My new article on Linkedin “How to End Covid-19”

Every country in the world is grappling by itself with the woes of Covid-19. Germany is on its way to yet another lockdown; France is already under lockdown; India breaks records in new confirmed cases, and Brazil breaks records in Covid deaths. There was a time when we felt that the pandemic is everyone’s problem, and then presidential candidate Joe Biden said “An infection anywhere is an infection everywhere.” Now, each country is fighting the bug on its own. The UN Director General complained about inequality in administering the vaccines, and while some countries have vaccinated half of their population, others have not received a single dose of any of the vaccines.

Currently, each country thinks of its own interest and behaves as selfishly as we always have. At the same time, the global nature of Covid-19 requires that we start thinking globally about our health rather than locally, since every country affects every other country. Also, financial ability to afford the vaccines should not be a consideration in administering it.

If we continue this behavior, there will be no end to this pandemic. Variants will keep emerging and the spreading will continue. If we want to resolve this crisis, we must return to the perception of the pandemic as a global problem and treat it as such. There needs to be a global vaccine bank, and we must produce enough vaccines for all of humanity. Afterwards, we must prioritize who should get it first: by age, by country, etc. It needs to be as impartial as possible.

Currently, each country thinks of its own interest and behaves as selfishly as we always have. At the same time, the global nature of Covid-19 requires that we start thinking globally about our health rather than locally, since every country affects every other country. Also, financial ability to afford the vaccines should not be a consideration in administering it.

To put it simply, we must treat humanity the way we would treat our own family. If we do this, we will at least try to send the vaccines where they are most required, and that way we will all recover from the pandemic much faster. We must keep in mind that until we all recover from it, no one is safe. In a way, the plague is a lesson in consideration that nature is giving us. So far, we have been poor students.

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My new article on Linkedin “What We Should Remember on Israel’s Memorial Day”

This evening begins Israel’s Memorial Day for the Fallen Soldiers of the Wars of Israel and Victims of Actions of Terrorism. Our nation is unique. Alongside the grieving for the fallen and the victims, we must bear in mind that the State of Israel and the people of Israel are in a unique position. We are the only nation whose fate lies in its hands. While it is true that we are surrounded by enemies who wish nothing but our destruction, it is also true, if hard to accept, that we can turn our enemies into friends if we do what we must do, on which I will elaborate below. Therefore, on the one hand, we must mourn the fallen; on the other hand, we must assume responsibility for our lives in order to prevent others from falling and achieve the long sought after peace with our neighbors.

Israel is indeed in a unique position to determine its own fate. We really can prevent further casualties. If we reignite the bond between us and become the role model that the world is looking for, it will turn the world’s heart in our favor. If there is a lesson we can take from our painful history for this memorial day, it is the lesson of unity that paves our way to peace.

The composition of the people of Israel is unique. We did not emerge from a specific tribe or a specific place. Our ancestors were originally strangers who joined into a group that followed Abraham because they believed in his message of mercy and love of others. Under Abraham’s guidance, those strangers, who were often enemies, bonded so strongly that they formed a new nation. That nation was unique, founded on the constant pursuit of love of others, and on rising above the hatred that flared between them on occasion. Every time the ancient enmities resurfaced, our ancestors would reinforce their bond a little more in order to overcome the new burst of hatred. As a result, they became a nation whose members truly united “as one man with one heart.”

The unique achievement of our ancestors, accompanied by their biological connection to their original nations, made them the perfect candidates for spreading the method of achieving of peace among all nations. The Book of Zohar describes in a few terse, yet powerful sentences the whole sequence from hatred, through bonding, to spreading the message. In the portion Acharei Mot, The Book of Zohar writes, “‘Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to also sit together.” These are the friends as they sit together, unseparated from each other. At first, they seem like people at war, wishing to kill one another. Then they return to being in brotherly love. …And you, the friends who are here, as you were in fondness and love before, henceforth you will also not part … and by your merit there will be peace in the world.”

Because of the unique quality of the people of Israel and its unique makeup, whenever internal or international tensions rise, people point their fingers at the Jews. Although most people are unaware of the ancient connection between the Jewish people and the rest of the world, that hidden tie still lives within there and directs the world toward us when it seeks a way to overcome trouble.

The ancient Jews did not preach the nations about unity. They taught by example. In the 3rd century BC, for example, there was relative calm in the land of Israel. As a result, people from the nations of the world would come to Jerusalem during the pilgrimages of Sukkot, Passover, and Shavuot, to witness the unity of the Jews. During each pilgrimage, the sight was spectacular. The pilgrimages were intended primarily for uniting the hearts of the members of the nation. In his book The Antiquities of the Jews (Book IV, chap. 8), Flavius Josephus writes that the pilgrims would make “acquaintance … maintained by conversing together and by seeing and talking with one another, and so renewing the recollections of this union.”

Once inside the city, the pilgrims were greeted with open arms. The townsfolk let them into their homes and treated them as family. The Mishnah (Bikurim, 3) relishes in this rare camaraderie: “All the craftsmen in Jerusalem would stand before them and ask about their well-being: ‘Our brothers, men of so and so place, have you come in peace?’ and the flute would play before them until they arrived at Temple Mount.” The book Avot de Rabbi Natan (Chapter 35), adds in this regard: “All the material needs of every person who came to Jerusalem were met in full. “One did not say to one’s friend, ‘I could not find an oven on which to roast offerings in Jerusalem’ … or ‘I could not find a bed to sleep in, in Jerusalem.’”

And most important, those festivals of bonding made Israel into “a light unto nations.” The book Sifrey Devarim (Item 354) details how non-Jews would “go up to Jerusalem and see Israel … and say, ‘It is becoming to cling only to this nation.’”

We therefore see that Israel is indeed in a unique position to determine its own fate. We really can prevent further casualties. If we reignite the bond between us and become the role model that the world is looking for, it will turn the world’s heart in our favor. If there is a lesson we can take from our painful history for this memorial day, it is the lesson of unity that paves our way to peace.

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My new article on Linkedin “True Equality”

The demand for equality only increases from generation to generation. Solving this social discomfort seems to be the recipe for preventing discrimination and injustices so recurrent in our times. So what needs to happen in order to live with each other in peace?

Equality is a deceptive term because by nature we are all different. Everyone has his or her own needs and own characteristics, so the expectation of being treated the same way as someone else is quite problematic. After all, we usually do not know the other person’s needs and even if we have the intention of getting into someone else’s shoes, we will have a hard time achieving it since our own needs are always the priority for us.

If we want to avoid a general collapse, we will have to rise to a level where human connection will have a higher value than any private property or desire. Because this lofty goal is contrary to human nature, only a broad, long term social educational process can help us. A real cultural-perceptual revolution. The goal should be to upgrade the perception of reality of every individual in society. That means to change our self-centered perception, as if the world belongs only to us, and realize that in nature we are connected to others and dependent on them. When this change of perception happens, we will feel committed to care for others as we care for ourselves.

In such a reality where everyone is different and also self-centered, there can be no equality. This is what happens to us at every level, from the distribution of the government budget to the distribution of bonuses within a work team. No matter what area of our lives, we are in a constant battle because everyone thinks he or she deserves more than what is given to them now. Therefore, there is always a feeling of deprivation, and the feeling of inequality follows closely behind.

And in spite of everything, within us lies the desire for equality. Why? Because we can really enter such a state. But achieving equality requires ascending to another level of life in general. That is, through new relationships inverted from what we know now, by switching our narrow egotistical calculation of self-benefit to open relationships of consideration, connection, and reciprocity, to the level of love between people. Only in relationships based on love and collaboration can there be equality, because I love the other and the other will love me, and in that we will feel equal.

It is clear that at first glance this scenario seems like a fairytale that will never come true, but the problems and struggles humanity is facing cannot be solved in any other way. We live in a reality that is becoming more and more connected, at the same time the global, limited resources are becoming depleted. We try our best to get everything for ourselves, and sooner or later we will reckon that we have no other alternative but agreeing to give up a little.

In the meantime we feel unsatisfied, unsettled, deprived, and are just waiting for the first opportunity to free ourselves from the grip of those who oppress us and consider that we have taken what we deserve. So we move from struggle to struggle, from war to war. Each time it gets worse, because the ego increasingly gets stronger, so we are destroying each other in the name of discrimination and the demand for justice and equality.

If we want to avoid a general collapse, we will have to rise to a level where human connection will have a higher value than any private property or desire. Because this lofty goal is contrary to human nature, only a broad, long term social educational process can help us. A real cultural-perceptual revolution. The goal should be to upgrade the perception of reality of every individual in society. That means to change our self-centered perception, as if the world belongs only to us, and realize that in nature we are connected to others and dependent on them. When this change of perception happens, we will feel committed to care for others as we care for ourselves.

To achieve this goal requires an immense undertaking of advocacy, a great deal of work, both in scope and duration, to penetrate all levels of society around the world, so an agreement in the general public can be reached that fosters ideas like connection and reciprocity as a priority. This agreement will lead to changes in society, government and leadership, and also will gradually create a new attitude within society regarding equality.

As we strive to treat one another with love, we will begin to feel that we are all one soul, like organs in a single body. And just as in my body I sense the different organs, so will I feel each and every person around me. Such a state will give us the real perception of equality, one that can only be achieved through connection, through the commitment of being one for all and all for one.
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My new article on Linkedin “From Startup Nation to United Nation”

Israel has always tried to appease the world and please it. We’ve gone from bragging about our achievements in high-tech to showing off pretty girls, to boasting the speed with which we vaccinated the population in Israel. The world may be very impressed, yet it doesn’t like Israel any better. If anything, Israel’s achievements only anger the world and make it more resentful. Those who do like Israel, like it because of the people of Israel’s historic vocation, which has nothing to do with high-tech or vaccinations. Those who hate Israel, hate it because of our historic vocation, too. Therefore, if we want the world to accept Israel, we must understand vocation and follow through with it.

Under Abraham, who was dubbed “the man of mercy,” they learned that kindness and caring are the most sublime values in existence, worth any effort to acquire them. Oddly enough, the Israelites’ initial strangeness worked in their favor, making their caring “untainted by partiality” due to familial affinity. The union they had achieved, therefore, came to them only through their success in becoming sympathetic individuals who truly cared for one another.

Israel’s vocation, and the reason that the world approved of establishing a Jewish state in the midst of a hostile Arab population, has to do with how we formed as a nation. We tend to forget it because if we remember how we began, it will require efforts to reestablish it. Yet, if we ignore our history, then we have neither present nor future.

Israel’s nationhood began when we committed to each other to love one another as ourselves, to care for each other “as one man with one heart.” At that time, under Mt. Sinai, we became a nation. It was indeed a miracle. We weren’t “meant” to succeed since our ancestors came from a variety of tribes and clans that inhabited the Fertile Crescent, and had nothing in common. The only thing that held them together was the fact that they had followed the same teacher, Abraham the Patriarch, whose ideology they embraced.

Under Abraham, who was dubbed “the man of mercy,” they learned that kindness and caring are the most sublime values in existence, worth any effort to acquire them. Oddly enough, the Israelites’ initial strangeness worked in their favor, making their caring “untainted by partiality” due to familial affinity. The union they had achieved, therefore, came to them only through their success in becoming sympathetic individuals who truly cared for one another.

Following Abraham’s passing, his heirs continued to develop their father’s ideology; they perfected it to the point that under Moses’ leadership, they achieved complete unity and were declared a nation. Indeed, that nation was like none other: bonded by selfless love as opposed to biological affiliation, which is inherently self-centered. And though they often fell out of love with one another, the young nation managed to overcome numerous trials and tribulations, and created a legacy of unity that transcends hatred, or as King Solomon phrased it, “Hate stirs strife, and love will cover all crimes” (Prov. 10:12).

This unique nation became a role model, an example of how the world will have to be at some point in the future. Since all nations cannot be relatives, they will have to find some other way to unite, or they will destroy one another. That other way was the way of Israel. This is why once the Israelites became a nation, they were tasked with being “a light unto nations”—to set an example that the world could follow. That was Israel’s historic vocation, and it still is. This is why the League of Nations supported establishing a Jewish home for the Jews in their historic land in November 1947, and this is still our obligation to the world.

Currently, despite all the technological innovations that Israel has provided, the medical developments, and scientific breakthroughs that have come from our small country, the world holds everything against us. This is its way of telling us that this is not what it wants from us. What it wants is that we do what we did before: unite above hatred. The world wants us to unite even though we cannot stand each other. It wants us to learn to care the way our ancestors did, and show the world how they, too, can do it.

We must not forget that our ancestors came from the nations of the world, and they, too, must unite. Yet, since they did not have Abraham, it is up to Israel to pave the way. Just as Abraham was the man of mercy, Israel must now become a nation of mercy that the world can follow.

The world does not need our kindness to strangers; they need our kindness to each other, which is, let’s face it, the hardest thing of all. But the world will not embrace us until we embrace each other above our mutual dislike. It is time to rebrand Israel, from Startup Nation to The United Nation.
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My new article on Linkedin “Some Lives Are Worth More in Our Egoistic World”

Covid-19 has claimed nearly 350,000 lives in Brazil, vaccinations are infuriatingly sluggish, and thousands of casualties are added to the tally each day. In the meantime, European countries have access to vaccines, and their daily tallies are in the lower triple digits. Yet, the tragedy unfolding in Brazil gets little to no media attention while the struggle in Europe, which, by the way, could have been even more successful if it weren’t for bureaucratic incompetence, is getting the full spotlight. Are Brazilian lives worth less?

As I have stated countless times, we’re in a different time now, when the interconnections between us impose an all-encompassing solution. We will not be healed from the virus, in one mutation or another, until we heal our egoism. Until then, any reprieve from its whip will be short-lived, and every blow that will follow will be more painful than the former.

Judging by the media coverage, the answer is clear. However, in truth, the answer is even worse than “Yes, they are worth less.” The uneven attention that the tragedy unfolding in Brazil, and in a few other countries in South America, demonstrates the level of self-absorption we have reached. It is now at a point where it is impossible to answer the question of the value of life simply because no one gives it a single thought. Life, it seems, is not worth discussing, but only rating and coverage.

This is not news, of course, but when it becomes so patent, it’s still worth mentioning, even if only to remind ourselves of the nature of our being. Humans, we are seeing once again, are selfish to the core.

Let’s ask ourselves a question: If, for the sake of argument, we could do whatever we want, whenever we wanted, and no one, absolutely no one, would know about it, point the finger at us, punish us, or reproach us in any way, what would our world be like? How would we behave if that were the case? As I’m sure you can imagine, we have much more to learn about our nature than has been revealed. Perhaps it would be wise to imagine what we’d do if we could rather than wait for it to manifest, since we see that gradually, what we do not imagine, materializes in reality.

If I could give humanity the best present, I’d make everyone see the real human nature as quickly and as harmlessly as possible. This would make us search sincerely for a correction of our nature rather than apply makeshift fixes that let the fester swell up even worse until it painfully explodes.

Still, the pandemic won’t let up. As I have stated countless times, we’re in a different time now, when the interconnections between us impose an all-encompassing solution. We will not be healed from the virus, in one mutation or another, until we heal our egoism. Until then, any reprieve from its whip will be short-lived, and every blow that will follow will be more painful than the former.

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My new article on Linkedin “Are Jews Also to Blame for the US Border Crisis?”

The situation at the border should be called by its name, a crisis. The U.S. border crisis is close to a disaster for the country on multiple levels, first and foremost, the human. Nearly 19,000 children and teenagers traveling without a parent were stopped by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in March, the most ever in a single month. Those children joined already crammed cage-style detention centers where they stay in deplorable conditions, are at risk for contracting coronavirus, and allegedly are exposed to physical violence and sexual assault. What does this forbode for the future? And what does it have to do with the Jews?

So we may ask, “How could the border crisis possibly be connected to us?” The link stems from one reason: we live in a global world, a network of intricate interconnection, in which Jews are held accountable for everyone’s well-being, or conversely, for everyone’s predicaments.

Illegal immigration to the U.S. is not a new phenomenon, but with President Biden coming to power and abolishing Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy, the borders have been literally overrun. Immigrants from Mexico and Central America feel the doors are wide open. As a result, in March alone over 170,000 migrants were apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border, a 71% spike over February’s official statistics, and the pace continues to accelerate.

I am not a member of the UN or any international human rights organizations that deems it their responsibility to fix the immigration problem. Rather, I am a public figure who agreed with Trump’s rigid stance regarding building a wall to make clear that without a visa, there can be no entry. Only then would it be possible to consider the right steps for the absorption of immigrants so that the mental and physical anguish at the borders could be avoided, at the very least.

For now, all the steps of President Biden and those around him are aimed at undoing the political trajectories that Trump established during his time in office. This obliges Biden and those who follow him, to begin again from the ground up. The question is how high will the human cost be to start over from scratch? How much suffering and sorrow, hunger and pain will be endured?

Nothing good will come out of this new policy of open borders, only social collapse. America may well sink. Entrepreneurs and businessmen, one by one, will begin to abandon the land of opportunity, that is diving into misfortune, instability, and insecurity, and will look for new possibilities in other countries like Canada, even Cuba will look more promising.

Just as the American forefathers emigrated from Western Europe to America, so too will businessmen and entrepreneurs begin to migrate outside the borders of America to set up factories and offices, establish banks and businesses. These new changes will shake the United States to the core.

The people who rule the country will be unable to control the chaos g and will lead society to total destruction in the so-called name of “democracy.” From the incompatibility of worldviews and general dissatisfaction with the direction the country is heading, social unrest may erupt.

American society, in all its sectors and communities, is in a process of gradual evolution. Until the desired maturity is reached, there must be a stable government with leaders who have a vision of the nation’s progress, who know how to wisely motivate millions of people to move the country forward.

This is how England, Germany and France were built over hundreds of years. It is impossible one fine morning to allow millions of immigrants from underdeveloped countries to enter and expect them to suddenly assimilate into society. It is impossible to instantly extend to them the reins of power in the name of liberalism without completely disrupting the process of smooth development.

I do not underestimate the will of migrant workers or the situation of refugees suffering from poor conditions and without basic human rights in their homelands. On the contrary, my heart goes out to each and every one of them. But at the political level there are laws and protocols that need to be followed. An integration program must be established as part of the U.S. immigration policy, a process to allow each immigrant to learn the language, get to know the local culture in depth, and understand the laws and norms accepted in society.

This can only happen under leadership that designs and implements a clear and orderly plan. A government that does not know how to stop the crisis before it explodes will inflict disaster on itself. And for now, the Biden government appears to be degenerating into total mayhem.

Although the Biden administration is now preoccupied with its breached borders, when the storm subsides, its next “problem” to tackle will be the State of Israel. In the current U.S. government’s sweet dream—which is a nightmare for most Israelis—a Palestinian state will be established on Israeli soil and that will be our end. While there is silence on this issue now, later the increasingly malicious message against Israel will resonate loud and clear. From there the road to inflicting wounds on the Jewish state is short indeed.

And why would such thoughts even arise in the heads of the American administration? Because the Jews who supported and still support Biden are willing to risk Israel’s future. This may sound like rough stitching between two entirely different conflicts, but no. The border crisis in the U.S., along with many others, is like a snowball beginning to roll from the top of a very steep slope, accumulating problems and troubles along the way. Just as Jews have historically been accused of being responsible for pestilences and conflicts, the same scenario will unfold here. We are one step closer to also being blamed for the border crisis, as antisemites proclaim, “the Jews are guilty of all the evil in the world!”

So we may ask, “How could the border crisis possibly be connected to us?” The link stems from one reason: we live in a global world, a network of intricate interconnection, in which Jews are held accountable for everyone’s well-being, or conversely, for everyone’s predicaments.

There is a general perception that Jews are not performing the role assigned to them by the ancient wisdom they hold, the secret of eternity, which they fail to reveal to every person on this planet so we can all achieve the ultimate happiness. This ancient wisdom is called the wisdom of connection and it teaches how the world is built, what its purpose is, and how we can create one human family that functions as an egalitarian society that cares for the weak as well as the strong.

As it is written, “No calamity comes to the world but for Israel.” (Yevamot 63). The first Chief Rabbi of the Land of Israel, Rav Kook, also wrote, “Humanity deserves to be united into a single family. At that time all the quarrels and the ill will that stem from divisions of nations and their boundaries shall cease. However, the world requires mitigation, whereby humanity will be perfected through each nation’s unique characteristics. This deficiency is what the Assembly of Israel will complement.” And in the words of foremost Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam),“The people of Israel, which has been chosen as an operator of the general purpose and correction … contains the preparation required for growing and developing until it moves the nations of the worlds, too, to achieve the common goal.”

In a nutshell, we need to implement what is deeply ingrained in our core values and heritage, our ability to connect as one man with one heart. When we put this law of nature into practice, we will truly become a “light unto the nations,” spreading an orderly system throughout the world and radiating warmth and love. This is the one and only mechanism for fending off threats and recovering the world’s balance.
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My new article on Linkedin “Covid Not Incentive for Antisemitism”

The Ministry of Diaspora Affairs 2020 Antisemitism Report argues that last year was good in the sense that in the previous year, no Jews were murdered for being Jews. At the same time, the report laments the rise of what it considers the most decisive power driving antisemitism in the previous year: the Covid-19 pandemic.

We should know better. Jews have always been blamed for the world’s woes. Were Jews not blamed for the Black Death in the Middle Ages? Were Jews not blamed for Germany’s woes before World War II broke out? And when Jews aren’t blamed for something as tragic as the Black Death, they’re still blamed for every little pain. In fact, Jews are hated even when there is nothing at all to blame them for.

Unless, of course, we put a stop to it. We, Jews, are the unexpected holders of the key to ending antisemitism. And once again, it is not a circumstantial solution. Nor is it a matter of policy, ideology, or stifling of antisemitic outbursts. We can and should apply sticking plaster solutions when possible, but we must not think that they will solve the problem. If we believe they will, reality will explode in our faces.

These days, the trend is to blame Israel for the intensification of antisemitism, as though this or that policy of the Israeli government will change how the world feels about Jews. I was born in Eastern Europe right after the war; almost my entire family perished in the Holocaust. There was no State of Israel to blame, and my family certainly didn’t cause the downfall of Germany in World War I, but they were murdered nonetheless. Their only “fault” was that they were Jews. Once it is legitimate to assail Jews, no pretext is needed, and no brutality is off limits.

According to the Internet Archive, since the Bar Kokhba Revolt, which ended in 135 CE, Jews have been expelled from their host countries, or altogether exterminated, more than 800 times! These pogroms predate the State of Israel, racism, and even Christianity. In fact, antisemitism is as old as Judaism itself. Therefore, if we want to find the solution to Jew-hatred, we have to look deeper than attributing it to some passing crisis that is here today and gone tomorrow.

But perhaps the most intriguing fact about Jew-hatred is the apparent dichotomy between the development of a country and the intensity and ferociousness of its antisemitism. Of all the countless atrocities that non-Jews have inflicted on Jews, none did so more potently and painfully than the most powerful nations of their time. Egypt under Pharaoh was the first, followed by Babylon, which ruined the First Temple. Then came Greece with the temporary destruction of the Second Temple, followed by Rome, which destroyed the Second Temple beyond repair and let the Jews destroy each other in a gruesome civil war. In the 15th century, Spain, a mighty and enlightened empire, expelled all the Jews from its midst in the second most traumatic event since the ruin of the Second Temple, and finally, the Holocaust that Nazi Germany had wrought on European Jewry was the worst trauma since the ruin of the Second Temple. In all those episodes, the decimators were the most advanced, cultured, and civilized nations of their time. But at some point, something made them turn against the Jews and let the monster loose.

Since this pattern has persisted throughout history, and only the pretexts changed to suit the circumstances, there is no reason to expect it to change going forward. The future of the Jews, it seems, is bleak, and another blow is nearing. Whether it will strike the State of Israel, American Jewry, or both is anyone’s guess, but there is no question that the two most developed and advanced Jewish communities are the targets of the next great blow to the Jewish people.

Unless, of course, we put a stop to it. We, Jews, are the unexpected holders of the key to ending antisemitism. And once again, it is not a circumstantial solution. Nor is it a matter of policy, ideology, or stifling of antisemitic outbursts. We can and should apply sticking plaster solutions when possible, but we must not think that they will solve the problem. If we believe they will, reality will explode in our faces.

The real solution lies not with the world, but with the Jews themselves. This is why this hatred persists through any circumstance. We must look for the solution not in how the world treats us, but in how we treat ourselves. Our relationships with one another generate the hatred of the nations toward us. It may sound outlandish, but our sages have known this throughout the ages, yet the people were reluctant to heed their advice.

Note that our sages do not attribute the ruin of the First Temple to the Babylonian conquest, but to the bloodshed and corruption within Israel. Likewise, they do not attribute the ruin of the Second Temple to the Romans, but to baseless hatred of the Jews for one another. Time and time again, they tell us that if we unite, no harm will come to us; time and time again we pay them no attention, conveniently adopt the victim narrative, and blame our woes on others.

When I look at the global political climate, I do not think it bodes well for the Jews. I don’t know how much time we have, but I do not believe it will be very long before the dark clouds on the horizon amass into a storm front that will unleash its wrath on the Jews. Worse yet, from what I can see, it will not be a single country that will give a free rein to hatred, but the entire world; there will be no escape. This is why I think it is so urgent that we apply the one cure we haven’t tried since before the ruin of the Temple: unity.

The incentive for antisemitism, our sages tell us, is our hatred of each other, and the cure for it is our unity, “as one man with one heart.”

For more on this topic, you may refer to the books Like a Bundle of Reeds: Why unity and mutual guarantee are today’s call of the hour and The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism, Historical facts on anti-Semitism as a reflection of Jewish social discord.
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My new article on Linkedin “To Solve Migrant Crisis – Redefine Humanitarian Crisis”

Fox News reported that in March alone, “Border officials encountered 172,000 migrants at the border … a 71% increase from February and the latest indicator of the extent of the crisis at the southern border. The 172,000 migrants … included 18,890 unaccompanied children – a 100% increase from the already high numbers encountered in February, and the highest number recorded.” Once across the border, these children are crammed into “pens” where thousands occupy spaces that were built to contain no more than 250 children. These pens are not only grossly overcrowded, they are a breeding ground for violent and sexual assaults on helpless children. Already, the stories coming from these coops are heart-wrenching. By all accounts, this is a horrifying humanitarian crisis, and its solution is nowhere in sight.

I think we need to redefine “humanitarian crisis” to include the human part of the crisis even before we consider the material part. The reason these crises are happening is that people do not receive the proper education before they immigrate. They are promised a land of unlimited opportunities and end up in cages, or refugee camps, or dropped off busses in a small town in the middle of nowhere and left alone.

Currently, a humanitarian crisis is defined as “a series of events that are threatening in terms of health, safety or well-being of a community or large group of people.” To solve such crises, various aid organizations provide material assistance to those affected by the predicament. In this way, we do not prevent future crises, do not help the people affected by them, but merely keep them alive and suffering. Emergency provision of food, tents, and basic medical assistance may look good in pictures circulated in order to draw more funds for the organizations that thrive on the suffering of the victims, but they do nothing to solve the problem.

Therefore, I think we need to redefine “humanitarian crisis” to include the human part of the crisis even before we consider the material part. The reason these crises are happening is that people do not receive the proper education before they immigrate. They are promised a land of unlimited opportunities and end up in cages, or refugee camps, or dropped off buses in a small town in the middle of nowhere and left alone.

A border should be closed for everyone except those that a country wants to admit after testing that applicants meet the required criteria. If people want to immigrate to a new country to improve their condition, they should first make the necessary preparations: learn the language of the new country, acquire required work skills so they don’t become a burden on the new country’s welfare system, and acquaint themselves with the basic civics of their future home.

The current situation where people are flooding the border is a recipe for disaster. It is already happening, but it will grow much worse! In simple words, it is a suicidal policy. If it continues, we will begin to see migration in the opposite direction where the educated and affluent “relocate” to more sustainable societies. The pouring of migrants into the United States rattles the pillars of democracy. It will not be long before they collapse and America falls from the zenith to the nadir.

Still, as long as this scenario has not materialized, it is possible to avoid it. It takes resolve, but I don’t see what other option this mighty nation has.

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My new article on Linkedin “Pure Passion for Power”

A few weeks ago, a startling headline on the Daily Mail announced, “The British schools selling out to Beijing: Not only are private institutions being bought by Chinese firms but some are giving communist-approved lessons that are a threat to free speech.” The story stated that “Hundreds of independent schools left in dire financial straits by the coronavirus pandemic are being targeted by Chinese investors,” and “Experts anticipate a ‘feeding frenzy’ as firms, including some run by high-ranking members of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, seek to expand their influence over Britain’s education system.” To date, “Seventeen schools are already owned by Chinese companies,” nine of which “are owned by firms whose founders or bosses are among China’s most senior Communist Party members.”

Suspicion and enmity the world over are intensifying to the point that we are approaching another world war. No one can win this war since we are all dependent on each other, but unless we understand it, we will go to war anyway and everyone will lose, terribly.

This revelation should not surprise us. The Chinese are not even shy about their intentions. According to the story, “One firm admitted its acquisition of British schools is aimed [at] supporting China’s controversial Belt And Road strategy, which aims to expand Beijing’s global influence.”

In fact, I think there is much more to it than that. The Chinese agenda is very simple: Conquer the world without destroying it. Because they’re not European, or even American, they have to take some detours, such as going through the education system, but this will not stop them. The Chinese want one and only thing: Chinese hegemony. There is no ideology behind it, not socialism, not communism, and not capitalism. You don’t need to give up anything in order to give them dominance, which is why their ambition is so elusive. They don’t power in order to promote some idea, but power for the sake of power. Once they buy something, they know it’s theirs, and that’s the end of it; they’re happy that it’s theirs.

What does this mean for us? It’s a display of the ego, very simple. For centuries, the Chinese ego had been latent, and now it is bursting out.

In all honesty, if I can get what I need, the service or the product that I want, I don’t care who owns it. This is why I don’t see any real issue here, as some are trying to make of this stealth invasion. If they buy a company but it continues to work as before, then what difference does it really make? Ownership is not something that troubles me.

I think that the more important point is that we need to know that if we want to use something correctly, we can do it only through mutual connection and mutual dependence. The owner’s name makes no difference. We should shift our attention from power struggles to a struggle for connection, for bonding among all of humanity.

Suspicion and enmity the world over are intensifying to the point that we are approaching another world war. No one can win this war since we are all dependent on each other, but unless we understand it, we will go to war anyway and everyone will lose, terribly.

Therefore, if we want security, we should shift our focus from a passion for power to a passion for connection. And the more people join the movement, the faster it will spread.

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My new article on Linkedin “The Waning Memory of the Holocaust”

I was born in Vitebsk, Belarus, right after World War II, when the memory of the war was vivid. Not far from my town, which was home to many Jews before the war, were a concentration camp and an extermination camp where many Jews perished, including most of my kin. I grew up hearing about my relatives who had died from the survivors in my family, and those stories left a deep mark on me.

The question of Jew-hatred is not one of race, or religion, or nationalism, or any other reason that hateful minds have conceived. Jew hatred persists because there is a unique demand from the Jews, which few have observed. Nevertheless, until the Jews meet that demand, antisemitism will persist.

But today, when so many years have passed since the end of the war, it does not surprise me that the memory of the Holocaust is waning. The survivors are passing away, and today’s young people feel disconnected from the past. It is only natural that people, especially young people, will occupy themselves with the present and with the future more than with the past, and besides, who wants to keep such bleak memories in mind? Nevertheless, since tomorrow, April 8, is the Holocaust Memorial Day in Israel, it is a good time to reflect on what we have learned from this tragedy, so we can prevent it from recurring.

The going narrative in Israel emphasizes the wrongs that were done to the Jewish people for the “sin” of being Jewish: the mass execution by gas, the concentration camps, the mass shootings, starvation, tortures, and countless other horrors that amass to the murder of six million people from my fold. Still, if you focus only on telling what had happened, you miss out on the chance to talk about how not to let it happen again. This is what I believe we should focus on today: prevention rather than preservation.

To understand how to prevent a second Holocaust, we must first understand the root of antisemitism, why it persists, and why it becomes genocidal in some nations and not in others. Clearly, one essay is not enough to explain it. I have written two books that explain the matter in greater depth. The first, Like a Bundle of Reeds: Why unity and mutual guarantee are today’s call of the hour, elaborates on the root of Judaism, emergence and development of antisemitism, and its consequential solution. The second, The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism, Historical facts on anti-Semitism as a reflection of Jewish social discord, focuses more on the history of the Jews and the apparent correlation between the level of their social cohesion and the intensification or subsiding of antisemitism. In this essay, I will outline the picture in broad strokes, but I highly recommend reading the books to get the full picture of how history demonstrates the place of the Jewish people in the world.

Antisemitism is not a new phenomenon. It came to be when the first Hebrew came to the world, namely Abraham. Since then, it has cloaked itself in myriad personas, but the bottom line has always been the same: The Jews are to blame; therefore, the Jews are to be punished. Today, for example, many people think that opposing the existence of the State of Israel is not antisemitism. They believe that if only the Jews were to return to Europe, from which the first settlers had come, antagonism toward Jews would vanish. Regrettably, this growing disposition, both among political leaders and regular folk, conveniently ignores the fact that the parents of the settlers who had established the State of Israel were gassed to death in Europe precisely because they were Jews.

Therefore, the question of Jew-hatred is not one of race, or religion, or nationalism, or any other reason that hateful minds have conceived. Jew hatred persists because there is a unique demand from the Jews, which few have observed. Nevertheless, until the Jews meet that demand, antisemitism will persist.

The demand, as the titles of the books imply, has to do with Jewish unity, or solidarity. It dates back to the onset of the Jewish people in ancient Babylon. At that time, when Abraham was still an idol-worshipper in Harran, a large city in the Babylonian empire, he noticed that people around him were growing hostile toward each other. He observed that they were feeling increasingly entitled, arrogant, and spiteful toward each other to the point where they did not care for each other’s life, and often even slew their dissenters simply for disagreeing with them.

When Abraham tried to convince his people to treat each other kindly, they mocked him, children hurled stones at him, and even his own father, a high-ranking spiritual authority in his country, renounced him. Unable to help his people, Abraham left Harran and headed west, toward Canaan.

However, Abraham did not leave alone. His family went with him, as did many people who followed his advice and tried to put kindness and friendship before arrogance and cruelty. As the company wandered westward, more and more people joined them, until, as Maimonides describes in his composition Mishneh Torah, tens of thousands had joined Abraham’s group. Thus, the pariah had begun to form a nation.

Abraham’s troupe was of a special kind. They had nothing in common but the belief that kindness is preferable to cruelty and friendship is better than enmity. If they forgot it, they would immediately become strangers again, so they had no choice but to keep fostering their solidarity. On the one hand, that solidarity gave them their strength. On the other hand, it put them at odds with their birthplace, the Babylonian empire, which grew increasingly self-centered and extolled ego-centrism. That was the core reason that prompted the Babylonians to expel Abraham and his followers. That enmity was the first manifestation of the hatred that was to later become antisemitism.

However, the unity of Abraham’s group not only set it apart from all the nations; it also made them powerful. The unity they formed among people who were previously complete strangers had to be so strong that it projected outwards and made them palpably different and formidable, but only as long as they were united.

In Egypt, while Joseph was alive, the Jews were united and successful. They were the de facto rulers of Egypt, ran its economy, and Joseph was Pharaoh’s viceroy. But when Joseph died, the Jews began to separate and assimilate. The Mishnah writes that they wanted to be like the Egyptians, and as a result, the Egyptians began to hate and despise them. When Moses appeared, he reunited them at such intensity that they were able not only to emerge from Egypt, but they became a nation in its own right. This completed the process of turning complete strangers, who often came from rivaling clans, into a nation whose members love each other to the point where they feel “as one man with one heart.” That, indeed, was the miracle of the Jewish people.

Since then, any nation that achieves greatness, and as always, begins to disintegrate from within due to hubris and growing arrogance, also becomes antisemitic. It is people’s innate feeling that there is a cure to their mutual hatred, that the Jews have it, and that they are not sharing it.

Thanks to the level of unity that the Jews had reached under Moses, they were given the onus of being “a light unto nations”—to share with the world their unique method of turning aliens into the closest of brothers. Since that time, approximately 3,800 years ago, any nation that falls victim to conflict, whether internal or with another nation, blames it on the Jews. They do not blame Jews because Jews are setting them off against each other, but because Jews are not showing them how to make peace with one another.

In this way, the boon of the Jews, their unique unity, has become their bane when they do not practice it.

People often wonder why the most developed nations also afflict the most horrendous blows on the Jews. They ask why specifically Egypt (Pharaoh), Babylon (ruin of 1st First Temple), Rome (ruin of the 2nd Temple), Spain (1492 expulsion of the Jews), and Germany (Holocaust) wrought the worst torments on the Jews, and precisely when they were at the height of their strength. They do it for the same reason that drove the Babylonians to expel Abraham: intensifying ego. The more egoistic a society becomes, the more it resists unity. And in Jews, even though today the majority of Jews do not feel it, lies a cinder of that special unity their forefathers had once forged. That cinder, however frail, is both the reason for their woes and the key to their deliverance from the bane of antisemitism.

Our forefathers persistently nurtured their unity because they knew that they had begun as strangers, and if they did not nurture their unity, they would disintegrate instantaneously. Regrettably, we do not have that clear vision. Nevertheless, the same condition is as true for us as it was for our ancestors. Since the ruin of the 2nd Temple, we have not been able to unite. Even the establishment of the State of Israel did not unite us, and internally, we are as alienated from each other as before. This is why antisemitism still persists. This is also why the pattern of the most developed and egoistic nation becoming the most antisemitic and inflicting the worst blow on the Jews is bound to return. Nevertheless, if we unite, we will immediately project the light that the nations seek to find in us, and the hatred of the Jews in all its forms will cease.

This year, and every year, when we remember the slaying of the six million of our coreligionists, we should remember the message they had left for us: Unity is the salvation of the Jews, because unity is the salvation of the world from egoism. If the Jews bring it to the world, the world will thank them for it and love them. If the Jews remain splintered and project disunity, the world will hate them for it and despise them. Then, it will seek to get rid of them and set off another Holocaust.
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