Rabbi Moshe Goldman

@HassanRIsmail @ddebow I don't think we are disagreeing that much! I am saying that the issue is caused by indecent people, not lack of understanding of others' religion/culture. If every human being behaved with basic decency, this wouldn't be happening.

@JewishWaterloo @ddebow if you don't think decent people can make a difference (which is directly implied by what you said) - i don't really know how to respond

What else can be done to protect Jews in Canada? I’m not a security expert. Here are 6 ideas. (Yes, AI assisted) Others will have better. Before something very bad happens - let’s try our best. 1.Publicly fund the model that already exists. UJA launched Toronto’s Jewish Security Network in 2024: threat monitoring, volunteer training, and a Security Operations Centre. The UK and Australia both publicly fund Jewish community security at meaningful scale. Canada could too. 2.Stop working in silos. TPS has a Hate Crime Unit. Ontario has a Hate Crime and Extremism Unit. Federal agencies have related mandates. Toronto City Council has already called for a joint RCMP/CSIS/OPP/TPS task force focused on antisemitic hate and terror. Approve it. 3.Make threat briefings flow both ways. Community security groups already share what they see with police. Good. But institutions also need fast warning when police or intelligence services identify a credible threat. Share it. 4.Fix the grants. Ontario has invested more than $98M since 2021 in security for faith and cultural communities. Good. But the process is too slow and the grants are often too small. Fast-track approvals. Create bridge support. Prioritize high-risk periods. 5.Finish the training rollout. Every synagogue, school, JCC, and camp should have funded active-threat training, clear protocols, and regular drills on a deadline. 6.Treat this as infrastructure. Jewish security cannot depend on private fundraising after each incident. It needs stable public funding and standing coordination with government. I’m sure there are other better ideas out there. But we have to move beyond empty platitudes if we actually mean what we say.

@HassanRIsmail @ddebow I think lots of people are indecent, but I don't go shooting their community centres or places of worship. That's my point. Interfaith dialogues attract very decent people, which is why I'm doubtful that they'll make a difference.

the people making the decisions to shoot at places of worship are doing so because they view the other side as non-decent, because they are ignorant - whether muslims, christians, or jews. QQ: do you view the israeli settlers (not talking about israelis as a whole, i mean just the settlers) as decent people? because they do shoot at places of other places of worship - and again; they do it out of ignorance

@HassanRIsmail @ddebow With respect; should my decision not to fire shots at another place of worship depend on whether I understand their faith and culture? It is simply something a generally decent person does not do, regardless of how well I understand other faiths.

@ddebow not sure why the simplest and probably most effective option isn't on this list - just promote open inter-faith and culture dialog most hatred of anyone comes from misunderstanding - most people who hate jews, muslims, etc don't actually understand what each stands for

@dansenor Hugs to you, Dan. Thank you.

In 2008, Rabbi Gavriel & Rivki Holzberg were murdered by terrorists in Mumbai. Just last year, Rabbi Zvi Kogan was murdered by terrorists in Abu Dhabi. And now, Rabbi Eli Schlanger murdered in Sydney when terrorists came for his community. My message is simple: hug your Rabbi & Rebbetzin this week, and thank them for devoting themselves to Jewish flourishing. And stand with @Chabad as they build Jewish pride in the public square.

@harleyf To be fair, you did include magician there :)

When kids are asked what they want to be when they grow up you get doctor, teacher, firefighter, magician. But entrepreneur? Still not on the list. That needs to change. Entrepreneurship isn’t just a career path. It’s a way to build a better life.

@Khaledhzakariah We're anxious winners fighting against fearless losers.

🚨🚨🚨A friend, Ben Dory, recently offered the most accurate description of Israel I've encountered: "a weird mix of jaw-dropping brilliance and staggering ineptitude." This duality was starkly illustrated over the past two years. On one hand, only Israel could suffer a catastrophic invasion by almost 6000 barbarians in flip-flops; on the other, only Israel could orchestrate the ingenious pager operation that decimated Hezbollah's ranks. This simultaneous scale of security failure and tactical genius is virtually unprecedented in modern warfare. It is a stunning paradox: only Israel, under the most pro-annexation US president in history, managed to forfeit that support so completely that he threatened to cut all American support, explicitly warning that "Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened". I want you to be witnesses as I make this warning public: To survive, Israel must crush the bureaucratic inertia that paralyses its security, diplomacy, and public outreach. Its greatest threat is not external, but the internal failure to translate brilliant potential into effective action.

@bentziavtzon Unlike much of what I see online, I needed to read this today. Guilty of both extremes. Thank you!

The example he uses is the prayer of the businessman, who specifically *because* he is coming from the anxiety of the workplace can cry out to Gd in a way the calm and collected and cold “sitter of tents” cannot This example can be extrapolated to much more extreme examples

What makes Mayim Rabim of Torah Ohr a dear maamar is that it does not rebuke the Jew who succumbs to tirdos haparnoso (or anxiety writ large), does not say “one shouldn’t worry its all in the hands…” which is of course true but hard to believe

@shabboshouse @ezalmanov Where else do you find the shechina expressing its ahavas yisroel at such length?!

@ezalmanov Please explain why!

Took me 46 years to realize this: Parshas Balak is probably my favorite parsha. 👊🎤

@peterhimmelman When fear of confrontation masquerades as enlightenment, evil wins.

Leaving my house yesterday morning, I caught a segment of an NPR broadcast. The guest, an expert of some kind, was excoriating Israel for its recent preemptive strike on Iran. “A deal was just about to happen,” she said. “It could have been days, maybe even hours away.” Later that day, I received an email from a longtime acquaintance in the music business: Peter, I don’t understand you. You’ve written so many songs about hope and humanity. When did you become a warmonger? It didn’t feel like he was trying to start a fight. I think he genuinely wanted to understand. But still, I got the sense he’d already made up his mind—that I’d abandoned the values I once stood for. That I’d become someone he no longer recognized. I didn’t write him back. Maybe I’ll send him this instead. We need to understand what Israel is facing. This is not a border dispute. Iran is 1,500 miles away. Until April of this year, when it launched over 300 drones, missiles, rockets, and ballistic missiles at Israel, there had been no Israeli attack on Iranian soil. And that’s despite Israel knowing full well that Iran had funded, trained, and helped plan the October 7 Hamas massacre. To briefly remind those who need reminding: On October 7, 2023, Hamas operatives invaded Israel from Gaza, killing over 1,200 people, raping women, beheading civilians, and kidnapping entire families. It was the deadliest single day for Jews since the Holocaust. Iran was behind it. That is not speculation—it’s well documented. U.S., Israeli, and international intelligence have confirmed that Iran provided funding, weapons, training, and strategic guidance to Hamas in the months leading up to the October 7 massacre. Senior Hamas operatives have even publicly acknowledged Iran’s role. Just as it has done for years with Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, Iran builds, arms, and directs proxy groups whose purpose is not coexistence—but the destruction of Israel. At the heart of Iran’s animus lies something difficult for many in the West to fully grasp: it is religious. The Islamic Republic’s ruling clerics believe they have a divine obligation to rid the region of Jewish sovereignty. For them, Jews are dhimmis—tolerated only when subjugated. The idea of Jews defending themselves, of a Jewish state thriving in its ancestral homeland, is, in their eyes, a theological crime. [Note: This is not a statement about all Shi’a Muslims, but about the radical ideology of Iran’s current regime.] There’s a precedent for this kind of hatred. Christian Europe once operated under similar assumptions. From the Middle Ages to the Holocaust, Jews were treated as permanent outsiders—tolerated only when they kept their heads down. Iran, tragically, has revived that tradition under the banner of religious revolution. And now, the Iranian regime is on the brink of acquiring the most dangerous weapon on Earth. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran has amassed enough highly enriched uranium—enriched to 60% purity—to produce at least three nuclear bombs. Experts estimate that with further enrichment to weapons-grade (90%) and weaponization, Iran’s “breakout time” could be reduced to mere weeks—or even days—if they act quickly and secretly. Once a regime like this gets the bomb, there is no going back. The balance of power shifts permanently. A genocidal ideology backed by nuclear capability is not a theoretical concern. It’s an imminent threat—not just to Israel, but to the region, and to the fragile idea of a civilized world. Israel, for all its internal divisions and political chaos, understands this. It is a nation with a fierce democratic and journalistic tradition, with no shortage of disagreement and protest. But on this point—on Iran’s nuclear program—nearly the entire population stands united. Left, right, secular, religious, Jewish, Arab—an unprecedented majority of Israelis understand that this strike was not optional. It was necessary. In capitals across the world—not just in the West but in Arab states as well—governments are publicly cautious, but privately relieved. Many are silently cheering Israel’s courage and military brilliance. Israel has done what they could not or would not dare do: challenge evil (yes, I use the word deliberately) at its source. Disrupt the machinery of mass death. Put a price on genocidal rhetoric. Is this moment warlike? Bloody? Frightening? Yes. But that is what it looks like when evil is confronted. And if we are wise and unflinching, perhaps even defeated. Maybe now there will be a deal. Just as there was a deal after Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were defeated. The deal is surrender. Not appeasement. Not delay. Surrender and regime change—something a huge swath of the Iranian people hope and pray for. In 2023, a survey conducted by the Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran (GAMAAN) found that nearly 80% of Iranians oppose the Islamic Republic in its current form. The same study showed that over 85% support a secular democracy to replace the regime. These are not fringe views. The mass protests that erupted after the murder of Mahsa Amini—and the brutal crackdowns that followed—revealed to the world just how deeply unpopular the clerical regime has become. To my friend in the music world, I want to say this: Peace—real peace, not simply a cessation of hostilities—is never given. It is won. And it is never granted by those who seek your destruction. Everything I’ve ever written about hope, about humanity, and the light which glows in the heart of every human being—I still believe. In fact, I believe it more deeply now than ever. @EinatWilf @davidbjpost @RachelGur @yudapearl

@bentziavtzon imho: An end to loneliness (and homesickness :))

Bosi lgani q: If the Otzar is the Divine ability to infinitely conceal Himself, what does it mean to spend it? What does spent hiddenness look like?

@bentziavtzon Over time, shluchim learn to distinguish between abuse and need. We often err (correctly so) on the side of generosity of spirit, and each shliach needs to own that without falling into resentment.

Hot take Becoming the Judaism concierge has been great for chabad fundraising but not for self morale Being available in five minutes with tefillin and menorah for anyone who forgot it at home and can’t make time to go store or local shul points to *too much* availability

@JonathanShedler Thank you for reposting this valuable insight; I referenced it during a Yom Kippur sermon. Thank you!

The expression “my truth” has psychological consequences, and they are not good 🧵

@LaibelWeiner R' Laibel, I understand your discomfort. But this is quite simple. For your point to be valid as a religious critique, it has to have a source in Halacha. By all means, please provide one. If you just meant to share your subjective opinion, we don't have to discuss it. GCT!

Very controversial take I’m sure, but I’m not a fan of this. Not appropriate and disrespectful to the mitzvah. Forget about the fact he’s pro Hamas. Okay, we can debate about that and I can see an argument to wrap him anyways. But wrapping while walking in a rally, in a keffiyeh… give me a break. Disrespectful.

@havivrettiggur אתה פשוט מדבר לענין. יישר כח.

The great advantage of living one’s life in Hebrew is that your psyche isn’t constantly buffeted by their insane obsession with you. This urgency to deny the Jews the chance to mourn on October 7 isn’t some accidental mass-mobilization. It is purposeful and predatory. If the Jews are allowed to mourn, then the Jews are humanized, have a perspective worth noticing, dignity worth acknowledging, and a chance to recover. But the point of October 7 was to be the start of a great and permanent cleansing of the world from the psychic irritant of the Jew. This is it. The chips are down. The Jews must be tormented constantly and mercilessly, their suffering denied, their evils magnified. They must be massacred in Israel and abused in London, New York and Twitter. Nothing can distract these great holy warriors from the sacred task of erasing the Jewish narrative and experience, and eventually the Jew (it’s no accident that Nassim is also now obsessed with Jewish genetics). And it will only get worse - both because the overall West doesn’t yet fully understand the threat of these ideologies to itself and because these holy warriors are convinced they’re on the cusp of victory. So they torment the Jews, double down on the massacre, and defend and validate and call forth more of the same. Fellow Jews, don’t forget you have your own language and your own polity now. We in Israel do not hear this abuse, we are mostly oblivious to it. When we do notice it, we mostly see it as a sign of societal decline, a bravado and brutality borrowed from certain Middle Eastern political and religious cultures that do not signal courage or intimidating capability, but ideological childishness and cultural incompetence. It is the same basic backwardness that hangs over our region like a stifling cloud. My humble suggestion: Respond to this garbage as Israelis do. Turn off Twitter and go mourn with your own people. Find them in physical space, where you can see real faces and speak real words. That’s what I’m going to do. Let our enemies rage and strut and convince themselves of the righteousness of their hatred. This is, alas, their baseline state when the going gets tough. It is their curse. You don’t have to live in it. You don’t even have to notice it. Go find some Jews.

@DBashIdeas A Rebbe

גדול בידיעת קוב״ה = נביא גדול בידיעת אורייתא = תלמיד חכם גדול בידיעת ישראל = ???? 🧐 ????

@DBashIdeas Everyone knows the e is silent. Yisrol.

How to you pronounce Yisroel?

Netflix matchmaker brings 'Jewish wisdom' to Kitchener therecord.com/news/netflix-m… via @wr_record @JewishWaterloo @Chabad

@shabboshouse @ualbanyalumni @ChabadOnCampus It is truly therapeutic, תורת חיים הוראה בחיים.

@ualbanyalumni > Many thanks to my dear @chabadoncampus colleague @JewishWaterloo for opening my eyes to the beauty, power and richness of this #Rebbe's Rashi sicha and how deeply relevant it is to our every day lives.

That pathway of open clarity within the dense smoke that the last #RashiToday of #Mishpatim Day 7 speaks of & #Rebbe's sicha elucidates & richly applies to life - especially resonated with me last night via personal experience, t'was the story of my day. >

@pnshdvermonster Great responsibility, especially for a task you've never done before, should trigger some anxiety; the alternative is either delusion or apathy, which are much more dangerous. If you're nervous, you'll be fine.

I've debated if I should post this on X, but it's driving me insane not being able to talk about it with other people. My wife is pregnant. We've known for a while, and it's our first child. I'm constantly bouncing between the most happiness I've ever felt and the most fear I've ever felt. Someone, please tell me this eventually all evens out.

@Joe_Roberts01 I'm the most visible Jew (kippah/hat, tzitzit, etc) in my city and thank G-d, I've never had anything happen to me on the street. Not even a comment. I believe that if you're comfortable with it, it repels hatred. If you're self conscious about it, it attracts hatred...

Friday night, I busted out kippot for me and my boys to light Shabbos candles. I told my wife that I’d like to start wearing a kippah everyday—it makes me feel closer to G-d. Her face twisted with worry. She’s afraid it will make me a target. That’s the state of 🇨🇦 in 2024.