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These 12 Jewish feminist trailblazers, all over 80, had dinner together last night
(New York Jewish Week) — On Wednesday evening at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in Midtown, hundreds of New York’s leading philanthropists, healthcare executives and businesspeople gathered for the New Jewish Home’s “Eight over Eighty” gala — an annual event put on by the senior healthcare and rehabilitation agency that honors extraordinary New Yorkers over the age of 80 “who personify the value of aging well into our 80s and beyond.”
But of all the VIPs in the room, there was one table in particular — Table 13, right in the center of the room — that may have embodied that spirit better than any other: Seated around it were 12 of New York’s most accomplished Jewish women, all 80-plus, who have had an outsized influence on politics, journalism, publishing, activism, business and, above all, feminism.
Writer and activist Letty Cottin Pogrebin — one of the evening’s honorees — organized the group, which she dubbed the “Table of Amazing Women.”
“I see a lifetime of my own reflected in the table because they all come from different parts of my life,” Pogrebin said.
There was photographer, musician, author and wife-of-Alan Arlene Alda, 90; attorney and former Democratic district leader Jane Bevans, 82; the co-founder of the National Organization for Women, Muriel Fox, 95; literary agent Jane Gelfman, 84; the award-winning journalist and urban affairs specialist Roberta Gratz, 82; founder of First Women’s Bank and NY Women’s Foundation, Sarah Kovner, 88; former Manhattan borough president and global ambassador of American Jewish World Service Ruth Messinger, 82; artist and financial advisor Annie Navasky, 83; TV producer Gale Robinson, 83, interior designer Judith Schlosser, 92 and literary agent Phyllis Wender, 89.
“It just hit me,” Pogrebin told the New York Jewish Week when asked what inspired her to assemble the all-star table. “They said you can have one table. I said I’m going to make it meaningful. I’m going to make it symbolic.”
Pogrebin, of course, is the founding editor of Ms. Magazine and the publication’s Foundation for Women, as well as the National Women’s Political Caucus. She’s well acquainted with awards — she won an Emmy for her work on “Free to Be… You and Me,” the ground-breaking children’s book, record and television special; was inducted into the Manhattan Jewish Hall of Fame, and received a Yale University Poynter Fellowship in Journalism.
Still, Pogrebin, who recently published “Shanda: A Memoir of Shame and Secrecy,” knew she wanted to mark the latest honor by celebrating the important women in her life who helped her, along with countless other women, forge her path at a time when it wasn’t clear where, and how, a path could be cleared.
And yet, finalizing the list wasn’t easy. “I had to prune,” Pogrebin said. “If I could have, I would have filled another table.”
“I felt very bad because I didn’t include a 100-year-old friend,” she added. “I think that I wanted to, just in a small way, celebrate admitting your age, owning your age, and coalescing around the idea of being youthful at any age.”
Pogrebin’s invited guests — though honored and excited to be included — weren’t particularly surprised their friend came up with such a creative way to celebrate the occasion.
“Leave it to Letty,” journalist Gratz told the New York Jewish Week.
Looking around the table, Gratz said she certainly felt a sense of accomplishment. “We’ve all done it,” she said. “Imagine that, despite everything we faced. That feels great. I’m glad to be here.”
“I thought it was a great idea,” said Messinger, who was New York City’s first woman mayoral candidate and serves as president of AJWS from 1998 to 2016. “I had the privilege of being honored here a couple of years ago. When Letty wrote, I would not have necessarily come back. But then Letty said, ‘What if we got a whole table together?’ I thought ‘OK, that’s a great idea.’”
When asked, Messinger offered this advice to current and future generations: “Pursue justice, organize and remember that you’re not required to complete the task, but you can’t refuse to participate,” she said, paraphrasing Deuteronomy 16:20 as well as Pirkei Avot, a classic collection of Jewish wisdom.
Fox, the NOW co-founder, also noted the important role Judaism played in shaping her path and that of her peers. “Judaism has always given women a special role, strong women,” she said. “Certainly in Judaism, we learned about overcoming adversity and overcoming opposition.”
Thinking back on the progress she and her tablemates made, Fox said that her appeal for future generations is that they “carry the torch.”
“There’s still so much to do,” she said.”People sort of thought it was all done. We’ve learned that isn’t the case.”
But Fox added there are many reasons to be proud, as well as optimistic. “We have to be inspired by the fact that so much was accomplished — we changed the world, really, in a very short time,” she said. “In the old days, women couldn’t get credit cards. The ads said ‘Help Wanted Male’ or ‘Help Wanted Female.’ Landlords could say, ‘I don’t rent to women.’ Employers could say ‘We don’t hire women.’ We changed all that in our lifetime.”
As the women chatted over cocktails, it became crystal-clear that they not only changed the world but still wake up every day committed to their causes.
“I really believe activism keeps you young. If you become passive, if you feel hopeless, and if you feel the problems are too big, you’re going to age,” she added. “You’re going to become pretty limp. Not just in terms of politics, in terms of being alive to the moment, of being interested in young people [when you’re old] and, when you’re young, being interested in old people. Not ruling anybody out of your life.”
The New Jewish Home, formerly known as Jewish Home Lifecare, runs nursing homes, rehabilitation facilities and senior housing in the five boroughs and Westchester Cunty. The other honorees of the evening were three-time Grammy winner Ron Carter; feminist author Erica Jong; conductor Eve Queler; inventor Sanford “Sandy” David Greenberg; former president and CEO of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, Dr. Billy E. Jones; founding partner of Trian Fund Management, Peter May; former president of the League of Voluntary Hospitals and Homes of New York, Bruce McIver and the founder of TAG Associates, Stanley Pantowich.
David Remnick, editor in-chief of The New Yorker, hosted the gala, which raised $1.3 million, according to a spokesperson. Some of the funds, the spokesperson added, will be directed towards a new program dedicated to aiding older adults in the LGBTQ+ community.
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Somerville councilors to discuss Israel divestment proposal
(JTA) — SOMERVILLE, Mass. — The issue of divestment from Israel returns to the Somerville City Council in Massachusetts on Tuesday night as lawmakers plan to discuss how to implement a nonbinding ballot question on the matter that passed last year.
The divestment push has divided the city of more than 84,000 residents, which has a long-standing Jewish population. It is located between Cambridge, home to Harvard University, and Medford, a city with which it shares the Tufts University campus.
After Question 3 passed with 55.7% of the residents’ vote in November 2025, the City Council that same month passed a resolution committing to work toward an ordinance within a year to enact the ballot’s goals.
The measure to that effect, introduced in June, would bar the city from investing in or procuring labor, services or goods from companies that support entities identified by the ordinance as violating international law, including Israel.
Unlike the divestment proposal awaiting a November ballot vote in Providence or the binding human rights divestment ordinance passed by Medford’s city council in 2025, the Somerville ordinance specifically mentions Israel and Palestine.
In response to the push for a binding ordinance, 74 registered voters in Somerville submitted a petition for a hearing, which was held in September, before final action is taken, citing concerns about its impact on the city. The issue has now moved to the city’s Legislative Matters Committee, which is meeting Tuesday night.
Among the groups opposing divestment is Shalom Somerville, which submitted the September petition stating that “the sense of belonging and safety experienced by Jewish, Israeli and other residents of diverse backgrounds” is at risk as a result of the ordinance.
Sam Gechter, co-founder and president of Shalom Somerville, said that the ordinance singles out Jews who support Israel, which makes it antisemitic. Deputy City Solicitor David Shapiro also advised in November 2024 that such an ordinance would be “likely invalid,” according to a letter from the Anti-Defamation League and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law.
“I think it’s incredibly irresponsible,” Gechter said, suggesting that the ordinance would slow down governmental action. “But the biggest thing for me is that it makes Jews feel unwelcome in Somerville.”
A local organization, Somerville for Palestine (S4P), has been a driving force behind both the ballot question and the ordinance, which the group developed in collaboration with sponsoring city councilors Ben Ewen-Campen, Ben Wheeler, Wilfred N. Mbah and Jon Link. “It’s what people voted for,” said Mo Katz-Christy, a member of S4P’s leadership and Jewish Caucus. “We want to follow the will of the people.”
The ADL issued a statement condemning the ordinance in June. It also joined the Brandeis Center in issuing a letter calling the proposal an unconstitutional intrusion into foreign affairs.
Other Jewish organizations disagree. Jewish Voice for Peace Boston has worked closely with S4P to back the measures. “I don’t think that those objections have validity,” said Eli Gerzon, a longtime member of JVP. “As a Jewish organization, we are especially concerned that ‘never again’ really means what it says: never again, that we never let a Holocaust, a genocide happen.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Somerville councilors to discuss Israel divestment proposal appeared first on The Forward.
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A major Jewish museum hopes to join the Smithsonian – at a difficult moment for the storied institution
(JTA) — Philadelphia’s Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History is moving closer to becoming part of the Smithsonian Institution at a moment of significant upheaval for the storied museum network.
A new congressional commission will study whether to make the museum part of the Smithsonian. Its members were sworn in Tuesday, when they also held their first meeting.
In an exclusive interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the commission’s new chair Philip Darivoff, a former longtime chair of the Weitzman, and vice chair Dara Horn, a New York Times bestselling author, said that the Weitzman joining the Smithsonian would send a powerful message that Jews are a crucial component of the history of the country.
“It’s a different statement that our country makes when it says that the study of Jewish American history and culture is important to this nation,” Darivoff said. Both he and Horn also hope that a boost in the Weitzman’s profile could combat what they called an “epidemic of ignorance” among Americans when it comes to knowledge of Jewish history and culture.
“This really would be an elevation of the Jewish community,” Horn, author of “People Love Dead Jews” and “The Final Solution to the Jewish Question,” told JTA. “The place that Jews show up in a school curriculum is typically more about the Holocaust” — an area that the author has written critically about in the past as too limiting a view of Jewish life.
Horn believes in the Weitzman project, she said, because she hopes to emphasize the ways that Jews have contributed to American founding ideals such as religious pluralism.
“I’m really interested in the connections between the Jewish story and a lot of our foundational ideas in this country,” she said. Jewish ideas such as the Exodus from Egypt in the Passover story “were inspiring to Americans,” she added.
The wheels for the Weitzman joining the Smithsonian began turning in 2024, when Congress passed legislation in 2024, then signed by President Biden, to establish the commission. The group spent the next two years putting the commission together, and has two years from its first meeting to research and publish a report on the feasibility of such a move — though Darivoff said he hopes to finish the work well before the deadline.
Adding a new member to the Smithsonian has been known to take years, if not decades. The two most recent additions, the National Museum of the American Latino and the American Women’s History Museum, were both long in the works.
Founded in 1976, the Weitzman is already an existing, fully functioning institution — and also already a Smithsonian affiliate, meaning it can share resources with other museums in the system. Unlike a museum being built from scratch, the Weitzman already has a building and collection, which proponents hope could speed the process.”
Dan Tadmor, the Weitzman’s CEO, told JTA that joining the Smithsonian would improve their educational mission.
“We have a national footprint for our educational programming, but of course we’d like to widen it,” he said. “Who would say no to a curriculum that’s been developed by a Smithsonian museum?”
The Weitzman’s bid for increased prominence within the Smithsonian comes as the Trump administration has sought to exert greater control over the latter — home to such storied institutions as the National Museum of American History, the National Portrait Gallery and the National Zoo.
This summer the White House issued a report alleging “radical ideology” in the museums’ content, and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum recently announced plans for signs accusing Smithsonian leaders of ideological bias. Observers say such signs are indicative of larger administration priorities opposing the teaching of historical subjects such as slavery. Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch III is stepping down at the end of the year.
A representative from the Smithsonian declined to comment to JTA on the Weitzman’s bid, or on its current political conditions.
The commission’s chair and vice chair of the new Weitzman said that the current political upheaval shouldn’t affect their work. The Smithsonian, Horn said, “has lasted through many political winds.”
“I think we see this as a long-term project that’s about the place of Jewish Americans in this country’s history,” Darivoff said. “The Smithsonian is a really important institution for this country, and it is the great museum complex of our nation. God willing, it will be flourishing for centuries to come. It’d be an honor to be included in the Smithsonian.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post A major Jewish museum hopes to join the Smithsonian – at a difficult moment for the storied institution appeared first on The Forward.
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Two deaths in Manchester synagogue attack last year will be probed through public inquiry, Britain says
(JTA) — The deaths of two Jewish men in an attack on a synagogue in Manchester last year will be examined through a public inquiry, the British home secretary announced on Monday, a necessary step to include sensitive information in the investigation.
Melvin Cravitz and Adrian Daulby were killed during the attack on Yom Kippur on Oct. 2, 2025, when Jihad Al-Shamie rammed a car into a group of worshippers outside the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation in Manchester and stabbed two people. Cravitz died from stab wounds and another man, Andrew Franks, was seriously injured but survived. Daulby was shot by police while blocking the synagogue doors to stop Al-Shamie from entering. Two other people were seriously injured.
Al-Shamie, a Syrian-born British citizen, said he was acting for the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, before police shot him dead.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced the public inquiry in a statement about national security at the House of Commons, saying that “what happened that day must be fully understood.”
“This will ensure that all evidence can be heard, including any sensitive national security material that could not otherwise be fully heard in the coroner’s court,” said Mahmood.
Judge Alexia Durran, the chief coroner of England and Wales, was overseeing inquests into the deaths of Cravitz and Daulby. Durran last month recommended that Mahmood convert the inquests into a public inquiry, following statements from Home Office lawyers that some information from MI5 would be withheld from open court due to national security concerns. A full investigation that involves hearing sensitive material in private requires a public inquiry.
Earlier this year, Greater Manchester Police’s chief constable Stephen Watson said he was “deeply sorry” for a “missed opportunity” to uncover the plot against the Heaton Park synagogue. Watson made the apology after prosecutors revealed that Al-Shamie had two prior arrests for allegedly breaching a non-molestation order and alleged rape, and his mobile devices were not examined until after the synagogue attack.
Mahmood listed “a series of attacks on our Jewish community” in the year since the synagogue attack, including the stabbing of two Jewish men in the London neighborhood of Golders Green, a spate of arson attacks and a “foiled but potentially lethal plot” against Jews in Manchester on the eve of Yom Kippur last month. In the last case, two Iranian men have been charged with terrorism offenses.
“Faced with the threat posed to our Jewish community, we have increased funding to the police by an additional £250 million to boost police presence in key Jewish areas and to tackle antisemitism on our streets,” said Mahmood.
She added, “I know we cannot simply build higher walls around our Jewish community and expect them to live in fear. So we must root out the evil of antisemitism wherever it lurks in society, and this government is committed to that effort.”
Mahmood’s announcement comes days after the Home Office released data showing that hate crimes against Jewish people in England and Wales rose 10% in the year ending in March.
Mahmood said the United Kingdom was aware that “the Iranian state is targeting our Jewish community,” adding that the threat posed to Jews demonstrated “how the lines are increasingly blurring between extremism and state threats.”
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