Author Archives: Rabbi

(First published today at Israelnationalnews.com)

The euphoria in some circles regarding the Trump Gaza deal, matched by the despair in other circles, sidesteps the ambiguity of it all. If the deal frees all our hostages and requires a minor redeployment of forces from parts of Gaza, then a plausible case can be made for it. The Trump achievement would then be compelling Hamas to relinquish its greatest asset without gaining its most cherished objectives. Indeed, Trump subtly signaled this by changing the preamble of his rambling boast to “the first phase” of the deal. That implies there will be other phases, and if no agreement is reached on those other phases, then Trump gets the signing ceremony and adoration he craves, and Israel will have a free hand in pursuing its other war objectives: dismantling Hamas, disarming that genocidal death cult, and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a security threat to Israel. The war can then be waged without Israel being encumbered by the presence of hostages.

 That is a best-case scenario.

 The worst-case scenarios are that we are being lied to (it has happened before), that there are secret agreements that have not yet been shared with the public that will undermine our security in the future, or there will be intense international and domestic pressure on Israel’s government to maintain the cease fire even if that guarantees Hamas’ survival and rebuilding. The fog of modern diplomacy is as opaque as the fog of war.

 And yet, even this short-term agreement – a cease fire and partial withdrawal in exchange for the return of our hostages – leaves a bitter taste and reflects poorly on Israeli society – the people and the politicians – because it requires the release of thousands of murderers and terrorists. That has endangered us in the past and will do so again in the future. The problem is that we only rhetorically reckon with the real price we are paying and mollify ourselves by declaiming how “painful” it is. But it cannot be that painful if we keep paying that price.

 When did it become so obvious to the world – so obvious that it is assumed and not worthy of much discussion – that Arabs can gleefully murder Jews and then be released to freedom because their supporters took innocent civilians captive? Why does the world assume that we will engage in such disproportionate and demoralizing barter – one thousand Arabs or more for one Jew? The Entebbe rescue was the last time that Israel could present itself to the world as a nation that does not kowtow to terrorists, and that was almost fifty years ago. Since then, we have become among the world’s most courageous fighters against terror, as well as one of the most craven appeasers of terror in the world. We know it, the enemy knows it, and the enemy knows it so well that he will repeat this tactic when it suits him and then repeat it again.

 It is good that Nazi sympathizers were unaware of this in the early 1960’s or they would have simply kidnapped one hundred Jews and demanded the release of Adolf Eichmann in return.

 It is hard to conceive of another country in the world doing this. The five Taliban leaders released by Obama’s government to win freedom for the US Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl were described as “very dangerous” – but none had ever murdered an American. If our enemies demanded the release of Yigal Amir for whatever reason, would Israelis approve, because they are willing to pay any price? Can anyone imagine a situation in which the US would exchange convicted Trump attempted assassin Ryan Routh under any circumstances? Of course not; only we do that.

 Despite the obscenity, Israel is contemplating the release of hundreds of murderers of Jews – those who killed an Israeli cabinet minister, those who blew up the Sbarro restaurant murdering sixteen people, including seven children, and maiming more than a hundred others, those who butchered the Fogel children, etc.

 What is wrong with us? We console ourselves that this weakness shows our compassion and concern for life but true compassion and concern for life also demands deterring future murders and kidnappings. Instead, we are encouraging it, even incentivizing it. We can pat ourselves on the back that we are not releasing “that guy,” whoever he is, or Nukhba this or that, but eventually we will. We know it, and certainly they know it, so who are we fooling, and why are we inciting our enemy to do whatever it takes to free Barghouti and other assorted terrorists, rapists, murderers, and kidnappers, in the next round? Why play that macabre game when we know we will lose?

 We have repeatedly announced to the world that Jewish blood is cheap. We are among those who cheapen it, if this is the best strategy we have. PM Netanyahu has successes on his ledger but among his most compelling failures is being the prime minister who negotiated the Sinwar deal (freeing 1200 terrorists including the October 7 mastermind in exchange for one soldier) and then freeing thousands more in the deals of the last two years. The Arabs will kidnap and murder again; it is not a question of if but when. The only real question is how many and, of course, who? Who will be the next Jewish victims of Arab terror and kidnapping?

 If Netanyahu once (1987) authored a book entitled, “Terrorism: How the West Can Win,” he could now write the sequel, “Terrorism: How it Got the Better of Israel.” For that alone – the failure to deter this tactic and instead habituate the world to expect this Israeli capitulation to terror – he should be driven from political life. This does not come from any anti-Netanyahu bias; I respect what he has achieved as I can criticize what he has failed to achieve. Note that the Midrash (Breisheet Raba 55:8) teaches that just as hatred distorts a person’s view of reality, so does love. Those who hate whatever Netanyahu does simply because he does it are psychologically similar to those who love whatever Netanyahu does simply because he does it. Neither are thinking that much.

For our own sanity, we must look away from the jubilation in the Arab world we will again engender when these mass murderers go free. Look away, because it is the face of our defeat, our degradation, our disgrace, and no spin cycle can wash that away. We are awarding our enemy one of its primary objectives in attacking us in the first place! And have we ever stopped to consider why would any decent society want to welcome back and celebrate murderers? It is because that segment of Arab society approves and endorses such conduct; that we indulge them is a sad commentary on us.

In this and in too many other areas of statecraft, we ignore the Torah’s directives. One such directive: “You shall not pollute the land in which you live, for (unrequited) blood pollutes the land; there will be no expiation for the land for the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him who shed it” (Bamidbar 35:33). It desecrates G-d’s name to have His land inhabited by murderers of His people who go unpunished for their crimes – and yet we convince ourselves of our wisdom and righteousness.

 Worse, after going to great lengths to destroy the leadership of Hamas, freeing these terrorists provides Hamas with new and immediate leaders, reinvigorated by their time in Israeli prison, emboldened by our fecklessness, and ready to struggle on. We have and will pay a heavy price for that. (It is worth noting that just nine years after they own the release from US custody of five high profile terrorists, the Taliban drove the US from Afghanistan and reclaimed its caliphate.) We have so few current leaders, unfortunately, who are willing to challenge the “freedom for hostages at any price” policy, excepting the leaders of the Religious Zionist parties. (The Haredi parties have compromised their ability to weigh in on the propriety of these matters because of their general rejection of IDF service.) Releasing these murderers is the “any price” we feared – and if this is the best that an “all-right wing” government can accomplish, then do not be surprised if it suffers in the next election, to the detriment of us all. We should remind ourselves that a government of people of faith, grounded in the values of Torah, is more important than a government of “all right-wing.” The fact that this is the best of what secular Israel has to offer – right and left – is sobering.

We see today that in a war between the civilized and the savage, the civilized can never win. They can at most stalemate because at a certain point – sometimes earlier, sometimes later – the denizens of the civilized society turn against the war, preferring the soothing fantasies of peaceniks to the harsh facts of real life. Similarly, in negotiations between the civilized and the savage, the savage will always win because he is unencumbered by any moral notions. Witness this oddity, a first in history: those who claim to be victims of “genocide” have stridently and consistently opposed an end to that “genocide,” and instead are driving a very hard bargain against the alleged perpetrators of the genocide. That is unprecedented; all prior victims of genocide just wanted it to stop, and quickly. It makes one wonder….

Then again, the truthteller is always at a disadvantage versus the liar; the truthteller has but one narrative to offer while the liar has an infinite number of lies that he can promote.

 How can this travesty be averted in the future, especially now that the world and our enemies are conditioned to expect from us this recurring surrender?

–          We must pass a law – declaring it non-justiciable so the Supreme Court does not overturn it – mandating the death penalty for any Arab terrorist murder or attempted murder.

–          We must pass a law banning the exchange of terrorists for innocent hostages except under these conditions:

–          Any government that proposes an exchange of terrorists for innocent hostages is automatically dissolved and new elections must be held within 90 days, just as if the government failed to pass a budget on time. Just as a government that cannot pass a budget is inherently dysfunctional and has lost its right to govern, so too a government that repeatedly submits to terror and thereby cheapens Jewish life is inherently dysfunctional and has no right to govern.

–          The only way new elections would be averted is if a Knesset supermajority of ninety MK’s votes to approve the terrorist for hostage exchange.

For the government in power, this would test their sincerity in pursuing such a deal knowing that it leads to their demise, as it would also test the opposition’s customary ardor in doing anything to topple the government.

And it would be better if it was banned outright. These nauseating swaps are classic examples of stage-one thinking, in which people do not think of consequences beyond the immediate. It is one of the greatest weaknesses of modern man and we succumb to it again and again. And there are too many Jews who are eerily comforted whenever Jews get to be victims, tortured, abused, murdered, and kidnapped, reveling in our helplessness, as if we were still dwelling in the exile without a living Torah and without having returned to G-d’s land. They prefer wallowing in self-pity more than a forcible and conclusive self-defense.

 Those Jews add to our suffering and prolong our agony. Sometimes I fear that they may constitute a majority of Israeli society – I don’t think so but I do fear so. If that is the case, when the next massacre of Jews takes place, G-d forbid, and settlements in Judea and Samaria, or Kfar Saba and environs, are attacked October 7 style, they will be tempted again to blame the government, the army, the politicians, and maybe their grandmothers. It is as if a person continually injects poison into their bloodstream and then blames the doctors for not saving them.

 Perhaps the blame can be found more easily, past and present, if we just look in the mirror. It is why we should focus less on congratulating ourselves for faux victories and diplomatic pretenses and more on appealing to the mercies of the Lord, on whom we will once again rely to save us from our follies.

(First published in Image Magazine – Pilgrimage Revival – IMAGE Magazine)

One of the most familiar and elevating of Jewish rituals in ancient Israel was the thrice-yearly pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the Aliya Laregel. Jews came with their families and offerings to Jerusalem to celebrate Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot, “to behold the pleasantness of the Lord and to meditate in His sanctuary” (Tehillim 27:4). It was not only a life-changing experience; it was also life-shaping, life-affirming. It placed Jerusalem and the Holy Temple at the epicenter of every Jew’s consciousness. And it did more than that.

The Aliya Laregel was a time of bonding for all Jews, as Jerusalem was celebrated as “the city that is united together” (Tehillim 122:3), the city “which confers fellowship on all of Israel. And when? Only when the tribes ascend together on the festivals” (Talmud Yerushalmi, Chagigah 3:6). All Jews assembled in Jerusalem: the young and old, the rich and poor, men and women, the various tribes from the north, center, and south of Israel. Despite the throngs of people, “no person ever said, ‘there is no room for me to lodge overnight in Jerusalem’” (Avot 5:5). The great medieval commentator Don Yitzchak Abarbanel noted that, in truth, it is a great miracle, that in an overcrowded setting, no one ever felt uncomfortable.
Even diverse levels of religious observance were muted on the festivals. All Jews were presumed to heed the laws of ritual purity. Everyone could eat other’s food and drink each other’s wine. No Jew could be declared impure, such as with tzara’at, on the festivals. A nation that was divided into tribes – today, into political parties and religious factions – found its commonality on the festivals, with Aliya Laregel. Jerusalem, which we are taught was never divided among the tribes (Washington DC paralleled this practice), reached its spiritual apex on the holidays, as all Jews felt a deep, personal, and intimate connection with the Holy City, their nation’s capital and seat of government, the spiritual center of Jewish life, the place where the Divine presence was intensely experienced.
Imagine if Aliya Laregel could be revived today, not in the strictly halachic sense because the Holy Temple has not yet been rebuilt, but practically. Imagine if Jews from across the world ascended to Jerusalem three times a year on the festivals. The spiritual, political, and psychological benefits would be enormous and overwhelming. We would strengthen the attachment of all Jews to each other, a connection that is often frayed for sundry reasons. Most simply, we would affirm in the eyes of the world (and Jews) the profound bond between the Jewish people and the city of Jerusalem, our capital since the time of King David – and a bond that is important to underscore in light of our enemies who seek to delegitimize and disenfranchise the Jewish people from Jerusalem and the land of Israel.
Imagine if all Jews, of all backgrounds and various ethnicities, gathered in Jerusalem on Pesach to re-experience our formative moment as a nation some thirty-three centuries ago, liberated from bondage to become G-d’s chosen people; on Shavuot, to reclaim the Torah as our heritage and birthright; and on Sukkot, to acknowledge and be grateful for G-d’s protective hand that has preserved us until today, after millennia of exile, persecution, and suffering, only to return us to our land, declare independence, and reestablish the Jewish state – a feat without precedent in all of human history.
Together, we would celebrate our origins (Pesach), our mission (Shavuot), and the blessings of Divine Providence (Sukkot).
The Jewish people would be uplifted and transformed. The world – we can continue to imagine – would be galvanized to appreciate the extraordinary return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel and to the world stage in all our glory.
Reviving Aliya Laregel – the pilgrimage dimension of the three festivals – is more feasible than we might otherwise think. Many tens of thousands of Jews already come every festival to Jerusalem. The streets are packed, the Old City is alive, the Kotel is buzzing. We already have realized the vision of Zecharia the prophet: “Old men and old women will again dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, every man with his staff in his hand because of old age. And the streets of the city will be filled with boys and girls playing in its streets” (4:4).
That already is the reality – and the renaissance of Aliya Laregel will further unite all Jews and deepen our connection with Jerusalem. Start with one festival. Let’s do it!

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

The Jewish world suffered a grievous loss with the passing on Monday after a long bout with illness of Rabbi Prof. Dov Fischer, beloved husband and father, Rav of the Young Israel of Orange County (Irvine, CA), attorney and law professor, author, and frequent much-read columnist for Israel National News as well as contributing editor at the American Spectator.

Rav Dov was an individual of great passion, courageous, intrepid, outspoken, keenly intelligent, and with a sublime gift of expression, sometimes profound and serious, sometimes subtly sarcastic and sometimes simply funny. He was a graduate of Columbia University, a musmach of Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, and earned his law degree at UCLA. For a time, he practiced high stakes litigation with two prominent law firms. He taught Torah in several venues – as a Rav in Jersey City and a Rebbe at Rogosin Yeshiva High School in his youth, and then in California, with a plethora of his shiurim on YouTube.

As a Rav, he was noted for his pastoral sensitivity, his kindness, his enthusiastic commitment to kiruv, and his desire to bring love and observance of Torah to every Jew. A multi-dimensional personality whose days were filled with service to the Jewish people, he at one time also served as National Director of the JDL, as the head of Likud USA, as Vice-President of the Zionist Organization of America, and on the Executive Committee of the Rabbinical Council of America.

In addition to his numerous articles, he wrote two books in the 1980s – “Jews for Nothing,” about the assimilation crisis, and “General Sharon’s War Against Time Magazine.” At the time of his death, he was in the final stages of publishing a commentary on the Chumash.

What was Rav Dov like? He was a born contrarian, as evidenced by his being a Yankee fan in the heart of his native Brooklyn, then the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and maintaining his allegiances even on the West Coast. His passion for truth led him to publicly challenge any deviation from Orthodoxy, including Open Orthodoxy, meticulously highlighting every errant innovation and routinely calling on the rabbinic world to speak out and defend the truth of Torah.

His frustration with the tendency of established rabbinic organizations to avoid controversy even to the detriment of Torah, Israel, and the Jewish people led him a decade ago to become one of the founders of the Coalition for Jewish Values, an public policy organization of over 2000 Orthodox rabbis. At his passing, Rav Dov was Vice President of the organization.

His truth was served on a platter of no compromise, although he took great pains to keep his relationships with those with whom he disagreed professional and never personal. As professor at two California law schools, he was voted several times the “most popular professor” by his law students and became a mentor to a generation of aspiring attorneys. Unbeknownst to the general public, Rav Dov was also a mentor and legal advisor to numerous rabbis, helping them negotiate their contracts and navigate issues with synagogue boards, and all pro bono.

Visitors to Israel National News were avid readers of his columns, which combined fierce advocacy for Israel with a remarkable range of sources, anecdotes and allusions. A typical article could contain Torah insights, political analysis, and arcane references to Seinfeld, movies, books, and legal theories. He was quite open about his personal life and medical issues in recent years, which provided his readers with a close personal connection. When his beloved wife Ellen died of a brain tumor, he shared his grief with readers, and when the lung transplant he underwent necessitated constant medical care, he joked with them about how little time he has to write and lecture. His marriage to Denise, to whom we send sincere condolences, brought him solace.

As columnist for the American Spectator, he brought to the American public Jewish ideas and values to which most had theretofore never been exposed. Most assumed that all Jews were liberals because that is how the general media monolithically portrayed Jews. Rav Dov opened them to a new and more accurate understanding of Torah and Judaism and, in the eyes of many, redeeming the Torah from the prevalent misconceptions.

As readers of Arutz Sheva (and the Spectator) knew, Israel was a special passion. Notwithstanding an unsuccessful attempt at Aliyah in the 1980’s (a contractor took his money, and that of his fellow residents in their new Yishuv in the Shomron, and declared bankruptcy, leaving them all impoverished and necessitating his move to California), he retained a lifelong love of Israel and always dreamt of returning.

Rav Dov was a classic Religious Zionist – believing with all his heart and soul in the State of Israel as the fulfillment of the prophetic vision of our return to the land after a long exile. He called out specific Israeli politicians for their poltroonery, their fecklessness, and often their lack of Jewish pride as evinced by the policies they implemented and the dangerous concessions they made – such as the Oslo Accords and the Expulsion of Jews from Gaza.

This candor was atypical of most rabbis of his generation, who preferred to take positions within a broad consensus so as not to antagonize anyone who disagreed – but who also then abdicated even the pretense of leadership. Rav Dov was not afraid of detractors. He confronted them and was always willing to debate them (some of his debates dating back decades can be found on YouTube). In debate he was polite but firm, and his arguments often left his interlocutors grasping for answers, and longing for a commercial break. He was a master orator and teacher, and until just last month, despite his ill health, he was still giving Zoom shiurim to his congregants in Irvine and elsewhere.

Rabbis are not always emotional – but many of our rabbinic colleagues are crushed by this loss. They speak of him as the heart of Klal Yisrael, a Rav of tremendous dedication, mesirut nefesh, possessed of an unmatched generosity of spirit, an intellectual giant, a gift of articulation, with a very sharp, incisive, and infectious sense of humor. He had a soft spot for the underdog, the oppressed, the mistreated, and the disadvantaged. His fervent love of Torah morality did not at all limit his ability to relate to people of all backgrounds, faiths, and disparate belief systems.

It is often an overused cliché to assert that someone is irreplaceable, but Rav Dov is truly irreplaceable. The influence he had on countless Jews, the joy he brought to his teaching of Torah, the shaping of hearts and minds about Israel, Judaism, and the Jewish people, can not be replaced. It can only be emulated – by rabbis of courage, vision, and resolve. His voice has been stilled but Rav Dov left a legacy of lessons, learning, and leadership that will continue to inspire generations to come.