As Jack Wertheimer recently observed in Mosaic, the coronavirus has led many Orthodox Jews to pray in small outdoor minyanim, where social-distancing regulations could be properly adhered to—and, having come to like the informality and intimacy of these gatherings, not all are eager to return to their synagogues. Ezra Schwartz, in an assessment of COVID-19’s effects on American Modern Orthodoxy, believes that this new trend toward decentralization calls for a reevaluation of pulpit rabbis’ obligations:

To some extent this emerging American rabbi will need to model himself after the Israeli model of the rav ha-ir or rav ha-sh’khunah [city or neighborhood rabbi]. In that traditional Israeli model, the rabbi is not limited by the walls of a particular building. I [visiting the Israeli town of] Modi’in a decade ago when the current Ashkenazi chief rabbi, David Lau, ran from synagogue to synagogue on Shabbat morning. From what I am told, he spoke at eleven different minyanim that Shabbat, inspiring and sharing words of Torah (sometimes the exact same words) in each location.

This rabbinic model [resembleds that of] pre-war European communities as well. . . . . There may have been a large synagogue that served as [a particular rabbi’s] base, but his orbit extended to the entire community.

The American model of a rabbi for every synagogue is historically novel. However, it serves a tremendous need. The ideal American congregational rabbi is far more than a teacher and preacher. He is a life guide and lifelong mentor for his flock. He offers pastoral counseling and is deeply involved in the life of his congregants. . . . The question to ask is how can the essential personalized pastoral role of the American rabbi persist in a decentralized world of backyard minyanim and shtiblakh [very small synagogues]? How can the successes of a century of American congregational rabbis be maintained if many of the changes wrought by the pandemic remain in the post-pandemic world?

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.