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Rabbis, teachers, survivors: 18 Jews whose deaths diminished our communities in 2022
(JTA) — All year long, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports about the deaths of Jewish newsmakers in our community. To close out the year, we wanted to turn our attention to people who may not have been such household names but whose stories deserve to be remembered.
Here, with the help of readers who shared the names of people they are remembering, we recall 18 Jews who shaped their local communities and made a difference in the lives of those close to them. They include rabbis whose impact extended for decades, teachers who inspired generations of students and activists who were working to build a better world. May their memories be a blessing.
Harriet Bograd
A champion of emerging Jewish communities in far-flung places.
Harriet Bograd, center, her husband Ken Klein, left, and daughter Margie on a visit to the Sefwi Wiawso Jewish community in Ghana in an undated photo. (Courtesy Kulanu, Inc)
Harriet Bograd, who as president of the nonprofit Kulanu supported emerging Jewish communities in Africa, Asia and other places far beyond the usual centers of Jewish life, died on Sept. 17 in a Manhattan hospital. She was 79. A Yale-educated lawyer and a stalwart at the West End Synagogue, she was inspired by a visit in 2004 to a remote village in Ghana, where about two dozen families considered themselves Jewish. In the years to come, she and Kulanu would provide support to emerging Jewish communities in Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Cameroon, Madagascar, Indonesia, Pakistan, Guatemala, the Philippines and more. She once said of her work at Kulanu, “after the Holocaust and the decimation of Jewish communities in Arab lands, the idea [is] that we’re establishing Jewish communities that have their own richness and variety.”
Henry Berg-Brousseau
Transgender activist from Kentucky
Henry Berg-Brousseau (Courtesy Human Rights Campaign)
Henry Berg-Brousseau grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, and studied history, political science and Jewish studies at George Washington University, where he was a founding member of an LGBTQ+ fraternity. He had recently gotten a major promotion at the Human Rights Campaign when he died by suicide in his Arlington, Virginia, home, on Dec. 16 at age 24. “Henry spent his life working to extend grace, compassion and understanding to everyone but especially to the vulnerable and marginalized. This grace, compassion and understanding was not always returned to him,” his mother, the Kentucky state legislator Karen Berg, wrote in a statement that criticized lawmakers who advance anti-LGBTQ views. She added, “He was doing work that was important to him to make the world a more accepting place. At 24 years old. he had finally found a community but that could not undo the brokenness that he already felt.”
Rabbi Simcha Krauss
Orthodox advocate for women’s rights
Rabbi Simcha Krauss speaks at a dinner hosted by Yeshivat Eretz HaTzvi in his honor on Feb. 5, 2014. (Courtesy Yeshivat Eretz HaTzvi)
Rabbi Simcha Krauss, a leading figure of Modern Orthodox Judaism who was a forceful advocate for women’s rights within Orthodoxy, died Jan. 20 at 85. Krauss’s efforts, which included creating a rabbinical court to support “agunot” — women whose husbands refused to divorce them — frequently earned him scorn from traditionalists within Orthodoxy. But many others saw him as a “gentle giant” who wielded his years of study and experience to fight for women’s rights in Jewish law. Krauss was born in Romania and came to the United States in 1948. Coming from a long line of rabbis, Krauss studied at Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin in Brooklyn, and later studied with the Modern Orthodox luminary Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik. Krauss led the Young Israel of Hillcrest for 25 years. During his years in Queens, Krauss taught Talmud at Yeshiva University and began to get more involved in issues related to the role of women in Orthodoxy. He moved to Israel in 2005, and in 2014 came back to New York to found the International Beit Din, or religious court, to work on agunot cases. “Some say it is a modern revolution,” he told the Jerusalem Post. “I say that’s the way you should do it.”
Rabbi David Weiss Halivni
A survivor and scholar who teased out the many voices of the Talmud
Survivor and Talmud scholar Rabbi David Weiss Halivni was associated with Columbia University for 35 years. (Chaim Meyersdorf/Wikimedia Commons)
Rabbi David Weiss Halivni, the Talmud scholar and Columbia University professor, died June 29 at age 94. A Holocaust survivor and refugee raised in Sighet, Romania, he earned his doctorate and taught for many years at the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, until leaving the institution in 1983 over its decision to ordain women rabbis. He later became dean of the rabbinical school of the Union for Traditional Judaism, a movement created by rabbis and scholars who similarly broke with the Conservative movement. In works like his multi-volume opus “Mekorot u’Mesorot,” or “Sources and Traditions,” he galvanized the world of Talmud study by treating Jewish text as a living, mutable conversation across generations, as opposed to a static document. Halivni’s approach to learning was the “corollary to loving the text so much that you just had to understand it to its fullest, whatever tools would enable you to do so,” wrote Rabbi Ethan Tucker in an appreciation.
Moris Albahari
A remnant of a Ladino-speaking past
Moris Albahari, shown in a documentary about his story called “Saved by Language,” was a pillar of Sarajevo’s Jewish community. (Courtesy of Brian Kirschen)
Moris Albahari was 11 when the Ustaša, Bosnia’s Nazi collaborator force, came to deport him and his large family to Jasenovac, the country’s equivalent of Auschwitz. A former teacher working as an Ustaša guard in the town of Drvar, where the train stopped, warned Albahari’s father, David, about their destination, and David was able to help his son escape from the train. Because Moris knew Ladino, the Jewish language that is mixture of medieval Spanish, Hebrew, Aramaic, Turkish and other languages, he was able to speak with the Italian soldier who saved him. Ladino would save him several more times before the end of the war, but afterwards, with most of Sarajevo’s Jews dead or forever dispersed, he spoke the language largely at home. At one point the director of Sarajevo’s airport, Albahari was a leader within Bosnia’s Jewish community. “It is a terrible loss, especially for Sarajevok,” said Eliezer Papo, a Sarajevo-born Jew and scholar of Ladino in Israel. “We’re not speaking just in terms of prominent members of the community, we’re speaking in terms of family members.”
Rachel Brodie
A “master Jewish educator” whose influence was vast
Rachel Brodie (Courtesy of J. The Jewish News of Northern California)
Rachel Brodie was unassuming and humble yet through her work as an educator had a vast influence on the Jewish community in the Bay Area of California, where she lived, and beyond. Brodie was the co-founder Jewish Milestones, an educational resource for Jewish lifecycle ceremonies that launched in 2004 as The Ritualist. She also served as “chief Jewish officer” at the Jewish community Center of San Francisco, a position created just for her, from 2011 to 2016. “To be in Rachel’s presence was to be illuminated by her wit, her laughter, and her fierce and tender heart,” wrote the founders of the Jewish Studio Project in Berkeley, where she had been a senior educator. “To learn with her was to be stimulated, delighted, and transformed.” Brodie, 55, died on April 11 after falling at her home in Berkeley.
Rabbi Steven Sager
“Leader, mentor, poet” in North Carolina and beyond
Rabbi Steven Sager at Beth El Synagogue in Durham, North Carolina, in 2017. (Courtesy Anna Carson DeWitt)
When Rabbi Steven Sager died May 15 at 71 after an extended battle with pancreatic cancer, he was mourned not only by his family and his congregants at Beth El Synagogue in Durham, North Carolina, from which he retired in 2011 after 32 years, but by a rabbinic and Hebrew poetry community spanning the globe. “Steve was a beautiful and deep human being,” the Israeli poet Rivka Miriam wrote. “I generally do not believe in translation, especially translation of poetry. It seems to me that every language has an inner secret that cannot be transposed into another vessel. Yet, when Steve translated my poems I had a different feeling — I felt he entered an inner layer, one that lies beneath any language, a layer carrying a hidden code.”
Nate Geller
Devoted to building stronger Jewish communities
Nate Geller, at his home in Teaneck, New Jersey. A colleague’s daughter made the “Nate” sign, which he took home and hung on his mantel. (Courtesy)
Nate Geller died on Jan. 24 at age 63, after a struggle with leukemia that he faced with characteristic humility, faith and optimism. His death was a blow to his colleagues at 70 Faces Media (JTA’s parent company); to his synagogue community in Teaneck, New Jersey; and to the Jewish communal world to which he had dedicated his life since graduating from the Hornstein Program in Jewish Communal Service at Brandeis University in 1983. In the hours after his death, chat rooms and email boxes filled up with loving tributes to Nate, remarkable for their consistency: Friends and colleagues remarked on his gentleness, his passion for Jewish learning, his commitment to Israel, his willingness not just to hear but to listen when a colleague kvelled or kvetched. Most of all, they remembered his devotion to his family: his wife Lyn Light Geller, herself a gentle and passionate force among “Jewish professionals,” his grown children Aliza, Ariana and Koby, Koby’s wife Talia, and their kids, Annaelle and Judah. Said one colleague and fellow congregant, “There is an enormous Nate-shaped void in the world now.”
Hedi Fried
A voice for Holocaust remembrance in Sweden
Holocaust survivor Hedi Fried stands between Sweden’s culture minister and handball player Linnea Claeson during a counterprotest against a neo-Nazi demonstration in Stockholm, Aug. 25, 2018. (Pontus Lundahl/AFP via Getty Images)
Born in 1924 in Sighet, in what was then Hungary and is now Romania, Hedi Fried survived Auschwitz and settled in Sweden, where she became a psychologist and advocate for Holocaust survivors. She created Cafe 84, a salon for survivors in Stockholm, and spoke widely about her experiences during the Holocaust, gathering some of the most common exchanges in “Questions I Am Asked About the Holocaust,” published in English in 2019. “Your solidarity was boundless and no question too difficult to answer. You were brave, generous, dedicated and extremely wise,” Christina Gamstorp, the director of Stockholm’s Jewish museum, wrote in a remembrance. “Now your voice has fallen silent but not your message. It lives on in everyone who met you, in your texts, books, films and your belief that man is still good — and that it is possible to build a society free from antisemitism and racism, which threaten our entire existence.” Fried, who had three children, died in November at 98.
Rabbi Sy Dresner
The “most arrested rabbi in America”
Rabbi Martin Freedman, right, and Rabbi Israel Dresner,center, are taken to the Tallahassee city building where they were charged with unlawful assembly after they and 10 other “Freedom Riders” were arrested attempting to eat at the Tallahassee airport in June 1961. (Getty Photos)
Rabbi Israel “Sy” Dresner, who demonstrated with Martin Luther King Jr. and was sometimes called the “most arrested rabbi in America,” died Jan. 13. He was 92. A Freedom Rider in the 1960s, Dresner built a career as a social justice-oriented Reform rabbi who was active in the fight against the Vietnam War and was a vocal opponent of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. Dresner was born on the Lower East Side in 1929 to an Orthodox family and grew up in Brooklyn, where his father ran a delicatessen. He attended yeshivas as a child but went on to become a Reform rabbi after serving in the Korean War and working on a kibbutz in Israel. “We came as Jews who remember the millions of faceless people who stood quietly, watching the smoke rise from Hitler’s crematoria,” he said after an arrest in 1964 outside a segregated motel in St. Augustine, Florida. “We came because we know that, second only to silence, the greatest danger to man is loss of faith in man’s capacity to act.”
Eli Evans
‘Poet laureate of Southern Jews’
Eli Evans, seen here in a picture from a trip to Israel in the 1970s, was “equally at home in New York.” (Courtesy Josh Evans)
Born in 1936 in Durham, North Carolina, where his father would become the first Jewish mayor and his mother the founder of Hadassah’s first chapter in the South, Eli Evans remained tied to his native home despite spending his adult life in New York City, where he was a prominent grant-maker whose giving fueled the creation of “Sesame Street” in both the United States and Israel. He wrote several memoirs about Southern Jews and also included the South in his philanthropy, which he pursued at multiple foundations according to an activist philosophy that helped launch the Children’s Defense Fund, seeded the South with Black lawyers who became local civil rights leaders and built ties between Israeli and Egyptian scientists after their countries made peace in 1979. “Eli was a Southern gentleman who interacted with the Jewish establishment and strengthened American Jewish life, without losing his Southern Jewish soul,” said Brandeis University professor of American Jewish history Jonathan Sarna. “It was a privilege to have known him.” Evans died July 26 in Manhattan of complications of COVID-19, after a period of declining health.
Sheryl Grossman
A lifelong advocate for people with disabilities
Sheryl Grossman was a Jewish disability activist. (Screenshot from 2021 JDAIM Interview Series at Towson University)
Sheryl Grossman stood small, at just 4’3″ and 48 pounds, but in the world of Jewish disability advocacy she loomed large, as both the founder of a Facebook group for people living with Bloom’s Syndrome and as a board member of Yad Hachazakah, the Jewish Disability Empowerment Center. She died March 28 at age 46, the result of a Bloom’s Syndrome-linked cancer. “I don’t think anyone will ever know just how much work Sheryl did during the pandemic to help Jewish communities support their most vulnerable neighbors who were in the hospital or isolated at home with COVID,” said Shoshana Finkel, a law student who met Grossman when she was an intern at the American Association of People with Disabilities. “She didn’t feel the need to share her accomplishments; that was never what the work was about for her.”
Dara Goldman
A professor of Spanish and Jewish studies in her prime
Dara Goldman was a professor of Spanish and Jewish studies at the University of Illinois. (Courtesy U of I)
Dara Goldman was preparing for graduation at the University of Illinois, where she was a professor of Spanish and chair of the Program in Jewish Culture and Society, and for the American Jewish Historical Society conference, when she died May 13 of a heart attack. She was 51. A graduate of Columbia and Emory universities, Goldman produced scholarship so diverse that she was affiliated with eight units within the University of Illinois; most recently, she was researching Jewish cultural production in Cuba, where she brought resources for the Jewish community during her research trips, and co-edited a volume on 21st-century Jewish writing. “With her characteristic wit, she would often joke that she was a Jewish woman who took a wrong turn at diaspora,” said a remembrance published by the university. “But jokes aside, she could be at the same time a Jewish woman from New Jersey and an adopted daughter of Puerto Rico and Cuba, two cultures that she knew intimately and loved very deeply. … The echoes of her inimitable, hearty laughter will resonate within our halls for a long time.”
Yaakov Shalev
A beloved family man whose story was Israel’s
Yaakov Shalev, seated third from right, helped organize Iraqi Jews’ exodus to Israel. (Courtesy Asaf Shalev)
“When I arrived for a visit with family in Israel in my early twenties, my septum piercing outraged nearly everyone at our Shabbat morning gathering. Even my younger cousins badgered me to remove it. It took my elderly grandfather, Yaakov Shalev, to quiet everyone down and declare that I am his same beloved grandson, with or without the piercing.
“Calm, open-minded, steadfast, Saba Yaakov, as we called him, passed away peacefully in February at age 92 in Holon, with his five children at his side. He spent his last few hours listening to the melodies of his youth in Baghdad, the music of giants such as Umm Kulthum, Mohammed Abdel Wahab, and Fairuz.
“Saba Yaakov helped organize the exodus of Iraqi Jewry to Israel in 1950 and then enlisted in the Israeli military as an airplane mechanic. He taught himself how to build houses and became a successful contractor in the 1960s. But he soon decided the stress was too much and opened a shop in south Tel Aviv where he fabricated canvases for Israeli artists and framed their paintings. He kept the shop running for more than 40 years, going to work every day until he was in his eighties.” — Asaf Elia-Shalev, JTA reporter
Trude Feldman
A journalist who specialized in Yom Kippur interviews
Trude Feldman interviews Jimmy Carter in the White House in 1978. (Jimmy Carter Presidential Library)
The daughter of a rabbinical family, Trude Feldman launched her career covering the 1961 trial of Nazi mass murderer Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, where she put her training as a Hebrew teacher to use by teaching the language to the Nazi’s lawyer. (She also taught Hebrew to famed converts Sammy Davis Jr. and Elizabeth Taylor, and to Paul Newman on the set of “Exodus.”) But it was in her coverage of American presidents that Feldman truly made her mark, becoming famous for scoring presidential exit interviews and Yom Kippur interviews, which she would pitch as an opportunity for redemption. That’s what got her the first interview with Bill Clinton after he copped in 1998 to yes, having sex with that woman. The mainstream media mocked her for her softballs — “Saturday Night Live” once did so in a sketch — but those close to her understood their value. “The joke, however, was on everyone else,” her nephew, Rabbi Daniel Feldman, wrote in a remembrance. “Paired with her signature persistence, her style more often elicited not puff but profundity, more sincerity than sugar. The unique access she earned — baffling to some, understood to the astute, acknowledged by all — yielded memorable results.”
Harlene Winnick Appelman
A revolutionary leader in Jewish education
Harlene Winnick Appelman in an undated photo provided by the Covenant Foundation.
Born in upstate New York, Harlene Appelman’s career in Jewish education took off in 1982 when she became the director of family life education at Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Southfield, Michigan, a Detroit suburb. There, she pioneered interactive Jewish learning, bringing children out of dry frontal settings into a more tactile experience of Judaism. After joining the board of the Covenant Foundation, which funds and promotes Jewish education, in 1994, she became its director in 2005 and held that role until 2021, allowing her to influence a generation of Jewish educators. Many of them mourned her death at 75 on Aug. 18; the cause was cancer. “I am one of an entire congregation of Jewish educational leaders who Harlene mentored, supported, prodded and constructively critiqued, promoted, and made feel special,” wrote Rabbi Shira Koch Epstein, in an online remembrance. “I hope that in her memory, I will find ever new ways to help more Jewish rabbis and educators feel seen, heard, capable, and motivated.” This month, the Covenant Foundation initiated a new prize, in Jewish family education, in Appelman’s honor.
Tom Tugend
An indefatigable journalist
Tom Tugend in his Los Angeles home, Aug. 3, 2021. (Jacob Gurvis)
Tom Tugend was 13 when he and his family left their home in Berlin in 1939. He was 97 when he died Dec. 7 in Los Angeles, where he had lived for most of his life. In the intervening decades, he fought in the U.S. Army and the Israel Defense Forces; covered Jewish news for a wide array of publications, including JTA; and enjoyed 66 years of marriage during which he and his wife raised three daughters. “His authenticity came through to anyone who knew him,” said one of them, the journalist Alina Tugend. “He was a hero to many people.”
Judah Samet
A two-time survivor of antisemitic terror
Judah Samet stands next to his portrait, part of Luigi Toscano’s “Lest We Forget” project at the University of Pittsburgh in 2019. (Photo by Hector Corante, courtesy of Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh)
Judah Samet became a national face of Pittsburgh’s 2018 Tree of Life synagogue shooting because he survived: He had been running late that day, so was not inside the building when 11 of his fellow congregants were murdered. Months later, he was President Donald Trump’s guest to the State of the Union address. The experience was both very different Samet’s childhood in Hungary, where he was born in February 1938, and in some ways similar. As a young child, Samet was forced by the Nazis from his home and shipped with his family first to a labor camp in Austria and then to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. After a stop in Israel, he moved to Pittsburgh in the 1950s, ultimately joining his father-in-law’s jewelry business there and remaining a committed community member until his death at 84 on Sept. 27.
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Memories of Bubbe Khave-Leye at the marketplace in Buenos Aires
אין אונדזערע צײַטן זענען ווייניק יונגע מענטשן זוכה אויסצוּוואַקסן אין אַ שטוב וווּ עס וווינען דרײַ דורות.
איך בין געבוירן געוואָרן אין אַ שטוב, וווּ עס האָבן געוווינט צוזאַמען מײַנע טאַטע־מאַמע מיט די טאַטע־מאַמע פֿון מײַן מאַמע – באָבע חווה־לאה און זיידע חיים־מענדל — יעדער דור מיט זײַן אייגענער גײַסטיקער וועלט, שפּראַך און נסיון אין לעבן. און דערפֿאַר האָב איך געזען, געהערט און איבערגעלעבט צוזאַמען מיט מענטשן פֿון 19טן יאָרהונדערט, געבוירענע אין מיזרח־אייראָפּע. די באָבע חווה־לאה איז געבוירן געוואָרן אין סטאָלפּצע (שטייבץ); דער זיידע חיים־מענדל — אין דראָהיטשן; די מאַמע, ברכה, פֿון פּינסק; דער טאַטע, שמואל, פֿון סטערדין (וואָלין), און איך – פֿון ייִדישן שפּיטאָל אין בוענאָס־אײַרעס.
פֿון די אַכט זין און טעכטער וואָס די באָבע חווה־לאה האָט געהאַט זײַנען פֿיר געבליבן לעבן. די ייִנגסטע טאָכטער, דודה עליזה (פֿראַדל אויף ייִדיש), האָט געוווינט מיט אונדז ביז זי האָט עולה געווען קיין מדינת־ישׂראל אין יאָר 1949. דערצו זײַנען צוויי ברידער פֿון מײַן מאַמען — פֿעטער יוסף און פֿעטער הערשל — געקומען מיט דער גאַנצער משפּחה פֿון פּינסק קיין בוענאָס־אײַרעס אין יאָר 1937.
אַרום פּסחדיקן טיש פֿלעגן זיצן בײַ אונדז די מומע עטעלע פֿון ווילנע און די מומע לאה פֿון בריסק – צוזאַמען מיט די פֿריִער דערמאָנטע משפּחה־מיטגלידער – אַ פֿיל־שפּראַכיק געזעמל פֿון מיזרח־אייראָפּעיִשע ייִדן, וועלכע האָבן געשמועסט אויף ייִדיש, העברעיִש, רוסיש, פּויליש און אויך שפּאַניש.
מײַן באָבע חווה־לאה איז געווען למעשׂה איינשפּראַכיק, געבוירן מן־הסתּם אָנהייב 1880ער יאָרן, איז איר ייִדיש געווען די זעלבע וואָס עס האָבן גערעדט אירע טאַטע־מאַמע און זיידע־באָבע. דער באָבעס ייִדיש איז געווען אײַנגעטונקען אין לומדישן לשון־קודש. זי פֿלעגט אַלע שבת מעבֿיר זײַן די סדרה אין חומש צוזאַמען מיט פּירושים און אַגדות אויף ייִדיש, גלײַך פֿון צאינה־וראינה. וואָך־אײַן וואָך־אויס, יאָר נאָך יאָר, פֿלעגט זי איבערחזרן דעם גאַנצן חומש מיט זײַנע פּירושים און מדרשים, וואָס האָט צוגעגעבן איר פּערזענלעכקייט אַ פּסיכאָלאָגישע טיפֿקייט און געפֿורעמט איר כאַראַקטער און געמיט.
אין דער רוסישער אימפּעריע האָט די משפּחה פֿון מײַן מאַמעס צד געלעבט פֿון דער אַרבעט פֿון מײַן זיידן חיים־מענדל שוואַרץ, ווי אַ בוכהאַלטער אין אַ טאַרטאַק, אָבער מײַן באָבע איז געווען אַ קראַסאַוויצע אין די אויגן פֿון די גויים, האָבן זיידע־באָבע געמוזט אַוועק וווינען אין דער שטאָט פּינסק. דאָרט איז די פּרנסה געווען אַ קליין געוועלב, וווּ מײַן באָבע האָט פֿאַרקויפֿט קאַלך און פֿאַרב.
פֿון קינדווײַז אָן האָב איך דערפֿאַר געהערט אַ לעבעדיקן ליטוויש־ייִדיש, ווי ייִדן האָבן גערעדט זינט, לכל־הפּחות, פֿון אָנהייב 19טן יאָרהונדערט. דאָס ליטווישע ייִדיש האָט אײַנגעזאַפּט אין זיך רוסישע ווערטער, וועלכע זענען מיט דער צײַט געוואָרן אַן אינטעגראַלער טייל פֿון ליטווישן ייִדיש. די משפּחה איז געגאַנגען אַלע שבת און אין די יום־טובֿים אין שיל. צוזאַמען מיטן אָפּהיטן כּשרות איז דאָס טעגלעכע לעבן געווען אײַנגעהילט אין אַ טראַדיציאָנעלן נישט־פֿאַנאַטישן סטיל. זינט איך בין געווען דרײַ יאָר אַלט און ביז נאָך מײַן בר־מצווה איז מײַן וועלט געווען באַאײַנפֿלוסט פֿון אָט דער אַטמאָספֿער. דער וואָס האָט נישט איבערגעלעבט אין זײַן קינדהייט די יום־טובֿדיקייט פֿון שׂמחת־תּורה בעת די הקפֿות אין שיל, איז נישט מסוגל צו באַגרײַפֿן וואָס מיינט אַ ליכטיקע שׂימחה פֿון אַ ציבור וואָס פֿרייט זיך פֿון גאַנצן האַרצן, האַלטנדיק אין זײַנע הענט אַ ספֿר־תּורה, דער אויטאָריטאַטיווער מקור וואָס באַפֿאַרבט זײַן לעבן מיט אַ זין. אַהרן צייטלין האָט אַמאָל וועגן דעם געשריבן אין זײַן פּאָעמע „דנאָען‟:
זײַן אָדער נישט זײַן, נישט דאָס איז די פֿראַגע. די פֿראַגע איז: זין אָדער נישט זין?
דער לוח, מיט זײַנע געדענקטעג און יום־טובֿים, האָט אָרגאַניזירט דאָס לעבן פֿון ייִדישן ציבור, אַרום געשיכטלעכע דאַטעס און טעג פֿון חשבון־הנפֿש, וועלכע האָבן געשטאַרקט דעם געפֿיל פֿון צוגעהעריקייט פֿון יעדן פּרט און יחיד, צו אַ גײַסטיקער און קולטור־טראַדיציע. אַזאַ צוגעהעריקייט באַפֿרײַט דעם יחיד פֿון זײַן איזאָלירונג און פֿירט אים אַרײַן אין אַ קאָלעקטיוו סײַ אין צײַט סײַ אין רוים.
באָבע חווה־לאה און איר טאָכטער, מײַן מאַמע, האָבן געפֿירט אין צווייען די ווירטשאַפֿט פֿון דער היים. אין מאַרק פֿלעג איך גיין אײַנקויפֿן מיט דער באָבען, פֿון זינט איך בין געווען דרײַ צי פֿיר יאָר אַלט. מיר פֿלעגן גיין צו פֿוס אַ האַלבן קילאָמעטער ביז אַ געדעקטן מאַרק, אַן אומגעהײַער גרויסער, אַ צוויישטאָקיקער. דאָס גיין אין מאַרק מיט מײַן באָבען איז געווען בײַ מיר אַן אויסערגעוויינלעכע געשעעניש, וואָס האָט זיך איבערגעחזרט אַלע דאָנערשטיק, כּדי האָבן די מעגלעכקייט צוצוגרייטן דעם שבת פֿרײַטיק אין דער פֿרי. אַזוינע עקסקורסיעס האָבן מיר געמאַכט ביז איך בין געוואָרן זעקס יאָר אַלט און אָנגעהויבן זיך לערנען סײַ אין חדר אין דער פֿרי, און סײַ אין אַ מלוכהשער שולע בײַ טאָג.
עס איז געווען פֿאַר מיר אַן איבערראַשנדיקער איבערגאַנג, פֿון אַ שטילער טראַדיציאָנעלער היים אַלע טעג פֿון דער וואָך, ביז דעם הו־האַ פֿון מאַרק. אַרײַנגייענדיק אין מאַרק פֿלעג איך זיך אָנטרעפֿן מיט אַ רעש און מיט קלינגענדיקע קולי־קולות פֿון מסחר – די פֿאַרקויפֿער און די קויפֿער. עס פֿאַרהילכט דער גרילצנדיקער רעש פֿון דער עלעקטרישער זעג פֿון לעמל דעם קצבֿ, און עס פֿאַרטויבן די געשרייען פֿון די פֿיש־פֿאַרקויפֿער וואָס פֿאַרקויפֿן פֿרישע פֿיש אין אײַזקאַסטנס, אָנגעטאָן אין הויכע שטיוול. זיי פֿאַרבעטן די קונים מיט ברייטע העוויות… און די פֿיש שטינקען, שטינקען דאָך… אַלע פֿינף חושים וואַכן אויף אין מאַרק. צו דעם אַלעם קומען צו אין אָט דעם קאַקאָפֿאָנישן כאָר אויך די קולות פֿון די קליענטן וואָס באַלאַגערן די סוחרים, שטופּן זיך און שרײַען איבער איינער דעם צווייטן.
אָט די איבערראַשנדיקע ווירקלעכקייט האָט מיך פֿאַרכּישופֿט און צעטומלט אין איין און דער זעלבער צײַט. איך בין נאָך געווען אַ נידעריקער קאַרליק פֿון אַזוינע פֿיר צי פֿינף צי זעקס יאָר, און בין נאָך נישט דערגאַנגען ביז צו די טאָמבענק אין מאַרק כּדי צו זען וואָס עס טוט זיך דאָרט איבער מײַן קעפּל פֿון דער אַנדערער זײַט. איך האָב נאָר געהערט קלאַנגען און ריחות. דער עיקר פֿלעג איך שטיין ווי צוגעשמידט און פֿאַרוווּנדערט אַנטקעגן דעם אַרײַנגאַנג צו זושע דעם שוחט, וואָס איז געזעסן און געשאָכטן עופֿות.
איך און באָבע חווה־לאה, מיט קוישן אין די הענט, פֿלעגן שטענדיק דורכגיין אין מאַרק דעם זעלבן מאַרשרוט: מע הייבט אָן בײַ לעמל דעם קצבֿ. אַרום זײַן פֿירקאַנטיקן טאָמבאַנק, פֿון דרײַ זײַטן ווי דער אות חית, איז שטענדיק געווען אַ גראַטשקע, מענטשן זײַנען געשטאַנען קעפּ אויף קעפּ, אין צוויי צי דרײַ שורות און געוואַרט, ווער מיט געדולד, און ווער מיט שטופּערײַ. לעמל האָט פֿאַרקויפֿט כּשר פֿלייש. די קונים האָבן זיך געסטאַרעט צוצוציִען די אויפֿמערקזאַמקייט פֿון לעמלען און זײַן משפּחה, מע זאָל זיי באַדינען. לעמל און זײַן משפּחה האָבן נישט גערוט אַ רגע, באַדינענדיק זייערע קונים.
נאָכן וויזיט בײַם קצבֿ פֿלעגן מיר אַרויפֿגיין מיט די טרעפּ אויפֿן צווייטן שטאָק פֿון מאַרק, צו די פֿיש. פֿון דאָרטן און ווײַטער האָב איך געוווּסט אַז באַלד וועל איך ווערן באַלוינט פֿאַר מײַן געדולדיקייט. מיר פֿלעגן זיך ווײַטער דאָרט צוגיין צו דער פֿרוי וואָס פֿאַרקויפֿט ברויט, בייגל, געבעקס און פּלעצעלעך מיט געפּרעגלטע ציבעלעס. שוין מיד פֿון באַגלייטן מײַן באָבען פֿון איין טאָמבאַנק צו אַ צווייטן, פֿלעג איך אויפֿעסן אַ פּלעצל בעת מיר זײַנען געגאַנגען ווײַטער – מיט אָדער אָן פּוטער. בײַ אונדז אין שטוב זײַנען אַזוינע מאַכלים געווען אַ דעליקאַטעס. למשל, מיר האָבן זייער ליב געהאַט עסן כאַלעמיטקעס און כאַלעאָנקעס – דאָס וואָס מע רופֿט ריכטיקער חלה מיט קעז אָדער חלה אָן קעז.
דער הויכפּונקט פֿון דעם שפּאַציר מײַנעם מיט דער באָבען איבערן מאַרק איז געווען בײַ דעם אָרט וווּ מע האָט פֿאַרקויפֿט עופֿות. שוין פֿון דער ווײַטנס פֿלעג איך דערהערן דעם קוואַקען פֿון די לעבעדיקע הינער אין זייערע שטײַגן, וועלכע זושע דער שוחט פֿלעגט פֿון דאָרטן אַרויסנעמען. זושע האָט זיי איינציקווײַז געהאַלטן אין איין האַנט, און אין דער צווייטער – דעם חלף. אַ ייִד מיט אַ געדיכטער ווײַסער באָרד, ראָזעווע באַקן און אַ קײַלעכדיקן פּנים — אַ מין „סאַנטאַ קלאַוס‟, וואָס האָט געדונגען אַ צימער אין הויז פֿון דער מומע לאה, די מומע פֿון מײַן מאַמען.
אויפֿן טאָמבאַנק פֿון געוועלב פֿון די עופֿות זענען געמאַכט געוואָרן די געשעפֿטן מיט די עופֿות, נאָך דער שחיטה. אין אַ זײַט איז געווען אַ מין אַרײַנגאַנג צו דער אַרענע פֿון די געשעענישן. דאָרט פֿלעג איך זיך אַוועקשטעלן און גאַפֿן, זעענדיק די שטײַגן אין וועלכע די הינער האָבן געליאַרעמט, דערפֿילנדיק מן־הסתּם אַז עס דערנענטערט זיך זייער סוף. זייערע קולות האָבן צוגעגעבן דעם גאַנצן סצענאַריאָ אַ דראַמאַטישע אַטמאָספֿער. הײַנט צו טאָג בין איך גענויגט צו קלערן אַז מײַן טאַלאַנט נאָכצומאַכן די קולות פֿון הינער in extremis איז נישט קיין אײַנגעבוירענער טאַלאַנט, נאָר איז דעראָבערט געוואָרן אין יענע יאָרן אין יענעם אָרט… און די קולות פֿון די הינער הילכן נאָך ביז הײַנט אין מײַן זכּרון פֿון די פּאַלעווינעס אַרויס.
אין יענע קינדעריאָרן האָב איך באַטראַכט מיט אומשולדיקע אויגן, אָן קיין שום מאָראַלישע אָפּהאַלטן, איינע פֿון די שפּײַזקייטן אין אונדזער פֿליישפֿרעסערישער וועלט. די פֿילפֿאַרביקייט אויפֿן שחיטה־שלאַכטפֿעלד האָט פֿאַרכאַפּט מײַן אויג אָנהייבנדיק פֿון דער קלאָר ווײַסער באָרד פֿון זושע דעם שוחט, צוזאַמען מיט די רויטלעכע הינער און די רויטע קאַמען פֿון די הענער, מיט דעם געלבלעכן זעגעכץ אויסגעשפּרייט אין דער לענג און אין דער ברייט אויף דער פּאָדלאָגע, און ענדיקנדיק מיט דער שחיטה אַליין וואָס האָט זיך אָפּגעשפּילט פֿאַר מײַנע אויגן, װען זושע האָט אויפֿגעהויבן דעם בלאַנציקן חלף. אָט דאָס איז וואָס מײַנע אויגן האָבן דערזען:
זושע דער שוחט נעמט אַרויס אַ הון פֿון אַ שטײַג, ער באַרויִקט זי מיט לײַכטע גלעטן פֿון אַ פּראָפֿעסיאָנעלן שוחט, אַ בעל־רחמים, פּאַמעלעך פֿאַררײַסט ער דאָס קעפּל אויף אַהינטער, און אַנטבלויזט דאָס העלדזל. זושע הייבט אויף דעם מעסער, און מיט אַ שאַרפֿער תּנועה פֿון אויסגעשאַרפֿטן חלף גיט ער אַ שניט וווּ מע דאַרף. אַ דינער רויטער שטראָם בלוט צייכנט אָפּ אַ בויגן אין דער לופֿט און נידערט אויפֿן געלן געזעגעכץ. דאָס געקוילעטע הינדל ווערט אַוועקגעוואָרפֿן אויף דער פּאָדלאָגע, און די שעקספּירישע וויזיע וואָס מיר היפּן איבער צוליב דעם כּבֿוד פֿון די געשאָכטענע, קומט צו אַ סוף.
איך וועל זאָגן אַ ליגן, אויב איך וועל טענהן אַז אין עלטער פֿון דרײַ ביז זעקס יאָר האָב איך געוואָלט ווערן אַ שוחט. אָבער אָט די גאַנצע סצענע האָט מיך פֿאַרכאַפּט, נאָך איידער איך האָב פֿאַרשטאַנען וואָס צער־בעלי־חיים איז. פֿונעם געוועלב פֿון די עופֿות זײַנען מיר צוגעגאַנגען צו די טרעפּ וואָס פֿירן אַרונטער, כּדי אײַנצוקויפֿן פֿרוכט און גרינסן. אָבער איידער מיר זײַנען אַראָפּ, האָבן מיר זיך פֿאַרהאַלטן בײַ דעם מילכיקן, וואָס פֿאַרקויפֿט כּל־מיני קעזן און מילכיקע פּראָדוקטן. בײַם אַרויסגאַנג זענען מיר אַרײַן אין אַ געשעפֿט וווּ מיר האָבן געקויפֿט געזאַלצענע הערינג אַרויסגעצויגן בלײַך פֿון אַ פֿאַס, מאַסלינעס, גרויפּן, פֿאַרשיידענע געווירצן און ניס.
אין יענער צײַט זענען אין בוענאָס־אײַרעס נישט געווען קיין פֿרידזשידערן. פֿלייש און מילכיקע פּראָדוקטן האָט מען געהאַלטן אין אַן אײַזקאַסטן — אַ הילצערנעם קאַסטן וווּ מע האָט אַרײַנגעלייגט גרויסע שטיקער אײַז, וועלכע מע האָט געקויפֿט אין דער גאַס. די פֿור מיט די גרויסע שטיקער אײַז פֿלעגט קומען אויף אונדזער גאַס, און מיר פֿלעגן זיי קויפֿן לויט קוביק־מעטערס וואָס דער פֿאַרקויפֿער פֿלעגט אויסהאַקן מיט אַ ספּעציעלן אינסטרומענט.
במשך צענדליקער יאָרן האָב איך דאָ אין ישׂראל געזוכט אין יעדן אָרט וווּ איך האָב געגעסן דעם טעם פֿון אַמאָל, פֿון דער מיזרח־אייראָפּעיִשער קיך בײַ אונדז אין שטוב אין בוענאָס־אײַרעס. ניין… עס איז נישט דער טעם וואָס איז געווען בײַ מיר אין דער היים, האָב איך מיט אַ ווידערווילן אַרויסגעזאָגט בײַ אַלעמען אין שטוב און בײַ מײַן שוויגער און אַפֿילו בײַ מײַן פֿרוי אין קיך. איך טענה נישט חלילה, אַז זיי האָבן נישט געוווּסט ווי אַזוי צו קאָכן, אָדער אויספֿאַרטיקן פּאָטראַוועס. פֿאַרקערט, אָבער דאָס עסן מיט זײַן געשמאַק פֿון אַמאָל איז אַנטרונען… בײַ־בײַ, סאָו־לאָנג… ביז מיט אַ קורצער צײַט צוריק, איז מיר קלאָר געוואָרן פֿאַר וואָס איך געפֿין שוין מער נישט דעם טעם פֿון אָמאָל. הײַנט קאָכט מען אויף אַ גאַז־אייוועלע אָדער אויף עלעקטרע אָבער אין די 1940ער און 1950ער יאָרן האָט מען געקאָכט אויף קוילן. לענג־אויס דער וואַנט אין קיך בײַ אונדז אין שטוב אין בוענאָס־אײַרעס איז געשטאַנען אַן אויוון אויסגעבויט מיט ציגל, מיט דרײַ עפֿענונגען, אין וועלכע עס האָבן געברענט שוואַרצע קוילן, וואָס מיר פֿלעגן אײַנקויפֿן אין אַ קוילן־געשעפֿט, לויט קילאָגראַמען.
פּלוצלינג איז מיר געוואָרן קלאָר, אַז דאָס קאָכן אויף קוילן — למשל, אַ טשאָלנט אין אײַזערנע טעפּ פֿאַרדעקט מיט אַן אײַזערנער דעקל און פֿאַרוויקלט אַרום און אַרום מיט שמאַטעס — אַזאַ טאָפּ וואָס שטייט אויפֿן פֿײַער (נישט פֿון גאַז און נישט פֿון עלעקטרע) 24 שעה, וועט דער טעם זײַן רײַכער ווי דער טעם פֿון גאַז־ און עלעקטרע־געקעכצן. די איינציקע „מאַכלים‟ וואָס מעגן האָבן אַן ענלעכן טעם, זײַנען די קומזיץ־מאַכלים וואָס חלוצים האָבן געספּראַוועט אין די ליכטיקע אויסגעשטערנטע ארץ־ישׂראל־נעכט, און געזונגען: „אַרום דעם פֿײַער/ מיר זינגען לידער/ די נאַכט איז טײַער/ זי קומט נישט ווידער// באַפּוצט די קעפּ/ מיט בלומען קראַנצן/ אַרום דעם פֿײַער/ איז גוט צו טאַנצן…‟ עס איז נישט צו פֿאַרגלײַכן אָפּגעברענטע פּאָטייטעס און פֿאַרטשאַדעטע פּראָדוקטן בײַ אַ קומזיץ מיט די גורמע פּאָטראַוועס פֿאַרגאַזטע און עלעקטריפֿיצירטע.
The post Memories of Bubbe Khave-Leye at the marketplace in Buenos Aires appeared first on The Forward.
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‘It’s a whole ‘nother level of hate’: Pro-Palestinian groups target Oregon Hillel director
The fall semester at Oregon Hillel started with a stolen sukkah. Days later, the director found his face plastered on flyers around University of Oregon’s campus, branding him “Enemy of the People.”
Then came the Oct. 7 anniversary, when pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched to the Hillel House and set fire to an American-Israeli flag on the sidewalk outside.
“It’s a whole ‘nother level of hate and protesting,” said Oregon Hillel Director Lenny Steinberg. “These intimidation factors are starting to grow.”
A tense start
Oregon Hillel serves the University of Oregon in Eugene along with Oregon State University in Corvallis, where the sukkah was stolen. After being up for only a few days, the entire structure, its decorations and everything in it disappeared. The theft is still under investigation and it’s unclear if it was hate motivated.
For Steinberg, who has led Oregon Hillel since 2024, the incidents marked a tense start to the school year — but not an entirely unexpected one. Tensions in Eugene have run high since the Hamas attacks on Israel in 2023 and the subsequent war in Gaza. The university saw an encampment, protests that sometimes offered support for Hamas, the tearing down of Israeli hostage posters and a drawing of a swastika on a dorm bulletin board.
During the spring semester, Oregon Hillel scheduled an event with the 2021 Miss Israel title holder Noa Cochva. She planned to speak with students and answer questions about her home country, but decided to cancel the event due to protests and safety concerns. Instead, she spoke with Hillel students off campus.
While anti-Israel protests are now commonplace across American campuses, protesters’ demands in Oregon have gone beyond simply calling for their university to cut ties with Israel, they want their university to cut ties with Hillel.
“The director of Oregon Hillel supports the continuation of Zionism and genocide in Palestine,” the flyers state. “Hillel off Campus!!!”
A QR code on the posters links to an article about how students in the academic senate at the New School voted to defund and cut ties with Hillel. The New School did not ban Hillel, as the students had no authority to make such a decision.
Steinberg said campus security footage captured two masked individuals wearing sunglasses and all-black clothing putting up the flyers. Four campus activist groups posted an online statement defending the flyers but didn’t explicitly claim to be responsible for them.
“The poster says nothing about Judaism,” the statement reads in all caps. “The reality of the situation is that Oregon Hillel, a staunchly Zionist group, and the administration create a dangerous space for Jews by synchronizing a Zionist agenda with Judaic practice on campus.”
The statement was shared on Instagram by the local chapters of Jewish Voice for Peace, Revolutionary Women’s Committee, Young Democratic Socialists of America and the Eugene Revolutionary Study Group. None of the organizations responded to the Forward’s request for comment.
Steinberg said that, when he saw the flyers, his first thoughts were about the safety of his family, himself and the Jewish community. While he was directly targeted in the posters, he said many Jews reached out to him with their own safety concerns.
Steinberg took offense at the poster, saying it was spreading lies about him and that he in no way supports genocide. As for the accusation of being a Zionist, he said those who distributed the poster have a different definition of the term than he does. He believes that to them, Zionism means Jewish supremacy in Israel, full support of the Israeli government, support for settlers in the West Bank and denial of Palestinians’ right to self-determination.
To him, Zionism means having an ancestral home and self-determination alongside Arabs.
“Zionism doesn’t necessarily, to me, mean everything has to be Jewish,” he said. “It doesn’t mean that the State of Israel gets everything right. They don’t. We don’t get everything right here, but it’s my home, and I love it for all of its amazing beauties and even its flaws.”
Oregon’s Hillel is not unique. It fosters Jewish community through events and offers a space for students to gather, and like many Hillels, funds trips to Israel via both the Birthright and Perspectives programs. Birthright is the free 10-day trip to Israel offered to young adults with one Jewish parent, while Perspectives is a trip offered to students of Jewish and non-Jewish backgrounds to experience both Israel and parts of the West Bank.
Throughout his professional career, Steinberg, 38, has worked for numerous Jewish organizations including the Jewish Federation, the Jewish Community Center in Portland and most recently the Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi. Given his line of work he was well aware of the “encampments, and political climates and what hostilities there might be” brewing on campuses before he took the Hillel position in 2024.
“Still, I don’t think any of that truly prepared me for what’s really transpired and happened over these last few weeks,” he said.
While the pro-Palestine groups that shared a statement on the flyer insist it is not antisemitic, Steinberg disagrees. He argues the posters are intended to make Jews feel uncomfortable, while calling for the removal of one of the only Jewish groups on campus.
“That to me is antisemitism masked heavily in anti-Zionism,” he said.
While these events have strained the Jewish community, Steinberg said students have displayed “resilience.” Dozens of people donated to the Corvallis’s new sukkah, the University of Oregon and multiple politicians made statements supporting the Jewish community, and many attended Hillel’s recent unity shabbat.
“Students came, and for the first time in almost two weeks, you could see the weight lifted off their shoulders,” Steinberg said. “You could see that they felt like they belonged and they actually mattered at a time when so many other people are telling them ‘you don’t.’”
The post ‘It’s a whole ‘nother level of hate’: Pro-Palestinian groups target Oregon Hillel director appeared first on The Forward.
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NYC Comptroller breaks campaign promise to Jewish voters to buy Israel Bonds, drawing praise from Mamdani
New York City Comptroller Mark Levine’s decision not to resume the city’s investments in Israel Bonds, breaking a campaign promise he made to Jewish voters last year, drew mixed reactions Wednesday from supporters of Israel and advocates for the Palestinian cause. It also marked another symbolic shift in the city’s relationship with Israel under Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
The decision, first reported by The New York Times, is a significant reversal for Levine, the city’s highest-ranking Jewish elected official, who repeatedly promised last year to restore the investments after his predecessor ended a nearly 50-year practice of buying Israeli government debt.
The city’s pension funds previously held $39 million in Israel Bonds, which returned roughly 5%. Former Comptroller Brad Lander, who is also Jewish, decided not to purchase new bonds when the holdings matured in 2023, citing the city’s policy against investing in foreign government debt.
In an interview with the Times, Levine cited financial concerns and technical challenges, including those related to the war in Gaza and Israel’s political instability, in explaining why Israel Bonds are “not an investment that we can make right now.”
He insisted the decision was not driven by political pressure or a shift in his personal support for Israel, and left open the possibility of purchasing Israel Bonds in the future. The pension funds still hold $285 million in Israel-related assets, including common stocks and more than $1 million in Israeli real estate investment trusts.
The move was nonetheless a political victory for Mamdani, a longtime supporter of boycotts of Israel, who opposed the bond purchases and has sought to reshape New York City’s relationship with Israel, politically, emotionally and economically.
“I welcome the comptroller’s decision,” Mamdani told the Forward on Wednesday. “It is something that I’ve said in the past … I don’t believe that our city should purchase Israel bonds. We don’t purchase the bonds of any other sovereign nation. I don’t think that we should make an exception when it comes to Israel.” The mayor can neither prevent the investment nor overrule it.
Lander, now a congressional candidate, also voiced his approval via text message. “The pension funds are not invested in the bonds of other foreign countries,” Lander said, “and previous comptrollers’ decisions to buy Israel bonds nonetheless were a political move, not a fiduciary one.”
Why Levine changed his mind
For Jewish voters who supported Levine’s campaign, the reversal raises questions about a promise he made while seeking the office of the city’s chief financial officer.
“This has been a rock-solid investment for decades,” he said during the campaign. “Israel has never missed a bond payment, and a good, balanced portfolio should have global diversity.”
When Mamdani suggested Lander’s move should become permanent, Levine pushed back. “Israel bonds have never missed a payment in 70 years, ever, not once,” he said in April. “They pay excellent interest.”
He also called out critics who had been protesting outside his office. “We have had no protesting about our investments in Saudi Arabia, our investments in Pakistan or China, only this one little, tiny sliver,” Levine said.
A spokesperson for Levine’s office said the decision was strictly financial, not political, and noted that the decision applies only to the city’s short-term investments, where concerns about regional instability and financial risks make Israel Bonds “less attractive than other options.” Though the office did acknowledge that it invests in some bonds with lower returns.
Levine conceded that when he made the campaign promise, he did not have a complete understanding of the city’s financial options. “Perhaps a year and a half ago,” Levine told the Times, “I would have expected that the ratings would have been improved by now and/or that the interest rate would have gone up.”
Jewish leaders, who criticized Lander’s decision when it was revealed last year, remained largely silent on Wednesday.
Former comptroller warns of consequences
Scott Stringer, who served as comptroller from 2013 to 2021 and also ran for mayor last year, warned that Levine’s decision could have broader political and social consequences. ”This is a major victory for BDS, and it’s going to have long-term ramifications,” Stringer told the Forward. “This indecision will, unfortunately, spark more BDS calls that could cause further antisemitism.”
Stringer and his predecessors — John Liu and Bill Thompson — purchased tens of millions of dollars in bonds during their time in office. Stringer called Israel Bonds a “sound long-term investment” and argued that the city should not base its decisions on short-term developments.
“It’s a sound investment today, and it’s a sound investment for the future,” he said, adding that it also sends an important symbolic message, especially “because of the politics of the moment.”
When Landers ended the investment in 2023, former Mayor Eric Adams protested but couldn’t stop it. Moshe Davis, who was Adams’ Jewish liaison and worked with then-First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro, drafted a letter to Lander, saying the decision called into question his “fiduciary duty to the city’s pensioners.” On Wednesday, Davis suggested Levine was “feeding the BDS lie” just like his predecessor.
“Our city deserves a comptroller who stands up to anti-Israel propaganda,” Davis said, “the way he promised on the campaign trail.”
An Israel Bonds spokesperson criticized Levine’s reversal, pointing to his repeated campaign promises. Nate Miller, a spokesperson for Israel Bonds, pointed to the strength of Israel’s economy and said investors have purchased more than $8.5 billion in Israel Bonds since the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel and the Gaza war. Despite Levine’s decision, Miller said, “We look forward to sitting down with him and his team.”
Levine’s spokesperson said the comptroller’s office “continues to evaluate investment opportunities based on their financial merits and our fiduciary responsibilities.”
The post NYC Comptroller breaks campaign promise to Jewish voters to buy Israel Bonds, drawing praise from Mamdani appeared first on The Forward.
