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Denver drops drug charges against ‘mushroom rabbi’ who promotes religious psychedelic use
(JTA) — A Denver rabbi who promotes psychedelic use as part of spiritual practice will no longer face prosecution after Coloradans voted last month to legalize psilocybin, the chemical compound found in psychedelic mushrooms.
Denver’s district attorney’s office announced last week that it was dropping charges against Ben Gorelick, the founder of Sacred Tribe, a multifaith community that integrates psilocybin use and ideas rooted in Jewish tradition. A spokesperson for the office told the Denver Post that the move was “in light of the voters’ decision” to pass Proposition 122, which makes growing and sharing psilocybin and other related substances legal for adults over 21 in Colorado.
Gorelick had been charged in February with possessing a controlled substance with intent to manufacture or distribute it, a felony that carried mandatory prison time, even though Denver voters had already chosen to decriminalize psilocybin’s use.
“It’s been a long year for the community, it’s been a long year for us, and we look forward to getting back to practicing our religion, which is what the whole point of this is,” Gorelick told the Denver Post this week.
The charges had sidelined Sacred Tribe’s central purpose, although the group continued to hold Shabbat dinners and other activities for its roughly 270 members, who do not have to be Jewish. Gorelick, who was ordained in 2019 as a rabbi by the Jewish Spiritual Leaders Institute, an online program, had sought publicity and funding to fight the charges on religious freedom grounds.
He argues that there is a longstanding tradition of psychedelic drug use within Judaism, which even other Jewish advocates of psychedelics as part of spiritual practice dispute. Those advocates told the Guardian last summer that Gorelick, who said he screened community members to make sure they sought psilocybin for religious use, had not been known to their tight-knit community before his arrest.
Jewish psychedelics advocates have become more organized in recent years. Rabbi Zac Kamenetz, who was ordained as by an Orthodox rabbi in Israel, founded a group called Shefa during the pandemic that aims to one day make chemically-assisted mystical encounters into a normative part of Jewish spirituality. Last year, the group held a first-ever Jewish psychedelics conference.
Long considered illicit in the United States, psychedelics have been the subject of intensifying research, including about their potential as a therapeutic tool for treating trauma. One of the groups promoting the research, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, was founded by a Jewish man who was inspired by a dream about surviving the Nazis to devote his life to promoting psychedelics as a cure for human ills and an insurance policy against another Holocaust.
“I’m one of the very few people who can say they’ve had a legal experience with psychedelics in this country,” Kamenetz said last year. “To be able to speak freely about it without the stigma — because it’s not just people talking about doing illegal things — it’s allowed people to start having a more open conversation about it. When there’s the opportunity to hear from someone who did this in a legal environment, people will listen more.”
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The post Denver drops drug charges against ‘mushroom rabbi’ who promotes religious psychedelic use appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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U.S. Senate candidate from Michigan calls Israeli government ‘evil’ like Hamas
Abdul El-Sayed, a U.S. Senate candidate from Michigan, said in an interview aired Sunday that the Israeli government is as “evil” as Hamas, sharpening his criticism of Israel in the closely-watched Democratic primary.
“Killing tens of thousands of people makes you pretty damn evil,” El-Sayed told CNN congressional reporter Manu Raja on the network’s Inside Politics program. “It’s not how evil is this one versus that one — Hamas: Evil, Israeli government: Evil. We can say both.”
El-Sayed, 41, is a physician and the son of Egyptian immigrants. He is seeking to channel the energy of the 2024 Uncommitted movement, which protested the Biden administration’s support for Israel in the war against Hamas in Gaza. He is also hoping to build on the surprise success of the New York City mayoral campaign of Zohran Mamdani in taking on the Democratic establishment.
He is locked in a dead heat with state Sen. Mallory McMorrow and Rep. Haley Stevens. The primary is set for Aug. 4.
Earlier this month, El-Sayed faced backlash for appearing alongside streamer Hasan Piker, who has been accused of antisemitic rhetoric — including saying that Hamas “is a thousand times better” than Israel. McMorrow, who is married to a Jewish man, and Stevens, who is closely aligned with AIPAC, have both criticized El-Sayed.
In the CNN interview, El-Sayed defended his decision to campaign with Piker, framing it as an effort to reach voters who feel alienated from traditional politics. “My understanding of America is, it’s a place where we have freedom of speech,” he said.
#MISen Abdul El-Sayed on CNN Inside Politics: @mkraju: You said Israeli government is evil. Do you think they’re just as evil as Hamas?
El-Sayed: “Yes, killing tens of thousands of people makes you pretty damn evil. It’s not about how evil one is versus the other. Hamas —… pic.twitter.com/4GfJ5oCtqR
— Jacob N. Kornbluh (@jacobkornbluh) April 19, 2026
The Michigan Senate race is shaping up as one of the starkest tests of the Democratic coalition and how the party navigates policy towards Israel in Congress amid the wars in Gaza and Iran. The state is home to the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the United States.
Last week, 40 Senate Democrats voted to block $295 million for the transfer of bulldozers, used by the Israeli military to demolish homes in the West Bank and Gaza; 36 of them also supported a measure to block the sale of 1,000-pound bombs to the Jewish state. It shattered a previous high of 27 Democrats who backed a similar pair of resolutions of disapproval to block some weapons transfers last year.
Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, who is Jewish, was among those who voted for the measures. In remarks as they announced their votes, Democrats highlighted their opposition to the Israeli government’s policies in the occupied West Bank, the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the war with Iran.
The post U.S. Senate candidate from Michigan calls Israeli government ‘evil’ like Hamas appeared first on The Forward.
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NYC Mayor Mamdani Unveils Major Tax Hike on Unoccupied Luxury Real Estate
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani holds a press conference at the New York City Office of Emergency Management, as a major winter storm spreads across a large swath of the United States, in Brooklyn, New York City, US, Jan. 25, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Bing Guan
i24 News – NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani has officially introduced a controversial new tax targeting secondary residences valued at over $5 million.
The measure, designed to tap into the city’s vast concentration of unoccupied luxury wealth, is projected to generate roughly $500 million annually for the municipal budget.
“This tax is specifically aimed at the ultra-rich,” Mamdani stated, highlighting high-profile examples such as Ken Griffin’s $238 million Midtown penthouse and Alexander Varshavsky’s $20.5 million Columbus Circle residence.
While the city has yet to finalize specific evaluation criteria or the methods for distinguishing primary from secondary homes, the proposal has already become a flashpoint for economic debate.
The move has drawn sharp condemnation from billionaire investor Bill Ackman, who argued that the policy is fundamentally flawed.
Ackman contended that owners of luxury secondary residences contribute significant capital to the local economy without utilizing costly municipal services. He warned that the tax would likely trigger a corporate and high-net-worth exodus to low-tax jurisdictions like Miami, ultimately harming the city’s tax base.
President Donald Trump also entered the fray, denouncing the policy as “totally misguided” and claiming it is “destroying New York.” Trump, whose own extensive real estate holdings in the city could be impacted, argued that such taxation serves only to drive away the international investors who fuel New York’s development.
Implementation remains a significant question mark, as the tax could potentially affect nearly 13,000 property owners, including major figures like Jeff Bezos. Financial analysts point out that many of the city’s most expensive apartments are held through complex offshore structures and shell companies, making the identification and appraisal of these properties an immense administrative challenge for the city.
As the debate intensifies, the Mamdani administration faces a difficult path ahead in balancing its “tax the rich” mandate with the practical realities of New York’s competitive global real estate market.
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Iran Rebuffs Trump Announcement of New Peace Talks, State News Agency Reports
Iran rejected new peace talks with the United States, its state news agency reported on Sunday, hours after US President Donald Trump said he was sending envoys for talks in Pakistan and would launch new strikes on Iran unless it accepts his terms.
Trump posted on Truth Social that his envoys would arrive in Pakistan on Monday evening for negotiations, a timetable that would leave only a day for talks to make progress before a two-week ceasefire ends.
“We’re offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it because, if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran,” he wrote. “NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!”
Iran’s official IRNA news agency cited no specific source in its report that Iran had rejected the talks.
“Iran stated that its absence from the second round of talks stems from what it called Washington’s excessive demands, unrealistic expectations, constant shifts in stance, repeated contradictions, and the ongoing naval blockade, which it considers a breach of the ceasefire,” IRNA wrote.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Iran’s rejection of the talks.
Earlier, a White House official said the US delegation would be headed by Vice President JD Vance, who led the war’s first peace talks a week ago, and also include Trump’s envoy Steven Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner. Trump had initially told ABC News and MS Now that Vance would not go.