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Tzvi Alon walks through Kibbutz Be’eri.
Credit: Esteban Balta
Brick by Brick: Stories of Survival and Resilience In Israel
Oct 06, 2025
As ceasefire negotiations are set to begin in Egypt as early as this week, President Trump announced via his Truth Social platform that Israel has accepted an “initial withdrawal line” within Gaza. He added that “when Hamas confirms, the Ceasefire will be IMMEDIATELY effective.
Esteban Balta, a student at Northwestern University, was part of a group of students who visited Israel in August as part of a Fuente Latina fellowship.
In Israel, there are more than 100,000 Latin American immigrants. Most of them came from Argentina since the founding of Israel. Since the 1980s, immigrants have primarily come from Colombia and Ecuador. Some have spent their entire lives there, others arrived more recently. Nevertheless, all are part of the Israeli community—and as a result, they suffer alongside the country.
Two months before the anniversary of Hamas’s invasion of Israel, two of its victims—Latin American immigrants—share the difficult experiences they’ve endured, and as if that weren’t enough, the struggle to rebuild their lives both physically and emotionally.
On October 7, 2023, Israel was the victim of a terrorist attack by the group Hamas. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) took hours to respond, and as a result, nearly 1,200 people were killed by Hamas. The group attacked kibbutzim (closed communities), the Nova festival, and several military bases.
Today, Tzvi Alon walks through Kibbutz Be’eri, retracing the traces of tragedy. Houses remain collapsed, wood and bricks scattered across the ground. Bullet holes mark the walls. Burn marks still stain the homes. Where more than a thousand people once lived, fewer than a hundred remain. Sounds of construction echo through the neighborhood as a sign of rebuilding—but they’re drowned out by the sound of bombs across the border, where the war in Gaza continues, a haunting reminder of how it began.
Tzvi Alon, an immigrant from Argentina who arrived in Israel at age 14, recounts the story of Kibbutz Be’eri during the invasion:
“They were saying, ‘My house is burning, come help me. My husband is injured, I need help…” Alon described the flood of WhatsApp messages and his own opinion: “A tsunami of terror hit us here.”
Tragically, it was through WhatsApp that he learned of the murder of his friend Manny.
“He tells me, ‘They killed Manny.’ For me, it was like a bomb.”
Alon showed his house and the shelter room—a smaller space than a bedroom, with only a lock to protect them from the violence outside. Fortunately, the terrorists didn’t enter his home, and he and his family survived.
Alon and his family spent thirty hours in the shelter before learning that the terrorists had reached other kibbutzim. Thirty hours of death and destruction across Israel.
But Alon isn’t the only one reliving trauma. Alejandra López returned to the site of the Nova festival invasion, where she escaped and survived an attack by the same group that killed Alon’s neighbors. She came with her partner, her son, and Sol, her emotional support dog. The desert where the festival was held is now a labyrinth of faces and monuments commemorating the murdered and still-captive victims. The cries of visitors echo through the memorials—a reminder of the tragedy.
López is a Colombian immigrant who has lived in Israel for ten years. The Nova festival was held annually, but now it will be remembered as a horrific tragedy.
She recounted how she escaped death during the festival. At first, there was confusion, and people didn’t understand the danger they were in.
“I started to see something very unusual in the sky. I really began to notice certain… I don’t know how to explain it, but strange movements, which I assumed were part of the party,” López said, describing the calm before the storm.
“And suddenly I see someone—one of my friends—standing in the middle of the road, completely covered in blood. His face, his hands, everything.”
López described this moment in detail as the first shock, realizing the danger was imminent and her life was at risk.
She explained how the confusion among the crowd created more panic. She was with three friends trying to escape in a car when they hit traffic that was impossible to flee. One friend went to investigate, leaving her and two others alone in the car.
“My desperation to not stay in the car was rising. Something inside me kept saying, ‘Go, go, go, go,’” López said, describing how she and her friends ran for their lives.
After reuniting with her friend, the group hid in a ditch with about 100 people.
“They started throwing grenades where we were. We stood up and started running again. I don’t know what happened to the people who were with me to this day—I just don’t know.”
López’s escape separated her group until only she and one friend remained, listening to the terror around them.
“Basically, they were hunting us—it was like a game to them… We heard how they pulled girls from the holes, how they tortured them, and tortured the boys,” López said, describing the horror that drove her to despair.
“I felt like I didn’t want to die, but I was tired and didn’t want to be found. So I told my friend, ‘Let’s hug. I know a bullet will hit us at any moment, but let it hit us both.’”
Though she gave up in that moment, she regained her strength and kept fighting. Eventually, a soldier with water and supplies helped restore her hope. López was finally reunited with her friends and partner, where she could finally breathe again.
Both stories recount trauma that the state of Israel is still recovering from as the war continues.
López said:
“That day, they killed a part of me that’s still dead to this day.”
Brick by Brick: Stories of Survival and Resilience In Israel was first published in Spanish language as Reconstruyendo Ladrillo por Ladrillo on actualidad and re-published in English with permission.
Esteban Balta is a student at Northwestern University. He was a fellow with Fuente Latina, an organization that sponsors journalists and students to visit Israel. Esteban is the son of Hugo Balta, executive editor of the Fulcrum and publisher of the Latino News Network.
The Fulcrum is committed to nurturing the next generation of journalists. To learn about the many NextGen initiatives we are leading, click HERE.
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File:Homes-for-sale-Burrus-02.jpg - Wikimedia Commons
Ending taxes on home sales would benefit the wealthiest households most – part of a larger pattern in Trump tax plans
Oct 06, 2025
Not long after U.S. housing prices reached a record high this summer – the median existing home went for US$435,000 in June – President Donald Trump said that he was considering a plan to make home sales tax-free.
Supporters of the idea, introduced by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene as the No Tax on Home Sales Act in July, say it would benefit working families by eliminating all taxes on the sales of family homes.
But most Americans who sell their homes already do so tax-free. And the households that would gain most under Trump’s proposals are those with the most valuable real estate.
As a legal scholar who studies how taxes affect racial and economic inequality, I see this proposal as part of a familiar pattern: measures advertised as relief for ordinary families that mostly benefit the well-off.
Most families already sell their homes tax-free
Right now, according to the Internal Revenue Code, a single person pays no tax on the first $250,000 in gain from a home sale, while married people can exclude $500,000. All told, about 90% of home sales generate less than $500,000 in gains, so the overwhelming majority of sellers already owe no tax.
The minority who would see new benefits from the proposed tax change are those with more than $500,000 in appreciation – typically owners of high-priced homes in hot real estate markets. Yale’s Budget Lab estimated the average benefit for these tax-free sales was $100,000 per qualifying seller.
Homeownership itself isn’t equally distributed across the U.S. population. About 44% of Black Americans are homeowners, compared with 74% of white Americans. That racial gap has only widened over the past 10 years. Similarly, single women – particularly but not exclusively women of color – face additional barriers.
A broader trend of upward wealth transference
Though still just a proposal, the tax-free home sales bill is part of a broader set of Republican tax plans that would have regressive effects – that is, where the vast majority of benefits go to high-income people and very few to low-income people – under a pro-worker banner.
Trump floated the tax-free home sales idea less than three weeks after he signed a large package of tax and spending measures in July 2025. That bill generated strong public criticism because of its emphasis on tax savings for the rich at the expense of almost a trillion dollars in cuts for federally funded health care for the poor and disabled.
The home sales idea follows the same script – and echoes the distributional pattern established by his 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. That tax reform increased racial wealth and income disparities and provided 80% of its benefits to corporations and high-income individuals. In fact, my research shows that white households received more than twice as many tax cuts as Black households from that law.
The same dynamic plays out in this new tax-fueled housing policy. Eliminating capital gains taxes on home sales would primarily benefit the 29 million homeowners who already have substantial equity – a group that skews heavily white, male and upper middle class. Meanwhile, America’s millions of renters, disproportionately people of color and women, would receive no benefit while potentially losing access to social programs Congress must cut to fund these tax breaks.
Ending taxes on home sales would benefit the wealthiest households most – part of a larger pattern in Trump tax plans was first published on The Conversation and re-published with permission.
Beverly Moran is a senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, and Paulus Endowment senior tax fellow at Boston College.
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fractured foundation and US flag
AI generated
From Fragility to Resilience: Fixing America’s Economic and Political Fault Lines
Oct 05, 2025
This series began with a simple but urgent question: What’s gone wrong with America’s economic policies, and how can we begin to fix them? The story so far has revealed not only financial instability but also deeper structural weaknesses that leave families, small businesses, and entire communities far more vulnerable than they should be.
In the first two articles, “Running on Empty” and “Crash Course,” we examined how middle-class families, small businesses, and retirees are increasingly caught in a web of debt and financial uncertainty. We also examined how Wall Street’s speculative excesses, deregulation, and shadow banking have pushed the financial system to the brink. Finally, we warned that Donald Trump’s economic agenda doesn’t address these problems—it magnifies them. Together, these earlier articles painted a picture of a system skating on thin ice, where even small shocks could trigger widespread crisis.
Now comes the hard part: finding a path forward.
A Fragile Foundation and a System on Borrowed Time
In the late 1970s, a nurse’s income could support a household of five—my own family lived that reality. Today, even two incomes often fall short. Half of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and one in four spends nearly all their earnings on essentials. Credit card delinquencies have climbed to a 13-year high, while the costs of food, housing, and childcare continue to rise faster than wages.
Crushing student debt postpones homeownership and family formation, medical bills overwhelm households, and retirees confront shrinking safety nets as Social Security and Medicare edge closer to insolvency. Many who trusted these programs would always be there, failed to save enough, and now face retirement with too few resources. These pressures hint at a deeper crisis shaping daily life, where families are running harder to stay in place and the promise of upward mobility grows weaker with each passing year.
Small businesses and farmers are also paralyzed, with many farm families facing their gravest crisis since the 1980s. Tariff threats and congressional stopgaps make planning impossible. Instead of hiring or innovating, many hold back. As economist Hyman Minsky warned, what appears to be stability is often fragility in disguise. The same holds true for small towns hollowed out by decades of disinvestment: resilience on the surface but deep vulnerability underneath.
These household pressures connect directly to Wall Street’s excess. Federal deficits hover around 7 percent of GDP, interest payments on the national debt have tripled since 2021, and major banks carry dangerously thin cushions. Shadow banking, hedge funds, private equity, and crypto platforms operate with little oversight, creating risks that can spill over into the real economy. The concentration of risk in just a few giant institutions leaves the broader system exposed, and the lessons of 2008 seem to have faded too quickly.
The slide from safe finance into speculation and finally Ponzi finance is clear. Meme stocks, shaky AI startups, and commercial real estate burdened with debt all reflect this pattern. Deregulation, political pressure on the Federal Reserve, and tolerance for corporate leverage accelerate the cycle. If unchecked, these vulnerabilities could escalate into a crisis more damaging than the last, leaving policymakers scrambling once again to bail out the powerful while ordinary families bear the brunt of the pain.
Taken together, the warning signs are unmistakable: households weighed down by debt, businesses and farms in survival mode, and financial institutions skating on the edge of collapse. The system is brittle, and the cracks are widening.
Fixing What’s Broken
If "Running on Empty" diagnosed the household squeeze and "Crash Course" exposed systemic fragility, this final part turns to solutions. The fixes are not quick or painless, but they are possible if we summon the political will. And if pursued together, they could mark a turning point toward a more balanced, resilient economy.
At the broadest level, three priorities stand out, each of which deserves deeper attention. First, the nation must make rebuilding middle-class security a top priority by addressing the core costs of housing, education, healthcare, and retirement so that families can achieve stability once more. This means targeted investments in affordable housing, serious reforms to student debt, measures to control medical costs, and a long-term commitment to protecting Social Security and Medicare, ensuring that seniors are not left facing poverty in old age. Policymakers must also think about the next generation, ensuring that early childhood education, childcare support, and training programs are funded as essential public goods.
Second, financial excess must be contained through stronger oversight of banks, hedge funds, and shadow finance, along with a renewed commitment to institutional independence at places like the Federal Reserve. Restoring robust regulation would not only reduce the risk of another financial collapse but also rebuild public trust that the rules of the economy work for everyone, not just for the wealthiest institutions and investors. Transparency requirements, stronger enforcement powers, and coordination with international regulators are all necessary if the U.S. is to avoid repeating past mistakes. Limiting corporate leverage and addressing the risks posed by speculative markets, such as crypto, would also help stabilize the system.
Third, democracy itself requires repair. Congress must reclaim its budgetary authority by ending its reliance on continuing resolutions, and state and local governments need renewed support so they can act as meaningful counterweights to federal power. Just as important, civic life must be strengthened through education and reforms that encourage compromise rather than zero-sum politics, helping citizens see that government can still deliver for ordinary people and not just for partisan advantage. Ranked-choice voting, independent redistricting, and broader civic education could gradually shift political incentives toward problem-solving rather than permanent brinkmanship. Campaign finance reform is also vital. The Supreme Court should revisit Citizens United and restore reasonable limits on political spending so that democracy reflects the voices of citizens rather than the power of money.
None of these measures will be easy. All require political courage, a willingness to challenge entrenched interests, and an honest conversation with the public about costs and trade-offs. However, without such reforms, the system will remain brittle, and democracy will remain vulnerable. These reforms will take time. Citizens must be patient but also persistent in demanding them.
Conclusion: From Fragility to Resilience
This series began with families stretched to the breaking point, followed Wall Street’s dangerous gambles, and ends with a call to repair the foundations. Fragility is not destiny; the cracks are visible and can be repaired if leaders choose long-term stability over short-term spectacle.
Rebuilding middle-class security, restoring guardrails on finance, and renewing democratic institutions—from congressional responsibility and institutional independence to stronger civic life—are not partisan luxuries but democratic necessities.
The stakes extend beyond economics. They reach into the legitimacy of government, the cohesion of communities, and the public’s trust that tomorrow can be better than today. Yet too often leaders and the media fixate on short-term political theater instead of the deeper reforms required to secure the nation’s future.
If every election continues to feel like a cliffhanger for the republic, the system itself may not be able to withstand the strain. Strengthening institutions and pursuing reform is not optional; it is the only way forward. Moving from fragility to resilience will require patience, persistence, and vision—and it remains within reach if leaders and citizens alike demand it.
Robert Cropf is a Political Science Professor at Saint Louis University.
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a red white and blue flag
Photo by Jon Sailer on Unsplash
America’s Boiling Frog
Oct 05, 2025
The myth goes that a frog sitting in slowly heating water won’t notice until it boils alive. Americans know better—or we should. A recent Pew poll found that 72% of us already believe the U.S. is no longer a good example of democracy. We see the heat. The question is whether we’ll jump.
If you’re like most people, the thought of boiling a live frog seems cruel and purposeless. Even if you happen to enjoy frog legs—cuisses de grenouilles, as the French call them—it’s still a gruesome image. What’s more, the myth that frogs won’t notice a gradual rise in temperature isn’t even true. If given the chance, frogs will jump out, as proven decades ago by Dr. Victor Hutchison, a professor of zoology at the University of Oklahoma.
So yes—frogs will jump if they can. But will we?
I, for one, lose sleep over the fact that Americans may be sitting in a pot of our own making—and the water’s getting dangerously hot.
Instead of leaping out, we’re lounging like it’s a spa. Except this isn’t relaxation—it’s collapse. Our government has been cranking up the temperature a little more each day—by attacking individuals and institutions—whether attempting to fire a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, or firing inspectors general who expose fraud, threatening judges who rule against the administration, or pressuring universities to silence dissent. Each step is justified as routine. Each step raises the heat.
And this didn’t start yesterday. The warming began years ago—with the normalization of lies about election fraud, the erosion of the rule of law through defiance of congressional subpoenas, and the resurrection of racial and gender hate in official rhetoric and policy. We tolerated the rising temperature, from denial to dissonance to disinterest. From “this can’t be happening” to “meh, it could be worse.” Some take it even a step further, decrying "you're overreacting" when someone draws attention to the gradual but steady march towards tyranny. This is what historian Timothy Snyder calls obeying in advance—the habit of accommodating power before we’re forced to, normalizing each new abuse by treating it as inevitable.
Today, corporations and public institutions are paying settlements, networks are canceling shows that challenge the administration, and a country once proud of its moral values now shrugs at open dehumanization based on a person’s (perceived) country of origin. Snyder reminds us: institutions “do not protect themselves.” Courts, universities, and the press only hold if people actively defend them.
We don’t have to look far—Russia, Hungary, Turkey—to see how rational people accepted slow decay: courts packed with loyalists, independent media shuttered, opposition candidates banned from ballots. Step by step, the abnormal became the new normal. Snyder cautions us to beware the one-party state. It rarely arrives in one sweep—it’s built election by election, map by map, until competition itself seems obsolete.
And it’s not just laws or maps—it’s symbols, slogans, and the face of the world. Snyder urges us to take responsibility for the public space around us. Every poster, meme, and chant that goes unchallenged becomes the new vocabulary of tolerance.
At the same time, truth itself is under siege. Leaders and their allies repeat lies until they no longer shock, teaching us to treat facts as subjective. Snyder warns that once citizens stop believing in truth, they stop believing they can resist at all.
Listen closely, too, for the dangerous words. “Emergency.” “Exception.” “Enemy within.” They may sound like common sense, but they’re the oldest trick in the authoritarian playbook—framing the expansion of extraordinary power as ordinary necessity.
History has already shown us what is to come. What once felt unimaginable is now routine—tossed from the Overton Window like yesterday’s news.
But here’s the good news: we can still jump. The choice is ours—to defend institutions, to refuse to obey in advance, to believe in truth, and to stop treating each new degree of heat as normal.
The time to leap is now.
Craig Robinson is an experienced business leader and advisor, currently serving on multiple boards and providing strategic counsel to private investment firms, with a focus on commercial real estate, technology, and leadership. As a founding member of the Leadership Now Project, he brings a unique perspective to discussions on the positive role of business in society and democracy.
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