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In an unusual alliance, Jewish media and striking journalists are uniting to cover the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial
PITTSBURGH (JTA) — How many times should an alleged synagogue shooter’s name be mentioned in a news story about his trial, now beginning after more than four years?
For the Pittsburgh Union Press last month, the answer was seven. For the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, it was an uneasy five, in a departure from its usual answer of zero — a number chosen out of deference to a community devastated by the shooting.
The slight difference was the only discrepancy between one set of stories published by the two news organizations covering the trial of Robert Bowers, accused of murdering 11 Jews in their synagogue here in 2018.
The anomaly offers a window into an unusual partnership between the two publications — the city’s Jewish paper and the news site established by striking staffers for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette — born in February when it became clear that the trial would last months.
Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle editor Toby Tabachnick was dreading the trial coverage, with a staff of just three on the editorial side: herself and two reporters, David Rullo and Adam Reinherz.
“I started getting really nervous. Like, how are we going to do this?” Tabachnick said on the eve of the trial, speaking at the federal courthouse where jury selection would soon begin. “Our regular reporters could have been here. But it would have been extremely taxing, difficult and emotional for us, because we’re so ingrained in the community too.”
Plus, she added, “In addition to this trial, which is going to be every day for three months, we’re covering the synagogues, events and the holidays, the lectures, we still have a regular community newspaper to put out.”
Tabachnick knew Andrew “Goldy” Goldstein, one of the Post-Gazette’s team that picked up a Pulitzer for their coverage of the massacre, from his time as a Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle intern. She also knew he was on strike and wondered whether he could use the extra freelance opportunity.
Instead, Goldstein immediately offered up a better idea: Join with the Pittsburgh Union Progress, the strike paper, in a joint reporting project, organized in part through the Pittsburgh Media Partnership, an incubator for local journalism. (The Jewish Telegraphic Agency is raising funds for the coverage.)
Working together just made sense, Goldstein said. The Chronicle was deeply resourced and credible in the Jewish community, and the Progress had on board Torsten Ove, a local legend.
From left to right, Bob Batz of the Pittsburgh Union Progress, Toby Tabachnick of the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle and Andrew Goldstein of the Progress pose in the Joseph Weis Jr. Courthouse in Pittsburgh, April 21, 2023. (Ron Kampeas)
“We have the all-star federal courts reporter in Torsten and we have a lot of really great journalists who love Pittsburgh, love this community, and we’ll do our best to cover it,” Goldstein said, noting that the Chronicle would also have access to the Progress’s photographers. “But the Chronicle brings something different entirely to the table, which is, they’re so deeply sourced in the Pittsburgh Jewish community, and they have such an interest in this trial in particular.”
Newsroom collaborations have become more frequent in recent years as publications realize they can expand their impact and audience by working together. But while there are a growing number of relationships between local and national publications and between daily and investigative outlets, ties between mainstream newsrooms and community or ethnic media are less common.
S. Mitra Kalita, the founder and director of URL Media, a network of Black and Brown community news outlets that share content and revenue, said the value in such partnerships was not just in delivering relief as media staffs shrink, but also in sensitizing mainstream media to minority sensibilities.
“Talking about who [the ethnic media outlet is] serving and why we’re doing it this way — the spirit of real collaboration is a bit of that give and take,” she said. “We make mainstream media way better because it starts to infuse mainstream media with aspects of community and thus redefine the mainstream.”
The residual trauma of the massacre in the Pittsburgh collaboration made it all the more important for the mainstream reporters to be sensitive to the nuances that the Jewish media was bringing, she said.
“Especially a story like this one, which was such an attack on a community — a community that was singled out for their sheer existence, the strategy cannot be ‘let’s just work in parallel,” Kalita said. “It’s not going to work. It has to be kind of a cross-pollination and a real collaboration.”
That’s exactly what is happening, according to the reporters and editors involved in the project, with communication easy between each publication’s editor and expertise flowing in both directions.
Ove a denizen of the Joseph F. Weis Jr. Courthouse for so long that he can tell stories about a sizable stretch of the portraits of judges that line its corridor walls; he may be the only court reporter to seek an interview with a judge after his death, to ask him why he was haunting the place. (The judge never showed, but his widow was less than surprised to hear that he was still working.)
He led a passel of Chronicle and Progress staffers through the warren-like courthouse on the Friday before the trial, handily impressing them with his intimacy with the building — he knew the provenance of the paintings in each courtroom — and its staff. Soo Song, the assistant U.S. attorney who is leading the prosecution team, smiled and nodded as she passed.
Torsten Ove, left, of the Pittsburgh Union Progress and Adam Reinherz of the PIttsburgh Jewish Chronicle confer on the first day of jury selection for the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre trial, April 24, 2023. (Toby Tabachnick)
Ove showed the reporters how to access court records for free, and while they stood around him at one of the computer terminals, the teams’ different emphases emerged: Ove predicted that jury selection, which started last week and is expected to last as long as three weeks, would not be a news generator, because in his experience, it rarely has been.
Reinherz and Tabachnick, attuned to reporting on faith communities, were not so sure: Reinherz wondered whether believing Catholics, who reject the death penalty, would be eliminated, and Tabachnick wondered whether defense attorneys would seek to keep Jews off the jury — and how they would go about doing that.
Reinherz ended up covering the first day of jury selection. “Local and national reporters decided the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle should have one seat during the initial session of day one,” Reinherz explained in a story that appeared on both news sites. He noted that the first member of the public to enter the courtroom was Daniel Leger, one of two survivors of the attack.
Working together across platforms was odd, said Bob Batz Jr., the Progress’s interim editor, but he could get used to it.
“This is uncharted territory for someone like me, and I’ve been doing this for a long time, and we don’t, you know, we don’t collaborate,” he said.
“We compete!” Tabachnick interjected.
“What we’re doing is not common, and it’s not going to be easy,” Batz said. “Surely, we’re going to tick each other off about something or somebody is going to put the wrong word in or there’s a million things that can go wrong, but the breaking of ground where you’re actually working together, it just makes sense in so many ways on this story. We’re really trying to serve the community.”
Tabachnick said she saw added value in keeping journalists she admired in the limelight while they are on strike. Journalists at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette went on strike back in October over wages and working conditions, in a crescendo of mounting tensions between the paper’s longtime owners and the staff that contributed to a newsroom exodus even in 2018, when the paper won a Pulitzer for its synagogue shooting coverage. The strike is now one of the longest in journalism history, and the staffers contributing to the Pittsburgh Union Progress are doing so despite earning well below than their regular salaries.
“I feel good about getting their names, their publication’s name out,” Tabachnick said.
Each story is running in essentially identical form on both publications’ websites, with a line crediting their collaboration. Tabachnick and Batz had a brief and friendly email exchange before each clicked “publish” on their story about debate among victims’ families about the appropriateness of the death penalty.
The Chronicle is minimizing appearances of the name of the accused killer, out of sensitivity to readers who may want to see their community members centered rather than their aggressor. Some researchers and law enforcement officials have also called on journalists not to print mass shooters’ names and photographs, citing evidence that doing so may contribute to their glorification and even copycat crimes.
Batz says he totally gets the Chronicle’s thinking, despite making a different choice in his newsroom.
“We’re still feeling our way, we’re still figuring this out,” Batz said. “They don’t name the defendant in their story, and they haven’t. And our guy Torsten who’s an all-star courts reporter, he’s going to use the guy’s name. And then in real time going back and forth on email and text we came up with his solution and that story was on both websites in minutes and it was really kind of cool.”
Tabachnick picked up the account of the previous night’s collaboration as if she’d been working across a desk from Batz for decades instead of online since February.
“The solution was that I realized that with the trial starting, it really didn’t make sense not to use his name at all anymore that we really needed to as a news organization,” she said. “But that didn’t mean we had to overuse his name. And I’m not saying Torsten overused his name. He used it as much as he needed to use it in terms of style, but I took out a few of them and replaced it with ‘the defendant’ and we were all happy.”
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The post In an unusual alliance, Jewish media and striking journalists are uniting to cover the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israeli Report Sounds Alarm Over ‘America Only’ Faction Influencing US Right
Tucker Carlson speaks at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, Oct. 21, 2025. Photo: Gage Skidmore/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
Israel’s Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism has published a new report warning of a high-stakes schism among US President Donald Trump’s so-called “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement propelled by an “America Only” alliance known for advancing antisemitic invective.
“The picture emerging from the report is concerning: Alongside significant American support for the war against the Iranian terror regime, a discourse is expanding in the US that attempts to present Israel as acting manipulatively, as if it dragged the US into war,” Amichai Chikli, minister for diaspora affairs and combating antisemitism, said in a statement announcing the research.
“This is a dangerous discourse that often devolves from political and diplomatic criticism into conspiratorial rhetoric with a sharp antisemitic aroma,” he continued. “Our role is to identify these trends in time, alert people to them, and act together with our partners to understand deep-seated trends and know how to prepare and respond to them.”
Avi Cohen-Scali, the government ministry’s director general, added that “we identify an increasingly tightening connection between internal political debate in the US and the dissemination of anti-Israel and antisemitic messages online.”
The report, released on Thursday, analyzes the public sentiment of Republicans and conservatives regarding the US-Israeli military campaign against the Islamic regime in Iran. It defines two alliances on the American political right which have voiced opposition to the joint strikes: so-called “America First” and “America Only.” The Israeli researchers characterize the former faction as “restraint-oriented,” noting that adherents argue “”the strikes contradict anti-war campaign rhetoric, risk drawing the United States into another prolonged Middle East conflict, and impose economic costs that undermine domestic priorities.”
Advocates of this approach have also advanced narratives around the term “Israel First,” which the report describes as “including antisemitic claims alleging disproportionate Israeli or Jewish influence over US foreign policy, as well as slogans such as ‘dying for Israel’ that frame the war as serving foreign rather than American interests.”
The report names and profiles three prominent podcasters it identifies with this mentality: Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and Joe Rogan, as well as streamer Sneako (Nicolas Kenn De Balinthazy).
In contrast, the Israeli researchers name “a more radical fringe, sometimes referred to as ‘America Only,’ which promotes extreme isolationism combined with conspiratorial, white nationalist, and antisemitic narratives.”
In this category, the report offers six profiles, leading with former US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who features “America Only” in her descriptor and banner on her X social media account where she routinely shares her views with 1.6 million followers. The report notes five others and includes data about their followings on billionaire Elon Musk’s X website: white nationalist podcaster Nick Fuentes (1.3 million), former mixed martial arts fighter Jake Shields (over 900,000), British-American influencer Sam Parker (over 300,000), neo-Nazi Lucas Gage (over 286,000 but now blocked), and radio host Stew Peters (over 900,000).
According to the report, “the core distinction between right-wing populists (America First) and white nationalists (America Only) lies in how they define the in-group.”
While America First advocates “emphasize culture, nativism, and hostility toward elites,” those in America Only “place race and ancestry at the center of their worldview and openly support either the maintenance or restoration of white dominance. Their ideology prioritizes the preservation of ‘ethnic purity’ and often rests on explicit racial doctrines that can also shape their positions on foreign and international policy.”
Researchers describe how these voices “play a central role in shaping discourse, particularly among younger audiences, amplifying anti-war messaging and framing the conflict as misaligned with American interests.”
Noting that polls show Republican support for the war with Iran is limited with voters expressing caution about sending soldiers back to the Middle East, the report says that “divisions within conservative media and among some Republican figures, particularly within ‘America First’ and ‘America Only’ circles, indicate that support could weaken if the conflict becomes prolonged, expands operationally, or imposes sustained economic costs.”
These divisions do not remain in the domestic sphere. The ministry describes how pro-Iran networks “amplify narratives of American opposition to the conflict to deepen perceived divisions. These trends may have implications for Jewish and Israeli communities in the United States, particularly in relation to the risk of increased antisemitic discourse and incidents.”
The report cites polling showing a collapse of the American public’s sympathy for Israel (down to 36 percent, according to a recent Gallup survey) in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with – for the first time ever – more Americans now aligning with the Palestinians (41 percent). This has flipped from February 2025 when 46 percent stood with the Jewish state and 33 percent supported the Palestinians.
While most of this rising anti-Israel sentiment has grown among Democrats, the report notes that “among Republicans, the same tendencies are evident to some degree, but the changes are significantly smaller. Among Republicans, sympathy for Israel decreased from 80 percent in 2021 to 70 percent in 2026, while sympathy for Palestinians edged up from 10 percent to 13 percent.”
A survey of 1092 people conducted from March 26-30, released on Thursday by YouGov and the Center for Public Opinion at UMass Lowell, offers further illumination about the potential levels of American enthusiasm for these ideologies.
Asked whether the close US-Israel alliance does more to help or harm the American national interest, 42 percent said more to hurt, 29 percent said more to help, and 29 percent said neither. Among Republicans those figures were 23 percent more to hurt, 52 percent more to help, and 24 percent neither.
Analyzing the survey results, CNN senior political reporter Aaron Blake shared data and noted that “Tucker Carlson isn’t that popular among Republican-leaners anymore,” with 31 percent having a favorable opinion compared to 24 percent unfavorable. Overall, 38 percent of respondents said they have an unfavorable view of him, compared to 17 percent favorable.
Even among Carlson’s heaviest bloc of backers – self-identified conservatives — the former Fox host showed limited support. While 34 percent of conservatives expressed a favorable opinion, 26 percent affirmed “unfavorable,” 31 percent offered no opinion at all, and 10 percent had never heard of him. Meanwhile, the poll showed that 7 percent of Democrats and self-described liberals expressed favorable views.
The pollsters also researched how Carlson would potentially fare against California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), two widely floated potential Democratic presidential candidates, in the 2028 contest.
Head-to-head with the California leader, 25 percent of voters would support Carlson, while 33 percent would vote for Newsom and 20 percent would refuse to vote. Two percent of Democrats said they would back Carlson while six percent of Republicans said they would vote for Newsom, as did 7 percent of conservatives.
Up against Ocasio-Cortez, the numbers remained similar with 25 percent saying they would support Carlson and 32 percent backing the leader behind the so-called “squad” of left-wing congressional representatives.
Many observers in the media have speculated that Carlson could run for president in 2028.
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Antisemitic Social Media Personality Dan Bilzerian Launches Longshot US Congressional Bid Against Randy Fine
Dan Bilzerian arrives at the Fashion Nova x Cardi B Collection Launch Party held at the Hollywood Palladium on May 8, 2019, in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, United States. Photo: Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect
Antisemitic social media personality Dan Bilzerian launched a bid for the US Congress this week, setting off a firestorm of controversy as he seeks to unseat incumbent Republican Rep. Randy Fine in Florida’s 6th Congressional District, a race already defined by personal attacks and inflammatory rhetoric.
Bilzerian, who grew a massive social media presence by showcasing his hedonistic lifestyle, formally filed paperwork on Tuesday to run as a Republican, challenging Fine in what is shaping up to be one of the most unconventional GOP primaries of the 2026 election cycle.
During an interview with TMZ this week, Bilzerian was confronted over his previous comments referring to Fine as a “fat Jew.” He responded by condemning Fine as a “Jewish supremacist and he puts Israel ahead of America, and I think that, you know, he should be tried for treason.” Bilzerian also dismissed antisemitism as a “made-up term.”
“I think we just have a big Jewish supremacy problem in the country, and everyone’s talking about it, and nobody’s doing anything about it,” he told the Daytona Beach News-Journal in a separate interview, echoing a message he has previously posted on social media.
The remarks drew swift backlash online and placed Bilzerian’s candidacy under intense scrutiny, raising questions about the viability of the campaign.
Fine responded forcefully, arguing that Bilzerian’s comments were not accidental but reflective of deeper hostility. He said the rhetoric demonstrated that his challenger is unfit for public office and outside the bounds of acceptable political discourse.
“This isn’t about disagreement,” Fine said in a media appearance. “It’s about whether someone who speaks this way about an entire group of people belongs anywhere near Congress.”
Fine responded directly to Bilzerian’s condemnations, suggesting to TMZ that the social media provocateur views the Jewish religion “as some sort of negative thing.”
During the TMZ discussion, Bilzerian also used the n-word, comments which drew sharp criticism from Fine.
“It’s my view that anyone who can use that word so easily, probably uses it in their everyday language and that’s not a word that I believe has any place in the Republican party and I’m not interested in platforming it,” Fine said.
The congressman has pledged not to back down and also touted his close ties to US President Donald Trump.
“Congressman Randy Fine is the only person in America that President Trump has endorsed three times in the past two years, including in his current reelection,” a spokesperson for the lawmaker told The Hill, describing the Florida Republican is one of Trump’s “greatest allies.”
“Randy Fine will never back down in the face of any effort to impeach President Trump and obstruct the will of the American people,” the spokesperson added.
The clash has highlighted the unusually combative tone of the race. While Fine has positioned himself as a mainstream conservative with strong ties to Trump, he is no stranger to controversy himself. Critics have previously pointed to his own inflammatory statements about Muslims and Palestinians, which resurfaced in recent interviews as the campaign feud intensified.
Fine has repeatedly justified Islamophobia as “rational” rather than a form of bigotry.
“We need more Islamophobia, not less. Fear of Islam is rational,” Fine wrote on X.
He has warned about the “Islamification of America” and cautioned that the growing influence of Islam could lead to the banning of pet dogs.
“If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one,” Fine posted on X.
Despite weathering a bevy of controversies, Fine has sought to reinforce his standing with conservative voters. He announced this week that he is joining the House Freedom Caucus, a move that underscores his alignment with the GOP’s most conservative faction and signals an effort to consolidate support ahead of the primary.
Despite the backlash, Bilzerian has not backed down. He has insisted that his remarks are being mischaracterized and has continued to attack Fine on social media.
In the immediate aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, Bilzerian transformed his public image from a social media provocateur to a prominent critic of Israel and Judaism writ large.
Bilzerian has engaged in Holocaust denial, saying during an interview with British journalist Piers Morgan that casualty figures of the genocide have been “revised” and he “would bet [his] entire net worth that it was under 6 million.” He has also declared that “Jewish supremacy is the greatest threat to the world today” and denied that Jews experience antisemitism in any meaningful way, asserting that Palestinians are “the real semites.” Bilzerian has also parroted the unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that Israel orchestrated the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy and claimed that the Israeli government also killed Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
“I wasn’t there, but everything I’ve seen, evidence-wise, points to Israel,” Bilzerian said.
For now, the race remains heavily tilted in Fine’s favor, given his incumbency, established political track-record, and close relationship with Trump.
Bilzerian, a Florida native, currently resides in Las Vegas, Nevada and possesses no political experience. His repeated antisemitic and anti-Israel commentary is likely to serve as a liability in a conservative district with a significant Jewish population.
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42 Jewish authors slam Jewish Book Council for ‘bias toward centering Israeli and Zionist voices’
(JTA) — Dozens of anti-Zionist and non-Zionist Jewish authors are criticizing the Jewish Book Council, a historic literary group, for what they said was a “bias toward centering Israeli and Zionist voices” and “narrowing its vision to a Zionist approach to Jewish culture.”
A new open letter signed by 42 authors argues that the council, which was founded in 1925, should commit itself more to spotlighting Jewish voices who disagree with traditional Zionism and should not have showcased Israeli and Zionist voices after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
“Because the JBC is our most visible and longstanding Jewish literary institution, its focus on Zionist authors and books gives both Jewish and non-Jewish readers the false impression that Jewish books are inherently Zionist,” the open letter, published Thursday by “a Concerned Group of Jewish Writers,” argues.
Notable signatories include Israeli-Dutch novelist Yael van der Wouden, whose 2024 debut “The Safekeep,” a Jewish LGBTQ romance set in postwar Amsterdam, was shortlisted for a Booker Prize and won an award from the Jewish Book Council; memoirist Qian Julie Wang, whose book “Beautiful Country” was a New York Times bestseller, recommended by former President Barack Obama and winner of an award given by the council; novelist Adelle Waldman, author of “Help Wanted”; and Michael David Lukas, a professor at San Francisco State University and past winner of both the National Jewish Book Award and Jewish literature’s prestigious Sami Rohr prize for his 2018 novel “The Last Watchman of Old Cairo.”
Yael van der Wouden, winner of the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction, during The Women’s Prize Trust Summer Party & Awards Ceremony 2025 at Bedford Square Gardens on June 12, 2025 in London, England. (David Levenson/Getty Images)
The Jewish Book Council was founded to support and award Jewish authors and topics. In addition to handing out the annual National Jewish Book Awards, the council also connects authors with Jewish speaking engagements, publishes reviews of Jewish books, and provides other forms of support. In 2024, after a list purporting to expose “Zionist” authors circulated online, the council launched a hotline to report antisemitism in the books world.
The council’s CEO, Naomi Firestone-Teeter, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency the letter represented a “difference in expectations” about what the institution can stand for.
The authors said they initially contacted the council’s leadership in private last year, engaging in a dialogue over a list of specific concerns. Those included the council’s failure to define antisemitism in its reporting tool, as well as its stated support of Israel and Israeli authors in recent awards ceremonies.
The authors also urged the council to state that criticism of Israel “is not inherently antisemitic,” and to “create programs and content in the coming year that reflect a more genuine diversity of Jewish views on Israel/Palestine and create spaces for Jews and cultural workers engaged with Judaism to have these difficult conversations.”
When the council didn’t follow up on their requests, the authors claimed, they decided to take their letter public. “We were—and remain—concerned that the institution’s apparent bias toward centering Israeli and Zionist voices is not only exclusionary but harmful, contributing to the dehumanization of Palestinians and advancing a system of cultural apartheid,” they wrote.
The open letter was the latest salvo in a series of dust-ups about Jews and Israel throughout the book world. Literary free-speech organization PEN America, after months of protest over its perceived Zionist tilt, this year replaced its leadership and retracted a statement standing in solidarity with an Israeli comedian whose performances had been cancelled. Bestselling authors have called to boycott Israeli literary institutions, and Guernica magazine experienced an internal upheaval after publishing an essay about the Gaza war by an Israeli writer arguing for coexistence.
The Jewish Book Council, however, had not experienced much public pushback from within its ranks of authors, until now.
“What the open letter is reflecting is a difference in expectations about our role as an institution, not a lack of engagement,” Firestone-Teeter told JTA. “Our role is to be a platform for literary exchange. We’re not a political advocacy group.”
Firestone-Teeter said that, contrary to the authors’ claims that the council had failed to follow up on their requests, she had “engaged in good faith” and made the council’s position clear to them. She said she disagreed with their assessment that the council deprioritizes Jews who are critical of Israel.
“You will see the diversity of the Jewish community represented, including some of these voices,” she said. “Jews are not a monolith. Our writers write with a lot of nuance, a lot of complexity.”
She also defended the council’s decision not to narrowly define antisemitism for its hotline, noting that they received hundreds of antisemitism reports and that different authors have different ideas of what constitutes antisemitism. The council intends to analyze the data it received. “We have not used the tool to take punitive action,” Firestone-Teeter said.
In addition, she said, it was appropriate for the council to spotlight Israeli authors after Oct. 7. “We are an organization that supports Jewish authors in America, Israel and beyond. Israel is a key part of our efforts to support the Jewish community,” she said. “Our Israeli authors represent a very wide range of views, politically and otherwise.”
Despite the authors’ objections, Firestone-Teeter told JTA, the council still considered them part of its constituency: “These are Jewish authors.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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