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From grief to rage, American Jews are struggling with how to feel about the conflict in Israel
(JTA) – Not knowing what else to do this week, Julia Starikovsky posted some pictures of herself in Israel on social media.
Like other American Jews, Starikovsky, a 25-year-old psychology doctoral student at Northwestern University, was shocked and horrified by the devastation wrought by Hamas’ Oct. 7 invasion of Israel. She is planning to get married in Israel next fall, and has close friends who moved to Israel. Yet she still thought to herself, “What does this have to do with me?”
It was only when she saw a prompt on Instagram that called for young Jews to share photos of themselves in Israel for “solidarity” that Starikovsky felt she had permission to make it, in some small way, about her. She shared photos of herself with her friends and fiance in Israel, hoping to provide a more human face to the ongoing tragedy.
She didn’t know at the time that the prompt had been a coordinated effort by Birthright Israel to promote pro-Israel sentiment on social media amid concerns about criticism stemming from Israel’s military response in Gaza. One Israel-based Birthright marketing executive, Noa Bauer, described the social media push to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency as a publicity campaign that Israel would need “in the coming days and weeks when there’s probably going to be more casualties.”
Bauer added, referring to Birthright’s American alumni, “I think that they owe us as Jews, and as human beings, to give their thoughts.”
Yet Starikovsky, a Birthright alum, didn’t see her support as transactional. She’s also trying to hold space in her heart for other forms of grief. “You can support Israel; you can also support Palestinian children. The two are not exclusive of one another,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve been hesitant in posting about Israel, but I’m also making sure that I recognize the other innocent civilian lives that are lost in this whole entire war.”
Within a deeply polarized discourse about Israel among American Jews, Starikovsky joins many in the relatively quiet middle: seared by grief, worried about what comes next, and not quite sure how to reconcile the two.
Prominent Jewish voices occupied the headlines this week calling, on one side, for Gaza to be flattened into a “parking lot” (Rep. Max Miller, the Jewish Republican from Ohio) and, and on the other side, for a total ceasefire (the left-wing groups Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow, which staged several mass protests, including at the U.S. Capitol). But between those poles lie many more people in Starikovsky’s shoes, just trying to make sense of a moment that seems to defy it — and potentially more difficult moments on the horizon.
“It’s terrible that Israelis are being killed. It’s also terrible that civilian Palestinians are being killed,” said Lisa Young, a self-described “Conservadox” Jew who spoke to JTA at a Chabad-Lubavitch pro-Israel event in New York City. Young said she has friends who used to live in Gush Katif, Israeli settlements in Gaza that were evacuated, along with all of Israel’s troops, in 2005.
“Unfortunately, Israel has to defend itself,” she said. “It’s a small country. They only want peace. They don’t want to attack and kill innocent lives. But they don’t have a choice but to respond to what’s happening amongst their people.”
An Instagram post made by Julia Starikovsky, an alum of Birthright Israel, in response to a Birthright prompt to share photos of herself in Israel in “solidarity,” Oct. 12, 2023. (Courtesy of Julia Starikovsky)
The wrestling took center stage last Shabbat as congregations across the country were packed with Jews bucking social media rumors of a “day of jihad” and seeking spiritual guidance for the long road ahead. Rabbis are expected to continue addressing the crisis this weekend from their pulpits.
Some liberal rabbis spoke of the need for a looming, difficult, but necessary, war to safeguard the Jewish state, or ceded their sermon times to Israelis who made similar points.
“From my experience there are no winners at war. All sides are losers,” said Israeli-American Josh Berkovitz, a former Israeli soldier and pro-Israel activist, in a speech to Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, the largest Reform congregation in the country. “But this time, this war is about the very existence of the Jewish homeland, Israel. We have to win. There is no alternative.”
Others pressed their congregants to understand Israel’s motivations for military action while also maintaining empathy for the human toll. Rabbi Angela Buchdahl of New York City’s Central Synagogue, a Reform congregation, called Israel’s campaign against Hamas “a just and moral war — one we didn’t choose, but now can’t avoid.” She also urged her congregation to “not equate Hamas with the Palestinian people” and to “mourn the death of all innocent lives.”
Some have gone further. “Killing thousands of Palestinian civilians will not bring back the Israeli civilians who are so bitterly and excruciatingly mourned,” Congregation Beth Elohim’s Rabbi Rachel Timoner said during her sermon in Brooklyn last week.
As some American Jews cite feelings of personal connection to the Hamas attacks as justification for supporting Israel’s actions, others who have direct connections to them are calling for the opposite. Cliel Shdaimah’s grandmother Ditzah Heyman, the widow of a Holocaust survivor, was seen in a video being taken hostage by the terror group. Yet Shdaimah’s family has been advocating against further Israeli military action in the media.
“I cannot and will not stand with violence, let alone when it is done in my family’s and other’s name,” Shdaimah told JTA via email. In addition, she said, her family is concerned that a lack of intelligence around the hostages’ location and condition means their health and safety could be jeopardized by Israel’s military incursion. (Hamas released two American hostages late Friday.)
Shdaimah urged American Jews “to not allow their love for Jews or Israel be poisoned by terror, not let Islamophobia or anti-Palestinian sentiments mar their compassion for human beings.”
Other progressive American Jews feel horrified simultaneously by the Hamas massacre, responses from the left blaming Israel for the crisis and Israel’s campaign in Gaza. Naomi Levison, 27, a social worker in Colorado who is active with a progressive Jewish collective called Denver Doikayt, is also still close with what she describes as the “very Zionist” community in Atlanta where she grew up and attended Jewish day school and summer camp. Her social media feed, she estimates, is 80% from her Atlanta and Young Judaea Israel gap-year communities, and she’s distressed by what she sees there.
“It’s been really devastating, and I feel a lot of complex emotions,” she told JTA. “I have a lot of loved ones in Israel. I lived in Israel. So I’m grieving what happened last Saturday.”
Yet pushes from Jews, and Jewish organizations like Birthright, to keep supporting Israel as a means of managing such grief are falling flat for her. “It feels as though our grief is being weaponized,” she said. “I’m also, at the same time, horrified how Israel is — I want to say ‘retaliating,’ I guess — and how a lot of my Jewish community is defending these actions and this violence.”
She specifically cited Israel’s decision early on to cut off food, electricity, fuel and water to Gaza, which she said is “clearly targeting civilians.”
“I feel really isolated from within the Jewish community,” she said. “And isolated from people who aren’t in the Jewish community who don’t understand the grief we’re feeling.”
Lily Lester contributed to this report.
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The post From grief to rage, American Jews are struggling with how to feel about the conflict in Israel appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iran and Terrorism: Empty Gestures or Genuine Change?
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi speaks during a meeting with foreign ambassadors in Tehran, Iran, July 12, 2025. Photo: Hamid Forootan/Iranian Foreign Ministry/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
In a world grappling with persistent threats of terrorism and financial crimes, the international community must not be swayed by superficial gestures.
While Tehran’s recent ratification of the Palermo Convention against transnational organized crime may seem like a step in the right direction on the surface, it is likely a calculated move designed to distract from the regime’s continued and unwavering support for global terrorism.
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) reportedly plans to meet with Tehran’s bureaucrats to review whether the Islamic Republic of Iran has complied with its action plan to be removed from its blacklist.
However, the global financial watchdog must resist the temptation to remove Tehran from the list, because the Islamic Republic fundamentally remains committed to funding terrorism and engaging in illicit financing. To remove Tehran would be to ignore a mountain of evidence that supports this unequivocal fact.
In fact, removing Iran would endanger the integrity of the international financial system.
For years, the Islamic Republic has been a leading state sponsor of terrorism. No single treaty that Iran may ratify can disguise this fact.
The regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has a long and bloody history of plotting assassinations on American soil and overseas, targeting high-profile figures like President Donald Trump, journalists, dissidents, and ordinary citizens. This is not the conduct of a state genuinely committed to combating organized crime. It is the action of a rogue regime that uses terror as a primary tool of its foreign policy.
The recent move by Iran’s Expediency Discernment Council to ratify the United Nations’ Palermo Convention — after years of refusing to do so — is a classic example of Tehran’s diplomatic gamesmanship.
Tehran understands its presence on the FATF blacklist has crippled its economy, It is desperate for a reprieve. However, the regime has refused to ratify the most crucial of the FATF-required treaties: the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (CFT).
By refusing to do so, Tehran is signaling its intention to continue funding terrorist proxies including Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. Nor has Iran abandoned the facilitation network it has provided to Al-Qaeda. While Tehran may one day feel compelled to ratify the CFT for economic reasons, removing it from the blacklist should take place only if commensurate conduct changes on the terrorism front — and that change is sustained.
The international community has already witnessed the devastating consequences of Iran’s terror financing. The Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, was inspired, funded, and enabled by Tehran. The regime’s support for the Houthis in Yemen has destabilized the region and disrupted global trade, costing the United States and its allies billions of dollars. Tehran’s backing of Hezbollah in Lebanon threatens the security of Israel and the stability of the entire Middle East. Iran should not be welcomed back into the global financial fold until it changes its conduct, not merely purports to agree to an item on a technical checklist.
The FATF has a clear mandate: to protect the global financial system from money laundering and terrorist financing. To fulfill this mandate, it must hold Iran to the same standard as every other nation. This means insisting on full and unconditional compliance with all FATF requirements, including the ratification of the CFT and demonstrable adherence to its principles. There can be no exceptions, carve-outs, or special treatment for a regime that has blatantly and repeatedly violated international law and circumvented sanctions.
Tehran’s diplomatic overtures are nothing but a smokescreen. As long as the regime continues to fund terrorism, plot assassinations, and destabilize the Middle East, it must remain on the FATF blacklist. The security of the United States and its allies, and the integrity of the global financial system, depend on it. The message to Tehran must be clear: words are not enough. Its actions and malign conduct must change.
Saeed Ghasseminejad is a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). Toby Dershowitz is managing director at FDD Action, FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focused on national security and foreign policy. FDD Action is a non-partisan 501(c)(4) organization established to advocate for effective policies to promote US national security and defend free nations. Follow the authors on X @SGhasseminejad and @tobydersh.
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From Sacred to Strategic: Hamas Turns Civilian Infrastructure Into Targets
Palestinian Hamas terrorists stand guard on the day of the handover of hostages held in Gaza since the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack, as part of a ceasefire and a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 22, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hatem Khaled
Two weeks ago, the IDF revealed a chilling incident: Hamas operatives posed as World Central Kitchen aid workers, wearing yellow vests and using WCK-branded vehicles. WCK swiftly confirmed that the imposters had no affiliation — that this was terrorism hiding in humanitarian garb.
Then, earlier this week, Israel struck Nasser Hospital in Southern Gaza — not randomly, cruelly or without reason, but because Hamas was using the hospital to operate surveillance cameras to track IDF movements.
A tragic battlefield misstep occurred when tank fire was used to disable those cameras instead of drones, killing 6 Hamas terrorists who were either operating or near the targeted cameras, but also resulting in unintended civilian casualties. This outcome was tragic — but sadly predictable.
This is the logic of Hamas’ strategy: weaponize Gaza’s hospitals, schools, mosques, and aid centers, force civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure, and then broadcast them as evidence of Israeli atrocity.
Hospitals: Protected — Until Abused
International Humanitarian Law (IHL) stands firm: during a war, hospitals may not be targeted — unless they are being used for military purposes. Hamas’ use of these sites as command or surveillance posts nullifies their protection.
Mosques and Schools: Sacred — Until Militarized
Houses of worship and schools are also granted special status under IHL. But that protection dissolves once they are used for military advantage — a tactic Hamas consistently employs, turning places of worship into weapons depots and schools into hideouts.
Humanitarian Aid: Safe — Until Exploited
Under IHL, even aid workers can become legitimate targets when Hamas impersonates them. The WCK incident not only endangered genuine aid efforts, but it also weaponized the trust people place in humanitarian organizations, and eroding that trust endangers aid workers everywhere in Gaza.
This Is Calculated — Not Casual
These are not random errors — they are deliberate Hamas strategies: embed fighters and military and tactical equipment in civilian infrastructure, provoke strikes, and unleash graphic narratives. The recent hospital strike and the WCK impersonation reflect this grim choreography.
A Double Standard with Deadly Consequences
When US or UK forces faced civilian casualties in Mosul or Aleppo, the world understood the moral complexity caused by ISIS embedding itself among civilians and fighting in civilian clothes.
But when Israel confronts Hamas — whose tunnel networks under hospitals and all other civilian infrastructure in Gaza rival entire urban subway systems — the narrative is nearly monolithic: Israel is the villain.
This is the double standard defined in the IHRA working definition of antisemitism.
No Safe Haven for Gaza Civilians
Hamas’ cynical human shield strategy and its use of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure as cover is enhanced as a tactical tool by the actions of Gaza’s Arab neighbors.
In Syria and Ukraine, civilians fled across borders to safety in Jordan, Poland, Turkey.
In fact, in every war in modern history, civilians have left combat zones to go to neighboring non-hostile countries.
But after October 7, Egypt and Jordan closed their borders, citing political fears. That leaves Gaza civilians trapped — forced to rely on limited “humanitarian zones” Israel sets up — zones Hamas routinely targets and even tries to stop Gazans from entering.
The result: Israel is held to an impossible standard: avoid civilian casualties even when terrorists hide themselves and their military and tactical infrastructure next to, among, and beneath them, while Gaza’s Arab neighbors are held to no standard of refuge for their fellow Arabs whatsoever.
Casualty Figures — Propaganda Masquerading as Data
To make matters worse, most media outlets parrot casualty numbers from Hamas’ so-called “Health Ministry.”
The Gaza Health Ministry’s numbers lump together civilians, combatants, natural deaths, and even those killed by Hamas’ own misfired rockets. For years before October 7th, between 5,000 and 7,000 people in Gaza died from natural causes. Meanwhile, at least 15% to 25% of Hamas and Islamic Jihad’s rockets fall short, killing Gazans.
And Hamas routinely kills Gazans it decides are “collaborators” with Israel. All these deaths — along with the death of Hamas fighters — are aggregated in Hamas’s “death tolls” for the October 7th war it started.
Yet the narrative advanced by major media outlets and on social media paint every death as of a civilian killed by Israel. This is propaganda masquerading as data.
Conclusion: Accountability, Not Convenient Narratives
Hamas will continue to weaponize its own civilians — and civilian spaces — if excuses remain for its behavior. Only when the global dialogue refuses to blame Israel for the foreseeable results of Hamas’ human-shield warfare can moral clarity return.
The responsibility lies — with Hamas, not Israel — to stop turning Gaza’s hospitals, schools, and civilian infrastructure generally into strategic targets. Let’s call this what it is: terrorism hiding behind civilian facades. Until the world stops tolerating and even rewarding Hamas’ cynical human shield tactics, they will continue.
Micha Danzig is a current attorney, former IDF soldier & NYPD police officer. He currently writes for numerous publications on matters related to Israel, antisemitism & Jewish identity & is the immediate past President of StandWithUs in San Diego and a national board member of Herut.
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What Is the Future for Russian-Speaking Jews in America?
Morris Abram (left), chairman of National Conference on Soviet Jewry, with Ed Koch, former Mayor of New York City, and Natan Sharansky, former Prisoner of Conscience. Photo: Center for Jewish History via Flickr.
The Russian-speaking Jewish community (RSJ) has traveled a long road to America.
From pogroms and World Wars to Soviet repression, our families fled in search of freedom and opportunity. New immigration to the US has slowed, and today, the future of the community rests with the children of those who arrived decades ago. What will their identity look like?
To find out, the American Russian-Speaking Jews Alliance (ARSJA) surveyed RSJ parents and received over 250 responses summarized in a new report.
The findings show a community deeply committed to raising Jewish children — even if traditional religious observance is not at the center.
Although 54 percent of the respondents do not keep kosher and only 3 percent attend synagogue daily, 89 percent of parents expect their children will have a “Very strong” or “Somewhat strong” Jewish identity.
Community life seems to be more popular than ritual. More than half of those surveyed attend RSJ gatherings or Israel-related events, and 67 percent go to synagogue on the High Holidays.
Shaul Kelner, professor of Jewish Studies and Sociology at Vanderbilt University, reminded us that, “American Jews are a diverse population, and there is no one-size-fits-all approach. It’s important that organizations like ARSJA are working to identify and respond to the specific needs of the Russian-speaking Jewish community.”
The “Russian-speaking” part of the identity is more complicated.
Most parents (58 percent) want their children to speak Russian mainly to communicate with grandparents.
Grandparents (75 percent) and parents (70 percent) are the people children use Russian with most often.
Yet only 60 percent of parents believe their children will maintain a strong RSJ identity. For some, the label recalls a painful past. One respondent said that they “see [their] Russian-speaking identity as really more of being raised in the former USSR, a totalitarian regime, the type of which we hope our children will never experience.”
Still, the community is finding new expressions of identity. Judi Garrett, COO at Jewish Relief Network Ukraine, points out that RSJs have played an active role in fundraising efforts. She noted that American-born RSJs organized campaigns that raised significant support for humanitarian aid in Ukraine. Philanthropy may become one of the ways that the next generation expresses who they are.
Parents also voiced deeper concerns. When asked what they worried about most regarding their children’s Jewish identity, the most common answers were antisemitism and assimilation. These anxieties echo across the wider American Jewish community and underscore how forces outside the family shape identity.
The survey does not provide simple answers. It does, however, spark an important conversation. For RSJs in America, the challenge is not only how to preserve their heritage, but how to pass down a Jewish identity rooted in belonging, pride, and purpose.
Mariella Favel leads data analysis at ARSJA, as well as research into how various communal and national organizations are influencing civic discourse.