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Phylisa Wisdom to head New York Jewish Agenda, 3-year-old progressive advocacy group
(New York Jewish Week) — New York Jewish Agenda, a progressive Jewish advocacy organization, has named a successor to its founding executive director.
Phylisa Wisdom, 37, joins the organization after a year as director of development and government affairs at Yaffed, whose mission is to improve the quality of secular education in New York’s Hasidic and haredi yeshivas. She is taking over the position from Matt Nosanchuk, NYJA’s founding president and executive director, who will continue to be involved with the organization as a member of its board of directors, as per a press release.
Joining NYJA is a “long-term dream come true,” Wisdom, 37, told the New York Jewish Week.
Wisdom, whose first day on the job was Monday, has experience in advocacy through political campaigns, nonprofits and government agencies. She has held roles at the Brooklyn Democratic County Committee, Literacy Trust and the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services.
Founded in 2020 by Rabbis Rachel Timoner and Sharon Kleinbaum along with Nosanchuk, the New York Jewish Agenda works to support and amplify the voices of Jewish community leaders “whose shared values motivate them to promote social justice, combat antisemitism, and support a democratic vision of Israel,” according to its website. “We engage on critical issues across New York City and State through advocacy, education, and collaboration.”
The organization has been involved with a wide range of issues and topics such as health, criminal justice reform, antisemitism, and advocating for Israel’s democracy. Most recently, NYJA has advocated for better representation of New York City’s Jewish community in Mayor Eric Adams’ Jewish Advisory Council.
“Phylisa Wisdom is exactly the right leader for this moment,” Timoner, NYJA co-founder and board member, said in the press release. “She’ll bring an inspiring and incisive voice to ensure that the majority of New York’s Jews are represented and heard.”
Wisdom said she hopes as executive director to build upon NYJA’s work of engaging the city and state on these issues. She’s also hoping to widen the group’s purview.
“I’m excited to build out our portfolio in other areas of interest,” Wisdom said. “So that’s really in public health, in immigration, in education, both public and private, and in supporting the climate. So really looking at state and city budget priorities, engaging our Leaders Network in those practices related to the budget, and making sure that our Leaders Network and founders, and the entire Jewish community’s voices are heard on these issues as well.”
A native of San Diego, Wisdom “came of age doing Jewish activism,” she said, describing her connection to Judaism as “largely through activism and engagement, community engagement and really a deep commitment to tikkun olam that was nurtured from a very young age, both by my parents and family and also my extended community.”
Wisdom’s years of activism began with registering voters as a teen; while in high school, she also joined the Union for Reform Judaism’s Religious Action Center in lobbying for reproductive justice.
Professionally, Wisdom, who has a masters in public policy, has worked with children with special needs for many years, including at the Executive Office of Health and Human Services in Massachusetts. There, as a public policy fellow, she worked on teen antiviolence programming.
Wisdom arrived in Brooklyn in 2017, fulfilling what she said was a long-held dream to live in New York. “My grandmother is from here and I’ve always loved the city,” she wrote in an email. She said she’s an avid consumer of the city’s restaurants, museums and arts and that while she does not belong to a synagogue, she has many Israeli friends and aims to become more involved with Brooklyn Jews, the young-adult division of Timoner’s Congregation Beth Elohim.
Wisdom’s path to Yaffed followed a stint working at the literacy nonprofit. There, she collaborated with the city’s Department of Education to ensure that students who needed literacy support had access to it. That led her to Yaffed, where she advocated for the needs of yeshiva studentsFrom there, she joined Yaffed to advocate for the needs of yeshiva students.
“I was really looking for a way to combine the love of education and making sure that kids got what they needed in their educational lives, and the public sector,” she said. Likewise, she said, she believes her new role offers opportunities to blend her passions.
“I am really excited that I can take all of those experiences and circle back to a Jewish community and be able to do that work and combine these passions,” Wisdom said.
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The post Phylisa Wisdom to head New York Jewish Agenda, 3-year-old progressive advocacy group appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Iran and the United States agreed on Saturday to task experts to start drawing up a framework for a potential nuclear deal, Iran’s foreign minister said, after a second round of talks following President Donald Trump’s threat of military action.
At their second indirect meeting in a week, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi negotiated for almost four hours in Rome with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, through an Omani official who shuttled messages between them.
Trump, who abandoned a 2015 nuclear pact between Tehran and world powers during his first term in 2018, has threatened to attack Iran unless it reaches a new deal swiftly that would prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, says it is willing to discuss limited curbs to its atomic work in return for lifting international sanctions.
Speaking on state TV after the talks, Araqchi described them as useful and conducted in a constructive atmosphere.
“We were able to make some progress on a number of principles and goals, and ultimately reached a better understanding,” he said.
“It was agreed that negotiations will continue and move into the next phase, in which expert-level meetings will begin on Wednesday in Oman. The experts will have the opportunity to start designing a framework for an agreement.”
The top negotiators would meet again in Oman next Saturday to “review the experts’ work and assess how closely it aligns with the principles of a potential agreement,” he added.
Echoing cautious comments last week from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, he added: “We cannot say for certain that we are optimistic. We are acting very cautiously. There is no reason either to be overly pessimistic.”
There was no immediate comment from the US side following the talks. Trump told reporters on Friday: “I’m for stopping Iran, very simply, from having a nuclear weapon. They can’t have a nuclear weapon. I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific.”
Washington’s ally Israel, which opposed the 2015 agreement with Iran that Trump abandoned in 2018, has not ruled out an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming months, according to an Israeli official and two other people familiar with the matter.
Since 2019, Iran has breached and far surpassed the 2015 deal’s limits on its uranium enrichment, producing stocks far above what the West says is necessary for a civilian energy program.
A senior Iranian official, who described Iran’s negotiating position on condition of anonymity on Friday, listed its red lines as never agreeing to dismantle its uranium enriching centrifuges, halt enrichment altogether or reduce its enriched uranium stockpile below levels agreed in the 2015 deal.
The post Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike
Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of Edan Alexander, 19, an Israeli army volunteer kidnapped by Hamas, attends a special Kabbalat Shabbat ceremony with families of other hostages, in Herzliya, Israel October 27, 2023 REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
Hamas said on Saturday the fate of an Israeli dual national soldier believed to be the last US citizen held alive in Gaza was unknown, after the body of one of the guards who had been holding him was found killed by an Israeli strike.
A month after Israel abandoned the ceasefire with the resumption of intensive strikes across the breadth of Gaza, Israel was intensifying its attacks.
President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said in March that freeing Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old New Jersey native who was serving in the Israeli army when he was captured during the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks that precipitated the war, was a “top priority.” His release was at the center of talks held between Hamas leaders and US negotiator Adam Boehler last month.
Hamas had said on Tuesday that it had lost contact with the militants holding Alexander after their location was hit in an Israeli attack. On Saturday it said the body of one of the guards had been recovered.
“The fate of the prisoner and the rest of the captors remains unknown,” said Hamas armed wing Al-Qassam Brigades’ spokesperson Abu Ubaida.
“We are trying to protect all the hostages and preserve their lives … but their lives are in danger because of the criminal bombings by the enemy’s army,” Abu Ubaida said.
The Israeli military did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Hamas released 38 hostages under the ceasefire that began on January 19. Fifty-nine are still believed to be held in Gaza, fewer than half of them still alive.
Israel put Gaza under a total blockade in March and restarted its assault on March 18 after talks failed to extend the ceasefire. Hamas says it will free remaining hostages only under an agreement that permanently ends the war; Israel says it will agree only to a temporary pause.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it hit about 40 targets across the enclave over the past day. The military on Saturday announced that a 35-year-old soldier had died in combat in Gaza.
NETANYAHU STATEMENT
Late on Thursday Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas’ Gaza chief, said the movement was willing to swap all remaining 59 hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel in return for an end to the war and reconstruction of Gaza.
He dismissed an Israeli offer, which includes a demand that Hamas lay down its arms, as imposing “impossible conditions.”
Israel has not responded formally to Al-Hayya’s comments, but ministers have said repeatedly that Hamas must be disarmed completely and can play no role in the future governance of Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to give a statement later on Saturday.
Hamas on Saturday also released an undated and edited video of Israeli hostage Elkana Bohbot. Hamas has released several videos over the course of the war of hostages begging to be released. Israeli officials have dismissed past videos as propaganda.
After the video was released, Bohbot’s family said in a statement that they were “deeply shocked and devastated,” and expressed concern for his mental and physical condition.
“How much longer will he be expected to wait and ‘stay strong’?” the family asked, urging for all of the 59 hostages who are still held in Gaza to be brought home.
The post Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks
FILE PHOTO: Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said gives a speech after being sworn in before the royal family council in Muscat, Oman January 11, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Sultan Al Hasani/File Photo
Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said is set to visit Moscow on Monday, days after the start of a round of Muscat-mediated nuclear talks between the US and Iran.
The sultan will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, the Kremlin said.
Iran and the US started a new round of nuclear talks in Rome on Saturday to resolve their decades-long standoff over Tehran’s atomic aims, under the shadow of President Donald Trump’s threat to unleash military action if diplomacy fails.
Ahead of Saturday’s talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Following the meeting, Lavrov said Russia was “ready to assist, mediate and play any role that will be beneficial to Iran and the USA.”
Moscow has played a role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations in the past as a veto-wielding U.N. Security Council member and signatory to an earlier deal that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.
The sultan’s meetings in Moscow visit will focus on cooperation on regional and global issues, the Omani state news agency and the Kremlin said, without providing further detail.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss trade and economic ties, the Kremlin added.
The post Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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