In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky’s classic novel of good and evil, we meet Father Ferapont—an old ascetic monk at the same monastery where Alyosha Dostoevsky is a novice.

Ferapont is a “great faster and keeper of silence” who is “brief, curt, strange, and almost always rude.”

Rather than associating with the other monks, he prefers solitude. And while throngs of pious townspeople come daily to seek wisdom and blessings from the monastery’s resident elder, Father Ferapont keeps a careful distance.

This is because he sees things that the other monks cannot.

For instance, as he tells a visitor, on a recent visit to the superior, he saw a devil sitting on a monk’s chest, “hiding under his cassock, with only his little horns sticking out.”

Another monk had a devil “peeking out of his pocket, looking shifty-eyed.”

Yet another monk had a devil “living inside him, in his unclean belly” and there was a fourth monk with a devil “hanging on his neck, clinging to him, and he was carrying him around without even seeing him.”

Where others saw holy men in their robes, Father Ferapont saw corruption and wickedness in the form of grubby, writhing demons. No wonder people thought of him as a killjoy and a crank.

To be Jewish these days is to find oneself in the unfortunate position of Father Ferapont—a witness to evils that those around us cannot—or will not—see.

The rest of the world looks at Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and sees a plucky, youthful heroine—someone utterly dedicated to being “on the right side of history” and fearless in her pursuit of a better world.

Jews see something different.

Shortly before being intercepted by Israel’s navy as she attempted to breach a military blockade with aid for Gazans, Thunberg recorded an appeal to the world:

“If you see this video, we have been intercepted and kidnapped in international waters by the Israeli occupational forces.”

The photos of the confrontation that ensued told a different story. Rather than being kidnapped, the activists aboard the “Freedom Flotilla” were given food and water before being towed to Ashdod and given comped flights back to Europe, excepting those who refused to consent to deportation, who will remain in Israeli custody for few more days.

As for the meager aid they had brought for the people of Gaza, they were assured that it would be transferred to a recognized aid distribution center.

This isn’t what a kidnapping looks like, and anyone who is confused about this is welcome to see for themselves—Hamas was considerate enough to hit “record” on their phones when they massacred their way through southern Israel in October of 2023, dragging hundreds of individuals—men, women, and children—back to Gaza with them.

Some of those individuals, like Hersh Goldberg-Polin, will never return because he was executed by his captors when they discovered that the IDF was drawing near. Others, like Shiri Bibas’ two young children Ariel and Kfir, were killed “by hand” by their captors for reasons that we’ll never know, and would never understand even if we did.

Among those that have survived this kidnapping, some have been returned to Israel, while others still languish in captivity—their fates uncertain.

Greta’s fate was easier to predict—a safe trip home and a hero’s welcome.

And while she continues to claim that she was kidnapped, her mother need not count off the days with numbers scrawled in sharpie on scraps of masking tape. Her father need not take to the streets with a sign beseeching the world to bring her home.

The activists who remain in Israel are calling on the world to demand their release, as if they aren’t the ones who have refused to consent to their own release. This is absurd, but it’s working.

For a lie about Israel to take hold, it need not be convincing. It simply needs to be said. And now that Greta has claimed to be a victim of kidnapping, this libel is going viral on social media—gobbled up and repeated by credulous Israel haters.

The Jewish world has been through quite a lot in the past two years. By all accounts, I ought to be desensitized by now, but Greta’s choice of words struck me, shocked me, filled me with rage, and very nearly pushed me to tears.

I wasn’t alone. Pro-Israel influencer Elica Lebon was also knocked off-center by Greta’s statement. “I have said that nothing surprises me anymore,” she said on Instagram, “but sometimes I stand corrected.”

Perhaps the reason we’re shocked is the fact that this act of cruelty and callousness—playacting “kidnapped” while Israeli hostages still sit in dank Hamas tunnels—was uttered by someone who much of the world regards as a saintly paragon of moral leadership.

If I were not Jewish, I would likely think of her this way as well. As a gay liberal from New England, I would associate her with the fight against climate change and I would regard her work with the Freedom Flotilla in a positive light. If I heard that she had been kidnapped by the Israelis, I would have no reason to disbelieve her.

And it’s not just Greta.

The rest of the world hears the term Red Cross and thinks of virtuous nurses providing care in wartime. Jews, on the other hand, have been forced to confront the shameful antisemitic history of the Red Cross—a legacy which continues to this day. It wasn’t long ago that they shamed hostage families for being inadequately focused on the wellbeing of Palestinians in their activism to rescue their kidnapped loved ones.

The rest of the world hears of UNRWA and imagines an aid organization, educating and feeding the beleaguered Palestinians of Gaza. Jews, on the other hand, know that UNRWA staffers have been systematically involved in Hamas’ crimes against humanity at every level, including participation in the October 7th invasion and holding Israeli hostages in their homes.

The rest of the world thinks of the UN as the great safeguard of postwar cooperation and peace. Jews see something different—a corrupt organization that has been captured by bad actors and repurposed as a tool of diplomatic and legal warfare against the world’s only Jewish state.

To sound the alarm on evils that no one around you can see—or that no one around you is interested in seeing—is a demoralizing enterprise. Greta’s bitter libel will spread while columns like this one will likely be read only by my fellow Jews. No wonder Father Ferapont kept to himself. No wonder he was perpetually in a foul mood.

But it is not the Jewish way to sit around and obsess over demons. Our path is not one of asceticism or retreat from the world, but rather to engage with the world and bless it.

On days like these, this feels like a difficult ask. It is. But while it is not on us to master this work, neither are we free to desist from it.

Matthew Schultz is a Jewish Journal columnist and rabbinical student at Hebrew College. He is the author of the essay collection “What Came Before” (Tupelo, 2020) and lives in Boston and Jerusalem.  

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 book The Road to October 7: Hamas, the Holocaust, and the Eternal War Against the Jews will be published on October 1, 2025, by The Jewish Publication Society / University of Nebraska Press.

Several months ago I was going through a rough patch, wrestling with the grief of lost love, resting anxiety that I’ve had most of my life, feelings of low self-worth, and guilt over parenting failures. Talk about a cocktail of stress and emotion! To make it worse, I fell into an old personal trap of trying to figure it out on my own. Despite isolation being a comforting habit, I knew that it wasn’t going to help me move past my problems. But then I got a text message from a friend. It was simple and from the moment I received it I knew it was communicated sincerely. He wrote, “How are you doing, brother?” and that changed everything for the better.

Too many men in the Jewish community are quietly holding it all together—shouldering responsibilities, showing up for others, and suppressing the very feelings that make them human. They’re partners, fathers, sons, caretakers, providers and leaders. But rarely are they offered the space to be vulnerable, to reflect, to rest, and to reconnect with themselves and each other. A men’s retreat is not a luxury—it’s a lifeline. And for the Jewish men of Southern California, that lifeline is long overdue.

The need for emotional support, deep friendship, and spiritual grounding among men is more urgent than ever. According to a 2021 report by the Survey Center on American Life, friendship among American men has been declining steadily for decades, with 15% of men saying they have no close friends at all—a fivefold increase since 1990. The U.S. Surgeon General’s 2023 Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection named loneliness as one of the most serious public health threats of our time. And while loneliness doesn’t discriminate by gender, men are statistically less likely to seek help or even admit they are struggling.

The consequences ripple outward. When men are isolated, emotionally overwhelmed, or cut off from meaningful relationships, it doesn’t only affect them. It affects their partners, their children, their coworkers and their communities. Families suffer when fathers and husbands are silently burdened. Communities suffer when men are disconnected from their emotional and spiritual lives. In an era of rising antisemitism and uncertainty, Jewish men also need spaces to process fear, strengthen identity, and build spiritual resilience. When the world feels unstable, the strength we build in each other becomes a powerful act of resistance.

That’s where a Jewish community men’s retreat comes in—not as a break from real life, but as a return to it. A return to wholeness, to connection, and to purpose.

Rooted in the wisdom of Jewish tradition and the latest understandings of men’s mental health and emotional development, a retreat offers something men desperately need but rarely receive: space. Space to be honest. Space to be still. Space to be with other men in meaningful conversation, prayer, movement and study. Jewish life teaches that we are not meant to walk alone. “Aseh lecha rav, u’kneh lecha chaver”—Make for yourself a teacher and acquire for yourself a friend (Pirkei Avot 1:6). Whether through the rituals of hevruta (study partners), mentorship or communal learning, Jewish masculinity has always found strength in sacred relationships.

Imagine a weekend where men gather in the natural beauty of Southern California to breathe, to talk, to reflect. Where they leave behind their to-do lists and expectations and come together not to compete, but to connect. Imagine sessions on fatherhood, grief, partnership, aging, vulnerability and joy. Imagine soulful Shabbat dinners, spirited song, and quiet time for walking, reflecting and rediscovering what it means to be a Jewish man in today’s world.

Imagine a weekend where men gather in the natural beauty of Southern California to breathe, to talk, to reflect.

The benefits of such a retreat aren’t just personal—they’re generational. When men learn to open their hearts and build deeper relationships, their families thrive. Children get fathers who are more emotionally available. Partners get men who are more grounded, present and honest. Communities gain leaders who embody Jewish values not only in action, but also in intention and empathy.

This vision is at the heart of a new men’s retreat being planned for the Southern California Jewish community—an initiative supported by the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs (FJMC), which is approaching its 100th anniversary. As it enters its second century, the FJMC is embracing a bold, contemporary mission: to help Jewish men lead fuller, more connected lives. Not just as members of clubs, but as fathers, brothers, seekers and spiritual leaders in their own right.

The retreat is part of a wider movement—reclaiming Jewish masculinity as something emotionally alive, spiritually attuned, and deeply relational. In an age when masculinity is either vilified or left unexamined, the Jewish tradition offers something more grounded and enduring: a model of responsibility, humility, compassion, and resilience. When Jewish men gather in a supportive community, they don’t just change themselves. They change the world around them.

This retreat is an invitation: to breathe, to belong and to become. Brothers, I hope you will join me. Click here to register for the retreat.

Rabbi Noam Raucher leads the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs as Executive Director, cultivating a brotherhood grounded in Jewish values, emotional openness, and ethical leadership. His work explores what it means to be a Jewish man today.

It is generally known that the creators of this definition of antisemitism called “The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism” (JDA) are part of the global left and have friends and supporters in Germany, for example at the Center for Antisemitism Research in Berlin. Israeli researcher Gerald Steinberg as early as 2023 emphasized that the JDA absolves Nazi comparisons and anti-Zionism from antisemitism. This was easy to see when the President of the Technical University of Berlin liked a picture of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu with a swastika painted on it on X in 2024. This was followed by a conversation with the antisemitism officer at TU Berlin. What it was about remains unclear, but the liking cannot have been the topic, as the ZfA in Berlin is the main player in promoting JDA in Germany and does not shy away from putting polarizing and questionable narratives into the world, such as “A declared love of Israel often goes hand in hand with Islamophobia” or that “Free Palestine” depends on the context and can also be read as a free Palestine with equal rights for everyone between the river and the sea.

This is not only simply wrong, but also demonstrates very well how little knowledge of Palestinian history or exchange with critical Palestinians there is. Free Palestine is clearly the desire of the majority of Palestinians—from an Islamic as well as a pan-Arab perspective—for a Palestine in which a Jewish state does not exist, which is denied any right to exist or historical connection to the land.

The JDA cannot be viewed in isolation from other activist initiatives that have been promoted in recent years by Holocaust and genocide research, Jewish Studies or antisemitism research and that claim to argue from a pro-Palestinian perspective.

There is the “catechism debate,” also known as Historikerstreit 2.0, initiated by Australian genocide researcher A. Dirk Moses, who in his concept of “permanent security” (in short: an anti-Western concept that uses the instruments of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide to guarantee security at the expense of the global South) invokes the protective assertions made in court by SS-Gruppenführer and commander of Einsatzgruppe D, Otto Ohlendorf. German courts already rejected this line of argumentation in the first Einsatzgruppen trial in Würzburg in 1950 (!) because it is what it is: a protective claim that distracts from enforcing a murderous ideology.

Then there was “Elephant in the Room,” published in the summer of 2023, which is well-intentioned and positive in terms of the idea, especially against the backdrop of a far-right government in Israel. However, here too the state of Israel is criticized unilaterally and seen as the reason why there is no peace between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. At the same time, the so-called “We Want to Live” protests took place in Gaza, demonstrations against Hamas that, unlike this petition, received no media attention whatsoever.

And then, precisely from this circle of activist researchers who see themselves as critical, comes the prayerful repetition of opinions whose deeply anti-Israeli argumentative core briefly states (my summary) that the dominant memory of the Holocaust clouds the view of other mass crimes in history; antisemitism is a form of racism (it is not); the dominant memory of the Holocaust is “responsible” for the fact that colonial crimes, especially during the first German genocide in German South-West Africa (now Namibia), have no place in the German discourse of remembrance. The assumed solution is therefore a “multidirectional remembrance” (as suggested by scholar Michael Rothberg), which actually does what has already been part of everyday life at the grassroots level in memorial sites or memorial initiatives for many years, but has perhaps not yet reached parts of the ivory tower. Furthermore, the JDA ensures that Gaza can be compared to the Warsaw ghetto or a concentration camp, which is a blatant refusal to engage with Gaza, where a two-tier society exists in which membership with Hamas determines one’s social advancement and future opportunities. Moreover, it deeply ignores the fact that antisemitism was the root cause of the Holocaust.

“Pro-Palestinian” encampments at universities and colleges worldwide—often glorifications of terror—have been set up out of “concern” for Palestinians (Federal Press Conference in May 2024), although it has been clear for more than a year that these are also specifically funded by the Islamic Republic of Iran. And if it were not for the pervasiveness of collective guilt in Germany, Germans would also claim that the war with Gaza is a genocide. The fact that this is the first genocide in history in which the victims have the capacity to end the suffering at any time (release hostages, lay down arms and surrender unconditionally), does not interfere with this view. It is always inherent in this positioning to attack recognized scientific definitions, but not really to improve them. And it is actually the founding of the state of Israel that is the problem, because it led to the Nakba. This is why the “Genocide and Holocaust Studies Crisis Network” is a new activist network among academics that is promoting these empirically unsubstantiated positions and new definitions, including in a predominantly ahistorical step, defining the Nakba as a mass crime without taking into account the historical genesis of this term and its definition in Palestinian society. It is not difficult to recognize the signature of an Israeli, anti-Zionist perspective here, which prefers to see Israel dissolved as a Jewish state rather than Palestinians as subjects of history. In addition, this view also propagates the thesis of the “victims of the victims,” that simplicist historical perspective of the “decades-long shared history of violence between the two peoples.” The ethnic cleansing in Arab countries, where almost no Jews live today, in the course of the founding of the state of Israel is always ignored.

Inherent in all these “new” definitions, perspectives and explanations are two things. First, they are dependent on the Holocaust, because without it the theses and theories are not publicly effective. They downplay or redefine antisemitism.

Second, they do not perceive Palestinians as actors in history, but see them one-sidedly as helpless victims without agency. Meanwhile, it is the same circle of antisemitism, Holocaust and genocide researchers who speak of a genocide or a scholasticide in Gaza, but not only uncritically take any information published by Hamas, but also adopt a simplistic view of Palestinians that is not progressive, but has for decades unilaterally defined Palestinian terror as legitimate resistance and has zero criticism of Palestinian leadership, decisions, mistakes and political statements. This defines the state of Israel as the root of all evil in the Middle East, and also does not do justice to Palestinians. Even the massacres of Oct. 7, 2023 in southern Israel, which are almost identical to those perpetrated by the Islamic State, are reinterpreted, like so much that now calls itself “progressive”: In the words of Omer Bartov, “The despicable attack by Hamas must be seen as an attempt to draw attention to the plight of the Palestinians.” Criticism of this view is defamed, ignored, blocked or deleted.

Since Oct. 7, however, Palestinian activists in the diaspora have also been speaking out. Despite the danger to life including that of their families, they are taking a third path beyond polarizing narratives instead of the “resistance narrative.” They speak about the torture, murders, abuse and oppression of civilians in Gaza by Hamas and its supporters, which are ignored by aforementioned academics who are progressive in their self-perception. These critical Palestinian positions, which are aimed at peace, are only slowly finding their way into the political discourse, as they contradict the common, one-sided narrative in the Middle East (“Israel is always to blame”).

Why are there such low to zero expectations of Palestinians? And why are Palestinians critical of Hamas not included in the pro-Palestinian discourse? In March 2025, Hamza Abu Howidy, peace activist from Gaza (fled in August 2023) was a guest in Berlin-Pankow, as always only possible under police protection. Together with Israeli Shay Dashevsky, he is fighting for new perspectives.

Why are there such low to zero expectations of Palestinians? And why are Palestinians critical of Hamas not included in the pro-Palestinian discourse?

Abu Howidy asked the understandable question of why he had to hide when hatred of Israel and glorification of terror are the order of the day on the streets outside. There was no answer. Another example is Ahmed Al Khatib from Gaza, who lives in the U.S. and founded “Realign for Palestine,” a forward-looking initiative, despite his own family losses in the war in Gaza. He belongs to a self-critical generation of Palestinians who want to take a new path. This generation questions a discourse that has dominated Palestinian society and the diaspora for decades, and whose rule is always: “Israel is always to blame.” Unlike the initiators of the JDA, they want to criticize Palestine and therefore do not have to defame or demonize the state of Israel. They also do not want to dissolve or destroy it, but are denigrated as “Zionists” precisely because of this. There are more of them. Another example is the medical doctor and political scientist Huthifa Al Mashhadani, director of the German-Arab School in Berlin and chairman of the German-Arab Council. He advocates peace with Israel and is threatened and vilified for this.

They are all breaking their silence in favor of a new discourse that does not manifest the Middle East conflict, but offers no solutions other than those that correspond to anti-Zionist Israelis, who are the only ones who are so readily heard in Germany because of their one-sided criticism of Israel. These anti-Zionist positions have so far refused to discuss or include critical Palestinian perspectives in the discourse.

This was shown by the recent example of the philosopher Omri Böhm. Israeli, Jewish anti-Zionists are welcome guests in Germany, as is the historian Amos Goldberg or the political scientist Bashir Bashir, as well as the dominant voice of Holocaust researcher Omer Bartov when it comes to the alleged genocide in Gaza.

The critical Palestinian-Arab and Arab voices clearly show that there is no need for a “Jerusalem Declaration” that supposedly wants to combat antisemitism (which only ever comes from the right, according to them) but at the same time opens the door to it. These critical Palestinian and Arab voices do not defame Palestinians one-sidedly, as is popular among some (Israeli) anti-Zionists with a connection to Israel. Rather, they criticize Israel without resorting to antisemitic slurs and stereotypes.

Aren’t they the real progressives, as they build bridges between decades of polarizing discourse?

Dr. Verena Buser is an associate researcher of the Holocaust Studies Program at Western Galilee College, Israel and lives in Berlin.