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Reuben Efron, the CIA agent who tracked JFK’s assassin, tried to recruit his nephew — to be an observant Jew
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Visiting his uncle Reuben in his Washington D.C. law office when he was a teenager, something seemed amiss for Barry Effron.
“There was a wooden desk, and a couple of wooden chairs, [but] there were no bookcases,” he recalled of the visit, which would have taken place in the late 1960s or early 1970s.
Lawyers frequently have legal volumes at arm’s reach, but the absence of bookshelves wasn’t the first gap that Barry and his dad, Irving, had noticed when it came to Irving’s brother. “He had traveled a lot, yet he had no visible means of support,” Effron said this month in an interview.
Reuben Efron did, in fact, have a good job, one that would have come with a pension and a generous expense account. He was a CIA spy, and documents recently declassified by the Biden administration show that Efron was involved in tracking John F. Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, in the years prior.
After that revelation, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency uncovered another side to Efron: a scholar who after his retirement wrote passionately about spies in the Bible, applying the spycraft he learned on the job to assess figures as diverse as Joshua, David and Rahab the courtesan.
Reuben Efron was expansive about his Orthodox faith, Barry Effron recalled, urging Barry to intensify his Jewish observance. “He talked mostly about Judaism, about being religious and being righteous, being prayerful.”
Jewish spies have at times been integral to the American intelligence complex, and at others have been viewed as suspect because of their purported ties to Israel. Efron seems to have been among those who thrived in the service.
Abba Cohen, the Washington director of Agudath Israel of America, whose father was an Orthodox CIA agent, recalled in an email that his parents socialized with the Efrons when they lived in Washington in the 1970s, as members of both the Orthodox and CIA communities.
“I would visit them for dinner after school sometimes, as the Rittenhouse where they lived was across the street from the Hebrew Academy on 16th Street,” he said. “Reuben was an extremely good-natured, low-key, scholarly and modest person.” The friendship between his parents and the Efrons continued after both couples moved to Israel, Cohen said.
After the D.C. visit, the Effrons, father and son, began to put two and two together. (Reuben Efron, the elder brother, and Irving Effron spelled their last names differently.)
“He didn’t have much of a law practice, he knew a lot of languages and he was very, very, very erudite, and he traveled a lot and he had a PhD in international affairs, and he wrote dense scholarly articles that appeared in places like Foreign Affairs Quarterly,” said Barry Effron, who is now a cardiologist in Cleveland. “We thought Reuben was in the CIA.”
The turmoil of the first half of the last century kept the brothers apart for years; Irving Effron was the first to come to the United States, finding work with uncles in Cleveland. Then he returned to their native Lithuania. He used his skills in English to return to the United States via England as Hitler’s shadow loomed larger over Europe; around the same time Reuben managed to arrive in the United States via Cuba. Their widowed mother perished in the Holocaust.
The brothers were not close, but they kept in touch and got together for major occasions; Reuben Efron attended Barry Effron’s bar mitzvah in Cleveland and his wedding in Columbus, and Irving and his wife attended Reuben’s late-in-life wedding to Edna, the “spinster” secretary at the Orthodox synagogue in Miami where Reuben prayed.
The wedding was at the Fontainebleau. Efron in his retirement had purchased an apartment on ritzy Collins Avenue, and also a garden apartment on Keren Hayesod street in the heart of Jerusalem. For Barry Effron, the displays of wealth were additional evidence that there was more to his uncle than met the eye.
Lorri, Barry’s wife, chimed in during his interview, saying she recalled that Reuben Efron’s Jerusalem apartment was near those of government officials (he lived a five-minute walk away from the prime minister’s residence). “He used to have meetings,” she said. (Barry Effron did not recall that detail.)
When they visited him, whether it was in Miami or in Jerusalem, much of the conversation was about Jewish observance, Effron recalled.
“He was proud of his religion, he believed in Jewish law and he believed in kashrut, he believed in davening and all that so he was particularly interested in passing it on,” Effron said. “He had no children of his own, so he was interested in conveying his love of Judaism to his nephew and niece,” Barry’s sister.
He was taken with his great-nieces, Barry and Lorri Effron’s daughters. One had bright blue eyes; he would call her a “shayneh maydeleh,” Yiddish for pretty girl. One of the last times they saw him before he died in 1993, at a home for the elderly in Florida, the girls joined him in Shabbat prayers.
Barry’s family was all Reuben had, Barry Effron said, besides his wife, Edna. “He had my dad and then he had my sister and me,” he said.
Irving Effron was proud of his brother. Effron recalled that his father kept copies of Foreign Policy Quarterly, with its august gray cover and its thick interiors paginated by volume instead of by issue, inside a desk drawer. He was thrilled to see his brother’s name on the same contents page that had featured luminaries like Henry Kissinger.
“My dad was very proud of it, even though he probably didn’t understand the article and of course I didn’t as a young kid or a teenager, but that was pretty exciting,” Effron said.
After Reuben Efron died in 1993 and Irving Effron died in 1996, Barry Effron took to searching for clues about his uncle on the Internet. He soon realized that his and his father’s guess, that Reuben was a CIA agent, was correct.
One piece of evidence was Efron’s presence as a translator for Marina Oswald, the assassin’s Russian-speaking widow, when she was interrogated by the congressional committee investigating the assassination. Another was his uncle’s involvement in the alleged sighting of a UFO in the Soviet Union, while accompanying U.S. Sen. Richard Russell, a Georgia Democrat on a visit to the Soviet Union.
“The guy’s traveling in Russia at the height of the Cold War in 1957, with a congressman, he’s obviously a CIA attache of some kind,” he said.
Barry Effron was in Israel recently for a wedding. He sought out the Keren Hayesod address where his uncle once lived.
“It’s now a very wealthy area in Jerusalem,” he said. He would have ventured closer, but he couldn’t find parking.
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The post Reuben Efron, the CIA agent who tracked JFK’s assassin, tried to recruit his nephew — to be an observant Jew appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Jewish Family Fears London Doctor’s Antisemitism Influenced Their Disabled Son’s Treatment
Dr. Ellen Kriesels at an anti-Israel rally. Photo: Screenshot
In London, an investigation has started into a doctor after the family of a disabled Jewish boy uncovered her long trail of antisemitic social media writings, another expression of an ongoing trend of antisemitic bigotry manifesting in medical settings.
Dr. Ellen Kriesels works as a consultant pediatrician at Whittington Health NHS Trust and serves as clinical lead for community pediatrics. She has been suspended pending a formal inquiry, according to British media reports. The family — who remains unnamed — cares for a son who lives with cerebral palsy and multiple other conditions. Members of the boy’s family told The Times they were “horrified” that a physician treating him had publicly claimed that “virtually every Jew has some feelings of supremacy” and that “world Jewry” was complicit in “slaughtering Palestinians.”
An example of the online postings of Dr. Ellen Kriesels, a consultant pediatrician at Whittington Health NHS Trust. Photo: Screenshot
Kriesels attended an anti-Israel rally in London on Sept. 6 carrying a placard that paired the Star of David with words such as “rape,” “steal,” and “kill.” On her X account she alleged that Israel’s actions in Gaza proved Jews “slaughter Palestinians precisely because they are not Jewish,” while writing that one should understand the Hamas terrorists killed during the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel as “oppressed resistance fighters.”
The boy’s parents had already grown apprehensive after confronting Kriesels about her choice to wear a pro-Palestinian lanyard during an appointment. They filed a fresh complaint when they discovered she had failed to refer their son for specialist treatment as part of his transition to adult care. They argued the lapse, coupled with her public antisemitism, raised urgent questions about the safety of the patients under her care.
The child’s father identified himself as “Brian” but chose not to reveal his last name to The Times.
“I am horrified that according to the logic of this doctor, set out in public statements, that because my paraplegic, non-verbal son is brought up in a Jewish household that he harbors genocidal intentions and believes himself superior,” he said. “This is factually impossible and profoundly discriminatory. A professional who publicly expresses such views cannot be regarded as safe to work with vulnerable children or adults. It is deeply concerning that she was permitted to be involved in my son’s care.”
Whittington Health apologized to the family, saying the doctor was not currently scheduled to work, while the General Medical Council confirmed it had started to review the case. “Antisemitism has no place in health care,” a spokesperson said. Britain’s health department also condemned the remarks, promising zero tolerance for hate inside the National Health Service.
The United Kingdom has seen similar controversies around antisemitism’s invasions into health-care settings.
At University College London Hospitals (UCLH), posters appeared on walls with the claim that “Zionism is poison” and the accusation that the Jewish state had been “slaughtering children in Gaza.” The hospital apologized and promised it would crack down on enforcing policies intended to prevent the promotion of political ideologies to patients.
Another high-profile case involved midwife Fatimah Mohamied, who resigned from Chelsea and Westminster Hospital after UK Lawyers for Israel exposed a series of anti-Israel posts — including an Oct. 8, 2023, message celebrating “Palestinians’ right to resist” the day after the most lethal day for the Jewish people since the end of the Holocaust. Mohamied has since filed a lawsuit claiming her supervisors illegally suppressed her pro-advocacy.
The antisemitic incidents in the UK’s hospitals parallel those in other countries.
In the Netherlands, police investigated a nurse accused of threatening to administer lethal injections to Israeli patients.
In Australia, two nurses filmed themselves bragging online about refusing to treat Israelis, making throat-slitting gestures, and boasting of killing Jews. Both lost their licenses and now face criminal charges.
In Belgium, a hospital suspended one of its physicians after discovering antisemitic cartoons on his social media accounts. The posts included a cartoon showing several babies decapitated by the tip of a Star of David, along with an AI-generated image portraying Hasidic Jews as vampires poised to devour a sleeping baby. The doctor came under fire after he recently diagnosed a nine-year-old patient by listing “Jewish (Israeli)” as one of her medical problems on his report.
A December survey by the Jewish civil rights group StandWithUs found 40 percent of Jewish health-care professionals in the US had faced antisemitism at work; in Canada, the number reached 80 percent.
Kriesels’ decision to showcase her antisemitic ideology on X aligns with a notable cohort of users who feel compelled to broadcast their bigotry on the social media platform owned by billionaire Elon Musk, who currently reigns as the world’s wealthiest man.
A recent study by the Combat Antisemitism Movement shows the scale of the problem: in a random 10-minute window surveying X on Sept. 6, analysts found that 82 percent of posts using the word “Jew” promoted antisemitism.
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New York Gov. Kathy Hochul Faces Backlash Over Endorsement of ‘Raging Antisemite’ Zohran Mamdani for NYC Mayor
Candidate Zohran Mamdani speaks during a Democratic New York City mayoral primary debate, June 4, 2025, in New York, US. Photo: Yuki Iwamura/Pool via REUTERS
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) is facing sharp criticism after endorsing far-left state Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani for mayor of New York City, with some US lawmakers describing the Democrat from Queens known for his fierce criticism of Israel as a “communist” and antisemitic.
Amid mounting pressure from progressive Democrats, Hochul endorsed Mamdani’s mayoral campaign in a New York Times op-ed on Sunday. The governor cited Mamdani’s emphasis on “public safety and making “New York City affordable.”
“We discussed the need to combat the rise of antisemitism urgently and unequivocally,” Hochul wrote. “I’ve been glad to see him meet with Jewish leaders across the city, listening and addressing their concerns directly.”
In the immediate aftermath of the endorsement, Hochul faced a withering denunciation from US Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), who argued that the governor now supports a “raging antisemite communist.” She asserted that Hochul now “owns” Mamdani’s left-wing positions to “defund the police, abolish our law enforcement, abolish prisons, abolish private health-care insurance.”
Stefanik also accused Hochul of lending credibility to Mamdani’s “antisemitism, which put New York at risk and is a danger to the Jewish community in New York City.”
Stefanik, who serves on the House Republican leadership, is widely expected to run for governor of New York in 2026. Though a recent Sienna College poll shows Hochul maintaining a formidable lead over Stefanik, the margin has decreased from 23 points in June to 14 points in August.
US President Donald Trump also ripped into Hochul for endorsing Mamdani.
“Governor Kathy Hochul of New York has endorsed the ‘Liddle Communist,’ Zohran Mamdani, running for Mayor of New York,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “This is a rather shocking development, and a very bad one for New York City. How can such a thing happen? Washington will be watching this situation very closely. No reason to be sending good money after bad!”
US Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) also chimed in, calling Hochul’s endorsement of Mamdani “a complete and total disaster for our state and for the country.”
In previous elections, Hochul has enjoyed robust support from Jewish communities in Crown Heights, Borough Park, and the Five Towns. Some observers have speculated that her embrace of Mamdani threatens to fracture her base of support among Jewish voters.
A little-known politician before this year’s Democratic primary campaign, Mamdani is an outspoken supporter of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward its eventual elimination.
Mamdani has also repeatedly refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, falsely suggesting the country does not offer “equal rights” for all its citizens, and promised to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits New York.
Mamdani also initially defended the phrase “globalize the intifada” — which references previous periods of sustained Palestinian terrorism against Jews and Israels and has been widely interpreted as a call to expand political violence — by invoking the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising during World War II. However, Mamdani has since backpedaled on his support for the phrase, saying that he would discourage his supporters from using the slogan.
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Leading Nonprofit Holds ‘Antisemitism Symposium’ in Washington, DC for College Administrators
Visitors enter the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, MA on June 3, 2025. Photo: Jason Bergman/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
College administrators from across the US will amass in Washington, DC, this week for a three-day symposium on combating campus antisemitism, a sign of growing recognition that anti-Jewish hatred threatens not only Jewish students but all of higher education.
Organized by the Academic Engagement Network (AEN), which promotes academic freedom unfettered by boycotts and ideology, the event will be attended by administrators representing dozens of institutions such as Harvard University, Barnard College, and George Washington University, all of which have drawn scrutiny for responding to campus antisemitism in ways that critics — including Jewish community leaders and senior US officials — have described as insufficient if not dismissive.
Dozens of conversations and seminars will be held over the three-day “Antisemitism Symposium,” with many being led by AEN faculty, as well as staff from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and experts from the Jewish Federations of North America and the American Jewish Committee.
“College administrators are the ones tasked with recognizing and addressing antisemitism on campus, as well as setting the tone for behavioral expectations and campus culture,” Miriam Elman, executive director of AEN, said in a statement. “Today’s antisemitism, though, often takes forms that can be less familiar or harder to identify, making it all the more important to provide campus leaders with the tools, training, and support they need to recognize and respond effectively.”
She continued, “By hosting this convening and bringing these administrators together for a yearlong learning journey, we ensure they are not tackling these unique challenges in isolation, but as part of a national network committed to fostering welcoming, inclusive, and safe learning environments for all.”
The AEN symposium comes amid a concerted effort by American Jewish and allied organizations to persuade higher education leaders of the importance of taking steps to deter, or quell, antisemitism in the early weeks of the new academic year.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Jewish Federations of North America, Hillel International, and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations issued a joint statement calling for action in August, putting forth a policy framework that they say will quell antisemitism if applied sincerely and consistently. It included “enhanced communication and policy enforcement,” “dedicated administration oversight,” and “faculty accountability” — an issue of rising importance given the number of faculty accused of inciting discrimination.
“These recommendations aren’t just suggestions; they’re essential steps universities need to take to ensure Jewish students can learn without fear,” ADL chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement at the time. “Jewish students are being forced to hide who they are, and that’s unacceptable — we need more administrators to step up.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, colleges campus across the US erupted with effusions of antisemitic activity following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, an uprising which included calling for the destruction of Israel, cheering Hamas’s sexual assaulting of women as an instrument of war, and numerous of incidents of assault and harassment targeting Jewish students, faculty, and activists.
At the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), anti-Zionist protesters chanted “Itbah El Yahud” at Bruin Plaza, which means “slaughter the Jews” in Arabic. At Columbia University, Jews were gang-assaulted, a student proclaimed that Zionist Jews deserve to be murdered and are lucky he is not doing so himself, and administrative officials, outraged at the notion that Jews organized to resist anti-Zionism, participated in a group chat in which each member took turns sharing antisemitic tropes that described Jews as privileged and grafting. At Harvard University, an October 2023 anti-Israel demonstration degenerated into chaos when Ibrahim Bharmal, former editor of the prestigious Harvard Law Review, and Elom Tettey-Tamaklo encircled a Jewish student with a mob that screamed “Shame! Shame! Shame!” at him while he desperately attempted to free himself from the mass of bodies.
More recently, Eden Deckerhoff — a female student at Florida State University — allegedly assaulted a Jewish male classmate at the Leach Student Recreation Center after noticing his wearing apparel issued by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
“F—k Israel, Free Palestine. Put it [the video] on Barstool FSU. I really don’t give a f—k,” the woman said before shoving the man, according to video taken by the victim. “You’re an ignorant son of a b—h.” Deckerhoff has since been charged with misdemeanor battery.
Majorities of Jewish students continue to describe their campuses as hostile environments.
According to a recent Spring Campus Poll conducted by The Daily Northwestern, the official campus newspaper of Northwestern University, 58 percent of Jewish students reported being subjected to antisemitism or knowing someone who has. An even higher 63.1 percent said antisemitism remains a “somewhat or very serious problem.”
Meanwhile, a Columbia University “climate survey” conducted last academic year found that 53 percent of Jewish students have been subjected to discrimination because of being Jewish, while another 53 percent reported that their friendships are “strained” because of how overwhelmingly anti-Zionist the student culture is. Additionally, 29 percent of Jewish students said they have “lost close friends,” and 59 percent, nearly two-thirds, of Jewish students sensed that they would be better off by electing to “conform their political beliefs” to those of their classmates.
Nearly 62 percent of Jewish students reported a low “feeling of acceptance” at Columbia on the basis of their religious identity, and 50 percent said that the pro-Hamas encampments which capped off the 2023-2024 academic year had a negative “impact” on their daily routines. Also, Jewish students at Columbia are more likely than their peers to report these negative feelings and experiences, followed by Muslim students.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.