Shlomo Riskin, a leading figure in Modern Orthodoxy, has held the position of rabbi of Efrat for over 30 years. The Israeli chief rabbinate is now trying to force him from his post, as David M. Weinberg writes:

[The chief rabbinate] is taking advantage of a never-before-used loophole to “review” Rabbi Riskin’s tenure at seventy-five, and threatening to deny him the automatic five-year extension as city rabbi that he richly deserves.

It’s true that Riskin is a maverick religious leader, who has been willing to push the envelope of accepted public policy beyond conventional thinking within Orthodox circles. He has been a critic of the chief rabbinate and the rabbinical courts on various issues, including its policies on marriage, divorce, and conversion. More than that, he has established independent conversion courts and appointed women to formal positions as spiritual advisers.

Yet Riskin’s approach always has been one of pleasantness. He moves cautiously and civilly, always watchful to respect his senior colleagues and careful to anchor his moves within valid halakhic boundaries. Even those who disagree with him have no cause or right to strike at him so brutally. At most, they should continue to debate and challenge him. . . .

Crushing him will be considered open warfare against Modern Orthodoxy and religious Zionism—and I expect that those communities will fight back. They will fight back by doing the one thing they have debated and debated and so not wanted to do, and until now have tried to avoid: support the dismantling of the state rabbinate. But a nasty and radical rabbinate that humiliates Rabbi Riskin will have lost its legitimacy.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.