The Satmar Rebbe and Rabbi Moshe Sherer had the same take on the question of whether or not anti-Israel sentiment cloaks antisemitism. To read what they had to say, please click here.
Category Archives: Israel
Walz Washout
Much attention has been given to the ascension of Zohran Mamdani to the mayoralty of New York City.
But whether the future of the left wing of the Democratic Party is more accurately presaged by the election of a radical as mayor than by the downfall of a progressive governor is far from clear.
To read what I’m referring to, please click here.
First the Hatred, Then the Reason
An essay I wrote about the historic pattern of antisemitism appears at Religion News Service and can be read here.
Pense Sense
Displeasure over Kevin Roberts’ refusal to distance the Heritage Foundation from Tucker Carlson has yielded something good: A boost to Mike Pence.
To read more about that something, please click here.
Dear Mayor Mamdani
You can read my Substack offering “Dear Mayor Mamdani” here.
Vance Stance
Some of Vice President Vance’s recent comments leave me underwhelmed. I elaborate here.
Truculent Troika’s Tribulations
Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes are, blessedly, like contentious crustaceans brawling in a bucket. To read what I mean, please click here.
Mikeitz – Lying Eyes
A botanist named Joseph Banks who was aboard Captain James Cook’s 1770 voyage recorded in his diary that while the 106-foot-long Endeavour sailed along the east coast of Australia, native fishermen totally ignored the large boat, the likes of which they surely had never before seen.
Rashi (Beraishis 42:8) quotes the Gemara that explains the reason Yosef’s brothers didn’t recognize him when they appeared before him in his role as second in command of Egypt: They had last seen him as a teen and now he was a grown man with a full beard.
But Yosef, the Midrash says, looked just like his father Yaakov, whom the brothers knew as a grown man, if one considerably older than the Yosef facing them. And so, he must have resembled surely bearded Yaakov when his brothers came before him in Egypt.
Perhaps, though, there was another element at play here, too, the sort of cognitive dissonance that might explain the Australian aborigines’ lack of reaction to the sudden appearance of the large ship. It has been speculated that they had no model in their imaginations for a vessel like the Endeavour and so their minds blocked out what was before their eyes, rendering it, for all purposes, invisible.
The very last place Yosef’s brothers could have imagined him being was on a throne in a powerful country. They had left him in the hands of slave-traders and “knew” that he was, if he was even alive, toiling somewhere as a lowly servant. Might that “knowledge” have been at least part of why his face didn’t register with them, why they couldn’t see him even as he was right before their eyes?
Even in our times, we see the incredible power of assumptions and preconceptions, how blinding they can be. Even when faced with overwhelming evidence for the truth of something, whether a fair election or the need for a country to destroy an enemy pledged to its destruction, the fact can still remain for millions of people an unthinkable thought, and render what is right in front of them effectively invisible.
© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran
Animus and Ignorance
Last week, New York mayor-elect Mandani not only demonstrated, once again, his hatred for Israel, but also lifted the hood on the engine of his animus: an abysmal ignorance of both history and law.
To read how, click here:
Reconstructing the Gazan Mind
While the world watches to see whether the tunnel-ridden wasteland along the Mediterranean called Gaza can be restored to a livable place, what can’t be ignored is the most important part of the reconstruction effort: the rebooting of the Gazan mind.
To read more about that, click here.