March 21, 2025

Spring has sprung. Going from holiday to holiday, the year has swiftly taken us through Tu B’Shvat, Groundhog Day, Valentines Day, Family Day, Purim, St. Pat’s, and a few Rosh Chodesh days. Around the same time that I start to get tense about Pesach preparations, I also know that April Fools Day approaches. Not that I’m into pranks — I’m not — but there are always amusing REAL “Fake News” articles to celebrate the day (Similarly, in Jewish circles, we have absurd and comedic annual “Purim Torah” which went around last week.)  With this in mind, I was sure that a headline I saw yesterday was an early April Fools joke.

First, a little context as far as the timing. We all know there are hostages, and a conflict, and antisemites, and misinformation, and celebrity idiots and influencers spouting dangerous narratives. But this week Eli Sharabi, that blessed, beautiful Israeli man who was held hostage for 491 days and emerged looking like an Auschwitz survivor, that man addressed the United Nations. It’s not the first time we’ve heard hostage testimony, but he offered these specifics about the humanitarian aid:

“As an eyewitness. I saw what happened to that aid. Hamas stole it. I saw Hamas terrorists carrying boxes with the UN and UNWRA emblems on them into the tunnel. Dozens and dozens of boxes, paid by your government. Feeding terrorists who tortured me, and murdered my family. They would eat many meals a day from the UN aid, in front of us, and we never received any of it. When you speak of humanitarian aid, remember this: Hamas eats like kings while hostages starve. Hamas steals from civilians. Hamas blocks aid from reaching those who truly need it.“

And now, just a few days after the world heard that testimony, that revelation that can not be ignored, came yesterday’s Toronto Star, with this headline which I felt certain was a joke: 
Canada pledges nearly $100M for Palestinians in Gaza, West Bank
How?! If that had been a headline in, say, November 2023 or August 2024 or any time in the past 17 months, I might have understood it better. But this week, after hearing specifics of what exactly happens to that aid, after seeing someone who knows firsthand, how is this possible?

It’s not Purim anymore, and it’s not yet April Fools Day. But the world is most assuredly upside down. And the April Fools are running it. G-d help us all.

Am Yisrael Chai!

And another thing. (Sorry for the overload.)

The UN Humanitarian Aid Chief, Tom Fletcher, is “demanding answers” after a UN staffer was killed in Gaza this week. But there’s something that he won’t mention about one of the UN workers who was injured in Gaza and is currently being treated in an Israeli hospital. The huge tattoo the Israeli medical staff found on his arm said “Meine Ehre heißt Treue” (“My honor is called loyalty”). You know what that was? The official motto of the SS from 1931 to 1945.
Demanding answers? Sure, we’ll play that game. We go first, Mr. Fletcher. How do you explain this?