Rabbi Mike Rothbaum

Photo of Michael and Faina holding a pic of Bar.

Bar’s family celebrates his release.

In early ‘24, I went with a rabbinic delegation to Israel. We all were moved by Michael and Faina Kuperstein, holocaust survivors and grandparents of hostage Bar Kuperstein.

Today Bar was freed.

Baruch Atah Adonai, haTov v’haMeitiv. Blessed are You, the One who is Good and does Good.

I'm sure this will engender as much outrage as the "All about the Benjamins" comment... right?

you know when we tell you that sometimes the stephen miller criticism flirts with antisemitism, we're not making it up...

Is that Donald and Melania?

This is EXACTLY how they talked about Jews when we came here

Basic decency has a known liberal bias

Newsom, Pritzker, other Blue state governors:

If ICE agents abduct people without cause, arrest them for kidnapping.

If ICE agents break into a building, arrest them for burglary.

Fight. Back.

The two things are completely unconnected. I absolutely reject any argument that starts “antisemitism increases when Jews…”

Jews have nothing to do with antisemitism. It is a gentile problem that gentiles should solve.

It is wrong to blame an attack on a synagogue on Yom Kippur on Jewish support for Israel, and it is equally wrong to blame it on Muslim immigration to the UK. We can't give in to mutual hate. Be better, everyone.

I can only assume this was NOT the rabbis’ decision

That’s the joke

It’s a criticism often leveled at Jewish leaders

Here is a PSA, for anyone listening:

Anyone who wants to visit my happy little shul — unless they mean to do harm — is always welcome.

If he was speaking on Yom Kippur, that might be problematic.

Visiting? Anyone who wants to visit my shul — unless they mean to do harm — is welcome.

a man wearing a wig and sunglasses stands in front of a sign that says ' moses ' on it ALT: a man wearing a wig and sunglasses stands in front of a sign that says ' moses ' on it

!!!!!

Tzedek, tzedek tirdof. "Justice, justice you shall pursue." (Deuteronomy 16:20)

A visit from Jehovahs Witnesses gave me the chance to teach the mitzvah of pursuing justice. They looked up the bible verses and asked me to repeat the Hebrew pronunciations. I invited them back any time. Sadly, they weren't eager to stay.

You may be shocked to know they didn't leave any materials.

Tzedek MIRDOF, MFer!

Still waiting for the “Genocide Don” signs. Any day now, right?

Cartoon of Moses leading the Israelites through the sea. Caption underneath: "He's all right. I just wish he were a little more pro-Israel."

From the NYRB: “Its arms are partly self,” Godfrey-Smith notes. “But from the central brain’s perspective, they are partly non-self too, partly agents of their own.” Imagine trying to move when your eyes work independently, like an octopus’s, and each of the eight limbs girdled around you has a vestigial opinion about where to go, and how, and why. For that matter, imagine looking down and discovering that whatever you think your brain is planning, your two legs have made quite separate plans and are already underway in different directions.

The irony of the Jew-hater's favored metaphor for purported Jewish secret control of world governments and markets being the octopus, when the octopus doesn't even seem to know what the hell it's doing.

Tried to warn anyone who would listen that Georgia was the testing grounds for nationwide fascism — privately funding police training, beating protestors, militarizing campuses, calling dissent organized crime.

I liked life better when I didn't have to care what was going on with Jimmy Kimmel.

New content just dropped

If you're an alum and suggest on the New College of Florida FB page actually a statue of a racist, transphobic, sexist Jew-hater should be toppled — in the Jewish tradition of the toppling of all idols — this is the response you can expect.

You can also expect the college to do nothing to stop it.

“Remember how I was engraving bullets?”

😒

It’s just so dispiriting the number of Jews who don’t know that Kirk was a CLASSIC secret Jewish conspiracy, they’re polluting the white race, Jewish money is to blame, unapologetic Jew-hater.

News story about Kirk — "one of the participants at the event questioned, 'So you are comparing abortion to the Holocaust?' he responded, saying, 'Absolutely, I am. In fact, it is worse. It's worse.'"

I must really be getting old. I can still remember the days when Jews didn't say nice things about guys who spit on the memory of our Six Million.

Truly bizarre to see people attacked, shamed, and disciplined for saying things about Charlie Kirk that are 1000x less offensive than what Charlie Kirk said about people

A collage of photos showing various forms of political violence: the killing of the Hortmans in Minnesota, cuts to food stamps, the Tree of Life shooting, police brutality, a beating of an incarcerated trans woman, Medicaid cuts, January 6, border patrol beating a detainee.

"We condemn political violence in all forms."

“The memory of the righteous is for a blessing” (Proverbs 10:7)

There’s a second half to the verse:

“… and the name of the wicked rots.”