[Omer] Bartov’s tome is likely to contribute to the ongoing effort to make hatred of Israel respectable in the faculty lounge, the editorial office, the think tank, and in many political parties. I hope that in this case, the strategy of prestige transfer fails and that more discerning readers will ponder the question “What went wrong with Omer Bartov?” The book does not represent the standards expected from professional historians nor from what we should expect from a distinguished publisher such as Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. Nevertheless, initial responses indicate that it may be a successful polemic and a commercial success. Its lack of scholarly distinction will not diminish its contribution to the global campaign to undermine the legitimacy of the state of Israel. If so, it will not be the first time that a very bad book has an outsized impact on public and published opinion.
Madeline Dreifus passed away peacefully at the age of 80, from heart failure, on the evening of June 16, 2026, in New York. She was born in Brooklyn in 1946 to Rose T. and Frank Park, who divorced soon thereafter; Rose raised Madeline and older brother Joel with the steadfast support of her own sisters and father. After graduating from Erasmus Hall High School, Madeline entered Brooklyn College. In her sophomore year, she was introduced — by Joel’s then-girlfriend, Alexis — to Alexis’s classmate Charles Dreifus at what is now Baruch College. Madeline and Charlie married after earning bachelor’s degrees in 1966, and Madeline began teaching elementary school in Brooklyn while Charlie started full-time graduate studies. By 1969 Madeline had left teaching to become a stay-at-home mother to daughter Erika; daughter Joanna arrived in 1972. In 1978 the young family moved from Sheepshead Bay to Short Hills, New Jersey, where Madeline became a “professional volunteer,” attending to not only her own household and aging relatives but also myriad organizations that mattered to her deeply, including her daughters’ schools; The Arc of Essex County/Stepping Stones, which also motivated her return to graduate studies at Kean College (now University), where she earned a master’s degree in special education; EIES of New Jersey; Grotta Center for Senior Care; National Council of Jewish Women; and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (now Union for Reform Judaism). Her most profound and long-lasting community commitment was to Temple B’nai Jeshurun of Short Hills, where she chaired too many committees, held too many titles, and rendered too many quiet services to enumerate. In later years, she relished becoming a grandmother and helped raise Joanna’s children in Manhattan. In addition to her devoted husband of 60 years Charlie Dreifus, daughters Erika Dreifus and Joanna Dreifus (Ira Rosenfeld) and grandchildren Rachel Weisburst and Samuel Weisburst, she is survived by the children and grandchildren of her brother and sister-in-law Joel and Alexis Park — both of whom predeceased her — and many loving cousins. Both in her family of birth and the one she married into, she was everyone’s favorite relative. She was a cherished friend, advisor, and champion for many others who will miss her deeply and the exceptional soul who routinely brightened strangers’ days with a warm smile and kind word. Generous to the end, she requested those wishing to honor her memory to support the Educational Alliance, the Interfaith Food Pantry of the Oranges (NJ), Temple B’nai Jeshurun of Short Hills, or the Wiener Family Palliative Care Unit at Mount Sinai Hospital.
Israel is being defamed and unfairly blamed in columns like the ones cited above in mainstream media, and it’s an uphill battle to keep track, respond and point out the layers of bias. Few defenders of Israel are more effective in pointing out the salient facts of the complexities of Mideast conflicts than Sam Harris, a best-selling author, philosopher, podcast host and neuroscientist with a deep interest in these issues. A piece he posted this week on Substack, anchored in facts, logic and moral clarity, offers an important general response to those who oppose Israel.
Entitled “Why I Won’t Debate Critics of Israel,” the essay summarizes several of his strongest points.
Read Rosenblatt’s objections to two recent columns published in The New York Times, and the reasons he recommends Harris’s essay, on Substack.
I’m seeing Hebrew-readers rave about journalist Amos Harel’s new book 06:29. But until an English translation becomes available (anyone with intel on when that will happen?), Harel’s recent conversation with Yonit Levi and Jonathan Freedland may have to suffice.
I keep coming back to something Jean-Paul Sartre wrote, in 1946:
“The anti-Semite doesn’t accuse the Jew of stealing because he actually believes he stole.He accuses the Jew of stealing because he enjoys watching the Jew empty his pockets to prove his innocence.”
That is what this period has felt like for many Jews, myself included: documented atrocities against Jews denied, dismissed, or rationalized, while sensational and dehumanizing accusations against Jews spread at neck-breaking speed, often used to justify why we are hated, attacked, or blamed in the first place.
Words are stripped of their context and then redeployed onto us as accusations. Terms like Zionist or genocide are pulled out of their history, flattened, and placed back onto Jews as things we are expected to defend ourselves against, even when they do not reflect what we believe, what the words actually mean, or what is actually happening.
Rumors, distortions, and extreme claims spread with extraordinary speed when directed at Jews or Israel. And no matter how absurd the accusation, we are expected to engage with it seriously in order to prove our humanity, our nuance, our right to complexity.
And even when every answer is given carefully, historically, factually, it does not end the cycle.
It just resets it.
A new accusation appears. A new double standard emerges. A new demand for explanation takes its place.
And part of what has become so exhausting is that I can feel myself still wanting to participate in it all anyway. I still want to empty my pockets for you. I still want to believe that if I just explain my family and our history and the Jewish people well enough, carefully enough, patiently enough, something might finally land and open people’s minds.
