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Beyond the ‘Day of Hate’: The best strategy to keep American Jews safe over the long term
(JTA) — My synagogue sent out a cautiously anxious email yesterday about an event coming this Shabbat, a neo-Nazi “Day of Hate.” The email triggered fuzzy memories of one of the strangest episodes that I can remember from my childhood.
Sometime around 1990, in response to local neo-Nazi activity, some Jews from my community decided to “fight back.” I don’t know whether they were members of the militant Jewish Defense League, or perhaps just sympathetic to a JDL-style approach. When our local Jewish newspaper covered the story, it ran on its front cover a full-page photo of a kid from my Orthodox Jewish high school. The photo showed a teenage boy from behind, wearing a kippah and carrying a baseball bat that was leaning threateningly on his shoulder.
As it happens, “Danny” was not a member of the JDL, he was a kid on his way to play baseball. Sometimes, a baseball bat is just a baseball bat. But not for us anxious Jews in America: We want to see ourselves as protagonists taking control of our destiny, responding to antisemites with agency, with power, with a plan. I’m sorry to say that as I look around our community today, it seems to me that we have agency, and we have power — but we certainly don’t seem to have a plan.
The tactics that the American Jewish community uses to fight back against antisemitism are often ineffective on their own and do not constitute a meaningful strategy in the composite. One is that American Jews join in a partisan chorus that erodes our politics and fixates on the antisemitism in the party they don’t vote for. This exacerbates the partisan divide, which weakens democratic culture, and turns the weaponizing of antisemitism into merely a partisan electoral tactic for both sides.
Another tactic comes from a wide set of organizations who have declared themselves the referees on the subject and take to Twitter to name and shame antisemites. This seems to amplify and popularize antisemitism more than it does to suppress it.
A third common tactic is to pour more and more dollars into protecting our institutions with robust security measures, which no one thinks will defeat antisemitism, but at least seeks to protect those inside those institutions from violence, though it does little to protect Jews down the street. Richer Jewish institutions will be safer than poorer ones, but Jews will continue to suffer either way.
A fourth tactic our communal organizations use to fight antisemitism is to try to exact apologies or even fines from antisemites to get them to retract their beliefs and get in line, as the Anti-Defamation League did with Kyrie Irving, an approach that Yair Rosenberg has wisely argued is a no-win proposition. Yet another tactic is the insistence by some that the best way to fight antisemitism is to be proud Jews, which has the perverse effect of making our commitment to Jewishness dependent on antisemitism as a motivator.
And finally, the most perverse tactic is that some on both the right and the left fight antisemitism by attacking the ADL itself. Since it is so hard to defeat our opponents, we have started beating up on those that are trying to protect us. What could go wrong?
Steadily, like a drumbeat, these tactics fail, demonstrating themselves to be not a strategy at all, and the statistics continue to show a rise in antisemitism.
Perhaps we are too fixated on the idea that antisemitism is continuous throughout Jewish history, proving only that there is no effective strategy for combating this most persistent of hatreds.
Instead, we would do well to recall how we responded to a critical moment in American Jewish history in the early 20th century. In the aftermath of the Leo Frank lynching in 1915 – the murder of a Jewish man amid an atmosphere of intense antisemitism — Jewish leaders formed what would become the ADL by building a relationship with law enforcement and the American legal and political establishment. The ADL recognized that the best strategy to keep American Jews safe over the long term, in ways that would transcend and withstand the political winds of change, was to embed in the police and criminal justice system the idea that antisemitism was their problem to defeat. These Jewish leaders flipped the script of previous diasporic experiences; not only did they become “insiders,” they made antisemitism anathema to America itself. (And yes, it was the Leo Frank incident that inspired “Parade,” the forthcoming Broadway musical that this week attracted white supremacist protesters.)
For Jews, the high-water mark of this strategy came in the aftermath of the Tree of Life shooting in Pittsburgh. It was the low point in many ways of the American Jewish experience, the most violent act against Jews on American soil, but it was followed by a mourning process that was shared across the greater Pittsburgh community. The words of the Kaddish appeared above the fold of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. That is inconceivable at most other times of Jewish oppression and persecution. It tells the story of when we are successful – when antisemitism is repudiated by the general public. It is the most likely indicator that we will be collectively safe in the long run.
We were lucky that this move to partner with the establishment was successful. I felt this deeply on a recent trip to Montgomery, Alabama. Seeing the memorials to Black Americans persecuted and lynched by and under the very system that should have been protecting them from the worst elements of society is a reminder that not all minorities in America could then — or today — win over the elements of American society that control criminal justice.
Visitors view items left by well-wishers along the fence at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh on the first anniversary of the attack there, Oct. 27, 2019. (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
A strategic plan to defeat antisemitism that must be collectively embraced by American Jews would build on this earlier success and invest in the infrastructure of American democracy as the framework for Jewish thriving and surviving, and continue the historic relationship-building that changed the Jews’ position in America. It would stop the counterproductive internecine and partisan battle that is undermining the possibility of Jewish collective mobilization.
It means more investment, across partisan divides, in relationships with local governments and law enforcement, using the imperfect “definitions of antisemitism” as they are intended — not for boundary policing, but to inform and help law enforcement to monitor and prevent violent extremism. It means supporting lawsuits and other creative legal strategies, like Integrity First for America’s groundbreaking efforts against the Unite the Right rally organizers, which stymie such movements in legal gridlock and can help bankrupt them.
It means practicing the lost art of consensus Jewish collective politics which recognize that there must be some baseline agreement that antisemitism is a collective threat, even if any “unity” we imagine for the Jewish community is always going to be be instrumental and short-lived.
It means supporting institutions like the ADL, even as they remain imperfect, even as they sometimes get stuck in some of the failed strategies I decried above, because they have the relationships with powerful current and would-be allies in the American political and civic marketplace, and because they are fighting against antisemitism while trying to stay above the partisan fray.
It means real education and relationship-building with other ethnic and faith communities that is neither purely instrumental nor performative — enough public relations visits to Holocaust museums! — so that we have the allies we need when we need them, and so that we can partner for our collective betterment.
And most importantly, it means investing in the plodding, unsexy work of supporting vibrant American democracy — free and fair elections, voting rights, the rule of law, peaceful transitions of power — because stable liberal democracies have been the safest homes for minorities, Jews included.
I doubt we will ever be able to “end” individual antisemitic acts, much less eradicate antisemitic hate. “Shver tzu zayn a Yid” (it’s hard to be a Jew). We join with our fellow Americans who live in fear of the lone wolves and the hatemongers who periodically terrorize us. But we are much more capable than we are currently behaving to fight back against the collective threats against us. Instead, let’s be the smart Americans we once were.
The real work right now is not baseball bats or billboards, it is not Jewish pride banalities or Twitter refereeing: It is quiet and powerful and, if done right, as American Jews demonstrated in the last century, it will serve us for the long term.
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At the Vatican with Chicago’s mayor, a rabbi gave Pope Leo a White Sox kippah
(JTA) — Lizzi Heydemann didn’t plan what she was going to say to Pope Leo XIV.
But when the Chicago rabbi found herself face-to-face with the new pontiff during a Vatican visit alongside a delegation of Chicago leaders, she thanked him for the way he has spoken about the war in Gaza.
“I said, you know, it’s been a hard time over these past two years to be a rabbi, but I want to thank you for, in the midst of conflict, holding the humanity of everyone involved in the conflict,” Heydemann recounted.
Leo, the first American pope and a native of Chicago’s South Side, repeatedly advocated after his election last year for the release of the Israeli hostages as well as a ceasefire in the war in Gaza, which he has referred to as “vengeance” and “barbarity.” The comments angered some Jewish leaders who have interpreted them as unfairly targeting Israel, but for others including Heydemann, they have offered a template for how to criticize the war.
“You may be anti-war, but I do not hear you denouncing or degrading people,” Heydemann said she told Leo. “Thank you for holding the humanity of Israelis and Palestinians in the same breath and the same thought. It’s not something that is modeled very often.”
She added, “He seemed grateful, and like he knew exactly what I was talking about.”
Heydemann, the founder and leader of Mishkan Chicago, an independent Jewish spiritual community, had been invited by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson to join a delegation of civic, business and faith leaders traveling to Rome last week. (Johnson has been a vocal critic of Israel who has drawn criticism himself from some Jewish leaders in Chicago.) She said she was the only rabbi to take part in the trip.
As she waited for the pope to enter a room where the delegation was assembled on Thursday, Heydemann said she began weeping.
“What I reflected on is that he, maybe more than anyone in the world, is a religious leader with the world’s eyes on him,” Heydemann said. “He is beloved and critiqued constantly, and every rabbi in America has had a little taste over the last few years of that weight.”
While the interaction carried an unexpected emotional weight for Heydemann, it also came with a distinctive Jewish Chicago touch: a White Sox-themed kippah.
She said she included the kippah, which featured the Chicago White Sox logo on the exterior as well as a pomegranate on the inside, in a chest of Chicago-themed gifts presented to the pope on Thursday during the visit as a nod to his lifelong devotion to the baseball team.
“We thought that would be a sweet point connection between me and the pope,” Heydemann said, adding that the pontiff’s typical white zucchetto looks “awfully like a kippah.”
“It brings us all joy to imagine that after a long day at work wearing the cream-colored one that matches his robes, maybe at the end of the day he’ll switch it out for a jersey material, White Sox kippah, and thinks fondly of sweet home Chicago, and the Jewish spiritual community gave it to him,” Heydemann added.
A list of gifts that circulated in local media included another piece of Jewish paraphernalia: a tote bag with the words “Resisting tyrants since Pharaoh.” That’s a catchphrase from T’ruah, the rabbinic human rights group where Heydemann has been on the board. But the rabbi said the inclusion was an error: She was carrying the bag, not giving it to Leo.
Looking back on the meeting with the pope, Heydemann said her experience reflected a broader conviction about “building bridges, even in the presence of difference.”
“There’s too much at stake in our world for us to not be continuing to be in relationship with one another in the presence of differences,” Heydemann said.
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Finalists announced for lucrative Jewish literary award
(JTA) — Amir Tibon’s memoir about his family’s ordeal during the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and Laura Hobson Faure’s history of Jewish children who fled from Germany to France during World War II are among the finalists for the 2026 Sami Rohr Prize.
The annual award — which alternates each year between works of fiction and nonfiction and which honors emerging Jewish writers — is considered one of the most prominent awards in Jewish literature.
The winner of the award, which comes with a $100,000 prize, will be announced on June 16.
A panel of judges will decide among four nonfiction finalists for this year’s award. Since the prize was established in 2006 — the first award was presented in 2007 — Sami Rohr Prize panelists and advisors have included historian and diplomat Deborah Lipstadt, historian Jonathan Sarna and longtime Columbia University journalism professor Sam Freedman.
“What strikes me about this year’s finalists for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature is the remarkable range of stories they tell and the depth of insight they bring to Jewish life and history,” Debra Goldberg, director of the Sami Rohr Prize, said in an email. “Each of the four books explores questions of memory, identity, displacement, resilience and responsibility through deeply personal narratives that feel both timely and enduring.”
The 2026 Sami Rohr Prize finalists are:
Laura Hobson Faure, “Who Will Rescue Us?: The Story of the Jewish Children who Fled to France and America During the Holocaust.” Faure is a professor of modern Jewish history at Université Paris 1-Panthéon-Sorbonne. Yale University Press, her publisher, describes “Who Will Rescue Us” as “the first comprehensive study of Jewish children’s flight from Nazi Germany to France — and their subsequent escape to America from the Vichy regime.” It is her second book.
Shaul Kelner, “A Cold War Exodus: How American Activists Mobilized to Free Soviet Jews.” A professor of Jewish studies and sociology at Vanderbilt University, Kelner’s second book details how American Jews transformed a largely overlooked human rights issue into a landmark 20th-century mass-mobilization effort.
Jordan Salama, “Stranger in the Desert: A Family Story.” Salama, an author and contributor to The New Yorker, National Geographic and other publications, traces his Jewish family’s history “from Moorish Spain and Ottoman Syria to Argentina and beyond.” A mix of travelogue, memoir, history and reportage, “Stranger in the Desert” is his second book.
Amir Tibon, “The Gates of Gaza: A Story of Betrayal, Survival, and Hope in Israel’s Borderlands.” The first book by the Israeli journalist is a first-person account of his family’s ordeal as residents of Kibbutz Nahal Oz, which was violently attacked by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. Alongside accounts of the day’s losses, Tibon also recounts the heroic efforts by his father, a retired major general, to race into the battle zone and rescue his son, daughter-in-law and two granddaughters from Hamas gunmen.
“As the Prize approaches its 20th year, I hope it will continue to support writers whose work expands our understanding of the Jewish experience and sparks meaningful conversation for generations to come,” Goldberg said. “I am immensely grateful to share in the Prize’s mission to honor excellence, nurture talent and connect Jewish voices across the globe.”
The Sami Rohr Prize, named for the late American real estate developer and philanthropist who fled Nazi Germany as a boy, is administered in association with the National Library of Israel. 70 Faces Media, the parent company of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, is the prize’s media partner.
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A decaying historic farmhouse finds a savior in Chabad
A Dutch Colonial home, just one of a handful of pre-Revolutionary War houses left in New York City, has been vacant and decaying for years. The windows are boarded up, signs warning against trespassing cover the property, and chunks of the ceiling are missing inside.
This historic landmark has an unlikely savior: Chabad, the global Lubavitch movement, which is planting one of its thousands of outposts there.
“Dilapidated is an understatement,” Rabbi Zalman Liberow of Chabad of Flatbush said as he gave the Forward a tour.
Chabad of Flatbush, led by Liberow and his wife, Chana, bought the historic Brooklyn property in December 2024 and will soon begin renovations to make the place livable. In the meantime, the couple has already transformed the barnhouse next door into a sanctuary, where a photo of the Lubavitch rebbe hangs on the wall near a compartment once used to store hay.
As other Jewish organizations have shifted toward digital community, Chabad has continued investing heavily in brick-and-mortar real estate, ranging from modest suburban homes to multimillion-dollar towers and converted landmarks. It’s a strategy that anchors Chabad in the communities it serves, but can also be costly: For the most part, Chabad couples — each unit headed by a rabbi and rebbitzin — finance their own operations, raising their own money to buy homes and establish centers of Jewish life.
The Liberows said a generous donation of Bitcoin from a donor, Eliot Stavrach, ultimately allowed them to purchase the 22,000 square foot lot for roughly $3 million, along with securing a high-interest loan to pay the mortgage while the couple awaited the sale of their old headquarters down the street. Last week, that transaction went through and reaped nearly $1.1 million.
The seller had also cut the asking price by nearly half, offloading what had become a white elephant, Liberow said.
“For him, it was a pain. For us, it was good,” Liberow said. “And I thought, even better, this is such an important piece of United States history.”
The prior landlord had reportedly struggled to find a buyer for the landmarked home, which by law cannot be demolished, and any alterations to the facade must be pre-approved by the city Landmarks Preservation Commission. In buying the home, the Liberows are also preventing its further deterioration — to the relief of neighbors who said the abandoned site had become a hotspot for drug use and a symbol of neglect.
“I’m just happy that the house will not be torn down and will actually have a future — a good one, it seems,” said Lori Citron Knipel, a former leader in the Brooklyn Democratic Party who used to frequent the house. “So that absolutely warms my heart, because it’s been breaking every time I pass it.”
The house’s history
The Wyckoff-Bennett Homestead is likely among the ten oldest properties in Brooklyn and the 50 oldest houses in all of New York City, according to Simeon Bankoff, former executive director of the Historic Districts Council.
A 1968 report from the Landmarks Preservation Commission noted that “two hundred years of wear have done little to diminish the simple beauty of its clear-cut profile,” and described it as “the most beautiful example of Dutch Colonial architecture in Brooklyn.”
The house is also notable for its role in the Revolutionary War: During the conflict, it quartered German soldiers fighting for the British, known as Hessians. Two of the soldiers etched their names and units into a windowpane.
A historical marker at the house notes that those troops may have taken part in the Battle of Brooklyn, the first major battle after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
According to Liberow, local legend holds that George Washington once stopped at the Wyckoff-Bennett house for tea — though, “we never did find the teacup,” he joked.
Bankoff attributed the properties’ staying power partly to the fact that prior to a venture called 22nd Street Investors LLC purchasing the lots in 2021, the property had only ever been owned by three families over more than 250 years.
Hendrick H. Wyckoff, son of a Dutch settler who emigrated to New Amsterdam in 1637, is believed to have built the house before 1766. In 1835, Cornelius W. Bennett purchased it, and it remained in the Bennett family for four generations before a Jewish couple, Annette and Stuart Mont, bought the property in 1983.
‘A piece of Brooklyn’s history’
The Monts had a deep appreciation for the home’s history, Citron Knipel said, and often opened it to the community. They hosted political fundraisers, birthday parties, and even a wedding at the house, she said, and they welcomed school groups into their home for local history field trips.
Only the facade of the house is landmarked, making its preservation legally required. But the Monts also preserved its interior details, including furniture from the Wyckoffs and Bennetts, an ornate fireplace framed by decorative tiles depicting biblical scenes, and an antique Richardson & Boynton Co. stove.
“There’s a sense of being part of and having a responsibility to the rest of the community to preserve it and move it forward,” Stu said in the 2013 documentary Living in a Landmark.
“And share it,” Annette added. “Because we have bought a piece of Brooklyn’s history.”
But an effort to secure the home’s legacy fell apart in 2010. The Monts had been in talks with the city to purchase the property, only to withdraw after the city reduced the sale price, deducting the rent the Monts theoretically would have paid to continue living there.
Annette died in 2013 at age 72, and Stuart died three years later at age 76. Their children, Ira and Randi Mont, sold the property to 22nd Street Investors LLC, registered to real estate investor Avraham Dishi, in 2021.
In an interview with the Forward, Ira Mont said he believed at the time of sale that 22nd Street Investors LLC would keep the house in good condition — and was disappointed that they ultimately did not.
Dishi drew two complaints for failing to maintain the Wyckoff Bennett house: one for the poor condition of the fence, still active, and another for the condition of the facade and roof, later withdrawn.
Officials at a Landmarks Preservation Commission hearing in March to discuss the Liberows’ minor proposed changes to the home noted there had been “all kinds of vandalism, fires, squatters, [and] drug users” there in recent years.
The Forward reached Dishi’s office by phone and left a message, but did not hear back.
Liberow said he has big plans for the house pending approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission, including displaying a video in the front yard highlighting Jewish history in the United States. The Commission has already approved plans to install porch railings, a curb cut and a driveway at the site. And like the Motts, the couple plans to open the space up to the public. They’ve already begun hosting Hebrew school and holiday gatherings in the barnhouse next door, which they renovated for about $200,000 with rustic touches including wood paneling, barrels, lanterns and candle chandeliers.
For neighbors, the most meaningful change may simply be that the property is occupied at all.
“We got a very big welcome over here, because everyone’s so happy,” Liberow said. “Someone is going to save the property.”
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