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A suburban NJ megamall is offering gender-segregated swimming to accommodate its Orthodox clientele
(JTA) — Featuring 15 water slides, cabanas and an enormous wave pool, the largest indoor water park in the United States is open to all customers almost every day of the year.
Almost.
The calendar for the DreamWorks Water Park at American Dream Mall in East Rutherford, New Jersey, features blackout dates a couple weeks from now, corresponding to two weekdays in the middle of the upcoming Jewish holiday of Sukkot. But while the park’s website says “No Tickets available,” that isn’t actually the case.
Patrons can head over to an Instagram page affiliated with the mall and aimed at Jewish visitors, called “L’chaim American Dream,” where they will see water park tickets being sold at $79 a pop for those very dates — Oct. 2 and 4.
But there’s a twist: The tickets are technically for a private event at the water park, hosted by a separate company that will segregate attendees by gender. On Oct. 2, the park is open to women only and two days later, is open only to men.
The gender-segregated hours are meant to serve haredi Orthodox Jews who abide by strict modesty laws prohibiting men and women from wearing revealing clothing — such as bathing suits — in public. Having separate times for men and women would enable customers to use the waterpark without running afoul of their Jewish observance.
It’s one of the many ways the mall, which opened in 2020, caters to an Orthodox clientele — along with a food court with 13 kosher restaurants and a department store with clothes that adhere to Orthodox standards of modest dress. Accessible to Orthodox communities in Brooklyn, New Jersey and upstate New York and housing a host of activities appropriate for young children, American Dream has made itself into a top destination for Orthodox families. Families are expected to flood to its attractions — including miniature golf courses, ice skating, a theme park and more — during the intermediate days of Sukkot, when haredi yeshivas are typically closed and outings are de rigueur.
In its outdoor spaces, the mall will house multiple sukkahs, the temporary huts erected during the holiday where many Jews eat their meals during the holiday. But the water park’s gender-segregated hours represent the most substantive change planned for the holiday — and to some potential visitors, they are welcome.
“Most women to the right of left-wing Modern Orthodox would seek out this kind of arrangement in order to swim,” said Rifka Wein Harris, a haredi attorney who has advocated for changes in the way Orthodox Jews are portrayed in the media. Otherwise, she said, “I would only swim in a women’s-only environment that was not subject to public view,” such as one that was “gated or enclosed or indoors, around other women.”
Yet for those who advocate for Orthodox women’s inclusion, gender segregation on a weekday afternoon at a large suburban mall has set off alarm bells.
“Individuals can make their own decisions as to how they want to conduct their religious practice,” said Daphne Lazar Price, executive director of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center. “But to have a large corporate entity make these kinds of decisions for everyone is problematic.”
The waterpark has offered men- and women-only hours in the past, geared toward Orthodox customers on Sukkot, as well as on Hanukkah and the intermediate days of Passover. On those holidays, as on the intermediate days of Sukkot, observant Jews aren’t prohibited from engaging in commerce or swimming, and their children are generally off of school.
But in the past, those opportunities have been offered at night, after the park’s normal hours of business. This is the first time when it will be gender-segregated during the day.
“This is really the first time we’re doing something during daytime hours, which is usually open for the public,” said a representative of American Dream who responded to a JTA inquiry but declined to give their name or title. “You’re expecting that most of the public or the kids are in school and not coming during that time. “We’re able to close it, close up for gender-separated hours, during these specific days.”
The mall is operated by Triple Five Group, a Canadian conglomerate owned by the Ghermezian family, who are Jewish and also own the Mall of America. In this case, the gender-segregated days are being run under the auspices of a private company that rented the water park for those hours, according to the American Dream representative, who declined to disclose the company’s name.
For some haredi customers, the accommodation is welcome. “This is our [only] chance to go swimming at all, other than the bungalow colony,” Wein Harris said, referring to summer vacation complexes in upstate New York that often offer separate swimming hours to accommodate Orthodox guests. “And for people like me who don’t have a bungalow, we never swim.”
But Lazar Price says the gender-segregated hours are of a piece with “alarming growing trends” she has witnessed — and she isn’t alone. Elana Sztokman, a feminist activist and sociologist, has watched with concern as Orthodox magazines and advertisements have declined to show women’s faces. Now, it seems to her that American Dream is encouraging a communal impulse to separate genders in a way that, she says, will abet the exclusion of women.
“Suddenly what it means to be religious for a man means to be in a completely woman-free world. You can’t have women on the streets, you can’t have women near you,” she added. “These dynamics tell you that this has nothing to do with protecting women. It has to do with creating women free-zones so that men don’t have to deal with the fact that women exist.”
Gender segregation in public spaces has long been hotly debated in Israel, which has a large haredi community with political representation that sits in the current right-wing government. Some public buses in Israel have enforced gender separation, and there has been a proposal to have some publicly maintained natural springs do so at times.
Sztokman, who lives in Israel, sees a common thread between the policy at American Dream mall and the separation of men and women in her country.
“I feel like what’s happening in America is an extension of this because the haredi communities are connected; the religious communities are connected. If one practice becomes a norm then in one place, then the other communities have to ‘keep up with the Cohens’ kind of thing,” Sztokman said. “You can’t be less religious than your religious cousin across the ocean. You have to keep up.”
In the United States, institutions that attempt to enforce gender segregation in order to appeal to haredi customers have, in the past, run afoul of the law. In 2018, a federal appeals court ruled that an over-55 condominium complex in the heavily Orthodox city of Lakewood, New Jersey, was in violation of the Fair Housing Act because it offered separate swimming hours for men and women. Three non-Orthodox residents, including a married couple, filed a lawsuit against the complex after they were fined for refusing to get out of the pool when coed swimming hours had finished.
But when it comes to public accommodations such as publicly accessible swimming pools, the law appears to be different, said Michael Helfand, a scholar of religious law and religious liberty at Pepperdine University who is also a legal adviser to a branch of the Orthodox Union.
“Generally you can’t do this,” Helfand said. “But New Jersey has an exception that allows this kind of gender separation, gender exclusion under some circumstances.”
The federal Civil Rights Act does not bar discrimination in public accommodations on the basis of sex. The New Jersey law that Helfand cited permits a number of establishments to restrict entry by sex if they are places that could be “reasonably restricted exclusively to individuals of one sex.” The list includes summer and day camps, resorts, dressing rooms, bathhouses, gyms, schools and swimming pools.
“There’s strong reason to think that having separate hours at a private New Jersey swimming pool would not subject the swimming pool to liability under New Jersey’s anti-discrimination law,” Helfand said. “There’s likely intuition that under some circumstances, that kind of gender separation, given a particular clientele, given a particular business might, quote-unquote, make sense.”
Wein Harris is excited by the prospect of enjoying an environment that accords with her religious requirements at an attraction that bills itself as the “largest indoor water park in North America.”
“I am overwhelmingly happy that our needs are being seen in a world where they’re not otherwise being seen,” she said.
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Documents Reveal Hamas Uses Gaza Hospitals for Military Purposes, International NGOs Complicit in Operations
Israeli soldiers inspect the Al Shifa hospital complex, amid their ground operation against Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, in Gaza City, Nov. 15, 2023 in this handout image. Photo: Israel Defense Forces/Handout via REUTERS
Internal documents from Hamas’s Ministry of Interior and National Security dating back to 2020 reveal the Palestinian terrorist group has long used Gaza’s medical facilities for military purposes, according to a new report.
On Wednesday, NGO Monitor — an independent, Jerusalem-based research institute that tracks anti-Israel bias among nongovernmental organizations — released two documents declassified by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), revealing how Hamas has weaponized Gaza’s hospitals for years to shelter its operatives and leaders.
Translated from Arabic, the documents also reveal that international organizations — including the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders — are aware of Hamas’s presence in Gaza’s medical facilities, even as they publicly deny or downplay it.
“While repeatedly echoing Hamas allegations and condemning Israel’s operations to end the exploitation of hospitals for terror, these groups clearly knew that Hamas exploited these facilities and chose to remain silent,” Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor, said in a statement.
BREAKING: Leaked docs show Hamas admits to using Gaza hospitals as terror infrastructure, in files authored by its Interior Security Mechanism and obtained by NGO Monitor. Hospitals served as command hubs while NGOs went along under Hamas rules.
Here’s what they reveal
pic.twitter.com/HXI6hULYTG
— NGO Monitor (@NGOmonitor) September 10, 2025
Since the start of the war in Gaza, Hamas’s exploitation of hospitals has drawn heightened attention, with Israel facing international criticism for its operations near medical facilities as it seeks to crack down on the terrorist group.
According to NGO Monitor, the internal Hamas documents show a deliberate strategy of “embedding its military infrastructure, fighters, and leadership within hospitals and medical facilities in Gaza … thereby violating international law and endangering civilian lives.”
The documents also show that foreign NGOs have not only been aware of Hamas’s presence in Gaza’s medical facilities but also have sometimes worked alongside them.
For example, one internal memo notes that the Red Cross occupied a wing in the Al-Shifa medical complex directly adjacent to offices used by Hamas.
Despite international claims to the contrary, the documents show that the Palestinian terrorist group views medical facilities not as neutral spaces but as integral parts of its infrastructure.
“These facilities are considered to be of interest to hostile security parties and an important source for intelligence gathering, especially in times of war, since these health facilities are a place of gathering for the wounded during times of escalation, and these wounded cases hold sensitive positions in the resistance,” one of the internal memos reads.
“Furthermore, these health facilities are a place of gathering for numerous leaders of the movement and the government during times of escalation,” it continues.
The documents also reveal how Hamas closely monitors and controls foreign NGOs working in hospitals due to fears that they might serve as channels for Israeli intelligence.
“Do not let these associations have their own locations to work inside health facilities. When a location is allocated for these associations, it shall be outside the main building of the clinic or hospital, and far away from movement locations, and following security authorization,” one of the internal memos reads.
“Medical members from the Gaza Strip must join incoming delegations, whether the delegations work in hospitals or their own locations,” it adds.
Under this structured oversight, NGO Monitor explains that foreign organizations had to operate according to Hamas’s rules, “making them complicit in a system” that exploits medical centers for terrorist purposes.
“The internal Hamas documents reviewed in this report expose a systematic Hamas strategy to militarize Gaza’s health-care system, using hospitals and medical facilities as extensions of its military and security apparatus,” NGO Monitor says.
“This arrangement is fundamentally inconsistent with the principle of medical neutrality in Gaza, transforming humanitarian spaces into dual-use facilities that serve both medical and military purposes,” it continues.
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Mamdani Maintains Comfortable Lead in New York City Mayoral Race, Despite Jewish Opposition
Candidate Zohran Mamdani speaks during a Democratic New York City mayoral primary debate, June 4, 2025, in New York, US. Photo: Yuki Iwamura/Pool via REUTERS
Zohran Mamdani maintains a substantial lead in New York City’s mayoral contest, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released on Tuesday, as discontent with City Hall continues to rattle the electorate.
The survey of likely voters found Mamdani, a democratic socialist from Queens, taking 45 percent in a four-way matchup, well ahead of former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo at 23 percent, Republican activist Curtis Sliwa at 15 percent, and embattled incumbent Eric Adams at just 12 percent.
If Adams were to exit the race, Mamdani’s margin would narrow, with 46 percent support compared to Cuomo’s 30 percent. Sliwa would hold 17 percent of the electorate.
The poll underscores Adams’s strong standing among certain demographics, particularly Jewish voters, who make up a crucial bloc in several boroughs. Among Jewish voters, Adams receives 42 percent support, while Mamdani and Cuomo are tied at 21 percent each. Moreover, 75 percent of Jewish voters view Mamdani unfavorably, according to the poll, highlighting a key vulnerability for the progressive candidate.
The results came days after another poll showed similar results.
Mamdani holds a commanding 22-point advantage over his chief rival in the mayoral race, Cuomo, 46 percent to 24 percent, according to the poll by the New York Times and Siena College. Sliwa polled at 15 percent, and incumbent Adams polled at 9 percent among likely New York City voters.
Perhaps most striking, the survey found that Mamdani would still beat Cuomo in November’s election, 48 percent to 44 percent, if the other candidates dropped out and it was a one-on-one matchup.
Adams and Cuomo are both running as independents.
A little-known politician before this year’s Democratic primary campaign, Mamdani is an outspoken supporter of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward its eventual elimination.
Mamdani has also repeatedly refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, falsely suggesting the country does not offer “equal rights” for all its citizens, and promised to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits New York.
Mamdani also initially defended the phrase “globalize the intifada”— which references previous periods of sustained Palestinian terrorism against Jews and Israels and has been widely interpreted as a call to expand political violence — by invoking the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising during World War II. However, Mamdani has since backpedaled on his support for the phrase, saying that he would discourage his supporters from using the slogan.
Mamdani’s overall strength appears to rest not only on name recognition among progressives but also on enthusiasm. Approximately 91 percent of his supporters say they’re enthusiastic about their choice, far outpacing backers of other candidates, the Quinnipiac data found. Cuomo, despite his experience and political legacy, is hurt by a 56 percent unfavorable rating.
Voters rank crime — 30 percent — and affordable housing — 21 percent — as the most pressing concerns, with inflation a distant third.
Moreover, Mamdani’s adversarial and combative rhetoric aimed at President Donald Trump seems to help him in the race.
“The name not on the ballot but seen having influence on this race is President Trump. And likely voters in New York City make it clear they want the next occupant of Gracie Mansion to stand up to Trump when it comes to issues inside New York City,” said Quinnipiac University Poll Assistant Director Mary Snow.
The findings paint a picture of a fractured electorate, with Mamdani consolidating left-leaning voters while Adams maintains strongholds among more moderate constituencies, including Jewish neighborhoods, and Cuomo tries to galvanize support among voters as various scandals loom over his campaign. Sliwa remains in the mid-teens but could play spoiler if the race tightens.
Mamdani has also sought to distance himself from some of the most radical policies he previously advocated for, such as defunding the police. Mamdani’s attempt to strike a more moderate tone seems to be paying dividends thus far. Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY), a Democrat from a swing district, endorsed Mamdani on Wednesday.
“@ZohranKMamdani fights for the PEOPLE. Andrew Cuomo is a selfish POS who only fights for himself and other corrupt elites. I know whose side I’m on. I’m with the people. I’m with Zohran,” Ryan posted on social media.
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‘Pro-Hamas Terror Ties’: US Sen. Tom Cotton Warns of CAIR’s Push Into Philadelphia Schools
CAIR officials give press conference on the Israel-Hamas war. Photo: Kyle Mazza / SOPA Images/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
US Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) has warned in a letter to the Department of Education that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a nonprofit advocacy group long accused of having ties to terrorist organizations including Hamas, is seeking to infiltrate the city of Philadelphia’s public education system.
The letter was dated Tuesday, about two weeks after the Philadelphia chapter of CAIR announced that it was partnering with local schools.
“CAIR-Philadelphia is partnering with schools this year to make sure every student feels seen, safe, and supported,” the group said in an Instagram post. “Invite the CAIR Philly staff for a training to educators and staff on cultural competency, anti-bullying, and inclusive practices.”
“The CAIR Philadelphia staff works not only with staff and administration, but also directly with students!” the post continued. “We can visit classrooms as guest facilitators to lead student-centered discussions.”
Given CAIR’s controversial history, the federal government should act to prevent such a program from becoming reality, according to Cotton.
“It is well documented that CAIR has deep ties to pro-Hamas terrorist organizations and publicly supports Hamas’s terrorist activities,” Cotton wrote in the letter to US Education Secretary Linda McMahon. “As I noted in a previous letter, the Department of Justice listed CAIR as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee in the largest terrorism-financing case in US history. Further, CAIR-Philadelphia’s executive director, Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu, stated that Israeli ‘occupation’ was the reason for the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack by Hamas in Israel.”
Cotton’s letter cited materials which CAIR distributes across the city and promotes in its programming — notably its “American Jews and Political Power” course — and other attempts to revise the history of Sharia law, which severely restricts the rights of women and is opposed to other core features of liberal societies.
One of CAIR’s most controversial documents demands that teachers omit key facts about the 9/11 terrorist attacks which, in addition to destroying the World Trade Centers and severely damaging the Pentagon, claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 Americans.
“Avoid using language that validates the claims of the 9/11 attackers by associating their acts of mass murder with Islam and Muslims,” CAIR insists in the material. “For example, avoid using inaccurate and inflammatory terms such as ‘Islamic terrorists,’ ‘jihadists,’ or ‘radical Islamic terrorists.’”
Additionally, since the Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, CAIR-Philadelphia has lobbied the state government to enact anti-Israel policies and accused Gov. Josh Shapiro of ignoring the plight of Palestinians.
In a 2023 speech following Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities, CAIR’s national executive director, Nihad Awad, said he was “happy to see” Palestinians “breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land.”
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “some of CAIR’s current leadership had early connections with organizations that are or were affiliated with Hamas.” CAIR has disputed the accuracy of the ADL’s claim, despite government trial exhibits indicating its founders participated in meetings with Hamas supporters in Philadelphia. The organization has asserted that it “unequivocally condemn[s] all acts of terrorism, whether carried out by al-Qa’ida, the Real IRA, FARC, Hamas, ETA, or any other group designated by the US Department of State as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization.’”
“Such an organization should never have access to our nation’s children,” Cotton wrote in his letter, urging the Education Department to “ensure” that CAIR is not able to push its ideology on American schoolchildren.
“Sen. Cotton’s comments bring much needed scrutiny to the alarming trend of unchecked outside groups influencing public school curricula. CAIR, with their ties to Hamas, should have no involvement with the Philadelphia School District,” said Steve Rosenberg, Philadelphia Regional Director for the North American Values Institute (NAVI). “This raises serious concerns about balance, transparency, and educational integrity, not to mention basic decision making. Parents and taxpayers deserve assurance that their children aren’t being exposed to ideologically driven lessons — especially from groups with dangerous political affiliations.”
CAIR’s pushing into K-12 education comes at a time of rising antisemitism in public schools.
In August, for example, the Education Department promptly opened an investigation into allegations of antisemitism in Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS) following the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) filing a complaint regarding the matter.
Jewish students allegedly experienced relentless bullying in BCPS, where students pantomimed Nazi salutes, treated campuses as a canvas for Nazi-inspired and antisemitic graffiti, and sent text messages threatening that the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas will be summoned to kill Jewish students the bullies do not like, the ADL complaint said, noting that teachers behaved even worse than students. At Bard High School, an English teacher allegedly performed the Nazi salute three times and later admitted to administrative officials that he did so intentionally to harm “the sole Jewish student” enrolled in his class. Following the incident, he suggested that the student unregister for his class because the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be discussed in it.
“The allegations that Baltimore City Public Schools tolerate virulent Nazi-inspired antisemitic harassment of its Jewish students is at once appalling and infuriating. When a teacher allegedly directs a Nazi salute toward a Jewish student, or non-Jewish students harass their Jewish contemporaries by saying ‘all Jews should die,’ we are not simply talking about contemptible bullying; we are talking about a shocking abdication of educator responsibility that constitutes unlawful antisemitic harassment under Title VI,” Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.
Last month, The Algemeiner reported that the Santa Clara Unified School District (SCUSD) in California, which stands accused of refusing to address antisemitism, ruled that a teacher who allegedly showed her students antisemitic, discriminatory, and biased content violated policy when she screened an offensive video about the Holocaust in her classroom.
The move came without the prompting of the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, with which two Jewish civil rights groups, StandWithUs (SWU) and the Bay Area Jewish Coalition (BAJC), filed a complaint against the district in April.
Among other things, SWU and BAJC alleged that an SCUSD employee, Wilcox High School teacher Kauser Adenwala, screened a documentary produced in Turkey which compared the war in Gaza to the Holocaust. The graphic film at one point “displays a picture of a young Jewish child who was branded with a number by the Nazis during World War II and then suddenly shows an untraceable image of children with Arabic writing on their arms,” according to the complaint, which alleged the teacher’s conduct violated numerous district policies and potentially state law.
She remains employed by the district to this day.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.