How a Fake Pro-Hamas Rabbi Took in a Progressive Congressional Candidate

A familiar phenomenon in the bizarre world of social media is the parody Twitter account, where someone creates a fake persona who tweets absurdities. These accounts are usually thinly disguised, but every once in while they can trip somebody up. Take, for instance, an account purporting to belong to the “chief rabbi of Gaza,” created to mock the pro-Palestinian sympathies of some far-left Jews, and its recent interactions with the campaign to make a progressive activist named Imani Oakley the next congresswoman from Newark. Jon Levine writes:

Rabbi Linda Goldstein warns Hamas fighters to practice social distancing in its terror tunnels, posts photos of herself posing with a menorah made of Qassam rockets, and bills herself as the “Jewish-issues advisor” to the Hamas boss Ismail Haniyeh. . . . None of Goldstein’s anti-Israel public messages appeared to pose any red flags for Maita Lockhart, Oakley’s campaign manager, who responded enthusiastically when the faux rabbi reached out in November with an offer to organize a fundraiser in Gaza.

“I would be grateful if you could provide dates/times for this week or next to connect and discuss further,” Lockhart said in a November 23 introductory email.

“I think it would be terrific if Ms. Oakley would in-person or virtually (over Zoom) attend a house party/fundraiser in Gaza. I can’t think of a better way to show off her #FreePalestine bona fides,” Rabbi Goldstein responded on Thanksgiving day. “There are several influential Jewish-Americans in Gaza who can provide plenty of help back in her district, including contributions and media placement.”

Oakley is far from the only far-left progressive who has unwittingly embraced the Hamas-loving rabbi. Thelma Walker, a former Labor member of the British parliament, has also offered Rabbi Linda her “respect and solidarity” in private messages.

Of course, Gaza has no chief rabbi, and its only Jewish resident is a mentally ill hostage who has been held by Hamas since 2014.

Read more at New York Post

More about: Hamas, Social media, U.S. Politics

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society