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How a Catholic university amassed a treasure trove of Jewish artifacts from the Bronx
(New York Jewish Week) – A Catholic university may be the unlikeliest place for what may be the largest depository dedicated to the Jewish history of the Bronx.
But at Fordham University — the private, Jesuit institution in the Bronx — decades worth of archival documents and artifacts from the local Jewish community have found a home, thanks to its Jewish studies department.
For the last three years, Fordham has been collecting and cataloging items that detail a once-thriving Jewish community in the Bronx: yearbooks full of Jewish last names, Bar Mitzvah invitations, phonebooks full of Jewish-owned businesses — all the simple transactions that define an era in history.
The archive at Fordham is one of the only physical collections of everyday material from Jewish residents of the borough, according to Magda Teter, the chair of the Center for Jewish Studies at the university, who spearheaded the project.
“It’s not only preserving a piece of New York Jewish history, but also a way of life,” Teter told the New York Jewish Week. “Bringing this voice to the dominant Christian identity of Fordham and teaching about Jews [as a minority] within the dominant cultures is very important.”
A song and dance book in the Fordham University collection features the lyrics for “Hatikvah” and “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” and a “Jewish dictionary.” (Julia Gergely)
During the first half of the twentieth century, Jewish life thrived in the Bronx. There were 260 registered synagogues in 1940, and the borough produced some of the biggest Jewish names in show business, fashion, literature and more: designer Ralph Lauren, politician Bella Abzug, novelist E.L. Doctorow, filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, Miss America Bess Myerson, Nobel Prize-winning chemist Robert Lefkowitz.
At the community’s peak in 1930, the Bronx was approximately 49% Jewish, according to the borough’s official historian, Lloyd Ultan. South of Tremont Avenue, the number reached 80%. Most of the Jewish Bronx was of Eastern European descent; many were first generation Americans whose parents had immigrated and lived on the Lower East Side, but who could now afford to live in less cramped neighborhoods with more trees and wider streets.
Though there is a strong Jewish community in the neighborhood of Riverdale, most of the Jewish community moved out of the Bronx for the suburbs after World War II when mortgages for white would-be homeowners were being subsidized by the government and Blacks and Latinos were steered to Bronx neighborhoods they couldn’t afford or that the city had chosen to neglect. The Jewish population of the Bronx dropped from 650,000 in 1948 to 45,000 in 2003. Many of the synagogues have been converted for other uses, and the physical legacy of the Jewish community there has begun to erode over time, making an archive all the more necessary.
While Teter was always interested in collecting items from the Jewish Bronx, the archive got an unexpected boost from a member of the public. In the spring of 2020, at the height of the pandemic, Fordham hosted a virtual event, “Remnants: Photographs of the Jewish Bronx,” which featured evidence of the area’s faded Jewish history gathered by writer and photographer Julian Voloj. (Voloj is the husband of the New York Jewish Week’s managing editor, Lisa Keys.)
An invitation for the bar mitzvah of Freddie Rothberg, which took place on Oct. 6, 1951 at Beth Hamedrash Hagadol. (Julia Gergely)
In the audience was Ellen Meshnick, who had grown up in New York and now lives in Georgia. Inspired, she offered Fordham a trove of material her parents, Frank and Martha Meshnick, had kept throughout their lives in the Bronx. The boxes included donated yearbooks from Morris High School and Walton High School, songbooks, bar mitzvah invitations, a marriage certificate, receipts for a flower delivery — even a document from the hospital from when she was born — mostly from the 1930s through the 1960s.
The donation significantly bolstered what materials Fordham already had on hand, which included less personal but still unique items like matchbooks from kosher restaurants. Now, Teter is growing the archive through other private donations and occasionally by purchasing materials online — personal family archives, books about Bronx Jewish history, songsheets and the like.
The marriage certificate, or ketubah, recognizing the marriage between Frank Meshnick and Martha Farber on Aug. 23, 1942. The certificate was part of an archive donated to Fordham University by the couple’s daughter Ellen. (Julia Gergely)
“They may not be the most beautiful things, but we are interested in what people actually used and lived with,” Teter said.
Teter said that while the American Jewish Historical Society in Manhattan does collect the types of quotidian and personal items that American Jews kept with them in the last few centuries, they don’t have much that uniquely focuses on Jewish life in the Bronx.
The entire collection is part of a greater effort by Teter, the Jewish studies department and the librarians at Fordham to increase awareness about Judaism and Jewish people. “I will not hide that I think it’s an important way to fight antisemitism — to teach Jewish history and Jewish culture in all its colors and in all its experiences,” she said. “It enriches the students’ appreciation and understanding of Jewish life beyond how Jews are usually portrayed.”
The Jewish studies department at Fordham is relatively new: The college began offering a Jewish studies minor in 2016, and opened the department in 2017. At the time, the highlight of the library’s archives was the Rosenblatt Holocaust collection, which was funded by an alumnus. Since 1992, the library has amassed over 11,000 titles, videos and artifacts on the Holocaust, according to librarian Linda Loschiavo.
When Teter arrived, Loschiavo worked with her to bring in historical Passover haggadahs from all over the world. Fordham now possesses two Italian haggadahs from the 1660s, as well as Jewish artifacts from unexpected places, like playbills from Jewish Bollywood.
Last month the university opened the Henry S. Miller Judaica Research Room on the fourth floor of the campus’ main library — named for Fordham’s first Jewish student, who graduated in 1968. Miller, a leader of a financial restructuring firm, is now a trustee of the college.
Fordham President Tania Tetlow described herself jokingly as “a wannabe Jew” at the room’s unveiling. “I’ve understood how deeply intertwined Judaism and Catholicism are,” she said, “and the connections we have of the deep intellectualism of both faiths, of the desire to study text and the interpretation of text going back for thousands of years, of the love of ritual — and the central place of food and guilt!”
The former Jacob Schiff Center on Valentine Avenue. (Julian Voloj)
“At the moment, we envision that the research room will be a space for exhibitions that would foster the curatorial skills of our students and that will bring Jewish art and artists to campus,” Teter said. “We would now be able to display their art and combine the exhibitions with some items from the Judaica collection.”
The research room is currently displaying Voloj’s Bronx photographs, along with some of the recently acquired local archival materials, curated by sophomore Reyna Stovall, who is interning in Fordham’s Jewish studies department this semester.
“It is really, really rewarding,” said Stovall, who is Jewish. Stovall became involved in the Jewish studies department because of her interest in Holocaust studies, but as she began her internship, she was excited to work on the archives cataloging the once thriving Jewish history of the Bronx.
The yearbook photo of Frank Meshnick (bottom right), who graduated from Morris High School in Morrisania in 1931. (Julia Gergely)
“It’s pretty amazing that they have the collection to begin with,” she added. “It really shows Fordham’s commitment to diversity and inclusivity that they’re willing to take on this massive collection of Judaica, even though that’s not the religion that the school was founded on.”
Teter estimates there are about 300 Jews among the school’s 15,000 undergrads. As a result, the Center for Jewish Studies and the research room offers students from all backgrounds the opportunity to learn more about Judaism — as well as marginalized communities in general, and connect their stories to their own lives.
“Our identity grew to showcase Jewish studies at the intersection and in conversation with other fields and areas of study,” Teter explained.
The Center’s goal, she added, is “to make students, faculty and the public realize that studying Jews is not just for Jews, and that they can learn so much about the areas of their own concern and interest by studying Jews.”
“Something magical happens when you give students the opportunity to work with historical artifacts, and really touch history,” Teter said. “That’s what I think inspired the director of the library to devote that space to that kind of research and to that kind of student experience.”
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Protesters picket Manhattan synagogue over Israel real estate sale, testing Mamdani and new law
Protesters thronged a Manhattan synagogue Tuesday night outside an event promoting real estate in Israel and the West Bank — returning to the scene of a clash last year that prompted a new law shielding houses of worship and put the heat on newly elected mayor Zohran Mamdani.
The demonstration at Park East Synagogue on the Upper East Side drew more than 100 protesters, kept nearly a block away from the house of worship by barricades and a heavy NYPD presence.
Chants of “There is only one solution, intifada revolution,” “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and “We don’t want a two-state, we want ’48” rose from the crowd — slogans Zionist organizations view as antisemitic and a call for violence and removal of Jews in the region.
At one point, two protesters near the event ripped down a plastered poster of the Lubavitcher Rebbe that read “Messiah is here” from a traffic light and threw it in the trash.
A smaller group of pro-Israel counterprotesters rallied across the street from the pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
A spokesperson for the synagogue said it rented out the space for the Great Israeli Real Estate Event, which advertised properties for sale in Israel and the West Bank.
The standoff comes just days after a new law governing protests outside houses of worship took effect — a measure that City Council Speaker Julie Menin introduced after a November 2025 demonstration at Park East Synagogue.
The protests, combined with what some Jewish leaders saw as slow or equivocal responses from Mamdani, led to calls for legislation that would limit demonstrations near houses of worship.
Menin initially aimed to establish protest-free buffer zones of up to 100 feet outside synagogues but revised the bill after pushback from Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, some progressive Jewish groups and free speech advocates, under threat of legal challenges.
A watered-down version of that legislation that allows the NYPD to determine how large buffer zones need to be on a case-by-case basis passed with a veto-proof majority last month. Mamdani allowed the bill to become law without his signature.
Mamdani meanwhile vetoed a similar bill that would apply to schools. The Council could still vote to override that veto.
Police closed off the entire street where the synagogue sits to the public, while allowing the event’s attendees to enter. The demonstrators were well over 100 feet away from the building — a greater distance than even the largest buffer zone proposed by Menin.
Supporters of the law argued that its flexible standard — allowing the NYPD to determine buffer zone distances rather than specifying them precisely — would protect protesters’ rights. But the security at Park East showed how that discretion can, in practice, expand protest-free zones by granting the NYPD wide latitude to set the distance themselves.
A spokesperson for Mamdani, a vocal critic of Israel, said on Tuesday before the protest that the mayor is “deeply opposed” to the event, characterizing the sale of property in the West Bank as a violation of international law. The spokesperson, Sam Raskin, nevertheless emphasized that the city was ready to ensure the safety of participants entering the venue and those demonstrating.
“Our administration has been clear that we are committed to ensuring safe entry and exit from any house of worship, and that such access never be in question while all protesters are able to exercise their First Amendment rights,” said Raskin ahead of the event.
‘People are outraged’
Tuesday’s event was the first time under the new law, but the NYPD protest plan it calls for is still a work in progress: the police department still has another month to present a plan and 90 days to publicize it.
Local politicians noted the sensitive nature of the protest, saying that alone is reason to condemn it.
Assemblymember Alex Bores and Councilmember Virginia Maloney, who represent the district where the synagogue is located, said in a joint statement that the situation naturally evoked “painful memories of times when people have been harassed while entering houses of worship.”
Micah Lasher, a state legislator who is vying for the open congressional seat on Manhattan’s west side, described the protest as “intended to create fear in the hearts of Jewish New Yorkers and stigmatize the community.” Lasher said leaders should condemn the protest, no matter any disagreement on policy.
Rob Jereski, a local attorney who is Jewish and came to support the Palestinian side, had reservations about the security perimeters, arguing it kept protesters too far from the real estate event.
“I know the new law is supposed to maintain free speech and honor the Constitution, but this doesn’t seem to do it,” Jereski said. “The fact that Jews pray in a place doesn’t mean that crimes that are committed in that place should be without a response if people are outraged.”
Some counterprotesters also criticized the new Council measure — for not going far enough.
“That’s outrageous that it’s not clear that you cannot demonstrate and harass kids or people around religious institutions,” said Tomer Morad, a demonstrator on the Israeli side.
Karen Lichtbraun, an activist affiliated with the Zionist Herut movement in New York, said the new bill was a “joke” that doesn’t address the problem.
“Today, thank God, they’re away from the synagogue,” she said. “But what happens if next time the police commissioner decides that they can be 50 feet or 10 feet away?”
The post Protesters picket Manhattan synagogue over Israel real estate sale, testing Mamdani and new law appeared first on The Forward.
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Canadian Intel Reveals Gaza War Motivated At Least 7 Lone-Wolf Terror Plots in 2025
Dueling pro-Israel and anti-Israel demonstrations at McGill University in Montreal, Canada; May 2, 2024. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)’s newly published annual report documents how aspiring domestic terrorists have felt justified to plan attacks in response to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
“The threat of a domestic lone-actor attack in Canada increased significantly since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas conflict,” the CSIS report said in a section on religion-motivated crime. “In 2025, at least seven of CSIS’s priority investigations involving mobilization to violence have been assessed as motivated by this conflict in whole or in part.”
CSIS Director Dan Rogers offered examples in the report’s introduction, writing that “we achieved a number of counterterrorism successes that led to law enforcement action, including the arrests of Hide & Stalk members in Québec, and of a minor who intended to violently target Jewish people and police in Montréal.”
The report further described how the war in Gaza “has also fueled violent extremist organization narratives and has the potential to inspire a new generation of extremists. The conflict will likely continue to motivate some extremists in the near term, but understanding the true impact of the conflict will only be clear over time.”
Antisemitism appears in Canada in many forms today, with the report noting continued incidents of vandalism, graffiti, online propaganda, overt racist statements, and bomb threats. The document also said that, since 2014, there has been one attack against a Jewish institution and five plans stopped, including an incident in August 2025 involving a minor in Montreal.
Earlier this year, three shootings targeted Jewish institutions in less than a week in Toronto.
Other terrorist crimes from last year spotlighted in the report included a man in Winnipeg charged in March for offenses motivated by “nihilistic violent extremism,” and a woman in Montreal who pleaded guilty in July to providing material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). That month, law enforcement arrested four members of Hide & Stalk, a far-right conspiracist militia driven by an “accelerationist” ideology which seeks to speed up societal collapse.
In September, the neo-Nazi propagandist Patrick Gordon MacDonald, known by the alias “Dark Foreigner,” received a 10-year prison sentence on three terrorism offenses. The report described how “his objective was to inspire others to engage in violence through his graphic designs and videos he produced in support of Atomwaffen Division (AWD).”
Founded in 2015 by neo-Nazi Brandon Russell — who now serves a 20-year prison sentence after a conviction last year for plotting attacks on electrical substations in Baltimore — AWD draws inspiration from James Mason, a former member of the American Nazi Party (ANP) and leader of the National Socialist Liberation Front (NSLF), who wrote an essay collection titled SIEGE which advocated for a white American ethno-state. The group has often blended with Salafi and Jihadist terrorists, “citing their culture of martyrdom and insurgency as inspiration for their tactics and propaganda.”
Another terrorism conviction in Canada came in October when Matthew Althorpe pleaded guilty for his involvement in the Terrorgram Collective, a neo-Nazi Telegram channel. CSIS explained that “the violent tenets of Terrorgram’s content and manifestos have inspired at least three violent attacks in Slovakia, Brazil, and Türkey, two plots to attack critical infrastructure in the United States, and the attempted assassination of a foreign government official in Australia.”
While a variety of ideologies can inspire terrorist attacks in Canada, the perpetrators fit a familiar pattern, with 93 percent being male and the average age being 34, findings consistent since 2022. However, the report noted increases in both youth and those over 48.
The Canadian government also designated numerous organizations as terrorist organizations. In February, newly proscribed groups included seven transnational criminal organizations reclassified as terrorist entities: Cártel del Golfo, Cártel de Sinaloa, La Familia Michoacana, Cárteles Unidos, La Mara Salvatrucha, Tren de Aragua, and Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación.
Later in the year Canada added Lawrence Bishnoi Gang, 764, Maniac Murder Cult, Terrorgram Collective, and the ISIS-aligned Islamic State-Mozambique.
The report explained how foreign governments engage in espionage in Canada. Tactics range from agents cultivating friendships with targets to manipulate them to using blackmail and launching cyber-attacks to compromise digital devices. “In 2025, the main perpetrators of foreign interference and espionage against Canada remained the People’s Republic of China (PRC), India, the Russian Federation, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Pakistan,” the report stated.
Canada joined 13 other countries in July 2025, issuing a statement condemning “the attempts of Iranian intelligence services to kill, kidnap, and harass people in Europe and North America in clear violation of our sovereignty.”
The report described the concept of transnational repression as “when foreign governments, or those acting on their behalf, reach beyond their borders to harass, threaten or harm individuals or groups to advance their interests or to silence criticism and dissent.” Methods employed include physical violence, threatening overseas relatives, lawfare, cyberbullying, online defamation, extortion, and community ostracism.
CSIS named Handala Hack Team as among Iran’s henchmen. The group “doxed several Iran International-linked journalists, including a Canadian resident,” the report said. “The Canadian’s photos, provincial driver’s license, permanent resident card, and Iranian passport details were released on the internet and social media platforms. The hacktivist group reproached the Canadian for, among other things, their promotion of 2SLGBTQIA+ issues in Iran.”
The doxxing resulted in death threats and the harassment of family members in Iran. CSIS warned that Iran may use proxies to go after dissidents, sometimes relying on transnational organized crime networks.
Hostile governments may also seek to plant disinformation, false narratives deliberately spread as “part of broader information operations aimed at manipulating audiences.”
One of the report’s most alarming findings was the degree to which extremist groups with differing ideologies draw inspiration from one another. CSIS described finding “an overlap in content, aesthetics, conspiracy theories and grievance narratives, including those that are anti-liberal, anti-2SLGBTQIA+, antisemitic, and Islamophobic … On occasion, similar violent content is consumed, including gore sites, jihadi beheading videos, and attack manuals.”
CSIS warned that “violent extremists with these different ideologies are increasingly finding common causes. They find inspiration and motivation in the events and trends that polarize society or cause them to lose hope for the future. They easily access and amplify content online that radicalizes them and reinforces their view that violence is justified to achieve their extremist goals.”
The report named Islamic State as the most significant threat to Western interests, with CSIS analysts warning the terrorist group “will continue to attempt to influence supporters — particularly from Syria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan — to plan attacks on targets related to world events, and enable them to do so, while Al Qaeda will continue efforts to reconstitute itself in permissive territories, including through the rise of the Islamic State in Somalia and increased Al-Shabaab terrorism activities in North Africa.”
A recent example of the trend of cross-ideological alliances appeared late last month in Mali, where Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM,) an Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist group, joined with Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), a Tuareg rebel separatist militia, in a shared effort to overthrow the military junta which has ruled the African nation since Aug. 18, 2020. The coordinated attacks resulted in the killing of Defense Minister Sadio Camara and the seizure of Kidal, a key town in Mali’s eastern region.
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A best-selling novelist identified a minor character as Israeli. Some fans are canceling their orders.
(JTA) — A bestselling author is facing a flurry of anger from fans after advance copies of her upcoming novel identified a character as Israeli — a move that her critics say advances “normalization” of a country they oppose.
Rebecca “R. F.” Kuang, the Chinese-American author of the 2023 satirical novel “Yellowface” and “The Poppy War” trilogy, is set to publish her seventh novel, “Taipei Story,” in September. The advance version, an excerpt of which was leaked on social media on Sunday, includes a short scene involving an Israeli musician.
The musician, a successful pianist whose performance ignites a near-religious fervor for a character in the story, is not named, and the text identifies him as “a dour-faced man who did not so much as crack a smile as we applauded.”
That was enough to trigger some readers and potential readers who said Kuang was whitewashing Israel in the wake of the war in Gaza — even as she has previously expressed support for the movement to boycott Israel.
“RF kuang had 190+ countries to choose from to write about a character’s nationality and she still chose to write about the one who’s actively committing gen0cide against Palestinians for years,” user alltoowellreads wrote on X, in one representative comment that has been shared nearly 1,000 times that used an online version of the word “genocide” meant to evade censors.
Others railed against the excerpt on Threads, where there is a thriving community of people discussing books. Some readers said they even canceled their preorders of the book.
Kuang and her publicists did not respond to requests for comment, and she has disabled comments on her recent Instagram posts, where she has not addressed the criticism.
The backlash to Kuang’s inclusion of the Israeli character reflects a trend in the literary world, in which even minor mentions of Israel or Israelis are enough to land authors on boycott lists.
The trend predates the most recent war in Gaza: Casey McQuiston, the author of the 2019 romance novel “Red, White, and Royal Blue,” initially included a scene where the U.S. president jokes that an ambassador “said something idiotic about Israel, and now I have to call Netanyahu and personally apologize.” In 2021, McQuiston said they would remove the reference to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in future printings of the book.
But the trend has intensified after Oct. 7 thrust Israel into the center stage of cultural conversations. An online list titled “Is your fav author a Zionist???” that went viral in 2024 urged boycotts against authors for whom the crowd-sourced answer was yes.
Some authors landed on the list without ever commenting publicly about Israel or Gaza. Gabrielle Zevin, for example, was included in part because her 2024 hit novel about Jewish video game designers, “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow,” received backlash for its inclusion of an Israeli character even though he was presented unfavorably. (Zevin also drew criticism for having spoken at a Hadassah event in February 2023.)
Kuang’s silence on the dustup has left some readers to speculate about why she chose to identify the pianist as Israeli in “Taipei Story,” a work of literary fiction about a young Chinese-American woman on an intensive summer language program in Taiwan.
Kuang, whose work largely deals with the Asian diaspora from an anti-colonial perspective, has historically supported the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. In December, she withdrew from an appearance at a literature festival in Dubai, citing a call from the BDS movement.
That record had led some of her fans to argue that the Israeli character may have been included to subtly critique Israel. Others speculated without evidence that Kuang could have been paid to mention Israel in the book, while others simply expressed bafflement or anger at her choice to mention a state they believe is a colonial enterprise.
“Making your books sm about colonization but normalizing israel is insane to me idk im very disappointed,” wrote one X user who garnered 1 million views with the sentiment. (“Sm” is internet shorthand for “so much.”)
For Jews who have been keeping a close eye on trends in publishing since Oct. 7, the response to the Kuang excerpt has been worrying, even if its ultimate impact remains unclear. Meg Keene, a writer who argues that data shows a sidelining of Jewish content in new book deals, summarized the brouhaha with a deflated tweet: “This is where we are now.”
Even some Jews who do not identify as Zionists say they see something worrying in the backlash to the Kuang excerpt.
“The people canceling a preorder over [a] single mention of an Israeli pianist being booked at a concert hall in R.F. Kuang’s new book lack so much f–king nuance. There’s literally no mention of Zionism yet y’all can’t seem to differentiate,” wrote a Jewish threads user who goes by Axis of Anarchy.
After experiencing some blowback, she followed up: “Also stop with this ‘y’all’ business about normalizing Israel. This is exactly the problem and I have been very vocal on calling Zionists out on their s–t so goodness forbid, I point out when y’all are taking your s–t too far.”
Though Kuang has closed most of her recent Instagram posts to comments, her readers continue to comment on older ones that are still open, asking the author about her choice to include an Israeli character.
Some books bloggers argue that the immediate call to boycott Kuang’s latest book is akin to censorship — and distracting from literary analysis.
“Reactionary outrage like this only acts as a form of censorship, because it discourages analysis,” wrote a user who goes by emily.isliterate, accompanying a widely viewed video on the episode. “From what I can read, I think Kuang (in very few words) manages to criticize the way people treat musicians from certain places over others (namely colonizer states). Maybe people stopped reading after the word Israel or they simply can’t garner subtext and theme, but either way, I think the entire situation is troublesome.”
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