Monthly Archives: January 2022

A woman who claimed on Facebook that Grenfell Tower victims were burnt alive in a Jewish sacrifice has been found guilty of stirring up race hate.

Tahra Ahmed, 51, posted virulently antisemitic conspiracy theories on social media, with one sent just days after the fire in West London that claimed the lives of 72 people.

An Old Bailey jury deliberated for eight hours to find her guilty by a majority of 11 to one of two charges of stirring up racial hatred by publishing written material.

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During the trial, prosecutor Hugh French said Ahmeds posts in January and June 2017 had crossed the line as to what is acceptable in a liberal society.

On June 18 2017 four days after the disaster she posted a video on Facebook of the blaze and referred to it as a Jewish sacrifice.

She stated: Ive been at the scene, at the protest and at the community meetings and have met many of the victimssome who were still in the same clothes they escaped in.

They are very real and genuine, their pain and suffering is raw and deep and their disgusting neglect by authorities continues.

Watch the footage of people trapped in the inferno with flames behind them.

They were burnt alive in a Jewish sacrifice.

Ahmed went on to link Grenfell to an antisemitic conspiracy surrounding the 9/11 terror attacks in New York in 2001.

An earlier post, on January 26 2017, also set out an antisemitic conspiracy theory, jurors were told.

Police launched an investigation after a story was published in The Times newspaper on December 11 2017, focusing on some of those who attended public meetings after the fire.

An examination of Ahmeds Facebook account revealed a history of antisemitic comments, the court heard.

Mr French said that, while Ahmeds Facebook account demonstrated strongly held beliefs, the two posts identified were clear demonstrations of racial hatred.

The prosecutor said: Looking at the language of the posts, the crude racial stereotyping and the insulting tone, the Crown say that you can infer that she posted them either intending to stir up racial hatred (or) that racial hatred was likely to be stirred up.

Mr French told jurors that people sometimes expressed outspoken or offensive views on social media and were entitled to their opinions.

But there was a limit, and the right to express views had to be balanced with the rights of other people, often minority communities, to live without being stigmatised or abused, he added.

Ahmed, from Tottenham, North London, denied wrongdoing, arguing her posts were political rather than antisemitic.

She made no reaction in court as the jury delivered its verdicts on Friday.

Judge Mark Dennis adjourned sentencing until February 11.

Ordering a pre-sentence report and allowing Ahmed continued bail, he said: All sentencing options are open. Nothing must be read into that one way or another.

Tahras post

According to the CST, the prosecution said posts on Ahmeds Facebook account revealed a history of antisemitic comments and propagation of a number of conspiracy theories, including references to the Holocaust and 9/11.

TheCST made a formal complaint to the police about Ahmeds post, and Mark Gardner, its chief executive subsequently provided a series of witness statements for the prosecution case, explaining the antisemitic and grossly offensive nature of Ahmeds comments.

Dave Rich of CST told Jewish News:Tahra Ahmeds claim that the Grenfell fire was a Jewish sacrifice is one of the most despicable antisemitic slurs I have ever heard. Grenfell was a terrible tragedy and for her to exploit it to promote her vile hatred of Jewish people is beyond belief. It is absolutely right that she has been held accountable for her actions. Tahra Ahmed left nobody in any doubt about her twisted worldview when she gave evidence herself. It was an antisemitic stream of consciousness full of abusive, hurtful and utterly false claims about Judaism and Jewish people. She is in a long tradition of antisemites who claim that they are only criticising the religious teachings of the Talmud, or Zionist politics, or some mysterious secret cabal, but really it is all just a way of dressing up old-fashioned hatred of Jews.

A police investigation into Ahmeds activities arose as a result of a story published in The Times newspaper on December 11 2017 focused on some of the people who attended public meetings after the Grenfell fire.

Following the verdict at the Old Bailey,Gideon Falter, Chief Executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: Tahra Ahmed sought to twist the Grenfell Tower tragedy to fit her venomous world view in which it seems that any evil can be attributed to Jews. She used peoples suffering and anger in the aftermath of the Grenfell tragedy and tried to wield it as a weapon against Jews before an audience of tens of thousands on social media.

We are pleased that the jury has convicted her over her wicked fabrications. As we have seen, her hatred has not only enabled her to abuse the Grenfell tragedy, but also to accuse Jews of being responsible for 9/11 and of supposedly exaggerating the Holocaust. As the prosecution observed, she used her position as an aid volunteer in the aftermath of Grenfell to bait the mob against Jewish people, making her conduct particularly repulsive.

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Woman who said Grenfell victims 'burnt alive in Jewish sacrifice' guilty of race hate - Jewish News

A few days ago I came across the recently published The Social Justice Torah Commentary, an anthology of essays by various rabbis and Jewish social justice activists on issues such as racism, climate change, mass incarceration, immigration, disability, womens rights and voting rights. The book is meant to be a guide for weekly Torah study and is undoubtedly a rich source of material for sermons. I havent read all the essays, but the ones I have read provide an interesting take on Jewish texts and concepts.

As a criminal justice reform and mental health advocate, I especially appreciated Rabbi Joel Mosbachers essay riffing on Parashat Acharei Mot, addressing the overrepresentation of people with severe mental illness in our criminal justice system. I do not agree with every point made in the books essays but regard such commentary as a completely legitimate way to look at Torah in light of contemporary moral and social realities.

But then I read a Times of Israel article by Rabbi Barry Block, the anthologys editor, and I was reminded of precisely whats wrong with contemporary Jewish social justice discourse and, perhaps, with the book itself.

Referencing the battles over the way race and racism are taught in K-12 schools, Rabbi Block said that as a rabbi he is troubled by this assault on the concept of social justice, which Jewish religious leaders have been championing for longer than the term has existed.

The truth is, he said, that social justice is a noble and worthy concept that has every place in our classrooms and our broader society. At this critical time in our nations historywhen many Americans have a renewed understanding of the extent to which systemic racism has infected our nation, while many others willfully close their eyes to that harsh realityembracing our Jewish tradition of social justice has never been so pressing.

I couldnt agree more that social justice is central to who we are as Jews and our role in the world. And I couldnt disagree more with the narrow manner in which some rabbis and activists define that term for the community.

Last I checked, nowhere in the voluminous commentary on social issues in the Jewish tradition is there a single mention of the term systemic racism. To be sure, racism is a perfectly valid explanation of disparity among different groups in society. But it is not the only explanation. Attributing our social ills to systemic racism alone ignores the crucial role played by poverty and socio-economic status (especially generational wealth), family structure, and the sheer amount of time it takes for a community that experienced centuries of oppression to rise out of its previous conditions. Indeed, insisting that there is a single way to understand group outcomes and that anyone who disagrees or cites alternative explanations is willfully closing their eyes is mind bogglingly illiberal.

This is gospel, not commentary.

This shrunken conception of social justiceI call it Tikkun Olam Hakatan (a small tikkun olam)excludes from its covenant millions of American Jews who want to make the world a better place but may not agree with this particular formulation about what needs to be fixed or how to fix it. We shouldnt have to all agree on exactly what ails society or from where it derives in order to be part of the social justice fold.

According to the Pew Survey, 45 percent of politically conservative Jews say that social justice is essential to their Jewishness. Seventy percent of very liberal Jews agree. If social justice werent so closely linked to a particular ideological and political agenda, imagine how many more conservatives might emphasize it. Nearly half do already!

My friend Leon is a Jewish political conservative. He is highly engaged in supporting people with disabilities, volunteers an untold number of hours to the cause and donates thousands of dollars every year. While Leon recognizes that American history is replete with racial discrimination and that such discrimination persists in certain sectors, he doesnt believeand not for lack of consideration of the evidencethat systemic racism exists in America today. While I do not agree with Leon that there is no systemic racism in society, I know that his heart is in the right place and I honor his support for people with disabilities in the best tradition of Jewish social justice.

Does Leons wrongthink on systemic racism bar him from this very exclusive Jewish social justice club for the ideologically pure?

One can feed the hungry and not agree with the systemic racism explanation of disparity.

One can welcome the stranger and not agree with that explanation of disparity.

One can work to change our criminal justice system and not agree with that explanation of disparity.

Whats missing from the Social Justice Torah Commentarynot just from the book but from the philosophyare the multiple ways people can engage in social justice and make the world a better place. The Talmudthe original commentary on Torahis a collection of thousands of arguments among rabbis, and then even more arguments by later rabbis about what the earlier rabbis were arguing about.

One would expect that progressive Jewish thinkers would emulate this mode of commentary and argumentation about how to best lift people up. One would hope that their vision of a more perfect world would include people with whom they disagree just like the rabbis in the Talmud did in their time.

Nothing about social justice should be controversial, Rabbi Block tells us. To the contrary, everything about social justice should be controversial.

It is through controversy and argumentation that we develop both better insights into and more creative solutions to our social ills. The Rabbis in Talmudic times understood this in their own context. Too many in todays progressive rabbinate dont.

The problem with modern Jewish social justice discourse is not that it doesnt have anything valuable to add to Jewish life, but rather that it claims an absolute monopoly on the truth and regards anyone who disagrees as willfully closing their eyes.

The problem with modern Jewish social justice discourse is not that it doesnt have anything valuable to add to Jewish lifeit has much to addbut rather that it claims an absolute monopoly on the truth and regards anyone who disagrees as willfully closing their eyes.

We need a bigger, more inclusive vision of Jewish social justice.

David Bernstein is the Founder of the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values (JILV.org). Follow him on Twitter @DavidLBernstein.

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The Incredibly Shrinking Conception of Jewish Social Justice - Jewish Journal

The first teaching of Mishnah Rosh Hashanah famously speaks of four new years, among them Tu BShevat as the New Year for the Trees. In Jewish law, the 15th of Shevat marks a turning point for the status of fruit, from forbidden to permitted; in kabbalistic tradition, its an occasion for a mystical Seder. In this Yiddish story, Tu BShevat resounds, instead, with the awe of the High Holiday season: It is the arboreal Day of Judgment. The trees stand trial, while the prosecutor and the defense argue their cases with Talmudic proofs. Published in 1904, Fridmans fable presents a dark and unsettling take on the notions of sin, merit, and justice before the Heavenly Court.

Though the trees intone hymns and three times a day they sway with praise for His beloved Name, He who gives them sun and rain in their season; though the trees persist in exalting the One whose praises cannot be exhausted, who told humankind that grapes are delicious and olives rich, so that they should be ripped and eaten; though the trees have never strayed to another, they do not even know the taste of their own fruitsstill, their hearts flutter: perhaps they are not pure of sin

But the great, massive trees with their wide branchesthey, who hoarded the suns warmth for themselves, hiding its shine from the others; they, who were the first to be dampened with fresh dew drops and the last to fall in a storm; they, who looked upon the lovely flowers and youthful saplings with bare condescension, at times sparing them a few rays of sunthese trees stand tall and secure. Such trees need not tremble on the Day of Judgment! Satan himself has not enough power to accuse them. And when they do join the others in their appeal to the heavens, it is a gesture of goodwill.

And the hoarse cry of a shofar sounds through forest and garden. A branch cracks, the wind howls. The trees strike Ashamnu and the whole forest quivers and trembles before the mighty and awesome Day of Judgment.

It is winter, and the trees, poor things, are frozen from the cold. Branches that once bore fruit are shriveled now, stooped under heavy snow. Fruits lie gathered in cellars; no one cares for the trees until they are needed once more.

They were told that winter was for their sake; granted to them, to rest and gather strength for the summer, to grow and to bloom. They were told that winter would only last three months, it would be over quickly, and then a sweet spring would arrive, with its fields of flowers and fragrant breezes, brilliant sun and skies

And the trees, Gods precious creationswith the power to nourish a world but not a drop of intellectdo not ask of what use this summer may be; as though they had forgotten that their shadows shielded others, their fruits nourished someone else. And so they wait for spring, hoping for summer.

And in the summertime? They struggle to support fruits they can barely lift; too often a branch breaks from the unbearable load, a tree withers before its time. But things are a touch happier. From time to time a warm ray alights; one is sprinkled with dewdrops. Though theres not much to enjoy, one forgets his troubles, the noise all around, savoring the sensation of pride and vengeance as humans walk past another tree that has borne less fruit

But now its winter and oh, how difficult it is to live in such bitter cold! Oh, how difficult to withstand a storm! It is a strange winter; it started already in autumn, and now it stretches on endlessly, unceasing. Who knows how long it will last? And what if, heavens forbid, they receive a damning decree on the Day of Judgment?

And the hoarse cry of a shofar sounds through forest and garden. A branch cracks, the wind howls. The trees strike Ashamnu and the whole forest quivers and trembles before the mighty and awesome Day of Judgment.

The court is ready; the prosecutor reads aloud the record of sins.

The first accused is an apple tree. His branch felled a neighbors fruit, and for this sin he will be judged.

And he weeps, the accused, swearing he is not guilty. A rascal threw a rock that hit his branch; the branch, bending over in pain, felled the fruit.

He defends himself! the prosecutor cries. He asks for mercy: This is proof of guilt. Next.

The defense counsel tries to rise, but they wont allow it. An admission by the accused is worth the testimony of a hundred witnesses. No further claim can redeem him.

The grapevine is second on trial. He has made souses who have succumbed to drink.

And the vine, he bursts out laughing:

Drinking is a crime? Then may their mouths be stopped up! I forced no one!

The defense counsel rises. The prosecutor does not stop him; he appears to be asleep.

Is it really the vines fault, the defense counsel opens, that they drink themselves to intoxication? His wine is sweet and stronga joy for God and man. To punish him would be a crime.

The mouse does not steal the foodthe hole does, the prosecutor cries out, then catches himself. It is pointless.

Next is the cherry tree. A bird of prey poisoned itself from his berries.

The court rings with cries: Murderer! Murderer! The tree quivers in fright.

If only it would quiet down, the murderer could defend himself: The bird of prey devoured his choicest fruits! He is not guilty that the cherry juice turned to poison as the bird stuck its tongue inside. But the clamor of the birds party and the cries of Murderer! silence him.

The defense counsel is lost for words, and the prosecutor yells and carries on frightfully. The court is glad when the case is quickly resolved.

The olive tree is fourth. His sin: drawing from an unkosher source

The audience lets out a wave of astonished cries as the olive tree approaches. Him, under trial? They do not understand.

Glancing around, the olive tree stands calm. Its no simple matter, charging an olive tree.

The defense counsel finds a merit: One uses his oil for the menorah. The wicks of the Eternal Flame are soaked in its fats. Therefore

He neednt say more. This is a fine merit. And if it draws from an unkosher source, then, G-d forbid, the menorah would be unfit, the Eternal Flame impure ... The prosecutor knows this, and lets him continue.

And so it goes, tree after tree, some of them proud and assured, others stooped and broken.

And when no accused remain, the sexton of the court reads the verdicts aloud:

The apple tree confessed to felling the fruit of his neighbor. The righteous court sentences him to grow without rain.

The vines claims have been accepted. He is not guilty.

The cherry tree is a murderer. He confessed, and must therefore give his fruit to the bird of prey in perpetuity. His confession has saved him from death.

The holy olive tree is pure.

And this tree ... and that tree The list continues until the last defendant.

And when the court hall empties, the prosecutor and the defense counsel smile, watching the trees depart. They are pleased with their compromise.

Translated by Dalia Wolfson

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The Day of Judgment for the Trees - Tablet Magazine

The improbable hybrid of a tallit, a Jewish prayer shawl, and a sajjada, a Muslim prayer rug. A family recipe for an Iraqi date pastry that evokes layers of Arab-Jewish identity. Glazed stoneware for trans Jews to use in ritual practice. A film of screen recordings and Zoom exchanges about disability and displacement.

Photo by Daniel Toretsky

Toretsky describes his installation in the JMMs courtyard as both an act of defiance and a reaffirmation of Jewish peoplehood.

These works, and many others, are on display at the Jewish Museum of Maryland as part of a multimedia exhibit called A Fence Around The Torah: Safety And Unsafety In Jewish Life, curated by Liora Ostroff.

Through paintings, poetry, video art and more, the Baltimore exhibit aims to capture how antisemitism and white supremacist violence threaten American Jewish communities while also recognizing the harm Jewish institutions have done to marginalized community members and neighbors.

The exhibits title comes from Pirkei Avot, which instructs us to make a fence around the Torah. But as the exhibit points out, safety practices, designed to protect Jewish communities, can also perpetuate harm for diverse Jewish groups. For instance, as exhibit contributor Ami Weintraub, a teacher and organizer, has argued in the Forward, the increased presence of police in Jewish spaces can make those spaces unsafe for Jews and other people of color.

Photo by Liora Ostroff

Annabel Rabiyah, Hannah Aliza Goldman, Coral Cohen and Arielle Tonkins multimedia installation includes an audio play and a hybrid ritual object, the outgrowth of almost two decades of Muslim-Jewish organizing.

Before the exhibit opened, Ostroff and the museums executive director, Sol Davis, partnered with representatives of various Baltimore organizations to hold conversations about safety in different areas of Jewish life. The material and content of the exhibit are co-authored and co-created with artists and the community, Davis wrote in an email.

The exhibits representation of Jewish life is radically complex and controversial, and highlights the role that Jewish museums can and, the exhibit argues, should play in uplifting Jewish identities that have been historically underrepresented.

Davis said that A Fence Around The Torah, his first full-scale exhibit at the museum, can serve to build bridges of understanding between segments of the Jewish community.

This is a living exhibit that engages with Jewish life in the present and supports us toward envisioning and building the Jewish future, he wrote in an email.

For Danielle Durchslag, the exhibit is an opportunity to share a work her film Dangerous Opinions which, because it criticizes wealthy American Jews identification with victimhood and their unwillingness to discuss the IsraeliPalestinian conflict, she has struggled to display.

The challenge for me in trying to present my work publicly is that in Jewish cultural output, there are two poles that are generally lauded and accepted, Durchslag said. One is content about our victimhood, and the other is content that is somehow promotional about us.

Courtesy of The Jewish Museum of Mary...

Marisa Baggett portrays how security that makes one Jew feel safe can make another feel unsafe.

More museums, she said, need to feature critical work that falls in between those two poles. If Jews are fully human, and I strongly suspect we are in fact, I know we are then were not just good guys and victims, she said.

The radical thing I want to suggest is that presenting ourselves in that way is in and of itself antisemitic because if were fully human, then were everything the good, the bad and the ugly.

Courtesy of The Jewish Museum of Mary...

The Jews of Blois recited the Aleinu while being burned alive.

The exhibit examines that spectrum, as well as the impact of antisemitism. Weintraubs contribution to the exhibit, a wheat paste poster called LDor VDor and made in collaboration with the Rebellious Anarchist Young Jews Collective, chronicles some of the history of antisemitism, connecting the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in 2018 to the murders that followed the first case of the blood libel in continental Europe in Blois, France, in 1171.

Its important that people keep their eyes on Pittsburgh and know were still grieving and that were still in a lot of pain and not just from that one event, Weintraub said.

What happened here is a bigger story than just that one moment, and its ongoing.

The poster, like the exhibit overall, speaks to how art can be essential to both engaging with history and dealing with contemporary issues. Art allows us to reinvestigate cultural loss, reframe cultural narratives, and illuminate connections between past and present problems, curator Liora Ostroff wrote in an email.

For instance, Marissa Baggetts painting Are You Jewish? reflects the painful impact of racial profiling in Jewish spaces, a response to rising antisemitism.

The self-portrait depicts Baggett after being denied entry to a synagogue where she has worshipped and worked as a chef. Her transgression? Wearing her hair in its natural state.

Sometimes a stranger will visit her shul, Baggett said, and treat her like shes the stranger. It doesnt feel safe. It doesnt feel welcome. You feel like youre constantly on trial, and it goes against everything in our Jewish principles, she said. We have to do more than just welcome the stranger we have to welcome ourselves.

Courtesy of The Jewish Museum of Mary...

Marisa Baggett envisions a future where all Jews communal needs, including safety, are met.

Yet Baggetts other work in the exhibit, Talmud Shenui, imagines a vibrant, multicolored Jewish community where everyone is recognized and included something of a throughline for the vision of the entire exhibit.

We have to keep representing our beautiful, wonderful experiences and selves in Jewish spaces, where we belong, Baggett said. We have to keep persevering to show that weve always belonged and that our experience is a valid Jewish experience.

While the Jewish Museum of Maryland is temporarily closed due to the omicron variant, the museum will start giving virtual tours of the exhibit in February email fence@jewishmuseummd.org to participate. Additionally, most of the art can be viewed online.

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In Baltimore, a Jewish museum captures the precarity and beauty of American Jewish life - Forward

On Dec. 30, 2021 my hometown of Louisville, Colorado burned. I had an appointment earlier that day at Avista Adventist Hospital, mere hours before it had to be evacuated because of approaching flames. I saw smoke to the west but didnt give it much thought, though I was well aware of the high winds. As the realization of the approaching fire began to dawn, it set off a flurry of frantic phone calls and panicked packing.

My family and I had to flee the Marshall Fire, along with almost 35,000 of our neighbors, grabbing pets, valuables and anything we could carry. Most people went north, but we went west to the mountain town of Nederland. While we had shelter, we had no internet and spent the night communicating with friends and family to get news. At one point, we listened via telephone to our mayor reporting on the fire from my sisters TV in Minnesota. It was only at 5:30 the next morning that we learned that our home was still standing.

We were among the lucky, despite a multiple-day evacuation. Whole neighborhoods were leveled, including one just a half-mile from my house. Early estimates suggest the Marshall Fire caused more than $513 million in damage but the true cost is the leveling of neighborhoods, and of families with nowhere to come home to. The loss is unfathomable.

Fires used to be a seasonal phenomenon, but have become year-round as a result of climate change. Record temperatures and drought can turn grasslands into tinder, forests into kindling, and all it takes is a stray spark to destroy thousands of acres and whole communities. Having witnessed the destruction that warming temperatures wrought in my community, and considering the lack of meaningful action at a federal level, I am convinced that Jews have a unique role to play in the fight to save our planet.

Since the 1970s, Colorados wildfire season has increased by 78 days. This isnt a fluke 90% of the Western half of the United States is experiencing a prolonged drought as a result of climate change. Consistently low rainfall and snowpack levels and above-average temperatures over the past 20 years have depleted reservoirs, dried up forests and set the stage for longer and more intense fire seasons. Some scientists believe the West is experiencing a multi-decade megadrought.

Nearly 80% of American Jews believe climate change is a crisis or a major problem, and 71% of Americans at large worry that global warming will impact future generations. As Jews, we have biblical and historical experience confronting existential crises, being displaced and reinventing the way we live. It is never easy to overcome, but its only possible if we translate our pain, grief and anxiety into action. To do that, we need to bring the full power, people and spirit of the Jewish community to address climate change collectively.

The West isnt the only region that is experiencing the impact of climate change: more than 40% of Americans live in counties hit by climate disasters in 2021. In that context, its not surprising that climate change has jumped to the top of the list of issues Americans and the American Jewish community are concerned about.

And yet despite growing urgency, we havent seen meaningful action at the federal level. Congress is currently considering the Build Back Better Act, a bill that would invest more than half a billion dollars in clean energy, sustainable transportation and cleaning up polluted communities. But its being delayed and whittled down by the fossil fuel industry and elected officials who do their bidding.

We still have a chance to get it across the finish line if we make our voices heard, whether thats by showing up on our Senators doorsteps or calling their offices. Across the country, Jewish Americans are coming together to protect the communities we love and call home, and to take collective action on climate change. Climate-concerned Jews across the country are forming action groups called Dayenu Circles at synagogues, JCCs and on college campuses, transforming our organizations to serve as models of what a just, thriving, resilient and clean-energy-powered future can look like. Most importantly, Jews are coming together to confront this crisis collectively, with spiritual audacity and bold action.

The Marshall fire will have a long-term, devastating impact on my community. We are resilient and will ultimately recover, but much has been lost forever. We are praying for the safety and well-being of our community, offering hizuk courage to those who were impacted as we take steps to recover and rebuild. If you are moved to help those in need, please consider contributing to JEWISHColorados Boulder Fires relief fund.

I am reminded of a story from the Talmud where Honi sees a man planting a carob tree. He asks the man how long it will take for the tree to bear fruit, and he responds: Seventy years. Honi wonders incredulously if the man really thinks he will be alive seventy years from now to enjoy the trees fruit, and the man smiles. He answers that when he was born into the world, he enjoyed the fruits from carob trees that his father and grandfather planted. Just as they planted for me, I am planting trees for my children and grandchildren.

The choices Americans make on climate change in 2022 will decide what kind of world our children and grandchildren inherit. Like the carob trees that nourish a community years after their planting, the Jewish community must take action on climate change so that we can thrive from generation to generation ldor vdor.

To contact the author, email editorial@forward.com.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward.

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My home almost burned in Colorado wildfires. Jews have a special responsibility to fight back - Forward