Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday night pledged to continue the war against Hamas until all objectives are met, rejecting recent ceasefire proposals that would leave the terror group in power in Gaza.

“Our war is not over,” Netanyahu declared in a nationally televised statement. “We will not end this war before destroying Hamas, returning all our hostages, and ensuring Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel.”

The prime minister began by mourning the death of Israel Defense Forces Warrant Officer G'haleb Alnasasra, killed earlier in northern Gaza, and offered prayers for the recovery of wounded soldiers.

“The entire people of Israel salute his heroism,” Netanyahu said. “We are in a war for redemption on seven fronts. It carries a heavy price, but we fight for our very existence—until victory.”

Rejecting calls to halt the fighting, Netanyahu said Israel would not accept Hamas’s demands, which he said include full IDF withdrawal, a ceasefire and reconstruction funding that would allow the group to rearm.

“If we surrender to Hamas’s diktat, we would send a message to all our enemies that kidnapping Israelis leads to victory,” he warned. “Such a surrender would be a strategic defeat for Israel and a huge win for Iran.”

Netanyahu emphasized his longstanding commitment to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

“I will not give in. Not even a millimeter,” he said, noting critics who once opposed his hardline policy now question its effectiveness. “Without our actions, Iran would have had nuclear weapons 10 years ago,” he said.

The prime minister also addressed domestic criticism and media commentary advocating indirect negotiations or temporary truces with Hamas.

“They are echoing Hamas propaganda and prolonging the captivity of our hostages,” he charged.

Netanyahu revealed that Hamas had recently rejected a proposal that could have freed half of the remaining living hostages, demanding instead the preservation of its rule in Gaza.

As of Saturday night, 196 hostages have been returned—147 alive. Twenty-four are believed to be alive in Gaza, and 35 are confirmed dead.

“We will not give up on even one hostage, living or deceased,” said Netanyahu. “We will increase the pressure on Hamas until we bring them all home.”

Ending his remarks ahead of Israel’s Remembrance Day and Independence Day, Netanyahu struck a defiant tone: “Together we will stand. Together we will fight. And with God’s help, together we will win.”

Following Hamas's barbaric Oct. 7, 2023 massacre—which killed over 1,200 people in Israel, most of them civilians, including women, children and the elderly, with over 250 taken hostage—Israel launched a large-scale military campaign in Gaza. The scope and intensity of the response were unprecedented, but so too was the attack that prompted it.

Since then, there has been no shortage of uninformed actors, like comedian Dave Smith, or malign parties weaponizing international law to question whether Israel’s military actions in Gaza have been proportionate, lawful and ultimately, even necessary.

At the heart of that last question lies a critical misunderstanding. "Necessity" in war has two distinct meanings, and conflating them—morally and legally—leads to flawed assessments and misleading narratives.

Two necessities: one moral, one legal

1. Moral necessity — the just war tradition

The first concept of necessity comes from just war theory, an ethical framework developed over centuries to evaluate whether the use of force can be morally justified (jus ad bellum).

One of its core tenets is necessity:

War must be a last resort, undertaken only after all nonviolent alternatives—diplomacy, deterrence, sanctions, international mediation—have been exhausted.

In the case of Israel, the record speaks for itself. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, dismantling all civilian and military infrastructure. In the years that followed, Hamas seized power in a violent coup, launched tens of thousands of rockets and rejected every meaningful effort at peaceful coexistence. Despite periodic ceasefires and repeated international mediation, Hamas remained committed not to a Palestinian state alongside Israel—but to Israel’s destruction.

On Oct. 7, Hamas made its intentions unmistakable. It crossed the border not to challenge Israeli soldiers, but to massacre civilians. It filmed the atrocities and vowed to do it again. In that context, the claim that Israel’s military response lacked moral necessity ignores the facts and defies common sense.

2. Legal necessity — the law of armed conflict

The second form of necessity is not philosophical but legal. It belongs to the realm of international humanitarian law (IHL)—the rules governing the conduct of war (jus in bello).

Military necessity permits only those actions required to achieve a legitimate military objective.

This principle—codified in the Geneva Conventions, Hague Regulations and customary international law—does not allow destruction for its own sake. It does not excuse harm to civilians unless it is incidental to a lawful strike. And it certainly does not override the obligations to distinguish between military and civilian targets or to avoid disproportionate attacks.

Every Israeli military operation in Gaza is bound by this standard. It is not enough to identify a Hamas presence in a building or a neighborhood. To strike lawfully, the target must provide a concrete and direct military advantage, and every feasible precaution must be taken to mitigate civilian harm.

Israel’s military attorneys and commanders operate within this framework. Target selection, weapon choice, timing of attack, and warning mechanisms are scrutinized in real time. The Israel Defense Forces not only operates under legal necessity—it documents and reviews its actions at a level few modern militaries do, particularly when fighting a terrorist group embedded in a civilian population.

The bridge vs. the bakery

A useful example from the laws of war helps clarify this distinction.

Destroying a bridge used to transport enemy weapons is a lawful act of military necessity. It offers a clear operational advantage and directly degrades enemy capability. By contrast, destroying a bakery in a residential neighborhood simply because enemy fighters may stop there for food is not. The bakery is not a military objective, and its destruction would serve no legitimate military purpose.

This distinction matters in urban warfare. In Gaza, where Hamas routinely embeds its military assets within civilian areas—using schools, homes and mosques—Israel faces extraordinary challenges. But the legal standards do not change. Every action must meet the test of military necessity. Every strike must be tied to a legitimate objective. The presence of civilians demands restraint, even when facing an adversary that deliberately exploits them.

Necessary war, constrained conduct

So, was Israel’s war against Hamas necessary?

That depends on which kind of necessity you mean. But in truth, it meets both tests:

Was the war morally necessary? After Oct. 7—following the deliberate massacre of civilians, the kidnapping of hostages, and Hamas’s declared intention to repeat those atrocities—the answer is unequivocally yes.

Are Israel’s military operations legally necessary? While each strike must meet specific legal thresholds, the IDF operates under one of the most stringent legal and ethical frameworks in modern warfare. It is bound by the law of armed conflict and has demonstrated an unprecedented commitment to minimizing harm, even while engaging an enemy that hides among civilians and violates every rule of war.

A war can be both morally justified and legally constrained. Israel’s campaign against Hamas is exactly that. It was not launched lightly or recklessly—it was waged in defense of life, sovereignty and the rule of law.

Anyone asking whether Israel’s war was necessary should first understand what they are really asking—and then recognize that the answer, by every standard that matters, is yes.

Warrant Officer G'haleb Sliman Alnasasra, 35, a Bedouin tracker from the southern Israeli city of Rahat, was killed on Saturday during an exchange of fire with Hamas terrorists in northern Gaza, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

The fatal incident took place near Beit Hanoun, where Hamas operatives emerged from a concealed tunnel and fired a rocket-propelled grenade at an IDF vehicle. A secondary explosive device was detonated shortly after, wounding several troops and fatally injuring Alnasasra. Three additional soldiers, including a female officer, a combat medic and another tracker, were seriously hurt and evacuated by helicopter to hospitals in Israel.

Alnasasra’s death marks the first Israeli combat casualty in Gaza since the collapse of the ceasefire and resumption of hostilities on March 18.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened his statement on Saturday night by paying tribute to the fallen soldier.

“We send heartfelt condolences to the family of Warrant Officer G'haleb Alnasasra, of blessed memory. The people of Israel mourn with you and salute his heroism,” said Netanyahu, adding wishes for a swift recovery for the wounded.

According to the military, the attack targeted troops operating near IDF Post 40 during a mission to secure a newly discovered Hamas tunnel. Forces from the 414th Combat Intelligence Collection Unit were among those caught in the ambush. Northern Brigade commander Col. Omri Mashiah was also present when the second explosion occurred.

In response, Israeli forces conducted extensive airstrikes across northern Gaza, hitting over 150 Hamas-linked sites and reportedly eliminating dozens of operatives over the weekend.

Alnasasra served in the Gaza Division’s Northern Brigade as part of an elite tracker unit responsible for detecting threats and uncovering hidden terrorist infrastructure. His loss comes as Israeli forces expand a security buffer zone inside Gaza, now estimated to encompass more than 30% of the territory.

As of Sunday, 848 Israeli soldiers have been killed since Hamas’s Oct. 7 assault, including 411 during the ground campaign in Gaza.

On the sixth anniversary of the U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, David Friedman described his role in the historic decision as one of the “main points of pride” in his life.

Yet Friedman made little effort to play up this achievement, which he worked towards in 2019 as U.S. Ambassador to Israel under President Donald Trump.

“Frankly, not much has changed since the recognition—not diplomatically. And that’s a big non-change,” Friedman said last month at an event hosted by the Golan Regional Council honoring him for his efforts.

In Friedman’s view, the Biden administration’s decision not to reverse the recognition—or to pressure Israel regarding the Golan—is itself highly significant. “That’s the biggest thing,” explained Friedman, a soft-spoken but astute negotiator.

His assessment, echoed by several local community leaders, reflects the cautious strategy that has guided efforts to entrench Israel’s hold over its northernmost and strategically vital region. Progress on this has been pursued in steady, incremental growth, reserving bold public gestures for moments of urgency.

“We survived what I would consider to be a somewhat hostile administration. We're still here. America’s foreign policy still recognizes Israeli sovereignty over the Golan,” said Friedman, who is being considered for the role of U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. “I think everyone can now say with confidence—because it has bipartisan support—that the Golan Heights is Israel’s forever.”

A former Trump attorney from Long Island, Friedman now splits his time between Israel and the United States. He was awarded “Honorary Citizenship of the Golan” at a ceremony attended last month by dozens of local leaders as well as his wife, Tammy, at the Ein Kshatot archaeological site. Accepting the award, Friedman emphasized that he did so in Trump’s name: “It was the president’s decision, and he deserves the credit.”

The choice of location underscored the Golan’s deep historical and spiritual connection to Israel and the Jewish people—a dimension often overshadowed by its strategic significance. The event was held at the reconstructed ancient basalt-stone synagogue of Ein Kshatot, a relic from a time when the Golan was a spiritual and agricultural hub in the Land of Israel.

Overlooking Lake Kinneret at sunset, the site also highlighted the Golan’s strategic importance. Prior to Israel’s capture of the area in 1967, Syrian artillery positions located nearby had a clear line of sight to Tiberias and other Israeli towns.

If Trump ever visits the Golan, Ein Kshatot is one place he should see, Friedman remarked. “It tells the whole story,” said the former ambassador, who grew up in an Orthodox Jewish household and recalls reading about the Golan’s wonders in the Bible as a child. He also recommended visiting the technology park in nearby Katzrin. “Taken together, it’s the perfect blend of ancient and modern, historical and geopolitical,” he said.

Ronen Cohen, a resident of Moshav Ani’am, echoed Friedman’s view that the low-profile aftermath of the recognition was a positive outcome. “The recognition may have encouraged more people to settle here, but it hasn’t changed our lives very much—and that’s a good thing,” said Cohen, a 52-year-old brigadier general who moved to the Golan with his wife in 1999 and raised three children there.

He stressed the importance of developing the region while preserving its natural beauty.

For Cohen, what sets the Golan apart is its harmonious diversity: Druze, religious and secular Jews, native-born Israelis and immigrants, people from across the political spectrum all living side by side peacefully. “It’s a model region,” he said. “If I could wish one thing for the rest of Israel, it would be that the whole country enjoys the kind of coexistence we have here.”

This diversity is evident in Trump Heights, a new village established following the U.S. recognition and named in honor of the president. The Golan’s first new community in more than two decades, it is home to secular, religious and Haredi families. Druze teachers work in the village kindergarten. Currently, 26 families live in temporary housing as construction begins on permanent homes. Another 75 families are expected to join by 2029.

In a broader effort to strengthen the region, the Israeli government launched an ambitious plan last year to double the Golan’s current population of roughly 53,000 within five years. As part of this initiative, an additional 1,800 housing units were approved in February for Katzrin, the Golan’s only city.

Following the collapse in December of the Assad regime in Syria—now under the control of militias led by a former jihadist—Israel seized additional territory east of the border for security reasons. Israeli troops remain there temporarily, but many Golan residents hope the land will ultimately stay under Israeli control.

“It’s easy to forget now, but just 30 years ago, people were fighting government plans to give this land to Syria,” said Ya’akov Selavan, deputy head of the Golan Regional Council.

Over the years, several Israeli governments engaged in negotiations with the Assad regime—some directly, others through intermediaries—offering to return the Golan in exchange for a peace treaty. Particularly during Yitzhak Rabin’s tenure in the 1990s, these talks sparked major protest movements.

At Ein Kshatot, Friedman offered a rare glimpse into the behind-the-scenes process that led to the U.S. recognition. According to him, it all started with a tweet.

After receiving Trump’s approval by phone, Friedman dictated a short statement to White House aide Dan Scavino, who posted it to Twitter (now X). While the tweet captured the shift in U.S. policy, Friedman noted, “it was still just a tweet. In the history of world politics, no one has ever received recognition of sovereignty by tweet.”

So Friedman and others at the State Department quickly began formalizing the recognition, crafting the official policy position that exists today.

While the process was underway, Friedman flew to the United States to spend Purim with his children. At Ben Gurion Airport, a Chabad rabbi met him with a megillah—the Book of Esther—which Jews are obligated to read on the holiday.

Friedman paused on one verse, spoken by Mordechai to Esther as she prepared to lobby King Ahasuerus for the Jews of Persia. In it, Mordechai impresses upon Esther the uniqueness of the opportunity presented to her.

“And who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” Friedman quoted the verse in Hebrew, reflecting on the meaning it holds for him.

The verse is not the only thing that stayed with Friedman following the recognition. He also received a tallit—a Jewish prayer shawl—made from wool shorn in the Golan and gifted by local farmers. “I don’t think there’s been a day since then that I haven’t worn that tallit to synagogue,” he told the audience.

As Jewish families around the world sat down for their Passover seder, an armed man showed up at the Harrisburg home of Pennsylvania’s Jewish governor, Josh Shapiro, with the intent to murder him and his family for “what he wants to do to Palestinian people.”

It’s tempting to let a story like this pass us by, as shocking as it is. The news cycle is relentless, and the threats against Jews have become so commonplace that they almost blur into one. But we must stop and take this in: Someone tried to burn alive an elected Jewish governor and his family on one of the most sacred nights of the Jewish calendar.

Despite the devastation to the governor’s mansion and the horrifying reality of being targeted, Shapiro didn’t cancel his second seder. Instead, he stood before the press and reaffirmed his faith. He showed up—publicly, proudly and defiantly—as a Jew.

Is there a response more Jewish than that? Hardly. But how should the rest of us respond? One idea: Produce more Jewish leaders like him. Shapiro reminded us what moral clarity looks like under fire. But he cannot and should not stand alone. His example should become a blueprint. We need to produce more Jewish leaders who are not only unafraid to say they’re Jewish but who say it with pride, strength and responsibility. There are certainly incredible Jewish leaders at all levels of government right now, but maybe the answer to rising antisemitism is that even more Jews should be considering political runs.

What the antisemites want is simple: for us to disappear. To apologize for our presence. To be silent. To hide. To blend in. To disavow who we are. To reject our heritage, our tradition, our nationhood. That is why the most powerful response is to step forward into leadership, into civic life, into visibility. Because leadership is protection, and participation yields meaningful action.

Jewish values—justice, education, family, tradition—are American values. They belong in city halls, zoning commissions, mayors’ offices and on school boards. They are not just compatible with democracy; they are essential to it. This moment is a call to action. 

A Jewish school-board member can challenge Jew-hatred in K-12 classrooms. A Jewish city council member can implement security protections for synagogues and Jewish day schools. A Jewish mayor can challenge universities that don't protect their Jewish students.

To be clear, not all leadership strengthens our community. We don’t need more Jewish politicians who weaponize their identity to turn against their own people or who undermine the one Jewish state. We need leaders who speak for all of us, of tradition, of unapologetic Jewish pride, and who are proud supporters of Israel.

We can't overlook the importance of Jewish leadership at a local level. Consider Beverly Hills, where, just weeks ago, Sharona Nazarian—the daughter of Iranian Jewish immigrants—was sworn in as mayor. Her inauguration ceremony began with Rabbi Nicole Guzik reciting the Shehecheyanu prayer, followed by Jewish schoolchildren singing Matisyahu’s “One Day.” Nazarian then took her oath with her hand placed on her grandfather’s battered siddur that had been recovered from Iran after he was forced to flee from religious persecution. She even went further. In her mayoral address, she launched a local initiative titled “Never again is now” to safeguard the city’s Jewish community from the rising tide of antisemitism.

Her leadership is more than symbolic. It’s effective. After the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Beverly Hills, under Jewish leadership, was among the first cities to stand publicly with Israel and against hate. The city is now working to establish a permanent memorial for those who were murdered. That doesn’t happen by chance. It happens because Jews are in the room, making decisions, shaping policy and leading.

Imagine if more cities and counties had that kind of leadership to protect their Jewish communities. Imagine if more Jews followed her example into local office.

Jews are safest when we are seen out in the world as the change-makers we are. We are strongest when we are engaged in the diverse ecosystem that surrounds us. And we are at our best when we lead—not in whispers but in full voice.

When Jews run for office, they don’t just fill a seat. They shift the atmosphere for the entire community.

So, yes, celebrate our Jewish American leaders. But, above all, consider joining them. Run. Speak. Lead. Be the Jew who shows up—publicly, proudly and unapologetically.

It seems like a lot longer ago than just eight months since then-Vice President Kamala Harris tapped Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to be her running mate. Picking the inept Walz to stand beside her on the Democratic presidential ticket was one of a series of blunders that led to her being defeated by President Donald Trump in November. Indeed, so tone deaf was her campaign to the national mood that it is highly likely that she would have lost even if she had not passed over the far more politically adept Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro in favor of Walz.

The arson attack by a person who claimed his motive was support for the Palestinians in their war against Israel on the governor’s mansion in Harrisburg is a brutal reminder of why Shapiro didn’t get a chance to help prop up Harris’s doomed campaign.

Shapiro was a far more impressive candidate than Walz turned out to be. He certainly would have fared better than Walz in the vice-presidential debate against then-Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio). He also might have potentially helped flip Pennsylvania into the Democratic column. Instead, Trump won the commonwealth’s 19 Electoral College votes by a relatively slim but decisive 120,000 votes. Though he was as liberal as Walz on most issues, Harris picked the Minnesotan. The main reason was the widely held perception that Shapiro’s Jewish identity was disqualifying for many in her party’s left-wing base that reviles Israel.

In the end, neither that foolish decision nor a year’s worth of kowtowing to campus antisemites and American Muslim supporters of Hamas was enough to help Harris engender much enthusiasm from the intersectional activist wing of the Democratic Party, as working-class voters of all races turned out to help elect Trump and Vance.

Yet, as the Democratic Party rallies to the defense of elite universities being threatened with defunding by Trump because they refuse to stop tolerating and encouraging antisemitism, Jew-hatred remains a problem for Shapiro’s party.

Antisemitism on the left

The arsonist, who reportedly also brought along a hammer with which he said he planned to assault the governor had he met him, was mentally unstable and had a criminal history. Yet much like the way mobs chanting for Israel’s destruction (“From the river to the sea”) and terrorism (“Globalize the intifada”) have normalized intimidation and violence against Jews, his ravings about “the Palestinian people” and opposition to Israel's war against Hamas illustrate the impact of the lies being spread about a “genocide” being committed in Gaza.

It goes without saying that had someone who was a Trump supporter committed such an attack, the liberal corporate media would have tied the crime to the president, and it would have remained a top story for weeks, if not months. Instead, the press is quickly moving on from the attempt to murder the Pennsylvania governor, and there are no op-eds in The New York Times or The Washington Post claiming that left-wing Democrats have, at the very least, created an atmosphere in which such violence has become imaginable.

Of course, that’s exactly what Democrats and much of the press were saying in October 2018 when a crazed gunman, who blamed liberal Jewish groups for illegal immigration but also despised Trump because of his support for Israel, attacked a Pittsburgh synagogue and murdered 11 Jewish worshippers at a Shabbat service. Indeed, Shapiro himself, then the Attorney General of Pennsylvania, was saying much the same thing himself when he was dropping hints about blaming Trump in the wake of that atrocity.

Shapiro and Muslims

That Shapiro has become an object of such suspicion and distaste for the left is ironic. When it comes to Israel, he is typical of most liberal Democratic officeholders. He was an early and enthusiastic supporter of President Barack Obama and never wavered from that position during that administration’s eight years of criticism of Israel and appeasement of Iran. He has attacked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “one of the worst leaders of all time.”

On Israel and the war in Gaza, he is far to the left of fellow Pennsylvania Democrat Sen. John Fetterman. Shapiro has also been actively trying to build bridges to the anti-Israel left. During the brief period when he was under consideration for the vice-presidential nomination, he disavowed two entirely reasonable op-eds he had written when he was a student because they stated the obvious truth that peace between Israel and the Palestinians was “virtually impossible.”

And just days before the arson attack on his home, the governor was being criticized by some in the Jewish community for his decision to give a $5 million state grant to a Philadelphia mosque—the largest-ever to a Pennsylvania-based Muslim institution—that is notorious as a hotbed of antisemitism. In doing so, Shapiro was sticking to the left’s disingenuous argument that a mythical wave of Islamophobia was morally equivalent to the unprecedented surge of antisemitism that has arisen since the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The decision was announced when Shapiro attended an Iftar dinner at the mosque, where he said the taxpayer funding of the expansion of the Al-Aqsa Islamic Society was a response to what he described as “tumult overseas,” adding that “we’re facing a lot of rising hate here at home.”

Yet none of that has exempted Shapiro from being the object of hatred from the left. The only reason why he is disliked by his party’s left-wing base—and considered “egregiously bad on Palestine” by The New Republic and Slate—is because of his open embrace of his Jewish identity and refusal to completely disavow any support for Israel in the manner of far-left Jewish politicians like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt).

This raises serious questions about more than Shapiro’s political future.

The future for American Jews

Shapiro is one of those Democrats obviously vying for the leadership of his party’s centrist wing. In his case, moderation is more a matter of tone than policy, as demonstrated last July by his graceful reaction to the attempted assassination of President Trump in Butler, Pa. He remains very popular in Pennsylvania, something that will likely be boosted by the sympathy for him and his family after the arson attack. A highly-skilled politician, he is regarded as a heavy favorite for re-election in 2026 and is already on the short list of the most serious contenders for his party’s presidential nomination in 2028.

But it remains to be seen how he will ultimately fare in a party in which radical Israel-bashers like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who is inheriting Sanders’s position as putative leader of the left, seems to best represent the sentiments of Democrats. They clearly want leaders who are willing to wage war on Trump and the Republicans, rather than at least trying to appear to want to unify the country, as Shapiro does.

In the aftermath of Oct. 7, the vilification of nominally pro-Israel Jews, even Obama-supporting liberals like the Pennsylvania governor, has been normalized by the political left on college campuses and in the media. This has created an atmosphere in which Jewish public figures who do not disavow Israel are anathema to the Democrats’ intersectional base.

More than that, it also proves that antisemitism isn’t, as Democrats have long asserted, solely a phenomenon of the extremist right. Rooted in “progressive” orthodoxies like critical race theory, intersectionality and settler-colonialism, it is now primarily a feature of mainstream political discourse on the left. So strong is the hold of these toxic ideas that it has gotten to the point where liberal institutions like Harvard University would rather forgo $9 billion in federal funds rather than adhere to the Trump administration’s attempt to roll back the tide of woke Jew-hatred.

That has not only isolated liberal Jews who have realized that longtime allies in other minority communities have largely abandoned them and institutions where they once felt at home are now hostile environments. It has created exactly the kind of atmosphere in which Jews of all sorts, whether on college campuses or even in the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion, cannot consider themselves entirely safe.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate). Follow him: @jonathans_tobin.

As we gathered around the seder table this year to retell the story of our ancestors’ journey from slavery to freedom, I shared a modern-day story of captivity and the longing for liberation—one that is deeply personal to me and that I think will resonate with others.

In May 2023, during my work with the Jewish Federation of San Diego, I visited Kibbutz Kfar Aza on a community mission. San Diego has a long-standing partnership with Sha’ar HaNegev—a collection of 10 kibbutzim and one moshav in the Gaza Envelope. This partnership has created a profoundly deep connection between the two communities. During our visit, we met with Ofir Libstein, the mayor of Sha’ar HaNegev and a resident of Kfar Aza. He shared his vision for Park Arazim, an industrial complex and medical center to be built on the land between Sha’ar HaNegev and the Gaza Strip, offering employment, training, education and health care for both Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza. It was a bold vision of shared humanity and peace.

On Oct. 7, 2023, Ofir was one of the first kibbutzniks murdered while defending his home and community. Just a day before, the residents of Kfar Aza were preparing for their annual kite festival. Each year on Simchat Torah, they would gather to send handmade kites over the Gaza border, each one carrying a note of peace, hope or love. It was a tradition rooted in optimism—a belief that even in a region marked by fear and conflict, there was still a place for peace and coexistence.

That morning, the skies filled with rockets and terror, while the kites lay trampled on the floor as Hamas terrorists launched an attack that devastated the kibbutz. That’s when 27-year-old twin brothers, Gali and Ziv Berman, in addition to many others, were abducted from the youth village of Kfar Aza. They are both lighting technicians—men whose profession is to bring light—and they were known for their deep commitment to family. They chose to remain on the kibbutz instead of moving closer to their work in Tel Aviv to help care for their father, who lives with Parkinson’s disease and dementia. Their choice speaks volumes about their character and love. They have been held hostage for more than 550 days and were only confirmed to be alive after the release of other hostages two months ago.

I returned to Kfar Aza on a small solidarity mission with leaders from San Diego in November 2023, five short weeks after the brutal attacks. I stood in that same youth village where Gali and Ziv had lived. The smell of accelerant still hung in the air. The remains of homes were charred and broken. It was silent but not empty. In the rubble, signs of life still spoke: the neck of a guitar, the ashes of a fire pit where friends once gathered, a half-empty beer bottle standing upright in the dust.

As we waded through the wreckage, Doron Steinbrecher’s mother, Simona, approached us. Doron was also taken hostage from the Kfar Aza youth village. Simona asked if she could speak with us. She told us about her daughter—her light, her life—and how she had convinced the army to let her return to the kibbutz, even before residents were officially allowed back. When asked why, Simona said: “I came to look for something that belonged to Doron. Something familiar. So that when she is released or rescued, she’ll have a piece of home. A piece of herself.” Through her tears, she begged us to do everything we could to secure her daughter’s release.

Doron was released. And her mother was there when she came home. Her love had never left her side.

On Passover, we tell the story of the Israelites, who cried out under the weight of bondage in Egypt, Mitzrayim—“the narrow place” in Hebrew—and were delivered. We recall how redemption came not just from above, but through the strength of belief, the courage of leadership and the power of a people who refused to forget one another.

The story of Gali and Ziv, the memory of Ofir, the kite festival, and the courage of a mother searching through ashes—these are our modern-day echoes of that same journey.

When we raised the matzah—the bread of affliction—we did so with the urgency of hope.

And when we opened the door for Elijah, it was a gesture of action as much as faith. Because we are still waiting and working for freedom in our time.

May Gali and Ziv, and all of the hostages come home soon. May every family waiting in anguish feel the embrace of a world that remembers them.

And may we, as a people, hold fast to the light, even in the narrowest places. 

When the children’s clothing company Tottini invited her to a design meeting in 2022 to discuss her curating a collection, Lizzy Savetsky wasn’t sure why she needed to schlep from Dallas to Lakewood, N.J. 

“I thought, ‘Can’t we just do this over Zoom?’” the 39-year-old Jewish social media “influencer” and pro-Israel advocate told JNS. (Her following on Instagram was about 415,000 at press time.)

But after she had handled fabric samples in Tottini’s warehouse and outlined patterns and imagined outfits, Savetsky was brought back to a childhood dream.

“From when I was in the second grade, I used to stay up at night when my mom thought I would be sleeping and I’d be in my closet trying on clothes and putting together outfits,” she told JNS during an hour-long conversation in her apartment building on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. “Fashion has always been such a huge part of my self-expression.”

Clad in a denim jacket and jeans and a large, diamond-encrusted, chai necklace, Savetsky told JNS that she opted for Uggs for comfort.

“I don’t think dressing well is frivolous at all,” she said. “If anything, it’s a reflection of how we want to present ourselves from the inside, and I think we actually don’t put enough thought about that, especially the Jewish community, into the idea of ‘packaging.’”

She cited the example of the “PR war” in which Israel is involved. “The idea of packaging matters, and I think it’s the same way for us as individuals,” she told JNS.

‘Wild West’

After earning a master’s degree in multicultural education at the University of Pennsylvania, Savetsky found herself feeling “so burnt out from the academic space and turned off by that pseudo-intellectual environment,” she told JNS.

“I didn't even know what the word ‘woke’ was, but this was 2010, and all of that was just starting, and I felt it in a very profound way,” she said. “I was so idealistic, and I loved doing my field work and working with the students, but in terms of the academic space, I just felt like these are not my people.”

She launched an online presence the following year and became a fashion and lifestyle blogger. In 2013, she shifted to Instagram.

“I remember going to my parents and saying, ‘I’m going to quit my job and just do my blog and Instagram full time,’ and they were like, ‘What’s a blog?’” she said. “They were so confused, because it was such a new career path. Nowadays, people see being an influencer as a career, but back then, nobody did that.”

Savetsky had listed that she is a Zionist on her social media biographies since 2017. But everything changed after war broke out between Gazan terror groups and Israel in 2021 in what would be called “Operation Guardian of the Walls.”

“Before May of 2021, I would have told you that I was a combination of a mommy fashion lifestyle hybrid influencer, who still was very outspoken about Judaism and Israel, though that wasn’t what I led with,” she said. 

“I had been unapologetic about my stance and have been loud and proud, but 2021 was a real turning point for me when I saw the social-media world just explode with hate for Israel,” she told JNS. (She estimates that she lost 30,000 followers on social media in 2021.)

The Jew-hatred that spread online was a wake-up call for her to pivot in the way that she leveraged her prominent voice.

“I didn’t know that Instagram or social media could be used for advocacy, because obviously, when I started this platform in 2011, it was just aesthetically pleasing images and a grid,” she said. “I never in a million years thought that Instagram would be the vehicle that I would be using to stand up for the Jewish people.”

“It’s sort of like the Wild West for me, making it up as I go along and blazing a trail,” she told JNS. “It has felt so natural, even more so than the mommy fashion lifestyle blogging stuff, it feels like exactly what I was supposed to be doing.”

Juggling act

As her platform shifted toward full-time Jewish advocacy, Savetsky’s work as an influencer had to evolve, including the decision which sorts of brands made good partners.

The Jewish-owned brand Tottini felt like a natural fit that helped her align her work and her values.

“I am a mom who dresses my kids, and I’m also screaming into my megaphone about antisemitism,” she said. “I think Jewish people as a whole are juggling with this globally,  trying to figure out how to live our normal lives and also step into this new role as being a voice for the Jewish people.”

She told JNS that she has sent “a ton” of shipments to Israel, particularly in the past year, from her Tottini line. 

“When I call them up and I say, ‘Look, we need to hold on launching, because the war just started back up,’ they say to me, ‘Of course, no problem,’ because they understand,” she said of Tottini.

Domestically, she said it is important to her that her designs remain affordable for families. “They can come to one place and get Shabbos clothes, swimsuits, cover-ups and even camp clothes—all in a one-stop shop and not walk out having to get a second mortgage,” Savetsky said.

She told JNS that she is “on a very different path than other fashion influencers, and I had already made this commitment to myself that I wanted to devote my platform full time to the Jewish people and spreading the truth for Israel.”

“Especially after Oct. 7, I had a long-term partnership with Saks Fifth Avenue, and I had content due around Oct. 10, and I just said to them, ‘I can’t do this right now,’” she said. “I don’t know if I’d be able to work with a brand that didn’t get ideologically where I am right now. I could not ask for a better partner in Tottini, and I get emotional even talking about it.” 

It feels like God “handed me this opportunity,” she said.

‘So fun’

Savetsky told JNS that she works with Tottini and its factories abroad to select fabric a year in advance. This year’s spring-summer line is inspired by her Texas upbringing. 

“The seersucker and gingham fabric choices are a nod to my southern roots,” she said. “I grew up in Texas, and it just feels sweet and proper to have kids dressed in those styles.”

“Seeing how the factory is able to bring my vision to life is the coolest feeling in the world,” she said. “I can come up with these insane ideas and then execute them, and it’s so fun that they let me do it.”

“If I say I want to put a gingham ruffle on a strawberry swimsuit, they are like, that’s crazy, but OK, we’ll try it.”

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and national director of the Anti-Defamation League, boycotted the Jerusalem International Conference on Combating Antisemitism in late March to protest the event’s inclusion of so-called “far-right European politicians.” Israeli Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli countered that the “right-wing” European party members he invited were “allies” in combating antisemitism.

A month earlier, Chikli explained the invitations, saying, “antisemitism is a growing problem in Europe due to Muslim immigration. The European right-wing parties have a point because they realize the problem and are presenting a solution. They understand the challenge of radical Islam, and they are willing to take the necessary steps.”

The ADL has a 20-year record of determining “extreme antisemitism” in different places and among different groups, and for the last 10 years, it has released findings in its “Global 100: An Index of Antisemitism.” Countries are ranked based on how many antisemitic stereotypes out of a total of 11 statements people there agree with. Those who agree that six or more statements are “probably true” are considered by the ADL report to be “harboring” antisemitic views.

Over the years, the report has included results from religious groups, including Christians and Muslims in Western Europe (such as in 2004, 2015 and 2019, and 2023). Yet that data, which shows Western European Muslims harboring significantly more antisemitic views than others in Western Europe, is now missing from the ADL’s website.

After compiling the results of ADL survey reports from 2015 to 2023, we found a grossly disproportionate, two-to-four-fold excess prevalence of Jew-hatred among the Muslims in the United Kingdom, Belgium, France, Germany, Spain and Italy.

A reported instance where statistical adjustment to remove “confounding” or bias was performed on the ADL’s Western European survey data yielded even more alarming results. Applying multivariable adjustment (controlling for country of residence, age, religion, income, gender, contact with Jews, etc.) to ADL’s 2004 survey data, Yale University educators, in the peer-reviewed The Journal of Conflict Resolution, demonstrated that Western European Muslims had an 8-fold excess risk of harboring extreme antisemitism relative to Christians.

Moreover, when the ADL released the original raw April 2004 survey data, “Attitudes toward Jews, Israel and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in 10 European countries,” no indication whatsoever was made that the survey included a Muslim sample.

We recently discovered that the attempted concealment by ADL of its own disturbing findings on the attitudes of Western European Muslims on antisemitism is an ongoing matter of grave, urgent concern.

As confirmed by the ADL itself in email correspondence, the ADL has scrubbed from its “Global 100,” public antisemitism survey results hub any Western European demographic data by religious affiliation, including Islam, for its 2015, 2019 and 2023 results.

The timing of this removal is disquieting because the data appears to have been made completely unavailable in March, on or about the time Greenblatt decided not to attend the antisemitism conference.

The ADL justified making the data inaccessible so abruptly because, as they said in their email, “religious affiliation has proven less generalizable” compared to other demographic variables, such as education and age.” Yet this didn’t seem to be a problem before. Another alleged reason for making the religious affiliation data unavailable, the organizaiton said, was that it was awaiting the completion of “internal research and peer-reviewed analysis.”

These claims are disingenuous and ring hollow. First, there is copious independent data from Western European academic and governmental surveys that confirm ADL’s findings of excessive antisemitism within the Muslim vs. non-Muslim populations of Western Europe.

Second, as already stated, almost 20 years ago, when the ADL allowed outside investigators access to their raw data for appropriate statistical analysis and peer-reviewed publication, the Western European religious affiliation data ADL had concealed indicated Muslims were 8-fold more antisemitic than Christians.

Lastly, even after the ADL’s private correspondence acknowledging its religious affiliation purging, there is still no public explanation on the ADL Global 100 website providing examples of what the data revealed and “rationalizing” its removal.

ADL’s pattern of blatant and arbitrary censoring of its own extreme antisemitism survey index scores on Western European Muslim antisemitism is disturbing and disorienting to those trying to assess Muslim antisemitism objectively and place it into perspective. We urge the group to desist from such censorious behavior and share data openly and transparently to facilitate effective strategies that combat the modern global scourge of disproportionate Muslim antisemitism.