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An Orthodox woman says she is no longer welcome to pray at a New York synagogue because she is trans
(JTA) — When Talia Avrahami was asked to resign from a job teaching in an Orthodox Jewish day school after people there found out she was transgender, she was devastated. But she hoped to be able to turn to her synagogue in Washington Heights, where she had found a home for the last year and a half.
The Shenk Shul is housed at Yeshiva University, the Modern Orthodox flagship in New York City that was locked in battle with students over whether they could form an LBGTQ club. Still, Avrahami had found the previous rabbi to be supportive, and the past president was an ally and a personal friend. What’s more, Avrahami had just helped hire a new rabbi who had promised to handle sensitive topics carefully and with concern for all involved.
So Avrahami was shocked when her outreach to the new rabbi led to her exclusion from the synagogue, with the top Jewish legal authority at Yeshiva University personally telling her that she could no longer pray there.
“Not only were we members, we were very active members,” Avrahami told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “We hosted and sponsored kiddushes all the time. We had mazel tovs, [the birth of] our baby [was] posted in the newsletter, we helped run shul events. We were very close with the previous rabbi and rebbetzin and we were close with the current rabbi and rebbetzin.”
Avrahami’s quest to remain a part of the Shenk Shul, which unfolded over the past two months and culminated last week with her successful request for refunded dues, comes at a time of intense tension over the place of LGBTQ people in Modern Orthodox Jewish spaces.
Administrators at Shenk and Y.U. said they are trying to balance Orthodox interpretations of Jewish law, or halacha, and contemporary ideas around inclusion — two values that have sharply collided in Avrahami’s case.
Emails and text messages obtained by JTA show that many people involved in Avrahami’s situation expressed deep pain over her eventual exclusion. They also show that, despite a range of interpretations of Jewish law on LGBTQ issues present even within Modern Orthodoxy, the conclusions of Yeshiva University’s top Jewish legal authority, Rabbi Hershel Schachter, continue to drive practices within the university’s broader community.
“I completely understand (and am certainly perturbed by) the difficulty of the situation. Nobody wants to, chas v’shalom [God forbid], oust anybody, especially somebody who has been an active part of this community,” the synagogue’s president, Shimon Liebling, wrote in a Nov. 17 text message to his predecessor. But, he continued, “When it came down to it, the halachah stated this outcome. As much as we laud ourselves as a welcoming community, halachah cannot be compromised.”
Liebling went on, using the term for a rabbinic decision and referring to a ruling he said the synagogue rabbi had obtained from Schachter: “A psak is a psak.”
The saga began this fall, several weeks after Avrahami lost her short-lived job as an eighth-grade social studies teacher at Magen David Yeshivah in Brooklyn, which she had obtained after earning a master’s degree at Yeshiva University. She had been outed after a video of her in the classroom taken during parent night began circulating on social media.
Around the High Holidays, when Orthodox Jews spend many days in their synagogues, Avrahami learned that people within the Shenk Shul community were talking about her, some complaining about her presence. As she always had, she had spent the holidays praying in the women’s section of the gender-segregated congregation.
Concerned, Avrahami reached out to the new rabbi, Shai Kaminetzky. He confirmed the complaints and told her he wanted further guidance from a more senior rabbi to deal with the complex legal issue before him: Where is a trans woman’s place in the Orthodox synagogue?
For Avrahami and some others who identify as Modern Orthodox, this question has already been resolved. They heed the rulings of the late Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg, known as the “Tzitz Eliezer,” an Orthodox legal scholar who died in 2006. He ruled that a trans woman who undergoes gender confirmation surgery is a woman according to Jewish law.
But Waldenberg’s determination is not universally held among Orthodox Jews — and one prominent rabbi who does not accept it is Hershel Schachter. In a 2017 Q&A, Schachter derided trans issues, saying about one trans Jew, “Why did he decide that God made a mistake? He looked so much better as a man than as a woman.” He also suggested that a trans person asking whether to sit in the men’s or women’s section should instead consider attending a Conservative or Reform synagogue, where worshippers are not separated by gender.
“We know we’d have no problem if we were at a Reform or Conservative synagogue when it comes to the acceptance issue. The thing is, that’s not the only thing in our life,” Bradley Avrahami told JTA.
The couple became religiously observant after spending time in Israel and the two now identify as Modern Orthodox. They were married by an Orthodox rabbi in 2018, and when they had their baby via surrogate in 2021, it was important to them that the infant go through a Jewish court to formally convert to Judaism. Avrahami seeks to fulfill the Jewish legal and cultural expectations of Orthodox women, wearing a wig and modest skirts. The pair both adhere to strict Shabbat and kashrut observance laws.
“We didn’t want to be the only family that kept kosher at the synagogue, we didn’t want to be the only family that is shomer Shabbat and shomer chag,” Bradley Avrahami added, referring to strict observance of the Sabbath and holiday restrictions. “It kind of becomes isolating.”
Kaminetzky kept both Talia Avrahami and Eitan Novick, the past president, in the loop about his research, in which he consulted with Schachter. It was a natural place for him to turn: He had studied at Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary and learned from Schachter there. And while the Shenk Shul includes members not affiliated with Yeshiva University, it is closely entwined with Y.U., occupying space in a university building and hiring rabbis only from a list of options presented by the university.
After speaking with Schachter, Kaminetzky reached a conclusion, according to messages characterizing it by Liebling, the synagogue president.
“He made an halachic decision that Talia isn’t able to sit in the women’s section for the time being,” Liebling wrote Nov. 17 in a message to his predecessor as president, Eitan Novick. But Liebling left the door open for change, writing, “All in all, the ‘official shul policy’ is still being decided.”
He said Kaminetzky had spoken extensively the previous evening with the Avrahamis and had been determined to share his judgment in a way that was respectful “despite the difficult-to hear halachic conclusion.”
Liebling added a parenthetical: “I honestly can’t imagine how difficult it is for them. If I were told I couldn’t sit in the men’s section, I’d be beyond heartbroken and likewise feel displaced.”
Talia Avrahami did indeed feel heartbroken. She told Kaminetzky and others that she felt like she wanted to die, alarming her friends and prompting some of them to reach out to the rabbi. “The concern about Talia’s well-being is likewise the #1 — and only — factor on my mind right now,” Kaminetzky told one of them that night.
The Avrahamis stopped attending the Shenk Shul, but they held out hope for Kaminetzky to change his mind, or for the synagogue to set a firm policy that would permit her participation. Over the next six weeks, though, they heard nothing — a situation that so disappointed Novick that he and his wife also stopped attending. (Kaminetzky’s third child was born during this time.)
“We really feel like this is a pretty significant deviation from the community that we have been a part of for 11 years, which has always been a very accepting place,” Novick said. “This is just not the community that I feel comfortable being a part of if these are the decisions that are being made. It’s not just about the Avrahamis.”
While Avrahami waited for more information, Yeshiva University and Schachter were already in the process of rolling out what they saw as a compromise in a different conflagration over LGBTQ inclusion at the school. Arguing that homosexuality is incompatible with the school’s religious values, Yeshiva University has been fighting not to have to recognize an LGBTQ student group, the YU Pride Alliance, and has even asked the Supreme Court to weigh in after judges in New York ruled against the university. This fall, the school announced that it would launch a separate club endorsed by Schachter, claiming it would represent LGBTQ students “under traditional Orthodox auspices.” (The YU Pride Alliance called the new club “a desperate stunt” by the university.)
Multiple people encouraged Avrahami to make her case directly to Schachter. When she headed to a meeting with the rabbi on Jan. 1, she hoped that putting a face to her name and explaining her situation, including that she had undergone a full medical transition, might widen his thinking about LGBTQ inclusion in Orthodoxy.
The meeting lasted just 15 minutes. And according to Avrahami, who said Schachter told her she was the first trans person he had ever met, it didn’t go well.
In an email to another rabbi who attended the meeting, Menachem Penner, Avrahami said Schachter had called her “unOrthodox” and accused him of “bullying Rabbi Shai Kaminetzky into accepting bigoted psaks.”
Penner, the dean of Yeshiva’s rabbinical school, characterized the conversation differently.
“Rabbi Schachter rules that it is prohibited to undergo transgender surgery and does not accept the opinion of the Tzitz Eliezer post-facto,” he wrote in an email response that day in which he denied that Kaminetzky had been pressured to follow Schachter’s opinion.
“That’s simply a halachic opinion that many hold,” Penner wrote. “He did not call you ‘unorthodox’ — you come across as very sincere in your Judaism and he wished you hatzlacha [success] — but simply said that the surgery was unorthodox, meaning it was not something that is accepted by what he feels is Orthodox Judaism.”
The meeting so angered Avrahami that she asked Liebling to refund her Shenk Shul dues that day, saying that Kaminetzky had kicked her out of the congregation.
“Of course! I’ll send back the money ASAP!” Liebling responded. “I’m so sorry how things are ending up.”
Yeshiva University and Schachter, through a representative, declined to comment, referring questions directly to the Shenk Shul. Kaminetzky directed requests for comment to a representative for the Shenk Shul.
“We have had several conversations with the Avrahamis and we understand their concerns,” the Shenk Shul said in a statement. “It’s important to emphasize that the Avrahamis were not asked to leave the congregation.”
That response doesn’t sit right with Novick, who said blocking Talia Avrahami from praying on both the men’s and women’s sides of the synagogue was tantamount to ejecting her.
“They seem to be trying to have their cake and eat it, too,” he said of the synagogue’s leadership. “They may not be wrong in saying they didn’t tell Talia she was ‘kicked out’ of Shenk, but they’ve created a rule that makes it impossible for her to be a full participant in our community.”
Bradley Avrahami argued that the rabbis who ruled on his wife’s case were short-sighted, giving too little weight to the fact that Jewish law requires Jews to violate other rules in order to save a life. Referring to that principle and pointing to the fact that transgender people are at increased risk of suicide, he said, “It was pikuach nefesh for the person to have the surgery.” His brother, he noted, survived two suicide attempts after coming out as trans.
“They really just don’t understand the harm that they caused when they make these decisions and put out these opinions,” Bradley Avrahami said. “A rabbi should not take a position knowing that that position will cause someone to want to harm themselves.”
Bradley Avrahami said he has received several harassing calls to his work number at Yeshiva University’s Azrieli Graduate School, where he is liaison for student enrollment and communications and taught Hebrew in the fall 2022 semester. Talia Avrahami, meanwhile, has struggled to find a job to replace the one she left under pressure in September, although she recently announced that she had landed a temporary position.
For now, they are attending another synagogue in Washington Heights, though Talia says she and her husband would consider returning to Shenk Shul if she were invited back and permitted to participate.
So far, there are no signs of that happening. On Jan. 1, after her meeting with Schachter, Talia sent a WhatsApp message to Kaminetzky.
“We elected you because you said you would stand up for LGBT people, not kick us out of shul,” she wrote.
The message went unanswered.
—
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Robin Kelly, running for Senate in Illinois, says Israel committed ‘genocide’
(JTA) — An Illinois congresswoman who is running for U.S. Senate said during a debate Thursday night that she believed Israel committed a genocide in Gaza, in the latest sign of a sea change in Democratic sentiment about Israel.
“It may not have started off being like that, but I believe that is what it turned into,” said Rep. Robin Kelly, who is running to replace the retiring Sen. Dick Durbin.
Following the debate, Kelly took to X to hammer the point that neither Lieutenant Gov. Juliana Stratton nor Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi were willing to match her accusation.
“Every candidate on stage tonight had the opportunity to condemn genocide in Gaza,” she wrote. “I’m the only one who did.”
The debate came a month after Scott Wiener, the Jewish politician running to replace Rep. Nancy Pelosi in California, drew fire after initially declining to answer a debate question about whether Israel committed genocide in Gaza, then said he had decided it had.
It also came just a year after Kelly received a donation from AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby — then adopted more critical stances on Israel since declaring her Senate candidacy last May.
The three candidates’ responses to the question about Gaza underscored just how present Israel remains in electoral politics months after a U.S.-brokered ceasefire sent the two-year-old Israel-Hamas war into a new era. During the war, Democratic voters’ approval of Israel plummeted to the single digits, according to some polls, and an array of politicians who had never before been vocal critics of Israel adopted harshly critical stances.
Kelly has traveled to Israel multiple times on congressional delegations and sought to curry support within the Chicago Jewish community in the past. Now, as she carves out a position among the three frontrunners in the Senate race as the one most critical of Israel, her success in the primary could be a measure of how heavily Democratic voters are weighing the issue.
None of the candidates offered a straightforwardly pro-Israel view on the debate floor. Asked whether she would support Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s resolution to recognize “the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza,” Stratton said that “the devastation and suffering that we have seen is terrible” and that “we must do everything we can” to provide humanitarian aid to Gazans.
Krishnamoorthi said he is concerned that people are “extremely divided” in determining “what exactly happened.”
“My concern is this: division getting in the way of progress right now in this fragile ceasefire,” he said. “If that gets in the way of progress, then we’re going to go back to war. And we can’t let that happen.”
Kelly added that she had not actually read Tlaib’s resolution. “But as I just said, I think it was genocide,” she said.
Kelly first took office in 2013. Since announcing her Senate run last year, she has adopted harsher stances on Israel.
In August, she said she would have voted in favor of a pair of Bernie Sanders-led resolutions in the Senate that would block certain arms sales to Israel. And in the House, Kelly cosponsored the Block the Bombs Act that would withhold the transfer of offensive weapons to Israel.
“Israelis and Palestinians must work to secure a path forward where both peoples can live in peace, safety and security,” Kelly said in a statement at the time regarding Sanders’ resolutions. “I have supported Israel, but in this moment, I cannot in good conscience defend starving young children and prolonging the suffering of innocent families. Now is the time for moral leadership in the U.S. Senate.”
At a candidates’ forum in October, several candidates referred to Israel’s campaign in Gaza as a “genocide,” the Daily Northwestern reported.
Kelly was not among them. But she pledged during the forum that she would not accept funds from AIPAC. That was a new position for Kelly, who accepted contributions from AIPAC’s PAC in March and April 2025, according to FEC filings. She was endorsed by the liberal pro-Israel group J Street in her 2024 reelection campaign.
At the forum, Stratton was the only candidate who recognized the upcoming two-year anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Stratton and Krishnamoorthi did not swear off AIPAC contributions.
The Democratic primary, set for March 17, is seen as a three-person race among Kelly, Stratton and Krishnamoorthi. Kelly has garnered endorsements from a number of politicians including Sens. Cory Booker and Chris Murphy. Stratton’s endorsements include Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, while Krishnamoorthi has been endorsed by Bill Daley, who was Obama’s White House chief of staff, and a number of state and U.S. representatives.
Unlike a handful of House elections in the state, this race has not seen any reported spending by pro-Israel groups including AIPAC or its super PAC, the United Democracy Project. Jewish Insider reported last year that votes from Chicagoland’s sizable Jewish community are “up for grabs” because no candidate has particularly deep ties to the community.
Kelly has previously traveled to Israel as a member of Congress. In 2016, Kelly met with leaders from Chicago’s Jewish United Fund and Jewish Community Relations Council to discuss her trip, which was her second to Israel. “She backs a two-state solution and supports Israel’s ongoing security needs,” the JUF wrote after the meeting.
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China Signals Increased Support for Iran as US Prepares Potential Strike
An Iranian newspaper with a cover photo of an Iranian missile, in Tehran, Iran, Feb. 19, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
As the United States ramps up its military presence in the Persian Gulf amid rising tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, a symbolic move by China has fueled speculation that Beijing could arm Tehran with cutting-edge stealth aircraft, potentially challenging the US and Israel’s regional dominance.
Last week, a Chinese military attaché in Tehran — a senior official handling defense and military relations — presented Brigadier General Bahman Behmard, commander of the Iranian Air Force, with a scale model of China’s J-20 stealth fighter.
Even though no official contract has been announced, experts interpreted the Chinese gesture as a sharp warning to the US and close ally Israel amid mounting fears of renewed conflict in the Middle East.
If China were to supply fifth-generation jets to Iran, it would not only strengthen Tehran’s deterrence but also break Beijing’s previous stance of neutrality and limited diplomatic support, signaling a direct challenge to US sanctions.
However, it remains unclear whether China actually intends to sell the J-20 to Iran or if presenting its mockup was meant mainly to signal Washington that Beijing is prepared to support Tehran politically, technologically, and otherwise militarily.
While China has publicly urged de-escalation and restraint from both sides in the US-Iran dispute, its latest symbolic move sends a stark signal that Beijing may be prepared to directly challenge US influence in the region.
China’s advanced AI-driven satellites could also give Tehran a strategic advantage by providing the regime with precise intelligence on US military assets in the region, the Eurasian Times reported.
After repeated attempts at nuclear talks between the US and Iran have failed to yield meaningful results, Washington has deployed large numbers of troops and assets to the region in a bid to pressure Tehran back to the negotiating table more willing to make concessions.
With at least a dozen F-22s from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia and F-16s from bases in Italy, Germany, and South Carolina deployed to the Gulf, along with a significant fleet of fighter, surveillance, and intelligence aircraft, the US is marking the fastest military buildup in the region seen over the past month.
According to media reports, F-35 jets from the United Kingdom are also headed to Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan — a recent hub of US air operations — while a dozen US Navy warships are already active in the area.
Meanwhile, the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, entered the Mediterranean Sea on Friday, joining the USS Abraham Lincoln and the attendant ships that form its carrier strike group.
Advanced air defenses and radar systems have also been deployed to the region to help counter a potential Iranian response to any US military action.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Friday he expected to have a draft counterproposal ready within days following nuclear talks with the US this week.
US President Donald Trump said he was considering a limited military strike on Iran but gave no further details.
Asked if he was considering such a strike to pressure Iran into a deal on its nuclear program, Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday, “I guess I can say I am considering” it.
The US president was asked later about Iran at a White House press conference and added, “They better negotiate a fair deal.”
Two US officials told Reuters that American military planning on Iran has reached an advanced stage, with options including targeting individuals as part of an attack and even pursuing leadership change in Tehran.
Amid mounting regional tensions, Washington could launch military strikes as soon as Saturday, CBS News reported.
On Thursday, Trump warned that the Islamist regime must reach a “meaningful deal” in its negotiations with the White House within the next 10-15 days, or “bad things will happen.”
US and Israeli officials have argued that a deal should go beyond Iran’s nuclear program and include limits on its ballistic missiles and a cessation of support for terrorist groups across the Middle East. Iranian officials have said that both issues are firm red lines and that they only seek to strike a deal over the country’s nuclear program, although Tehran has publicly rejected a US demand of forgoing all enrichment of uranium.
In the past, particularly during last June’s 12-day war when the US and Israel struck the Iranian regime’s nuclear facilities, China — despite being a close ally and strategic partner of Iran — remained notably on the sidelines, offering only diplomatic support and statements of condemnation rather than any tactical or material assistance.
A key diplomatic and economic backer of Tehran, China has moved to deepen ties with the regime in recent years, signing a 25-year cooperation agreement, holding joint naval drills, and continuing to purchase Iranian oil despite US sanctions.
China is also the largest importer of Iranian oil, with nearly 90 percent of Iran’s crude and condensate exports going to Beijing.
Last week, the two allies — along with Russia — took part in the Maritime Security Belt 2026 joint naval drills in the Strait of Hormuz, delivering yet another symbolic show of force as regional tensions climb.
According to some media reports, China may be even helping Iran rebuild its decimated air defenses following last year’s 12-day war.
The Iranian regime has reportedly acquired China’s HQ-9B long-range surface-to-air missile systems and YLC-8B radar units, along with thousands of tons of sodium perchlorate, a chemical used to produce fuel for solid-propellant mid-range ballistic missiles.
Iran’s growing ties with China come at a time when Tehran faces mounting economic sanctions from Western powers, while Beijing itself is also under US sanctions.
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Isaiah Zagar, renowned Jewish mosaic artist who created Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens, dies at 86
(JTA) — Isaiah Zagar, the famed Jewish mosaic artist whose shimmering, kaleidoscopic installations transformed streets and buildings across Philadelphia and founded the city’s Magic Gardens, has died.
Zagar died on Thursday of complications from heart failure and Parkinson’s disease at his home in Philadelphia. He was 86.
“The scale of Isaiah Zagar’s body of work and his relentless artmaking at all costs is truly astounding,” Emily Smith, the executive director of the Magic Gardens, told The Philadelphia Inquirer. “Most people do not yet understand the importance of what he created, nor do they understand the sheer volume of what he has made.”
Born Irwin Zagar in Philadelphia in 1939, Zagar grew up in Brooklyn, New York, where he received his bachelor’s in painting and graphics at the Pratt Institute of Art. “When you’re a Jew growing up in Brooklyn, they don’t name you Isaiah,” he told the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1980. “They name you Ira, or Irving or Irwin.”
In 1959, when Zagar was 19, he received a summer art scholarship to go to Woodstock, New York, where he encountered the works of famed “outside artist” Clarence Schmidt who would later become his mentor. During that summer, he also studied Jewish religious texts which later inspired him to change his first name to Isaiah, according to the Daily Mail.
In 1963, Zagar met artist Julia Zagar and the pair were married three months later and joined the Peace Corps as conscientious objectors to the Vietnam War.
Zagar and his wife moved to South Philadelphia in 1968, where she opened the Eye’s Gallery on South Street and he created his first art installation by embellishing the building’s facade.
Over the following decades, Zagar used broken tiles, mirrors and bottles to adorn roughly 50,000 square feet of walls and buildings across Philadelphia with his iconic mosaic art. In the late 1990s, transformed two empty lots near his South Philadelphia home into an immersive mosaic and sculpture installation that would later become the iconic Magic Gardens.
Zagar’s works are featured in the permanent collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. More than 200 of his mosaic pieces can also be found across several states and in Mexico and Chile.
In 2008, Zagar’s son, the filmmaker Jeremiah Zagar, released the documentary “In a Dream,” an intimate portrait of his father’s struggles with mental health and drive to build the Magic Gardens. He worked with a producer whom he met while in Hebrew class at the Jewish day school now known as Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy, according to a 2022 profile in the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent.
“Isaiah was more than our founder; he was our close friend, teacher, collaborator, and creative inspiration,” wrote the Magic Gardens in a post on Facebook. “He was unlike anyone we have ever met and will ever meet. Above all things, he was an artist. In his lifetime, he created a body of work that is unique and remarkable, and one that has left an everlasting mark on our city.”
Zagar is survived by his wife and two sons, Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
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