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Brooklyn gyms have an answer to antisemitism: teaching Jews to fight back
(New York Jewish Week) — Emanuel Landsman, a Lubavitch father of five who lives in Crown Heights, found the recent rise in antisemitic attacks to be very concerning. But instead of being afraid, he decided to learn how to fight.
Over the past three years, Landsman has become proficient in the Israeli martial art known as Krav Maga (literally, “close combat”). “I’m a visibly Jewish man,” Landsman told the New York Jewish Week. “I came to train because of all the antisemitic attacks and what was going on around us. I would get hollered at by cars driving by. My kid came home and said others were walking down the street and yelling at him.”
Recently, high-intensity self-defense classes have been popping up in Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn, specifically in response to street attacks on Orthodox residents. Last week, an analysis of NYPD data by the Times of Israel showed that antisemitic incidents in New York City have doubled over the past two years.
Landsman learned to fight with a training program called Legion, which has previously held Krav Maga classes in Manhattan and Connecticut. Next month, Legion is making its first post-pandemic expansion to Brooklyn; weekly classes will take place at the Beth-El Jewish Center, a synagogue in Flatbush.
“It’s not a requirement to join our class, but the majority of our members are Jewish,” Legion’s president and former Israeli Defense Forces soldier Corey Feldman told the New York Jewish Week. “Our logo is a Jewish star. It’s pretty obvious who we are and what we stand for.”
Jews are attacked because we’re seen as vulnerable targets. Join Legion Self Defense & send a message to criminals: “you can no longer attack me & expect me not to defend myself.” I had the opportunity to participate in the program for 2.5 years, & acquired life changing skills. pic.twitter.com/bOnAbnwbPF
— Councilwoman Inna Vernikov (@InnaVernikov) January 8, 2023
Feldman added that he is seeing more of a demand for these classes, which include separate classes for men and women, and a mixed class as well. “We already have 40 people in New York City, with many more that wanted to join, but we didn’t have room to accommodate.” Feldman said, adding that as antisemitic attacks on Jews increase, people are “aware of the need for this.”
“We believe that the best way to confront that is deterrence,” Feldman said. “We want to make sure you’re going to think twice before you start pushing that guy on the subway who is wearing a kippah.”
In Legion classes, members work up a sweat through a mix of high-intensity workouts that include punching, kicking, grappling and other forms of martial arts.
The new Legion classes in Brooklyn will be held in City Council member Inna Vernikov’s district, which encompasses parts of Brighton Beach, Sheepshead Bay and Midwood. She told the New York Jewish Week that she’s “very involved” with Legion; she has taken Legion classes herself and said she is working to provide discretionary funding from her district office this year, although she declined to discuss specifics.
“It’s extremely important that every single Jew, especially visibly Orthodox Jews, do this,” Vernikov said. “I’ve seen small, petite women train and gain life-changing skills. You develop an attitude and a confidence that if you walk down the street and use the skills properly, the attacker will avoid you.”
Another Krav Maga program serving Brooklyn Jews is Guardian Self Defense, which was started by Joe Richards, a Jew from Long Island. In 2019, he rented out a room in a Crown Heights yeshiva to teach members of the local community how to fight.
“Across the hall they were having a bar mitzvah,” Richards told the New York Jewish Week. “And then there was us training. We ran these 45 guys hard and pushed them.”
Since then, Richards said he now teaches hundreds of Jewish students through his program. In Crown Heights, he runs three weekly classes for the Lubavitch community in space rented at the local outpost of the gym chain Crunch. GSD also has other locations in Manhattan, Long Island and Florida.
Richards said he started his Brooklyn classes after seeing videos of attacks on people wearing the distinct dress of Orthodox Jews. “Let me bring the training to the area where this is happening,” Richards said. “There were no freaking gyms there. I went into the community and recruited them [students]. And now the people [students] are doing all the recruiting because it’s so popular.”
Members of Shomrim, a neighborhood watch organization in the Orthodox community, are using Krav Maga training to learn how to defend themselves in the field.
Crown Heights Shomrim member Ben Cousin, who trains regularly with GSD, told the New York Jewish Week that “ordinary people” are now learning how to fight in his community through these programs. “They have been victims of antisemitic attacks,” Cousin said. “Some of them have seen it, they feel it, but they are joining because they feel they have to stand up for themselves.”
A Guardian Self Defense fighting class in Crown Heights. (Courtesy)
Cousin spoke about how the GSD teaches “de-escalation” tactics, and is not just about fighting. He told a story about when he was on patrol with Shomrim and his team confronted a man after a robbery. “He pushed me,” Cousin said. “Instead of pushing him back, I said, ‘I don’t want to fight you.’ I calmed him down. I apologized. That comes from the training — I don’t want to fight, but I’m ready, just in case.”
“This is a last resort program,” he added. “If you put your hands on us, we will remind you that Jewish blood is not cheap.”
Like Legion’s Feldman, Richards is gearing up for a new group of GSD trainees this year who have heard about his Krav Maga program. Richards is the grandchild of four Holocaust survivors and compared the current rise in antisemitism to what his grandparents experienced.
“The Jews are being targeted everywhere — verbally, online, physically. From the right and left, we are now under siege,” Richards said. “If you’re visibly Jewish, you have a double target on your back. We don’t have the luxury of trying to plan what we should do. Everybody should be taking action.”
“There are plenty of people in this class who had never thrown a punch in their life,” Landsman said of his training with Legion. “I’m not asking you to join the UFC [the mixed martial arts league], but you need to be able to stand your ground and unfreeze yourself when somebody is threatening you with violence. You need to know when to run or when there is no retreat and you have to defend yourself.”
—
The post Brooklyn gyms have an answer to antisemitism: teaching Jews to fight back appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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How Christian Zionism explains Mike Huckabee’s expansive view of Israel’s borders
In a recent interview with Tucker Carlson, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee went viral for claiming that Israel has the right to control much of the Middle East based on the Bible — what may have been one of the clearest expressions of Christian Zionism by an American diplomat.
In the interview, which took place during Carlson’s recent visit to Israel, Carlson, who has routinely questioned the U.S.-Israel dynamic, asked Huckabee about whether he believes Israel has the right to all the land God promised the Jews in the Bible. Citing scripture, Carlson described the territory as stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates, “essentially the entire Middle East.”
Huckabee replied, “it would be fine if it took it all,” but clarified several times that Israel is not seeking to do so, stating: “They’re not asking to go back to take all of that, but they are now asking to at least take the land that they now live in, they now occupy, they now own legitimately, and it is a safe haven for them.”
Later in the interview, Huckabee referred to his remarks as “somewhat of a hyperbolic statement” and subsequently took to X to say that his comments were edited and taken out of context by Carlson. He said that Carlson had asked him “as a former Baptist minister about the theology of Christian Zionism.”
While Huckabee’s statements on Tucker Carlson may not have aligned with official U.S. policy, they were consistent with the theological worldview he has articulated for years — one rooted in Christian Zionism, a movement that sees the modern state of Israel as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. For some believers, the modern state of Israel is viewed as a prerequisite for the second coming of Jesus. Many adherents cite the Abrahamic covenant in Genesis — “I will bless those who bless you” — as a theological mandate to support Israel. Others frame their support less in apocalyptic terms and more in the language of shared “Judeo-Christian” heritage.
While Huckabee is the first evangelical Christian to serve as U.S. ambassador to Israel, the Christian Zionist movement he is part of has a formidable political and financial infrastructure within the United States and has become a major force in the U.S.–Israel relationship.
Growing Groups
Christian Zionism has been one of the most reliable pillars of pro-Israel sentiment in American politics for decades. A 2025 survey by the Pew Research Center found that seven in ten white evangelical Christians has a favorable view of Israel, compared with approximately half of Americans who have an unfavorable view. Another study found that U.S. evangelicals are as supportive of Israel as they were before the Gaza war.
Israeli leaders have openly acknowledged that support. Ron Dermer, former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. and a close advisor of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, once called evangelicals “the backbone of Israel’s support in the United States.”
That support goes far beyond positive sentiment. The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, which Huckabee has been affiliated with, says it has raised $3.6 billion for Israel since 1983, with 92% of its donors identifying as Christian. In 2023, the organization raised more money than AIPAC or the ADL. Another major organization, Christians United for Israel, founded in 2006 by Texas pastor John Hagee, claims 10 million members, a figure larger than the total Jewish population of the United States.
A 2018 investigation by Haaretz estimated that evangelical organizations raised between $50 million and $65 million from 2008 to 2018 for projects in the West Bank.
The movement has also maintained a physical presence in Jerusalem. The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem was founded in 1980 after several foreign embassies left the city in protest of Israel’s declaration of Jerusalem as its capital. The embassy hosts annual gatherings during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot that draw thousands of evangelical pilgrims, and it funds assistance programs for Jews who wish to immigrate to Israel, emergency aid, housing for Holocaust survivors, and other initiatives.
The Christian Broadcasting Network, an evangelical news network that reaches millions of viewers worldwide, operates a dedicated Jerusalem bureau that “offers a biblical and prophetic perspective to the daily news events that shape our world.”
Huckabee, a former Baptist minister and Arkansas governor, has long existed within this ecosystem and is one of Christian Zionism’s most visible public figures. He has said that he has visited Israel over 100 times and was among the evangelical leaders who advocated for President Donald Trump to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2018, a decision widely celebrated within Christian Zionist circles. In 2018, Huckabee laid ceremonial bricks in the settlement of Efrat as a symbol of support.
He has also made controversial statements regarding the West Bank, stating in 2017, “There is no such thing as a West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria. There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.”
Personal theology vs. diplomacy
During Huckabee’s Senate confirmation hearing, Huckabee described the U.S.–Israel relationship as “not geopolitical” but “also spiritual,” stating that “to deny that would be to make it very difficult for us to ever understand how to go forward in a relationship with them.” He also acknowledged that while he had previously supported the possibility of Israeli annexation of the West Bank, his duty as ambassador would be to carry out the president’s policy rather than set it.
His interview with Carlson hearkened back to that moment and the tension between Huckabee’s role as an ambassador and his personal convictions.
The Trump administration has repeatedly stated that the United States does not support formal Israeli annexation of the West Bank. That position is tied in part to Trump’s effort to expand the Abraham Accords, the normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab and Muslim-majority states. Potential future participants — most notably Saudi Arabia — have explicitly conditioned normalization on credible steps toward a two-state solution, a framework that annexation would almost certainly undermine.
In response to Huckabee’s interview, more than a dozen Arab and Muslim-majority governments, joined by major regional bodies including the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the Arab League, and the Gulf Cooperation Council, issued a joint statement condemning Huckabee’s remarks. The statement described his comments as “dangerous and inflammatory” and said they “directly contradict the vision put forward by U.S. President Donald J. Trump” and the Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict. Just three days before the statement’s release, many of those same governments had met in Washington for the inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace and pledged significant funding to the initiative.
According to reports, members of the Trump administration sought to reassure those governments that Huckabee’s comments reflected his personal views rather than official U.S. policy.
For his part, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich — a supporter of West Bank annexation — posted Saturday on X, riffing on a movie title: “I (heart) Huckabee.” And no wonder: last year the ambassador had declined to oppose plans for a large West Bank settlement Smotrich had declared “will bury the idea of a Palestinian state,” with Huckabee declaring it “incumbent on all of us to recognise that Israelis have a right to live in Israel.”
Trump, however, has said he opposes annexation of the West Bank, reflecting growing rifts in the U.S. and even his own supporters, with the rise of a Christian Nationalist movement that includes many at odds with Christian Zionism.
At the same time, generational shifts within the republican party suggests an uncertain future for Christian Zionism. A recent study found that 20% of Republicans overall believe the United States is providing too much military aid to Israel. The generational divide is pronounced: 27% of Gen Z Republicans say the U.S. is giving too much aid, compared with 16% among Republicans in the Silent, Baby Boomer, and Generation X cohorts. Influential figures within this camp — including Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, and on the more extreme fringe, Nick Fuentes — have gained prominence in part by criticizing the scope of U.S. support for Israel.
For now, however, the evangelical Christian Zionist movement remains deeply embedded in American politics. With Huckabee in the ambassador’s residence, that worldview occupies an official diplomatic post.
The post How Christian Zionism explains Mike Huckabee’s expansive view of Israel’s borders appeared first on The Forward.
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Trump has no vision for what comes next in the Middle East
Buried within the long, maudlin, combative, occasionally moving and never modest verbiage of President Donald Trump’s Tuesday State of the Union address was this uncomfortable truth: Trump has no idea what comes next in the Middle East.
In discussing two conflicts that have drawn intense attention over the past year — those in Gaza and Iran — he offered a downright confusing picture of what the future has to offer.
When the president finally touched on foreign policy, after he had already been speaking for nearly an hour and a half, he credited himself with ending eight wars — a figure that’s worth questioning.
“The war in Gaza, which proceeds at a very low level, it’s just about there,” he said.
The Gaza war is over, maybe
There is no doubt Gaza is closer to peace than it was when Trump took office. The deal he forged between Israel and Hamas is so far the greatest foreign policy accomplishment of his second term.
But “just about there?”
Israel has killed about 600 Palestinians, including many civilians, since the ceasefire. Meanwhile, Hamas has not disarmed, and in fact, according to the Times of Israel, has begun inserting itself in new Trump-backed governing bodies in Gaza.
More than 80% of the structures in the Strip were destroyed in the conflict that began when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Rebuilding will take many years, and billions of dollars. Of the 200,000 temporary housing units humanitarian agencies estimate the enclave needs, only 4,000 have been delivered or on their way.
The much-heralded Trump peace plan, in other words, is on shaky ground.
That explains why Trump thanked Hamas, as he has done in previous speeches this month, for helping to find the bodies of dead hostages.
“Believe it or not, Hamas worked along with Israel,” Trump said, “and they dug and they dug and they dug. It’s a tough, tough thing to do, going through bodies all over, passing up 100 bodies, sometimes for each one that they found.”
Why not mention that Hamas wouldn’t have had to do such hard, noble work if it hadn’t attacked and killed Israelis in the first place? Because the odd compliment — thanking murderers for returning their victims’ bodies — was Trump playing to reality. If his signature diplomatic initiative is to succeed, he needs Hamas and its patrons to go along. So far, the group is stalling when it comes to disarmament. If he can’t persuade them to take that step, his signature peace effort is done for.
An awareness of just how treacherous this situation is explains why Trump’s Gaza comments focused largely on his success at negotiating the return of Israel’s hostages, both living and dead.
“And those parents who had a dead son,” Trump said, “they always told me that boy, they wanted him as much as though he were living.”
Trump didn’t offer a vision, as he has in the past, of a prosperous Gaza; of Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords; and of Israel at peace with its neighbors. He didn’t even mention his pet initiative, the Board of Peace — surprising, given that the body met for the first time just last week. The Middle East has a way of lowering expectations, and in the State of the Union, Trump wasn’t selling anything but the successful return of the dead.
The Iran war that isn’t, yet
On Iran, Trump was, if possible, even more confusing.
The United States has sent its largest military force in decades to the Middle East, which means we are once again — maybe — on the verge of a Middle East war. But Trump’s case for conflict — and explanation of how things got to this point — was lackluster.
He claimed that Operation Midnight Hammer, the June 2025 U.S. strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, “obliterated Iran’s nuclear weapons program.”
But evidently, a program that was “obliterated” is somehow, less than a year later, an imminent threat. In the very next sentence, Trump said Tehran is now trying to rebuild its nuclear facilities and develop missiles that could reach the United States. (The simpler and more factual explanation: actually, nothing got obliterated in the first place.)
While claiming that the Iranian regime recently killed 32,000 of its own people during nationwide protests — an exact death toll is still elusive — he offered the country a path to survival: give up nuclear weapons.
But what sounds like a clear demand really isn’t. Nuclear diplomacy takes a long time and great delicacy. Trump, who favors swift resolutions, has backed himself into a corner: The military is already there, and the world is waiting with baited breath.
Plus, Americans don’t want to go to war. Some 49% of Americans oppose an attack on Iran, with just 27% in support of one, according to a YouGov poll this month. Independents oppose the idea by 54%, and Republicans support it by only 58%.
What’s a president who has staked his second-term reputation on his ability to win big and make peace supposed to do?
For now, the lack of specificity gives Trump room to waffle on whether or not to go to war — and try to make a case for what specific, achievable aims he would have in doing so.
In a clear sign that he doesn’t yet have answers for those questions, Trump’s language on Tuesday sounded awfully familiar. “I will never allow the world’s number one sponsor of terror to have a nuclear weapon,“ he said. “My preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy.”
Compare that to former President Barack Obama’s 2012 State of the Union.
“Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon,” Obama said, “and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal. But a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible, and far better.”
Maybe Trump has a clear idea of what comes next for Gaza and Iran. Or maybe we’ve just gone back to the future.
The post Trump has no vision for what comes next in the Middle East appeared first on The Forward.
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Memories of a subway passenger
דערצויגן געוואָרן אין דער שטאָט ניו־יאָרק, בײַ אַ משפּחה וואָס האָט נישט פֿאַרמאָגט קיין אויטאָ, האָב איך אַ גרויסן חלק פֿון מײַן לעבן „אויסגעלעבט“ אויף דער אונטערבאַן („סאָבוויי“). הגם הײַנט פֿאָר איך בדרך־כּלל מיט מיט דער מחוץ־שטאָטישער באַן „מעטראָ־נאָרט“, מוז איך מודה זײַן, אַז מײַנע יאָרן אויף דער אונטערבאַן האָבן זיכער געהאָלפֿן צו אַנטוויקלען בײַ מיר דאָס געפֿיל פֿון אַן עכטן ניו־יאָרקער.
אין עלטער פֿון 11 יאָר, למשל, זענען איך און מײַן 10־יאָריקע שוועסטער, גיטל, יעדע וואָך, נאָך די קלאַסן, געפֿאָרן מיט דער אונטערבאַן פֿינף סטאַנציעס צו אונדזער פּיאַנע־לעקציע. וואָס איז דער חידוש, פֿרעגט איר? איר קענט זיך אויסמאָלן, אַז צוויי אומשולדיקע מיידלעך, טראָגנדיק קליידלעך און צעפּלעך, זאָלן הײַנט פֿאָרן, אָן שום באַגלייטונג פֿון אַ דערוואַקסענעם — אויף דער אונטערבאַן? איך — נישט. פֿונדעסטוועגן, מיין איך, אַז דאָס האָט אונדז געגעבן אַ געוויסן נישט־באַוווּסטזיניקן קוראַזש, וואָס פֿעלט הײַנט די קינדער, וואָס זייערע עלטערן מוזן זיי פֿירן אינעם אויטאָ פֿון איין אָרט צום צווייטן.
איך האָב ליב געהאַט צו לייענען די רעקלאַמעס אין וואַגאָן. איך געדענק, למשל, די מעלדונגען וועגן דעם יערלעכן שיינקייט־קאָנקורס, „מיס סאָבווייס“. עטלעכע וואָכן פֿאַרן קאָנקורס, איז אין יעדן וואַגאָן געהאָנגען אַ בילד פֿון די זעקס פֿינאַליסטקעס. פֿלעג איך מיט גיטלען איבערלייענען זייערע קליינע ביאָגראַפֿיעס — בדרך־כּלל, סטודענטקעס, סעקרעטאַרשעס, זינגערינס, און טענצערינס — און דיסקוטירן מיט איר, ווער ס׳וואָלט געדאַרפֿט געווינען די „אונטערערדישע קרוין“. איך פֿלעג זיך אָפֿט מאָל חידושן, ווי אַזוי איינע מיט אַ גרויסער נאָז אָדער געדיכטע ברעמען האָט דערגרייכט אַזאַ מדרגה, אַז איר פּנים זאָל באַצירן יעדן וואַגאָן פֿון דער ניו־יאָרקער באַן־סיסטעם.
איך האָב זיך אויך געלערנט מײַנע ערשטע שפּאַנישע זאַצן אויף דער אונטערבאַן. אין יעדן וואַגאָן איז געהאָנגען אַ וואָרענונג אויף ענגליש און אויף שפּאַניש: „די רעלסן פֿון דער אונטערבאַן זענען געפֿערלעך. אויב די באַן שטעלט זיך אָפּ צווישן די סטאַנציעס, בלײַבט אינעווייניק. גייט נישט אַרויס. וואַרט אויף די אינסטרוקציעס פֿון די קאָנדוקטאָרן אָדער דער פּאָליציי“. גיטל און איך האָבן זיך אויסגעלערנט אויף אויסנווייניק די שפּאַנישע שורות, און זיי איבערגעחזרט אַזוי פֿיל מאָל, ביז די ווערטער האָבן זיך בײַ אונדז אַראָפּגעקײַקלט פֿון דער צונג ווי בײַ אמתע פּוערטאָ־ריקאַנער. און ס׳איז אונדז צו ניץ געקומען: אַז מיר זענען געשטאַנען ערגעץ צווישן מענטשן, און געוואָלט אויסזען ווי אמתע שפּאַניש־רעדער, האָבן מיר אויסגעשאָסן די שפּאַנישע שורות מיט אַזאַ טראַסק, אַז אַ נישט־שפּאַניש רעדער וואָלט געקענט מיינען, מיר טיילן זיך מיט עפּעס אַ זאַפֿטיקער פּליאָטקע.
מײַנע דרײַ בנים האָבן שטאַרק ליב געהאַט צו פֿאָרן אויף דער אונטערבאַן. קינדווײַז פֿלעגן זיי צודריקן די פּנימלעך צו די פֿענצטער, סײַ ווען די באַן איז געפֿאָרן אין דרויסן, סײַ אינעם פֿינצטערן טונעל. מײַן עלטסטער, יאַנקל, האָט צוויי מאָל געפּרוּווט צו פֿאַרווירקלעכן זײַנס אַ חלום: צו פֿאָרן, במשך פֿון איין טאָג, אויף יעדער ליניע פֿון דער גאַנצער סיסטעם, פֿון דער #1 ביז דער #7; פֿון דער A־באַן ביז דער Z. (מע דאַרף האָבן אַ מאַטעמאַטישן קאָפּ דאָס אויסצופּלאָנטערן.) ביידע מאָל האָט יאַנקל באַוויזן צו פֿאָרן אויף אַלע ליניעס… אַחוץ איינער. נישט קיין חידוש, אַז בײַ אונדז אין דער היים איז יאָרן לאַנג געהאָנגען אינעם שפּריץ אַ פֿירהאַנג מיט אַ ריזיקע מאַפּע פֿון דער אונטערבאַן.
הײַנט האָב איך אַ ספּעציעלע הנאה צו פֿאָרן אויף דער אונטערבאַן מיט מײַנע אייניקלעך. פּונקט ווי עס האָבן קינדווײַז געטאָן זייערע טאַטעס, קוקן זיי אויך אַרויס פֿון פֿענצטער און קאָמענטירן וועגן אַלץ וואָס פֿליט פֿאַרבײַ. ווער ווייסט? אפֿשר וועלן זיי אויך מיט דער צײַט זיך אויסלערנען די ציפֿערן און אותיות פֿון יעדער באַנליניע און דערבײַ אַליין פֿאַרוואַנדלט ווערן אין עכטע ניו־יאָרקער.
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