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How to Respond to the Moment: After the Rupture, the Rebuild
Reading from a Torah scroll in accordance with Sephardi tradition. Photo: Sagie Maoz via Wikimedia Commons.
I often teach with photographs. In my Politics and geography course, I not only present arguments, data, figures, and charts, I show pictures – of faces, streets, institutions, and the lived texture of how people organize themselves into communities and nations. I keep piles of images, catalogs, and books that I return to each semester, selecting and setting aside, trying to find the picture that will do the work a paragraph of writing cannot achieve.
Wrapping up the spring semester, sorting through those piles, I came back to Maya Benton’s Roman Vishniac Rediscovered. It had been months since I had opened it. I had not used it this term and was prepared to reshelf it, and then I stopped and looked through it.
I paused and I then gasped. I had completely forgotten how hard these photographs hit.
We tend to remember Vishniac for the images he made in Eastern Europe before the war with faces marked by poverty, communities suspended between endurance and fragility, a world that now feels both intimate and impossibly distant. Those photographs read, in retrospect, like a warning. The New York photographs, taken just a few years later after Vishniac arrived in the city on New Year’s Day 1941 having escaped internment in Nazi-occupied France, read like something else. They read like a response.
At first glance, the images are almost disarmingly ordinary. Children sit in classrooms. Boys cluster in hallways. Girls lean over desks. There are games, gatherings, moments of quiet instruction and supervised play. Nothing announces itself as extraordinary. But the longer you look, the more deliberate everything appears. These are not scenes of life unfolding. They are scenes of life being organized.
Benton’s scholarship makes the construction explicit. Many of these photographs were commissioned by the Joint Distribution Committee and other Jewish philanthropic organizations documenting and in some sense justifying the work they were doing in a new American context. Settlement houses, community centers, schools, youth programs: the infrastructure of a transplanted community. The camera was not wandering. It was directed. It was capturing not just people, but systems. As the historian Hasia Diner observes in her essay for the Benton volume, the Jewish child in New York is the emotional and strategic center of this archive; photographed again and again, by a people who understood that the next generation was the plan.
The contrast is unmistakable when you hold the two bodies of work together. In Europe, Vishniac’s subjects often appear precarious even when dignified: children thin, environments worn, futures uncertain. In New York, the children are sturdy, structured, embedded in institutions designed to carry them forward. They are not simply living Jewish lives. They are being prepared for them.
Preparation, here, is everything.
After the Shoah, Jewish life did not regenerate spontaneously. It was rebuilt — deliberately, systematically, and often quietly — through institutions. Schools transmitted identity. Community centers created belonging. Camps, classrooms, and after-school programs became the mechanisms through which a dispersed and traumatized people ensured that there would be a future at all. Continuity and formation was not treated as an inheritance. It was treated as a responsibility. L’dor v’dor – “from generation to generation” – was not taken or considered a sentimental phrase. It is a theory of formation and resilience, and these photographs are what it looks like in practice.
I closed the book thinking about my son. He is coming into his own now and he loves being Jewish. He asks questions; real ones, the ones that may you pause and think about how to answer, the kind that do not settle for a first answer. He is looking for community in a world that has made plain, in the months since October 7, that it is not always on his side. He wants to know where he fits, who his people are, what tradition is asking of him. He wants to belong to something older and larger than himself.
And I find myself asking a question that Vishniac’s New York children never had to ask on their own behalf, because the adults around them had already answered it. Will the institutions be there? Will there be places where my son can practice being Jewish with other Jews, learn the texts, observe the holidays, form the friendships that last, and develop the habits of mind and values that make a Jewish life possible? Being Jewish is not a solo activity. It is inherently social, communal, structured. It requires spaces, budgets, teachers, clergy, tables, calendars. It requires other people showing up, year after year, for reasons that are not reducible to individual preference.
The data are not encouraging. Pew’s 2020 study of Jewish Americans documented significant declines in synagogue membership and attendance, in denominational identification, in day school enrollment, in attachment to Israel. Jack Wertheimer, writing in Tablet, described non-Orthodox congregations as “hemorrhaging members, aging, merging, and closing.” The institutional map that Vishniac photographed has, in many American cities, thinned considerably. Buildings are sold. Schools consolidate. Federations struggle. The scaffolding that was built in the 1940s has not been uniformly maintained.
And yet the UJA-Federation of New York’s 2025 recontact study — conducted after October 7 — found that a majority of Jewish adults in New York reported increased engagement in some form of Jewish life since the attacks. While not a national study, roughly one in five in New York reported increased participation in specifically communal Jewish life: attending Jewish museums, cultural events, adult education, JCCs, Chabad. Synagogue attendance, by some measures, ticked up. People showed up. They wanted to be with other Jews. They wanted to do Jewish things in Jewish places.
That is the Vishniac parallel made present in his images. In the 1940s, the institutions were built before anyone could be certain who would fill them. Today, the people are arriving and searching despite being wounded over the past few years, and the question is whether the institutions are still there, and strong enough, to receive them. The 1940s answer was construction. The 2020s answer has to be the same. Reconstituting. Reformulating. Rethinking and rebuilding what has atrophied and building anew where the old forms no longer fit and apply.
This is often described as resilience. Resilience is too soft a word in today’s situation. What Vishniac documented, and what this moment demands, is something closer to discipline; the kind that prioritizes long-term survival over short-term ease, that invests in institutions even when the payoff is not immediate, that understands community as something to be maintained rather than merely felt. It is the work of people who do not assume that identity will take care of itself.
I want my son to inherit a Jewish life that is thick rather than thin and authentically rooted rather than curated with a focus on the communal and the individual. I want him to walk into synagogues and schools and camps and community centers that are full, confident, and alive and are places built by people who understood, as Vishniac’s subjects understood, that continuity is not ambient or emerges by fiat. It is constructed.
The Vishniac photographs do not tell us what to build. They do something more useful. They remind us that building is the work, and that the work does not end with one generation. The men and women who commissioned those photographs are gone. The children in them are now old or gone. The institutions they built have carried us this far.
Whether they carry our children further is up to us.
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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As Political Lines Blur, Republican Jewish Coalition’s Matt Brooks Warns of a Deeper Shift Facing American Jews
Matt Brooks, CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition, holds a kippah in support of former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as he speaks on Day 2 of the Republican National Convention, at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US, July 16, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mike Segar
At some point, the question stops being which political party you belong to — and becomes what, exactly, you believe that party stands for.
That was the underlying tension in a recent conversation with Republican Jewish Coalition CEO Matt Brooks, who offered a stark assessment of the changing political landscape for American Jews: the erosion of bipartisan support for Israel, the reemergence of antisemitism across ideological lines, and a growing sense that long-held assumptions about political alignment no longer cleanly apply.
For decades, support for Israel functioned as one of the few durable points of agreement in American public life. It transcended party, survived shifts in leadership, and provided a kind of baseline continuity in an otherwise volatile political system. That consensus, Brooks suggested, has now meaningfully weakened.
“There is only one pro-Israel party today,” he said on The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast. “And that’s the Republican Party.”
It is, in his telling, less a triumph than a warning — a sign that what was once shared ground has become contested terrain.
The shift did not happen overnight. Brooks, who has spent nearly four decades at the intersection of Jewish communal life and Republican politics, described a long internal effort to strengthen pro-Israel sentiment within the GOP — one that has, by his account, succeeded.
What concerns him now is not where the Republican Party has landed, but where parts of the Democratic Party have moved.
Yet the more unsettling dynamic, he argued, is not confined to partisan drift. It is structural.
Invoking the “horseshoe theory,” Brooks pointed to a phenomenon that has become increasingly difficult to ignore: the convergence of the political extremes. While the far left and far right often present themselves as opposites, he argued, their rhetoric — particularly when it comes to Jews — can begin to mirror itself in striking ways.
“The language may be different,” Brooks said, “but the themes are familiar.”
On one end, Jews are cast as agents of capitalism, landlords, or power brokers within systems of inequality. On the other, they are portrayed as shadowy manipulators of media, finance, or political institutions. The ideological framing shifts. The underlying instinct does not.
That convergence, he warned, creates a more diffuse and unpredictable threat environment — one in which antisemitism is no longer easily located or dismissed as belonging to a single fringe.
The implications of these changes, Brooks suggested, extend into the political behavior of American Jews more broadly.
For much of the modern era, Jewish voting patterns have been closely tied to identity, history, and inherited political affiliation. But Brooks indicated that those patterns may be undergoing a quiet but significant recalibration — one driven less by ideology than by a more immediate question: security.
“It’s not about who you like,” he said. “It’s about who you trust to keep you safe.”
That framing, he noted, has proven especially resonant in recent election cycles, where data-driven outreach efforts have shown that concerns about personal safety, antisemitism, and the security of Israel can outweigh longstanding partisan loyalties — particularly among undecided voters.
It is, in many ways, a shift from expressive politics to consequential politics — from signaling identity to assessing risk.
And yet, for all the instability he described, Brooks did not frame the moment as one of inevitable decline.
On the contrary, he returned repeatedly to the idea of resilience — not as a slogan, but as a historical pattern.
“We’ve faced adversity before,” he said. “We’re a resilient people.”
That resilience, in his view, is what underwrites his long-term optimism about American Jewry.
Still, optimism, as Brooks articulated it, is not the same as comfort. It is contingent. It requires recognition — of shifting alliances, of emerging threats, and of the limits of assumptions that may no longer hold.
The deeper question raised by his analysis is not simply which party is more aligned with Jewish interests at a given moment. It is whether the framework through which those interests have historically been understood — bipartisan consensus, stable coalitions, predictable boundaries — is itself in the process of being rewritten.
If so, then the challenge facing American Jews is not only political, but conceptual. It is to understand where they stand in a landscape that is less fixed than it once was — and to decide, with greater clarity and less nostalgia, what matters most when the ground begins to shift.
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Federal Complaint Alleges Antisemitic Housing Discrimination at Williams College
Williams College in Massachusetts. Photo: Wikipedia commons.
A federal complaint filed with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development accuses Williams College in Massachusetts of practicing housing discrimination against an Orthodox Jewish student whom it allegedly denied kosher foods and other religious accommodations that would have promoted his integration into the mainstream campus culture.
Filed on Thursday by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, the complaint presents a harrowing portrayal of an observant Jewish student forced to eat vegan cuisine which falls far below the culinary standards of meals prepared for other students, to stand in the cold for hours when observance of the Sabbath prevents his using an electronic keycard to enter residence halls, and to “confine” himself to his room on Saturdays to avoid being locked out.
So indifferent is the college to the student’s situation, the Brandeis Center alleges, that it once discouraged him from moving to campus at the same time as it promised other incoming students a “learning community you live in.” The Brandeis Center adds that the school’s alleged violation of its own values is underscored by the fact that it mandates on-campus residency for most students due to its belief that living at the college is an integral part of the undergraduate experience.
“It saddens me as a proud Williams College alumnus to see my alma mater treat a Jewish student as a lesser member of the community because of his religion, turning him away as he was freezing and hungry,” Brandeis Center chairman and chief executive Kenneth Marcus said in a statement announcing the legal action. “Religious discrimination is discrimination. Jews, as well as other students and people of faith, should be able to practice their religion freely, without prejudice or discrimination. That is what religious freedom in America is all about, and we must continue to stand up when this freedom is denied.”
On Wednesday, the college told The Algemeiner that it has “no tolerance for antisemitism or discrimination” and would “welcome” a “dialogue with the student and Brandeis Center to ensure a welcoming and inclusive educational environment.”
“We are devoted to ensuring that all students have success to appropriate living spaces, dining options, and our full range of learning opportunities,” the college’s media relations director said. “The college’s leaders and chaplains are strongly committed to working with students and their families to address student concerns.”
The complaint trails years of reports that American higher education institutions fail to protect the civil rights of Jewish students even as their leaders proclaim a commitment to promoting equity and inclusion. While many institutions have pledged to combat antisemitism in recent months with new initiatives and policies, surveys of Jewish students continue to suggest that those reforms have not yet produced a meaningful reduction in antisemitic bigotry.
A striking 42 percent of Jewish students report having experienced antisemitism at college, according to a survey released by the American Jewish Committee and Hillel International in February. Of that group, 55 percent said they felt that being Jewish at a campus event threatened their safety. The survey also found that 32 percent of Jewish students believe that campus groups promote antisemitism or a learning environment that is hostile to Jews, while 25 percent said that antisemitism was the basis of being “excluded from a group or an event on campus.”
On Thursday, the Brandeis Center said the specifics of the William College case prompted a “first of its kind” approach to representing a campus antisemitism victim. The group has filed scores of federal complaints alleging antisemitic discrimination in higher education, but the agency petitioned in those cases was the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR). Additionally, the suits demanded redress for violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Now, the Brandeis Center contends that Williams College ran afoul of the Fair Housing Act (FHA) and is contesting the matter in the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
“The filing reflects the expansion and strengthening of the Brandeis Center’s legal advocacy efforts to push back against discrimination targeting Jewish Americans wherever their civil rights are threatened,” the group said.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Democratic Nominee for University of Michigan Regent Refuses to Condemn Hezbollah
Attorney Amir Makled accepts the Michigan Democratic Party’s endorsement for the University of Michigan Board of Regents in Detroit, Michigan on April 19, 2026. Photo: Andrew Roth/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
A political controversy is intensifying in the race for a spot on the University of Michigan’s top governing body, as Democratic nominee Amir Makled faces mounting criticism for failing to explicitly condemn Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist group responsible for attacks against not only Israel but also Western targets — including US soldiers.
Makled, an attorney who last Sunday secured the Democratic Party’s nomination for a seat on the university’s Board of Regents, has come under scrutiny following the resurfacing of social media activity in which he appeared to engage with or amplify content viewed as sympathetic to Hezbollah and hostile toward Israel.
When asked last week by MLive, a local news outlet, to clarify his views on Hezbollah, a US-designated terrorist organization, Makled deflected and refused to criticize the Islamist group. However, Makled stated that he would continue condemning the Israel Defense Force (IDF).
“I will continue to talk critically of the policies of the Israeli Defense Forces and of the state of Israel,” Makled said. “But I’m not playing a condemnation game of Hezbollah, because I believe that’s a trap designed to put Arab Americans on the defense simply for existing.”
Makled also dismissed the notion that his Jewish opponent in the Democratic primary, incumbent Jordan Acker, lost his reelection bid due to antisemitism.
“Hatred against Jewish people is wrong, period,” Makled said. “Acker didn’t lose because of antisemitism. People are tired of Islamophobia. They’re tired of being told that standing up for Arab lives is somehow disqualified.”
In the two years following the Hamas-led massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Acker has been targeted by anti-Israel activists with a relentless barrage of protests. In December 2024, for example, pro-Hamas activists targeted Acker’s home with violent demonstrations, breaking his windows and spray-painting his car with the message “Divest Free Palestine.” The vandals also spray-painted on Acker’s car an inverted red triangle, a symbol used to indicate support for the Hamas terrorist group.
The contest has drawn national attention because of the unusually broad authority held by University of Michigan regents, who are elected statewide and oversee the university’s finances, investments, executive leadership, and major institutional policy decisions. The eight-member board plays a central role in decisions ranging from presidential oversight to responses to campus protest movements and demands for divestment.
Makled, a Dearborn-based civil rights attorney who has been outspoken in support of divestment from Israel, won the party’s nomination for one of two regent seats up for election this year, defeating Acker, who had become a frequent target of pro-Palestinian activists over his opposition to the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel on campus.
Makled initially came under immense scrutiny after an investigation by The Detroit News revealed that he was found to have deleted social media posts praising leaders of Hezbollah. One of the posts referred to slain Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah as a “martyr.” He also reposted antisemitic messages from far-right commentator Candace Owens which referred to Israelis as “demons” who “lie, cheat, murder, and blackmail.”
While Makled has issued statements broadly disavowing antisemitism, his refusal to emphatically denounce Hezbollah has raised eyebrows among moderate Democrats and Jewish voters in Michigan. Jewish organizations and community leaders have expressed alarm over what they describe as a troubling pattern of ambiguity.
The controversy has already had political consequences. A major labor union withdrew its endorsement of Makled, citing concerns over his past rhetoric and associations. Within the Democratic Party, the episode has exposed widening divisions over how to address extremism linked to anti-Israel activism.
The dispute comes amid heightened sensitivities surrounding the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, as well as increased scrutiny of campus climates across the United States. Further, the controversy remains especially sensitive in Michigan, as a Hezbollah-sympathizing terrorist targeted a major synagogue, Temple Israel, in suburban Detroit last month.
Further, higher education institutions like the University of Michigan have faced criticism over their handling of anti-Israel protests, some of which have drawn accusations of crossing into antisemitic territory. Against this backdrop, Makled’s candidacy has become a flashpoint in a broader debate over whether anti-Israel activism is being sufficiently challenged when it veers into support for extremist groups.
Critics note that as a regent, Makled would help oversee university policy, including responses to campus discrimination and student safety concerns. His reluctance to explicitly condemn Hezbollah could raises serious questions among voters about his judgment and fitness for the role.
Makled’s willingness to frame violent anti-Israel protests as a legitimate expression of grievances and expression further casts doubt over whether he would be willing to dispatch law enforcement to control raucous demonstrations on campus.
The controversy underscores a growing tension within Democratic politics, where progressive activism related to the Palestinian cause has, in some cases, blurred lines that critics say should remain clear—particularly regarding terrorist organizations and incitement against Israel. This issue has become more salient in recent months, as Democrats have increasingly cozied up to individuals that espouse extremist beliefs, such as anti-Israel streamer Hasan Piker.
Supporters of Acker have argued the outcome reflects a broader deterioration in support for Israel and tolerance of antisemitism within Democratic politics, particularly among younger and more progressive voters. Some also noted that Paul Brown, Acker’s non-Jewish running mate who had similarly opposed divestment efforts, was renominated while Acker was not, making the result especially symbolic for many Jewish Democrats.