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Tabby Refael

A protester holds a picture of Mahsa Amini, the Kurdish woman whose death in the custody of Iran’s “morality police” has sparked widespread unrest. Source: Twitter.

Mahsa Amini and the meaning of Rosh Hashanah

This year, the first day of Rosh Hashanah also marks the first anniversary of the death of Mahsa Jina Amini, the 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman who perished at the hands of Iran’s brutal morality police in 2022.

September 14, 2023

Los Angeles at night. Credit: Pixabay.

Unpacking the antisemitic shootings in Los Angeles

For some, the shootings prove what they’ve always suspected.

February 22, 2023

Iranian protesters on Keshavrz Boulevard in Tehran on Sept. 20, 2022. Credit: Darafsh via Wikimedia Commons.

Next year in Tehran

When it comes to Iran, it’s no longer a question of whether the regime will be overthrown, but when.

January 5, 2023

Mass popular protests taking place across Iran in the summer of 2021. Source: Twitter.

Want to be pro-Israel? Support Iranians.

Iranians deserve our support because their revolution stands on its own merits, but I want to offer a plea that’s self-evident, but still overlooked: If you’re pro-Israel, you must unequivocally support Iranians who are seeking regime change today.

November 10, 2022

Iranians demand freedom, Oct. 10, 2022. Source: Twitter.

For Iranians in the diaspora, this is the most important moment of our lives

The unprecedented rage of citizens against the regime’s oppression renders today’s protests uniquely historic—because this time, there may be no turning back.

October 19, 2022

A protester holds a picture of Mahsa Amini, the Kurdish woman whose death in the custody of Iran’s “morality police” has sparked widespread unrest. Source: Twitter.

Her name was Mahsa Amini

There’s something about the young Iranian woman’s murder that has especially repulsed the world, including her fellow Iranians.

September 29, 2022

Mordechai Ben-Porat. Photo by Gil Hadani/Dan Hadani Collection, The Pritzker Family National Photography Collection, The National Library of Israel.

Why haven’t more Israelis heard of Mordechai Ben-Porat?

Throughout Jewish history, there have been three luminaries who brought exiled Babylonian Jews back to their ancestral homeland en masse: the prophets Jeremiah and Ezra, and Ben-Porat.

February 3, 2022

An anti-Semitic flier with the words “Jews Do” in red lettering that has drops falling from them to resemble blood was superimposed over a Star of David and a shadowy image of a hooked-nosed man with ears shaped like a devil. Source: Stop Antisemitism.org.

In 2022, the Jewish people need a national resolution

Is it possible for Jews, who can’t seem to agree on anything, to strive for national resolutions as one people?

January 5, 2022

A swearing-in ceremony for the Israel Defense Forces' Paratroopers Brigade, at Ammunition Hill in Jerusalem, on Nov. 11, 2021. Photo by Arie Leib Abrams/Flash90.

Why do Jews have such a love affair with the IDF?

What is it about Israeli soldiers that drives my mother crazy in the best possible way?

December 12, 2021