Uncategorized
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.”
—
The post A Jewish reporter goes inside Rikers for a new book on a notorious jail appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Hezbollah Pays Steep Price in Battle to Reverse Its Fortunes
Workers remove a coffin with a body from temporary graves and prepare for transport for a funeral ceremony of four Hezbollah fighters and two civilians, amid a temporary ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel, in Tyre, southern Lebanon, April 26, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Marko Djurica/File Photo
Hezbollah has paid a heavy price for going to war with Israel on March 2: Israel has occupied a chunk of southern Lebanon, displaced hundreds of thousands of its Shi’ite Muslim constituents and killed as many as several thousand of its fighters, according to previously unreported casualty estimates from within the group.
The move has brought severe political consequences, too. In Beirut, opposition has hardened to its status as an armed group, which domestic rivals see as exposing Lebanon to repeated wars with Israel.
In April, Lebanon’s government held face-to-face talks with Israel for the first time in decades, a decision Hezbollah firmly opposed.
However, more than a dozen Hezbollah officials told Reuters they see a chance to reverse deteriorating fortunes by aligning with Tehran in its war with Israel and the United States. The group, founded by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in 1982, opened fire two days into the conflict, which began with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28.
The group’s calculations are based on the assessment that its participation would force Lebanon onto the agenda of U.S.-Iranian negotiations, and that Iranian pressure can secure a more robust ceasefire than one that took effect in November 2024 following a conflict sparked by the war in Gaza, the officials said.
Hezbollah was mauled in the last war, which killed its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, along with some 5,000 fighters, and weakened its long-dominant hold over the Lebanese state.
Rearmed with Iranian help, it has used new tactics and drones, surprising many with its capabilities after a fragile 15-month truce during which Hezbollah held fire, even as Israel continued to kill its members.
Hezbollah lawmaker Ibrahim al-Moussawi denied the group was acting on Iran’s behalf when it resumed hostilities, as alleged by opponents. He told Reuters Hezbollah saw a window to “break this vicious cycle … where the Israelis can target, assassinate, bombard, kill, without any revenge.”
He acknowledged losses and damage in southern Lebanon but said “you don’t go into making calculations of how many are going to be killed” when “pride and sovereignty and independence” are at stake.
Hezbollah’s media office said the figure of several thousand fighters killed in the present war was false.
While a US-mediated ceasefire that took effect on April 16 has led to a significant reduction in hostilities, Israel and Hezbollah have continued to trade blows in the south, where Israel maintains troops in a self-declared “buffer zone.”
Yezid Sayigh, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, said Hezbollah had “shown more resilience than many thought possible, but that was not a strategic gain in itself.”
“The only thing that will contain Israel is a comprehensive US-Iran deal,” he said. “Without a deal, there’s going to be a lot of pain for everyone. At best, a hurting stalemate.”
GRAVES FRESHLY DUG, AND QUICKLY FILLED
More than 2,600 people have been killed since March 2, around a fifth of them women, children and medics, Lebanon’s health ministry has reported. Its toll does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Three sources, two of them Hezbollah officials, said the ministry’s figures do not include many of the group’s casualties. They said several thousand Hezbollah fighters have been killed, though the group does not have the full picture yet.
In a statement to Reuters, Hezbollah’s media office denied the figures cited by the sources, and that the numbers published by Lebanon’s health ministry included its members killed in Israeli strikes.
One source, a Hezbollah commander, said scores of fighters had gone to the frontline towns of Bint Jbeil and Khiyam intending to fight to the death. Their bodies have yet to be recovered.
In the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut, more than two dozen freshly dug graves were quickly filled with fighters’ bodies in the days after the ceasefire took hold. Simple marble tombstones identify some as commanders, others as fighters.
In one southern village alone, Yater, the council recorded the deaths of 34 Hezbollah fighters.
Lebanon’s Shi’ite Muslim community has borne the brunt of Israel’s attacks, forced to flee into Christian, Druze and other areas, where many blame Hezbollah for starting the war.
Israel has been entrenching its hold over a security zone stretching as far as 10 km (6 miles) into Lebanon and demolishing villages, saying it aims to shield northern Israel from attacks by Hezbollah militants embedded in civilian areas.
An Israeli government official said Hezbollah had abrogated the November 2024 ceasefire by firing on Israeli citizens on March 2. The threat to northern Israel would be eradicated, the official said, adding thousands of Hezbollah militants had been killed, and Israel was steadily destroying the group’s infrastructure.
The Israeli military says Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel since March 2. Israel has announced 17 soldiers killed in southern Lebanon, along with two civilians in northern Israel.
Citing ongoing Israeli strikes, Hezbollah has called the April ceasefire meaningless and continued to attack.
IRAN ‘WILL NOT SELL’ THEIR FRIENDS
A diplomat who has contact with Hezbollah described its decision to enter the war as a big gamble and a survival strategy, saying it felt it needed to be part of the problem so it could be part of an eventual regional solution.
It has yet to be seen if the gamble will pay off.
Tehran has demanded that Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah be included in any deal on the wider war. But US President Donald Trump said last month that any deal Washington reaches with Tehran “is in no way subject to Lebanon.”
A spokesperson for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, Tahir Andrabi, referred Reuters to an April 16 statement in which he said peace in Lebanon was essential to the talks it is mediating between the U.S. and Iran.
A Western official said they saw a possibility the US and Iran might eventually reach a settlement that does not address the war in Lebanon.
Asked about this, the US State Department, Iran’s mission to the United Nations in Geneva and Lebanon’s government did not immediately comment.
Hezbollah’s Moussawi said a ceasefire in Lebanon continues to be a top priority for Iran, adding Tehran shares Lebanon’s objectives, including that Israel halt attacks and withdraw from Lebanon. Hezbollah has “full trust in Iran – that the Iranians will not sell their own friends”, he said.
The State Department referred Reuters to an April 27 interview Secretary of State Marco Rubio did with Fox News, in which he said Israel had a right to defend itself against Hezbollah’s attacks, and that he didn’t think Israel wanted to maintain its buffer zone in Lebanon indefinitely.
The United States has urged Israel “to make sure their responses are proportional and targeted,” he said.
When the April 16 ceasefire was announced, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hezbollah’s disarmament would be a fundamental demand in peace talks with Lebanon.
Hezbollah has ruled out disarmament, saying the matter of its weapons is a topic for a national dialogue. Any move by Lebanon to disarm the group by force would risk igniting conflict in a country shattered by civil war from 1975 to 1990.
Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have sought Hezbollah’s peaceful disarmament since last year. On March 2, the government banned the group’s military activities.
Hezbollah has demanded the government cancel that decision and end its direct talks with Israel.
Lebanese officials have told Reuters they believe direct talks with Israel under the auspices of the US are the best way to secure a lasting ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli troops, as only Washington has enough leverage with Israel to achieve those aims.
Uncategorized
US President Trump Tells Israeli Media: ‘I Studied Iran’s New Proposal, It Is Not Acceptable to Me’
US President Donald Trump arrives to award the medal of honor to Master Sgt. Roderick ‘Roddie’ W. Edmonds, Staff Sgt. Michael H. Ollis, and retired Command Sgt. Maj. Terry P. Richardson during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 02 March 2026.
US President Donald Trump said he has reviewed Iran’s latest proposal and described it as “unacceptable” in an interview with Israeli broadcaster Kan News on Sunday. Trump added that ongoing efforts related to the conflict are “progressing very well,” without providing further details. He also renewed his call for clemency for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, arguing that Israel needs a leader focused on wartime priorities rather than legal matters.
Uncategorized
Israel Court Extends Detention of Gaza Flotilla Activists
Activist Saif Abu Keshek, a member of the Global Sumud Flotilla detained by Israel, sits at a magistrate’s court for a detention extension hearing in Ashkelon, southern Israel, May 3, 2026. REUTERS/Amir Cohen
An Israeli court has extended by two days the detention of two activists arrested aboard a Gaza-bound flotilla that was intercepted by Israeli forces in international waters near Greece, their lawyer said on Sunday.
Saif Abu Keshek, a Spanish national, and Brazilian Thiago Avila were detained by Israeli authorities late on Wednesday and brought to Israel, while more than 100 other pro-Palestinian activists aboard the boats were taken to the Greek island of Crete.
A court spokesperson confirmed that their remand had been extended until May 5.
The governments of Spain and Brazil issued a joint statement on Friday calling their detention illegal.
The activists were part of a second Global Sumud flotilla, launched in an attempt to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza by delivering humanitarian assistance. The ships had set sail from Barcelona on April 12.
Israeli authorities requested a four-day extension of their arrest on suspicion of offenses that include assisting the enemy during wartime, contact with a foreign agent, membership in and providing services to a terrorist organization, and the transfer of property for a terrorist organization, said rights group Adalah, which is assisting in the activists’ defense.
Hadeel Abu Salih, the men’s attorney, said that the two deny the allegations. Their arrest was unlawful due to a lack of jurisdiction, she told Reuters at the Ashkelon Magistrate’s Court after the hearing, adding that the mission was meant to provide aid to civilians in Gaza, not to any militant group.
Abu Salih said that Abu Keshek and Avila were subjected to violence en route to Israel and kept handcuffed and blindfolded until Thursday morning.
Asked for comment, the Israeli military referred Reuters to the Israeli foreign ministry, which said that staff were compelled to act to stop what it described as violent physical obstruction by Abu Keshek and Avila. All measures taken were lawful, it said.