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For this unconventional Jewish organization, tradition takes a back seat to community
Despite a temporary boost after Oct. 7 — the so-called ‘solidarity spike’ — traditional Jewish community in the United States has been in decline for at least a generation.
Synagogue attendance, regular Shabbat practice, paying congregational dues — never have these seemed less appealing to more Jews.
This isn’t all that surprising. American Jewry is evolving — interfaith households are up, support for Israel is down — and the onus, to a degree, is on the Hillels and Jewish Community Centers and large metropolitan synagogues to respond to these changes.
Yet the growth of a group like Judaism Unbound, a digitally-savvy Jewish organization founded in part as an alternative to the mainstays of American-Jewish life, would seem to suggest that, in certain quarters, the usual offerings just aren’t cutting it.
What the organization’s members share above all, said Lex Rofeberg, its senior Jewish educator, is a failure to connect meaningfully with “classic Jewish institutions.”
Unbounders — Rofeberg’s somewhat hokey name for the group’s members — are on the fringes of Jewish community for several reasons: among them, political beliefs; accessibility; interfaith dynamics; or a perceived knowledge deficit. There are, for example, a disproportionately high number of converts and Jews from interfaith backgrounds in the organization.
Lisa Heineman, a professor of Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies at the University of Iowa, and a longtime Unbounder, told me over email that despite her repeated efforts to get involved with Jewish institutions, she “simply felt like an outsider — I didn’t know the rituals, couldn’t play Jewish geography, didn’t fit into the ethnic Yiddishkeit.”
For many Unbounders, distance from mainstream Jewish community is not just figurative, but literal. “There’s a ton of creativity off the beaten path,” Heineman wrote. “And Judaism Unbound has been alert to what we have to gain by listening to Jews in places like Iowa, Oklahoma or Mississippi — and by really integrating them into their conception of American Jewish life.”
An unconventional approach
Judaism Unbound — or the ‘Institute for the Next Jewish Future,’ the group’s lesser-used official name — has embraced what Rofeberg calls “digital-first” Judaism, the better to reach those Jews in far-flung locations. With occasional exceptions, most events take place online. “Digitally, you are able to reach everywhere,” Rofeberg said. “People who are ostracized, people who are marginalized in whatever ways, find us. We had a lot of success very quickly online in ways that could not have happened offline.”
The events themselves — in keeping with the group’s anti-institutional bent — are sold as a departure from tradition.
“To be a Judaism Unbounder,” Rofeberg said, “is not to presume that the status quo is eternal.” One recent program, for instance, explored books from the Apocrypha, the liturgical texts that, though hugely influential, were never accepted into the biblical canon. The ‘Apocrafest,’ as the event was known, was typical of an Unbound program: zany and experimental, deeply if unconventionally Jewish, and, in truth, a little intellectually demanding.
Another of Unbound’s principal offerings is the ‘UnYeshiva’, a virtual beit knesset of sorts that offers online classes on an increasingly sprawling suite of topics, such as ‘Genesis: People and Solidarity in Bereshit’; ‘Every Body Beloved: A Jewish Embrace of Fatness’; and ‘Jews and Revolution: Socialists, Anarchists, and Radicals in the Modern World.’
The ‘UnYeshiva’ debuted in 2021 and was so well-received that Rofeberg and co. added a longer certificate program for the especially dedicated. These can take up to three years to complete, and consist of four separate classes, followed by a so-called capstone project, which the organization’s website describes as “a unique expression of each student’s holy work in the world.”
Heineman’s capstone project was a day-long, genre-spanning workshop — art, text study, meditation — that invited participants to reflect on a “path to a meaningful Jewish future.” That Heineman had had a previous capstone proposal shot down, on the grounds that her idea was too conventional, captures Judaism Unbound’s animating spirit, its insistence that participants innovate and experiment.
This programming is, suffice it to say, atypical, not least when set against the broader American-Jewish landscape. “Our premise from the get-go,” Rofeberg told me, “is that it’s very hard for existing legacy organizations to drastically change what they do in ways that will reach a new constituency, when they also have their own constituency.”
Matt Perry, another UnYeshiva graduate, agrees. “If there’s one idea that I’ve noticed many participants perhaps share,” he wrote, “it might be the belief that a revolution is unlikely to emerge from within existing Jewish structures.”
UnBound, through the airwaves
For all the UnYeshiva’s successes, the organization’s most popular venture remains its first: its eponymous podcast, hosted by Rofeberg and, until very recently, Dan Liebenson, Judaism Unbound’s founder. (Liebenson has stepped back from the organization’s day-to-day affairs to focus on a new Jewish venture.)
Both Perry and Heineman came to Judaism Unbound through the podcast, which launched in March 2016, and has since been downloaded over 3 million times. Heineman compared its array of guests and topics to “entering Narnia.”
In an era of ideological insularity, guests have run pretty much the full gamut of serious opinion. To name a few: Sarah Hurwitz, Peter Beinart, Shai Held, Danya Ruttenberg, Hey Alma founder Molly Tolsky. “Week after week,” Heineman told me, “I’d discover a new book, a new musician, a new activist organization, a new online educator — all working on this incredibly exciting project of re-thinking and re-invigorating Judaism.”
Rofeberg, for his part, wasn’t always so satisfied with the podcast. For a while, he felt it was creating a kind of epistemic distance between hosts and listeners. “Other than listening to us and emailing us,” he said, “they weren’t able to really actively participate.”
In 2023, the organization hired Miriam Terlinchamp, an Ohio-based rabbi, as executive director. Rofeberg credits her with introducing a less top-down pedagogical vision, and today the group has “more spaces where our people can come up with their own experiments,” he said. It hosts monthly Shabbat gatherings — online, naturally — during which participants explore one prayer in depth. There’s also an annual Shavuot event, Shavuot Live, a 24-hour-long Zoom gathering that draws hundreds of Unbounders and generates lengthy discussions in the event’s chatroom.
“In every respect, we’re trying to broaden who Judaism Unbound is,” Rofeberg said. “We’re not dictatorial, right?”
A post-Oct. 7 boost
The organization has grown sharply, especially of late, precisely because it hasn’t changed all that much. It’s always been a little counter-cultural and vaguely transgressive; it’s long suggested that Jewish life has passed over vital constituencies; and it’s consistently held that “the oldest Jewish tradition,” in Rofeberg’s phrase, “is upending Jewish tradition.”
The salient difference recently — read: since Oct. 7 — is that more Jews have come around to that interpretation. “We’ve had a lot of people find our work in the last few years, because more people than before feel alienated from other organizations,” Rofeberg said.
Concern over Israel’s actions in Gaza certainly helps explain this shift. As Rofeberg conceded, Judaism Unbound welcomes anti- and non-Zionists “in a Jewish world that largely doesn’t.”
The organization doesn’t have an official stance vis-a-vis Zionism. (“We’re a space that does not define itself with any ‘ism,” Rofeberg said.) One of its more impressive accomplishments, in fact, is gathering together under a single banner, albeit a virtual one, Jews who would otherwise scarcely interact.
In short, Judaism Unbound is that often-invoked-but-harder-to-realize idea of a big tent, where different beliefs mingle freely but are held together by a set of unifying values. For many, therefore, it has been a refuge from the division that has lately defined much of organized Jewish life.
Yet, for Perry, it’s more than that. “Over time, and combined with other semi-aligned efforts,” he wrote, “it has the potential to transform the Jewish world.”
The post For this unconventional Jewish organization, tradition takes a back seat to community appeared first on The Forward.
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What Happened, Megyn Kelly?
Megyn Kelly hosts a “prove me wrong” session during AmericaFest, the first Turning Point USA summit since the death of Charlie Kirk, in Phoenix, Arizona, US, Dec. 19, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Caitlin O’Hara
Megyn Kelly is one of the leading voices in the American right-wing media landscape.
The former Fox News host’s podcast draws millions of listeners, and is one of the highest-ranked news podcasts in the United States.
But with that influence has come a noticeable and troubling shift in her approach to Israel.
In less than a year, Kelly has gone from a supporter of Israel and the Jewish people to someone who downplays antisemitism and suggests Israel wields disproportionate influence in American politics.
A few examples illustrate the change:
- In November 2022, Kelly referred to far-right figure Nick Fuentes’ meeting with then-former President Donald Trump as “absolutely disgusting” and “deeply, deeply wrong.” Yet in November 2025, during a conversation with Ben Shapiro, she defended Tucker Carlson’s decision to platform Fuentes.
- In June 2025, Kelly lauded the American bombing of Iranian nuclear sites and emphasized longstanding US opposition to a nuclear Iran. Nine months later, she described the joint Israel-US operation as “Israel’s war.”
- In November 2022, Kelly called rising antisemitism “disturbing” and forcefully condemned anti-Jewish hate. By December 2025, she accused Jewish figures like Ben Shapiro and Bari Weiss of “making antisemites,” while downplaying the role of figures like Tucker Carlson in amplifying such rhetoric.
- In June 2025, Kelly framed an attack on a gathering of Jews advocating for Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado, as a likely terror incident tied to broader antisemitic violence. But after a Lebanese man attacked a Michigan synagogue in March 2026, her only responses were reposting a claim about the attacker’s family — omitting their Hezbollah ties — and a brief reference to him as a “naturalized citizen from Lebanon.”
So, what changed?
Kelly’s shift appears to have begun in July 2025, when she claimed that Israel was making itself “the villain of the world” during an appearance on Piers Morgan’s show.
A month later, she interviewed then-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who argued that Israel exerts undue influence over the US government and that American politicians are “bought and paid for” by AIPAC. Kelly stopped short of endorsing Greene’s claims of “genocide” in Gaza, but still maintained her support for Israel’s right to defend itself.
In September 2025, Kelly cited Max Blumenthal, regarding the death of Charlie Kirk and Israel, lending credibility to a figure widely associated with misinformation and conspiracy theories.
Since then, the pattern has intensified. As noted above, Kelly has defended Tucker Carlson’s platforming of antisemites, declined to confront antisemitism on the right (claiming her focus is the “left”), and increasingly suggested that Israel exerts outsized control over US foreign policy.
This change appears driven by both political and personal factors.
Within the American right, an ongoing dispute between traditional foreign policy hawks and “America First” isolationists has intensified — especially since the assassination of Charlie Kirk in September 2025.
Israel has become a central fault line in that divide.
On the isolationist side, this debate has increasingly overlapped with the normalization of extremist and antisemitic rhetoric seen in figures like Tucker Carlson and others who platform voices that demonize Israel and Jews.
This retreat from foreign engagement, combined with flirtations with antisemitism, is particularly pronounced among younger right-wing audiences drawn to figures like Carlson and Candace Owens.
Against this backdrop, Kelly appears to be recalibrating.
Rather than shaping her audience, she is following it, moving from tentative criticism to increasingly sweeping claims.
Yet she has not fully embraced the conspiratorial rhetoric of Carlson or Owens. Instead, she acts as a bridge shielding more extreme voices while refusing to challenge them.
That makes her less an extremist than an enabler.
There are also more personal incentives at play. As noted by Ben Shapiro, Kelly has a history of adjusting her positions to maximize engagement, reflecting trends within the right rather than shaping them.
Her podcast is managed by Red Seat Ventures, which also produces Tucker Carlson’s show and other right-leaning content. Breaking with those figures could carry professional costs.
Taken together, Kelly’s shift appears driven by audience capture, relevance, and incentives, not principle.
And when a major media figure operates that way, it raises serious questions about the integrity of American political discourse.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
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Yes, It Should Be Spelled ‘Anti-Semitism’ — and Yes, It Matters
Jewish Americans and supporters of Israel gather at the National Mall in Washington, DC on Nov. 14, 2023 for the “March for Israel” rally. Photo: Dion J. Pierre/The Algemeiner
With everything happening right now — bombs thrown in New York City; synagogues and Jewish schools shot up in Michigan, Toronto, and the Netherlands; Israelis beaten in nearly every European country — one would think that semantic arguments would be the last thing we’re engaging in.
But we’re Jews; we do like to argue. And even pro-Israel millennials were raised on the post-modern falsehood that words can be manipulated to suit personal agendas.
It all started with the forbidden hyphen, which refused to conform to social media norms. Hashtags are sacred on social media. And hashtags are anti-hyphen — sorry, #antihyphen — so anti-Semitism had to be smushed up and millennialized: “antisemitism.”
If you dare to spell it correctly, you will receive long tirades on how conformity will set you free.
Never mind that non-conformity is at the essence of who we are as a people — and all free societies. And that when French anti-Semites began throwing Holocaust survivors out of windows and poisoning Jewish kids’ food, the perpetrators didn’t shout: “No hyphen!”
In the old days, we would call these types of theoretical arguments “academic” — essentially, meaningless. It’s quite ironic, actually, given that so much of academia is now meaningless. But we’ve now moved past meaningless to actually harmful.
The newest post-modern fascism I mean fashion is to not just remove the hyphen from anti-Zionism but to smush it up into: antizionism.
It is so disrespectful to the word Zion, which of course means Jerusalem (Tziyon), and to Zionism, which means the return of Judeans to our homeland, that many of us find it hard to even look at these post-modern configurations.
But by unlinking the term to anti-Semitism, post-modernists have also allowed it to be redefined by anyone with an anti-Semitic agenda. At a minimum, this could lead to a course called something like “Zionism vs. anti-Zionism,” and we all know how factually accurate that will be.
The post-modernists argue that we need to say that anti-Zionism is a hate movement. Leaving aside the fact that anti-Semitism says precisely that, I would even be willing to indulge a little of this nuttiness if the primary source of today’s anti-Semitism was still coming from the Soviet Union.
The Soviets did a great deal of damage, and not just by promoting the warmth of collectivism. In addition to creating the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) with Egyptian Yasser Arafat in 1964, the Soviets first introduced the oppressor/oppressed narrative into our universities, failing to mention of course that Russia has been (and is) one of the greatest oppressors throughout history.
But the truth is, the bulk of today’s anti-Semitism on the left — both in and out of academia; both here and in Europe — is not coming from Marxists. It’s coming from Islamists. Many people who immigrated here came from countries where anti-Semitism was part of the formal education system, and also the informal one. It’s taboo to say that these days — even though a look at the “anti-Israel” marches on the streets of the West shows this dynamic — but ignoring the problem doesn’t make it go away.
Arab Muslims who were living in Eretz Yisrael before 1948 — before the fulfillment of Zionism — opposed Jews living on any piece of the land. That’s why there is no “Palestinian state” today. Because while the UN granted one in 1947, the Palestinian Arab population and five Arab armies rejected that. Instead, they tried to kill every Jew in Israel, and take all of the territory for their own. You never hear the fact that they turned down a Palestinian state in any discussion about the Middle East these days.
The anti-hyphen warriors claim to be merely calling out a hate movement. But by giving it a new name they’re legitimizing it. We still need to “name the movement,” they vehemently demand.
Okay. It’s called anti-Semitism. It’s the world’s oldest hatred. Spelling it incorrectly doesn’t lessen the hate or mitigate the violence that always follows. It just takes our eyes off of the escalating situation. No doubt Islamists can’t believe their good fortune.
Karen Lehrman Bloch is editor in chief of White Rose Magazine. A different version of this article appeared in The Jewish Journal.
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After Ukraine and Iran, NATO Must Change
A Turkish army personnel walks as they search a field after a piece of ammunition fell following the interception of a missile launched from Iran by a NATO air defense system, in Diyarbakir, Turkey, March 9, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Sertac Kayar
The war with Iran — along with the Ukraine war — have exposed wide cracks in NATO. The political and economic realities have changed dramatically since the birth of NATO, and more so after the end of the Cold War.
Institutions, especially these multinational ones, are never quick to react to the changes around them. And they are also, like every bureaucracy, resistant to change. Eventually, they serve no purpose but the glory of the past and the employment of the bureaucracy itself. And that is exactly where NATO could find itself if reform doesn’t happen.
At the end of the Cold War, Russia, slowly emerging from the ruins of the Soviet Union, presented itself as a great economic opportunity. European NATO members bought into the new economic-security architecture of the continent that consisted of two pillars: energy from Russia and security from the United States.
Europe was to be in the middle, reaping the benefits from the cheap oil and gas from Russia and spending far less on defense than the US.
A military alliance like NATO assumes each member is, regardless of its size, economy, and military capabilities, willing to put its citizens in harm’s way when war is the only option left.
Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has shown that this is not the case. Most NATO members admit that Russia is the biggest threat to Europe and NATO. They publicly declare that Ukraine is just the first step in Russia’s strategy to reclaim its previous glory (and territory), and the status of a superpower.
Yet, they repeat the assertion that under no circumstances will NATO, or any European troops, participate directly in the hostilities. True, Ukraine is not a NATO member, but NATO has shown Europe’s desire to avoid war at all costs. If a country like Poland or Estonia, both NATO members, was attacked by Russia, does anyone believe NATO would actually engage Russia in direct combat?
The blame for this abdication of duties lies, at least partially, with the United States. When NATO was created, Europe, devastated by the war, was in no position to match even remotely what the US could offer to the alliance. The United States assumed the burden in money and fighting force.
Europe has recovered and prospered since that arrangement. The reality changed, but the division of labor in NATO between the US and its European members did not. The United States never, until President Donald Trump came into office, pressed the point forcefully or publicly. NATO did contribute to the War in Afghanistan, but its small participation is not enough to confront the very real threats of Russia and this new century.
The story repeats itself in the war with Iran. The oil and gas from the Middle East is important for energy-hungry Europe. Although the amount of European oil that passes through the Strait of Hormuz is low, the percentage of imported jet fuel is high — and the war affects the market overall.
Yet the United States finds itself begging NATO members to participate in opening the Strait. Iran, with its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile program, with its fanatic anti-Western ideology, and control of the energy routes, is a strategic threat to NATO European members. But the United States finds itself, along with Israel, dealing with the issue.
Some NATO members may still join the fight. It will be great to see some help coming, but the cracks in NATO are irreparable. The conflicts of the 21st century are showing that NATO is hopelessly divided. It is no longer a military alliance, but a bureaucratic machinery pretending to be a military force. NATO must be a coalition of the willing, not just of the participating.
A superpower, no matter how powerful, needs dependable alliances. The United States cannot continue leading the world alone. NATO in its current form does not provide security to either side of the Atlantic. The respective goals are different. Yet the United States and Europe need each other. Perhaps, another alliance should be created in place of NATO, consisting of the countries willing to engage the enemy.
It does not matter if the alliance is smaller. What matters is that the new group of countries shares the same vision and resolve. NATO was never the goal. It was the means. And so should whatever comes next.
The author lives and works in Silicon Valley, California. He is a founding member of San Francisco Voice for Israel.