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A Jewish dad says he’s afraid to light a menorah this Hanukkah. So he’s asking non-Jews to display them in solidarity.
(JTA) — When Adam Kulbersh’s 6-year-old son Jack asked when they would be putting up their Hanukkah decorations this year, Kulbersh wasn’t sure if it was such a good idea.
With reports of antisemitism on the rise — exacerbated by the war between Israel and Hamas — Kulbersh, an actor and single father who lives in Los Angeles, said he was afraid to publicly identify his family as Jewish. In the past few months alone, multiple antisemitic incidents have rattled the L.A. Jewish community — including a home invasion in which locals believe the house was targeted because of the mezuzah signifying that Jews live there.
When Kulbersh relayed his concerns to his friend Jennifer Marshall, who is not Jewish, he recalled that her response was immediate: “She said, ‘We’re not Jewish, but we’ll put a menorah in our window for you as a show of solidarity, and in the hopes that it gives you whatever you might need in order to put one in yours,” Kulbersh told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The gesture moved Kulbersh — so much so that it inspired him to launch an online campaign he’s calling “Project Menorah,” which encourages non-Jews to display menorahs, or photographs of them, in their windows during Hanukkah and to share photographs online to show solidarity. The campaign began last week, ahead of the holiday, which begins Thursday night. It has quickly spread on social media, where people are tagging Project Menorah in pictures of their holiday displays featuring newly added menorahs.
“I think right now people want to help but they don’t know what to say,” Kulbersh said. “People are afraid of saying the wrong thing, being canceled, of not knowing what they should say or how to say it. But what this friend did, out of love, a simple gesture, meant so much to me.”
For Marshall, a longtime friend of Kulbersh who lives nearby, it was an easy decision.
“I was just sad that Jack and Adam couldn’t celebrate Hanukkah the way that they wanted to,” Marshall told JTA. “Part of me felt like there wasn’t really much I could do. And I thought, I’m going to get a menorah, and I’m going to put it in my window and I’m going to take a picture of it and I’m going to send it to Jack. It was actually very simple. I just wanted Jack to know — and Adam, but Jack, this young boy — that his celebration of Hanukkah was important.”
Marshall, who runs an advertising agency and has helped out Kulbersh with his son since Jack was young, said emulating the Jewish custom of placing menorahs in the window — in public view — was “the most natural thing to do to say ‘I stand with you.’”
Jennifer Marshall posing with her menorah; an Instagram graphic advertising “Project Menorah.” (Courtesy of Jennifer Marshall; screenshot from Instagram)
She also views it as an important conversation starter.
“It’s an opportunity for the people who walk by my house or come to my house to have a conversation,” Marshall said. “I wanted it to be something private for Jack, and at the same time, I wanted it to be something public for every Jewish person.”
Kulbersh said the response to his campaign, including from rabbis, has been overwhelmingly positive. He’s seen posts from dozens of U.S. states — he said he stopped counting after 22 — as well as from Australia, Germany, Italy, Canada and the United Kingdom. In one representative Facebook post, an orthodontist in Dallas shared the project and offered to buy menorahs for any of his non-Jewish friends who wanted to participate.
“We’re in a time of awful antisemitism, historic levels,” Kulbersh said. “I think the idea of inviting our non-Jewish allies to add their light to ours in a time of darkness has really moved people.”
Kulbersh’s campaign is the latest instance of non-Jews using Jewish symbols to express solidarity.
In a famous example from Billings, Montana, in 1993, thousands of people displayed menorahs in their windows after a brick was thrown through the bedroom window of a 5-year-old Jewish boy who had a menorah displayed. The episode inspired the award-winning documentary “Not In Our Town” along with campaigns preaching tolerance.
And just last month in Los Angeles, non-Jews offered to put mezuzahs up on their doorposts to show solidarity with their Jewish neighbors after the antisemitic break-in rattled the community.
Though Kulbersh’s campaign resembles the response in Montana, neither he nor Marshall had heard the story until he launched Project Menorah. Kulbersh said he chose the symbolism of the menorah because of Marshall’s reaction — had she offered to display a dreidel, he said, the campaign would have been centered around that instead.
“What I love about the story of Billings is it proves the point that in every era, the bigots find a reason to hate us,” he said. “And in every era, the Jewish people find the courage to stand up to it. And in every era, there are allies who find the compassion to stand with us.”
For some, the initiative is raising uncomfortable questions, including about whether relying on non-Jews to create real or perceived security is healthy for Jews, and whether it is appropriate to give non-Jews license to use Jewish symbols.
“I believe relying on camouflaging your Jewish identity and plausibly denying your Jewishness, or in this case having our non-Jewish neighbors light menorahs to help us do so, to survive, is spiritually damaging,” wrote one man in Austin, Texas, on Facebook after the Jewish communal organization there, Shalom Austin, promoted Project Menorah.
Kulbersh acknowledged that some view the use of Jewish religious symbols by non-Jews as problematic — or even cultural appropriation. He emphasized that Project Menorah is different.
“This is an act of solidarity in a time of historic antisemitic violence. We are not asking anyone to perform a religious ritual,” Kulbersh said. “We’re asking people to take an easily recognizable symbol of a Jewish holiday and put it in their window to show their friends and neighbors that they’re safe.”
Wil Gafney, a pastor, activist and professor at Brite Divinity School in Texas, told JTA she is worried about Christians using Jewish symbols without proper approval from Jews, a trend that has included Passover seders and the use of shofars in right-wing rallies.
“There is a swath of Christianity, primarily evangelical and sometimes fundamentalist, that appropriate Jewish holidays, rituals and ritual objects in a way that the majority of Jewish voices in the public and social media spaces I inhabit and the persons in my extended community and family find extraordinarily objectionable,” Gafney said in an email to JTA.
“My first thoughts about this project when I saw it on my social media was that this contradicts the message of Christians leaving Jewish things alone and may well embolden some who now feel they have license and permission to use Jewish ritual objects.”
Marshall said she doesn’t know if it should be considered appropriation but said she has not received any pushback for her menorah.
“If anybody knows me, they know that it would just come from a place of love,” she said. “It was a very simple gesture of love for Jack and the Jewish community.”
For Rabbi Emily Cohen, who leads the Reconstructionist West End Synagogue in New York City, the idea of non-Jews using a Jewish ritual object without a full understanding of it, or without a connection to a Jewish community, is troubling. She does, however, like the idea of non-Jews displaying photographs of menorahs.
“That’s something that makes it clear, I’m not actually lighting a menorah, but I am putting up this photo that shows that I care about the Jewish community and I don’t want them to feel alone at this season,” Cohen said.
Cohen added that to her, the best forms of solidarity are ones that are grounded in relationships, not just a simple social media post. In other words, she said, the best way for non-Jews to show they care about their Jewish friends and neighbors is to support them as they “do Jewish with other Jews,” Cohen said.
She cited the example of a group of Muslims who, after the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in 2018, gathered outside Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, the prominent LGBTQ synagogue in New York.
“They were not going to the service, they were just standing outside to offer that solidarity and protection for their Jewish neighbors as they were going through this horrible moment after this attack,” Cohen recalled. “That’s the thing with solidarity: if you’re engaging in solidarity without actually engaging in relationship, that doesn’t feel as valid as if you’re engaging in relationship as part of your show of solidarity.”
Kulbersh said he welcomes the dialogue about whether non-Jews should display menorahs. “I love that about Judaism — we debate, we discuss,” he said.
But ultimately, Kulbersh added, he wasn’t looking to start a movement. In fact, he said his hope is that “there is no future for Project Menorah, because there will be no need for it again.”
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The post A Jewish dad says he’s afraid to light a menorah this Hanukkah. So he’s asking non-Jews to display them in solidarity. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Sen. Rick Scott Donates Salary to US Holocaust Memorial Museum
US Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) on Capitol Hill in Washington, US, Dec. 7, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
US Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) announced on Wednesday that he will donate a portion of his Senate salary to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, underscoring what he called the urgent need to combat antisemitism at home and abroad as threats to Jewish communities escalate.
Scott, who has given part of his congressional salary since joining the Senate in 2019, said his gift was motivated by the growing dangers facing Jewish people and the importance of ensuring younger generations understand the Holocaust.
“Ann and I are proud to support the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Years ago, Ann and I brought our daughters to the Auschwitz memorial and museum in Poland because it was so important to us that they learned about the Holocaust and understood the horrors that occurred,” he said in a statement.
“It’s so important that every generation understands the atrocities of the Holocaust, and the museum does an incredible job teaching those lessons to millions of people every year. By sharing the stories of those who survived and those who were murdered, providing critical resources to educators, and reminding each of us what it means when we say ‘Never Again,’ it is a vital institution,” he added.
Scott also recounted taking his daughters years ago to Auschwitz in Poland, describing the visit as an effort to show them the catastrophic consequences of unchecked hatred against Jews.
The senator tied his donation to the approaching second anniversary of the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel, the deadliest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Palestinian terrorists killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages during the onslaught.
“As we approach the second anniversary of Oct. 7, Ann and I are proud to support the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s meaningful work defending the truth of the Holocaust and their important efforts to teach its relevance for today,” Scott said.
Scott’s office did not disclose the specific amount of the donation.
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Texas State University Silent on Status of Professor Who Incited Violent Attack on Jews at Public Library
West Asheville Library in North Carolina. Photo: Screenshot/buncombecounty.org.
Texas State University is refusing to disclose whether it still currently employs a far-left professor who was filmed inciting a riotous assault on three pro-Israel individuals who peacefully spectated an anti-Israel presentation that was held in June 2024 at the West Asheville Library in North Carolina.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, two of the victims, David Moritz and Monica Buckley, are Jewish, and one is cancer patient Bob Campbell, an 80-year-old military veteran. Their assailants kicked, punched, and dragged them out of the event, titled “Strategic Lessons From the Palestinian Resistance,” after Texas State University assistant professor of philosophy Idris Atsu Robinson spotted them in the audience and invited the 60-80 anti-Israel partisans in attendance to decide their fates.
At one point during harrowing footage taken of the incident, Robinson suggested that the encounter could lead to “murder.” At no point did he deescalate the situation and even seemed to find humor in igniting the passions of a mob.
Responding to an Algemeiner inquiry on Thursday, a Texas State media relations official declined to comment on Robinson’s employment status, saying the university “does not discuss personnel matters.”
The university has been asked before to account for its handling of Robinson.
In June, the StandWithUs Saidoff Legal Department, a pro-Israel nonprofit that seeks to combat antisemitism, notified the school of Robinson’s conduct and rhetoric. According to StandWithUs, “university sources” confirmed that he will not be teaching during the fall semester of the 2025-2026 academic year. However, the university would not comment on the matter “due to the confidential nature of personnel matters,” making it unclear whether Robinson is still employed by Texas State and will teach there in the future.
StandWithUs says Texas State should state Robinson’s employment status, share findings amassed during an internal investigation of him, and produce any previous complaints which accused him of wrongdoing.
“It is critical that universities protect Jewish and Zionist students by refusing to provide a classroom platform to faculty members unlawfully promoting antisemitic hate and violence,” Michael Scheinman, Saidoff Legal Department assistant director of campus and community affairs, told The Algemeiner on Wednesday. “Schools that do not act and fail to implement strong safeguards risk exposing their students to the same hatred and violence suffered by the victims of this attack.”
He added, “StandWithUS Saidoff Legal continues to support the victims of this horrendous hate incident by coordinating with law enforcement, helping to identify masked perpetrators, and urging Texas State University to condemn the antisemitic conduct that contributed to this violence.”
By his own words, Robinson took immense pride in what transpired in Asheville, North Carolina last year. Commenting on the matter the next day while being interviewed on a podcast produced by the organizers of the event, he argued for “popular riots” and “divine violence,” saying explicitly that “terrorists” reserve the right to “take the life of the oppressor.”
“My arms are chewed up,” Campbell, a Navy veteran, told The Algemeiner during an interview which followed the assault. He added that medical staff at a local US Veterans Affairs facility identified “severe contusions” on his body.
“What really upset me — I was [lying] on the floor, and this big guy was on top of me,” Campbell recalled. “The librarian came to the door, looked me right in the eye, turned around and walked back and didn’t do a damn thing. Didn’t call the police.”
The activists proved equally merciless to the other victims, putting Moritz in a headlock and heaving Buckley outside and ordering her not to free herself from their grip.
Expressions of anti-Zionism are escalating to violence more frequently, as previously reported by The Algemeiner.
Earlier this month, Eden Deckerhoff — a female student at Florida State University (FSU) — 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.
According to the Tallahassee Democrat, Deckerhoff has denied assaulting the student when questioned by investigators, telling them, “No I did not shove him at all; I never put my hands on him.” However, law enforcement charged her with misdemeanor battery and described the incident in court documents as seen in viral footage of the incident, acknowledging that Deckerhoff “appears to touch [the man’s] left shoulder.” Despite her denial, the Democrat noted, she has offered to apologize.
In June, a gunman murdered two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, while they exited an event at the Capital Jewish Museum hosted by a major Jewish organization. The suspect charged for the double murder, 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, yelled “Free Palestine” while being arrested by police after the shooting, according to video of the incident. The FBI affidavit supporting the criminal charges against Rodriguez stated that he told law enforcement he “did it for Gaza.”
Less than two weeks later, a man firebombed a crowd of people who were participating in a demonstration to raise awareness of the Israeli hostages who remain imprisoned by Hamas in Gaza. A victim of the attack, Karen Diamond, 82, later died, having sustained severe, fatal injuries.
Another antisemitic incident motivated by anti-Zionism occurred in San Francisco, where an assailant identified by law enforcement as Juan Diaz-Rivas and others allegedly beat up a Jewish victim in the middle of the night. Diaz-Rivas and his friends approached the victim while shouting “F—k the Jews, Free Palestine,” according to local prosecutors.
“[O]ne of them punched the victim, who fell to the ground, hit his head and lost consciousness,” the San Francisco district attorney’s office said in a statement. “Allegedly, Mr. Diaz-Rivas and others in the group continued to punch and kick the victim while he was down. A worker at a nearby business heard the altercation and antisemitic language and attempted to intervene. While trying to help the victim, he was kicked and punched.”
According to the latest data released by the FBI, antisemitic hate crimes in the US have been tallying to break all previous statistical records. In 2024, even as hate crimes decreased overall, those perpetrated against Jews increased by 5.8 percent in 2024 to 1,938, the largest total recorded in over 30 years of the FBI’s counting them. Jewish American groups have noted that this surge, which included 178 assaults, is being experienced by a demographic group which constitutes just 2 percent of the US population.
A striking 69 percent of all religion-based hate crimes that were reported to the FBI in 2024 targeted Jews, with 2,041 out of 2,942 total such incidents being antisemitic in nature. Muslims were targeted the next highest amount as the victims of 256 offenses, or about 9 percent of the total.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Europeans Launch UN Sanctions Process Against Iran, Drawing Tehran’s Ire
Satellite image shows buildings at Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center, before Israel launched an attack on Iran targeting nuclear facilities, in Isfahan, Iran, May 17, 2025. Photo: Planet Labs PBC via REUTERS
Britain, France, and Germany on Thursday launched a 30-day process to reimpose UN sanctions on Iran over its disputed nuclear program, a step likely to stoke tensions two months after Israel and the United States bombed Iran.
A senior Iranian official quickly accused the three European powers of harming diplomacy and vowed that Tehran would not bow to pressure over the move by the E3 to launch the so-called “snapback mechanism.”
The three powers feared they would otherwise lose the prerogative in mid-October to restore sanctions on Tehran that were lifted under a 2015 nuclear accord with world powers.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said the decision did not signal the end of diplomacy. His German counterpart Johann Wadephul urged Iran to now fully cooperate with the UN nuclear watchdog agency and commit to direct talks with the United States over the next month.
A senior Iranian official told Reuters the decision was “illegal and regrettable” but left the door open for engagement.
“The move is an action against diplomacy, not a chance for it. Diplomacy with Europe will continue,” the official said, adding: “Iran will not concede under pressure.”
The UN Security Council is due to meet behind closed doors on Friday at the request of the E3 to discuss the snapback move against the Islamic Republic, diplomats said.
Iran and the E3 have held several rounds of talks since Israel and the US bombed its nuclear installations in mid-June, aiming to agree to defer the snapback mechanism. But the E3 deemed that talks in Geneva on Tuesday did not yield sufficient signals of readiness for a new deal from Iran.
The E3 acted on Thursday over accusations that Iran has violated the 2015 deal that aimed to prevent it developing a nuclear weapons capability in return for a lifting of international sanctions. The E3, along with Russia, China, and the United States, were party to that accord.
US President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of that accord in 2018 during his first term, calling the deal one-sided in Iran‘s favor, and it unraveled in ensuing years as Iran abandoned limits set on its enrichment of uranium.
Trump’s second administration held fruitless indirect negotiations earlier this year with Tehran.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio welcomed the E3 move and said Washington remained available for direct engagement with Iran “in furtherance of a peaceful, enduring resolution to the Iran nuclear issue.”
An Iranian source said Tehran would do so only “if Washington guarantees there will be no [military] strikes during the talks.”
The E3 said they hoped Iran would engage by the end of September to allay concerns about its nuclear agenda sufficiently for them to defer concrete action.
“The E3 are committed to using every diplomatic tool available to ensure Iran never develops a nuclear weapon,” including the snapback mechanism, they said in a letter sent to the UN Security Council and seen by Reuters.
“The E3’s commitment to a diplomatic solution nonetheless remains steadfast.”
Iran has previously warned of a “harsh response” if sanctions are reinstated, and the Iranian official said it was reviewing its options, including withdrawing from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The E3 had offered to extend the snapback for as much as six months to enable serious negotiations if Iran restored access for UN nuclear inspectors – who would also seek to account for Iran‘s large stock of enriched uranium whose status has been unknown since the June war – and engages in talks with the U.S.
Calling the E3 decision inevitable, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said it was an “important step in the diplomatic campaign to counter the Iranian regime’s nuclear ambitions.”
GROWING FRUSTRATION IN IRAN
The UN process takes 30 days before sanctions that would hit Iran‘s financial, banking, hydrocarbons, and defense sectors are restored.
Russia and China, strategic partners of Iran, finalized a draft Security Council resolution on Thursday that would extend the 2015 nuclear deal for six months and urge all parties to immediately resume negotiations.
But they have not yet asked for a vote.
“The world is at crossroads,” Russia’s deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy told reporters. “One option is peace, diplomacy, goodwill … Another option is a kind of diplomacy at the barrel of the gun.”
The specter of renewed sanctions is stirring frustration in Iran, where economic anxiety is rising and political divisions are deepening, three insiders close to the government said.
Iranian leaders are split over how to respond — with anti-Western hardliners urging defiance and confrontation, while moderates advocate diplomacy.
Iran has been enriching uranium to up to 60 percent fissile purity, a short step from the roughly 90 percent of bomb-grade, and had enough material enriched to that level, if refined further, for six nuclear weapons, before the airstrikes by Israel started on June 13, according to the IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog.
Actually manufacturing a weapon would take more time, however, and the IAEA has said that while it cannot guarantee Tehran‘s nuclear program is entirely peaceful, it has no credible indication of a coordinated weapons project.
The West says the advancement of Iran‘s nuclear program goes beyond civilian needs, while Tehran says it wants nuclear energy only for peaceful purposes.