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- Synagogues size up security after Michigan attack amid intensifying risks

- Amid revolt against ‘Israel lobby,’ J Street seeks elusive middle ground in primaries

- ‘This isn’t the Gov. Newsom that we know’: One week after apartheid remark, calls to reconsider remain unheeded

- Amid an incoherent war with Iran, antisemitism fills the vacuum

NEWS | MAR 13, 2026, 4:23 PM EDT | UPDATED MAR 13, 2026, 6:03 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Synagogues size up security after Michigan attack amid intensifying risks

Hannah Feuer

Many leaders say they already have defenses of the kind that saved lives at Temple Israel

Parents carry their children to their cars as enforcement escorts families following an active shooter incident at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, on Thursday. Photo by Emily Elconin/Getty Images

Jewish security professionals say the attack on Temple Israel in the Detroit suburbs Thursday highlights a need for Jewish institutions to prepare for more such “two-staged” assaults in which attackers use both a vehicle and weapons, as the threat of antisemitic violence grows following the Israel-U.S. launch of war on Iran.

“We crossed a threshold yesterday in terms of the way we think about Jewish security,” said Mitch Silber, who runs the Community Security Initiative in New York City. His organization is considering helping to pay for synagogues around the city to have at least two guards capable of stopping assailants who are carrying knives or guns.

Right now, some synagogues in the city only have a single unarmed guard intended to serve as a deterrent. “You need to have not one but multiple armed guards on the external part of the institution, certainly for as long as the war continues,” Silber said. “An unarmed guard is insufficient given the nature of the threats we seem to be facing.”

But following years of massive investments in security infrastructure and a rising number of antisemitic incidents, many Jewish leaders say they were saddened but unsurprised by the attack on Temple Israel, in which an assailant armed with a rifle and smoke bombs drove his truck into the building before being shot and killed by a security guard, and already feel prepared to address such threats.

One reason that more synagogue leaders may not be scrambling is that many already feel prepared.

“The Jewish people are constantly attacked,” said Rabbi Natalie Shribman of Temple Kol Ami in West Bloomfield, Michigan, located just half a mile from Temple Israel. “So unfortunately, my fear remains at the same level of heightened.”

Shribman is from Pittsburgh, where a mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018 killed 11 congregants. At Temple Kol Ami, the congregation already has a security guard who carries a concealed weapon.

Shribman said she would follow the West Bloomfield police department’s guidance if it recommends additional security — but so far, it hasn’t recommended any changes.

Years of investment

One reason that more synagogue leaders may not be scrambling is that many already feel prepared. “The Jewish community has been at an 11 out of 10 for many years now,” said Rusty Rosenthal, a former FBI agent who runs regional security for the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington.

Adam Zimmerman has spent the past decade teaching Hebrew school at Temple Beth Ami in Rockville, Maryland — a job description that as of late includes running security drills with police officers and keeping a constant eye on the door.

When he enters the building, he passes multiple armed guards.

“We get so used to it that sometimes we don’t even notice. And the fact that we’re so used to it speaks to the type of environment we’re living in,” Zimmerman said. “What the incident in Michigan exposed yesterday is that every time Jews gather anywhere for any reason, we are at risk of harm.”

“Jewish life in America is now accompanied by security presence.”

Rabbi Rick KellnerCongregation Beth Tikvah

The Jewish Federation of Detroit, which covers the region where both Temple Israel and Kol Ami are located, has one of the longest-running security programs in the Jewish community, spinning it off into an independent organization four years ago.

Temple Israel hired Danny Phillips, the guard who was injured in the attack, as its full-time security director in June. He oversaw a sophisticated operation that included a combination of an in-house security team with metal detectors, guards for hire, police and even overhead drones during events like High Holiday services.

Nationwide, the Jewish community spends an estimated $765 million each year on security, according to the Jewish Federations of North America — representing an investment that surged in the aftermath of the Tree of Life shooting.

Rick Kellner, senior rabbi at Congregation Beth Tikvah in Worthington, Ohio, also said that was when his synagogue increased its security. The congregation pays police officers who are regularly stationed outside the synagogue.

“Jewish life in America is now accompanied by security presence,” Kellner said. “That is a reality that we are facing and living with every day.”

Iran war prompted new measures

Even before Thursday’s attack, Kellner said his congregation had taken extra precautions in recent weeks amid heightened security concerns related to the Iran war. Secure Community Network, which coordinates nationwide security for synagogues and other Jewish institutions, said during a briefing on Friday that the number of violent social media posts aimed at Jews nearly doubled in the week after the U.S. and Israel began bombing Iran and has continued to grow.

“We’ve seen a significant increase in calls for acts of violence targeted at Israel and the American Jewish community not only by Iran but also on Russian-linked forums, on al-Qaida and Islamic State forums and white supremacist forums,” said Kerry Sleeper, chief of threat management at SCN, which sent a bulletin warning about these threats to its members on March 1.

Michael Masters, director of SCN, said that his main advice for Jewish institutions was to focus on maintaining the kind of active shooter training and “layered” physical security that has been encouraged for years — including bollards, window film and limiting public access — while increasing communication with local law enforcement.

Cost a consideration

But all these steps can come at a steep cost. Temple Israel advertises itself as the nation’s largest Reform synagogue, with more than 3,000 families, but smaller congregations and Jewish nonprofits can struggle to afford the $90,000 to $160,000 it can cost each year for an armed security guard or director.

Even properly installed bollards meant to stop vehicles can cost thousands of dollars and require government approval to be installed on sidewalks outside of buildings.

A poll of Conservative synagogues last year found that most congregations assessed a separate fee to members for security costs, and some charged participants for security at life cycle events like bar and bat mitzvahs.

Law enforcement respond near Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, on Thursday. Photo by Emily Elconin/Getty Images

Millions of dollars in security costs are covered by the federal government in the form of grants from the Department of Homeland Security, but those dollars have been repeatedly tied up during the second Trump administration. They were initially frozen as an apparent cost-cutting measure, before being partly released last June after the shooting at the Capital Jewish Museum in D.C. and the fire attack in Boulder, Colorado.

The federal government subsequently added restrictions to the grants, including a requirement that synagogues receiving the funding eliminate diversity programs and cooperate with immigration enforcement — requirements some congregations have deemed intolerable — and they’ve again been frozen after Congress failed to fund DHS.

Gary Togrow, chair of the Jewish Federations of North America, said on Friday that the funds should be released and the total pool increased to $1 billion. He and other leaders have also called for more flexibility so synagogues can use them to pay for more security in addition to camera systems and physical infrastructure improvements.

While much of the conversation about security in the aftermath of Temple Israel has suggested a certain fatalism that threats of antisemitic violence will persist, some leaders have focused on a simpler appeal: discouraging the attacks themselves.

Rabbi Josh Weinberg, a vice president of the Union for Reform Judaism, wrote an article Friday titled “Stop Shooting at Synagogues,” referencing the Temple Israel attack in addition to those in Canada and Norway.

He said that while the Temple Israel attacker’s motive remains unclear, his assault felt like yet another sign that anger at the Israeli government is being directed toward Jews.

“Attacking synagogues is not OK. And don’t blame kids at preschool for war,” Weinberg said in an interview. “I mean, that’s not terribly profound.”

Hannah Feuer joined the Forward as a general assignment reporter in May 2025 after two years as a culture reporter at Seven Days, an independent weekly in Burlington, Vermont. Originally from the Washington, D.C., area, she is a 2023 graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

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Arno Rosenfeld is an investigative reporter at the Forward covering antisemitism, philanthropy and sexual misconduct. He is author of the Antisemitism Decoded newsletter. You can reach him by email or message him securely on Signal using a non-work device at 202-677-5462.

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This article was downloaded from https://forward.com/news/812506/temple-israel-attack-security-risk/ at Mar 13, 2026 at 7:20 PM EDT.

NEWS | MAR 13, 2026, 2:53 PM EDT | UPDATED MAR 13, 2026, 5:35 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Amid revolt against ‘Israel lobby,’ J Street seeks elusive middle ground in primaries

Jacob Kornbluh

Unlike AIPAC, the progressive group funds Israel’s critics in Congress — but president Jeremy Ben-Ami is firm that candidates who don’t recognize Israel as the Jewish homeland won’t get his support

Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of J Street, on March 01. Photo by Gili Getz

A website and social media posts from “Track AIPAC,” associated with a group called Citizens Against AIPAC Corruption, is targeting members of Congress it hopes to unseat in the upcoming primary season with large dollar figures alongside their photos, declaring them captive of the “pro-Israel lobby.”

Such posts give the impression that the candidates have received significant financial support from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the largest group working to elect candidates who support Israel uncritically — which has made clear this election year that it will not provide support to candidates who even mention conditioning U.S. aid to Israel.

But the Track AIPAC dollar figures in many cases also include contributions from other fundraising committees whose aims are at odds with AIPAC’s, such as J Street, a progressive group that is trying to push Israel to change direction as it carries out a new war alongside the U.S.

It’s just one attempt to lump together all campaign funding groups that recognize Israel’s right to exist and the candidates they support as targets for defeat in this year’s primary elections, no matter how critical they have been of the Israeli government. The tactic is aimed at voters in a party where support for Israel has collapsed, and risks obscuring where candidates stand on crucial questions as voters head to the polls.

Against that backdrop, J Street is holding its line while focusing on its lane in 2026: Endorse only candidates committed to Israel as a Jewish state, but who also advocate changes for the direction of Israel’s government.

“The minimum is the recognition that there must be, and there is, an Israel that is the national homeland of the Jewish people,” Jeremy Ben-Ami, J Street’s president, said in a recent interview. “If you don’t want to say that out loud publicly, you won’t be on our list.”

Ben-Ami himself has shifted his position on Israel in recent years. Last August, Ben-Ami wrote that he was “persuaded” by the claim that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, after rejecting the term throughout most of the nearly two-year military campaign. Earlier in the war, he had described the military’s conduct as a “moral stain on the State of Israel.”

J Street also supported the pair of resolutions introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Jewish Vermont independent and longtime critic of U.S. aid to Israel, to block weapons transfers to Israel. A record 27 Senate Democrats — a majority of the caucus — voted in favor. And even before that, J Street urged oversight of U.S. military assistance to Israel.

Where J Street fits in

Founded in 2007, the organization describes itself as a pro-Israel, pro-peace and pro-democracy group that supports a two-state solution and diplomacy to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Its federal political action committee, launched in 2009, has gradually expanded its list of endorsees as it seeks to position itself as a bridge between pro-Israel voices and the party’s progressive wing.

This cycle, J Street PAC is backing 133 House and Senate incumbents as well as Democratic challengers running against Republican incumbents. The group has also approved several candidates competing in open Democratic primaries, allowing its donor network to support their campaigns. In one New York race, J Street endorsed the incumbent, Rep. Dan Goldman, and also “approved” his challenger, former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander.

Even the minimal recognition of Israel and support for U.S. defense aid to the Jewish state have increasingly become a political flashpoint in Democratic primaries.

In some competitive races, progressive candidates critical of the U.S.-Israel alliance have gained traction, benefiting from crowded fields or backlash to heavy outside spending. That dynamic has been visible in contests such as the New Jersey special election for a House seat, where progressive candidate Analilia Mejia prevailed after an AIPAC-associated super PAC spent more than $2 million targeting former Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski, a J Street–approved candidate.

Ahead of next Tuesday’s Illinois primary, another super PAC aligned with AIPAC, Elect Chicago Women, has targeted the frontrunner, Daniel Biss, contributing to the rise in polling of a younger Palestinian American candidate, Kat Abughazaleh. J Street is backing Biss.

AIPAC has become increasingly controversial among mainstream Democrats for backing pro-Israel Republicans who joined President Donald Trump’s crusade to question the 2020 election results. That opposition deepened during the Gaza war as Democratic voters became more polarized over U.S. policy on Israel. Many congressional candidates, including some Jewish Democrats, have promised not to take contributions from AIPAC. The group has also drawn attacks from white nationalists and some leaders of the MAGA movement.

The test: A future for Israel

Amid the larger conflict, J Street is trying to define a middle ground.

Ben-Ami outlined the organization’s red lines for endorsements during J Street’s annual conference in Washington, D.C., earlier this month, saying the group looks for candidates who acknowledge Israel’s legitimate security needs while avoiding unconditional support for its government. “If you’re in favor of a complete arms embargo against Israel, and you don’t recognize that Israel should be the national homeland of the Jewish people, you won’t come anywhere near our list,” Ben-Ami said.

The strategy reflects a broader shift in progressive politics, where Israel policy and Palestinian rights — once a marginal issue in most congressional races — have become a litmus test for progressive candidates seeking to define themselves against establishment Democrats. Recent polls showed the wider tensions within the Democratic Party, which loomed large in the 2024 presidential election in the wake of the Gaza war — and now opposition to the war in Iran — are likely to shape the midterm elections.

Gallup, which has tracked Americans’ views of Israel for more than two decades, found that sympathy for Palestinians in the decades-long Middle East conflict has jumped 22 percentage points over the past two years. Only 17% of Democrats now sympathize more with Israel.

J Street’s leaders reject that characterization. Ben-Ami said polling on Israel shouldn’t be a zero-sum choice. He faulted some established pro-Israel organizations for pushing a binary framework that pressures people to pick one side or the other, which he sees as a “self-defeating approach” that has backfired politically. J Street, he said, tries to create space for candidates who acknowledge both the trauma of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in Israel and the humanitarian toll of the war in Gaza. Ben-Ami added that many voters hold both views at once and are looking for leaders with clarity on the issue.

For some progressive activists, however, the distinction is: any organization that defends Israel as a Jewish state is increasingly treated as part of the same establishment.

Massively outspent

Also looming over J Street as it tries to reach voters is AIPAC’s vastly bigger bank account.

AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, spent $28 million in high-stakes Democratic primaries in 2024. The group has already invested more than $7.3 million of the $78 million it raised in the 2026 election cycle, and its affiliated Illinois group, Elect Chicago Women, has to date spent an additional $5.7 million to defeat Biss in the March 17 primary for the open seat in Illinois’ 9th District.

J Street hasn’t been able to match that scale, even as it has framed its efforts as a counterweight to AIPAC spending. J Street raised $3 million for the J Street Action Fund super PAC for spending in competitive House and Senate races.

Ben-Ami said J Street plans to be “very targeted” in deploying its resources to influence key races, particularly contests that could determine control of Congress or where candidates aligned with its positions are facing attacks backed by AIPAC spending.

The Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project, a progressive research group, said it plans to spend $2 million in ads this cycle, targeting Republicans over their support for Israel and backing Democrats in favor of blocking weapons to Israel.

Democratic Majority for Israel, a mainstream Democratic-affiliated political action committee, said its budget for the midterms exceeds “seven figures.” Brian Romick, DMFI’s president, said in an interview that his group’s “number one goal” will be to help Democrats take back the House “with a pro-Israel majority.” Its primary spending, he said, will support candidates who would increase the odds of a Democrat winning the seat.

Jacob Kornbluh is the Forward’s senior political reporter. Follow him on Twitter @jacobkornbluh or email [email protected].

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This article was downloaded from https://forward.com/news/812101/j-street-aipac-israel-congress-2026/ at Mar 13, 2026 at 7:20 PM EDT.

NEWS | MAR 12, 2026, 2:00 AM EDT | UPDATED MAR 12, 2026, 5:49 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

‘This isn’t the Gov. Newsom that we know’: One week after apartheid remark, calls to reconsider remain unheeded

Louis Keene

Jewish leaders defended Newsom from recent backlash. They still want answers.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said comments comparing Israel to an “apartheid state” referred to a direction Israel was headed, but the clarification has failed to satisfy some Jewish leaders. Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

One week after California Gov. Gavin Newsom caused a stir by using the term “apartheid” to describe Israel, Jewish leaders in the state and beyond have tried in vain to get him to walk back his statement.

Those seeking answers include allies of the term-limited governor, a likely presidential candidate, who have defended his record and even the comment itself.

Newsom said March 3 on a podcast that Israel had been talked about “appropriately as sort of an apartheid state,” and suggested that a time may come when the U.S. should reconsider its military aid to Israel.

Some Jewish leaders have said the apartheid comment had been taken out of context, and representatives of Jewish groups who met with Newsom’s staff following the remark called the conversation constructive. But Newsom has not backtracked in public appearances since then, leaving those leaders split on whether the governor, long seen as a champion of Jewish causes, is plotting a new course on the national stage.

Newsom clarified two days later that he had been referencing a column by New York Times writer Thomas Friedman about the direction Israel was headed. The follow-up brought little succor.

“This isn’t the Governor Newsom that we know,” said David Bocarsly, executive director of Jewish California, a group that represents more than 30 Jewish community organizations in the state.

Newsom’s office did not respond to an inquiry.

‘Sort of an apartheid state’

Newsom made the remarks in a live taping of Pod Save America hosted by former Obama administration staffers Jon Favreau and Tommy Vietor. The duo, who represent perhaps better than anyone the growing skepticism of Israel in the Democratic mainstream, asked Newsom whether he thought the time had come to reevaluate American military support for the country.

In an extended response, Newsom brought up Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“The issue of Bibi is interesting, because he’s got his own domestic issues,” Newsom said. “He’s trying to stay out of jail. He’s got an election coming up. He’s potentially on the ropes. He’s got folks, the hard line, that want to annex the West — the West Bank. I mean, Friedman and others are talking about it appropriately as a sort of an apartheid state.”

As to whether the United States should eventually consider rethinking military support for Israel, Newsom replied, “I don’t think you have a choice but that consideration.”

Jewish California Executive Director David Bocarsly. Courtesy of Jewish California

Newsom’s apparent willingness to break from pro-Israel orthodoxy sent heads spinning. Jewish Insider described the interview as a “hard left” shift. A column in the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles assailed Newsom for “finger-in-the-wind politics.” And secular outlets like Politico and The Guardian reported that Newsom had likened Israel to an apartheid state.

Even organizations that have historically enjoyed a collaborative relationship with Newsom publicly condemned the remarks. Jewish California, whose member groups include the state’s local Jewish federations, took to Instagram to call them “inflammatory.”

Newsom said in a subsequent live appearance March 5 that he was referencing Friedman’s recent assertion that Israel annexing the West Bank without giving Palestinians equal rights would create an apartheid system.

“I was specifically referring to a Tom Friedman column last week, where Tom used that word, ‘apartheid,’ as it relates to the direction Bibi is going, particularly on the annexation of the West Bank,” he said. “I’m very angry with what he is doing.”

The clarification wasn’t strong enough for the Jewish California coalition. Bocarsly told J. The Jewish News of Northern California last week the groups hoped to see a definitive public statement from the governor that he continues to support funding for Israel’s defense and that he “doesn’t believe that a thriving, pluralistic and democratic society, as it is in its current state, is an apartheid state.”

Tye Gregory, chief executive of the JCRC Bay Area — a Jewish California member group — added to the outlet that “we need to hear directly from the governor.”

The coalition left its conversation with Newsom officials believing such a statement was forthcoming, but Bocarsly’s optimism was fading.

“It’s been several days, and we haven’t seen the clarification that we had hoped,” he told the Forward. “And we’re still waiting.”

A loaded word

Some international and Israeli human rights organizations say Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the treatment of Palestinians in the territory already constitutes apartheid.

The term comes from the system of institutionalized segregation in South Africa that granted the minority white population official higher status, denied nonwhites the right to vote and enforced a range of other forms of economic, political and social domination. Those applying the term to Israel point to the Israeli citizenship, voting rights, freedom of movement and legal protections granted in the West Bank to Israeli but not Palestinian residents.

But many Jews say that any charge of apartheid — whether referring to the present or a hypothetical future — oversimplifies the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and is used as a cudgel to delegitimize the Jewish state, where within its boundaries Israeli Arabs can vote and travel freely.

Israel annexing the West Bank — a stated goal of far-right ministers in the Netanyahu coalition like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich — would end Palestinian sovereignty there and fully enshrine the two-tier system. Such an outcome, Friedman wrote in a Feb. 17 column, would amount to apartheid.

“It's been several days, and we haven't seen the clarification that we had hoped. And we're still waiting.”

David BocarslyExecutive Director, Jewish California

Bocarsly believed that Newsom’s reference to apartheid had been misinterpreted as describing Israel today, rather than a future scenario.

Nevertheless, he said, by invoking the term “apartheid” at all the governor had played into an effort among some progressives to make use of terms like “genocide” and “apartheid” to describe the Jewish state’s actions a litmus test for elected leaders.

Only a month earlier, Democratic State Sen. Scott Wiener — then the co-chair of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus — called Israel’s war in Gaza a genocide, after first declining to during a congressional candidate debate and getting jeers in response.

Bocarsly said Newsom had been caught in the same trap.

“For someone as close to our community as Gavin Newsom is, I think it was disappointing and painful for a lot of people to see that he was falling into this test,” he said. “We want to know that when it comes down to it, he is willing to avoid criticizing Israel in the exact type of language that Israel’s detractors are seeking.”

Halie Soifer, chief executive of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, agreed the “apartheid” phrase had originally been taken out of context. And she was satisfied by Newsom’s subsequent attempt to clarify them.

Her lingering concern had more to do with Newsom’s line about reconsidering military aid. The JDCA rejects withholding or conditioning such aid in its platform.

“He could always do more to elaborate,” Soifer said.

Nevertheless, while the “apartheid” phrase got the most attention, Soifer suggested it was just as revealing when — in the same podcast appearance — Newsom had described Israel’s rightward turn under Netanyahu as “heartbreaking.”

“It’s indicating his emotions are actually in this but also disagreement with the policies of the current Israeli government,” she said. “And that is a view that polling has consistently shown is held by the vast majority of American Jewish voters.”

Halie Soifer, chief executive of the Jewish Democratic Council of America. Courtesy of Halie Soifer

The governor you know

The comments seemed to break with Newsom’s track record of verbal and legislative support for Jewish life both in the state and in Israel.

During his seven years in the governor’s office, he has funded the largest nonprofit security grant program in the nation, signed a landmark bill aimed at addressing antisemitism in public education and poured some $50 million into Holocaust survivor assistance programs. He also visited Israel to meet with Oct. 7 survivors less than two weeks after the attacks.

“He has been with us every step of the way, been a dear friend and strongly supportive of our priorities,” Bocarsly said.

That made Newsom’s failure to hedge in a more fulsome way all the more confounding for his Jewish allies.

Gregg Solkovits, president of Democrats for Israel Los Angeles, a Democratic Party club, thought the governor had been intentionally vague — and was intentionally waiting out the Jewish criticism — to “protect his left flank” as a future presidential candidate.

“He knows that in the upcoming election, there will be Bernie-supportive candidates who are going to be running for the nomination, and he will be attacked for being too pro-Israel, which he has been consistently,” Solkovits said. “Would I wish that he had not taken that approach entirely? Of course. I also understand he’s running for president.”

Soifer offered that Newsom might just be waiting for the right opportunity.

“He doesn’t actually legislate on this particular issue, so perhaps he feels he doesn’t need to clarify,” she said. “But I think it would be helpful for him to clarify, especially if he’s seeking an opportunity at some point in the future to weigh in on such decisions.”

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.

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This article was downloaded from https://forward.com/news/811777/gavin-newsom-apartheid-jewish-reaction/ at Mar 13, 2026 at 7:20 PM EDT.

ANTISEMITISM DECODED | MAR 11, 2026, 5:57 PM EDT | UPDATED MAR 12, 2026, 1:27 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Amid an incoherent war with Iran, antisemitism fills the vacuum

Arno Rosenfeld

There’s no shortage of possible explanations but Trump and his advisers haven’t been able to pick one or even to say what the war’s objective is and when it might end

U.S. President Donald Trump announced that the United States and Israel had launched an attack on Iran on Feb. 28. Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Antisemitism Decoded is the Forward’s biweekly newsletter that helps you separate the signal from the noise and understand current debates over Jewish safety. Sign up here to get it in your inbox.

One of the most striking elements about the war with Iran is how little the Trump administration and its supporters have done to explain their rationale for starting a new war in the Middle East.

There’s no shortage of possible explanations — the Iranian government’s repression of protesters, its sponsorship of foreign terrorist attacks, the threat its missiles or nuclear program poses to the United States or to Israel — but Trump and his advisers haven’t been able to pick one or even to say what the war’s objective is and when it might end.

“You’ve said the war is ‘very complete,’ but your defense secretary says ‘this is just the beginning,’” a reporter asked Trump on Monday. “So which is it?”

“Well, I think you could say it’s both,” Trump replied.

People don’t like this lack of explanation — recent polling has found that the Iran war has lower public approval, at 41%, than any other modern conflict that the U.S. has participated in — and are quick to supply their own reasoning for why their government is willing to sacrifice American lives and hundreds of millions of tax dollars to bomb a foreign country.

Some, apparently fueled in part by an Iranian propaganda campaign, have claimed the war is intended to distract from disclosure of the Epstein files or from setbacks on domestic policy, where presidential powers are far more limited than they are in military action.

Others have pointed to Trump’s longstanding obsession with toppling Iran’s leadership.

But many have zeroed in on a familiar claim: It’s the Jews.

Megyn Kelly, the former Fox News host, spoke for many in the conspiracy-laden isolationist sphere of the conservative movement — dominated by figures like Kelly, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens and the Holocaust-denying Nick Fuentes — when she argued this war was the doing of Jewish pundits, donors and, for good measure, the senior senator from South Carolina.

“Mark Levin wanted it, it’s his war, Ben Shapiro, Lindsey Graham, Miriam Adelson — that’s obvious,” she said. “They are the ones who’ve been pushing us into it.”

At least it’s true that the folks Kelly named are hawkish political figures who have long called for confronting Iran. But Jews outside of the political sphere have also come under attack. Carlson suggested that the U.S.-Israel campaign against Iran is a Jewish religious plot intended to destroy Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and build the Third Temple — and that it was orchestrated by “Chabad, C-H-A-B-A-D.”

Carlson’s outlandish claim, shared widely on social media, prompted the Lubavitcher Orthodox Jewish movement to boost security at its many remote outposts, which are often the only formal Jewish presence in cities around the world.

This rhetoric echoes what we saw last spring when the far right openly trafficked in antisemitism as influencers voiced opposition to American airstrikes on Iran. “We are done being blackmailed, bribed and killed by Jews,” one prominent conservative said at the time.

And it fits in with a long pattern of scapegoating Jews for death and destruction. Henry Ford’s Dearborn Independent claimed that Jews “found wealth in the debris of civilization” following World War I, while the celebrity aviator and isolationist Charles Lindbergh claimed the “British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration” had conspired to drag the U.S. into World War II.

When convenient, Jews have also been blamed for losing wars. The Nazis promoted the stabbed-in-the-back myth to claim Jews were among those who had caused Germany to lose World War I, while President Richard Nixon was obsessed with how many of his Democratic opponents were supposedly Jewish anti-Vietnam peaceniks.

Often these conspiracies have been complete fabrications. But even when there’s a germ of truth — many Jews did, of course, oppose the Vietnam War — the most straightforward rebuttal is that it’s offensive and ignorant to attribute the actions of individual Jews to “the Jews,” as if every Jewish person is part of a vast global conspiracy.

What makes the current uproar blaming Israel or Jews — sometimes the public has a hard time separating the two — for the Iran war is that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did seem to play an integral role in convincing Trump to strike Iran.

“We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters. “We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.”

And while the American war objectives are clear as mud, Israel faces a far more obvious threat from Iran — as witnessed by the hundreds of missiles fired at the country since the war began — which likely accounts for the widespread support for the war in Israel.

It’s not incorrect or antisemitic, then, to note that Israel encouraged the U.S. to attack Iran and that many of its American supporters have cheered on the campaign.

But assigning the country outsized influence is where one starts to get into dicey territory. The notion that the United States has become subservient to Israel has made its way into the discourse across the political spectrum. “A rogue client state has completely overtaken the host,” James Li, a conspiratorial content creator, wrote on X last week.

This sentiment teeters on the edge of the absurd. Israel may have sought to force Trump’s hand by threatening its own attack, but the U.S. has tremendous leverage over Israel and has stopped Israel from launching similar planned attacks in the past.

And the lack of a more straightforward explanation for why the war was in America’s own interests should not inevitably point to a nefarious Israeli plot. Trump has done a lot of things that either belie logical explanation — like a tariff regime that even protectionist economists have looked askance at — or have been justified in fluid ways, or not at all.

But conspiracies help people make sense of confusing and stressful events, especially in the absence of a more sensible explanation.

And where conspiracies begin, antisemitism almost inevitably follows.

Arno Rosenfeld is an investigative reporter at the Forward covering antisemitism, philanthropy and sexual misconduct. He is author of the Antisemitism Decoded newsletter. You can reach him by email or message him securely on Signal using a non-work device at 202-677-5462.

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Opinions

- Temple Israel was my home — and what I learned there can help us get through this difficult moment

- A gunman attacked a Michigan synagogue. Here’s what happens to the community next

- The one crucial domain in which Iran outwitted Israel

- I was sexually abused at my synagogue as a child. Here’s how our community can protect others from that horror

OPINION | MAR 13, 2026, 5:07 PM EDT | UPDATED MAR 13, 2026, 5:11 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Temple Israel was my home — and what I learned there can help us get through this difficult moment

Olivia Brodsky

Growing up in the West Bloomfield, Michigan, a congregation that came under attack teaches the power of connection with each other and with neighbors

The author, left, with Temple Israel rabbi Josh Bennett, at her graduation from Frankel Jewish Academy in 2011. Photo by Marc Brodsky

This column was adapted from a sermon to be delivered on Shabbat, March 14, 2026.

Temple Israel has long been a staple of the Detroit Jewish community — and in many ways, it has been a cornerstone of my own life. My connection to that synagogue stretches back to my earliest musical memories.

My first voice teacher, in 8th grade, was the wife of Temple Israel’s cantor, Neil Michaels. As a teenager, I sang in their choir, the Teen T’filah Team, where I was first exposed to the music of the Reform movement and where I first experienced the use of instrumentation in services. It was there that I first learned the song Kehilah Kedoshah by Dan Nichols, a piece I now frequently sing with our own East End Temple choir. As a high school student, I even sang alongside the cantors there during High Holiday services. Throughout childhood I remained close with all three of Rabbi Paul Yedwab’s children, as we attended school together, were in theatre together, and travelled to Israel together.

Temple Israel is where my mother studied for her adult bat mitzvah which was officiated by Rabbi Harold Loss. And it was Temple Israel that took me on my first and second trips to Israel — experiences that profoundly changed the trajectory of my life, deepening and reframing my relationship with Judaism, and ultimately inspiring me to devote my life to the Jewish people. I still vividly remember our 2010 Teen Mission to Israel, led by Rabbi Josh Bennett. On that trip, I realized something transformative: that clergy could be more than just symbolic exemplars of a community, but also fun, adventurous, relatable, deeply present in the lives of young people, and powerful influences on their willingness to engage in Jewish life.

That trip had an unquantifiable impact on me. It was on that drive home from the airport that I decided Judaism needed to once again become a more central part of my life. Two weeks later, for my senior year of high school, I made what felt at the time like a radical decision: I transferred from West Bloomfield High School to the Jewish Academy of Metropolitan Detroit (now the Frankel Jewish Academy).

During that year, I began seriously exploring whether I might pursue a career in the cantorate. I arranged an off-campus internship that allowed me to compare and contrast the life and role of the cantor in both the Conservative and Reform movements. Once a week, I studied privately with Cantor Meir Finkelstein at my family’s Conservative congregation, Shaarey Zedek, and another day each week, I studied with Cantor Michael Smolash at Temple Israel. Aside from my internship, my favorite class that year was a course called Denominational Differences, co-taught by rabbis from the Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform movements — including two of my own beloved rabbis, Aaron Starr (Shaarey Zedek) and Josh Bennett (Temple Israel). In fact, that very subject eventually became the topic of my master’s thesis in cantorial school.

Needless to say, it is unlikely that I would be standing here today as your cantor were it not for the profound influence that the Metro Detroit Jewish community—and Temple Israel in particular—had on me throughout my childhood.

It is for this reason that yesterday’s news struck me so deeply. Learning of antisemitic attacks in the news is always painful and disturbing. Yet, as the frequency of these attacks across the globe becomes evermore pervasive, it’s difficult not to become slightly jaded or emotionally hardened — a natural coping mechanism to deal with ongoing trauma. People are not meant to live in a state of perpetual anxiety and hypervigilance.

But yesterday’s attack on Temple Israel shook me to my core. It is impossible not to experience antisemitism differently when it touches your own community. Realizing that one of my childhood synagogues was the target of a terrorist attack feels surreal. We know intellectually that terrible things happen in the world — but we rarely expect them to happen to us. We must, therefore, remain forever mindful that tragedy is always personal to someone.

Even amid this frightening event, I am profoundly grateful for the brave security personnel at Temple Israel — especially their director of security, Danny — who quite literally put his life on the line to protect everyone inside the building, including the 106 preschool children and teachers who were in class at the time. We pray for the swift and complete physical and emotional healing of those officers, and we hold them in our hearts. It is truly miraculous that no civilians were injured during this attack. And the outpouring of support from the broader Metro Detroit community has been extraordinary — especially from our non-Jewish friends and neighbors who did not hesitate to help in our time of need.

We are particularly grateful to the Chaldean (Iraqi-Christian) community who opened their homes and businesses to shelter those fleeing the scene. The Chaldean-owned Shenandoah country club, museum, and cultural center across the street immediately welcomed and protected those seeking refuge. The fact that Shenandoah — the largest Chaldean community center in the United States — stands directly across the street from Temple Israel — the largest Reform synagogue in the United States — is no coincidence. It reflects the deep personal and communal ties between our communities.

When I was a student there, West Bloomfield High School was comprised of roughly one-third Jewish and one-fifth Chaldean students. Our communities shared classrooms, neighborhoods, friendships — and often cultural similarities. Both Jews and Chaldeans are Middle Eastern peoples whose identities weave together religion, culture, and ancestry. Both communities carry histories shaped by persecution and resilience. Both place profound emphasis on family, education, and tradition. In fact, back home I became somewhat known as the Chaldean community’s Jewish wedding singer, singing at numerous Chaldean churches as the bride walked down the aisle.

In moments like this, we see those shared bonds revealed in the most powerful of ways. I have no doubt that from this tragic incident something meaningful will emerge: our communities will grow stronger, more resilient, more deeply connected, and even more outspokenly proud of our identities. Hatred seeks to isolate and intimidate, but solidarity, courage, and compassion remind us that we are never alone. When neighbors protect neighbors, when communities stand together in the face of fear, we transform even the darkest moments into opportunities for unity, strength and hope.

Olivia Brodsky is the cantor and co-clergy of East End Temple in Manhattan.

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/812584/temple-israel-michigan-teen-cantor/ at Mar 13, 2026 at 7:20 PM EDT.

OPINION | MAR 12, 2026, 9:33 PM EDT | UPDATED MAR 13, 2026, 11:20 AM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

A gunman attacked a Michigan synagogue. Here’s what happens to the community next

Rob Eshman

Mass violence has effects that linger long after camera crews leave

Families leave after being reunited outside Temple Israel synagogue on Thursday. Photo by Jeff Kowalsky/AFP/Getty Images

A driver rammed his pickup truck into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a large Reform Temple about 25 miles from downtown Detroit, on Thursday. Blessedly, there were no casualties besides the shooter, whom security guards rapidly engaged. One guard was injured. Aside from that, everyone who was inside the synagogue, including 140 children attending school there, emerged unscathed.

“There’s hopeful news and there’s sad news about the aftermaths of these shootings,” said Mark Oppenheimer, author of Squirrel Hill: The Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting and the Soul of a Neighborhood, a methodical, lyrical look at what happened to the Pittsburgh neighborhood shattered by the Oct. 27, 2018, shooting that left 11 people dead.

The hopeful news is that older, established Jewish communities can rely on close, long-established bonds within and outside the community to get them through.

The sad news is that people unaffected by the shooting tend to move on and forget.

“So whereas this will haunt the Jewish community for years,” Oppenheimer told me in a phone interview, “most people outside the Jewish community will quickly move on to whatever the next horrible incident is.”

What happens next

Authorities have not confirmed the attacker’s motive, although he has been identified as a Michigan man who was born in Lebanon. But among all the unknowns, we do know a few things for certain.

We know that a great tragedy was averted due to the guards’ bravery and expertise, and due to the planning and preparation of synagogue leadership.

We know such attacks have gone from being extremely rare in the United States, to being more frequent.

And we know that what happens now, in the aftermath, matters a great deal.

That’s why, in writing about the worst mass shooting in American Jewish history, Oppenheimer spent most of his time researching what came after the atrocity.

“When the cameras and the police tape were gone, what stayed behind?” Oppenheimer, who teaches at Washington University’s John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics, wrote in the book’s introduction.

The power of connection

Both the Tree of Life synagogue and Temple Israel are older, deeply entrenched congregations with close ties to a number of local communities — Jewish and non-Jewish alike.

In one chapter of Squirrel Hill titled, simply, “Gentiles,” Oppenheimer chronicles how non-Jews came to the aid of the stricken congregation, including clergy, politicians and neighbors.

Emblematic of that was the capacity crowd of 2,500 people that came together at Soldiers and Sailors auditorium on the one-year anniversary of the shooting, where law enforcement, politicians and Christian, Muslim and Jewish clergy all spoke.

“There are usually people in government, in community organizations, in neighborhood organizations, who reach out, who want the Jews to know that they’re not alone,” said Oppenheimer.

Evidence of such connection was already on show in Michigan on Thursday. One reporter interviewed a woman praying outside the synagogue, who said, through tears, that the “Holy Spirit” had told her to turn her car around once she saw police cars racing past her to the scene, and go lend support.

In Pittsburgh, the 2018 shooting was also a time for the Jewish community itself to come together.

Squirrel Hill’s close-knit Jewish community crossed denominational divides to show support. An Orthodox rabbi organized a spreadsheet to manage the 24-hour vigils Jewish law prescribes over the bodies of the dead prior to burial.

“In Squirrel Hill, one of the nice things is there is a lot of community and solidarity across denominational lines and levels of observance,” said Oppenheimer, “and that’s pretty rare in American Judaism. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out in Detroit.”

A new reality

In recent years, the need for solidarity and resilience in the face of such attacks has become, unfortunately, more apparent.

When Oppenheimer wrote his book, he was able to state the shooting was “a unique event” in American history. It’s true that until the Tree of Life massacre, antisemitic violence had claimed just 26 lives in U.S. history. The U.S., more than any Western country, and far more than Israel itself, had truly been a safe haven for Jews.

Since Squirrel Hill, six more people have died in four attacks. The previously well-earned sense of safety has been shattered.

“While the odds that any given Jew will be attacked remain quite low, it is obviously pretty terrifying,” said Oppenheimer.

Some critics of the national focus that fell on Squirrel Hill after the Tree of Life shooting argued that the tragedy got far more attention than similar mass shootings that had befallen non-Jewish communities.

But it’s the very rarity of these attacks that makes them so shocking and, at least for American Jews, so memorable.

In this new normal, it’s even more important for Jews to form strong, mutually supportive bonds among themselves, and with others.

And the world moves on

Those bonds are especially crucial because, while the victims of violence don’t soon forget and move on, the world does.

“It’s a short burst of solidarity, and then people leave. Understandably so,” Oppenheimer said.

I suspect that even though prayers of gratitude and deliverance will echo through the sanctuaries of Detroit — and in Jewish hearts everywhere — the attack will haunt its intended victims long after the police tape comes down.

What will make the difference in how the community faces those fears and moves forward is the amount of support it receives from those outside it. If the broader Bloomfield and Detroit community refuses to forget this awful incident, it will change the course of healing.

I asked Oppenheimer what lessons he learned from the Tree of Life aftermath that could apply to Temple Israel.

“In Pittsburgh, there was a long history of people showing up for each other,” he said Oppenheimer. “The relationships, or lack of relationships, that exist become more noticeable when something goes wrong.”

“Where there are strong ties before a shooting, there are strong ties afterwards.”

Rob Eshman is a senior columnist for the Forward. For his food writing and recipes subscribe to his Foodaism newsletter.

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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/812215/temple-israel-michigan-bloomfield-what-next/ at Mar 13, 2026 at 7:20 PM EDT.

OPINION | MAR 12, 2026, 6:00 AM EDT | UPDATED MAR 12, 2026, 5:18 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

The one crucial domain in which Iran outwitted Israel

Nadav Ziv

The ayatollahs have helped to shape popular perceptions of Israel on the left — whether or not the left knows it

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, left, near Paris in 1978. Photo by Agence France Presse/Getty Images

Last summer, a 21-year-old far-left activist named Calla Walsh traveled to Iran for its International Memorial for the Media Martyrs of the Struggle Against the Zionist Regime.

Addressing the crowd in Tehran, Walsh said: “We all have a duty, when we go back to the countries we came from, to share the truth we saw here and to struggle against Zionism and imperialism.”

“Glory to all the martyrs. Glory to the axis of resistance,” she added, also saying, “Death to America. Death to Israel.”

Not every leftist American activist is jetting to Tehran to spout propaganda. But the language that Walsh — who supported Sen. Ed Markey’s 2020 campaign, which I worked on — used should be familiar to anyone tracking anti-Israel sentiment in the United States.

What may be less familiar: It’s language that the Islamic Republic of Iran has been key to spreading.

In the current war and in recent years, Israel has proven far more capable in degrading the Islamic Republic as a military actor than in undercutting the influence of the ayatollahs’ ideas, in which anti-Zionism, antisemitism and anti-imperialism are melded into a single ideology. This framework becomes all the more potent when Israel’s government hands its critics ammunition: settlement expansion, the killing of Palestinian civilians and a rightward lurch have combined to make caricatures of Zionism feel, to many, like a good enough approximation of the truth.

But what the ayatollahs demonstrated better than anyone is that criticism of Israel rooted in anti-imperialism is often just a vehicle for antisemitism.

The bait and switch

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Islamic Republic’s hard-line founder, pitched the Iranian revolution as one of social justice.

In 1963, Khomeini declared that the “great aim of Islam” was “to prevent oppression, arbitrary rule, and the violation of the law” — abuses heavily associated with Iran’s repressive government under the Shah. He spoke to the Iranian public in terms with clear parallels to the liberal canon of the American founders, promising citizens a “government that will assure their happiness and allow them to live lives worthy of human beings.”

As Abbas Milani, with whom I studied at Stanford University, recently wrote in The New York Times, this was a bait and switch: a liberal mirage used as a tactic to consolidate support for the revolution. Khomeini cast those principles aside the moment he entered power.

But even before the revolution, Khomeini’s pronouncements about Jews foreshadowed the illiberal oppression that was to come.

“We see today that the Jews (may God curse them) have meddled with the text of the Quran,” Khomeini declared in a series of lectures on Islamic governance in 1970. “We must protest and make the people aware that the Jews and their foreign backers are opposed to the very foundations of Islam and wish to establish Jewish domination throughout the world.”

“Since they are a cunning and resourceful group of people, I fear that — God forbid! — they may one day achieve their goal, and the apathy shown by some of us may allow a Jew to rule over us one day.”

Khomeini’s Jew-hatred appeared to be a genuine ideological commitment, rather than just a political maneuver. In 1977, on the eve of the revolution, he said that “The Jews have grasped the world with both hands and still they are not satisfied.”

Anti-Judaism to anti-Zionism

Israel became the central focus of Khomeini’s conspiratorial belief in Jewish subversion. As such, his objections to Israel often emphasized its Jewish nature rather than its policies.

In 1970, Khomeini lambasted the Shah for extending “his recognition to a government of unbelievers — of Jews, at that — thereby affronting Islam, the Quran, the Muslim governments, and all the Muslim people.” (The Shah never formally recognized Israel, but did have unofficial representation in Tel Aviv. One Iranian official at the time described it as “relations of love without a marriage contract.”)

In 1971, Khomeini called attention to “Israel, that stubborn enemy of Islam and the Quran, which a few years ago attempted to corrupt the text of the Quran.” Replace “Israel” with “Jews” and that statement is all but identical to his earlier accusation that Jews had altered a holy text.

From theology, Khomeini turned to pathology. Eight years after the revolution, he spoke of Israel as a “prevalent, festering, and cancerous Zionist tumor.” Israel must be destroyed, he said, to keep Muslim countries “safe from the evil of this unclean enemy” and the “unclean presence of the Zionists” — taking issue not with Israeli political actions but with the cleanliness of its people, a classic antisemitic trope.

Khomeini referred to imperialism, too, as a cancer. In a 1972 letter to students in North America, he wrote that “Israel was born out of the collusion and agreement of the imperialist states.” Khomeini had previously referred to Jews as the “servants of imperialism,” and framed Islam as “the school of those who struggle against imperialism.”

Colonialism’s pernicious legacy and antisemitic tropes of Jewish domination made it easy for Khomeini to package opposition to colonial rule with opposition to Israel. Muslims, Khomeini said, needed to “stop colonialism and Zionism” on the basis of “human duty, brotherhood, and rational and Islamic standards.”

Khomeini’s vision was clear: resistance to imperialism, opposition to Israel, and hatred of Jews were all the same cause.

Khamenei exports revolution

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who succeeded Khomeini as supreme leader in 1989, committed himself to spreading that vision. His English-language account on X amassed more than 2 million followers, and issued pronouncements such as “the long-lasting virus of Zionism will be uprooted thanks to the determination and faith of the youth.” In 2022, he spoke of “Zionist capitalists” as “a plague for the whole world.”

After the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel , Khamenei addressed American campus protesters, telling them, “You have now formed a branch of the Resistance Front.” He invoked, in that address, “the global Zionist elite” that “owns most U.S. and European media corporations.” He repeatedly refused to call Israel by its name, referring to it instead as the “Zionist regime” or “Zionist entity.”

That wasn’t the first time he explicitly appealed to Western, left-leaning youth. A 2015 letter he issued after Islamist gunmen attacked the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris explicitly addressed “the youth in Europe and North America.” The letter referenced slavery and colonialism, and encouraged young Westerners to study Islam for themselves rather than let it be defined by the West, who “hypocritically introduce their own recruited terrorists as representatives of Islam.” Khamenei notably did not condemn the act of terror itself.

The letter did not specifically engage with issues surrounding Israel, but it marked a notable moment in Khamenei’s efforts to establish connections with young Westerners. And alarmingly, the considerable energy he and the Islamic Republic spent in translating their ideology to Western, English-speaking, progressive audiences worked.

The echo chamber

Calla Walsh’s pronouncements in Tehran were extreme. But they still pointed to an escalating tenor of activist discourse that is increasingly shaping the public’s attitudes toward Israel.

Democratic Socialists of America chapters across the country have passed resolutions defining Zionism as “a racist, imperialist, settler-colonial project,” with some insisting on the need to oppose it “by any means necessary.”

On TikTok, video after video uses Khamenei’s framing of Israel as a “Zionist entity,” from a clip saying that “the American public has woken up to the Zionist entity known as Israel” to another decrying “the cowardly Arabs who normalize relations with the Zionist entity.” A coordinator of the sham charity Samidoun, which conducted fundraising for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in North America and Europe, stated in October 2022 that “we all have a right and a duty to resist the murderous Zionist entity.”

Most of the echoes between activists and the ayatollahs represent rhetorical alignment, rather than literal coordination. But that alignment has had profound consequences for how the world thinks about Israel, and about Jews.

The road ahead

We do not know how this military campaign ends. But no matter what happens, the ideology of the ayatollahs has already outlasted Khamenei.

Even the reactions to his death prove it: Some leftist organizers have put together vigils for the slain dictator. One coalition of activist groups in New York wrote that “we stand with Ayatollah Khamenei because he stood for us” and lauded him for speaking “about the shared struggle of oppressed people.”

The confluence of anti-imperialism, anti-Zionism, and antisemitism didn’t originate solely with the ayatollahs. Many other forces, including some academic theorists at American institutions such as Edward Said and Judith Butler, played a role.

And many protesters opposing Israel, or the current war, may have no idea that some of the rhetoric they use has ties to the oppressive regime in Tehran. The genuine horror of the war in Gaza, ongoing crackdowns in the West Bank, the sense that the U.S. has enabled these abuses, and a wariness of American adventurism in the Middle East can do a lot to explain public opinion.

But the rhetorical ties are there all the same. And while this war may determine crucial aspects of the future of the Middle East, it will not undo the damage the ayatollahs’ ideas have already wrought.

Khomeini insisted he distinguished between Jews and Zionists, even as he cursed Jews in one breath and condemned Zionists in the next. When today’s activists make that same claim, we should ask whether the distinction they draw is any more meaningful than his was.

Nadav Ziv is a writer and researcher whose work covers antisemitism, Israel and misinformation. He also collaborates with academics and Democratic politicians and activists to communicate their stories and ideas.

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/811822/israel-iran-war-narrative/ at Mar 13, 2026 at 7:20 PM EDT.

OPINION | MAR 11, 2026, 2:01 PM EDT | UPDATED MAR 12, 2026, 10:46 AM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

I was sexually abused at my synagogue as a child. Here’s how our community can protect others from that horror

Alex S. Kaufman

There are best practices that could have helped me — and should help many others

Photo by iStock by Getty Images

This week, I settled a lawsuit that I filed nearly five years ago against the synagogue in New Jersey where I was sexually abused in the 1990s while learning to read Torah. The settlement agreement is significant because of its restorative focus, which I designed intentionally to help make my childhood community a safer place for children. Here is my full story.

I am glad to see these developments. But it should not have taken years of litigation to force a synagogue to implement protective measures that should be part of the work of every Jewish organization that counts children as part of its community.

My experience, and the enablement of my abuser by multiple Jewish institutions, fuels my passion to advocate for change in how Jewish institutions approach child safety.

Many Jewish institutions still struggle to follow basic policies and procedures for handling these kinds of incidents when they are put to the test — although, in recent years, more have proactively adopted policies and procedures and implemented training programs that help.

But safeguarding Jewish institutions from child predators requires more than a set of rules. It requires that Jewish leaders have an informed understanding of the topic, and more importantly, have the courage to speak up and make difficult decisions. The Jewish community desperately needs more of both.

Here’s what needs to be done.

Appreciate the danger within

Combating child sex abuse starts with understanding that 93% of sex crimes committed against children are perpetrated by someone the child knows and trusts. Jewish institutions must begin to reckon more thoroughly with that fact.

On a recent visit to a Jewish day school, an administrator told me that she runs background checks on everyone who enters campus, including every vendor and contractor, without fail. When I asked if she ran a background check on me, she demurred.

I understand why. But Jewish institutions need to find a way to effuse warmth and community without shortcutting safety.

Train kids and parents, not just teachers

One way to begin this work is to bring children and parents into abuse prevention training, in which teachers are already generally required to participate. This kind of training teaches us how to recognize grooming behavior, which is prevalent in most cases of child sex abuse.

Professional training also helps parents learn how to talk to their children about sensitive topics, which reduces a predator’s ability to prey on a child’s natural curiosity. My own children’s day school recently hired ChildUSA to audit its child safety policies. Later, it conducted age-appropriate student training, followed by an abuse prevention workshop for parents. It’s an easy but highly effective example that all day schools should follow, yet few do.

Draw clearer lines

Another way that we can reduce child sex abuse is by better defining red lines, and by proactively responding to inappropriate behavior.

A few years ago, I alerted a Chabad rebbetzin that a regular congregant watched pornography on his cell phone during Rosh Hashanah services. “It only happened once,” she said, and besides, “he has dementia — where’s your compassion!” Other colleagues breathed a sigh of relief — “at least he didn’t touch anyone.”

Our instinct is to try to explain malbehavior through an innocent lens, but when it comes to sexual boundaries, we should resist that urge. Sexual predators intentionally push both physical and conversational boundaries to normalize their behavior. We need to recognize boundary-pushing and appreciate its role as a grooming tactic.

Prioritize the safety and well-being of survivors

Yes, our tradition teaches us to be slow to judgment and quick to compassion. It’s a wise dictate, but not one appropriately applied to convicted child abusers, especially as data shows they often reoffend. The Orthodox community in Englewood, New Jersey, allowed my abuser to fully participate in communal life long after discovering he had hidden multiple convictions. Some leaders admonished their community as insufficiently compassionate for having concerns about his involvement.

Their mistake: practicing more compassion for a child abuser than for his victims.

Predators tend to find many ways to get close to their victims, and often frequent multiple communities to maximize their pool of victims and to avoid detection of their behavior. These are both textbook characteristics of how my abuser has long operated. Jewish leaders need to speak up, both within their own communities and when they know predators have moved to new ones.

Conduct transparent investigations

When faced with a case of suspected abuse, it’s imperative that institutions conduct a transparent, independent investigation, and disclose its entire contents, redacting only information that could identify a victim.

Too often, Jewish institutions conduct internal reviews, only disclosing a summary rather than exposing the entire process to public scrutiny. Such exercises often allow an institution to maintain legal privilege over the contents of the report, thus preventing its contents from being used against it.

These investigations are, therefore, largely performative. Putting children first means Jewish institutions should commit to complete transparency to allow the public to fully understand what occurred and how it was handled, and to ensure that conflicts are properly managed.

Prioritize accountability

Holding people in Jewish institutional leadership accountable for their actions — and inaction — is needed to ensure that child safety is handled professionally. Accountability means articulating standards of expected conduct, and taking remedial action — like relieving bad actors of their jobs — when conduct falls below the standard.

Community members, lay leadership, and the professional organizations that provide the backbone for institutional Jewish leadership — such as the Rabbinical Assembly — need to be more proactive in holding clergy accountable.

If you sit on the board of a day school, camp or synagogue, you must ask whether your institution is doing everything possible to create a safe environment for kids.

Do you have a child safety policy? Does your board include people with a background in child safety and abuse prevention? Have you participated in abuse prevention training?

If your institution is dealing with a sensitive matter, are you working with professionals who have experience in abuse prevention? If your institution mishandled a case, have you owned up to it?

And finally, if you’re reading this and survived being sexually abused as a child, I believe you and I support you. It’s not your fault. And you have the right to speak up and be heard at the time of your choosing.

Alex S. Kaufman, Esq. is an attorney based in California.

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/811648/child-sexual-abuse-prevention-recommendations/ at Mar 13, 2026 at 7:20 PM EDT.

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CULTURE | MAR 12, 2026, 3:45 PM EDT | UPDATED MAR 13, 2026, 1:13 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

How a Jewish-owned yarn store knitted the symbol of the anti-ICE movement

Olivia Haynie

Knittng store owner Gilah Mashaal sees similarities between her family’s expulsion from the Middle East and what’s happening in the United States

The “Melt ICE” hat, designed by Paul Neary, has become a symbol of the anti-ICE protest movement. Courtesy of Gilah Mashaal

In January, as violent confrontations between ICE and protesters erupted in the Twin Cities, a knitting group at Needle & Skein yarn shop in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, started brainstorming what they could do to lift people’s spirits. Paul Neary, a designer at the shop with a special love for fiber arts history, quickly found inspiration: a pointed red knit hat with a tassel worn in 1940s Norway to protest the Nazi occupation and boost morale.

“He showed me the picture of the Norwegian resistance hat and I said, ‘that is exactly it,’” store owner Gilah Mashaal told me.

Although it’s unclear why the red hats became such a popular anti-Nazi tool in Norway, some have noted the link between their design and the Phrygian cap, a symbol of freedom during the French and American revolutions. Neary reverse engineered the Norwegian pattern, creating a more modern beanie-like shape, birthing the “Melt the ICE” hats now seen at anti-ICE protests across the country. Although, as a Guardian article noted, Mashaal had a rule that “nobody talks politics” in the store, she felt stirred to action.

“It kind of transcends politics, in my opinion,” Mashaal said. “When your neighbors are afraid to leave their homes, or they’re afraid to take their sick children to the doctor, or they can’t go to work, something’s wrong with our society.”

The situation feels personal for Mashaal. Her paternal grandparents were from Baghdad and were forced to leave during the 1941 Farhud, a violent attack on Jews similar to the pogroms of Europe. Mashaal’s family settled in Cairo, but that proved to be only a temporary solution.

Mashaal’s father, Saul Akerib Mashaal, right, and her grandfather, Albert Akerib. Courtesy of Gilah Mashaal

“When my father was 14 years old, the king was deposed so the military took over and things became very very difficult for the Jews in Cairo,” said Mashaal. Her father escaped to France and eventually immigrated to the United States. “They were forced to leave with absolutely nothing and my father told me the story of my grandmother breaking all the dishes in the house because she didn’t want to just hand it over to the military.”

Mashaal said she’s reminded of the terrible conditions her family had to endure when she sees what is happening in her community.

“This is about human decency,” she said. “This is about caring for your neighbor.”

After Neary came up with the pattern, they planned a knit-along for the following week.

“I thought we were gonna have like, you know, maybe 10 people show up,” Mashaal said. “Then all of a sudden there were more than a hundred people in my store.”

The pattern went viral online when the shop shared Neary’s pattern on Ravelry, a site where knitters and crocheters share patterns, projects and tips. When this article was written, 12,251 users reported they were making or had made the hats and 4,446 had put it in their queue of future projects. The design also inspired a number of customized spin-offs including a version that incorporated “Love is more powerful than hate” in morse code and a mini hat that could be worn as a brooch. Mashaal said that the communal values of the knitting world helped make the hats a success.

“They’re very politically minded,” she said. “And when they see something happening that needs attention, everybody comes together and works towards this common goal.”

When we spoke, Neary couldn’t resist a pun, telling me political activism in the yarn community is “literally knit into the fabric of our history.” Knitters in Belgium encoded messages about military activity in their stitches during World War I. Knitting circles have served as a place where women, who were discouraged from being political in public, could exchange ideas about issues such as slavery and women’s suffrage.

The store offers instructions for how to make your own “Melt the ICE” hat. Courtesy of Gilah Mashaal

“When you see things happening and you feel helpless, you try to find some way to connect to other people who are also feeling helpless,” Mashaal said. “To create something with your hands is soothing, in a way, and very meaningful.”

Profits from the hats are donated to immigrant aid groups in Minnesota, such as the Immigrant Rapid Relief Fund. Mashaal said they have also received donations from around the world and have raised $760,000 thus far.

Not everyone is happy with Needle & Skein’s new hats. Both Mashaal and Neary told me they’ve received hateful emails, phone calls and letters from people who disagree with their message. But Mashaal said “the positivity far outweighs the negativity that we’ve gotten.”

Neary noted that they have received supportive calls from people who may not necessarily have been as politically engaged before.

“They’ll say something like, you know, ‘Usually I don’t get involved in stuff like this, but this really moved me,’” Neary said. “It’s their kind of gentle way of letting us know, like, ‘We maybe didn’t vote the same way, but obviously we’re on the same team.’”

Mashaal and Neary noted how the knitting community’s diversity connects people across racial, ethnic, gender and generational boundaries.

“It truly does give us all kind of a space to have together to learn more about different people and share comfortably,” Neary said.

“We just all have this one passion. And so we find that one literal common thread.”

Olivia Haynie is a culture reporter at the Forward. She previously wrote for The Daily Pennsylvanian and has produced stories for WUNC Radio. Originally from Durham, NC, she is a 2024 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where she majored in sociology.

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This article was downloaded from https://forward.com/culture/811987/melt-ice-hats-jewish-minnesota-gilah-mashaal-norweigian-nazi-protests/ at Mar 13, 2026 at 7:20 PM EDT.

CULTURE | MAR 12, 2026, 2:54 PM EDT | UPDATED MAR 13, 2026, 11:40 AM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

I’m going to miss the ‘Marty Supreme’ press tour when it’s over

Mira Fox

Watching Timothée Chalamet live out his character in increasingly absurd PR stunts has been a delight

Timothée Chalamet on the red carpet in Beijing. Courtesy of Getty Images

Lately, the internet hasn’t been able to stop talking about Timothée Chalamet. First, an account clipped a dismissive statement he made during a town hall event about opera and ballet. The next was a video of him, in China, playing an elderly woman in ping-pong. Then, there was a clip of him serving tofu from a street stand using a ping-pong paddle.

All of these moments were absurd elements of his press tour for Marty Supreme. And every piece of this has been so fitting for Chalamet’s louche and chaotic ping-pong star, Marty Mauser, that it almost feels as though he is still doing some sort of Method acting.

Fittingly, a lot of this press tour has made people mad.

Take the opera and ballet comment, in which Chalamet said that “no one cares” about those art forms. In context, he was stating an objectively true fact — indeed, opera and ballet are not popular mass entertainment. Out of context, however, he sounded like an anti-intellectual who hates the fine arts. Yes, Chalamet, who went to the renowned Manhattan performing arts school LaGuardia, and who comes from a family steeped in ballet.

“I’m just taking shots for no reason,” he laughed after dissing ballet.

This kicked off a truly absurd news cycle in which operas and ballets across the country projected “We Care” across their stages in response to Chalamet’s comments, used his name as a discount code for tickets to their performances or otherwise threw shade.

As this was unfolding, Chalamet was ignoring the drama to focus on what really matters. Which is to say he was in China playing ping-pong against elderly people who seemed to generally be kicking his ass. People presented him with gifts emblazoned with “Sweet Tea,” his nickname in China. In honor of that nickname, he drank some sweet tea. He cut tofu with a ping-pong paddle.

It’s just so pitch-perfect. Mauser, in the movie, is charming, yes, but wildly arrogant. He also leaves a trail of injuries — both physical and emotional — in his wake, all in the name of pursuing greatness. Chalamet is pursuing an Oscar. Potato, po-tah-to.

This year, the complaints about the opera and ballet comment are not the only things that have plagued the Marty Supreme Oscars bid. The movie has been catching strays in the general discourse that has grown since Oct. 7, with a whole host of viral posts accusing the film, which is very Jewish in feel but makes basically no mention of Israel, of being Zionist propaganda.

One could rail against this, point out all the ways it is both stupid and antisemitic. Like that Marty is a fairly despicable character, so as far as propaganda goes, it wouldn’t be very effective. Or that making a movie by and about Jews doesn’t mean anything about a movie’s political message. Have people totally lost the ability to watch and interpret movies? Maybe Jewish stories are in just as much trouble as opera and ballet, though obviously in a different way. They are so constantly read as a metaphor for or commentary on Israel that people can no longer appreciate them for their own merits.

Chalamet, however, has simply been ignoring the noise and having fun. The actor has become somewhat famous for his oddball press appearances. Before Marty Supreme even came out, he dropped a nearly 20-minute-long surreal parody of his own marketing tour, in which he spent a video call pitching his team on ideas such as dyeing the Statue of Liberty orange.

It’s an unusual strategy in an era of constant statements, apologies and explanations. Whether or not it will be successful we will find out this weekend at the Academy Awards. It wasn’t last year, when he made sports predictions during his press tour for A Complete Unknown, the Bob Dylan biopic; Adrien Brody ultimately won for The Brutalist, a movie I still have not seen. (I want to, truly, but it is just so long.) Brody had a much more traditional press tour, giving interviews about the importance of his role, of the Holocaust, of art. He generally took himself very seriously in both his defense of his art, and of his Jewish identity and Jewish movie.

That’s all well and good, and probably appropriate for The Brutalist. But it’s far more fun to watch Chalamet play ping-pong against China’s elderly. And I think it’s a better way to handle the criticism, whether it’s about Zionism, Judaism or, um, anti-opera-ism. Chalamet refuses to dignify his critics; he simply carries on enjoying himself. And I, for one, have enjoyed watching him do it. I’ll miss him when this press tour ends.

Mira Fox is a reporter and critic at the Forward covering religion, culture and the internet, including stories on Christian nationalism, online extremist subcultures and, of course, TV and movies of all kinds. Her work has been recognized by the Religion News Association, the Deadline Club and the American Jewish Press Association, and spans many forms including deeply reported features, news analysis and cultural criticism.

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- @miraefox

This article was downloaded from https://forward.com/culture/812038/marty-supreme-press-tour-timothee-chalamet/ at Mar 13, 2026 at 7:20 PM EDT.

CULTURE | MAR 12, 2026, 9:30 AM EDT | UPDATED MAR 13, 2026, 12:06 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

I had a shot at rock ’n’ roll fame. I chose a lifetime of Shabbat instead.

Peter Himmelman

Just as Peter Himmelman’s career was beginning, he risked everything to honor something far older than the music business.

Two of the many sides of Peter Himmelman. Courtesy of Peter Himmelman

This is one in a series of essays by Peter Himmelman exploring the intersection of Judaism, creativity, and rock ’n’ roll.

In 1986, saying no was not part of the plan. I was 26, newly signed to Island Records, and for the first time in my life, the machinery of the music business had begun to move in my favor. My songs “Waning Moon,” “I Feel Young Today,” and “1000 Years,” from my second album Gematria, were on the radio and MTV. There was talk of tours, of opening slots with artists like Sting, Joe Cocker and Greg Allman. My job, as everyone understood it, was simple: Say yes. Yes to every opportunity, yes to every kind of exposure, yes to everything that could possibly give my career momentum.

Lou Maglia, the president of Island Records, was an old-school Italian record guy — street-smart, direct and deeply invested in the artists he believed in. I was among his first signings. He had taken me on largely because of an independent record I had made called This Father’s Day, written and recorded as tribute to my dad, who died at 54, just a day after I’d turned 24. He was my mentor and my hero. Those who say his death had much to do with my sudden turn toward observant Judaism are partly right.

The other part is that in seeking a record deal since I was 13, and then finally getting one, I discovered it wasn’t the answer to what I’d actually been searching for, which was a loving family, a clearer understanding of what my life’s purpose might be, and a deeper sense of belonging in my tribe — the Jewish people.

That’s why, one afternoon, when I walked into Lou’s office and closed the door behind me, what I said to him must have sounded incomprehensible.

“Lou, I’m starting to keep this Jewish thing called Shabbos, and I won’t be available to perform on Friday nights anymore.”

He stared at me for a moment, then burst out laughing.

“Ha! Fucking Shabbos. Ok, that’s a good one, I get it. But can we talk about these opening slots?”

It wasn’t a cruel laugh. It was the laugh of a man encountering something he had no category for. In Lou’s world, artists did all kinds of self-destructive things and made radically poor decisions. But remove themselves from the single most important performance night of the week? Never. Ever.

I was, in effect, telling him I had decided to become unavailable for my own ascent.

At the time, I couldn’t have explained my decision in any coherent way. I didn’t have the vocabulary or even the conceptual framework. All I knew was that after my dad’s death something had begun to feel hollow. Not the music. The music was real. It was everything around it. The sense that if I just kept moving forward fast enough, saying yes often enough, I’d arrive at some point where things would finally make sense. They didn’t. (I can state for the record, 40 years later, they still don’t.)

But around that same time, through a chain of introductions, I met the record producer and singer Kenny Vance, of Jay and the Americans fame. Kenny, now my dear friend, had worked with everyone, and he wasn’t shy about mentioning it.

“I used to date Diane Keaton,” he told me. “I know Woody Allen. I was the music director for Saturday Night Live. But tonight, I’m gonna take you to my main connection, a religious Jew in Brooklyn.”

I suspect he thought I’d roll my eyes at the prospect. I did nothing of the sort. I was excited.

Before long, we were crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, the lights of lower Manhattan burning behind us. We arrived at an apartment in Crown Heights where Rabbi Simon Jacobson greeted us. I connected with Simon right off the bat. His eyes reflected a paradox, an awareness that being alive was both a source of great humor and great sadness. Simon told me about his work reconstructing the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s talks from memory, highly complex talks that lasted for hours and drew on thousands of Jewish sources. The scale of it was incomprehensible to me. It belonged to a world governed by entirely different assumptions than my own.

Later that night, after Kenny, who seemed very old — I think he was 40 — got tired and left for his home in Far Rockaway, I asked Simon about the paintings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe hanging on the wall.

“What’s the deal with those pictures?” I said. “They seem sort of cultish to me.”

Simon wasn’t offended. “I enjoy them,” he said. “To me, the Rebbe is like a very inspiring grandfather.”

Makes sense, I thought.

He grew quiet, then continued. “There are people called tzadikim,” he said. “They have no sense of self. They live only to serve others. And they can do anything they wish.”

I knew enough to know he wasn’t using the colloquial tzadik, as in “What a tzadik, that Herb Shapiro. Got me such a deal on my new Firestones.”

“Really?” I asked. “Can they fly?”

Simon looked at me. He became serious.

“I’ve never seen anyone fly. But for a tzadik, flying is no greater miracle than walking.”

The remark just about toppled me. Not because it sounded weird and mystical, but because it cohered with something I had always felt, but had never heard expressed so simply: that walking itself was a miracle. That breathing, eating pancakes, taking a piss, that just being alive, was a miracle.

One could accurately say that I was the fastest person ever to join the “cult.” I went out and bought tzitzit the next day. I began keeping kosher. “One less shrimp,” was how I thought of it. Then came Shabbat observance in my dumpy railroad apartment on 47th and Eighth Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen.

Shabbat, like music, was the space between notes. A kind of purposeful interruption. For one day each week, I stopped. I stopped producing. I stopped striving. Most importantly, I stopped trying to turn success into proof of my worth. It wasn’t only about stopping work. That’s too simple. It was about remembering that I was more than my work. It felt like an authentic subversion of shallow cultural norms, something that instinctively appealed to me. It was the more truthful version of the so-called subversion that rock and roll had always only imitated.

A promotional poster from the author’s tour of the Caucusus. Courtesy of Peter Himmelman

This is why I told Lou Maglia no.

Not because I was certain, but because I had begun to understand that if I lost this, I might lose something far more essential than a career.

My friend, the late Lou Maglia, lapsed Catholic, soulful man that he was, stopped laughing. He saw that I was serious. He didn’t drop me. Far from it. He became my biggest champion. When it would have been only logical for us to play cities like Cleveland and Chicago in support of one of my recordings, Lou even helped finance my tour of the Caucasus in what was then the USSR. (Another story for another time.) He knew that my music wasn’t a posture, but a reflection of my deeply held values.

Hey Lou, if you’re up there listening, thank you. You were a beautiful man with a beautiful spirit.

People sometimes ask me if the cost to my career was worth it. There are two issues I have with the question. First, it assumes the career was the central measure of my life. Second, few ask what I received in return. I have, thank God, been blessed with a beautiful marriage, a tight-knit, loving family, grandchildren, a body of work that I could never have imagined at age 26, and time. I have been able to see the value of time and secure it as my own.

As for music, Shabbat didn’t take any of it away from me. It taught me to hear it better, write it better, and perform it better.

I have never struck a better bargain.

Peter Himmelman is a Grammy- and Emmy-nominated rock and roll performer, songwriter, film composer, visual artist, and award-winning author. He has been profiled in Time Magazine, Rolling Stone, The Wall Street Journal, Tablet, and NPR. His newest book is ‘Suspended By No String: A Songwriter’s Reflections on Faith, Aliveness, and Wonder (Regalo Press).’ Follow him at peterhimmelman.substack.com.

This article was downloaded from https://forward.com/culture/810298/peter-himmelman-rock-n-roll-shabbat-jewish/ at Mar 13, 2026 at 7:20 PM EDT.

ART | MAR 11, 2026, 11:54 AM EDT | UPDATED MAR 13, 2026, 12:40 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

In the work of 21 artists, 49 different ways to be Jewish

Simi Horwitz

The Derfner Museum of Judaica’s ‘Envisioning the Sacred’ exhibit encompasses paintings, printings, drawings and linoleum cuts

From left: Ben-Zion’s Moses Looking Down to the Promised Land and Adam Muszka’s Sabbath Meal. Both are on display at the Derfner Judaica Museum’s Envisioning the Sacred exhibit. Courtesy of Derfner Judaica Museum + Art CDerfner Judaica Museum + Art Collection. Gift of Noah L. Butkin; Gift of Geraldine Lipschutz

As I walked through the exhibit Envisioning the Sacred: Modern Art from the Collection at the Derfner Judaica Museum and Art Collection, I wondered aloud which was the more defining element in these 20th- and 21st-century paintings, drawings, prints and linoleum cuts. Was it the modernist sensibility, which encompassed figurative, abstract, symbolic and metaphorical approaches? Or was it the Jewish-themed content?

In the 49 pieces by 21 artists (including two etchings by Marc Chagall), there were illustrated biblical characters and stories, as well as depictions of traditions and rituals. A fair number of works employed the Hebrew alphabet to evoke emotion and inspire the composition.

“The exhibit shows how artists use a modern visual language to express their Jewish identities,” said Susan Chevlowe, chief curator and museum director who guided me through the light-filled gallery, which is part of the Hebrew Home at Riverdale and set on a shallow hill that slopes down to the Hudson River.

“It’s hard to separate the two elements or say which is more defining,” Chevlowe said. “The majority of these artists were artists early on in their lives, drawing and sketching as children. Some grew up steeped in a Jewish tradition and others came to their Jewish identity later in life, especially in the post-Holocaust years. Percival Goodman is an example. An agnostic, he was best known as a modernist architect. But in the post-Holocaust years he became interested in biblical figures.”

Percival Goodman’s Rebekah and Jacob. Courtesy of Derfner Judaica Museum + Art Collection. Gift of Naomi Goodman

Chevlowe pointed to Goodman’s painting Rebekah and Jacob, presenting two large, sharply drawn flat heads. The bold colors outlined in stark black stripes summon forth figures that border on the cartoonish, yet are also strikingly beautiful. Here, the matriarch Rebekah beams at her younger son Jacob with whom she is scheming to steal her older son Esau’s birthright.

A number of the works reflect, in subtle and layered ways, Jewish traumas coupled with homage and pride and in some instances a touch of the elegiac.

Adam Muszka’s Sabbath Meal, painted in the 1960s, is a nostalgic look back at the lively Polish shtetl that he grew up in and that no longer exists. With its sentimental tone, the painting evinces distortion. Two figures in the foreground are over-sized, while the homes in the background are shrunken and lopsided — an indication, perhaps, that this is a falsely rosy memory.

In the seemingly more realistic 2003 painting Choral Synagogue, St. Petersburg, Russia, one of the more recent works on display, Joyce Ellen Weinstein brings to life the massive temple entrance and the decorative gate in front of it, “which is slightly off kilter,” Chevlowe pointed out. “Notice the barbed wire on top of the gate. The painting suggests the dignity of the synagogue and its people and also the difficult position of Russian Jews throughout history.”

Chevlowe was hard-pressed to pick a favorite, though she admitted a special fondness for Jane Logemann’s 1996 Alphabet, a series of pale blue and purple ink wash panels adorned with repeated pairs of Hebrew letters, in pen and ink, which create a vertical pattern from the top of the page to the bottom. The series is poetic, lyrical.

Mark Podwal’s Dreidel Hanukkia. Courtesy of Derfner Judaica Museum + Art Collection. Gift of Dr. Richard Charney and Family in honor of Maxine Charney

“Logemann is interested in patterns and structures of nature,” said Chevlowe. “Some letters are large, others small. There’s a randomness here. Her choices are intuitive. For many artists the abstract is spiritual. For some mysticism and spiritual quest are essential in their work.”

One of the better known artists in the group is Mark Podwal. In his 2002 Dreidel Hanukkia, an acrylic painting, we see a menorah balanced on a dreidel and on the opposite side of the page there’s a less readily definable bench lamp.

“It’s modern and old and very playful,” said Chevlowe. “And each Hanukkah light, the menorah and the bench lamp, is cut off by the frame, cut off by the rest of the world. It’s a fragment. We often see that in Degas too.”

Some of the painters are more deeply embedded in or influenced by particular schools of art than others. In Jacques Yankel’s joyful and expressionistic Torah, one can see the Marc Chagall and Chaim Soutine lineage. Yankel’s emigre artist father lived in Paris and was very much part of the Paris school of art, which included Chagall and Soutine.

Abraham Rattner’s Moses, 1955. Courtesy of Derfner Judaica Museum + Art Collection. Gift of June Poplack

In New York, Ben-Zion, a Russian-born painter who arrived in the United States in 1920, was a recognized member of “The Ten,” abstract painters that consisted of, among others, Mark Rothko and Adolph Gottlieb, though curiously enough Ben-Zion was never really an abstract painter.

Moses was a frequent subject of his. In his 1962 Moses Looking Down to the Promised Land, our title character is viewed from the back, an imposing, heavily draped figure perched on a rocky terrain. He is staring out at Jericho, at once so close to and yet so far away from The Promised Land.

Abraham Rattner also employed Moses as the central figure and theme in his vibrant Picassoesque Moses, which features the Prophet clutching two blank tablets, devoid of the commandments or, indeed, any writings. His head twisted to the side and an integral element in a wild abstract design is as unsettling as it is thrilling. It is perhaps my favorite in the collection.

“I would like viewers to appreciate the richness in stylistic range and to be aware that these are highly trained, skilled and knowledgeable artists who come from a rich cultural tradition that includes all of art history,” Chevlowe told me. “At the same time they create something that’s original, authentic and beautiful.”

Simi Horwitz is a feature writer and film reviewer based in New York City. Her writing has been recognized by the Society for Feature Journalism, the New York Press Club, and the Los Angeles Press Club.

This article was downloaded from https://forward.com/culture/art/811417/envisioning-the-sacred-derfner-museum-of-judaica/ at Mar 13, 2026 at 7:20 PM EDT.

Table of Contents

The Forward: 2026 Mar 13

News

Synagogues size up security after Michigan attack amid intensifying risks

Amid revolt against ‘Israel lobby,’ J Street seeks elusive middle ground in primaries

‘This isn’t the Gov. Newsom that we know’: One week after apartheid remark, calls to reconsider remain unheeded

Amid an incoherent war with Iran, antisemitism fills the vacuum

Opinions

Temple Israel was my home — and what I learned there can help us get through this difficult moment

A gunman attacked a Michigan synagogue. Here’s what happens to the community next

The one crucial domain in which Iran outwitted Israel

I was sexually abused at my synagogue as a child. Here’s how our community can protect others from that horror

Culture

How a Jewish-owned yarn store knitted the symbol of the anti-ICE movement

I’m going to miss the ‘Marty Supreme’ press tour when it’s over

I had a shot at rock ’n’ roll fame. I chose a lifetime of Shabbat instead.

In the work of 21 artists, 49 different ways to be Jewish