An Esther message to US Jews: ‘Do not imagine you will escape’ STEVEn ABRAHAM Beth El, Omaha
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hen word reached Esther that her people stood condemned, she hesitated. She was, after all, inside the palace. She had proximity to power, status, access, and the illusion of insulation. Mordechai answered her with one of the most unsparing sentences in the Tanach: “Al tedami b’nafshech l’himalet beit hamelech mikol haYehudim, (Do not imagine that you, of all the Jews, will escape because you are in the king’s palace)” (Esther 4:13). I have returned to that verse again and again since October 7.
Queen Esther pleads her people’s case before King Achaschveiros.
TheJewishStar.com
Vladyslav Tykhonov, Adobe AI
Not because America is Shushan. It is not. America has been, by almost every measure, the most generous diaspora home our people has ever known. Its promise has been real, its blessings extraordinary, its civic ideals worth defending. But gratitude is not blindness. And the palace was never a covenant. For generations, American Jews believed that proximity meant protection. We were inside. We had become, by most external measures, the most successful diaspora community in Jewish history. And we mistook success for safety. We mistook access for belonging. We mistook America’s hospitality for an exemption from Jewish history. That illusion has collapsed. Not gradually. Not politely. Not in the abstract. It collapsed on the campuses where Jewish students were See Like Esther on page 3
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Tobin: Betrayed by Trump, defeated by Iran, we must not be silent
JOnATHAn S. TOBIn JnS Editor-in-Chief
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t’s a bitter to pill to swallow for those of us who have spent much of the last decade lauding President Donald Trump as the most pro-Israel
president since the founding of the modern Jewish state. There’s no denying that Trump’s decision to make a deal with Iran — the rogue state that he had gone to war against on Feb. 28 alongside Israel — represents a staggering defeat for the United States, Israel and himself personally. And those who have commended Trump for all the good things he did during his time in the White
House should not be reluctant to say so.
Misplaced faith
The agreement, which Trump touted as “real peace” because it opens the Strait of Hormuz, is a triumph for Tehran. What makes it all the more dismaying for Trump’s defenders is that one key criticism of his presidency has been vindicated. See Trump’s chaos on page 2
Mazurek: In G-d, not Trump, we trust DR. ALAn MAZUREK President Donald Trump’s Georgia mug shot which hangs in the White House.
Jewish Star columnist Boynton B. / Jerusalem
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e’ve been here before, many times. Jewish history is replete with false prophets, princes and potentates who promise victory, prosperity and peace but instead bring us war, devastation and destruction.
As we watched the pathetic ying and yang of President Trump’s negotiation with the evil Iran, my heart and hopes rose and fell many times almost daily. It would rise when he seemed fed up with See Trump talks on page 4