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We Should Be Building More Jewish Institutions and Buildings — Not Downsizing Them
Rabbi Eli C. Freedman, Senior Rabbi Jill L. Maderer, and Cantor Bradley Hyman lead a service marking Erev Rosh Hashanah at Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US, Sept. 6, 2021. REUTERS/Rachel Wisniewski
A few weeks ago, driving through West Philadelphia with my son, I pointed out the streets where my grandparents once lived and the places where an older generation of our family once belonged.
We ended up talking about my long-shuttered synagogue, Beth T’filah in Overbrook Park. It was a few-hundred-family, postwar shul — modest in scale, but central to the rhythms of Jewish life that shaped my childhood. Later that evening, wanting to show him what that world looked like, I searched online for old photographs.
What I found stunned and troubled me.
Despite being a student of history — Philadelphia history, specifically — I was unprepared for what appeared on my screen. Image after image of synagogues I had never even heard of: scattered throughout Strawberry Mansion, Logan, West Philadelphia, and Wynnefield Heights.
These weren’t simple storefront shuls. They were grand structures with limestone façades, soaring sanctuaries, and stained-glass windows that radiated pride. Community centers that once throbbed with life. Physical evidence of a Jewish world far deeper and more vibrant than I had ever understood; stories of families and countless lives lived mere miles from where I grew up, yet entirely unknown to me.
My son leaned over my shoulder, studying the images with urgent curiosity. “This was all here? We had this many synagogues?” he asked, scrolling through sanctuaries the size of concert halls.
He knows American Jewish life as something smaller, more cautious, more scattered. These images showed him — and reminded me — that we once built with astonishing boldness. That we were visible, rooted, unafraid.
Most of these buildings no longer house Jewish life. Many are churches now; others stand abandoned or have disappeared entirely. Hidden City Philadelphia’s haunting photographs of the last synagogues of Strawberry Mansion capture this painful truth: magnificent sanctuaries built for bustling communities now sit silent, their pasts forgotten by most who walk by.
This is not just Philadelphia’s story. The same pattern of memory and erasure appears in Detroit, St. Louis, Newark, Cleveland, Chicago, and dozens of other cities. Entire Jewish neighborhoods — once dense, spirited, and civically intertwined — have faded from view.
What They Built, and Why
It is worth remembering how and why these communities emerged. In the mid-20th century, Jewish families, many first- or second-generation Americans, moved to new neighborhoods seeking opportunity, safety, and stability. Veterans returned from war and built small businesses. Women organized sisterhoods and ran charity circles. Men’s clubs held debates, breakfasts, and social events. Hebrew schools, JCCs, Zionist youth groups, choirs, lecture series, and summer camps created the thick connective tissue of Jewish life. These weren’t simply clusters of Jewish families; they were ecosystems of belonging.
At the center of each ecosystem stood the synagogue – not just as a place to pray, but as a civic anchor: a social hub, a public square, a home for both the sacred and the ordinary. People went there for weekday minyanim and Hebrew school pickups, for community meetings and interfaith dialogues, for holiday carnivals and debates about Israel, for fundraisers and grief support. For everything. The synagogue was where American Jewish life displayed its fullness.
Our grandparents and their peers understood something we risk forgetting: Jewish life must be built. It does not survive on good intentions. It does not thrive on nostalgia. They had little money, limited political power, and uncertain futures; yet they erected schools before they had enough students, synagogues before they had enough members to fill the pews, and community centers before they knew how they would pay the heating bill. They assumed a Jewish future and constructed toward it.
The Danger of Our Caution
Today we are more cautious. We consolidate, close, downsize, and strategize. We measure risk before we imagine possibility. We worry about demographics and budgets and “market realities.” In an age of rising antisemitism, cultural erasure, and digital amnesia, the instinct to retreat has never been stronger or more dangerous.
When Jewish visibility shrinks, when communal footprints recede, when institutions atrophy, the void does not stay empty. Others fill it, often with hostility.
I understand the fear. Antisemitism is not theoretical, it’s spray-painted on our synagogues, screamed at our students, legislated in international forums. Jewish communities are smaller than they were. Intermarriage rates are high. Affiliation is down. These are facts, not talking points.
But here’s what else is true: dispersion makes us more vulnerable, not less. When Jews scatter, when we become invisible, when our institutions disappear, we don’t become safer – we become isolated targets. The antisemite doesn’t stop hating because the synagogue closed; he simply faces less organized resistance. A community that cannot gather cannot defend itself. A community without institutions cannot transmit its values, protect its members, or advocate for its interests.
Jewish survival has never been secured by retreat. It has always been secured by presence — visible, confident, communal presence. By building synagogues and schools and youth groups and cultural institutions. By creating Jewish spaces where identity is transmitted, where belonging is felt, where children grow up understanding that they are part of something larger and older and enduring. This is not recklessness. This is how minorities survive in hostile environments: through solidarity, visibility, and the infrastructure of mutual support.
What We Owe the Future
Driving through Philadelphia, I tried to convey this to my son: Jewish life is not something you simply inherit. It must be constructed, sustained, reinforced.
Our grandparents did not build out of sentimentality. They built out of responsibility, conviction, and love. They believed that their children and grandchildren would need places to pray, learn, gather, argue, celebrate, and mourn. They built because they believed Jewish life mattered in America and deserved permanence.
We need that mindset again; not as a wistful tribute to a vanished past, but as a practical and moral imperative. At a moment when antisemitism is resurgent and Jewish visibility is contested, we cannot afford minimalism. We should be founding more schools, not fewer. More synagogues, not fewer. More youth programs, more minyanim, more cultural centers, more visible Jewish infrastructure.
I know the objections. I’ve heard them all, often from people I respect.
“Those synagogues emptied out — why repeat the same mistakes?” We’re not talking about blind replication. We’re talking about recovering the audacity to build while learning from both successes and failures. The mid-century model had flaws — exclusivity, rigidity, the costs of suburbanization itself. But the alternative we’ve chosen — building little to nothing, consolidating endlessly — guarantees decline. You can’t iterate on what you refuse to create.
“Young Jews want something different — they’re not joiners, they want authenticity and flexibility.” Every generation believes it has invented a new kind of Judaism. Yes, forms must evolve. But the underlying need for physical Jewish space where real relationships form, where children absorb identity through presence and participation, where community becomes tangible — that need hasn’t changed. Digital community kept us connected during COVID, but you cannot transmit Jewish identity through a screen. You cannot raise Jewish children on Zoom.
“We can’t afford it — demographics are against us, costs are too high.” Our grandparents were poorer. They faced quotas, discrimination, and far more virulent antisemitism. They built anyway. Resource constraints are real, but they’re often cover for lack of will. And the math works in reverse: not building costs more. Every shuttered Hebrew school is a generation we fail to educate. Every consolidated synagogue is a neighborhood we abandon. Managed decline is still decline, just slower and more expensive.
“Consolidation is smart stewardship — better one strong institution than several struggling ones.” There’s a difference between strategic consolidation and institutional surrender dressed up as prudence. Yes, merge when it genuinely strengthens. But we’ve spent two decades consolidating, and Jewish life hasn’t gotten stronger — it’s gotten smaller, more distant, more fragile. At some point, “stewardship” becomes a euphemism for retreat.
The isolation crisis is real. American institutions of all kinds are weakening. Loneliness is epidemic. These are not reasons to build less — they are reasons to build more.
And it is happening. Despite the challenges, Jewish communities across North America are building. The Stanley I. Chera Sephardic Academy in Manhattan has grown from 20 preschool students in 2011 to 240 students through sixth grade in 2025, adding campuses and expanding rapidly.
New York Jewish day schools saw their largest single-year enrollment increase since 2020, growing by over 4,000 students in 2023-2024. Post-October 7, UJA-Federation of New York launched new subsidies responding to what they call “the surge” — a spike in demand for Jewish schools, camps, and synagogues. Eighteen synagogues across the United States are now operating or preparing Jewish after-school programs, serving nearly 300 students and growing. From Brooklyn to Los Angeles, independent minyanim continue to flourish, creating new models of engaged Jewish community for young adults.
These are not isolated examples — they represent a broader pattern of Jewish communities choosing to build rather than retreat.
The work begins with individual commitment and communal organization. Start by showing up. Attend that weekday minyan. Enroll your child in Hebrew school. Join the board of a struggling synagogue. Volunteer at the JCC. Donate to build, not just to maintain. Support new initiatives even when they feel risky. Push back against the reflex to consolidate and retreat. If your community lacks the institutions you want to see, gather a minyan of committed people and create them.
My son looked at those photographs with amazement, wondering how such a world could exist without him ever hearing about it. The truth is that the Jewish world he will inherit depends entirely on what we choose to build now.
Earlier generations left us institutions robust enough to carry us through a turbulent century. With far greater freedom and far more resources than they ever had, we have no excuse for shrinking our ambitions.
If they built so much with so little, then we — for our children and theirs — must do no less.
Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
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Global Court Decisions Spark Outrage as Antisemitic Crimes, Attacks See Reduced Sentences
Pro-Hamas demonstrators marching in Munich, Germany. Photo: Reuters/Alexander Pohl
Court rulings around the globe are raising alarm bells as judges in Germany, Australia, and France have overturned or reduced sentences for individuals accused of antisemitic crimes, sparking public outrage over the leniency shown in such cases.
For the first time, a local court in Germany has allowed antisemitic slogans calling for Israel’s destruction and denying its right to exist to be chanted at a pro-Palestinian demonstration, despite concerns that such calls incite hatred and violence, according to the German newspaper Bild.
The Higher Administrative Court in Münster, a city in North Rhine-Westphalia in western Germany, issued an expedited ruling overturning a previous ban that had restricted protests to prevent participants from disrupting public order and inciting violence.
The ruling came after local police had imposed restrictions on an anti-Israel demonstration scheduled for Saturday in Düsseldorf, a city that had drawn more than 5,000 registered participants.
Prior to the protest, local law enforcement had prohibited demonstrators from chanting slogans that deny Israel’s right to exist and promote hatred — including “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” “There is only one state: Palestine 48,” and “Yalla, yalla, Intifada!” The first two slogans call for the Jewish state’s complete destruction, to be replaced by “Palestine,” and the third phrase calls for violence against Jews and Israelis.
However, the court ruled that “denying the State of Israel’s right to exist does not in itself constitute a criminal offense.”
Instead, the court emphasized that “a critical examination of the founding of the State of Israel and the call for a peaceful change of the existing conditions” is protected under the right to freedom of expression.
With this ruling, the ban on “There is only one state: Palestine 48” was lifted, even though the slogan calls for the annihilation of Israel, established in 1948.
But “Yalla, yalla, Intifada” and “From the river to the sea” will remain banned, the first for its potential to incite violence and the second as a slogan associated with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
In a separate and controversial ruling thousands of miles away, a man who set fire to a synagogue in Melbourne while worshippers were inside received a lenient sentence after an Australian court ruled that his actions were the result of mental illness rather than antisemitism.
On Monday, an Australian magistrate ruled that 35-year-old Angelo Loras was not driven by antisemitism but by a severe psychotic episode caused by his failure to take schizophrenia medication when he set fire to a local synagogue, with more than 20 worshippers inside sharing a Shabbat meal.
Earlier this year, Loras pleaded guilty to arson and recklessly endangering lives after pouring flammable liquid on the front door of the East Melbourne Synagogue and setting it alight, though no one was injured. This attack was one of three suspected antisemitic incidents across Melbourne over the weekend of July 4–6.
At the time, government officials and Jewish leaders denounced the attack as a clear hate crime.
With this ruling, Loras was given a four-month prison sentence — less than the 138 days he had already spent in custody — and was also ordered to continue schizophrenia treatment for 20 months and perform unpaid work. He will be eligible for release on Monday.
Meanwhile, a local court in France has dramatically reduced the sentence of one of the two teenagers convicted of the brutal gang rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl, citing his “need to prepare for future reintegration.”
More than a year after the attack, the Versailles Court of Appeal retried one of the convicted boys — the only one to challenge his sentence — behind closed doors, ultimately reducing his term from nine to seven years and imposing an educational measure
The original sentences, handed down in June, gave the two boys — who were 13 years old at the time of the incident — seven and nine years in prison, respectively, after they were convicted on charges of group rape, physical violence, and death threats aggravated by antisemitic hatred.
The third boy involved in the attack, the girl’s ex-boyfriend, was accused of threatening her and orchestrating the attack, also motivated by racist prejudice.
Because the girl’s ex-boyfriend was under 13 at the time of the attack, he did not face prison and was instead sentenced to five years in an educational facility.
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New X Policy Reveals Foreign Locations of Anti-Israel Propagandists Spreading Gaza Disinformation
A 3D-printed miniature model of Elon Musk and the X logo are seen in this illustration taken Jan. 23, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
Billionaire Elon Musk’s social media platform X over the weekend implemented a new feature revealing the locations behind all accounts, exposing that many individuals claiming to report from Gaza lived in other countries while some popular right-wing American accounts who had promoted patriotism and loyalty to US President Donald Trump actually resided overseas.
“The. Gaza. Lie. Exposed. New X feature ripped mask off countless fake ‘Gazan’ accounts,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry posted on X on Sunday. “Some chap posting from Pakistan, another in London. Another manipulative abuser somewhere else. All claiming to be suffering in Gaza while in the comfort of some coffee shop far away.”
The Foreign Ministry said that X’s decision to test the feature showing an account’s physical location “is to be praised & encouraged. Freedom of speech is a core principle. So is transparency & accountability. The ‘citizen-journalist’ on social media also needs to meet certain minimum standards. Kudos X.”
In a follow-up post, the Foreign Ministry gave an example with a screenshot of journalist Motasem A Dalloul’s account, writing, “196,900 followers being lied to by fake ‘journalist’ claiming to be in Gaza. New @X feature reveals his actual location is Poland. Reporting from Gaza is fake & not reliable. Makes you wonder how many more fake reports have you read?”
The New York Post identified multiple Gaza-associated accounts who X now revealed as based in India, the United Kingdom, or the West Bank.
On Saturday, journalist Eitan Fischberger began identifying X accounts he described as “subverting the US by flooding X with anti-American, anti-Israel, demoralizing, or Marxist content aimed specifically at Americans. Several of them pose as Americans. But now the jig is up.” He then featured accounts located in North Africa, India, Serbia, Turkey, Norway, and Saudi Arabia.
Here’s a thread of prominent accounts that have been subverting the US by flooding X with anti-American, anti-Israel, demoralizing, or Marxist content aimed specifically at Americans.
Several of them pose as Americans. But now the jig is up.
Add more examples in the comments
pic.twitter.com/M1H6y0dG90
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) November 22, 2025
Pirate Wires also reported on Gaza-based content coming out of Egypt, North Africa, Indonesia, and Canada.
Nikita Bier, X’s head of product, had described the change as “an important first step to securing the integrity of the global town square. We plan to provide many more ways for users to verify the authenticity of the content they see on X.”
Some users protested the location displayed with their account was inaccurate, with X admitting as much in some cases. In one instance, the account for the US Department of Homeland Security stated its origin in Tel Aviv, prompting an official statement denying the connection.
Business Insider reported that X account MAGA NATION, a supporter of Trump that proclaims itself “America First” and has collected 400,000 followers, is based in Eastern Europe. NBC News found pro-Trump accounts based in Africa, Macedonia, and South Asia. Pirate Wires described conservative American content as originating in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Thailand, Nigeria, and Papua New Guinea.
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US Justice Department Launches Probe Into Anti-Israel Mob Targeting New York City Synagogue
Nov. 19, 2025, New York, New York, USA: Anti-Israel protesters rally outside of Park East Synagogue. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
The US Justice Department has started an investigation into a gathering of demonstrators who called for violence against Jews outside a prominent New York City synagogue last Wednesday night, according to a senior official.
“Investigation is underway. [The Justice Department] has zero tolerance for violence/obstruction around any American house of worship,” Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights at the department, announced on social media on Sunday.
Investigation is underway. @TheJusticeDept has zero tolerance for violence/obstruction around any American house of worship. https://t.co/rEEFAifj6n
— AAGHarmeetDhillon (@AAGDhillon) November 23, 2025
Dhillon’s comments came amid ongoing furor over last week’s protest, where demonstrators harassed those attending an event being held by Nefesh B’Nefesh, a Zionist organization that helps Jews immigrate to Israel, at Park East Synagogue in Manhattan.
Protesters were recorded screaming obscenities to event attendees and blocking the entrance into the synagogue.
“We don’t want no Zionists here!” the group of roughly 200 anti-Israel activists chanted in intervals while waving the Palestinian flag. “Resistance, you make us proud, take another settler out.”
One protester, addressing the crowd, reportedly proclaimed, “It is our duty to make them think twice before holding these events! We need to make them scared.”
Footage on social media also showed agitators chanting “death to the IDF,” referring to the Israel Defense Forces, as well as “globalize the intifada” and “intifada revolution.”
Community figures described the scene as openly threatening and a stark escalation of anti-Jewish hostility in New York City.
“It’s a federal crime to block access to a house of worship in the US. @CivilRights under @AGPamBondi will NOT tolerate it and we are gathering information about this incident!” Dhillon posted on X/Twitter on Friday, two days before announcing the department was investigating the incident.
Jessica Tisch, commissioner of the New York City Police Department (NYPD), addressed the demonstration while speaking to Park East Synagogue on Saturday. Tisch, who is Jewish, cited the demonstrators’ rights to assemble, protest, and speak freely but also apologized for allowing “turmoil” to take place.
“People have the right to protest, including within sight and sound of a house of worship. They have the right to say things that are incredibly painful to hear. I understand that pain, deeply and personally,” Tisch said. “But the right to say those things is protected by the First Amendment, and the NYPD must uphold that right.”
“Our other job that night was to ensure that people could easily enter and leave shul. That is where we fell short. And for that, I apologize to this congregation,” she added, noting that police should have set up a “frozen zone” at the synagogue’s entrance. Because one was not set up, she said, “the space right outside your steps was chaotic.”
“You deserved an NYPD posture that recognized the sensitivity of this location, the climate we’re living in, and the heightened fear within our community,” Tisch told the congregation. “Instead, you had turmoil.”
New York City has experienced a historic surge in anti-Jewish hate crimes over the last two years, following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
Since entering the White House in January, the Trump administration has vowed to crack down on antisemitism, making it a priority of federal law enforcement.
Zohran Mamdani, who was elected New York City’s next mayor earlier this month, issued a statement that “discouraged” the extreme rhetoric used by the protesters on Wednesday night but did not unequivocally condemn the harassment of Jews outside their own house of worship. Mamdani’s office notably also criticized the synagogue, with his team describing the event inside as a “violation of international law,” an allegation apparently referencing Israel’s settlement policies in the West Bank.
“The mayor-elect has discouraged the language used at last night’s protest and will continue to do so,” Mamdani spokesperson Dora Pekec said in a statement on Thursday. “He believes every New Yorker should be free to enter a house of worship without intimidation, and that these sacred spaces should not be used to promote activities in violation of international law.”
Jewish leaders reacted with disappointment, arguing that Mamdani effectively provided political justification for a protest that targeted Jews for participating in a mainstream, fully legal pro-Israel program. Critics said the mayor-elect’s framing implied that the synagogue’s event, not the threatening chants outside, was the real problem, a position they described as deeply irresponsible amid rising antisemitism in the city.
During his short tenure in the state assembly as a lawmaker, Mamdani spearheaded a series of efforts to marginalize and penalize organizations with ties to Israel, spiking fears that the incoming mayor might weaponize the government against the city’s Jewish population. Mamdani is an outspoken supporter of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward its eventual elimination.
Mamdani also defended the phrase “globalize the intifada” — which references previous periods of sustained Palestinian terrorism against Jews and Israelis and has been widely interpreted as a call to expand political violence — by invoking the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising during World War II.