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Susan Stamberg, iconic Jewish ‘founding mother’ of NPR, dies at 87
(JTA) — When Susan Stamberg first sat behind the microphone to host a newfangled broadcasting venture called National Public Radio, in 1972, some board members had a concern: She sounded too Jewish.
Though that wasn’t quite how they tended to phrase it, recalled a colleague. Instead, NPR board members feared that the “All Things Considered” co-host was “too New York” for Midwest audiences.
“Besides being a woman, the Jewish element was another aspect,” Jack Mitchell, an early producer on the daily afternoon program, told NPR. “Here is somebody whose name is Stamberg. She had an obvious New York accent. Made no bones about it… And the president of NPR asked that I not put her in there for those — because of the complaints from managers.”
Stamberg went on the air anyway, and quickly became a defining personality for the nonprofit radio network. In subsequent decades, as NPR turned into a cultural juggernaut, Stamberg and her “New York” personality became something of its unofficial mascot. In the elevators of NPR’s Washington, D.C., headquarters, her voice guides visitors from floor to floor.
Stamberg died Thursday at age 87, leaving behind years of her bubbly conversations and an annual, love-it-or-hate-it recipe for her family’s “cranberry relish.”
As one of NPR’s “founding mothers” in the 1970s, she helped shape the network’s personality: warm, liberal-leaning, and — along with or laying the groundwork for fellow longtime marquee names like Nina Totenberg, Ira Flatow, Terri Gross and Robert Siegel — unmistakably, culturally Jewish. In later years, long after her retirement from regular on-air duties, Stamberg would still pop up to read the winners of NPR’s annual “Hanukkah Lights” short-story contest.
“I am very sociologically Jewish. Very ethnically Jewish, although not in an observant way. There are a lot of people like me,” Stamberg told the Jewish Women’s Archive in 2011, adding that she willingly participated in Torah study with her son Josh — today an actor — when he was becoming a bar mitzvah at her husband’s request. “I feel deeply Jewish and I deeply identify with my Jewishness, but it doesn’t need a formal affiliation for me.”
Born Susan Levitt in Newark in 1938, she was a child of Manhattan’s culturally Jewish scene. Stamberg grew up without regular Jewish observance, though she told the Jewish Women’s Archive she was part of a confirmation class at Temple Rodeph Sholem, the Reform synagogue on the Upper West Side. Her father, a staunch Zionist, raised money for the Weizmann Institute, the research institute founded in 1934 in Rehovot. She earned an English literature degree at Barnard College, the first in her family to go to college.
She married Louis Stamberg, who became a longtime USAID staffer, and the duo moved to Washington, D.C. Susan recalled that her husband, whose father founded a congregation in Allentown, Pennsylvania, grew up “where being Jewish was really an issue.” Her father-in-law “was insistent that we, too, join a temple in Washington. I said, ‘Well, Why?’” she recalled in 2011. “That’s how I came to know that the entire world was not Jewish like the world in which I had grown up.”
After stints at WAMU, the local public radio station, and for Voice of America in India, Stamberg initially joined NPR, after its founding by an act of Congress in 1971, to cut tape for radio interviews. When “All Things Considered” launched in 1972 she became its co-host and thus also the first woman to anchor a broadcast news program, in her colleagues’ estimation — overcoming considerable sexism from both the network’s listeners and executives.
Stamberg only held the anchor post for a few years, soon pivoting to the cultural correspondent stories she would become known for. She took on other hosting duties, too, including for “Weekend Edition,” where she introduced the show’s trademark Sunday puzzles and first brought on the guests who would become the mega-popular program “Car Talk.”
“I think all of that is very Jewish, the telling of stories, but also the seeking of opinions and also being open to the range of opinions that are out there,” Stamberg would tell the Jewish Women’s Archive about her work.
Laughing, she added, “I also feel that sometimes mine’s right. I think that’s very Jewish, too.”
Stamberg is survived by her son and two granddaughters.
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It’s time for the pro-Palestinian movement to make a radical change
Over the past two years, activists across the world ramped up calls for divestment from Israel. On university campuses and at meetings of pension boards, the same call has become increasingly prominent: pull money away from anything tied to Israel.
But now that a fragile ceasefire may be taking hold, I want to offer a simple, slightly provocative suggestion: If you care about Palestinian lives, don’t just divest from Israel. Invest in Gaza.
And I mean that quite literally.
According to a joint damage and needs assessment conducted by the United Nations, World Bank and European Union a few months ago, about $53.2 billion will be required over the next decade to help Gaza recover from the destruction wrought by the war. (Some sources cite an updated figure of more than $80 billion.) Of this, at least $30 billion is to repair physical infrastructure — homes, water systems, roads and more. Another $19 billion is needed to address the collapse of Gaza’s economy and public services: shuttered businesses, lost wages, halted schooling, broken clinics.
But even before anything is rebuilt comes the problem of the debris. According to that same assessment, somewhere between 41 and 47 million tons of rubble now litter Gaza — maybe more. Not a single new road can be laid, or foundation poured, until that is cleared. That work alone could cost hundreds of millions of dollars and take months of careful, often dangerous work.
And if Gaza is to be more than a symbol of tragedy — if it is to become a place where young people can live, work, and build a future — it will need productive investment. Physical infrastructure alone won’t deliver prosperity. The creation of markets and sustained economic growth requires investment in businesses, job creation, job training and entrepreneurship. That, too, must be part of the agenda.
Which means it’s time for the pro-Palestinian activists who have protested in cities and on college campuses all over the world since October, 2023, to change their tune. If you were marching for a ceasefire in Gaza; if you were pushing institutions to divest from Israeli-linked firms; if you’ve held a sign that says “Free Palestine” — it’s time to reconsider your tactics.
Imagine if even a fraction of the energy spent on divestment campaigns was channeled into reconstruction and development funds. Universities could create fellowships, specifically for Gaza residents, to give them the training necessary to bring their territory into a better future. Student groups could partner with international NGOs to fund the development and continued operations of schools or clinics. Municipalities that have severed ties with Israeli investments could reinvest that capital in Gaza’s public health or housing.
It’s easy to say, “We won’t fund oppression.” It’s harder — and far more meaningful — to say, “We will fund rebuilding.”
That pledge is desperately needed. There are encouraging headlines about funding for Gaza, but, as of yet, little cold, hard cash.
In theory, international donors will step in. The United States-backed “20-point plan” includes reconstruction of Gaza as a pillar, but does not attach a promise of concrete funding. The U.N. recently confirmed that multiple countries, including the U.S., have shown “willingness” to help fund the monumental effort, but offered no specifics. The Gulf states and other regional actors have expressed interest in supporting postwar rebuilding, but have not yet made any clear commitments. An exception is the European Union, which has pledged €1.6 billion to support Gaza’s reconstruction. That’s a very generous amount — but a tiny fraction of what’s required.
The political will may exist in principle. But in practice, many of these promises remain vague, contingent or politically fragile. And they come at a moment when investment in global foreign aid is trending in the opposite direction. President Donald Trump’s administration has shuttered USAID offices; bilateral development budgets are shrinking; and public tolerance — especially in Western democracies — for large-scale foreign aid packages is wearing thin.
Relying solely on states and slow-moving aid agencies isn’t going to be enough. Not at the scale or pace that’s necessary. Gaza’s future won’t just depend on donor generosity — it will require new sources of capital and creative partnerships that can go beyond patching the ruins and instead build a foundation for long-term prosperity.
Of course, there are legitimate concerns, including the unsettled future of Gaza’s governance, the potential for further conflict with Israel down the road, the risk of Hamas interference, and the specter of corruption. But those are not reasons to do nothing. They’re reasons to build mechanisms for transparency and oversight.
If activists demand accountability from Gaza’s reconstruction, while proactively investing in it, they’ll be making a future for the strip not just possible, but better.
And here’s the uncomfortable truth: While divestment campaigns are great at signaling values, they rarely create concrete results that bring positive change to the lives of everyday Palestinians. They have yet to rebuild a single school. They don’t help provide health care.
Gaza needs more than slogans. It needs billions of dollars. Now.
So, to those in the pro-Palestinian movement: you’ve spent months organizing, marching and lobbying. You’ve asked the world to listen. Now’s your chance to lead. If you truly believe in justice for Palestinians, this is the time to show it. Put your money where your mouth is. Don’t divest from Israel. Invest in Gaza.
The post It’s time for the pro-Palestinian movement to make a radical change appeared first on The Forward.
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NY State Young Republicans chapter disbanded amid racist, antisemitic chat scandal
(JTA) — New York’s state Young Republicans organization has been disbanded in the wake of leaked group chats in which officials joked about gas chambers, praised Adolf Hitler and used racist, antisemitic and homophobic slurs.
“The Young Republicans was already grossly mismanaged, and vile language of the sort made in the group chat has no place in our party or its subsidiary organizations,” New York GOP chair Ed Cox said in a statement, adding that he sent formal notice of the shutdown to the National Federation of Young Republicans.
Earlier this week, the Kansas Young Republicans club was also dissolved. The moves are meant to allow for a fresh start for the Republican Party’s youth wing in those states following a Politico exposé that published thousands of messages involving participants in multiple states.
Of them, several participants had ties to New York Republican politics. Since the reporting, some involved lost jobs or had political opportunities withdrawn.
The scandal has also fueled partisan squabbling. Amid the fallout, the Republican Jewish Coalition posted on X in response to Sen. Chuck Schumer’s criticism of GOP “silence,” writing: “We strongly condemn the comments and those involved should step aside. See how easy that is?”
The post then turned into a political attack: “Your turn @SenSchumer: condemn Jay Jones, Zohran Mamdani, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and more, in your deranged, radicalized party. You won’t. Enjoy the political wilderness in the meantime!”
Republican leaders have largely denounced the messages with House Speaker Mike Johnson saying the party “roundly condemn[s]” them. Vice President J.D. Vance, however, downplayed the uproar, saying “kids do stupid things” and calling the jokes “very offensive” but not worthy of life-ruining consequences.
The people involved are largely in their 20s, and the Young Republicans aim to engage conservatives between 18 and 40.
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Palestinian man who allegedly participated in Oct. 7 attack on Israel arrested in Louisiana
(JTA) — A Palestinian man in Louisiana was arrested Thursday after federal prosecutors accused him of participating in the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel.
Mahmoud Amin Ya’qub Al-Muhtadi, 33, a Palestinian resident of Lafayette, Louisiana, is accused of being an operative for the National Resistance Brigades, a Gaza-based paramilitary group that took part in the Oct. 7 attacks.
“After hiding out in the United States, this monster has been found and charged with participating in the atrocities of October 7 — the single deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement.
The government’s case against Al-Muhtadi appears to represent the first arrest on U.S. soil of anyone alleged to have participated in the deadly 2023 attack, in which 1,200 people in Israel, most civilians, were killed and 251 people were taken hostage.
On that day, after Al-Muhtadi learned of the attacks, he allegedly “armed himself, recruited additional marauders, and then entered Israel,” according to a statement by Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Eisenberg.
According to transcripts of cell phone calls Al-Muhtadi allegedly made that morning, he told another man to “get ready” and that “the borders are open,” and later requested a “full magazine.”
Al-Muhtadi’s phone also used a cell tower located near Kibbutz Kfar Aza in Israel, where at least 62 residents were killed and 19 were taken hostage during the attacks, according to court documents.
He entered the United States on Sept. 12, 2024, after allegedly providing false information on his U.S. visa application to immigration authorities, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
A criminal complaint against Al-Muhtadi was filed on Oct. 6 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, on the eve of the second anniversary of the attack. He was charged with providing, attempting to provide or conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization as well as visa fraud, according to the criminal complaint.
The arrest comes as the U.S. government seeks legal redress against those who perpetrated the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, which included U.S. citizens among the victims. In September 2024, the Justice Department also filed charges against six Hamas officials, including Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar shortly before he was killed in Gaza by the Israeli military.
Bondi established the Joint Task Force October 7, which the Justice Department is calling JTF 10-7, in February 2025 to investigate the attacks. The task force discovered Al-Muhtadi’s presence in the United States, according to the Justice Department’s press release, and JTF 10-7 and the FBI New Orleans Field Office are now investigating the case along with Israeli authorities.
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