Rabbi Avi Weiss

Today, the 18th of Cheshvan, is the 8th tragic Hebrew anniversary of the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. Here is a niggun composed in memory of the eleven women and men murdered there. youtube.com/watch?v=fVf_Shl3… A brief explanation of the lyrics: The words reflect the outpouring of love that followed this horror. People of all backgrounds streamed to the site to offer sympathy, reflecting the sentiment of the Psalmist, We are with you in your distress – Imo anochi be’tzara. The overflowing light of the millions who came forward to share in the grief echoed the Hassidic teaching, A little bit of light pushes away an abundance of darkness – k’tzat min ha’or doheh harbeh min ha-hoshech. The names of the slain are called out amidst the collage of ancient holy words, in an ultimate tribute. And who can ever forget the headline of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, in large Hebrew letters: Yitgadel Ve’yitkadesh Shmeih Rabbah – the text of the Kaddish, the Memorial Prayer for the dead. And then, a final cry. Ad matai, Ad matai – When will it end? In tribute to Congregation Tree of Life, and its then rabbi Jeffrey Myers, the melody shifts midway to the tune of the prayer Etz Hayim Hi (it is a tree of life), sung when returning the Torah to the Ark. Coming from the heart, the niggun is melancholy yet hopeful – the hope that soon, soon, the light will push away the darkness. Credits: Chaim Fruchter: vocals, guitar | Yoshie Fruchter: guitars, bass, banjo, mandolin, percussion | Jeremy Brown: violin | Avi Bloom: visual montage | The melody was composed and paired to words by Avi Weiss

You Could Not Even Give Us One Day to Mourn: An Open Letter to Mayor Mamdani Mr. Mamdani, I have often written that your anti-Zionism is blatant antisemitism. But today, the anniversary of October 7, I write about something much deeper – your lack of humanity. In your statement today, you spend far more time falsely accusing Israel of genocide than grieving for the Israeli dead. This evening, I viewed the raw footage of that day – much of it filmed by the terrorists themselves – of the brutal murders of some of the 1,200 innocent Israelis mercilessly slaughtered. You were personally invited to attend this viewing by Israel’s Consul General – but declined. Had you attended, you would have seen Hamas terrorists sawing off an Israeli soldier's head. And you could not even give us this one day to mourn. You would have seen a terrorist bludgeoning an already slain Israeli civilian with a hoe, over and over. And you could not even give us this one day. You would have seen a terrorist calling his mother in Gaza, telling her I murdered ten Jews with my own hands today. I'm a hero. And you could not even give us this one day. You would have seen a lifeless, naked Israeli woman, surrounded by terrorists shouting with glee as they humiliated her body. And you could not even give us this one day. You would have seen terrorists firing into cars, murdering Israelis point-blank, and then shooting them again and again. And you could not even give us this one day. You would have seen hostages loaded onto a Hamas truck, surrounded by hundreds of Gazan civilians shouting for joy at their capture. And you could not even give us this one day. You would have seen young women and men fleeing for their lives from the Nova Festival as terrorists hunted them down. And you could not even give us this one day. Today I not only rend my garment in mourning for the 1,200 innocent souls, but I also rend it for the millions around the world who celebrate this day of bestial murder of Jews because they are Jews. And, I rend it for you, Mr. Mayor, the leader of our city, who offered empty words of comfort, words dwarfed by your accusations against Israel. Today I do not cry out against your distorted positions on Israel. No: I am crying out against your lack of humanity, your lack of decency. One day, Mr. Mamdani. Just one day.

So often, while praying Ne'ilah, the final service of Yom Kippur, I would offer a quiet plea to God: Please, please, don't lock me out. After all, the word Ne'ilah is associated with na'al, to lock, and so my heart would pray that my family, my people, and the world not be locked out – that we be remembered for life, zachreinu l'chayim. Hasidic literature speaks of another kind of locking. It understands Ne'ilah not only as the plea "Don't lock me out," but also as "Don't lock me in." Sometimes our challenges are so overwhelming that we become immobilized. We think: What difference can I possibly make? We feel unable to act, unable to do, unable to move forward. We are locked in. An encounter soon after October 7th has helped me navigate this feeling. I was visiting wounded soldiers at Soroka Hospital in Be'er Sheva with a young psychologist and friend, who had made aliyah with his family from New York. We were sitting with a soldier who had been very severely injured. As much as I tried, I could not lift his spirits. Seeing me struggle, my psychologist friend leaned toward the soldier, respectfully and lovingly, and said: "I know it's overwhelming. But today, just take a small step. A small step. And tomorrow, take another small step. And if the next day you don't feel like taking a step – don't take one. But the day after, take another. And after a week, a month, a year, you'll look back and see that you've walked. You've walked miles. The small steps add up." A year later, the soldier sent me a message. Recalling our visit, he wrote that my friend’s teaching had stayed with him and made all the difference. In his words: "Ha'etzah shelo melavah oti kol yom" – his advice accompanies me, carries me, every single day. This does not mean we should stop wrestling with life's great questions. But it does mean that there are times when what is most needed is to take a small step. So writes the Sefat Emet: Tzarich adam lihyot mehalech– a person must keep walking, mi'madreigah l'madreigah, from one step to the next. It is no accident that the word Ne'ilah is associated with na'aleh, we will ascend. The key is to take that small step upward. Ne'ilah reaches its culmination with the tekiah gedolah, the great final blast. We are not the only ones who sound the tekiah gedolah – God, the rabbis tell us, also blows the shofar. But there is a difference. When we blow, the sound fades as our breath weakens. When God blows, the sound begins softly and grows louder, and louder, and louder still. At the Torah describes the Sinaitic revelation, kol hashofar holech v'chazek me'od – the sound of God's shofar grew ever stronger. With all that is happening in the world today, perhaps we should symbolically sound God's shofar each day: beginning softly, with a small step, and building steadily in strength – for through those small daily steps, together, redemption will ultimately come. Ne'ilah. Don't lock me in. Tekiah gedolah.

The filmmakers of "NAZA" ask us to trust that their 24 anonymous accusers are real, and that their claims are true. Trust us, they say. We can't share names, but if you knew what we knew, you'd be appalled. Trust us, even though not one of the 24 - each extolled for their courage - will stand up publicly. Trust us, even as they never shared the accusations with the Israeli military, denying them any chance to respond. Claims like these can't remain secret. They must be spelled out so the community can hold them accountable. In my decades of advocacy for human rights and Jewish causes, I have learned an ironclad rule: those who hide behind the words "trust us" should never be trusted.

It is always an honor to sit down with @justinpines. Here is our conversation about teshuva and Yom Kippur on @JBSTVORG youtube.com/watch?v=2wTl5J3L…

Twenty five years ago I played a minor role as a clergy first responder at 9/11. “I had walked into a place of desecration and found myself standing in a holy place.” @amNewYork amny.com/opinion/what-i-saw-…

Dear Friends, Here's a humble meditation on Unetaneh Tokef related to 9/11, which this year falls on Erev Rosh Hashanah. I hope you find it of meaning. jns.org/opinion/rabbi-avi-we…

Over the past few years, I’ve had the great zchut to grow close with Nathaniel, an IDF soldier severely wounded years ago. To this day, Nathaniel doesn’t speak or walk, but he hears and understands, surrounded by his loving family and aides. Whenever I’m in Israel, we get together, and even when I’m back in Riverdale, we FaceTime. A few days ago, I shared with Nathaniel the idea that Re’eh, the first word of last week’s parsha, doesn’t only mean “to see,” but to empathize, to feel a loving connection. That’s what I feel toward you, I told Nathaniel. And then, haltingly, for the first time, I said to him: now it’s your chance to give me a blessing. Nathaniel usually speaks by writing, pushing letters on his tablet, letter by letter, which one can then read. But I asked that this time, he try with his voice. His wonderful aide came forward to help. Nathaniel put his right hand on his heart, then looked up – eyes wide, mouth open to its fullest – and sounds came out. They were wordless. But they were the deepest words. I felt my soul soaring. This week, we begin hearing the shofar each morning of Elul, as we prepare for Rosh Hashanah. For me, the deepest, highest blast of the shofar was that moment when my dear Nathaniel offered me the blessing of blessings. May he and all of our soldiers be forever blessed, and may Nathaniel forever bless us with his own unsurpassable tekiah, shevarim, teruah – a brokenness, followed by the hope of tekiah, and tekiah gedolah.

J’Accuse, Mayor Mamdani In 1894, Colonel Alfred Dreyfus, a French Jew, was falsely accused of treason. The accusation was not justice – it was antisemitism wearing the robes of the state. A courageous writer, Émile Zola, stood up when almost no one else would. He wrote J’Accuse – “I accuse” – and forced a nation to look at what it had done. Today, the Mayor of New York has turned the Jewish state, the Jewish people, into a collective Dreyfus. In the spirit of Zola, I say to you, Mr. Mayor: J’accuse. J’accuse you of calling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “the architect of a horrific genocide” – a word chosen not for precision, but for its power to wound and to inflame. J’accuse you of naming a number – of the dead, of the maimed – and offering it as verdict, when the world’s most careful investigators have not yet reached one. J’accuse you of speaking two full minutes about the war in Gaza without once speaking the words October 7th — without once naming the massacre, the rape, the taking of hostages – babies and grandmothers – that began this war. J’accuse you of silence — a silence so complete that anyone hearing you for the first time would never know Hamas exists at all. J’accuse you of a modern blood libel: accusing Israel of murdering Gazans whom Hamas itself murdered, using them as human shields. J’accuse you, in that same breath, of accusing my grandchildren. When you call the Prime Minister of Israel a war criminal and an architect of genocide, you are not speaking only of one man in Jerusalem. You are speaking of the many thousands of children and grandchildren, brothers and sisters of New Yorkers who serve in the IDF army that defends the Jewish state. J’accuse you of painting a target on the backs of Jews and of every New Yorker who supports Israel – because words like yours, spoken from the office you hold, do not stay contained. They travel. They are heard by those who already hate us, and they are heard as permission. J’accuse you of finding words for Gaza but none for Iran’s hanged dissidents, none for the churches burned in Nigeria, none for the Uyghurs vanished into camps in China. A conscience that speaks only of Jews and their state, and falls silent before every other cruelty on earth, is not a universal conscience. It is something else – it is antisemitism. J’accuse you of holding the highest office in the largest Jewish city outside of Israel, and using it to make antisemitism feel official – to make it feel less like hatred and more like policy. And yet, Mr. Mayor – we have been here before. We are a people with a long and bitter history of being accused. We have been called poisoners of wells, killers of gods, controllers of banks, and now, absurdly, perpetrators of the very crime that was done to us not one lifetime ago. We have heard every accusation there is. And we are still here. Israel – a Jewish state standing alone in a sea of nations that would erase it – is not the crime you make it out to be. It is what a people builds when it refuses to disappear. Every Passover, at the Seder table, we say these words: she’lo echad bilvad amad aleinu le’chaloteinu – that in every generation, there rise those who seek to destroy us, but the Holy One delivers us from their hands. We say it every year. We will say it again this year. And Mr. Mayor – for the rest of my life, when I reach that line in the Haggadah, I will think of you. J’accuse.

Last week marked the 40th anniversary of Kurt Waldheim’s inauguration as president of Austria - a former Secretary General of the United Nations who was, by then, already known to be an ex-Nazi complicit in the murder of masses of civilians. Notwithstanding his sickening past, his portrait still hangs prominently in the United Nations building. In an op-ed published in the @NYDailyNews this past Wednesday, I argued that the profanity of granting him this honor reflects the blatant antisemitism of the UN. I concluded with a demand that the portrait be taken down. If you agree, why not drop a line to the Secretary General of the UN - himself an antisemite - letting him know your outrage. To paraphrase the prophet: for the memory of the six million, we dare not be silent. nydailynews.com/2026/07/08/t…

On America’s 250th America is called America after Amerigo Vespucci, the first to conclude that America was a distinct continent. Writing out America phonetically in Hebrew, one might homiletically see the name as a compound of two words: amar Cah — literally, “the Lord said” — words often found in the Bible. This reminds us that among the founding fathers’ many influences was the teachings of the Bible. On its 250th birthday, may America be inspired by its loving principles — amar Cah.

In the midst of feeling betrayed by the Vance right and outraged by the Mamdani left, I found it spiritually uplifting to vote today for Representative @RitchieTorres for Congress. Ein ka’mohu - there is no one like him. May he forever be blessed. @RitchieTorresNY

A day of joyous tears. Half a year after visiting Gefen Bitton in a Sydney hospital - where he lay unconscious after being shot and critically wounded while heroically trying to stop the terrorists who murdered 15 people, 14 of them Jews, in Bondi, Australia - I saw him again, this time in a hospital in @Israel , where he had been flown for ongoing rehabilitation. There he was: conscious and somber, yet also hopeful, smiling, and speaking about how deeply he has been strengthened by the prayers offered on his behalf around the world. As we embraced and blessed one another, I told him that at his bedside in Sydney, although unconscious, his eyes somehow welled up with tears as I whispered in his ear the prayer that one day we would dance together at his wedding. Across oceans, the prayer endures: lu yehi, lu yehi - let it be, let it be.

My heart goes out to the families who lost loved ones in the vicious attack on the Islamic Center in San Diego. Our community feels deeply the pain of violence directed at any faith community. Indeed, an attack against any house of faith is an attack against every house of faith, and people of conscience must raise their voices against such hatred and horror. May the bereaved families feel our endless support, and may the memories of those who were lost forever be a blessing.

My wife Toby and I are in @Israel becoming citizens. At the Interior Ministry, the official reviewing our papers - a Jew who came from Ethiopia in 1991 - asked me for proof that I was Jewish. I showed him letters from our rabbi. As I did so, tears began to flow. I told him: “I remember the 1970s and ’80s, when we marched and protested so Ethiopian Jews could come home to Israel. Back then, many questioned whether Ethiopian Jews were Jewish at all. We insisted our Black brothers and sisters were as Jewish as any of us.” And now, 35 years later, here was a holy Ethiopian Jew confirming my Judaism. We had come full circle. Holding his hand, I sang: “Zeh hayom asah Hashem, nagilah ve’nismechah bo” - This is the day God has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Jews from East and West have returned home together. Am Yisrael chai v’yichyeh.

Mayor @ZohranKMamdani : Slick, phony, ignorant - and a real antisemite. His latest message regarding the Nakba is beyond the pale. All Jewish organizations - ADL, AJCommittee, the NY Board of Rabbis, UJA, and others - should boycott him, refuse to meet with him, and decline to invite him to communal functions. Hopefully, non-Jewish organizations will do the same. New York’s Jewish community has no shortage of avenues to address its needs: city council members, law enforcement, the judiciary, and countless other city officials remain accessible and willing partners. New York business should only be conducted with government officials who are not antisemites. We’ve overcome antisemites in the past, and we will do so again.

To @TuckerCarlson: This Shabbat, Jews worldwide will hear the Torah reading of “Remember Amalek.” Today, there is no call to destroy Amalek, as Amalek as a people no longer exists. Rather, the mandate is a calling for Jews to stand strong against our enemies always with an ethics of war, what the IDF calls “purity of arms.” It’s not Jews who are calling for the mass slaughter of innocents, as you effectively intimated in your Huckabee interview, it’s Hamas and Iran that do so — in their words and actions. You say you’re “confused” why you’re labelled by many to be an antisemite. But your twisted thinking - condemning the innocent while vindicating the guilty- cloaked in self righteous phony words that has duped your followers and given you access to high places, is why many like myself see you as one of the most dangerous antisemites living today.

On the 81st anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the church at Birkenau continues to violate Shoah memory. jpost.com/opinion/article-88…

The “Free Palestine” – campus and Hollywood – protesters who falsely accused Israel of “genocide” are silent, deafeningly silent, while thousands are being murdered in Iran. The hypocrisy is staggering. The double standard is glaring. That’s not human rights. And yes – it reeks of antisemitism.

Video clips of our demonstration together with @rabbichaim Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz, telling Mr. Mamdani we forever stand with Israel. From @nytimes: “I have deep respect for the position of New York City mayor, but my heart is broken as Mr. Mamdani becomes mayor,” said Rabbi Avi Weiss, 81. “Never in my life did I ever dream that the mayor of the City of New York would be an anti-Zionist, would be anti-Israel.” He added a note of caution to the new mayor: “Wherever you go, you’re going to hear a voice that stands proudly with the Jewish state, the Jewish democratic state of Israel.”