TheJewishStar.com
Honest Reporting • Torah-True • Kosher and Fat-Free
We shall not be moved Reach the Star: Editor@TheJewishStar.com • 516-622-7461 x291
Feb. 28-March 6, 2025 • Terumah • 30 Shevat 5785 • Vol 24, No 8
Jews, Israel’s indigenous people, aren’t going anywhere their mother, respond by violently attacking Orthodox Jews in Borough Park, the heavily Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn in which I grew up? No matter what our individual views may be, and whether or not we are religious, Jews are indigenous to
PHylliS CHeSleR
W
hat kind of a liberation movement purposely, with malice aforethought, murders a 9-month-old infant, a 4-year-old toddler and their terrorized mother? What kind of world praises Hamas’ atrocities? How “civilized” can people in the civilized West be if, in response to the Hamas-led terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, they continue to support the rape, torture, murder and kidnapping of civilians from southern Israel? Or, just hours after Hamas announced that it would be returning the corpses of the Bibas children and
‘Beards for Bibas’ meets tragic end The Kotel in Jerusalem.
Courtesy G. Eric and Edith Matson Photograph Collection and LOC
Bari Weiss warns threat is growing on right as well By The Jewish Star The “last thing” pro-Israel conservative stalwart Bari Weiss wanted to have to reckon with “is the extent of profound anti-American and anti-Jewish sentiment on large parts of the American right.”
the Holy Land. We were there long before anyone else ever visited or occupied us. There were always Jews there. Now, we are a sovereign nation in the Holy Land once again. See Chesler on page 2
“I’ve spent the past decade of my life so focused in so many ways on the excesses of the illiberal left,” she said on her Honestly podcast last Thursday. “Over the past several months, I feel like my gaze is now shifting to what’s happening on the right.”
Press group visits NYC shul Representatives of the American Middle East Press Association discussed efforts to facilitate access by reporters and news media leaders to stories and key players in the region, at Congregation B’nai Avraham of Brooklyn Heights on Sunday. From left: AMEPA’s Kim Kamen and Suzanne Zionts, NY Post contributor Doree Lewak, and AMEPA media adisers Warren Cohn and Jeremy Pink. They were welcomed by CBA President Ellen Kamaras and Rabbi Aaron Raskin. Ed Weintrob, The Jewish Star
Weiss famously quit a prominent editorial position at the New York Times in 2020 over its anti-Israel bias and later founded The Free Press. “A lot of the illiberalism on the left … began as a fringe online movement that a lot of Democrats and a lot of liberals waved away because it was just some crazy influencers online,” she recalled. “Woe to the people … [who] believe that the things that Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson are saying will not make an impact on the right, because they will.” While some of the policy priorities voiced by President Trump have generated a whirlwind, there is “a profound unpredictability, not just of Trump but of the world right now,” she said. “Trump went on Twitter and said there would be ‘hell to pay,’ sent a real-estate guy from the Bronx who seems to have accomplished, arguably, … more than Jake Sullivan and any of these fancy pointy heads over the past few years,” Weiss said. “Looked at another way, Trump is a See Warns on page 2
By Steven Goodstein The Riverdale Press It was an emotional week for a longtime Riverdale resident who vowed not to shave until two Israeli children hostages kidnapped by Hamas were released. Instead, their bodies were returned to Israel. James Lapin, who has lived in Riverdale for the past 25 years, began his no-shave journey in January 2024 as he advocated for the release of Kfir Bibas, a 9-month-old infant, and 4-year-old Ariel Bibas, two of the more than 240 hostages kidnapped by Gazan terrorists during their Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel. On Feb. 19, more than 500 days after they had been kidnapped, the two children, along with their mother, Shiri Bibas, 33, and longtime Israeli journalist, Oded Lifshitz, 83, were officially declared deceased. Despite the long-held hope that the young hostages were alive, Hamas announced they had been killed a month after their kidnapping. Four bodies were returned to Israel the next day. Lapin, who shaved his beard later that evening, explained his decision not to shave his facial hair or cut the hair on his head was a way to be connected to the Bibas boys until the two children returned home. “I felt like I needed to do something in solidarity with the Bibas boys, on behalf of all hostages — and the hostages don’t have access to barber shops,” Lapin said. The father of the boys, Yarden Bibas, was released on Feb. 1 as part of a Gaza ceasefire involving a hostages-and-prisoners exchange agreed upon by Israel and Hamas last month.
Riverdalian James Lapin grew out his beard for more than a year in solidarity with Israeli hostages.
Lapin, who got a haircut when the first hostages were returned on Jan. 19, continued to let his beard grow while monitoring developments. “I was constantly checking for updates on released hostages, but I was reminded of the situation every time I would look in the mirror,” Lapin said. See ‘Beards for Bibas’ on page 2