​​I want to offer condolences to the family and all of the followers of John MacArthur, the Southern California preacher, who died on Monday at the age of 86. He was someone I would venture to say was my friend.
John MacArthur was an amazing human being. He had millions and millions of followers in the Christian community.
In its obituary, Christianity Today <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/2025/07/died-john-macarthur-study-bible-expository-preaching-controversy/">wrote</a>:
<blockquote>MacArthur said the most important mark of his ministry was that he explained the Bible with the Bible, not cluttering up sermons with personal stories, commentary on current events, or appeals to emotion, but teaching timeless truth. The longtime pastor of Grace Community Church said a good sermon should still be good 50 years after it is preached. “It isn’t time-stamped by any kind of cultural events or personal events,” MacArthur said. “It’s not about me. And it transcends not only time, but it transcends culture.”
He published the MacArthur Study Bible in 1997, with 20,000 notes on specific verses, as well as an index of important doctrines, introductions to each book of the Bible, and suggested Bible-reading plans. It sold 2 million copies in 22 years. His New Testament commentary—a series that Moody Publishers put out in 34 volumes over 31 years—also sold more than 1 million copies.</blockquote>
Of all the people I have known in this sphere — and I have known quite a few — MacArthur was absolutely staunch in his defense of the Bible. He never shied away from the messages of the New Testament, and that made him controversial. 
And that was a good thing. 
In the first interview I did with him, a lengthy interview, he spent 30 minutes of the interview talking to me about why I ought to convert to Christianity.
As a Jew, not only was that not insulting, it was absolutely useful.
Why?
Because he was saying what he believed, and I think that was a good thing. 
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2238-democrats-abandon-barack-obama?elementPosition=1&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
The reason I considered him a friend is because he&#8217;s somebody who cared about my eternal life.
We could have disagreements on what would happen with regard to heaven or hell, or whether the New Testament was true or not, depending on whether you&#8217;re a Christian or a Jew. 
But I was never upset by the fact that he believed I ought to convert to Christianity, because, of course, many Christians believe that I ought to convert to Christianity. That is not an insult, because it shows they care about my spiritual welfare. 
We may disagree about how to attain that spiritual welfare, but it&#8217;s because he was able to say hard truths as he saw them to people like me that he was also able to say hard truths to everybody about Biblical values.
And that meant he was never shy about Biblical values, which is absolutely useful in a time when moral relativism runs rampant. 
Last year, he was on the show, and he said:
<blockquote>I would just say this in a general sense: Read the Bible. Just read the Bible. It has the ring of truth. It defends itself. It&#8217;s like a lion. You don&#8217;t defend it. You don&#8217;t defend a lion. You open the cage and let it out. That&#8217;ll be okay. And the Scripture is like that. &#8230; Even morally, there&#8217;s something in the heart of people that resonates with biblical morality. Obviously, their sinfulness fights it.
But the law of God is written in every human heart. That&#8217;s part of being created in the image of God. And you can fight that law. You can resist that law. You can violate that law. But that law is there. That is part of being created in God&#8217;s image. And I think if your heart is open to the truth, you go to the Word of God. And I&#8217;ve seen this now for all these years I&#8217;ve been in ministry. The ring of Biblical truth is so powerful to a person who honestly reads the Scripture.</blockquote>
I think that message is deeply necessary. In a time when so many have fallen into moral relativism, have fallen down a bunch of rabbit holes looking to fill the God-shaped hole in their heart.
I think that his work is going to be read for generations.
The nice thing about the Jewish view of the afterlife is that in Judaism, if you&#8217;re not Jewish and you fulfill seven basic rules, the Noachide laws, which include items such as no blasphemy, no adultery, and no murder, among other things, you have a spot in heaven.
So it doesn&#8217;t conflict at all with my faith to say that John MacArthur is with God right now. That is something he always longed for.
His uncompromising fealty to Biblical values as he saw them meant that he was also able to walk into political frays without fear.
Way back when, he shellacked a young San Francisco mayor named Gavin Newsom regarding same-sex marriage <a href="https://x.com/JCRyle/status/1879524136218992685">on CNN</a>. Gavin Newsom was playing at being a pastor, saying loftily, “I&#8217;m a practicing Catholic. I got married in the church two-plus years. I don&#8217;t see what we&#8217;re doing in terms of advancing the bond of love and monogamy and extending that to families, families of same sex, in any way, shape or form takes away anything from the church or the sanctity of the union that my wife and I have.”
MacArthur replied. “I would just like to ask the mayor: As a practical, practicing Catholic, do you believe the Bible is the Word of God?”
“Yeah,” Newsom answered. “Look, pastor, I&#8217;m not going to get in a theological debate with you.”
“It&#8217;s not a theological debate,” MacArthur said. “That&#8217;s just a straight question. Do you believe the Bible is the authoritative word of God?”
“Yeah, I, I, with respect, I guess I do,” Newsom answered.
“The Bible says when God created man, he said, ‘One man, one woman, cleave together for life.’ That&#8217;s a family,” MacArthur said bluntly.
MacArthur had that kind of clarity.
(You could see Gavin Newsom smirking, blustering, “I&#8217;m a practicing Catholic and I&#8217;ve been married for two years,” to lead off that particular clip. He was at that point married to Kimberly Guilfoyle, whom he would later cheat on.)
When you have a moral grounding in Biblical values, which John MacArthur did, it gives you the courage to walk in like a lion.
That is something John MacArthur did his entire life.

MixCollage-15-Jul-2025-02-51-PM-6761

A Tribute To John MacArthur, A Lion Who Was My Friend

Ben Shapiro

Bible

Christianity

Jewish

John MacArthur

Judaism

Opinion

A group of Israelis are restoring one of Judaism’s holy sites, the tombs of King David’s ancestors.
Yishai Fleischer, the international spokesperson for the Jewish community of Hebron, said the restoration of the tombs of Jesse and Ruth “is fulfilling biblical prophecy.” Fleischer is referring to the Old Testament verse Isaiah 11:10, which states Jesse’s “resting place will be glorious.”
“The nations of the world will come to the root of Jesse [and] King David,” Fleischer said.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
There is a group of Israelis restoring the traditional tomb of King David’s ancestors, Jesse and Ruth, in Hebron — the largest city in the West Bank.<a href="https://twitter.com/KassyAkiva?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@KassyAkiva</a> went to go see it: <a href="https://t.co/vFjpneK66l">pic.twitter.com/vFjpneK66l</a>
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDailyWire/status/1834321045332922387?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 12, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> 
Jesse and Ruth were King David’s father and great-grandmother, respectively.
Restored buildings at the tomb include a synagogue, a small learning and dining space, a room for a scribe to write the Book of Ruth, a garden, bathrooms, and more.
According to Fleisher, when renovations began a few years ago, the buildings were decrepit and lacked running water and electricity.
“We kind of built them back up, restored them so that they don’t collapse,” he said. “I think that God held them up until we came in and fixed it and made it so they would stand.”
“It was all filled with dirt and dead animals and who knows what else,” he added. “We brought electricity, we fixed those ceilings and we fixed the building so it doesn’t fall down anymore.”
<div id="attachment_772871" style="width: 778px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-772871" class="size-large wp-image-772871" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/IMG_8232-768x576.jpg" alt="" width="768" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/IMG_8232-768x576.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/IMG_8232-300x225.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/IMG_8232-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/IMG_8232-2048x1536.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" />The traditional grave markers for Ruth and Jesse, King David&#8217;s great-grandmother and father, respectively.</div>
Builders on the site have crafted stone walls, laid tile flooring, and painted railings to enhance both functionality and appearance. To make the location more attractive to tourists and for group gatherings, they have also installed benches, running water, electricity, air conditioning, and movie screens.
Located on a hilltop in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood, the Tomb of Ruth is under Israeli control in the city of Hebron, in Judea and Samaria (also known as the West Bank).
Hebron is also the home to the Cave of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs. According to the Bible, Abraham purchased a burial cave at the site, which became the traditional burial place for Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rachel, Jacob, and Leah. A large structure built over the burial caves in the first century BCE was later turned into a church by Crusaders, a mosque by the Turks, and is now divided into two areas for Jewish and Muslim worshipers.
According to the Bible, Hebron is the place King David was crowned and ruled for the first seven years of his reign before moving to Jerusalem.
<div id="attachment_772873" style="width: 778px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-772873" class="size-large wp-image-772873" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/IMG_8231-768x576.jpg" alt="" width="768" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/IMG_8231-768x576.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/IMG_8231-300x225.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/IMG_8231-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/IMG_8231-2048x1536.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" />The welcome area at the Tomb of Ruth and Jesse.</div>
One of the earliest documented mentions of the site as Jesse’s tomb comes from a student of the prolific Torah scholar Nachmanides around 1290. The earliest mention of the site as Ruth’s tomb is in the 1835 Love of Jerusalem by Haim Horowitz.
“Even if it&#8217;s not the tomb of Ruth it&#8217;s the place where we commemorate and celebrate Ruth,” Fleisher said.
The site has visitors year-round, with many Jewish and non-Jewish pilgrims visiting during the Jewish holiday of Shavuot (Pentecost), when the Book of Ruth is traditionally read.
The Book of Ruth tells the story of a Moabite woman who married into a Jewish family living in Moab. After her husband and father-in-law died, she accompanied her destitute mother-in-law back to Israel, declaring that the Jewish people were her people as well. In Bethlehem, Ruth remarried a wealthy landowner and gave birth to Obed, the father of Jesse and grandfather of King David.
The site only displays tomb markers for Ruth and Jesse, while the burial caves are traditionally underground and are not known to have been disturbed in modern times.
Professor Benzion Tavger was the driving force behind reopening the site in the mid-1970s. In 1999, artifacts as old as 4,000 years were unearthed at the site by archaeologists, including several seals with the ancient Hebrew inscription “To the King, Hebron,” <a href="https://hebronfund.org/tomb-of-ruth-and-jesse-great-grandmother-and-father-of-king-david/">according to the Hebron Fund</a>. In 2016, furniture and electricity were first added to the synagogue.
<div id="attachment_772865" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-772865" class="size-large wp-image-772865" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/Cover-images-33-1024x576.png" alt="" width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/Cover-images-33-1024x576.png 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/Cover-images-33-300x169.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/Cover-images-33-768x432.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/Cover-images-33.png 1280w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />The restored synagogue at the traditional site of the Tomb of Ruth and Jesse</div>
“We made a little spot that was holy, we made it feel holy, made it look holy, and that’s what the rebirth of the Jewish people in the land of Israel does,” Fleisher said. “It takes an ancient place that was 2,000 years ago important, and has been forgotten, and it’s resurrected.”
The site is located next to an Israel Defense Forces base that helps ensure the security of the small Jewish community surrounded by the large Palestinian city of Hebron. 
Fleisher is part of a group of Israelis working to strengthen the Jewish community in Hebron, which has maintained a nearly-continuous presence in the area for over three millennia. This presence was interrupted most recently in the 1929 Massacre when local Arabs killed about 67 Jews and the British in charge expelled the survivors. The community returned after the 1967 Six-Day War and currently stands at about 1,000 Jews.
“It’s our land in Hebron, we are a very ancient people here,” Fleisher said. “We’ve been living in this town for over 3,500 years and we have proof from the First Temple period, that&#8217;s 3,000 years ago and the Second Temple period 2,000 years ago.”
“Now the tomb of Ruth and Yishai is being beautified, and is being restored to its proper glory,” he added.

Yishai Fleisher – Tomb of Ruth and Jesse

“Fulfilling Biblical Prophecy”: Group Of Israelis Restore King David’s Family Tomb

Israel

Judea and Samaria

ANCIENT SHILOH, ISRAEL—Twenty miles north of Jerusalem, five Texas Red Angus cows chew on grass, oblivious to the fact that their mere presence in Israel was cited by Hamas as a reason for its massacre of Israeli civilians on October 7. The terror organization’s spokesperson <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IthFINZJ2m4">says the cows</a> were a justification for the attack, stating that bringing them to Israel was “an aggression” based on a “detestable religious myth.”
In Ancient Shiloh, located in Samaria, also referred to as the West Bank, Moriyah Shapira proudly showcases the red heifers, which were brought to Israel after a long, tedious search. The animals comply with a very specific set of characteristics outlined in verses in the Book of Numbers in the Old Testament.
The Hebrew Bible states that red heifers are necessary for a purification ceremony to enter the Temple or its portable predecessor, the Tabernacle. Moses performed a ceremony with red heifer ashes that were used for the Tabernacle in the Sinai before the Jews entered Israel after his death.
Hamas has called the importation of the red cows an act of “aggression” because it falsely believes that the presence of the cows may ignite the rebuilding of the Temple, which the group thinks would end Arab control of the Temple Mount, where the Al-Aqsa Mosque is located.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Why Texan Red Heifers Were Brought To Israel — And Why It Makes Hamas So Mad" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Kt_uuF-jzlM?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
But rabbis say the return of the red cows does not mean the Temple will be rebuilt anytime soon. Shapira says bringing the cows to Israel, and specifically to Shiloh, is an “amazing thing” because it&#8217;s the last place the Tabernacle stood before King Solomon built the Temple in Jerusalem, according to the Bible.
“We’re here where the Tabernacle stood for the first time — for 369 years in the first capital city of Israel,” said Shapira, who is the Chief Content Officer of Ancient Shiloh. “We brought here the five red heifers from Texas. It’s an amazing thing and people are coming from all over to see them.”
Shapira’s role with <a href="https://a-shiloh.co.il/en/information/">Ancient Shiloh</a> includes educating the thousands of guests who visit each year to see the archaeological site of the Tabernacle. Visitors are able to immerse themselves in the setting of several Biblical stories, including Joshua dividing the tribes of Israel and Hannah praying for a child.
While there is much uproar over what bringing five red cows to Israel means, Shapira says the plan is to open an educational visitor center in Shiloh where people can visit them.
<div id="attachment_773477" style="width: 876px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-773477" class="size-large wp-image-773477" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/GettyImages-94848450-866x576.jpg" alt="" width="866" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/GettyImages-94848450-866x576.jpg 866w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/GettyImages-94848450-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/GettyImages-94848450-768x511.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/GettyImages-94848450-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/GettyImages-94848450-2048x1363.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/GettyImages-94848450-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/GettyImages-94848450-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 866px) 100vw, 866px" />WEST BANK &#8211; SEPTEMBER 09: A Star of David mosaic is embedded on an ancient floor inside an old structure, close to the Tabernacle site at the Jewish village of Shiloh on Sept. 9, 2008. (Photo by Ahikam Seri/Bloomberg via Getty Images)</div>
“The idea is that we&#8217;ll have people here from all over to see Shiloh… and to learn about the subject of red heifers, which is very spiritual and interesting and amazing,” she said. “They will enter the visitor center, and then they&#8217;ll see a movie, and the screen will go up, and from a window, they&#8217;ll see the red heifers.”
Shapira shut down conspiracies spread on social media about plans to kill the red heifers for a ceremony this year.
“There are no specific plans when to make the ceremony of the red heifers,” she said. “That is something very important so it needs to be agreed on first of all, among rabbis and Israelis, the people of Israel, and then among the nations. We want it to be agreeable and in a peaceful way so it will bring a blessing to the world.”
How the Cows Made It To Israel
The red heifers were purchased from a Christian rancher who began raising the Red Angus breed 30 years ago in the hopes of fulfilling Biblical prophecy, according to Shapira. 
<div id="attachment_773471" style="width: 778px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-773471" class="size-large wp-image-773471" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/b724e6f9-a40a-4131-bb2f-9e310fc27e52-768x576.jpg" alt="" width="768" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/b724e6f9-a40a-4131-bb2f-9e310fc27e52-768x576.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/b724e6f9-a40a-4131-bb2f-9e310fc27e52-300x225.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/b724e6f9-a40a-4131-bb2f-9e310fc27e52-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/b724e6f9-a40a-4131-bb2f-9e310fc27e52.jpg 1600w" sizes=" (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" />The red heifers, who now live in Israel, as calves. (Photo: Courtesy)</div>
As calves, the cows were brought as pets with special government permission to avoid the restriction against importing livestock. Shapira says it cost $500,000 to bring them here, and that that cost as well as the cost of caring for the cows and building a visitor center is fueled by donations.
Upon arrival, the cows were in an undisclosed location until making their way to Ancient Shiloh, where they are now well-guarded due to threats against their lives.
Their names are Segula (Protection), Geula (Redemption), Tikva (Hope), Nechama (Comfort), and Techiya (Rebirth).
The heifers need to fit the exact physical conditions outlined in the Hebrew Bible—including having every single hair on their body the perfect color. Three of the cows so far have been disqualified because a few hairs are not red. Shapira says they plan to breed the disqualified cows to create a larger herd in Israel.
Who Supports A Red Heifer Ceremony
Conducting a red heifer ceremony is controversial in rabbinic circles, and there is far from a consensus over whether it can even be done, according to the Temple Institute, which provides rabbinical supervision for the cows.
“There is no plan right now for using a kosher red heifer, killing it and turning it into ashes,” Yitzchak Reuven, the director of international development for the Temple Institute told The Daily Wire. “Anyone saying this is making it up. We will only do this when the time is right, because there is no point in doing it if the Jewish and rabbinic world won’t accept it.”
He added that even with the ashes, the Temple may not be “built for hundreds of years, as was the case concerning the first Temple.”
Instead, Reuven said his Institute has spent 20 years educating and dedicating resources to ensure that the “mitzvah,” the Hebrew word for commandment, can be done properly when the day comes. The Institute says it has also been exploring the other necessary steps, including finding a kosher kohen (a person from the priestly tribe who has never been around a dead body, in a hospital, or in a cemetery), obtaining cedar wood hyssop and red-dyed wool, and investigating which wood would yield the most ashes.
“The Temple Institute is involved in trying to educate people about the Temple, and recreated the vessels so they are ready when the day comes,” he said. “This shows people that they aren&#8217;t magical mystical things. There’s nothing magical or mystical about the red heifer.”
Reuven emphasized that the Jewish religion does not believe a red heifer being in Israel means that the messiah necessarily has arrived or that having one will force the messiah to arrive.
“There is tremendous interest in the Christian world because they see it as part of the prophecy and will lead to the return of Jesus,” Reuven said, adding that there are hundreds of thousands of red heifer candidates in the world, citing the Red Angus and the Highland Cattle in Scotland.
Only nine red heifers have ever been slaughtered and burned to create ashes needed for purification since the time of Moses, <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah%2C_Red_Heifer.3.4?lang=en&amp;with=Translations&amp;lang2=en">according</a> to the prolific Torah scholar Maimonides. Reuven explained that ashes from one heifer can work for large amounts of purifications, and compared the method to sourdough, where you can continue to add more water to the mixture to keep it plentiful. 
“We do not want to ignite World War III,” Reuven said. “It’s a mitzvah in the Torah and we want to be able to fulfill it and it shouldn’t be seen as a threat to anyone. People should calm down a bit because we’re talking about a heifer and a ceremony that is 4,000 years old.”
Reuven called out a <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-war-hamas-red-heifers-from-texas-jerusalem-jewish-temple-al-aqsa/">CBS News report</a> that falsely claimed a white altar was awaiting the ceremony. 
<div id="attachment_773483" style="width: 779px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-773483" class="size-large wp-image-773483" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/872c8c23-edae-437b-bd04-2064ae87db4e-2-769x576.jpg" alt="" width="769" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/872c8c23-edae-437b-bd04-2064ae87db4e-2-769x576.jpg 769w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/872c8c23-edae-437b-bd04-2064ae87db4e-2-300x225.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/872c8c23-edae-437b-bd04-2064ae87db4e-2-768x575.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/872c8c23-edae-437b-bd04-2064ae87db4e-2-1536x1150.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/872c8c23-edae-437b-bd04-2064ae87db4e-2.jpg 1600w" sizes=" (max-width: 769px) 100vw, 769px" />A depiction of the Red Heifer ceremony. (Photo: The Temple Institute)</div>
“First, the red heifer ceremony doesn’t use an altar and the one in the West Bank is not kosher, and is only for educational purposes,” Reuven said.
Reuven said there are possible plans in the works to do a practice run of the ceremony without a heifer, though he was unable to provide more details.
While most offerings outlined in the Bible are to be eaten by priests and others, the red heifer is to be burnt completely to ash. 
In response to animal lovers concerned about the ceremony, Reuven said he respects the views of vegetarians and vegans who oppose killing an animal for religious purposes.
“Anyone who feels that it is inhumane to kill an animal, I respect that,” he said. “It’s a Torah commandment which is why we are pursuing it. In today’s world, the industrial slaughter of animals is very inhumane, but everyone who eats meat is engaging in it.”
The Response From Hamas
Reuven took note that Hamas claimed the red heifers were a motivation for its October 7 massacre of Israelis.
“Until recently I don’t think the Muslim world took much interest in it, but after October 7 Hamas called their massacre the Al-Aqsa flood, they added that the preparation for the red heifer is one of their motivating factors,” he said. “I don&#8217;t think they need any motivation to slaughter Jews, but they’re piggybacking on the red heifer in order to raise the volume.”
Despite Hamas’ rhetoric and criticism from other religions, the red heifer is not the key to begin rebuilding the Temple, according to Reuven.
“Not having the ashes doesn&#8217;t really prevent us from getting started building the Temple or bringing offerings that don’t require purification, like the Passover offering,” he said. “The main thing we need to build a Temple is that the Jewish people want to build a Temple. I don’t endorse the scenario that there will be a big war and then we will build a Temple. It’s supposed to be a peaceful place and will be done peacefully, and a place for prayer for all nations and we will need a consensus of the major religions.”
Shapira also said that, if the Temple were to be rebuilt, it would need to come about in a peaceful way and be a place of worship for all faiths, as it was in ancient Israel.
“We know that the Temple will bring light to the world, and the people from all the nations will come, and it&#8217;s called the House of Prayer for all nations,” she said. “So this is the hope that when the Temple will be in its place, that it will bring peace to the Muslims, so that everybody would enjoy the light and the presence of God in the place which would be like it was 2,000 years ago.”
Shapira added that, if the time came, it could not be done violently. 
“We’re people of peace,” Shapira said. “We want only good, we&#8217;re not going to do anything in a violent way. We want to be ready when God decides it&#8217;s the right time, and the Temple will bring blessings to all of the world, including the Muslims.”
“One hundred years ago, nobody believed that the people of Israel would come back to their land after so many years of exile, and we would build here the state of Israel, and it just happened,” she said. “Same thing about the red heifers in the Temple. We&#8217;re not gonna do anything by force, but we&#8217;re getting ready on our side, and it will just happen when it&#8217;s the right time.”

Red Heifers

The Truth About the Red Cows In Israel

Hamas

In the latest “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/balancing-faith-reason-matt-fradd-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sunday Special</a>” episode, Daily Wire host Ben Shapiro discussed the importance of religious communities and traditional values in combating societal decline with Catholic author Matt Fradd.
During the wide-ranging interview, both Shapiro and Fradd agreed that religious communities play a crucial role in preserving traditional morality and family structures in the face of secularization. 
&#8220;When we talk about the West and Western civilization, a muscular pursuit of religious values — and in the West you’re talking about Christian values — is absolutely necessary to the upholding of the West,” Shapiro stated. “All the fundamental premises of the West are built on these Christian values.”
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/balancing-faith-reason-matt-fradd-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH THE FULL &#8216;SUNDAY SPECIAL&#8217; EPISODE WITH MATT FRADD</a>
Shapiro added that &#8220;the loss of community is the single greatest factor in the decline of religion,&#8221; highlighting how religious institutions historically provided economic support and fostered bonds across class divides. He emphasized that such community ties &#8220;cannot be duplicated&#8221; by government programs.
Fradd agreed, arguing that family life is so important that he encouraged couples to &#8220;get married before you’re ready, have more kids than you can afford, and then move into a bubble of other like-minded people and raise them in the faith.&#8221; 
“Of course, I could qualify all those things,” Fradd said. “Obviously, you should discern.”
He also clarified that by living in “a bubble,” he did not mean complete isolation, but rather living among those with shared values. 
&#8220;My 15-year-old daughter doesn&#8217;t have a cell phone, and it&#8217;s never really occurred to her to ask for one because we hang out with other homeschooling families who also, of course, wouldn&#8217;t give their child a smartphone,&#8221; Fradd said.
Shapiro concurred, stating: &#8220;I am very much the same way.&#8221; 
The conversation also touched on the topic of pornography, an issue Fradd has written a book on. He emphasized the need to educate children early about pornography, and said he points to specific words of Christ to battle the sinful practice. 
“I think the man who continually kind of gives over his life to pornography is becoming emasculated. He&#8217;s being robbed of the ability to be masculine,” Fradd said.
“I would look at Christ&#8217;s words, ‘So this is my body given up for you,’ and that this act was the most masculine act,” he added. “And it&#8217;s something that I should try to replicate with my own wife in that I deny myself for her good. But pornography trains a man, not to say this is my body given up for you, but the opposite: This is your body taken by me. I deny and forsake and trample over your dignity for the sake of my pleasure.”

Ben Shapiro/Matt Fradd

‘Absolutely Necessary To The Upholding Of The West’: Ben Shapiro, Matt Fradd Highlight Importance Of Preserving Religious Values

Religion

Sunday Special

The Ben Shapiro Show

The Daily Wire

Four teenagers in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/germany" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Germany</a> have been arrested for allegedly planning an Islamic terrorist attack against Christians and Jews.
Deutsche Welle, a German public state-owned international broadcaster, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/germany-3-teens-held-over-suspected-islamist-attack-plans/a-68800624" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> that three teenagers — two girls aged 15 and 16 and a 15-year-old boy — had &#8220;glorified&#8221; ISIS and &#8220;declared themselves ready&#8221; to carry out an “Islamist-motivated terror attack” against churchgoers and police.
The suspects were arrested in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
The Associated Press <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/3-teenagers-suspected-planning-islamic-extremist-attack-arrested-109157987" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> that a fourth teenager, a 16-year-old boy in the southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, was also arrested.
Police arrested the suspects on pending charges of &#8220;declaring themselves ready to commit murder and manslaughter and preparing a serious act of violence,&#8221; the report said.
The teens planned to use knives and Molotov cocktails to carry out the attacks. Investigators recovered a dagger and a machete from the suspects.
<a href="https://onelink.to/dwapp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" aria-describedby="sk-tooltip-9096" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://onelink.to/dwapp&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1700760801843000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2PQrVSrJfhxNb4LcARqniG">CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP</a>
The investigation was launched after officials suspected that the 16-year-old girl was planning to leave Germany to go to Syria to fight for ISIS.
Investigators found on her cell phone messages that indicated possible targets for their Islamic terror attack included churches and synagogues in Dortmund, Duesseldorf, Cologne, and Iserlohn.
DW reported that one of the suspect&#8217;s fathers had been under investigation because they suspected he was raising money for ISIS.

Drugs in road traffic – traffic control

4 Teens In Germany Arrested For Allegedly Planning Islamic Terror Attack On Christians, Jews

Germany

ISIS

Radical Islam

Terrorism

World

Monday was a pagan day in America.
A giant solar eclipse moved all the way across the United States over the course of the day.
There are a couple of different ways you can view a solar eclipse.
If you are a normal person, you&#8217;d view the solar eclipse as a wonderful example of science at work, an incredible example of the workings of the universe in which the sun is totally eclipsed by the moon — the workings of the rotations of the universe and the solar system. That&#8217;s really cool.
Before they knew any of the science, traditional religions suggested that things like solar eclipses — which rarely appeared and were also very scary to people — were the heavens moving in response to human sin. Human beings would sin, and then God would respond with a solar eclipse.
The other way to view it from a religious perspective would be to say that this is amazing and wonderful evidence of God&#8217;s handiwork in the universe — the intricate workings of the universe that God created. All of those are well within traditional monotheistic religion.
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1943-blotting-out-the-sun-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h4>
Then, there&#8217;s the pagan view.
The pagan view is that you sin against nature, and then the gods smack you.
That view has apparently been taken by a wide variety of people across the United States. The most obvious example of someone with this belief is Sunny Hostin, co-host on “The View,” who not only blamed the solar eclipse on climate change, but also blamed earthquakes on climate change.
Now, it may be that Hostin doesn&#8217;t know anything about science, or it may be that, in pagan circles, you are supposed to blame everything on man&#8217;s sin against nature. Man has sinned against Gaia, and now Gaia will take her revenge.
In the most spectacular scientific fail of the day, Hostin <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/legitimately-insane-sunny-hostin-mocked-for-suggesting-climate-change-behind-solar-eclipse-earthquakes">said</a> yesterday: “We got a solar eclipse. We’ve got earthquakes. … The Rapture is here. Also, I learned that the cicadas are coming. For the first time in a hundred years. This is for the first time in many, many years. … All of those things together, would maybe lead one to believe that either climate change exists, or something is really going on.”
There is something going on with what Hostin said, and that is the view that if you live in this pagan world, where the world takes its revenge on you for sinning against the climate, then you must pay homage to the climate.
You don&#8217;t have to try and solve a problem. It&#8217;s not a real-world problem that the climate is changing over time and that perhaps you adapt as human beings or you try to mitigate particular activities.
Instead, it is a sin against the climate.
This move toward paganism is occurring across the spectrum. The same exact people who will say monotheistic religion is a bunch of hocus-pocus are claiming the woo-woo crystals they are wearing are changing their elemental relationship to the universe.
On Monday, NASA decided they were going to bring on an indigenous scientist named Dr. David Begay to talk about the solar eclipse. They asked him how the eclipse related to indigenous science and what the eclipse meant to the Navajo people.
Begay stated:
<blockquote>I think the knowledge on the eclipse, it goes way back from time immemorial, I&#8217;m told by my elders. They knew that when you look at the sun directly, you can damage your eyes. And so they knew the danger of looking at the eclipse with the naked eye. So people were encouraged to go inside to ensure that people weren&#8217;t looking up, especially the kids. So it goes way back.
And as far as eclipses, it&#8217;s a time of renewal. The sun alignment with the moon and also the earth alignment, the whole cosmic cycle goes through a regeneration process. It revitalizes the process. And so it&#8217;s a gift that goes on for many years, over and over. It’s a cycle.</blockquote>
The fact that NASA is promoting this is proof of a return to near pre-scientific paganism.
What he&#8217;s talking about is not science; it is, in fact, a religion of one sort or another. And NASA is promoting that now.
Would NASA feature a devotee of ancient Christian or Jewish theology to talk about how man’s sins against God caused the solar eclipse? I don&#8217;t think so.
Apparently, “diversity and inclusion” means that we have to act as though indigenous ancient science is the same as Western science. Ancient peoples could not even properly chart the dates of solar eclipses because they didn&#8217;t understand the science.
NASA is supposed to have the best scientists. These are the people who put us on the moon. These are the people who may help us get to Mars. And here they are doing this interview.
The reversion to pagan ideology is bizarre, but it does tie into a moral underpinning that says we are to make certain sacrifices to the pagan universe — and then we backfill the rationale for them.
This is why on the Left, once you get rid of monotheistic religions, they are filled in with some other form of religion. It could be with scientific theism — which at least has a track record of scientific progress — or with a pagan morality.
<h4><a href="https://onelink.to/dwapp" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILY WIRE+ APP</a></h4>
Pagan morality is what many people tend to fill it with, which is why you see Whoopi Goldberg, another co-host on “The View,” justifying abortion by citing the Ten Commandments. When you get rid of Judeo-Christian religion, you end up with new sacraments.
And the new sacraments of the far-Left include things like justifying child sacrifice, in the sense that you are talking about the justification of the termination of pregnancy and calling it moral.
She is basically saying that if you are willing to execute child rapists and murderers, then you should also be willing to excuse the killing of the unborn.
Why? Because this is now a sacrament on the Left. That is why they&#8217;re now twisting the Bible.
This has become a sacrament on the pagan Left: Abortion is not just something terrible that sometimes people have to do. It is something that is an affirmative good.
That is perverse. And the Left’s sacraments include things like abortion, climate change, and trans ideology, which explains the bizarre spectacle of the legendary women&#8217;s basketball coach Dawn Staley suggesting trans women should be allowed to play in NCAA events.
Making abortion a sacrament and paying homage to the climate change gods so there won&#8217;t be an earthquake or a solar eclipse are all parts of the bizarre universe we now inhabit.
And it is incumbent on moral people to push back against that bizarre universe by demonstrating moral clarity.

Total Solar Eclipse Stretches Across North America From Mexico To Canada

Blotting Out The Sun

NASA

Readers Pass

Science

The View

Bad ideas that start in Europe eventually end up in the United States. The most recent bad idea in Europe is that hate speech should be criminalized.
The European Union has pushed this, and now, Scotland is pushing it. Scotland has a brand new hate crime law which has come into force.
The BBC <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c51j64lk2l8o" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> on this, saying:
<blockquote>The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 creates a new crime of &#8220;stirring up hatred&#8221; relating to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or being intersex. &#8230; The maximum penalty under the new act in Scotland is a jail sentence of seven years. A person commits an offence if they communicate material, or behave in a manner, &#8220;that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive,&#8221; with the intention of stirring up hatred based on protected characteristics.</blockquote>
The claim of the Scottish government is that this does not infringe on free speech because Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights protects ideas that offend, shock, or disturb.
Proponents of the law <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-68703684" target="_blank" rel="noopener">say</a>, “You have to be really threatening and really abusive, and there has to be a reasonable assumption from others that that is the case.”
The problem is that when it comes to things like gender identity, the entire case advocates make for transgender nonsense is that simply saying “a man is not a woman” is not only harassment, but deadly harassment. It is a threat, a form of abuse, because that transgender person is going to kill themselves if that person is called by their original sex or their original name.
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1938-why-cultural-christianity-isn-t-enough-member-exclusive">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h4>
This is obviously incredibly dangerous. The fact that Scotland has gone forth in this manner is astonishing.
The oversensitivity and desire for victimhood is so strong these days that, obviously, anybody could use this law and file a police report.
And that is the problem: All of this becomes discretionary when a law or the terms of a law are so broadly defined that they are basically at the discretion of the government. You have no protections in terms of rights at all.
Why should we be worried about this coming across the border to the United States? After all, we have a First Amendment, don&#8217;t we?
The answer is that if there were a Left-wing majority on the Supreme Court, there is very little doubt that “anti-discrimination” law, which applies in a wide variety of jurisdictions across the United States, would be applied to crack down on free speech.
It would not be considered free speech to engage in “discrimination” in a place of business. And by “discrimination,” that might mean you said a man was a man. That would be verboten under anti-discrimination law in places like New York and California.
The Supreme Court currently has a majority of conservatives. But if there were an activist Supreme Court Left-wing majority, they would undoubtedly curb the First Amendment so as to mirror the law in places not only like Scotland, but also in places like Canada. The entire West has decided the First Amendment and free speech principles not only are in play, but absolutely should also be thrown out in favor of the sensitivities of “victimized groups.”
All of this is the wages of a new paganism, of a new pagan ideology, that has decided basic Western values — like free speech, freedom of religion, property rights, all things the West has been characterized by for centuries — are inherently bad and discriminatory, and that pagan ideology has gained root.
Why? Because free speech and freedom of religion are rooted originally in Judeo-Christian values. The idea of freedom of religion is rooted in the Peace of Westphalia, which arose from conflict between Protestants and Roman Catholics during the Thirty Years’ War. The idea of freedom of speech is an Enlightenment concept that relies on the idea of freedom of mind, which is reliant on a notion that as human beings, we have a core obligation to seek a higher truth.
That core obligation to seek a higher truth requires us to have discussions with one another, to investigate and to pursue. That is a religious concept, and all of these things are outgrowths of Judeo-Christianity.
The problem is that the West has cut itself off from the roots of its own ideology. A philosopher named Will Herberg wrote about Judaism (and his words also apply to Christianity) in a book titled, “Judaism and Modern Man.” This is what <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/690247-the-attempt-made-in-recent-decades-by-secularist-thinkers-to">he wrote</a>:
<blockquote>The attempt made in recent decades by secularist thinkers to disengage the moral principles of Western civilization from their scripturally based religious context, in the assurance that they could live a life of their own as &#8220;humanistic&#8221; ethics, has resulted in our &#8220;cut flower culture.&#8221; Cut flowers retain their original beauty and fragrance, but only so long as they retain the vitality that they have drawn from their now-severed roots; after that is exhausted, they wither and die.
So with freedom, brotherhood, justice, and personal dignity — the values that form the moral foundation of our civilization. Without the life-giving power of the faith out of which they have sprung, they possess neither meaning nor vitality.</blockquote>
This is exactly right. We live in a cut-flower culture. We live in a culture that is living off of the exhaust of the fumes that are left in the tank from millennia of Christian civilization, and before that, Judaic civilization.
As we have cut ourselves off from those roots, we are flowers that are still in the vase, but the flowers are withering.
And they are withering quite quickly.

Demonstrators Rally Outside Holyrood Against SNP’s Hate Crime Bill

The West Is Becoming A Cut-Flower Culture As Its Principles Wither Away

Hate Crime

Hate Speech

Scotland

Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi said Harvard University is failing to protect the Jewish community at a Hanukkah event attended by embattled president Claudine Gay on Wednesday night. 
“It pains me to have to say, sadly, that Jew-hate and anti-Semitism is thriving on this campus,” Zarchi said at the menorah lighting ceremony. &#8220;26 years I&#8217;ve given my life to this community. I&#8217;ve never felt so alone.”
Gay faced calls to be ousted from her position amid controversy following anti-Israel demonstrations and letters circulating on campus and after accusations of plagiarism and a controversial Congressional testimony on anti-Semitism in colleges and universities.
Zarchi said the last time Gay was with his organization was during their annual large Shabbat meal on October 13.
“We heard how Harvard pledges to have our back,” he said recalling what Gay told attendees during that event. “We didn&#8217;t feel it last night.”
Zarchi spoke of several instances where he felt he was targeted in recent weeks including during the previous night’s lighting when a woman <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C0xrQDNNBFP/?hl=en">interrupted and screamed</a> that anti-Semitism is a “hoax.”
The Jewish Harvard Chaplain said he was advised by the Harvard Police to get security to protect his family after hosting a screening of IDF-released footage of Hamas’s atrocities earlier this month.
<div id="attachment_667959" style="width: 630px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-667959" class="wp-image-667959" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-1853367394-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="620" height="413" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-1853367394-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-1853367394-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-1853367394-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-1853367394-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-1853367394-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-1853367394-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-1853367394-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px" />CAMBRIDGE, MA &#8211; DECEMBER 13: People attend a menorah lighting ceremony on the seventh night of Hanukkah with Harvard Chabad Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi where he spoke about anti-Semitism on campus. (Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images)</div>
“The Harvard Police calls our family advising us that we should get security for the night to protect our family, my wife and children, and our students because we&#8217;re being accused of hosting a war criminal,” he said. “I don&#8217;t feel that they had the back of me and my family and our community.”
Gay was present in the crowd, according to Zarchi, who spoke directly to her during his speech.
“The email referred to you as ‘Our President,’” Zarchi said, referring to a campus-wide email announcing that the board of trustees unanimously decided to keep Gay in her role. “We in the Jewish community are longing for a day that we can refer to the president and all of Harvard as ours too.”
“When they witness hateful calls for the death of Jews, you don’t [walk] by and say nothing,” he added. “You speak, you don’t remain silent.”
Gay made no public statement during the event but lit the shamash, a helper candle used to light the rest of the menorah.
<div id="attachment_667953" style="width: 630px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-667953" class="wp-image-667953" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-1853365974-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="620" height="413" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-1853365974-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-1853365974-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-1853365974-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-1853365974-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-1853365974-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-1853365974-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-1853365974-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px" />CAMBRIDGE, MA &#8211; DECEMBER 13: Harvard President Claudine Gay attends a menorah lighting ceremony on the seventh night of Hanukkah where the Chabad rabbi said he does not feel like Harvard has his community&#8217;s back. (Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images)</div>
Zarchi revealed for the first time publicly that after their ceremony, the menorah must be removed and hidden to avoid being vandalized. 
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/massachusetts-teachers-union-says-u-s-is-complicit-in-genocidal-assault-in-gaza">Massachusetts Teachers Union Says U.S. Is Complicit In ‘Genocidal Assault’ In Gaza</a>
“The university, since the first Hanukkah, would not allow us to keep this menorah here overnight because there is fear that it will be vandalized,” he said. “We in the Jewish community are instructed ‘we&#8217;ll let you have the menorah. You made your point. Okay, pack it up. Don&#8217;t leave it out overnight because there will be criminal activity, we fear, and it won&#8217;t look good.’”
“You know when change is going to happen on this campus?” he asked. “When we don’t have to pack up the menorah.”
Zarchi is the founder and president of Harvard Chabad where he has served thousands of Harvard students and alumni for 26 years.
<div id="attachment_667955" style="width: 630px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-667955" class="wp-image-667955" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-1853368041-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="620" height="413" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-1853368041-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-1853368041-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-1853368041-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-1853368041-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-1853368041-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-1853368041-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-1853368041-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px" />CAMBRIDGE, MA &#8211; DECEMBER 13: A menorah lighting at Harvard University that was attended by president Claudine Gay. (Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images)</div>
The rabbi also spoke out about the lack of support he feels from his fellow chaplains at Harvard.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rabbi-resigns-from-harvards-anti-semitism-advisory-committee-ignoring-jewish-suffering-is-evil">Rabbi Resigns From Harvard’s Anti-Semitism Advisory Committee: ‘Ignoring Jewish Suffering Is Evil’</a>
“When the faculty failed us, when leadership wasn&#8217;t speaking in a way that it should have, the chaplains could have made themselves relevant and been the moral voice,” Zarchi said. “This morning I asked where were they to condemn the genocide attack on the Jewish people? Not a word from the Harvard chaplains to this day.”
Zarchi said calls for intifada have been normalized at Harvard.
“They normalized it,” he said. “Completely desensitized and indifferent to the call for murder of Jews.”
During the two intifadas that took place in Israel during the 80s, 90s, and 00s, over a thousand Israeli civilians were murdered by terrorists.
Zarchi and Harvard University did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Claudine Gay and Rabbi

‘Harvard Does Not Have Our Back’: Rabbi Slams University At Hanukkah Event Attended By Claudine Gay

antisemitism

Chabad

College

Education

Hannukah

Harvard

higher education

The president-elect of Argentina, Javier Milei, reportedly intends to convert to Judaism.
“The president-elect intends to convert to Judaism, as per one of his spokespersons,” Bloomberg News <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-27/milei-s-conversion-to-judaism-seals-pro-israel-push-by-argentina" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. Milei has already stated he intends to move Argentina’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
When he arrived in the United States on Monday morning, before he even met with U.S. officials or the International Monetary Fund, Milei went straight to the grave of the late Chabad-Lubavitch leader Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson to pay his respects. Prior to leaving Argentina, on Saturday night, Milei joined Rabbi David Pinto Shlita — who gave him and his mother a blessing — in Buenos Aires for the Havdalah ceremony marking the end of the Jewish Sabbath.
“I celebrate this beautiful country, Argentina, and I ask God to protect the Argentine Nation so that it returns to what it was before. I am sure that with God&#8217;s help you will help the Nation and, with the people of Argentina, you will achieve it,” Pinto Shilta <a href="https://www.lanacion.com.ar/politica/javier-milei-asistio-a-una-ceremonia-judia-y-recibio-la-bendicion-de-un-reconocido-rabino-nid26112023/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> Milei, who responded, &#8220;Thank you, thank you, Rabbi.” The rabbi told Milei’s sister, “We pray to God to protect him in everything he needs.”
Argentina has the largest Jewish population in South America, roughly 220,000 people. In 1992, the Israeli embassy in Argentina was bombed, killing 29 people and wounding more than 200 others. In 1999, the Supreme Court of Argentina stated that the terrorist organization Hezbollah was responsible for the bombing.
In 1994, a terrorist car bomber targeted the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires; 85 people were murdered and hundreds were injured. It was the deadliest terror attack in Argentinian history. In October 2006, Argentine prosecutors Alberto Nisman and Marcelo Mart ́ formally accused the Government of Iran of directing Hezbollah to carry out the AMIA bombing.
Milei visited Schneerson’s grave in July, where he visited the tomb of the Lubavitch rabbi and requested a blessing before the election that took place earlier this week. Schneerson, the leader of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, was a tireless pioneer for Jewish outreach; there are currently over 1,400 Chabad-Lubavitch <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/rabbi-menachem-mendel-schneerson-jewish-virtual-library">institutions</a> in 35 countries on six continents.
“The truth is that I did not get to know the Rebbe personally, but just in the last year I had the privilege of visiting the Rebbe&#8217;s grave twice,” Milei, who amazed the world by winning the presidential election in a landslide, stated. “There I asked for his holy blessing to be elected president of Argentina and this blessing became a reality this week.”
<a href="https://onelink.to/dwapp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" aria-describedby="sk-tooltip-9096" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://onelink.to/dwapp&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1700760801843000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2PQrVSrJfhxNb4LcARqniG">CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP</a>
Milei, who has <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/world/javier-milei-crushes-argentine-left-becomes-worlds-first-libertarian-head-state" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pledged</a> that Argentina&#8217;s two key allies will be the United States and Israel, gave his first foreign press interview to the Hasidic newspaper, “Kfar Chabad.” He <a href="https://www.ynetnews.com/article/rygn11btna">said</a>, “From what I&#8217;ve learned about the history of the Jewish people, their survival against all odds, and the divine protection they&#8217;ve received, I&#8217;m certain they will continue to prevail. My message is to keep faith in God, stay strong and united. Eventually, the world will realize the enduring truth — the nation of Israel lives on!”
Related: <a href="applewebdata://588085C5-515B-445B-A8D7-D367FE1DE0EF/v">Argentina’s President-Elect To Visit Grave Of World-Famous Rabbi Where He Had Asked For Electoral Victory</a>

US-ARGENTINA-POLITICS-DIPLOMACY-MILEI

Argentina’s President-Elect Intends To Convert To Judaism: Report

Argentina

Javier Milei

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/police">Police</a> in major cities across the United States are taking extra precautions to protect <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/judaism">Jewish</a> citizens as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/israel">Israel</a> goes to war against <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/hamas">Hamas</a> following <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/blinken-says-u-s-working-to-verify-reports-of-americans-killed-or-captured-in-hamas-attack-on-israel">a surprise attack</a> by the militant group during a period of Jewish holidays over the weekend.
In <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/new-york-city">New York City</a>, which has the largest Jewish population in the world outside of Israel, Mayor Eric Adams <a href="https://www.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/746-23/mayor-adams-on-terrorist-attack-israel">announced</a> on Saturday that efforts were underway to identify &#8220;potential threats&#8221; and that he was in communication with top New York Police Department officials.
&#8220;While there is no credible threat to New York City at this time, our administration is in touch with Jewish leaders across the five boroughs, and we have directed the NYPD to deploy additional resources to Jewish communities and houses of worship citywide to ensure that our communities have the resources they need to make sure everyone feels safe,&#8221; Adams added.
Law enforcement in nearby New Jersey &#8220;will be increasing patrols in sensitive areas – particularly houses of worship for both the Jewish and Islamic faiths – and taking other steps out of an abundance of caution,&#8221; <a href="https://www.njoag.gov/statement-from-attorney-general-matthew-j-platkin-regarding-precautions-being-taken-in-new-jersey-in-response-to-the-attacks-in-israel/">said</a> Attorney General Matthew Platkin.
Around Los Angeles, which also has a sizable Jewish community, authorities <a href="https://twitter.com/LAPDChiefMoore/status/1710735001959154096">said</a> they were ramping up their presence around synagogues and surrounding neighborhoods, as well as in Muslim communities.
&#8220;The Los Angeles Police Department is aware of the turmoil in the Middle East and lives lost. In those areas where we serve both our Jewish and Muslim communities, we will be conducting extra patrol to ensure the safety of all,&#8221; Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore <a href="https://twitter.com/LAPDChiefMoore/status/1710735001959154096">added</a> in a statement.
<a class="c-link c-link--focus-visible" href="https://onelink.to/dwapp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="https://onelink.to/dwapp" data-sk="tooltip_parent">CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILY WIRE APP</a>
Law enforcement officials in the Miami area shared plans to increase the visibility of police officers in the facilities of Jewish and Muslim institutions.
&#8220;The safety and well-being of our community is our top priority, especially during difficult times. In light of recent events in Israel, the Miami Beach Police Department has augmented police visibility near all synagogues and other strategic locations in our city,&#8221; Miami Beach Police said in a <a href="https://twitter.com/MiamiBeachPD/status/1710737232175276135">statement</a>. &#8220;This is a proactive measure to ensure the safety and security of everyone.&#8221;
The Miami-Dade Police Department <a href="https://twitter.com/MiamiDadePD/status/1710803388521177415">announced</a> plans for an &#8220;increased police presence in areas of religious significance, including mosques and synagogues, as a result of the recent attacks in Israel to ensure the safety of our residents.&#8221;
And in Houston, Texas, Mayor Sylvester Turner <a href="https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2023/10/07/security-to-be-increased-around-houston-synagogues-following-israel-attacks-mayor-says/">said</a> the city is &#8220;enhancing security around synagogues and other potential venues.&#8221;
RELATED: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/israel-defense-forces-veterans-hired-to-protect-jewish-communities-in-los-angeles">Israel Defense Forces Veterans Hired To Protect Jewish Communities In Los Angeles</a>

NYPD car

Police Beef Up Security At Jewish Synagogues Across U.S. After Hamas Attacks Israel

Eric Adams

Jews

Los Angeles

Miami

Muslims

New York City

Police

U.S.

A former <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/u-s-house-of-representatives">House</a> Democrat deleted a controversial social media post taking a shot at former House Speaker <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/kevin-mccarthy">Kevin McCarthy</a> (R-CA) by highlighting a meeting with Orthodox Jewish leaders.
Former Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY), who is again running as a Democrat for a House seat in a different district after <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/08/24/new-york-primary-2022-results-dan-goldman">losing a 2022 primary</a> to now-Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), <a href="https://twitter.com/MondaireJones/status/1709630455228649801">said</a> the post to X &#8220;was too open to misinterpretation.&#8221;
Jones&#8217; post <a href="https://twitter.com/SethAMandel/status/1709384659052687834">showed</a> McCarthy wearing a yarmulke while meeting with <a href="https://jewishinsider.com/2023/10/mondaire-jones-kevin-mccarthy-hudson-valley-x/">Hasidic leaders in New York&#8217;s Rockland County</a> and said, &#8220;Well this was a waste of everyone&#8217;s time,&#8221; according to <a href="https://jewishinsider.com/2023/10/mondaire-jones-kevin-mccarthy-hudson-valley-x/">Jewish Insider</a>. It was posted after the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/mccarthy-ousted-from-speakership-after-democrats-side-with-matt-gaetz">House ousted</a> McCarthy from his perch as speaker.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Mondaire Jones&#39; totally normal response to McCarthy news <a href="https://t.co/liQ6LHK6fv">pic.twitter.com/liQ6LHK6fv</a>
&mdash; Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) <a href="https://twitter.com/SethAMandel/status/1709384659052687834?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 4, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Jones&#8217; post drew swift condemnation and accusations of anti-Semitism, including from Jewish House Democrats.
&#8220;This was not a waste of time. It is never a waste of time to meet with religious leaders. Additionally, I doubt your choice of religion to highlight here was coincidental,&#8221; Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) said in a <a href="https://twitter.com/jaredemoskowitz/status/1709601316752728275">now-deleted post</a> to X.
&#8220;This disgusting post is insulting to Jewish people and every person of faith. Meeting with religious leaders is critical to understanding the needs of our communities. This antisemitic rhetoric is deeply concerning,&#8221; Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) <a href="https://twitter.com/repjoshg/status/1709613257500061854?s=46&amp;t=o-U3qwC25WnWaylJ0oeG7Q">said</a> in a post that also has since been deleted.
Jones claimed he was trying to make a rhetorical point about how McCarthy and Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) — whose district Jones is now campaigning to win in 2024 — are failing New York residents.
&#8220;My point was to communicate that Kevin McCarthy, and by extension Mike Lawler, cannot possibly deliver for communities in Rockland because he’s no longer Speaker. Regrettably, I did not make this point clear enough, and so I have deleted the tweet,&#8221; Jones said.
<a href="https://onelink.to/dwapp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" aria-describedby="sk-tooltip-9096" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://onelink.to/dwapp&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1696011031102000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1725QljG4qoXJl_mG2Blr2">CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP</a>
&#8220;I am proud of my record of combating antisemitism in Congress and after Congress. In a time of rising anti-semitism, we must be crystal clear where we stand: I continue to be a strong ally of our diverse Jewish communities,&#8221; he added
Moskowitz <a href="https://twitter.com/JaredEMoskowitz/status/1709641593106391525">expressed his appreciation</a> for Jones&#8217; &#8220;clarification and removal&#8221; of the post.
&#8220;With the rise of antisemitism,&#8221; Moskowitz added, &#8220;imagery is sensitive. I want to be clear, after speaking to him I do not believe that was his intent. I appreciate his record in Congress of standing with the Jewish community in his district.&#8221;
Lawler, <a href="https://mishpacha.com/a-few-minutes-with-rep-mike-lawler-r-ny/">who is Catholic</a>, said in an <a href="https://twitter.com/RepMikeLawler/status/1709578164572152203">unrelated post to X</a> on Wednesday, &#8220;We must stand up to anti-Semitism &amp; anti-Zionism.&#8221;
The House <a href="https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2023519">voted 216-210</a> on Tuesday to remove McCarthy as speaker, a role he held since January. Other Republicans are <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/jim-jordan-enters-race-for-house-speaker">now stepping up</a> to enter the race to take on the role.
Lawler <a href="https://twitter.com/lawler4ny/status/1709397384940109890">said</a> in a post to another one of his X accounts that the vote to remove McCarthy as speaker was &#8220;a disgrace and undermined the institution and the important work of our country.&#8221;

 Mondaire Jones

Democrat Deletes Attack On McCarthy Over Meeting With Jewish Leaders

Congress

Kevin McCarthy

New York

Politics

Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy and the Biden administration are saying there’s an epidemic of loneliness among Americans.
That’s true. There is an epidemic of loneliness in the country. But their proposed solution is, “What if we actually use the government to fix loneliness?”
Murphy is positing some sort of legislation to establish a national strategy to combat loneliness and promote social connection. He says kids are addicted to algorithms and that evidence shows a decade ago, when teenagers actually had to do more work to find things they cared about or to make connections with their peers rather than depend on the algorithm, they were actually happier.
That’s true — but it’s not the real reason why kids are lonely. Yes, the algorithm is addictive. No, I would not give my kids cell phones with apps on them or access to social media. But blaming it on the decline of parental capacity to stop kids from accessing social media is wrong. The loneliness is really about the decline of community.
Where is that decline of community coming from? Obviously, it’s coming from a decline in religious affiliation.
According to <a href="https://mailer.dailywire.com/click?fre=N36s1Hss3T6SGt9RObrEEIYiyjcmRhgBbXz7_ZzltVTsYrOXGwuyAt3KBVLtErbQA47c1IEEkmoV_I5UXcbpolAO1ml_fj9_KSKCE4Y13SeMgWqEIPHIjILRcpLBl_m3e-6WV9kNlcOL3YKnDFJWLKTPEYbAHUCj88qMKKsQCe-ivuI4PN35qL0zGouaFpnwSVfSkxz14g==" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a brand new Gallup poll</a>, the percentages of Americans who believe in five religious entities (God, angels, heaven, hell, and the devil) “have edged downward by three to five percentage points since 2016.” 74% believe in God right now, which is down from 90% in 2001. That is a marked decline.
And there is a very strong correlation between political affiliation and religious belief. The poll data shows, “Between 78% to 87% of Republicans believe in the five entities.” Only 56% to 66% of Democrats believe in God, angels, and heaven. Further, “less than half say they believe in Hell and the devil,” which makes perfect sense.
Less than half of Democrats believe in hell and the devil, because that might actually imply actual punishment for doing bad things.
If you believe there is no punishment in the afterlife, there goes one of the incentive structures for not committing sins in this life for hedonistic purposes. The decline in religious affiliation is not just a matter of “do you believe in God or not?” I don’t believe in the phrase “believe in God.” I don’t think anybody sits around and mulls about God other than philosophy majors. Even people who are religious don’t sit around thinking about God all the time.
They act in God. They live in God. They live based on certain godly principles, and then they enact those in their daily lives.
Many agnostics and atheists are operating from religious principles. They just don’t acknowledge it. If they believe there’s a moral right and wrong, that is a religious principle; it is not discernible from evolutionary biology. If they believe the universe is a place you can actually understand, that your brain reflects eternal truths in the universe, that’s a religious principle. You can’t get that out of evolutionary biology or deterministic biology. You just cannot.
So if you live in that world, you’re living in a religious world. If you acknowledge that, then you might form communities of interest around those values. That’s where churches come from. The decline of church is directly correlated to the rise in loneliness because church is where people used to get together. It still is for a huge number of people.
My family is not lonely because, not only do we have kinship connections, but my parents, my wife’s parents, and two of my sisters also live close. We have an incredibly close friendship group. We have a religious community with hundreds of families, all of whom are generally religiously like-minded; that allows for a certain commonality of interest. I have people for my kids to play with.
It gives you a social safety net. It makes you feel as though you’re involved. When you atomistically remove people from their church, which is the only place that has been durably proven to actually have social connection, then you end up with loneliness.
However, Democrats like that loneliness because church comes with strings.
But every community comes with strings.
Everybody likes to pretend community is just you and your friends being nonjudgmental with each other. But that’s not true. Even you and your friends have a judgmental set of values with regard to people who are not you and your friends. Every group requires a buy-in. Every group requires skin in the game.
What the Democratic Party and many members of the Left believe is, there should never be skin in the game. They believe if you require skin in the game to be part of the group, that’s an inherent imposition on you and your authentic identity. That’s going to break down into atomistic individualism pretty quickly, which breaks down into loneliness because now you are removed from the commonality of interest, the skin in the game, the sacrifice necessary to be part of a group.
And then you’re shocked when loneliness abounds? Yes, social media has exacerbated all of this, but one of the things I’ve noticed is that there are a ton of kids in the community where I live, and some of them have social media. But loneliness rates aren’t anything like what they are like in secular society, where the kids don’t associate with each other outside of school, where there isn’t a 25-hour period every week where kids go to synagogue or church together. And when I say there’s no substitute for church, I mean there is no substitute for church, synagogue, mosque. There isn’t.
But there’s been an attempt to create ersatz communities of interest. You see that sometimes in college groups, a country club, or a bowling league. It is not the same thing.
Secular humanism does not fill the gap because religious observance is more than simply the relationship between you and God. One of the things Judaism makes very clear is that there are commandments oriented between you and God. You can do them on a personal level. If I say a blessing over food, that is between me and God.
But there is also a question of me and my fellow man.
The relationship between me and my fellow man and my relationship with God are two separate commandments, but the idea is that God is involved even in the relations between men. If you’re talking about how you treat your fellow man, that has to exist within the context of God. There’s a third player. When you remove the third player, it turns out the relations between you and your fellow man tend to disintegrate.
This should not be a shock, but that’s exactly what the Democrats cannot allow because it might actually require a religious obligation — and that might undercut a lot of the arguments they like to make about value systems. So they are simply going to pretend it’s about the algorithm. It’s not about the best way to fight the algorithm, which is religious church attendance.
It’s amazing that this idea even has to be said.

Ben Shapiro 2

The Democrats Think They Can Fix Americans’ Loneliness Without Church. They’re Wrong.

Catholic Church

Church

Democrats

Mosques

Menu