Escalation in Israel: What Comes Next?

Israelis took to shelters, stairwells, and reinforced rooms yesterday as Iran launched a barrage of over 180 ballistic missiles in retaliation for Israel’s actions against Hezbollah. The missiles were largely intercepted, although one casualty – a Palestinian man near Jericho – has been reported. Israel has vowed retaliation.

After nearly a year of fighting, as of Tuesday evening Israel is involved in a regional war. In the wake of the events of the past two weeks between Israel and Hezbollah, Iran has inserted itself into the heart of the conflict…

Israel’s strike on Houthi-controlled Hodeidah in Yemen on Sunday could signal a potential retaliatory strike on Iran, possibly targeting its nuclear or oil facilities. Iran’s economy is heavily dependent on oil and gas exports.

Escalating this confrontation now is a gamble for Iran. With Hamas depleted and Hezbollah in disarray, Iran’s proxies can’t defend it the way they usually would. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei may be betting that Mr. Biden will shrink again from defending the civilized world from a dangerous regime. Will he be right?

What Are the Highlights from the VP Debate?

Last night, J.D. Vance went against Tim Walz in a vice presidential debate that covered everything from Israel to immigration. Watch here.

The Senator was especially effective in sanding down the sharper edges of GOP policies that Democrats and the press portray as cruel.

The best evidence of Walz’s poor performance was the fact that Vance, who has been a gaffe machine and can seem wooden and impersonal—“weird,” in Walz’s parlance—came across well by comparison.

CBS drew some criticism from both audience members and the candidates on stage over their handling of the debate rules, underscoring the challenges news organizations face in conducting debates in the current political climate.

What Are We Bringing Into Rosh Hashanah This Year?

The Jewish new year begins tonight at sundown. After a year of war in Israel and only a day after Iran’s shocking attack, Jews are carrying a lot of pain, hope, and fear into the holiday.

Do the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza know that Rosh Hashanah begins tonight? Perhaps not, and perhaps it’s better that way. For me, the more important question is whether those hostages are still alive.

I recently learned that many Israelis are saying “Shana Tova yoteir” rather than the familiar “Shana Tova.” While the latter means “A Good New Year,” the addition of the word “yoteir” changes it to “A BETTER New Year.”

Our Jewish world has absorbed tremendous pain this past year.

Fifty-seven-eighty-five may see Jews go beyond mere survival to thriving again. Our enemies are stuck in a 5784 mentality. That world is gone. This new world contains exploding pagers and Hezbollah liquidation sales. Perfectly imperfect, it is Jewish, proud, tough, victorious, and therefore beautiful.

Does “Nobody Wants This” Have a Jewish Woman Problem?

Erin Foster’s (below) new show on Netflix, Nobody Wants This, follows the romance of a rabbi (Adam Brody) and a non-Jewish woman (Kristen Bell) but some are saying that the show’s depiction of Jewish women is antisemitic.

While it offers up the fantasy of the ideal Jewish man in Noah, the series seems to loathe Jewish women, who are portrayed as nags, harpies, and the ultimate villains of this story. I wanted to be swept away by a rom-com. Instead, I was faced with the reality that maybe this show actually hates me.

Judaism, per this comedic universe, is awful: It is a religion that consists of nagging women and lazy men, driven by archaic rules that don’t allow for Reform rabbis to have shiksa girlfriends…

If I made the Jewish parents, like, two granola hippies on a farm, then someone would write, ‘I’ve never met a Jewish person like that before. You clearly don’t know how to write Jewish people, you don’t know what you’re doing, and that doesn’t represent us well.’

Does Throwing Soup at a Van Gogh Warrant Jail Time?

Protestors from the organization “Just Stop Oil” threw soup at Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” to protest the UK’s sentencing of their fellow activist to two years in prison for doing the same thing.

Attempting to destroy property is not freedom of speech. They deserve to be punished. And only half of the sentence is custodial. So we’re really looking at a year. If you ask me, that’s appropriate.

[Climate activists] are either sidelined or, if they cannot be ignored, relentlessly attacked. It is so much easier to lock up the people impeding our frenetic dance towards oblivion and then pretend the problem has gone away.

The judgment sends an unfortunate message about the country’s diminishing tolerance for peaceful protests.

What’s New & Fascinating in Jewish Literature?

Here are three page-turning takes on news from the world of Jewish literature:

More enlightening than Rabbi Dorff’s conclusions are the paths he takes to arrive at them. The work of the Conservative posek (legal scholar) involves far more than poring over tomes of Jewish law. It also involves reading the work of non-Jewish ethical philosophers, staying up-to-date on medical and scientific research, and hearing directly from those who will be impacted by the Conservative Movement’s position.

What does it mean to be Jewish today?

In his new book “For Such a Time as This: On Being Jewish Today,” Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove of New York’s Park Avenue Synagogue provides an answer to this question as we approach the one-year mark since the brutal attacks on Israel by Hamas. Published on Sept. 24, the book also appears just one week before Rosh Hashanah.

Gila Fine’s book, The Madwoman in the Rabbi’s Attic, which focuses on six stories, some just a few short lines, is a masterclass in reading aggadah, the narrative, non-legal parts of the Talmud.

Stories that appear to show a negative treatment of women by the sages on first reading reveal a far more nuanced understanding.

Today’s Hot Issues

Escalation in Israel: What Comes Next? What Are the Highlights from the VP Debate? What Are We Bringing Into Rosh Hashanah This Year? Does “Nobody Wants This” Have a Jewish Woman Problem? Does Throwing Soup at a Van Gogh Warrant Jail Time? What’s New & Fascinating in Jewish Literature?