At a moment when many Jewish students are hiding Stars of David and removing mezuzahs from dorm-room doors, US Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) has chosen the opposite approach. He is the first US lawmaker to wear a kippah on the House floor — asserting publicly what others feel compelled to conceal.

“You shouldn’t have to shrink to be safe,” Fine said. “Not in America.”

Speaking on The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast with host David M. Cohen, Fine explained that the decision began with his son.

Before a congressional hearing on campus antisemitism, Fine’s teenage son urged him to wear
his kippah so Jewish students — especially those afraid to show their identity — would know
they had an advocate in the room.

“The reaction was overwhelming,” Fine recalled.

Jewish families across the country reached out in support. That night, his son told him: “You should keep wearing it until every Jewish student in America feels safe.” Fine acknowledged that could take years — or forever.

“And that’s fine,” he said.

Cohen reflected that the moment captured “what so many Jewish parents feel — that their children are inheriting a world where being visibly Jewish requires bravery.”

Fine’s comfort with Jewish visibility was not always assured. Growing up in Kentucky, he was one of the only Jewish children in his school and was taunted with the nickname “Kentucky Fried Jew.” At age 13, he made a vow: that he would never again feel afraid because he is Jewish. That conviction now guides his public life.

Before entering Congress, Fine served in the Florida legislature, where he championed protections for Jewish students and helped secure funding for synagogue and school security. He sees this work not as politics, but as responsibility. His urgency reflects what he described on “J100” as a major shift in the lived reality of Jewish students.

“We’re seeing Jewish students who won’t wear a Star of David necklace, who won’t walk across campus alone,” he said. “No one in America should be afraid to be Jewish.”

Fine believes these conditions represent not only safety concerns but also a failure of leadership. For Fine, the kippah has become a visible reminder that Jewish identity and American patriotism are fully aligned — and that the burden of courage should fall on leaders first.

“This is a moment where Jews need to be proud, loud, and unafraid,” he said. “Not only in private spaces, but in the places where power is exercised.”

Cohen emphasized that visible Jewish leadership signals “not just courage, but character.”

And if a kippah in Congress helps one Jewish student feel braver, “it’s worth it,” Fine said.

Fine’s full conversation with Cohen is available now on the “J100” website as well as Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Substack, and YouTube.

Jewish leaders spent the final weeks of New York City’s mayoral race writing letters, delivering fiery sermons and sharing countless infographics warning about the threat an anti-Zionist mayor would pose for Jews.

Zohran Mamdani won anyway.

Now, those in charge of institutions that have shaped Jewish life in New York for decades are facing a new challenge: How to work with an incoming mayor after joining in a scorched earth campaign against him?

“I genuinely want to be like, ‘The water is warm — just come on in!’” said Audrey Sasson, chief executive of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, a social justice group that campaigned aggressively for Mamdani. “It’s actually going to be so awesome.”

It’s safe to say many Jewish leaders are skeptical of Sasson’s invitation. The mayor-elect is such a divisive figure among Jewish New Yorkers — a majority of whom backed his opponents, exit polls showed — that a mere meeting with his transition team can be too inflammatory for some Jewish leaders to share publicly.

And yet the old guard will still need to work with the new mayor’s office. For example, UJA-Federation of New York, whose post-election statement vowed to hold Mamdani accountable, partners with health and human service agencies that receive millions of dollars from the city. Rabbis who signed a letter condemning Mamdani’s rhetoric will want the mayor to be attentive to their concerns.

“The Jewish community needs to figure out a way to work with the administration however possible,” said Amy Spitalnick, chief executive of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, which did not take a position on Mamdani’s candidacy.

Even Jewish groups whose entire focus is Israel and antisemitism hope the mayor-elect reaches out once he’s in office. Jewish on Campus, a student group, praised Mamdani this week for giving “voice to young New Yorkers on issues such as affordability” while simultaneously asking him to meet with pro-Israel leaders at local universities.

Interviews with community leaders revealed a range of approaches to managing a relationship with Mamdani. Some are anticipating a delicate balancing act, cooperating professionally even amid public disagreements. Others, bracing for the worst, may become resistance-like figures, expecting to go all-in on their opposition, as the Anti-Defamation League did in creating a Mamdani Monitor.

Navigating impasse

Jewish New Yorkers who criticized Mamdani for his stance on Israel had lots to point to.

He was reluctant to condemn “globalize the intifada,” a controversial slogan some Jews consider to be a call for violence, and he called Israel’s war in Gaza a genocide. As a state lawmaker, he introduced the Not On Our Dime bill, which he said would strip tax-exempt status from nonprofits that fund Israeli settler violence in the West Bank but which critics claimed targeted mainstream Jewish charities. He has raised the possibility of the city divesting from Israel bonds and said he would seek to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he traveled to New York City.

And Mamdani repeatedly declined to assert Israel’s right to exist “as a Jewish state,” instead stating his belief that Israel has a right to exist with equal rights for all.

Many seized on that as incontrovertible proof of Mamdani’s animus toward Jews who support Israel, unsatisfied by a later commitment to hire Zionists to work in his administration.But he also promised an eightfold increase in city funding for anti-hate crime initiatives, including security grants for houses of worship.

Hindy Poupko, UJA-Federation’s senior vice president of community strategy and external relations, doesn’t know which promises he’d make good on.

“The question is really for mayor-elect Mamdani: how is he going to work with us?” Poupko said. “He needs to demonstrate through actions and not just words that he will protect Jewish New Yorkers and that he will not seek to weaponize City Hall in an effort to demonize the State of Israel.”

There are reasons for Poupko to be optimistic.

Mamdani’s circle is stocked with people who have worked in the New York government for years — Bill de Blasio alumni, former Kathy Hochul advisers, Jewish state assemblymen — and with whom UJA-Federation and its dozens of local agencies have long-established professional relationships.

The strength of those ties may enable the federation to continue to lead opposition on Israel-related matters without undermining the work of partners like the Met Council, which fights hunger, or the Hebrew Free Burial Association.

“Our agencies will continue to work with relevant city agencies that they need to advance their priorities,” Poupko said. “We will continue our close partnership with NYPD to ensure that Jewish communities are safe, and at the same time, we will continue to make our values and priorities clear.”

Wait and see

Israel policy was not central to Mamdani’s campaign or his platform, and he has insisted that his focus as mayor will be on making New York safe and affordable for everyone. But that does not preclude him from taking steps to roll back the city’s cozyness with Israel. He has said, for example, that he plans to discontinue the New York City-Israel Economic Council established by current Mayor Eric Adams, who has professed his love for Israel and said he wants to retire in the Golan Heights.

And Mamdani could influence the future of Cornell Tech, a partnership between Cornell University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, whose campus is on city-owned Roosevelt Island. A Mamdani spokesperson told The New York Times prior to the election that Mamdani — who as an assemblyman urged a boycott of the campus — would “assess” the partnership if he won.

New York Solidarity Network, a pro-Israel advocacy group, issued multiple statements criticizing Mamdani during the campaign and executive director Sara Forman said she’s not waiting for a call from Mamdani’s office.

“What are we going to talk about?” Forman said. “I just don’t think there’s any moderation on his part in regard to many of the issues that the mainstream Jewish community holds dear.”

Like most of the leaders I spoke to, Forman was taking a wait-and-see approach to the mayor-elect. But she was also seeing a silver lining in his electoral breakthrough.

“A lot of Jews in New York are now awake,” she said, due to their anxiety about Mamdani. “We need to have more participation. And I think we’re going to get it.”

The new power brokers

While many of the largest Jewish groups absorbed the news of Mamdani’s win with trepidation, JFREJ’s Sasson was — in her words — “over the moon.”

The nonprofit, which works on a range of local issues that include housing and immigration and vocally opposed Israel’s war in Gaza, has been connected to the mayor-elect for years, and hundreds of its members canvassed for him.

“This campaign spoke our language,” Sasson said.

Sasson can now imagine a level of influence in city affairs that JFREJ has never before enjoyed.

Where some saw shades of antisemitism in Mamdani’s stances on Israel, JFREJ and other groups on the progressive Jewish flank — organizations such as Bend The Arc, T’ruah and IfNotNow — defended him. Bend The Arc wished Mamdani a “Mazal Tov!” after his victory in stark contrast to the omission of congratulations in statements issued by the UJA-Federation and other groups.

To Sasson, Mamdani’s victory — and the sizable Jewish support he received — is a sign that things are changing in New York as power flows away from traditional Jewish organizations and toward more progressive community nonprofits.

“The Jewish institutions that find themselves a little bit on the back foot right now, I think it’s a moment to do some reflecting and some of their own outreach,” Sasson said.

Spitalnick, who sits on the board of New York Jewish Agenda, a progressive umbrella group, said that while Jewish New Yorkers have “real, legitimate concerns about antisemitism, including the ways in which policies or rhetoric can play a role,” the response of some Jewish organizations threatened to sow division and fear and undermines Jewish safety in the long term.

The appropriate tack for Jewish organizations, Spitalnick said, was to build trust with the administration on areas of policy alignment, whether on crime or education or other issues, to fortify their relationship for moments of opposition.

“Part of what we need to do to advance Jewish safety,” she said, “is to engage across deep lines of disagreement.”

Jacob Kornbluh contributed reporting.

The post Mamdani’s victory is a watershed for Jewish progressives. For the mainstream, it’s wait-and-see. appeared first on The Forward.

Austrian authorities have launched an investigation after a Kristallnacht commemoration ceremony in a local town was shockingly disrupted by the blaring sound of a speech by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

On Sunday, about 50 people gathered in Mödling, a town in Lower Austria just south of Vienna, for a memorial ceremony at the former site of the town’s synagogue — burned down during the November 1938 pogroms — to honor the victims.

However, the event was abruptly disrupted when, during a planned musical segment of the ceremony, a clip of a speech by Hitler was blasted from a nearby residential building for about a minute and a half.

On Nov. 9, 1938, Nazi paramilitary forces launched a coordinated nationwide attack on the German Jewish community — burning synagogues, destroying homes and businesses, and deporting thousands — a violent event that has come to be remembered as Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass.

The onslaught left at least 91 Jews dead and 30,000 Jewish men arrested and sent to concentration camps. Over 7,000 Jewish-owned stores were looted.

Shortly after Sunday’s commemoration event was disrupted, the city of Mödling swiftly filed an official complaint.

City councillor Stephan Schimanova told Austrian media that the recording was “extremely loud,” leaving attendees completely “speechless.”

“There was a great deal of consternation. It was just sick,” he continued. 

Now, local authorities have launched an investigation into the suspect’s alleged neo-Nazi activity, after police searched his home on Wednesday and seized “technical equipment.”

This latest incident comes amid a wave of attacks across Europe that disrupted commemorations of the November 1938 pogroms and targeted Jewish communities in an increasingly hostile climate.

In Germany, about 15 people gathered on Sunday in a local park in Baden-Württemberg, in the southwest of the country, many waving Israeli flags, to pray and take part in a commemoration honoring the victims of Kristallnacht.

The event was also disrupted when a group of men stormed the ceremony, waving Palestinian flags and shouting “Free Palestine” along with other antisemitic insults.

Attendees told German media that the assailants hurled insults, calling them “sons of bitches” and shouting “death to Israel.” One of the attackers also snatched an Israeli flag from a participant and fled, later attempting to set it ablaze.

According to local police, a 17-year-old Syrian refugee was arrested shortly afterward, though the investigation into the incident remains ongoing.

The Interior Minister of Baden-Württemberg, Thomas Strobl, condemned the attack, sounding the alarm over the growing entrenchment of antisemitism in German society today.

“It is shameful and completely unacceptable how antisemitic hatred, incitement, and violence have spread through our streets,” Strobl said. 

In Denmark, meanwhile, local authorities in Randers, a city in the eastern part of the country, are investigating reports of vandalism at a Jewish cemetery that occurred during the anniversary of the 1938 Nazi pogroms.

While there was no graffiti or political slogans found on site, several headstones were toppled and some were damaged, with authorities considering a possible antisemitic motive.

Five years ago, two men with ties to a neo-Nazi group were convicted of extensive vandalism at the same cemetery.