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How an ‘unlikely rabbi’ went from Korea to Colbert
Calling herself an “unlikely rabbi,” Angela Buchdahl has been a staple on numerous lists of notable American Jews, including the Forward 50. Born in South Korea in 1972 and raised by a Korean Buddhist mother and an Ashkenazi Jewish father in Tacoma, Washington, she went on to become the first Asian American ordained as a rabbi and first as a cantor. Today, she leads Central Synagogue in New York City, one of the largest and most influential congregations in the country.
Her new memoir, Heart of a Stranger: An Unlikely Rabbi’s Story of Faith, Identity, and Belonging, traces that journey, from the embracing Jewish community she grew up in to finding herself the answer to a Jeopardy question (“What is rabbi?”) — and, even more bizarrely, picking up the phone one day to hear a hostage-taking gunman make demands of her as the “chief rabbi of the United States.” In advance of the book’s release and a launch event hosted by Stephen Colbert, I spoke with her about claiming her place in Jewish life and the responsibility of Jews to always think of the stranger as themselves.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
How did you nab Stephen Colbert for your book launch event — or did he nab you?
His son and my son were college roommates, and I got to know him and his wife, Evie. I learned quickly that this was not only a very funny man and a very good interviewer, but someone who was deeply faithful. He teaches in his church and thinks a lot about faith. I’m very grateful that he said yes.
Your title is Heart of a Stranger. I want to challenge you on that: Haven’t you and I worked for years on representing Jews of color as normative? Are you still feeling like a stranger?
I guess I would argue that you never fully let it go. It’s like someone who says they were chubby as a kid. They’re not chubby anymore, but there’s some way in which they always see themselves as the chubby kid. You carry certain formative identity markers from childhood into your adulthood.
Heart of a Stranger is not an original title. I took it from Torah, which says, “Do not oppress the stranger. You know the heart of a stranger. You were strangers in Egypt.” This is the existential state that Jews are supposed to understand and know. The danger is when we get too comfortable, too powerful, too complacent.
Along those lines, you write about undergoing a conversion, even though your family was Reform, which by the time you were growing up had recognized patrilineal descent. That brought to mind Julius Lester’s conversion, which actually was something of a reversion because his great-grandfather was a German Jew. Lester said that he wasn’t converting to be accepted; he was converting for himself, saying, “I would do it even if no Jew ever accepted me.”
I had a very similar experience. I rejected the idea of converting when it was first suggested to me at age 16. Growing up in Tacoma in a Reform synagogue in my little Jewish bubble, I was accepted without a lot of questions. But I had a lot of existential identity questions: “Was I Jewish enough? Was I authentic enough? Was I learned enough?” And some of the answers were not yes.
I termed it a reaffirmation ceremony rather than conversion, because conversion sounds like turning into something that you weren’t before. I recognized that with a Beit Din of three Reform rabbis, it wasn’t going to change my status one whit for an Orthodox Jew. But it wasn’t for them. It was really a way to ritually mark the journey that I had been on and the acceptance of my identity in a way that felt important to me.
One reason I live in Duluth is I’ve called our little Temple Israel here the warmest shul that I’ve ever found in one of the coldest places on earth. Do you find it true that smaller Jewish communities are more embracing than large ones?
I grew up in a small community that was incredibly embracing of my family, including my mother, and that made a huge difference. I now work at a very large synagogue. I think the big difference is when you’re in a community where not everybody knows each other and they’re encountering people who are strangers. That’s when the inevitable questions come up.
It was disappointing for me after many years of being the senior rabbi of Central to hear from Jews of color who said Central wasn’t as welcoming of them as I thought. It hadn’t solved every problem just by having me as the senior rabbi. That was a painful realization that started a conversation that has shifted the culture at Central.
You write about the synagogue takeover in Colleyville, Texas, in 2022. The perpetrator who held the rabbi and congregants hostage called you while it was going on. He seemed to think that you were the “chief rabbi of the United States.” On the one hand, you’re balancing this misperception of your influence and power. On the other, this was a real situation of life and death.
That was one of the most surreal and destabilizing experiences I’ve ever had as a rabbi. They don’t train you for hostage negotiation in rabbinical school.
This terrorist clearly had done a lot of research. He researched the synagogue, which was the closest synagogue to the federal prison from which he wanted a prisoner released. The FBI went through his computer and saw that he was searching for what he thought was the equivalent of a chief rabbi because he was from England, where there is a chief rabbi. Of course, that doesn’t exist in America. He also mentioned that he saw pictures of me with President Obama at the White House. I think given Central’s name, and the fact that I had been the answer to a Jeopardy question not long before, may have put me higher up on the search algorithm.
It was terrifying because I felt that he very explicitly put the lives of these four people on me. And yet, I felt powerless to do anything. This is a case where I realized the danger of the antisemitic trope that he had imbibed since childhood, that Jews control the government and can make a few phone calls and get anything done. When I said to him, “I don’t think I have as much power as you think I do,” he was like, “Of course you do.” So, yeah, it was a terrifying day. I continue to give thanks that the four who were being held hostage survived.
Another weird note is that he seemed to think it normative that a Jew of color would be the chief rabbi of the United States. Does this mean our efforts for a more inclusive representation of Judaism are paying off?
It is funny because when I was named senior rabbi of Central, there was an Orthodox publication that had a headline like, “It’s official: Non-Jews can be rabbis” — literally calling me a non-Jew. And here was this deranged gunman who seemed to think I was the chief rabbi. I can laugh about it in some ways now that it’s over, but it is ironic.
The post How an ‘unlikely rabbi’ went from Korea to Colbert appeared first on The Forward.
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Harvard Faces $113 Million Budget Shortfall After Trump Cuts
Illustrative: Anti-Zionist Harvard students participating in a sit-in against Israel amid its war targeting Hamas terrorists in Gaza. Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, Nov. 16, 2023. Photo: Brian Snyder via Reuters Connect
Harvard University registered a $113 million budget deficit caused chiefly by the Trump administration’s confiscation of much of its federal contracts and grants as punishment for, among other alleged misdeeds, its admitted failure to combat antisemitism on campus, a Harvard report revealed last week.
According to Harvard’s “Financial Report: Fiscal Year 2025,” the university’s spending exceeded the $6.7 billion it amassed from donations, taxpayer support, tuition, and other income sources, such as endowment funds earmarked for operational expenses. Harvard also suffered a steep deficit in non-restricted donor funds, $212 million, a possible indication that philanthropists now hesitate to write America’s oldest university a blank check due to its inveterate generating of negative publicity — prompted by such episodes as the institution’s botching the appointment of its first Black president by conferring the honor to a plagiarist and its failing repeatedly to quell antisemitic discrimination and harassment.
Despite the 2025 fiscal year deficit, the total value of Harvard’s endowment grew by 11.9 percent to $56.9 billion, according to the report. However, school officials noted the challenge that federal pressure has presented to its financial situation.
“Even by the standards of our centuries-long history, fiscal year 2025 was extraordinarily challenging, with political and economic disruption affecting many sectors, including higher education,” Harvard president Alan Garber said in a statement. “We continue to adapt to uncertainty and threats to sources of revenue that have sustained our work for many years. We have intensified our efforts to expand our sources of funding.”
US President Donald Trump’s abrupt cancellation of taxpayer funds awarded to Harvard maimed the university as well, dropping its federal sponsored revenue fell by 8 percent to $629 million and incinerating exorbitant dollar amounts from Harvard’s portfolio. Speaking to The Harvard Gazette on Thursday, Harvard’s chief financial officer Ritu Karla pointed to “$116 million in sponsored funds — which are reimbursements for costs the university has already incurred” that “disappeared almost overnight” when Trump penalized Harvard in April.
Harvard will continue to feel Trump’s wrath as it pays out a new tax on endowment investments which Congress imposed on the country’s wealthiest universities in July. Its liability could be as high as $368.2 million, climbing to $454.8 million by 2030, according to an analysis conducted by American Enterprise Institute (AEI) researchers Mark Schneider and Christopher Robinson.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, in April, Trump ordered the expropriation of $2.26 billion in Harvard’s federal funds after the institution refused to agree to a wishlist of policy reforms that Republican lawmakers said would make higher education more meritocratic and less welcoming to anti-Zionists and far-left extremists. Contained in a letter the administration sent to Garber — who subsequently released it to the public — the policies called for “viewpoint diversity in hiring and admissions,” the “discontinuation of [diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives],” and “reducing forms of governance bloat.” They also implored Harvard to begin “reforming programs with egregious records of antisemitism” and to recalibrate its approach to “student discipline.”
Harvard refused the president his wishes even after losing the money and took the issue to federal court. Meanwhile, it built a financial war chest, leveraging its GDP-sized assets to issue over $1 billion dollars in new debt and drawing on its substantial cash reserves to keep the lights on. Eventually, it overcame the administration in the first stage of litigation, securing from a judge appointed by former US President Barack Obama restitution of some of the funds the administration impounded — but the nine-figure sum it lost in the process has led to its largest budget deficit since the Covid-19 pandemic, according to The Harvard Crimson.
“We are also examining operations at every level of the university as we seek greater adaptability and efficiency,” Garber said in Thursday’s statement. “In parallel, we continue to ensure that our academic environment nurtures excellence in all of our endeavors. We are promoting open inquiry, constructive dialogue, and viewpoint diversity, and pursuing our priorities with the resolve that the times demand.”
In additional commentary contributed to the report, Harvard treasury officials Timothy Barakett and Ritu Kalra said, “All of these developments have raised new questions about the financial foundations of higher education and underscore a shifting federal policy environment that will shape the future.” They also said that the “this result could have been much worse,” adding, “it reflects not only the magnitude of the disruption, but also the discipline of a university community that acted quickly and with resolve.”
More disruptions are forthcoming, as Harvard may have to fight again for its taxpayer funds before a US Supreme Court with which it lost a historic case that ended racial preferences in admissions, a policy once popularly known as “affirmative action,” because the court found Harvard’s own imposition of the practice on applicants resulted in widespread discrimination against Asian Americans.
Furthermore, Harvard remains under investigation over its handling of campus antisemitism. The US House Committee on Education and the Workforce wrote to Garber last month asking the university to comply with requests for internal communications regarding discrimination complaints filed by Jewish students.
The committee said it is especially interested in documents related to an October 2023 incident in which two anti-Zionists activists, joined by a mob, assaulted a Jewish graduate student while screaming “Shame!” at him as he struggled to free himself.
“Obtaining the documents will aid the committee in considering whether potential legislative changes, including legislation to specifically address antisemitic discrimination, are needed,” said the letter, authored by the committee’s chairman, Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY). “Harvard does not appear to have disciplined — and instead has rewarded — two students who assaulted an Israeli Jewish student who was filming a ‘die-in’ protest on Oct. 18, 2023.”
Walberg and Stefanik also demanded confirmation of Harvard’s decision to pause a partnership with Birzeit University in the West Bank. The Harvard-Birzeit partnership was put into abeyance following an internal investigation of Harvard’s François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights (FXB), the institution directly affiliated with Birzeit. It is not clear what ultimately caused Harvard to discontinue the arrangement, but it is a move for which prominent members of the Harvard community and federal lawmakers have clamored before.
“As you know, postsecondary institutions that receive federal funds must maintain a safe learning environment and fulfill all obligations under Title VI and its accompanying regulations,” they continued. “This includes the obligation to promptly address discrimination, including harassment that creates a hostile environment, wherever such circumstances may be found to exist.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Tel Aviv Soccer Game Abruptly Canceled After Dozens Injured by Fans Throwing Smoke Grenades, Violent Riots
Soccer Football – UEFA Europa League – Maccabi Tel Aviv v GNK Dinamo Zagreb – TSC Arena, Topola, Serbia – October 2, 2025 Maccabi Tel Aviv players pose for a team group photo before the match. Photo: REUTERS/Zorana Jevtic
An Israeli Premier League soccer game on Sunday at Tel Aviv’s Bloomfield Stadium between city rivals Hapoel and Maccabi was abruptly canceled shortly before kickoff due to “public disorder and violent riots” by fans in and around the stadium, according to Israel Police.
The match was called off out of concerns for public safety after a group of soccer fans threw dozens of smoke grenades and pyrotechnics devices onto the field inside the stadium, police said. The Associated Press cited a police spokesperson who said 42 people were injured, including five police officers, and dozens of people were arrested. Rioting fans outside of the stadium, who were upset about the canceled game, threw bottles and assaulted police officers, and one police officer was injured and required medical treatment, according to authorities. More than a dozen fans wearing masks were detained for unlawful assembly during the riots. Before the match, police also arrested a suspect, in his 20s, who attempted to smuggle four fireworks into stadium.
“Disorderly conduct, riots, injured police officers, and damage to infrastructure – this is not a soccer game, this is a breach of order and serious violence,” said Israel Police. “Following disturbances of public order and risk to human life ahead of the start of the soccer match at Bloomfield Stadium, the Israel Police has notified the teams’ management and the referees that it has been decided not to allow the match to take place,” the police force added.
“This is not scenery – this is a life-threatening danger,” Israel Police said Monday in a post on X that included a clip of the smoke grenades and flames being thrown inside Bloomfield Stadium. Tel Aviv District Commander Deputy Commissioner Haim Sarigrof said the police force has “zero tolerance for violent incidents.”
Maccabi Tel Aviv said in a statement that the game was canceled after flares were thrown by Hapoel fans, not supporters of the Maccabi team, according to the Associated Press. Hapoel Tel Aviv described the decision by police to cancel the game as “reckless and scandalous” and said most of the injuries were allegedly caused by police officers.
“In reality, most of the injuries from the event were actually caused by the brutal police violence at the end of the match, as a direct result of the scandalous decision to cancel the event,” Hapoel claimed. “Everyone saw the disturbing videos — children being trampled by horses, police officers beating fans indiscriminately. The police have taken over the sport — and we call from here on the leaders of Israeli football to do everything in their power to put an end to this, otherwise there will be no football here.”
“It goes without saying that the club’s management condemns all acts of violence—and will fight against lawbreakers, even if they are wearing uniforms,” Hapoel added.
Bloomfield Stadium is shared by both Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Tel Aviv, but Hapoel is designated as the home team. Maccabi fans have been banned from attending the team’s Europa League match against Aston Villa next month in the United Kingdom because of security concerns by British police regarding anti-Israel protests. In November 2024, Maccabi fans were violently assaulted in a premeditated and coordinated attack following a soccer game in Amsterdam between the soccer team and the Dutch club Ajax.
Earlier this year, an Israeli Premier League match between Maccabi Haifa and Maccabi Tel Aviv was canceled midway through the game for security reasons after Haifa fans threw flares at athletes.
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US Steps Up Diplomacy After Gaza Truce Shaken
Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Oct. 19, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
US envoys met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday aiming to corral Israel and Hamas to get the Gaza ceasefire plan back on track after an explosion of violence over the weekend that threatened to derail the week-old truce.
Israel and Hamas have both recommitted to the ceasefire plan brokered by US President Donald Trump since Sunday’s flare-up in which a Palestinian attack that killed two soldiers prompted an Israeli bombardment in Gaza.
However, with even the first stages of the truce shaken by repeated flashes of violence, including on Monday, it was far from clear whether the US will be able to keep pressure on the two sides and maintain momentum to end the conflict.
The latest events reflected the stumbling blocks to keeping the long-sought ceasefire from unraveling and securing a lasting peace after two years of war in Gaza. Key questions of Hamas disarming, further Israeli troop pullbacks, and future governance of the Palestinian enclave remain unresolved.
TALKS ON NEXT PHASE OF CEASEFIRE PLAN
Trump, keeping pressure on both Hamas and Israel as he seeks to salvage the signature foreign policy achievement of the first year of his second term, said on Monday the US was taking many steps to maintain the ceasefire.
He told reporters the “Hamas situation” would be handled quickly but that he had not told Israel to “go in and take care of it.” He said that while Hamas was in violation of the agreement, he did not believe its leadership was responsible but that it was facing “some rebellion” in its ranks.
If Hamas leaders do not straighten it out, “we’re going to eradicate them if we have to,” Trump said at the White House. But he insisted that such actions would not involve US troops on the ground.
During their visit that began on Monday, the US envoys, Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, were expected to try to shore up the truce then start talks on the next, more difficult, phase of the 20-step plan.
US Vice President JD Vance was also due to visit Israel on Tuesday, with Netanyahu saying the pair would discuss regional challenges and opportunities.
High-level US diplomacy in the region, with talks also due later on Monday with Hamas in Egypt, underscored the priority Trump has placed on cementing the ceasefire after proclaiming last week the deal heralded “the historic dawn of a new Middle East.”
On Monday, Palestinian medics said three more people had been killed by Israeli tank fire near the “yellow line” inside Gaza demarcating Israel’s initial military pullback from the main populated areas.
The Israeli military said forces had fired at militants who crossed that line, which it was started marking with concrete barriers and yellow poles about every 200 meters (219 yards).
Gaza City residents reported confusion over the line’s location due to the lack of a visible boundary.
HAMAS TO HAND OVER BODY OF ANOTHER HOSTAGE
Witkoff and Kushner’s visit to Israel, aimed at discussions on the next phase of Trump’s complex ceasefire plan, was scheduled before Sunday’s flare-up in violence, according to US and Israeli sources.
Israel is unlikely to publicize any progress in the talks until the remains of more hostages are returned.
The Red Cross received the body of another hostage from Hamas on Monday and transferred it to the Israeli military, Netanyahu’s office said.
Israel believes Hamas could hand over up to five more bodies immediately. Other bodies among 15 still in Gaza may be hard to recover because of destruction in the enclave.
Egypt will host talks in Cairo on Monday with Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas’s exiled Gaza chief, over ways to follow up on implementing the ceasefire, the group said in a statement.
A Palestinian official close to the talks said the group‘s delegation would discuss formation of a technocratic body to run Gaza without Hamas representation.
Hamas and other allied factions reject any foreign administration of Gaza, as envisaged in the Trump plan, and have so far resisted calls to lay down arms, which may complicate implementation of the deal.
RESIDENTS FEAR MORE OUTBREAKS OF VIOLENCE
Israel said it launched strikes across the enclave in response to a Palestinian attack that killed two soldiers operating inside the agreed deployment line in Rafah in southern Gaza.
Hamas’s armed wing said it was unaware of clashes in Rafah and had not been in contact with groups there since March.
Hamas, an internationally designated terrorist group, has detailed what it calls a series of violations by Israel that it says killed 46 people and stopped essential supplies from reaching the enclave.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said any Hamas terrorists in areas of Gaza still under Israeli control must leave immediately and anyone remaining beyond the yellow line would be targeted without warning.