Arab citizens. No mentions of terrorism, of facts on the ground, of the repeated rejection of peace initiatives, or of the lives Israelis have been forced to defend from relentless violence. It was a piece of writing that replaced journalism with activism, and knowledge with slogans.
If Dutch journalists insist on making comparisons, then honesty requires them to explain what real apartheid actually looked like. South Africa enforced legally defined racial categories, stripped millions of their citizenship, banned interracial marriage, separated schools, hospitals, beaches, toilets, buses, universities, and neighborhoods. Black South Africans were barred from voting, from certain jobs, and from owning land in most of the country. They were forced into impoverished “homelands,” denied freedom of movement, and subject to routine torture and violence by the state. None of this resembles Israel. Not even remotely.
But the truth no longer seems to matter in Dutch newsrooms. Nuance has disappeared. Context has vanished. Emotion has replaced evidence, and ideology has replaced inquiry. Israel is guilty by default, while its critics are treated as prophets whose words require no verification.
The Dutch media’s relentless one-sidedness reveals something deeper and more troubling than mere ignorance. It reflects a renewed comfort with blaming Jews for the world’s problems, a habit with a long and ugly history in Europe. When articles like the one in Trouw are circulated without challenge, they do not educate the public; they radicalize it. They normalize anti-Jewish hostility. They transform a complex conflict into a morality play, where Israelis are cast as colonial villains and Palestinians as blameless victims, regardless of reality.
As a Dutch citizen, I am ashamed. Ashamed of the intellectual laziness in our press. Ashamed of the moral posturing that ignores Jewish suffering. Ashamed of how quickly we have forgotten our responsibility to truth after the darkest chapter in European history. And ashamed that my country, once known for moral clarity, now prefers fashionable outrage over honest reporting.
Israel is not perfect. No nation is. But the apartheid accusation is not journalism. It is propaganda. And when the Dutch media amplifies it, they are not holding power to account — but are helping to spread a lie with real consequences for Jewish communities and for the possibility of peace.
It is time for Dutch journalists to rediscover integrity. And it is time for readers to demand it.
It is also time, more than ever, to stand up for Israel, because truth still matters.
Sabine Sterk is CEO of the NGO Time To Stand Up For Israel.