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Hagada Dentata

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20.03.2026

Last week a Chabad emissary posted a triumphant video: outside the ADL conference, he and a friend wrapped tefillin on a Jewish pro-Palestinian protester. The wrapper in question defended the act against his own comrades’ jeers—“This has nothing to do with politics. This is religion and a connection to God. I’m a Jew and I’ll always be a Jew.” The poster’s takeaway: Judaism can unite where politics divides.

A beautiful story about achdus?

“Separating religion from politics in this context smells like separating Judaism from Zionism” began a dissent. When the OP insisted the young man was just ignorant and deserved a chance, the reply was that any Jew publicly marching under “From the River to the Sea” flags has already identified himself with the Rasha of the Hagada. He knows exactly what he believes; he has simply swapped one set of ikkarei emunah for another. Giving him tefillin doesn’t draw him closer—it hands him the ultimate “As a Jew” prop: “Even Chabad agrees with me on Gaza.”

The exchange grew heated. “You would disqualify a Jew from Mitzvot because he’s not a Zionist?” The answer: he disqualified himself. We withhold tallis and tefillin from get-withholders; why hand them to open terrorsplainers? The 80% who opted out in Egypt never made it to the korban Pesach either.

As Pesach approaches, the Haggadah hands us the script for exactly this moment. Call........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)