June 12, 2024

For many years, the powerful realm of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) has been infiltrated by bad actors who exploit the image of altruism to get big donations and promote agendas of hate. While the evidence of manipulation and corruption is readily found, many politicians, journalists and academics continue to automatically give organizations claiming to support moral principles – peace, democracy, human rights, free speech etc – a stamp of approval and are eager to be featured on their platforms. This “halo effect” surrounds and protects the powerful political NGO industry from scrutiny. In contrast to the governmental and business sectors, these organizations have no frameworks for oversight, checks and balances, or independent oversight.

Occasionally this NGO halo effect gets punctured, the carefully manicured images are exposed as frauds, and the immoral reality becomes visible, causing embarrassment and worse for all involved. 

However, occasionally this NGO halo effect gets punctured, the carefully manicured images are exposed as frauds, and the immoral reality becomes visible, causing embarrassment and worse for all involved. Human Rights Watch, a mega-NGO, maintained the façade of credibility, despite a long history of false claims and obsessive condemnations targeting Israel. Top officials, aided by a well-paid public relations staff, carefully polish HRW’s reputation and attack critics who see through the halo effect. (I am a frequent target.) Recently, however, evidence has emerged of secret funding from Qatar. Also, Danielle Haas, who spent 13 years as a senior editor, confirmed and provided details exposing HRW’s façade of “research,” combined with deeply embedded antisemitism. As the halo disappears, everyone associated with this organization, including staff members, donors and board members, is tainted.  

In another example, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was advertised as a keynote speaker for an online “Palestine Digital Activist Forum,” organized by a NGO by the name of 7amleh (pronounced Hamleh, meaning “campaign” in Arabic) which claims to “empower and enrich Palestinian digital activity.” A few days before the event, her office issued a terse statement announcing that she had decided not to participate, citing “a large volume of claims about individuals associated with the event” and their inability to “sift through it all …”  

The “claims about individuals” that led to Senator Warren’s belated and abrupt turnaround were statements from many 7amleh officials supporting the Hamas October 7 atrocities. In addition, she was confronted with the evidence highlighting the NGO’s cooperation with other NGOs linked to designated terror organizations — particularly the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Under the façade of free speech and opposing “the silencing of Palestinian voices,” 7amleh is part of the Hamas cheering section. Not surprisingly, they cooperate closely with Human Rights Watch in attacking social media platforms – specifically, Facebook and Instagram, both owned by Meta – with false claims of unjustifiably deleting posts that are merely “critical of Israel.”

For anyone who goes beyond the organization’s artificial halo, the blatant declarations of support for the atrocities of Oct. 7 and other deeply troubling rhetoric are not hard to find. For example, on Oct. 7, board member Neveen Abu Rahmoun posted (in Arabic) on Facebook, “The Palestinian resistance is imposing a new stage since the beginning of the Al-Aqsa flood operation [Hamas’ name for the massacre] by resistance fighters infiltrating into numerous Israeli neighborhoods in the settlements.”  She added, “The message of the resistance is clear, it has started and it shall escalate and shall impose a new reality.”

Similarly, 7amleh “monitoring and documentation officer” Ahmad Qadi celebrated terror attacks on Jerusalem synagogues in both 2023 and 2015.  After five Israelis were murdered in the 2015 assault, Qadi posted, also in Arabic, “I have been wishing for pictures like these for a while, and I still wonder – of what these men are made of?! #deeply_exciting.”

This open-source information has been available for months, which means that when Senator Warren and her staff accepted the invitation to participate, either they did not bother to check, or they saw it and did not see a problem. But as the evidence became increasingly visible and the criticism increased, they realized that linking the senator’s name and prestige to this hate-supporting NGO was a political liability. (NGO Monitor, the independent institute that I founded and head, is the main source for this information.) 

Also illustrating the NGO halo effect, 7amleh receives large donations from the governments of Switzerland, Norway, and Germany, as well as the U.N. and George Soros’ Open Society Foundation. 

Senator Warren does not come out of this incident looking good – the failure to vet the invitation is a liability, while the anti-Israel activists will criticize her for backing out. It is also a warning to other politicians, as well as journalists and academics, on the dangers of automatically embracing NGO propagandists, disguised as noble warriors for justice.

Gerald M. Steinberg is emeritus professor of politics at Bar Ilan University in Israel, and founder of the NGO Monitor research institute in Jerusalem.  

I’ve always given credit to East Brunswick, New Jersey. Though I lived there for less than a decade, it was a formative time — grade school through college (at nearby Rutgers University) — that truly shaped my identity and led me to a career in music and entertainment journalism.

I attended East Brunswick High School, which today is ground zero for an unsolved mystery straight out of Nancy Drew. In the yearbook that arrived in students’ hands last week, a photograph of the Jewish Student Union was inexplicably swapped out for a group of Muslim classmates. The participating Jewish students’ names were also deleted from the page. No one — not the superintendent, principal or mayor — seems to know how the image got there. As of this writing, the contracted printer, based in Minnesota, had yet to comment. 

In the yearbook that arrived in students’ hands last week, a photograph of the Jewish Student Union was inexplicably swapped out for a group of Muslim classmates. The participating Jewish students’ names were also deleted from the page.

It is not an isolated incident. High schools in California, Texas and Illinois have also printed politically charged statements authored by students related to the current crisis in Gaza, and to the October 7 attacks on Israel during which Hamas terrorists massacred over 1,200 people — some citizens of the U.S. — and took hostage several hundred, half of whose fates are still undetermined.   

Having worked in print publications for the last 30 years, I can say with some confidence that the cost to correct and re-print the EBHS yearbook is probably not exorbitant. As it is, the school has opted to reproduce the page, collect all the yearbooks from students and replace each individually with the corrected page. It will cost only $1,000, but the damage caused by this, let’s call it disprint, the town may never recover from.

I don’t recall such ethno-religious strife when I lived in East Brunswick. Having immigrated from Israel, my family was active in Jewish life but hardly devout. I didn’t even have a bat mitzvah, though the calendar was full with invitations. Still, my parents chose central New Jersey in part for its robust Jewish community. Another key factor was its proximity to New York City (an hour’s drive) and, of course, the blue-ribbon public schools. 

I’m sure my mom, a professor, had some concern about my education and vetted my future alma mater. There was no cause for worry. Our teachers opened our eyes to different cultures and art, to injustices throughout history, to works of great writers that today would undoubtedly end up on a red state list of books to ban. There was a program called IPLE (Institute for Political and Legal Education) where we learned to debate difficult issues of civics and law — spurring us to introspection and helping set a moral compass that we’d carry well into adulthood. 

These debates, which would determine participation in regional competitions like Model Congress, sometimes got heated. They revealed a lot about the debater and their views: where they came from and how their positions evolved. You were left to make your case in front of the classroom with nothing to shield you but a weathered podium and a piece of paper folded in half that bore your last name in Sharpie. They were spirited conversations, but rarely nasty. Students, seated in a semicircle, were passionate about their cause — pro or con — and the class served its learning purpose: mutual respect in the form of the age-old guidepost to “try and put yourself in someone else’s shoes.”

My time at East Brunswick prepared me for real life. The school was probably mostly white back then, but it didn’t feel that way. I had friends of all colors, religions and socio-economic backgrounds — whose photos and life goals I looked forward to perusing in the almighty yearbook. 

You might be thinking: Who cares about a printed book when we all have Instagram accounts with pictures and videos that present how we want to be seen? And that’s just it: the yearbook is the official record of your school years — curated, yes, but also meant to accurately reflect the shared experience. As my fellow Gen Xers on the internet have jousted, we blocked people we didn’t like by literally cutting them out of the page (X-Acto knife recommended), or, say, drawing a booger on their photo. Whatever the motivation, it was a solitary act.   

Putting together a yearbook is not unlike a magazine. The student members of the yearbook committee — editors, writers, photographers — assemble the content over many weeks, presumably with a teacher or advisor overseeing the process. Photos are sized, formatted to the correct printing resolution, and sometimes separated into color files. Text and art are put into layouts so as to fit the page and avoid blank white space (like the missing Jewish Students Union caption). Every page gets copy-edited for grammar and spelling and looked over by multiple pairs of eyes with the editor-in-chief presumably giving the final OK. The students are likely working on a lead time of four to five months. If the printed product reached the school on June 1, the files were probably sent in March. 

Somehow, in the short window between final sign-off and going to press, someone (a student? a supervisor?) had to go into the digital files, access the layout, delete and insert a photo and pretend (or forge?) that all was approved for printing. Did the subterfuge come from the printer’s end, as EB Mayor Brad Cohen asked in a press release following what he called a “blatant anti-Semitic act,” or was it a shit-stirring prank by kids who may or may not have a horse in the race? Like many of the masked protesters setting up camp on U.S. college campuses and blocking access to Jewish students, these agitators’ identities are unknown.  

“Regardless of the ‘who,’ the ‘what’ is bad enough!” wrote one of my peers on Facebook. She’s right. The “what” will be remembered. The “who” is more likely to get erased with time. The “how” — as in, how can this happen in my hometown in 2024? — has alums livid. 

“I’ve always felt proud to call East Brunswick my hometown … and I never thought something like this antisemitic incident could happen at my alma mater,” says class of 1998 graduate Brett Gursky, who also served as the editor of the yearbook. “This could never just happen by accident. It’s shocking and heartbreaking. Whoever is responsible for this obvious hate crime should face consequences like not getting their diploma, not graduating from high school, not going to prom, and having their college acceptances rescinded. The only way to combat real-life hate is with real-life consequences.”

Other EBHS graduates have taken to social media and letter-writing campaigns. One note circulating lays blame on the adults in the room. “The inclusion of such hateful material in an official school publication raises serious questions about the moral character of the students involved in this act, as well as the supervision and involvement of the faculty members responsible for overseeing the yearbook’s production,” it reads. “It is unfathomable that such content could have slipped through without the explicit or implicit approval of those in charge.”

One of my most beloved former teachers, the late John Calimano, taught us there’s space for everyone. What happened to that kind of education?

Shirley Halperin is the editor-in-chief of Los Angeles Magazine and has held senior editorial positions at Variety, Billboard and the Hollywood Reporter. She graduated from East Brunswick High School in 1990.

It is said that right before composing his iconic Fifth Symphony, Beethoven wrote that his oncoming deafness had “brought me to the verge of despair.” He questioned whether he had the strength to go on: “But little more and I would have put an end to my life.” From this very place of adversity and despair, Beethoven composed one of the most powerful musical expressions of hope.

If ever there was a musical metaphor for the place that I now call home – Israel – it is Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Hearing it live in Tel Aviv this past Saturday night, just hours after the dramatic and heroic rescue of hostages, encapsulated Beethoven’s message of finding hope amidst despair.

Everywhere we turned there were people jubilantly waving Israeli flags, chanting “They brought them home, they brought them home!”

It was a warm night in Tel Aviv, but the electricity in the air cut through the humidity. Peni and I walked down Rothschild Boulevard on our way to the Charles Bronfman Auditorium, the home of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Everywhere we turned there were people jubilantly waving Israeli flags, chanting “They brought them home, they brought them home!”

As we entered the auditorium, the atmosphere on this night was destined to be different from any other time I heard Beethoven’s Fifth.

I have always dreamt of being a symphony conductor. Growing up, and even to this day, one of my favorite forms of relaxation is standing in my living room with a conductor’s baton, playing Beethoven’s Fifth on my stereo, and conducting an imaginary orchestra. 

Given my dream of standing on that conductor’s podium, I decided that for this concert in Tel Aviv, I would splurge like I never have before: front row tickets, center aisle. It’s as close to that magic podium I have ever sat. When I purchased those tickets a few days earlier, I could never have anticipated what I would witness and hear from those seats.

The conductor I always dreamt of being came out onto the stage and took his traditional bows. Rotem Nir – a 26-year-old musical prodigy – would take command of Israel’s orchestra tonight, leading them through complex pieces by Mozart and Chopin, followed by Beethoven’s majestic Fifth Symphony.

As the orchestra took their seats, one musician – flutist Boaz Meirovitch – came forward and spoke to the audience. It was the message we were all waiting to hear. He spoke about the heroic rescue of hostages that had taken place earlier that day, and poignantly pointed out that “Here in Israel, moments of triumph are too often blended with pain and mourning. Liberated hostages, but also a fallen soldier – Arnon Zmora z”l. In his death, Arnon Zmora commanded the hostages he helped bring home – and all of us – to life.” 

Following these moving words, the 2,400 members of the audience rose to their feet, and accompanied by the harmonic blend of instruments played by the Israel Philharmonic, we sang our national anthem of hope: “Hatikvah.” There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. I told Peni that I have never been to a concert where the climax took place in the beginning. But this was only the beginning.

We had just finished paying tribute to a young fallen officer, and seeing the young Rotem Nir take command of the symphony conjured up poetic images of an Israeli officer leading his troops. 

It was the beginning of a musical journey, with a 26-year-old at the helm. There was something deeply symbolic about seeing such a young person in charge. We had just finished paying tribute to a young fallen officer, and seeing the young Rotem Nir take command of the symphony conjured up poetic images of an Israeli officer leading his troops. Arnon Zmora was a leader of troops who fight for freedom, and on this night – Rotem Nir was a leader of a different sort of troops, those whose music and art represent the highest expressions of the very freedom that Arnon fought for. 

With the confidence, skill, talent and creativity of a combat officer, Rotem Nir’s masterful leadership of his “orchestral troops” produced one of the most powerful and creative interpretations of Beethoven’s Fifth I have ever heard. Like the State of Israel, it was young, fresh, dramatic and upbeat all at once. Sitting up front, Peni and I felt the music rush through our bodies. I felt spiritually uplifted, a religious moment I haven’t experienced in many years. It took everything in me to resist jumping on stage and joining this young maestro. I rejoiced in watching him live out my dream.

The next day, Peni and I went to Jerusalem, joining thousands of our fellow Israelis at the Har Herzl Military Cemetery, where we would pay our final respects to Arnon Zmora z”l. It was painful hearing his mother, wife, brother, comrades and friends, plus recordings of his little children, all eulogize a young son, husband, sibling, father, warrior and super cool guy who had his whole life ahead of him. 

Arnon’s funeral brought me back to Meirovitch’s painful words: “Here in Israel, moments of triumph are too often blended with pain and mourning. Liberated hostages, but also a fallen soldier – Arnon Zmora z”l.”

But it also reminded me of Boaz’s closing words, that “in his death, Arnon Zmora commanded us to life.”

In the face of adversity and despair, of Oct. 7, hostages, war and countless funerals, how do we follow Arnon Zmora’s “command to life”?

With “Three G’s and an E-flat – Ta, Ta, Ta, Ta.” With a musical symphony that celebrates life. With 2,400 people gathering together, not at a political rally, but at a cultural event, at a concert whose musicians and their talented leader help us affirm life in the face of adversity.

How magical it was, that in our great anticipation of hearing the iconic opening four notes of Beethoven’s Fifth, we first stood up, accompanied by the Israel Philharmonic, and sang the iconic four words of our own symphony – “Od Lo Avda Tikvatenu” – “We Haven’t Lost Hope.”

Like Beethoven, it’s those four notes that keep us going.

Rabbi Daniel Bouskila is the international director of the Sephardic Educational Center.

It may seem perplexing that anybody would criticize Israel’s rescue of four hostages from Gaza. But in 1976, there was criticism of Israel’s rescue of hostages from Entebbe, too.

While Israelis celebrated the June 8 rescue of hostages held by Arab terrorists and civilians in Gaza, United Nations special rapporteur Francesca Albanese accused the Israeli commandos of “perfidiously hiding in an aid truck” in order to enter the neighborhood where the hostages were imprisoned.

MSNBC host Ayman Mohyeldin asserted that the rescuers’ tactics “raise(d) moral and ethical questions,” while former MSNBC host Krystal Ball denounced celebrations of the rescue as “depraved.” 

In June 1976, Palestinian Arab terrorists hijacked a French plane on its way to Israel and forced it to fly to the Entebbe airport in Uganda. There they released the non-Jewish passengers, and held the remaining 106 passengers and crew hostage, demanding the release of terrorists who were imprisoned in Israel. Ugandan dictator Idi Amin was deeply sympathetic to the terrorists, and Ugandan soldiers helped the hijackers guard the hostages.

On July 4, Israeli commandos raided the airport and freed the hostages. All seven terrorists, and several dozen Ugandan soldiers, were killed. The only rescuer killed was the raid’s leader, Yonatan Netanyahu, brother of Israel’s current prime minister. Mrs. Dora Bloch, an elderly passenger who had been taken to a local hospital, was murdered there by Ugandan soldiers.

Most of the world celebrated the rescue raid on Entebbe. But not everybody.

The Organization of African Unity, consisting of several dozen African countries, accused Israel of “wanton aggression” and demanded reparations for damage to the airport. The Soviet and Chinese governments denounced what they called “the Zionist aggression.”

United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim charged that Israel had committed a “serious violation of the sovereignty” of Uganda. A few years later, Waldheim’s past as a Nazi war criminal was exposed. (However, that did not prevent his election as president of Austria in 1986.)

The Mexican government criticized Israel’s “flagrant violation” of Ugandan sovereignty, and declared its “firm rejection of the use of armed force by any state as a means of trying to solve conflicts.” 

The Mexican position was especially surprising because just months earlier, it had explicitly promised to refrain from anti-Israel policies. That promise was made in order to secure an end to the boycott of Mexico announced by Jewish organizations following its support of the infamous Zionism-is-racism resolution at the U.N. in 1975.

The French government’s response to the Entebbe rescue was particularly troubling, given the fact that it was a French plane that was hijacked, and French crew members who were held hostage. The French Foreign Ministry issued a brief statement which expressed satisfaction at the rescue, but emphasized its condemnation of the casualties, almost all of whom were the terrorists or the soldiers who assisted them.

A spokesperson for the Air France crew read a statement hailing President Amin for his “constant care to ensure our safety, our material comfort and even our health.” The statement appeared to have been dictated by French officials.

The U.S. government publicly praised the Israeli rescue mission, but it also introduced an “even-handed” resolution at the U.N. Security Council. While condemning the hijacking, the resolution also affirmed “the need to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all States.” The resolution did not secure enough votes to pass, so it was withdrawn.

At the same time — according to declassified documents — Secretary of State Henry Kissinger informed Israel’s ambassador in Washington that because the Israelis had used US equipment in the raid, “we will have to put a temporary freeze on military shipments.” 

Ambassador Simcha Dinitz replied: “You are kidding me.” Kissinger was not kidding. “You know you have no right to do this without prior consultation,” he admonished the ambassador. Dinitz argued that the relevant U.S. law applied to “only weaponry, not equipment.” But Kissinger insisted that the U.S.-made C-130 transport planes were a “military version” of that aircraft and therefore could not be used outside Israel’s borders. Kissinger could have looked the other way; instead, his response was to penalize Israel following its miraculous rescue of the hostages.

Israel’s prime minister in those days was Yitzhak Rabin, and the government was ruled by the Labor Party — a reminder that whether Israel’s government is from the political left or the right, and whether its leader is named Rabin or Netanyahu, there will always be those who complain when Israel takes action to defend the lives of its citizens.

Dr. Medoff is founding director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and author of more than 20 books about Jewish history and the Holocaust. His latest is “Whistleblowers: Four Who Fought to Expose the Holocaust to America,” a nonfiction graphic novel with artist Dean Motter, published by Dark Horse / Yoe Books.

From the moment I landed, it was clear that the country is exhausted. The posters of the hostages dog-eared and fading in the sun; rows of ribbed riot barriers line the streets awaiting the next protest as the heart of Tel Aviv continues to beat, albeit with an arrhythmia. But one thing is certain: Israel is changing. Rapidly. And for the better. However, this is not about the atrocities or political maelstrom, which we have heard too much about; this is about how we convert these indelible images into a message for building tomorrow.

Over four-and-a-half days, a group of U.S. clergy traveled through Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza envelope on a listening campaign sponsored by Tr’uah and J Street. Each 14-hour day spun a centrifugal 360 degrees of Israel’s reality-invested citizens (Israelis) and naturalized residents (Palestinians, Arabs, Christians and more) transforming the country in a post-Oct. 7 world.

Israel persists as a beehive of dynamic innovation through necessity – billions of IQ points from Start-Up Nation, the hearts of activists confused and transformed through the contradictions of the times we are living through. “Our allies have turned against us,” proclaimed one rabbi from a progressive rabbinic advocacy organization. All sides — left, right, center, and none-of-the-above — pivot in a dynamic post-Oct. 7 reinvention of country, citizenship, the nature of protest, and the call of duty to support Israel through this existential crucible.

Ronen Koehler, a sturdy, compact man with puckish features, may very well be the premier officer of tech CEOs in Israel. Reminiscent of the unique formula of dreamer and pragmatist of the early kibbutzniks, Ronen and his Start-Up Nation colleagues transformed public service post-Oct. 7.  In mere days, he and his colleagues organized what looks very much like Israel’s first National Guard. “You see,” he informed us, “from the start, there was no one to retrieve the victims of Oct. 7. As the reserves were called up to prepare for war, there was no one left to help the citizens within Israel in need. There were people who sheltered in place in their mamad for up to three days before anyone came to get them,” he remembered.

Out of the movement seeded by Ronen and his colleagues, Achim l’Neshek (Brothers and Sisters in Arms, which arose last year to combat Israel’s proposed judicial reform), Brothers and Sisters for Israel emerged mere hours after the attacks on Oct. 7 in response to the 150,000 Jewish refugees who had to flee their homes from the Gaza envelope and the north. Brothers and Sisters for Israel began an aid campaign for these Israeli refugees and received so many donations that within four months their warehouses filled with overstock. Individuals were relocated to Eilat and the Dead Sea resorts where they organized an education system for thousands of displaced and traumatized kids across the country. They set up laundromats, provided baby strollers, sourced and sorted clothing for every shape and size, reunited lost animals with their owners, and when there weren’t any owners to receive them, found them new homes. Brothers and Sisters in Arms is the hug Israel needed through these times.

The Place Where God Cries

There is a passage in the Talmud that describes “a place where God goes to cry, and its name is Mistarim” (Chagigah 5b). The rabbis teach us that the place of God’s tears is a hidden (Moostar) location, or portal; as I walked through Israel, it was clear there were portals everywhere. Like Augmented Reality (or AR, most famously rolled out in “Pokeman Go” a few years back), real and virtual images intermix through historic plates lining the streets, animating the mythos of Israel’s history as the street itself fills with protesters envisioning Israel’s tomorrow. Israel today lives in an Augmented Reality defining its “utility of presence” as it wrestles between its past and its future.

Weaving through the country, this augmented reality reveals spaces of God’s tears with each encounter. It forces us to ask: Can we hone our senses, awaken our heart-center, turn our preconceived notions, prejudices, previous traumas and veils of pain and sorrow enough to see God’s tears? Knowing what we do from Jeremiah and Ezekiel, can we heed the call of their modern-day bewailing before it is too late? For within these teardrops are the answers, materializing as if out of thin air, of a path through these impossible conflicts and horrors. Perhaps with every tear shed, we grow more humble, more hopeful, more human.

Sometimes, the prophetic spirit lives in a place, beyond the lives lost there. Nova is a huge portal. Yet, it is still too new; this is not Auschwitz 70 years later, or “Never Again,” as the horrors continue right now, just a few miles away. This site is a living grave, as parents gather around photos of their children, lighting candles marking a birthday (or death day), where barely eight months ago, young people danced, made love and moved to the rhythms of the earth. Amid the Be’eri forest that nestled the encampment of the Nova festival, someone had affixed an unremarkable white t-shirt to a tree. A shirt worn by just about every man at some time of his life, and most women as well. The shirt swayed in the breeze, rising with an updraft, and folded in on itself, as if the young man dancing at the rave were still wearing it, freely moving his body as he felt the music. The earth remembers and still weeps, as the shirt wailing in the wind was there to remind us.

The Wailing Wall

The morning after the visit to the Gaza border, I awoke early with most of the cohort for the monthly Rosh Hodesh gathering of Women of the Wall (WOW). Formed over 30 years ago by Anat Hoffman, who has held firm in her commitment to progressive politics in Israel through these monthly gatherings, WOW has persisted as a grassroots presence in the women’s section of the Kotel (aka the Western Wall) where women daven wearing tefillin, tallitot and reading from the Torah, all rituals denied women in traditional halakhic Judaism.

As the davening began, I stood behind a seated teenager, her face pressed upon her siddur. I was told that these students come every month to disrupt WOW. As I davened, I sensed a wave of chaos approaching, drawing my eyes off the page to catch a glimpse of Jewish women attacking one another with words. As we began Hallel, I heard the abrupt movement of a chair on the stone floor, and as I looked up, saw a middle-aged woman wearing tefillin, a tallit and bright red lipstick physically push one of the girls.

Overcome with nausea, I excused myself from the cluster and found my way to the front row. I softly tapped a young woman draping herself on the ancient stones on her shoulder. “I really need this,” I said in Hebrew. As I lay my head upon the wall, a portal opened for me, as I became it.

I cried for the hungry and the homeless. I cried for the lost dogs and humans who had no one to console them, as we were all grieving. I cried for a shiva that is going to last 1,300 years. 

My body convulsed. Tears flooded from my eyes. A wail rose from me like the cries of a shofar. I cried for the bubbes and the zaydes, the babies and the girls in tunnels. I cried for the baseless hatred. I cried for the abject hatred. I cried for the Palestinian children who are injured or dead or just manipulated by Hamas to pretend that they are injured and taught to call dead children martyrs. I cried for the hungry and the homeless. I cried for the lost dogs and humans who had no one to console them, as we were all grieving. I cried for a shiva that is going to last 1,300 years. I cried for the colonizing progressives, whose incredible empathy and ability to feel the pain of their neighbors ends with a territorial war between Jews at the Kotel. And as I cried, the swallows circled above like the spirit of Shechinah, who had been given no room in this pit of self-righteous prayer to join us.

Palestinian Polls and Vision – Ramallah Millennium Hotel

Israelis are not allowed in Ramallah: except for Natalie Portman, whose ads for Dior festoon the billboards there. Today we were to meet with Dr. Khalil Shikaki, a professor of political science and the director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. Dr. Shikaki, a former Brandeis professor and Brookings Institution Fellow, presented data both encouraging and worrisome depending on the fable woven from the formula. One particular stat stood out above all others:

 One percent of all Palestinians (including West Bank and Gaza) are satisfied with the U.S.’s performance in the current war.

 These stats were taken in March, 2024. In the wake of the antisemitic tsunami in the U.S., purportedly “in support of Palestinian self-determination,” this stat glared at me, spurring me to angry tears. Tears of frustration for all the efforts my colleagues are making to bring aid and attention to the Palestinian cause, tears of anger for the errant protesters on college campuses (whose efforts apparently are going unnoticed in Gaza and the West Bank), and tears of incredulity as I heard no curiosity from anyone else in the room.

Agitated, I started clicking my pen. Looking at it, I saw the words “Millennium Hotel, Ramallah, Palestine” written across it and immediately cracked a smile. In my hand was a radioactive power of self-determination. Bombs won’t create a nation; branding will. The pen made a fabulous clicking sound, and as I rapidly fired its ink on and off, my thoughts of a future alongside Palestine crystallized. You see, I reasoned, we have been living amidst our Muslim brothers and sisters since the late stages of Rabbinic Judaism; indeed, evolving alongside one another’s intellectual curiosities with mutual benefit to our spiritual traditions. And we have endured and even, one might argue, thrived, in a dance of exiles and returns. How unimaginably providential to live at a time of such tidal changes. Can we learn anything from our ancestors, I wondered, clicking the pen in and out and in and out. What whispers to us in the admonitions from the prophets, the bloody pages in the Book of Judges, the anti-heroes of Genesis, the divisive and destructive design of the House of Hasmonaeans? What moral patterns emerge through our shared Abrahamic code of poetry and human expression from evolving wisdom traditions, Jewish Kalam and Sharia Halakha woven through a shared literary history lighting our way into a brighter tomorrow? The Palestinian pen clicked…it was, indeed, more powerful than the sword.

“Dignity and hope” — a female Palestinian Geographic Information System expert and policy maker remarked — “are the only way through; we must restore one another’s dignity and hope.” 

The Search for Hope in Abu Dhabi

Ignited, broken-hearted, and still curious, I left Israel for a Shabbat experience where I could try to imagine Israel’s future. I first learned about Abrahamic Family House in 2019, when United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced its “Year of Tolerance.” Opening a center designed by Ghanian-British architect David Adjaye, the center itself is a striking edifice for religious tolerance. With each unique structure resembling one another, yet with elements of symbolic and subtle distinction, this monument to religious unity and understanding drew me from Israel to Shabbat in Abu Dhabi. There, after a service led by Rabbi Peter Berger in a sanctuary fashioned after a “Sukkat Shalom,” I sat around a Shabbat table filled with an international assortment of Israeli and Diasporic Jews from the tech sector and academia, all mostly residing in UAE for work. Their discussion of UAE/Israel relations reflects a shared bond deeper than just a negotiated agreement – it is an alliance rooted in personal relationships.

One tech CEO at the table told a tale about an Emirate royal’s mother, who was sick. The best treatment that they could find for her was in Israel, so they traveled to Tel Aviv for treatment. While there, the sheikh experienced first-hand an attack from Gaza, and marveled at the Iron Dome interception in the sky. It was reported that his impression was one of moral indignation: Here was a country where they were healing people with life-threatening illness and offered care to all who needed it; and yet, there was the arc of bombs falling from the Gazan sky into Tel Aviv. As he witnessed the marvel of Iron Dome’s interceptive fires in the night sky in real time, it was reported that his feelings toward Israelis and the Gazans transformed.

UAE resembles Israel with its “Start-up Nation” mentality. Dubai presents as if someone decided to build Miami Beach on the Saudi Peninsula 20 years ago. As Emirates shares threats from Yemen mere miles away, the specter of existential destruction from Iran helps clarify what most college protesters don’t understand – the war in Gaza is less a war of Palestinian self-determination (or allegations of Israeli neo-colonialism), and more a war of resistance against cultures in the Middle East embracing progress. The Royal cities are cosmopolitan playgrounds, modern-day-marvels in the desert. If Israel has a future in the Middle East, it must follow its moral compass and affirm allies who share values of human progress through science, the arts and a vision for tomorrow. With a Museum of the Future, a Guggenheim Museum in the works and a Louvre already standing, Emirates broadcasts as a partner oasis in the Arab world rather than a mere mirage of augmented reality.

Labor Pains and Tears

The tech minyan, as one might affectionately call the group gathered for Shabbat in Abu Dhabi, were not without wounds. Almost everyone in the room had a family member in Gaza – either as soldiers or hostages – or lost someone or was nursing someone with trauma post-Oct. 7. The hope these individuals cast drew from the same web as Ronen, from Brothers and Sisters for Israel, and his tech colleagues. Listening around the table at how these men and women were fostering relationships through innovation and technology, I was reminded of a perfunctory visit from one of the few Labor Party members left in the Knesset earlier that week. Rabin’s party, which championed the peace process, now measures as anachronistic, an ideology formed in the last millennium, as Israel has moved from labor of the land to a new kind of labor.

These tech colleagues represent the potential of a new Labor Party, one resembling the Abraham Accords, and extending its partnership as a new, cosmopolitan Israel akin to the Northern Kingdom’s Biblical Israel. It is taught that the builders of the ancient Temple in Shiloh, in the Northern Kingdom, following the fall of the unified Kingdom of Israel, affixed a relief of Ba’al, a god of the Canaanites, at its entrance. It was there that Hannah prayed for a child, who would come and find David, who himself would conceive a child with a Hittite who would build a Temple and through this bloodline, in the Augmented Reality of the Rabbis, shall come the messiah.

The stories from our biblical scribes offer our most ancient form of innovation technology, where Jewish ideas acted outside of rabbinic rebuttal or review. Today’s Israel, a teetering democracy, is being asked to recognize a moral god and return to its biblical roots as a mosaic tradition, as we innovate a peaceful future through nanotechnology, micro-processors and medical devices— miracles and marvels that benefit all humanity. Today’s Start-up Nation houses the Temple of Tomorrow. On the walls of this modern-day temple there is a benediction, written in Hebrew, Arabic and English, like the parking garage of the Abrahamic Famly House, welcoming all who find holiness through the labor of collaboration.

But, with labor comes tears. The work ahead of us is an impossible puzzle and hero’s journey not for the faint-hearted. Tears from these labor pains of “something new being born” make it hard to see and challenge our prejudices while triggering our fears. Only leadership with the most flexible of minds and hearts can lead us through this portal of God’s tears.

Rabbi Lori Shapiro is the founder and artistic director of The Open Temple in Venice.