- News

- Opinions

- Culture

News

- Orthodox Jewish groups have been quiet about ICE. This Minneapolis rabbi wasn’t.

- After Minneapolis shooting, local Jewish service channels a city’s grief and resolve

NEWS | JAN 27, 2026, 12:11 AM EST | UPDATED JAN 27, 2026, 12:14 AM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Orthodox Jewish groups have been quiet about ICE. This Minneapolis rabbi wasn’t.

Louis Keene

Rabbi Max Davis on bearing witness and making a difference in Minneapolis

An “ICE OUT” rally in Minneapolis. Leaders from Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist Judaism have condemned ICE’s conduct in the city, but Orthodox groups have largely remained silent. Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

When the heads of major Jewish denominations co-signed a letter last week criticizing “in the strongest possible terms” the conduct of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minneapolis, Orthodox Judaism was conspicuously absent. Neither the Orthodox Union nor Agudath Israel of America — the two leading Orthodox umbrella organizations — has commented on the mass deployment of ICE and Border Patrol officers to the city.

There’s a reason Orthodox leaders might be choosing their words carefully — condemning ICE would put them at odds with not only a sizable chunk of their membership. Unlike members of the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements, Orthodox Jews — who represent about a tenth of the American Jewish population — lean heavily conservative, with about three-quarters supporting President Donald Trump in the 2024 election. (The Orthodox Union and Agudath Israel did not respond to separate inquiries.)

There was, however, at least one Orthodox rabbi willing to criticize ICE in public. Rabbi Max Davis, who leads the Minneapolis synagogue Darchei Noam Congregation, was one of 49 Jewish leaders to sign a Jan. 16 letter from the Minnesota Rabbinical Association, which said ICE was “wreaking havoc across our state” and which resolved to “bear witness and make a difference.”

I called Davis to learn more about why he signed and what he’s seeing on the ground. He also spoke about congregants who have been pepper sprayed or arrested at protests, how he approaches politics at the pulpit of an Orthodox shul, why he rejects the Holocaust comparisons some are making and how he’s tried to make a difference.

Rabbi Max Davis Courtesy of Darchei Noam Congregation

The interview below has been edited for length and clarity.

The Forward: Why did you sign this letter?

Rabbi Max Davis: It felt like a very reasonable, very carefully thought out response to the present situation. I know that there are many within the shul who are looking for some leadership in this moment, and signing was a drop in the bucket compared to what some people are doing.

By the same token, I know that there are other perspectives within my own shul and certainly within the broader Orthodox community, and I strongly believe that it’s not the role of a rabbi to police his congregants’ politics. In our shul, we learn from and respect each other, and there’s an incredible amount of wisdom and life experience beyond my own. So I signed with caution, but with quite a feeling of disappointment and anger in the events unfolding downtown, and the loss of life in particular.

I’m probably the only Orthodox rabbi in the Minnesota Rabbinical Association, and there have been statements issued that I have not signed. But this one was an opportunity I was not going to miss.

What’s been the reaction at Darchei Noam to your signing the letter?

I got several yasher koachs (plaudits) privately. Those who may disagree, I think were and are being polite. There’s definitely been some pushback about politics entering our shul. But I haven’t heard much about the letter specifically. I don’t think anyone was terribly surprised that I signed it.

More broadly, what are things like in your community right now?

Within our kehilla (congregation), there’s a diversity of opinion. But mostly what I’m hearing is deep sorrow and frustration and anger and pain — particularly from those who watch the videos, who are acquainted with individuals suffering directly from the ongoing operations, or who have watched what the operations have been doing to our city and to our community.

Have you seen what’s happening firsthand?

There’s someone in our extended community who just got out of jail and called me about 10 minutes ago to give me a heads up. We have a couple of people in the community who have been pepper sprayed. We have people in the community who have been very active in supply drives and driving children to school because their parents are afraid to come out.

Instead of buying stuff at the sort of generic supermarket I thought I might as well make the money count where people are hurting the most. So I went a couple weeks ago to try and pick up some kiddush supplies down at one of the large Latino markets that I know has taken quite a hit. I was pretty much the only customer. It was a very sad place.

So in those regards, I’ve seen what’s going on. I was down at the march last Erev Shabbos (Jan. 16). It was minus-10 degrees. There were 50,000 people out there in the streets and thousands more in the skyways and in the buildings that we could see. You see banners and signs hanging onto highways. You see people clustered at intersections with signs and upside-down American flags. There’s a tremendous amount of anger out there.

Protesters gather near where Alex Pretti was shot dead by federal immigration agents on Jan. 24. It was the second fatal shooting of a civilian in the city, sparking fresh protests and outrage from state officials. Photo by Roberto Schmidt / AFP via Getty Images

What’s it like to be living through that?

It’s heartening and it’s disheartening. It’s disheartening that it feels necessary; it’s heartening to see community coming together. It’s disheartening to see signs comparing the federal government and ICE to Nazi Germany; I find that, as a Jew, deeply offensive and ignorant. And by the same token, I find all of the messages around community and common decency to be a beautiful sight.

It’s not to say that I have any solutions to the more fundamental politics. I’m not saying that the country doesn’t have an immigration problem. But I do know that you can’t watch the video of Alex Pretti, the ICU nurse from the VA hospital, you can’t watch the video of Renee Good in her car and how that unfolded — shootings on streets and in neighborhoods that I know — you can’t watch that and not be highly disturbed and moved.

Have you addressed this moment at all from the pulpit?

I have definitely mentioned it in a couple of drashos (sermons). A couple of weeks ago, I spoke about ignoring the broader humanity and the plight of our neighbors at our own moral peril. Nechama Leibowitz sees a progression in Moshe’s interventions, first on behalf of another Jew against the Egyptian, then for a Jew against another Jew, and finally, with the daughters of Yitro at the well, between two non-Jewish parties. It was a good base for talking about doing what we can, when we can, to be an ohr l’goyim (a light unto the nations). I don’t think I said the word “ICE,” but there was no mistake about the subject matter — I think Renee Good had been shot like two days earlier.

With drashos, I’ve tried to be a little bit more tempered and restrained, because I think a lot of people come to hear Torah and inspiration and political issues are risky business. I’m also careful because I don’t want to ruin people’s Shabbos in other ways. Everyone has so much of this all week long, and I know some people look forward to Shabbos just to take a break. I’ve been told by some people that I’ve been too pareve, and by others that it’s been too much. So maybe I’m succeeding or failing everybody at the same time.

People protest against ICE after the fatal shooting of Renee Good in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota on Jan. 10. Photo by Charly Triballeau / AFP via Getty Images

You mentioned the Nazi comparisons. Why do you take offense to those in this context?

That was industrialized murder, and concentration camps — there’s not a word to describe the evil of what that was. That was just exponentially more horrific. And it disturbs me to no end — although I am not surprised to see people make this comparison and I get where they’re coming from — how lightly the Holocaust and the evils of Nazi Germany seem to be treated when people want to trot out a paradigm of evil.

Why did it feel important to you to patronize the Latino grocery store?

I feel for these communities, where these are honest, legitimate, hard working businesses, and they watch their customer base all but dry up — that includes people who are here legally, employees who are here legally. But there are so many stories of individuals who are being racially profiled or being picked up by mistake.

I was very angry about the story of a Laotian man who, in front of his family and children, was pulled out of the shower into 10-degree weather and bundled off into an ICE vehicle and driven around for an hour before they figured out that he was here legally and had no criminal record. He was let go without so much as an apology. He’s got a wife and small children — and I’ve got a wife and kids, you know? This kind of thing is absolutely unacceptable. And unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like that was such an outlier case. And that’s not an America that I believe in.

Louis Keene is a reporter for the Forward. His work has also been published in The New York Times, New York magazine and Vice. He is based in Los Angeles.

- [email protected]

- @thislouis

- keene.la

This article was downloaded from https://forward.com/news/800628/minneapolis-orthodox-rabbi-ice-letter/ at Jan 27, 2026 at 7:21 AM EST.

FAST FORWARD | JAN 25, 2026, 1:37 PM EST | UPDATED JAN 26, 2026, 4:24 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

After Minneapolis shooting, local Jewish service channels a city’s grief and resolve

Robin Washington

Twin Cities Jewish clergy guided worshippers to grief and loss after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti

A mourner visits a makeshift memorial on January 25, in the area where Alex Pretti was killed in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Photo by Octavio Jones/AFP via Getty Images

Alex Pretti was killed Saturday. Within hours, a Jewish community gathered to mark the end of Shabbat — and to reckon with his death.

The shock of his killing rippled quickly through Temple Israel of Minneapolis. As night fell, they joined online with Jews throughout the region to acknowledge the loss during Havdalah, the brief ritual that separates sacred time from the workweek, folding an act of communal mourning into the moment when Shabbat slips away.

The service, typically meditative and transitional, took on added weight. Alongside the familiar blessings, congregants spoke of Pretti — of the violence that ended his life and of the unease that followed them into a new week.

Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse and Minnesota resident who confronted immigration enforcement, was fatally shot by federal agents on Saturday. Several videos capturing the incident show agents wrestling him to the ground before firing multiple shots. Pretti, whose religion has not been revealed, has been the subject of numerous religious observances including a Mass by the Catholic Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis.

On Friday, there had been no sign of the tragedy to come. At least 100 rabbis and other Jewish leaders arrived in Minneapolis to participate in protests. Temple Israel hosted an interfaith service with clergy from around the city and the country, joined by other dignitaries including both of Minnesota’s U.S. senators. The service opened with a Muslim call to prayer and the blowing of a shofar, and included a candle lit in remembrance of slain Minneapolis protester Renée Good and those detained by ICE.

On Saturday evening, Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman opened the online-only Havdalah service by recounting the emotional whiplash of the previous 24 hours, moving from Friday’s sense of hope and collective purpose to the shock of Saturday’s events.

“Not more than a few hours into Shabbat overnight, we were met with more violence and the killing of Alex Jeffrey Pretti,” she said at the service, which drew more than 700 people logging in via Zoom. “This tension is overwhelming and exhausting and terrifying. Havdalah asks us to hold the tension between light and darkness, between what is and what should be.”

She turned to the ritual objects to frame the moment. “The braided candle reminds us we do not cross the sea alone,” Zimmerman said. “We are part of a community, the candle with its many wicks intertwined. Even on Zoom, even shaken and grieving, we stand together, carrying each other forward.”

That sense of closeness, despite physical distance, was echoed by Rabbi Arielle Lekach-Rosenberg of Shir Tikvah Congregation, who asked participants to lean toward their screens.

“We are 24 pages worth of people arrayed,” she said of Zoom’s gallery view. “So I’m going to invite us to move our faces a little bit closer to the camera.” She added: “We are in community together to feel this sense of closeness across our Twin Cities — Twin Cities that are in such need of care and love.”

Lekach-Rosenberg invoked the names of three people killed in connection with federal immigration enforcement: Victor Manuel Diaz, while in ICE custody in Texas, along with Good and Pretti. “We call for justice, and we pray that their memories will be an inspiration and a blessing,” she said.

Other clergy also reflected on how Shabbat’s promise of rest had been broken by unfolding news events. Like Zimmerman, Rabbi Jen Hartmann, also of Temple Israel, noted a Shabbat that had begun with the inspiration of the massive march gave way to grief. She urged her fellow Minnesotans to remain strong, citing an out-of-state comment she had seen online: “I want to move to Minneapolis because those folks — they know how to neighbor.”

The service made room for wordless mourning as well. Rabbi Jason Rodich, also of Temple Israel, called for a moment of silence, asking participants to refrain from even responding with emojis — so that “we can simply be in grief and memory” for Pretti, Good, Diaz, and others who died.

Zimmerman ended with the Oseh Shalom prayer for peace, reminding participants that while every human being is created in God’s image, “This is not a God problem; it’s a people problem.”

Robin Washington is the Forward’s Editor-at-Large. A longtime editor, columnist, radio host and documentarian across mainstream and ethnic media, he was one of the founders of the Alliance of Black Jews and an early pioneer of the term “Jew of color.”  Email [email protected], X @robinbirk.

- @robinbirk

This article was downloaded from https://forward.com/fast-forward/800163/alex-pretti-killing-jewish-minneapolis/ at Jan 27, 2026 at 7:21 AM EST.

Opinions

- As with Cain and Abel, the blood of our brother Alex Pretti is crying out from the ground

- I’m a rabbi arrested for protesting ICE in Minneapolis. The Book of Exodus shows us how this ends

OPINION | JAN 26, 2026, 1:23 PM EST | UPDATED JAN 26, 2026, 4:45 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

As with Cain and Abel, the blood of our brother Alex Pretti is crying out from the ground

Jay Michaelson

The lies our government is telling us have a biblical precedent

Flowers are left at a makeshift memorial for Alex Pretti. Photo by Octavio JONES / AFP via Getty Images

We don’t have to quote Pastor Niemoller anymore.

Because Alex Pretti could have been any of us. He could’ve been me, you, your neighbor, or your rabbi. In fact, many of my rabbinic colleagues and friends are on the streets of Minneapolis at this very moment. They are brave, patriotic and principled, and having known some of them for many years, I know that they, like Pretti, would protect the most vulnerable, even at unfathomable cost.

And what was Pretti doing? He was protesting peacefully, recording ICE agents with his iPhone. He tried to protect a woman the agents were attacking. He never drew the gun that he legally carried in its holster. He was beaten, and once on the ground, he was shot 10 times. His last words were “Are you OK?”

No longer are “they” coming only for “illegal” immigrants, legal immigrants arriving at their court dates, permanent residents, Latinos, Asians, Somalians, veterans, and Black off-duty police officers.

“They” are now coming for us.

And they hate us. They lie about us, calling us assassins and terrorists. Their rage is palpable, and egged on by right-wing podcasts and right-wing media. We hate America, we are rioters, we are terrorists, we are Antifa. “Have you not learned? This is why we killed that lesbian bitch,” an ICE agent said to a protester two weeks ago, referring to Renée Good.

Even after Pretti’s murder, the Fox News headline was “Minnesota ICE official warns of unrest ‘like nothing I’ve ever seen before.’”

Other than the murder itself, the lies have been the most disturbing part of this spectacle; the immediate rush to lie about and vilify Alex Pretti, a VA nurse described by everyone who knew him as kind, caring, altruistic, and just the sort of person who would put himself in harm’s way to protect a stranger.

Stephen Miller called him a “would-be assassin” and a “terrorist.”

Commander Gregory Bovino (who parades around in a military “greatcoat” that is popular among neo-Nazis online) said that Pretti planned to “massacre law enforcement” and had “violently resisted” before his men killed him, despite the video evidence flatly contradicting the latter claim.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said “this looks like a situation where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement.” Yet Pretti had his iPhone out to record what the ICE officers were doing.

There are two reasons these lies are the second-worst part of this episode.

First, it is morally repellent to drag Pretti and his family through the mud — and, if Renée Good’s family is any example, expose them to doxxing, death threats and defamation. Just imagine what they will say about me if they kill me at a protest. Or you. Or your rabbi.

Second, this isn’t one ICE agent. This is an entire apparatus of dehumanization and deceit. And though polling says only 20% of Americans believe that Pretti deserved to be shot, large swaths of America believe this extremist propaganda. We all have targets on our backs, painted by the government and its media apparatus.

There is a teaching in the Torah about this. It is, in fact, the first teaching in the Torah about the violence people do to one another: the story of Cain and Abel.

You know the myth, in all its brevity and primal truth. Cain and Abel are brothers. Both have offered sacrifices to God, though the text suggests Abel gives of his best while Cain does not. And so, Abel’s sacrifice is accepted and Cain’s is not. Vayichar l’kayin me’od; Cain is infuriated, filled with rage. God speaks reprovingly to Cain, telling him in essence that he has gotten what he deserved, that he must curb his desires more. But Cain does not accept this lesson and kills his brother in jealousy and rage.

As we all know, God asks Cain where Abel is — though of course, God already knows. Cain replies “I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”

But God responds, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.”

Read closely and see. Cain is lying, of course; he knows exactly what he has done. He also denies responsibility; it’s not his job, he says, to take care of Abel. Ha-shomer achi anochi, he asks. Literally, am I my brother’s guard? His protector? Am I supposed to keep him safe?

Cain’s lies are like those of Miller, Bovino, Noem and the rest. They are transparently preposterous. We are not God, but we can all watch the videotape; we can all inspect the freeze-frames of Pretti lying on the ground being beaten and then being shot.

And we can all easily learn that Pretti, like Abel, was innocent. He was not violently resisting; he posed no threat to these officers. He was no more a “terrorist” than I am — indeed, the word “terrorist” has now become just a slur, drained of actual meaning, as if a non-violent activist is no different from the Bondi Beach terrorist or the Tree of Life terrorist. What a disgusting sidenote, that the government has rendered this word meaningless.

Pretti’s blood cries out from the ground. And it is louder than the lies of the murderers.

One final epilogue. There is a midrash (Genesis Rabba 22:9) that blames God for Abel’s murder, because God could have prevented it but chose not to do so. When God says that Abel’s blood is crying out, the midrash says, it is crying out at God.

This is a bold midrash, accusing the Almighty of complicity in murder. But it is aimed at us, not God. None of us individually has the power to stop the next murder in Minneapolis, or Iran, or Gaza, or anywhere else. But collectively, we have the power to rise up against this injustice. We are made in the image of God, and with that similitude comes responsibility. We cannot turn away anymore. The blood cries out from the ground — to each and every one of us.

Rabbi Jay Michaelson is a contributing columnist for the Forward and for Rolling Stone. He is the author of 10 books, and won the 2023 New York Society for Professional Journalists award for opinion writing.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward. Discover more perspectives in Opinion. To contact Opinion authors, email [email protected].

This article was downloaded from https://forward.com/opinion/800343/alex-pretti-ice-government-lies-minnesota-cain-abel-brothers-keeper/ at Jan 27, 2026 at 7:21 AM EST.

OPINION | JAN 25, 2026, 6:36 PM EST | UPDATED JAN 26, 2026, 1:30 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

I’m a rabbi arrested for protesting ICE in Minneapolis. The Book of Exodus shows us how this ends

Emma Kippley-Ogman

Torah teaches us that the fight for human rights is long and painful — but that light prevails

A crowd of protesters against Immigration and Customs Enforcement march through downtown Minneapolis on Jan. 25. Photo by Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images

I was arrested with 96 other multifaith clergy members and Faith in Minnesota leaders while protesting ICE in Minneapolis on Friday, hours before Shabbat began.

“Who could have imagined such times as these?” we sang, in the words of local songmaker Sarina Partridge. “We will grieve through these times, and soon enough we’ll be grieving on the other side.”

We cannot keep on with business as usual when our federal government is engaged in escalating state terror right here, right now. To grieve through these times is not enough; we must also act.

In the bitter cold, thousands of Minnesotans gathered at that airport. Tens of thousands more marched downtown, and others simply stayed home in the largest work stoppage in this country in many decades, the Day of Truth and Freedom. Nearly one thousand interfaith clergy answered the call to come to Minnesota — as they did for the Civil Rights Movement call to march in Selma in 1965 — to join us in the fight.

Standing there among them, on Erev Shabbes in the cold, I thought about the Torah portion we would read the next morning in shul: parashat Bo, from the Book of Exodus.

In it, the darkness of the ninth plague that befell the Egyptians is described as something that the oppressors — the mitzrim, which I’ll translate as “the ones of narrowed sight” — could actually touch. It was so thick that it kept them isolated from each other, unable to move.

In contrast, the dwellings of those seeking liberation were full of light.

I imagined that palpable darkness not as a punishment, but as a reflection of reality. The oppressors were unwilling to see the humanity of their neighbors. But if they had been, they too could have found themselves in dwellings full of light, able to clearly perceive the richness and possibility of living in a multiethnic community.

So too with the federal oppressors here in Minnesota, and those who collude with them. They are so welcome to join us in the light of that recognition. We were there at the airport to invite them in.

Instead, they arrested nearly 100 of us, while we sang and prayed for the protection of our people in the languages of our diverse traditions. Doing this work in coalition builds the power we need to break through the oppression: Our differences make us stronger.

As a minister next to me chanted the Lord’s Prayer, and a clergy member close by meditated with closed eyes, I chimed in with “Ana Bekoach,” a kabbalistic prayer that is part of Friday night services, envisioning divine protection holding close all the people of this place.

At our airport, Signature Aviation is facilitating the internment of our fellow Minnesotans every day, adults and children alike, flying them to detention centers where they suffer in conditions that deny their humanity. ICE is even disappearing workers at that airport from the jobs they work every day, keeping all of us safe and supported as we travel.

The airport is supposed to encourage connection. Come join us in our city, it is supposed to say; come see the beauty of our communities. Come, with your eyes open, to join a dwelling of light. Instead, it has turned into a hub of darkness and separation.

As Jews, so many aspects of our history are particularly resonant in this moment.

As ICE has engaged in a campaign of terror in our city since the start of the year, I have heard Jews in my community reflecting on their families’ experiences with state terror in Nazi Germany, in Soviet Russia, and under dictatorships in Latin America. We join neighbors, refugees and immigrants from around the world, who never thought those feelings of suffocating fear would again define their lives here in the United States.

Now that they are, our obligation is to resist.

I was moved to tears during a march last week, when I saw what I believe were families in hiding peeking out from behind their attic blinds as we sang of our love for our immigrant neighbors. It reminded me of Jewish families reduced to hiding in Nazi Germany, and of those brave souls who tried to protect them.

When I was arrested, I felt my heart open to the clergy standing and kneeling together with me, and all those in our state who have stood up with courage and generosity throughout these weeks and months. I hoped that all those who would see or hear of our arrest would be motivated to join this work.

The safety of all marginalized communities in this country, our Jewish community included, depends on our efforts to protect our democratic practices, and one another. You can join us, in Minnesota, or wherever you are.

Call for ICE to get out of Minnesota. Their presence is endangering us all. Just yesterday, Alex Jeffrey Pretti — an ICU nurse, mountain bike enthusiast, dog lover and beloved community member — was shot and killed by federal agents while attempting to aid a fellow protester. Our government, rather than accept responsibility for the injustice of his death, and that of Renée Nicole Good, is already lying about who these upstanding Minnesotans were and what those agents did.

Learn from us and protect each other in your home communities. You can stand with Minnesota; we’ll stand with you, too. Call your senators to demand that they deny ICE funding in an upcoming vote this week. Push for prosecution of ICE agents who kill our civilians. Together we will fight the plague of narrow sight, instead creating dwellings of warm light where we hold and honor the fullness of humanity of each and every one of us.

On Saturday night, Minnesotans gathered in candlelight vigils on street corners in our neighborhoods to mourn and remember Pretti. I was with hundreds of my students on campus. We imagined, together, all the vigil-goers, holding candles to decry Pretti’s death and honor his memory, as points of light, linked across Minnesota and the country, and around the world.

The stars came out just then, as if the universe was joining us in a vast web of care and light. We sang a song from Heidi Wilson: “Hold on, hold on, my dear ones, here comes the dawn.”

Rabbi Emma Kippley-Ogman is a lifelong Minnesotan who serves as Jewish and interfaith chaplain at Macalester College, and as a board member of Jewish Community Action

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward. Discover more perspectives in Opinion. To contact Opinion authors, email [email protected].

This article was downloaded from https://forward.com/opinion/800199/minneapolis-protests-ice-rabbi/ at Jan 27, 2026 at 7:21 AM EST.

Culture

- Stories of ghosts, grief and Shabbat gladness win top prizes in Jewish children’s literature

- For the first time since Hitler, a Hebrew publisher sets up shop in Germany

- He could have avoided persecution in Nazi Germany — he got bar mitzvahed instead

CULTURE | JAN 26, 2026, 9:27 PM EST | UPDATED JAN 26, 2026, 9:27 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Stories of ghosts, grief and Shabbat gladness win top prizes in Jewish children’s literature

Penny Schwartz

The Association of Jewish Libraries announces its Sydney Taylor Book Awards for 2026

“Neshama,” Marcella Pixley’s novel-in-verse, won the gold medal for Jewish children’s literature for middle-grade readers from the Association of Jewish Libraries. (Candlewick)

(JTA) — Anna is a misunderstood sixth-grade girl who communicates with the ghosts of her Jewish ancestors. Teased by her classmates and worried-over by her family, she finds comfort and understanding with her Bubbe and her beloved Jewish traditions.

“Neshama,” Marcella Pixley’s lyrically written novel-in-verse, won the gold medal for Jewish children’s literature for middle-grade readers from the Association of Jewish Libraries. Its Sydney Taylor Book Awards were announced today in a virtual livecast from Chicago.

The award committee called Pixley’s “a lyrical, deeply Jewish story about identity, grief, and resilience.”

The annual award, named in memory of Sydney Taylor, the author of the “All-of-a-Kind Family” series, “recognizes books for children and teens that exemplify high literary standards while authentically portraying the Jewish experience,” according to the award committee’s announcement.

Other winners include “D.J. Rosenblum Becomes the G.O.A.T,” a coming-of-age mystery by Abby White, which won in the young adult category, and “Shabbat Shalom: Let’s Rest and Reset,” a lively board book written and illustrated by Suzy Ultman, which won the picture book award.

The Sydney Taylor committee named Uri Shulevitz, whose 2008 book “How I Learned Geography” drew on his boyhood experiences fleeing Poland after the Nazi invasion in 1939, as the winner of its Body-of-Work award. Shulevitz, a multi-award winning storyteller and illustrator, died last year.

In addition to the top winners, the Sydney Taylor committee named five silver medalists and nine notable titles of Jewish content.

“This year’s winners and honorees exemplify excellence in Jewish children’s literature through vibrant storytelling and rich perspectives that foster empathy, understanding, and a deep appreciation for culture and community,” said Melanie Koss, chair of the award committee.

Winners will receive their awards in June in Evanston, Illinois at the AJL’s annual conference.

In “D. J. Rosenblum Becomes the “G.O.A.T,” an about-to-be bat mitzah-age girl is determined to prove that her beloved cousin did not die by suicide. Abby White lightens the emotional subject with a teen’s authentic, humorous voice.

“She wrestles with her Torah portion and faith, finding strength to face loss and begin moving forward,” the committee noted.

“Shabbat Shalom” may be the first board book to garner the award, Heidi Rabinowitz, a long-time podcaster about Jewish children’s books, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

“The sophisticated board book combines succinct text with playful art,” the committee wrote in its release.

In awarding its Body-of-Work award to Shulevitz (1935-2025), who lived with his family in Israel before settling in New York, the committee recognized him as a “foundational voice in Jewish children’s literature.” His books “illuminate Jewish culture and reflect universal experience,” the committee wrote.

Many of Shulevitz’s titles reflect his Jewish roots, including “The Golem,” by Isaac Bashevis Singer and “The Travels of Benjamin of Tudela,” an illustrated travelogue for children based on the real-life voyages of the 12th-century Jewish traveler who visited Rome, Constantinople, Baghdad and Jerusalem. Shulevitz garnered the Caldecott medal, children’s literature’s top honor for illustrated books, for “The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship.”

Earlier, the AJL announced that Jessica Russak-Hoffman, a journalist for Jewish media outlets, won the organization’s new manuscript award for “How to Catch a Mermaid (When You’re Scared of the Sea),” a novel set in Israel for ages 8-13.

Last week, the AJL named Jason Diamond as the 2026 winner of its Jewish Fiction award for his novel, “Kaplan’s Plot.”

At Tuesday’s event, the Youth Media Awards hosted by the American Library Association, the winners were also announced for the Caldecott, Coretta Scott King, Newberry and Printz awards, among others. The Asian American Picture Book award went to “Many Things All At Once,” by Veera Hiranandani and illustrated by Nadia Alam, the story of a girl with a Jewish mother and a South Asian father.

This article was downloaded from https://forward.com/fast-forward/800493/stories-of-ghosts-grief-and-shabbat-gladness-win-top-prizes-in-jewish-childrens-literature/ at Jan 27, 2026 at 7:21 AM EST.

BOOKS | JAN 26, 2026, 1:00 PM EST | UPDATED JAN 26, 2026, 4:09 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

For the first time since Hitler, a Hebrew publisher sets up shop in Germany

PJ Grisar

Altneuland Press aims to assert Hebrew as a global language once more

Altneuland Press’ editor-in-chief Dory Manor (L) and publisher Moshe Sakal (R) Photo by Dalia Castel

In his job as a publisher, Moshe Sakal often needs to communicate with Israel about his books’ bar codes. Sometimes these phone calls sound like an Abbott and Costello routine.

Encountering an error, Sakal will tell the agent for the International Standard Book Number — used to identify a title in global book sales — the system won’t let him enter his address, as he’s based in Berlin. The guy on the other line will tell Sakal to enter his business’s Israeli address (it doesn’t have one, he’ll respond). The agent will then ask him what language his book is in. When Sakal answers “Hebrew,” the man responds, “So put your address in Israel,” not understanding how a press outside Israel could publish a Hebrew book.

The back and forth needs some explanation: Since the founding of Israel in 1948 — and until 2024 — there hadn’t been a major non-religious Hebrew publishing house outside of the country. (There are thriving Hebrew presses for the Haredi community in the U.S. and in Europe, publishing everything from biblical and Talmudic commentaries to children’s books.)

This wasn’t always the case.

Modern Hebrew has roots in 19th-century Europe, where Russian-born lexicographer Eliezer Ben-Yehuda lived and worked before joining the First Aliyah in 1881.

There were flourishing presses in the language, including the original Schocken Books, founded in Berlin in 1931 and boasting authors like future Nobel Laureate S. Y. Agnon. Hitler’s rise and the Holocaust, underscored by book burnings on the streets, put an end to the industry on the continent. Israel became the national home for Hebrew, and for Hebrew books on its founding in 1948, with many of the early, European-born luminaries of the revived language based there. By 2021, when author Sally Rooney cut ties with her Hebrew publisher but left open an opportunity for translation by a non Israel-based Hebrew press, none existed.

Sakal, a novelist, and Dory Manor, a poet and editor of the literary journal Oh!, are partners in life and business. They were born in Israel but have lived abroad for much of their adult lives, settling in Berlin in 2019. The couple are part of a vibrant Israeli expat community in the city. (When they arrived in 2019, NPR published an article estimating 10,000 Israelis had moved to Berlin in the last decade — the trend shows no sign of slowing.)

Over the years, as they mixed with journalists, writers and artists, they would occasionally mention how the Sapir Prize, the Hebrew language’s answer to the Booker, has since 2014, when New York-based novelist Reuven Namdar won, been closed to authors living outside of Israel.

“Everybody who heard that said, ‘So you should start an ecosystem of global diasporic Hebrew and have your own prize,’” Sakal recalled.

Sakal and Manor at first demurred, but the idea wouldn’t die. In 2023, they started developing Altneuland Press, based in Berlin and printing work in Hebrew, German and English. They established the company early in October 2023 — right before Oct. 7 — and began operations in June of 2024.

To date, Altneuland has published six books in Hebrew and two in German with two more titles on the way. Their authors include Hillel Cohen, author or Between the River and the Sea: My Travels in Israel and Palestine, which they published in Hebrew and German; Maya Arad, with the German translation of her novel Lady of Kazan; and journalist Ruth Margalit, whose forthcoming book will be their first in English.

The company prints books in Tel Aviv and their home base in Berlin for the Israeli and European markets.

“Berlin represents the possibility of Hebrew literature,” Manor said. “Hebrew culture that’s open to the world, rather than closed off or isolated or nationalistic, as is the case more and more in the current political climate in Israel, where democratic spaces are shrinking. We have here the possibility and the freedom to publish voices that might be silenced or marginalized back in Israel.”

The name “Altneuland,” taken from Zionist leader Theodor Herzl’s 1902 speculative novel about a future Jewish state in what is now Israel, is ironic, given the press’ desire to serve as a hub for the Israeli diaspora. But Manor says it speaks to an ideal in the spirit of Herzl’s book — really a utopian novel that imagined Jews and Arabs living together peacefully in a kind of Vienna of the Middle East.

“We think of Altneuland, old-new land, not as a territory,” Manor said, but a language and culture. He likened his vision of their work to Heinrich Heine’s description of the Torah as a “portable homeland.”

In a time of cultural boycotts, Sakal and Manor say being based outside of Israel helps to bypass some of the political minefields. Their books, like Gish Amit’s Cedrick, about the author’s investigation into the life of his former student, a Filipino-Israeli who died serving in the IDF in the Gaza War, have been well-received in Europe and Israel, though Sakal and Manor say they’ve had trouble finding a U.S. partner for the title.

Being outside of the Israeli system offers other freedoms.

In Israel, it is customary for authors to pay publishers to take on their first book — Manor and Sakal don’t take money from their writers. Selling their books in Europe, they also aren’t bound by the infrastructure of Israel’s bookstores, which, apart from a handful of independent shops, is a duopoly of Steimatzky and Tzomet Sfarim, who dictate the terms of the market. As for the titles they can take on, they noted some publishers in Israel may choose not to pursue books that are too anti-government for fear of losing help from public institutions.

It also opens the door for new stories to be told — ones that can center experiences had by Hebrew speakers outside of Israel. Sakal mentions the works of early modern Hebrew poet and novelist David Vogel, whose prose he says was different from the Hebrew he grew up with. Sakal, who is Sephardic, is also hoping to promote more writers with his background.

Some in the Israeli press have been skeptical of Altneuland, with publisher and editor Oded Carmeli writing in Haaretz that, “there aren’t enough Hebrew readers outside of Israel to support a publishing house – not even a bookstore, not even a shelf in a bookstore – and even if there were enough readers, no store in Berlin or Madrid would maintain such a shelf, for fear of repercussions.”

Manor responded, in his own Haaretz article, that Carmeli mischaracterized their operations and the vitality of the Israeli diaspora.

Maya Arad, who publishes with the Israeli press Xargol and went to Altneuland for the German translation of Lady of Kazan, wrote in an email that Hebrew literature still depends on Israel as a center.

“I would agree to admit that it is unlikely that a generation born outside Israel will arise in the Diaspora and begin writing in Hebrew, as Hebrew writers did at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth,” Arad, who was born in Israel but who has lived abroad since 1994 and is based in the U.S., wrote in an email.

But, at the same time, she said it’s undeniable more Hebrew literature is coming from beyond the Jewish State and the subject of Israelis abroad has been attracting growing interest in Hebrew letters.

“The fact that about ten years ago it was decided to restrict the Sapir Prize to writers living in Israel paradoxically attests to the Israeli literary establishment’s recognition of a literary community outside Israel,” she said.

Altneuland, navigating the differing tastes of their global, trilingual markets, have a full slate for 2026, and are now exploring translating Yiddish literature into English, German and Hebrew.

For Manor, the thrill of seeing their Hebrew books on German shelves, for perhaps the first time since the 1930s, can’t be overstated. He recalled a story about an IDF delegation that visited Auschwitz in 1995. On that occasion, then-chief of general staff Ehud Barak said “We’ve arrived 50 years too late.”

“I found that remark chilling,” Manor said. “That idea that Jewish victory should be imagined as an Army arriving at Auschwitz. For me, the true victory lies elsewhere: in Hebrew books being printed in Germany again. That is a victory of culture over violence and over destruction. Victory, joined by hope, not by death.”

This article has been updated to include mentions of Hebrew publishers in Haredi communities.

PJ Grisar is a Forward culture reporter. He can be reached at [email protected] and @pjgrisar on Twitter.

- [email protected]

- @pjgrisar

This article was downloaded from https://forward.com/culture/books/799422/altneuland-hebrew-press-europe-diaspora-dory-manor-moshe-sakal-israel/ at Jan 27, 2026 at 7:21 AM EST.

BOOKS | JAN 25, 2026, 10:00 AM EST | UPDATED JAN 26, 2026, 9:56 AM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

He could have avoided persecution in Nazi Germany — he got bar mitzvahed instead

Olivia Haynie

‘Half-Jew — Full Life’ tells the story of Gerd “Pips” Phillipsohn’s life before and after Hitler came to power.

Gerd “Pips” Phillipsohn and his wife Olga on their wedding day, November 30, 1945. Courtesy of Jane Wesman Public Relations

When Nazi Germany enacted the Nuremberg Laws on Sept. 15, 1935, being a Jew suddenly meant losing citizenship and the basic rights that came with it. But that same week Gerd “Pips” Phillipsohn — born to a German-Jewish father and Aryan mother — chose to embrace his Jewish identity with a bar mitzvah.

The Nuremberg laws stipulated that a Mischling — a child with one Aryan parent and one Jewish parent — born before September 1935 was considered to be a citizen of the Reich. However, once Pips became a bar mitzvah, he forfeited that status and was considered a full Jew.

Pips, who miraculously survived the Holocaust and became an immigrant success story in America, is the subject of Half-Jew — Full Life by Georgette Bennett. Bennett, a sociologist and founder of the humanitarian organization the Multifaith Alliance, first met Pips, her mother’s cousin, in New York in 1952, when she was five years old and straight off the boat from France with her parents, both Holocaust survivors. When Bennett’s father died one year later, Pips became her father figure for the rest of her life.

Pips with author Georgette Bennett and her son, Joshua-Marc Tanenbaum, 2005. Courtesy of Jane Wesman Public Relations

Before he died in 2015, Pips gave her recordings of his sessions with a psychiatrist and the permission to write a book about his story, which she did in painstaking detail that makes the reader feel like they, too, have known Pips their whole life. Although Bennett knew much of Pips’ story already, the process of writing the book gave her a new perspective.

“It wasn’t until I read through the transcripts of all of his audio tapes that the story developed much more meaning to me because yes, it was in his own words, but in the kind of detail that even stunned his psychiatrist,” Bennett told me in an interview. “I understood him in a whole new way.”

Born in Berlin in 1922, Pips was raised by two fairly non-religious parents; his mom went to church at Christmastime and his father attended synagogue only for the High Holy Days. It was antisemitism that actually pushed Pips towards embracing his Jewish identity. Bennett writes that when Pips was six, his religion teacher’s assertion that Jews were Christ-killers prompted him to stop attending the class. After Jews were banned from German youth groups, he joined a Jewish youth organization instead. His whole life was suddenly Jewish and he thought that becoming a bar mitzvah would help him fit in socially — plus, he knew he knew his parents would buy him a new bike.

Pips later fell in love with a childhood friend, Ilse Rosenthal, and went into hiding with her after her family was given a notice of deportation. After a few months on the run, they were caught by the SS and separated. Pips eventually ended up at Grosse Hamburger Strasse, a prison and deportation site, and Ilse was sent to Auschwitz where she died.

Although Pips’ prison was known as the last stop for Jews bound for Auschwitz, he managed to survive through the end of the war.

“Not only did he suffer persecution at the hands of the Nazis, he lost everything,” Bennett said. “But they saved his life on several occasions.”

Prisoners were forced to work, and Pips once fixed windows for a woman he referred to in the tapes as Frau Heim, an employee in the Gestapo’s records department. When she learned he had been chosen to be deported to Auschwitz, she slipped his file behind a filing cabinet so the order couldn’t be processed.

But despite this and other occasional acts of kindness, prejudice never ceased. After Frau Heim saved his life, Pips witnessed her playing happily with her dog next to a truck full of Jews bound for Auschwitz. Bennett told me that Heim wasn’t “completely oblivious to what’s happening to these people” and had “zero empathy” for most Jews. But she knew Pips had an Aryan mother.

“When it came to him, she had a lot of empathy,” Bennett said. “She didn’t really see him as a Jew.”

While imprisoned, Pips met Olga, a Transylvanian deportee who escaped the death march from Auschwitz, and they married in 1945. Two years later, they immigrated to the United States, where Pips Americanized his name to Gerald Phillips. In just under two decades, Pips went from waiting tables in the Catskills to being a partner in Globe Photos, one of the largest picture agencies in the world at the time. The couple became wealthy enough to live at 860 UN Plaza, where fellow residents included Robert Kennedy, Truman Capote and Angela Lansbury.

Despite surviving impossible odds, Pips never considered himself a remarkable person.

“I think he may have been judging himself in relation to other people who achieved great things, who raised children,” Bennett said. “He didn’t see himself as having done any of those things.”

Regardless of whether or not Pips considered his life extraordinary, Bennett believes it holds important lessons.

“It’s a story about how a normal society can descend into the worst kind of autocracy and brutality,” Bennett said. “It’s a story about identity and the price that we pay for our identity.”

“It’s also about denial, you know, our ability to be in denial as we see the world collapsing around us,” Bennett added. “We see a lot of that going on today.”

Bennett noted that when Pips watched Brownshirts march down the street and heard that Jews were banned from working in the press, he wasn’t able to process the implications this had for him or his family.

“He was a very self-centered guy, which I think was part of his secret to survival,” Bennett said. “He never saw himself as a hero. And I don’t see him as a hero either. He saw himself as a survivor.”

Half-Jew — Full Life will be published by Skyhorse Publishing on January 27.

Olivia Haynie is an editorial fellow at the Forward.

- [email protected]

This article was downloaded from https://forward.com/culture/books/795751/half-jew-full-life-georgette-bennett-review-gerd-phillipsohn-holocaust-berlin/ at Jan 27, 2026 at 7:21 AM EST.

Table of Contents

The Forward: 2026 Jan 27

News

Orthodox Jewish groups have been quiet about ICE. This Minneapolis rabbi wasn’t.

After Minneapolis shooting, local Jewish service channels a city’s grief and resolve

Opinions

As with Cain and Abel, the blood of our brother Alex Pretti is crying out from the ground

I’m a rabbi arrested for protesting ICE in Minneapolis. The Book of Exodus shows us how this ends

Culture

Stories of ghosts, grief and Shabbat gladness win top prizes in Jewish children’s literature

For the first time since Hitler, a Hebrew publisher sets up shop in Germany

He could have avoided persecution in Nazi Germany — he got bar mitzvahed instead