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A Jewish reporter goes inside Rikers for a new book on a notorious jail
(New York Jewish Week) — Reuven Blau, son of a Holocaust survivor, suggests his father may have inspired him to strive for change within New York City’s notorious Rikers Island jail.
“There’s this subconscious drive to change things, or to help people in a way that you don’t understand,” said Blau. “Inside Rikers, you realize how difficult it is, and how terrible the circumstances are for everyone involved.”
A reporter for The City who studied at a yeshiva in Brooklyn, Blau is the co-author, with Graham Rayman, of “Rikers: An Oral History,” a new book on a jail that makes frequent headlines for the violence and despair trapped within its walls. The book seeks to humanize the people inside the jail — both inmates and the people who work there — and tell their stories.
Its aim, Blau told the New York Jewish Week, is to amplify the voices of “people who are rarely seen as people,” he said.
The jail complex, which opened in 1932, has long been criticized for its harsh conditions, which include horror stories of inmates caged in tiny showers, sleeping on excrement-smeared floors, suicides, beatings and more. Many have called for its closure since the 1970s. As of Dec. 14, 19 people died at Rikers in 2022 — the highest death rate since 2013.
Rikers Island, the jail complex located in the East River that has been open since 1932, is the site of a constant stream of violent news and headlines over the past few decades. (The City/Ben Fractenberg)
The reporters spent close to three years interviewing about 130 people, with most of the conversations taking place over the phone or in person with people already out of jail. They also made several trips to the jail complex.
One of the people they spoke with was Rabbi Gabriel Kretzmer Seed, a Jewish chaplain on Rikers. Seed spoke about singing Shabbat songs with an inmate who suddenly got up and punched him.
“He was a pretty strong person, but I only ended up with a bloody lip. He might have been mumbling something, but I don’t remember what he said specifically. I was quite shocked. Everything happened so quickly,” Seed said. “I was totally in shock because I had known him for a while and he was the last person I thought would hurt me.”
Seed then remarked that he was able to work with mental health staff and ultimately managed to have a good relationship with the inmate after the incident.
“It was such a revealing story, how there are people who are there to help others,” Blau said. “And they become aware of how people are misplaced there.”
Prior to joining The City, Blau had worked at the New York Daily News and the New York Post. Despite his deep reporting experience, Blau, 43, noted that it’s been “the weirdest thing” to become the “voice” of Rikers. “I’m this whole yeshiva guy,” Blau said. “I’d never been to jail. It wasn’t an issue I was familiar with at all in any way.”
Blau, who grew up in Denver and went to a yeshiva high school in Chicago, said that he remains observant. “Big cholent fan,” said Blau, who lives in New Jersey with his wife, Sara, who had a baby girl in May. “My favorite part of the culture is the social service network that exists in many communities.”
He fell into reporting after majoring in English at Brooklyn College. Before working for the tabloids, Blau wrote for The Chief, a newspaper dedicated to labor and local politics, where he covered the union that represents New York’s corrections officers, among other things.
In 2011, he landed a scoop with the Post about a “jailhouse bar mitzvah” which revealed that correction officers and supervisors attended a lavish Jewish coming-of-age cermony behind bars at a downtown Manhattan jail whose costs were carried by taxpayers.
“I always had some foot in the jail coverage,” Blau said of his time working in the news industry.
His co-writer, Rayman, covers criminal justice for the Daily News. Rayman told the New York Jewish Week that he doesn’t think people can read the book and “come away with a feeling that anything other than that particular jail system is deeply flawed and in need of major changes.”
The city is required by law to close Rikers Island by 2027, yet many are casting doubt over whether that will be possible.
“I really hope that there’s not a journalist behind me in 20 or 30 years that is writing about the same issues, because I think that means the coverage we’ve been doing hasn’t made an effect,” Blau said. “I look at it through that lens. I try to come up with ways that are going to change things for the better in a real meaningful way.”
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Trump is still going after Palestinians in the U.S. Jews must keep protesting those antidemocratic efforts
Mohsen Mahdawi, a 35-year-old Palestinian, has been a permanent resident of the United States for the past 14 years. And as the U.S. government presses ahead with efforts to deport him over his pro-Palestinian advocacy at Columbia University, more than 1,000 Jews have come forward to defend him by signing an open letter I authored.
Why? At a time of particularly fractious division in the Jewish community over issues related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, how is it possible that so many Jews have come together in support of a Palestinian activist?
One key reason is that the government is seeking to infringe upon the rights of someone who neither engaged in acts of violence nor supported them. In July, the Second Circuit Court overruled a prior district court judge’s dismissal of the deportation case against Mahdawi, giving new energy to the government’s efforts.
Mahdawi has committed no crime; the government has not even bothered to accuse him of doing so. Instead, he simply gave voice to his belief in the necessity of freedom for his people.
Jews of all ideological stripes can and should agree that it is wrong to penalize someone for the expression of their political views. They don’t need to go far back in time to recall that such tactics have often been used against Jews themselves — in the Soviet Union to suppress refuseniks who sought to manifest their identity as Jews; in the U.S. during the McCarthy era; and, most ominously, during the dark age of Nazi totalitarianism.
In drafting an open letter defending Mahdawi, focused on the attack on his political rights, I hoped that a diverse range of Jews would be willing to acknowledge that whether they agree or disagree with Mahdawi, the government’s targeting of him represents a threat to all of us.
I know Mahdawi personally. We met at a peace-building retreat in the summer of 2024. He was an enormously compelling presence who drew people together through his preternatural calmness and clarity of purpose.
Since then, I have come to see him as a unifier, not a divider. He’s an advocate of peace, not war. And he has the potential to become a leader of enormous charisma and potential.
So why has the Trump administration devoted so much attention to persecuting a Palestinian student who has repeatedly called out antisemitism, including at a Palestinian solidarity rally at Columbia?
The sad reality is that Mahdawi, like his fellow Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil, is being persecuted for the crime of being Palestinian.
The U.S. State Department came up with the logic-defying claim, in March 2025, that Mahdawi’s activities at Columbia “would have a potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences and would compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest.” If this administration truly wishes to advance its foreign policy interests, then it should focus on reconstructing Gaza and building a framework for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, not targeting a devoted adept of non-violence like Mahdawi.
Many who signed the letter in support of Mahdawi joined in for the simple reason that they believe it is un-American to discriminate against people on the basis of their political views. Some who added their names felt, as I did , that there was another compelling reason to sign on: that Mahdawi’s activism gives the lie to the prevalent myth that to be pro-Palestine is to be antisemitic. This proposition gets buried in the raging discourse around antisemitism and Israel today.
It is essential to recognize that support for the cause of Palestinian freedom and self-determination is not the political or moral equivalent of antisemitism. It is a precondition to a world in which Israeli Jews and Palestinians live peaceably together. And it is a cause that Jews, by virtue of their own historical experience of exile, should be eminently capable of both understanding and supporting.
Mohsen Mahdawi perfectly exemplifies the position. He is fierce in his advocacy for Palestinian rights. And he is fierce in his opposition to all forms of identity-based discrimination, including and especially, antisemitism. He deserves better from the U.S., and we Jews must vigorously oppose the profound miscarriage of justice being directed against him.
David N. Myers teaches Jewish history at UCLA.
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Lawmakers seek 100-foot buffer zone around houses of worship to protect prayer goers from protests
(JTA) — A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a federal legislation Thursday in the House and Senate aimed at protecting houses of worship from disruptive demonstrations, following a series of protests outside of synagogues this year.
The Right to Worship Act was introduced by Sens. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, and Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat, alongside Reps. Brad Knott, a North Carolina Republican, and Tom Suozzi, a New York Democrat. It would establish a 100-foot “buffer zone” around houses of worship during religious services — mirroring similar legislation recently enacted in New York.
“The First Amendment guarantees every American the right to freely exercise their faith, and Congress has a duty to ensure that guarantee is met,” Cruz said in a statement Thursday.
The legislation would also establish civil penalties for offenders and provide pathways for individuals, including state attorneys, to seek court orders and damages in federal court. While the legislation would target protesters who knowingly disrupt scheduled religious services, houses of worship would not be required to make their schedules public.
The bill’s sponsors say the measure is aimed at conduct rather than the content of protesters’ speech.
“No one should have to push through a hostile crowd or shout over a bullhorn in an attempt to pray,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO and national director of the Anti-Defamation League, which helped lawmakers draft the legislation.
It’s the latest attempt at passing federal legislation aimed at insulating houses of worship from protest, following Suozzi’s “SACRED Act” legislation, a similar bill he introduced in April but which has not progressed in the House.
Those efforts have now been joined by Slotkin, who is Jewish, and Cruz, who has often taken aim at antisemitism within the Republican coalition over the past year.
“Exercising your right to worship should not require you to exhibit particular courage as you enter your synagogue, church, mosque, temple, mandir, or gurdwara,” Suozzi said in a statement.
The New York City Council passed a local buffer zone bill in March following a series of pro-Palestinian protests outside of synagogues that hosted Israeli real estate expos. While Jewish groups and leaders heavily advocated for the measure, it also faced opposition from civil rights leaders who said it would have a chilling effect on First Amendment protections.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Over 95% of Canadian Jewish university students report exposure to antisemitism
(JTA) — Nearly all Jewish students surveyed on Canadian university campuses said they have experienced or witnessed antisemitism, according to a new government-commissioned report.
The survey from the Department of Canadian Heritage found that 95.7% of Jewish students said they were exposed to antisemitism, with 70% saying their university did not take antisemitism seriously and 22% reporting physical violence against Jews.
“Antisemitism on Canadian campuses is neither isolated nor episodic,” said Jack Jedwab, the report’s main author, at a press conference in Ottawa on Wednesday. “It can reasonably be described as systemic.”
The surveyed students anonymously detailed rhetoric, discriminatory treatment, vandalism, intimidation and physical attacks from their classmates as well as professors and administrators. Some 45% said they experienced Holocaust denial or distortion often or sometimes, and 65% said they encountered it “at least rarely.”
One respondent said they had witnessed a friend who wears a kippah being chased out of a school building by a group of students who shouted, “There is a Jew … let’s get him.”
Another student described a professor writing that “we need to kill all Zionists, that she had worked with them and saw how evil they were.” Students also said they were pressured by peers and professors to give their opinions on Israel because they were openly Jewish.
Some 36% of respondents complained about course content or classroom discussions that “they experienced as antisemitic or biased,” while 34% said “a professor introduced Jews, Judaism, Israel, or Zionism when unrelated to the course subject.”
The survey, out Wednesday as part of a report titled Campus Antisemitism and Student Experiences, included about 900 Jewish students from schools across Canada. It was originally conducted for the government’s special envoy on antisemitism, a role that Prime Minister Mark Carney’s administration dissolved alongside an Islamophobia envoy earlier this year.
Carney replaced those offices with a new Ministerial Advisory Council on Rights, Equality, and Inclusion, which he announced in June after saying that the country was “failing Jewish Canadians.” The new council was introduced as a push to unify the government’s approach toward combating systemic prejudice, but some Jewish groups decried the elimination of distinct envoys.
Pressure has mounted on Carney’s administration to stem the tide of antisemitic attacks in Canada since 2023, including gunfire at Jewish schools and synagogues and attacks on Jewish businesses and community centers.
On the same day the report was released, an Oklahoma-based organization called Jewish Tulsa made news for urging President Donald Trump’s administration to offer refugee status to Jewish Canadians.
“With the urgency around the challenges and the inaction we see in Canada, an asylum pathway makes sense,” Joe Roberts, who leads the conservative think tank, told The Canadian Press. He said that his family moved from Ontario to Tulsa after witnessing antisemitic graffiti in his neighborhood.
Martha Piper, former president of the University of British Columbia, said the campus antisemitism report revealed “a shocking presence of campus antisemitism throughout this country along with a troubling institutional failure to respond.”
“The results suggest a university culture that is not welcoming to Jewish students and systemically tries to exclude and vilify them,” said Piper.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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