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No longer a ‘Real Housewife,’ Orthodox influencer Lizzy Savetsky turns to fighting antisemitism
(New York Jewish Week) — Lizzy Savetsky’s life has been turned upside down and inside out over the past eight months.
The 37-year-old social media influencer, who identifies as “a proud Orthodox Jewish woman,” became practically a household name this summer when she was announced as a cast member for the 14th season of “The Real Housewives of New York.” Having recently relocated from Texas to the Upper East Side, the mom of three kids (Stella, 10, Juliet, 8 and Ollie, 2) was thrust into the spotlight alongside six other New York City-based socialites, including fashion designer (and “Girls” guest star) Jenna Lyons and Israeli real estate agent Erin Lichy.
But then, in mid-November, after just weeks of filming, Savetsky left the show. At the time, she said it was due to antisemitism she experienced in online forums. In the aftermath of her departure, there were unsubstantiated reports that she clashed with other cast members, and that her husband had been heard using a racial slur.
In a recent interview with the New York Jewish Week, Savetsky declined to comment on those reports. Instead, she spoke about something she considers exceedingly more important: using the joy and light of Hanukkah — and, well, her social media reach of 225,000 Instagram followers — to fight antisemitism.
Though she’s no longer associated with the reality juggernaut, Savetsky has emerged as a famous Jewish New Yorker nonetheless. These days, she’s making public appearances to talk about community safety and antisemitism, and she even hosted a Hanukkah party at her home where she lit the menorah alongside Mayor Eric Adams.
This Festival of Lights, Savetsky is the face of the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces’ “Live the Miracle” media campaign. Each night of Hanukkah, a different high-profile Jew lights a candle alongside an Israeli soldier, part of a video campaign intended to stand up against antisemitism while supporting the IDF. Also featured in the videos are stand-up comedian Modi Rosenfeld, Israeli actor and anti-antisemitism ambassador Noa Tishby and rapper Kosha Dillz.
Savetsky and her family lit the candle on the first night of Hanukkah alongside Shahar, a female naval combat sergeant currently serving in the IDF. Savetsky called Shahar “an amazing role model for her daughters” who showed them “you’re never too young or too small to contribute amazing things to the Jewish people.”
“It was really one of the most special experiences that we’ve had as a family,” Savetksy said of meeting Shahar and lighting the candles with her. “From a biblical sense, Hanukkah comes after a very dark time and it’s about bringing light to the darkness. To be able to celebrate this, in this moment, is a profound experience, and to be able to do that with a soldier from the IDF is something that means so much to me and my family and to be able to share that with the world is a really big deal.”
The FIDF campaign is only the latest move by Savetsky to showcase her Jewish pride. Though she calls herself an “accidental activist” — the NYU grad who grew up in Fort Worth first began her fashion blog, “Excessories Expert,” in the 2010s, and her media accounts then were mostly dedicated to fashion and lifestyle content — she has become well known for talking about Jewish traditions and customs, promoting Zionism and her love for the State of Israel and, perhaps most urgently of late, calling on others to help fight the scourge of antisemitism.
“I just saw how necessary it was,” Savetsky said of her shift to calling on others to help fight antisemitism. “I want to do everything I can for my people because I want to ensure a future for my children and their children. So I really made a conscious decision to shift my platform to not only fighting antisemitism, but to also share and educate about Judaism because I think a lot of hate is born out of fear.”
“It’s a privilege to stand in solidarity with these influential Jewish figures who will not let darkness prevail,” said Steve Weil, the chief executive officer of Friends of the IDF. “These are people, who, in the face of social media and all sorts of attacks, are standing up for morality, for dignity, and for these young men and young women who are literally at the front line of humanity.”
“I have always been unapologetic about my support for Israel and calling myself a Zionist,” Savetsky told the New York Jewish Week. “I want to put a face to what that means — it is like a wife and a mother and somebody who’s loving and hard-working.”
And yet, her beliefs and outspokenness have drawn the ire of many, especially when the “Real Housewives” cast was announced. Her Instagram handle proclaiming her a “proud Zionist” drew broadsides from pro-Palestinian activists, while some Jews on social media also criticized her for not dressing modestly despite being part of a Modern Orthodox Jewish community.
Savetsky said she and her family received hateful messages and even death threats. Even her husband, plastic surgeon Ira Savetsky, received a letter mailed to his office calling him a “kike” and an “arrogant piece of sh–.”
“I expected to receive negativity. I know that, unfortunately, Israel is a very polarizing topic and I have always been unapologetic about my support for Israel,” she said. “But the amount of hate and the fact that it was coming from all directions — from the far right, from the far left, from so many different groups of people — and the viciousness of it just it really broke my heart.”
The vitriol became overwhelming, Savetsky said. “For the first time I found myself really fearing for my safety and questioning my decision to put myself in this public position,” she said.
Ultimately, after only weeks of filming, Savetsky insists she decided to leave the show because of the antisemitism she faced. “It was definitely not the path for me and for my family,” Savetsky told the New York Jewish Week. “I have no regrets about going through the process because if anything, it shined a light on just how much hate there is out there.”
“I would rather know and understand the reality of it so that I can use my efforts to fight it,” she added. “The fear that I felt from experiencing all the hate I’ve gotten in the past few months really just motivated me to double down and fight even harder.”
Days after her announcement, Page Six, citing “production insiders,” reported that there was more to the story surrounding Savetsky’s departure — including that Savetsky declined to match a non-Jewish cast member up with a Jewish man, and that her husband repeated anti-Black slurs to a producer.
Savetsky declined to comment on these allegations, nor have the rumors been confirmed by Bravo or a named member of the cast. The show is set to air sometime in 2023.
And while she may not be a “Real Housewife,” Savetsky plans to stay in the city. “New York is the center of the universe,” she joked, citing the large and diverse Jewish community as a huge reason why she wanted to raise her kids here. Living on the Upper East Side, Savetsky’s daughters attend a Modern Orthodox day school, and the family is a member of the newly created Altneu congregation, helmed by Rabbi Benjamin Goldschmidt and his wife Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt.
Despite leaving the show, Savetsky has no plans to be silent about antisemitism. Savetsky has gained more than 20,000 followers since the “Real Housewives” cast announcement, and the subsequent antisemitism she faced — as well as the rise in antisemitic incidents, in general — have only inspired her to be more outspoken about her Judaism and Zionism, she said.
“Everything has changed in the past few months — for me, personally, and I believe for the Jewish people and the world,” Savetsky said. “The world is waking up to the reality that antisemitism isn’t just this looming threat, but it’s real and it’s here and I think people are opening their eyes to that.”
She added: “I’ve never felt like my purpose was so clear as I do in this moment to be loud and proud and to stand up for my people.”
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Majority of New York City Jewish Voters Dissatisfied With Mamdani, Poll Shows
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
A new poll of Jewish voters in New York City points to deep dissatisfaction with Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s leadership, particularly over his handling of rhetoric tied to the Israel-Hamas conflict.
The survey, conducted by Mercury Public Affairs in partnership with The Jewish Majority, sampled 665 Jewish voters who cast ballots in last year’s mayoral election between Feb. 17 and 28. Its findings suggest a growing disconnect between Mamdani and the local Jewish community, building upon an already tense and fraught relationship.
According to the newly released poll, 58 percent of respondents rated Mamdani’s job performance as “fair” or “poor,” including 40 percent who said it was “poor.” Just 32 percent said he was doing an “excellent” or “good” job. The numbers indicate that a clear majority of Jewish voters surveyed are dissatisfied with the direction of the city under the mayor’s leadership.
The survey also highlights sharp concern over Mamdani’s response to the phrase “globalize the intifada,” a slogan widely condemned by pro-Israel advocates as inciting violence against Jews. Sixty-one percent of respondents said the mayor’s refusal to explicitly denounce the phrase has “emboldened pro-Hamas protesters,” reflecting alarm among many Jewish voters about rising antisemitism and public safety.
For many in the community, the issue goes beyond rhetoric. Critics argue that failing to clearly reject language associated with violence risks normalizing extremism at a time when Jewish communities in the US and globally have reported increased threats. New York City has experienced an ongoing surge in antisemitic hate crimes in the two-and-a-half years since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
The “glogalize the intifada” slogan, which gained traction at pro-Palestinian protests worldwide amid the Israel–Hamas war in Gaza, has been criticized by many Jewish New Yorkers who associate it with calls for violence against Jewish and Israeli civilians. The term “intifada,” Arabic for “uprising,” is widely known from two bloody periods of sustained Palestinian terrorism against Israelis. Many observers have argued that calls to “globalize the intifada” encourage activists to take up political violence worldwide, especially against the Jewish community and supporters of Israel.
In June 2025, Mamdani defended the phrase by invoking the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising during World War II. In response, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum repudiated the then-mayoral candidate, calling his comments “outrageous and especially offensive to [Holocaust] survivors.”
Mamdani has also faced scrutiny over his handling of issues pertaining to antisemitism and the Jewish community. The Mamdani administration revoked the city’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism when the mayor entered office, arguing that rigid definitions can risk conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism and may complicate the handling of politically sensitive speech.
IHRA — an intergovernmental organization comprising dozens of countries including the US and Israel — adopted the “working definition” of antisemitism in 2016. Since then, the definition has been widely accepted by Jewish groups and lawmakers across the political spectrum, and it is now used by hundreds of governing institutions, including the US State Department, European Union, and United Nations. Law enforcement also uses it as a tool for matters such as hate-crime investigations and sentencing.
The mayor’s office has also voiced support for divestments from Israeli bonds. The suggestion has received substantial pushback from the city’s business community, noting that the bonds have been a safe, long-standing investment for city pension funds and that financial decisions must be separated from political pressure. City Comptroller Mark Levine recently touted the bonds’ decades-long record of repayment and argued his office’s responsibility was to maximize returns for retirees, not respond to shifting political campaigns.
The poll’s findings align with voting patterns from the most recent mayoral election, in which Mamdani struggled to win broad support among Jewish voters. He received 26 percent of the vote within the group, far behind his chief opponent, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who secured 55 percent. Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa received 8 percent.
Observers speculate the numbers could pose a longer-term challenge for Mamdani as he navigates a city with the world’s largest population outside of Israel.
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Molotov Cocktail Attacks Target Jewish Institutions in Argentina in Two Incidents Within a Week
A display in Buenos Aires of pictures and names of victims of the 1994 AMIA bombing, in which 85 people died and hundreds more were wounded. Photo: Reuters/Marcos Brindicci.
Argentine Jews are on edge after Jewish institutions in Buenos Aires were targeted in Molotov cocktail attacks in two separate incidents in less than a week, deepening security concerns within the local Jewish community.
On Sunday, unknown individuals threw a homemade firebomb at the Chabad Lubavitch Jewish Community Center in La Plata, a city in southeastern Buenos Aires, in a brazen attack marking the second within a week.
Local authorities reported no significant material damage or casualties, though the incident has fueled alarm over a broader pattern of violence targeting Jews across the country.
The Buenos Aires Security Ministry and Police Counterterrorism Division have opened an investigation into this latest incident, examining possible links to an attack last week that appears to share a similar modus operandi.
The Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA), the country’s Jewish umbrella organization, strongly condemned this second attack, warning of a disturbing pattern of incidents and calling for an urgent investigation and clear condemnation.
“Violence must be countered through education and by bringing those responsible to justice. When hatred goes unpunished, it escalates, and today it is once again surfacing in tangible acts that cannot be normalized,” DAIA said in a statement.
“There is no room for indifference. Antisemitism is not an isolated incident, it is a threat that demands a firm response, coordinated institutional action, and the strict enforcement of the law,” it continued.
NUEVO ATAQUE ANTISEMITA EN LA PLATA
Una vez másExpresamos nuestro más enérgico repudio frente a un nuevo ataque antisemita ocurrido en la ciudad de La Plata, esta vez contra la sede de Jabad Lubavitch.
Advertimos que la violencia debe ser combatida con educación y con el… pic.twitter.com/h1jrYg56hY
— DAIA (@DAIAArgentina) May 3, 2026
In an alarming earlier attack, the Israelite Literary Center and Max Nordau Library in La Plata was targeted Thursday when unidentified individuals threw a homemade Molotov-type device at the building’s entrance.
Although the device failed to ignite, it shattered the building’s windows and caused some material damage. Fortunately, no fires broke out and no injuries were reported.
The center condemned the attack, pointing to a “growing level of antisemitism nationally and internationally” and warning that such trends are contributing to a broader climate of hostility.
“We cannot separate this episode from the rise in antisemitism and the climate of intolerance that enables expressions of hatred. This compels us to promote, now more than ever, a democratic coexistence based on respect for pluralism,” the statement read.
“These acts do not intimidate us – they strengthen our conviction to continue building culture, critical thinking, and community,” it continued.
In response to these latest attacks, Jewish institutions across the country have strengthened preventive protocols and reinforced internal security and surveillance measures.
La Plata Mayor Julio Alak denounced the attack as an assault on democratic coexistence and pluralistic values, reiterating that the city will firmly uphold mutual respect and reject all forms of hatred.
The DAIA called on authorities to act swiftly, identify those responsible, and apply the full extent of the law, stressing the need for decisive action to prevent further incidents.
“Impunity cannot be an option. This is an expression of hatred that not only harms the Jewish community but also threatens the fundamental values of coexistence, respect, and democracy,” the organization said.
“Every act of antisemitism that goes unpunished sends a message of tolerance toward hatred. Every firm response from authorities is a clear signal that society is unwilling to back down,” it continued. “To ensure these incidents do not happen again, determination, action, and justice are required.”
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Israel Launches Mobile Climate Lab in Kenya to Improve Africa’s Data Collection for Environmental Policy
Israel’s Ambassador to Kenya, Gideon Behar, meets with Cabinet Secretary for Interior and National Security, Kipchumba Murkomen, on March 3, 2026. Photo: Screenshot
Israel’s Ambassador to Kenya has announced an initiative to deploy a mobile climate laboratory to grow data collection in the African nation, an effort to provide real-time information so policymakers can pursue solutions as temperatures continue to rise across the continent.
“There is a huge gap in climate data and climate knowledge in Africa, and the work of this laboratory helps us close this gap,” Gideon Behar said on Saturday while visiting the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) site in Kapiti, the current home of the mobile lab. He said that the plan would allow political leaders “to make better policy decisions based on real and accurate science.”
Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science has spearheaded and operated the project. In December, the institute described the project’s importance, explaining that “Africa’s landscapes are transforming faster than almost anywhere else on earth, yet the continent remains one of the world’s largest blind spots in climate observations.”
The institute said that following a months-long journey around the African continent by sea, the “fully equipped Biosphere–Atmosphere Research Mobile Lab is about to roll onto African soil, launching an ambitious campaign to measure how land-use change is reshaping the region’s carbon, water, and energy cycles.”
ILRI’s Director General Appolinaire Djikeng described the importance of the project for not only Kenya but also the entire African continent.
“We are in a society where we need data to make decisions,” Djikeng said. “The pressure from the climate crisis requires precision. This facility allows us to generate the evidence needed to guide sustainable food production and environmental management.”
Academics leading the research team include Dan Yakir, professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, staff scientist Eyal Rotenberg, and post-doctoral researcher Dan Elhanati. Rotenberg said that climate models in Africa today “are not well calibrated because there has been very little measurement. This initiative will provide the data needed to validate and improve those models.”
The mobile unit features more than 30 scientific instruments set to measure carbon exchanges, levels of solar radiation, water usage, and these factors’ impact on changes in vegetation. The lab’s ability to move enables much broader and more diverse data collection in a variety of ecosystems, according to the researchers.
“I’ve been working in this field for 25 years, studying vegetation – atmosphere interactions,” Rotenberg told Kenya’s Capital FM. “Not only how vegetation affects the atmosphere, but how the atmosphere affects vegetation.”
“That is my core motivation — to come to Africa,” he added. “Unlike in Europe, the United States, Japan or China, there is very little measurement here. But climate is global. We must understand it everywhere, especially in Africa.”
Behar — who also serves as Ambassador-Designated to Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, and Seychelles and Permanent Representative of UNEP and UN HABITAT (UNON) — said “the measurements and scientific work being conducted here will serve the global fight against climate change.”
Rotenberg emphasized, “If vegetation uses most of the water, there is less available for human use … We need to understand that balance.”
The project plans to operate for three years before relocating to Mount Kenya and other regions. Weizmann then plans to expand to Tanzania, South Africa, and other countries.
According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) State of the Climate in Africa 2024 report, “extreme weather and climate change are intensifying hunger, insecurity, and displacement across Africa, impacting every facet of socio-economic development.” Depending on the data set, 2024 was either the warmest or second warmest year in Africa on record, and the previous decade was the warmest ever recorded.
WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said the organization’s report “reveals a stark pattern of extreme weather events, with some countries grappling with exceptional flooding caused by excessive rainfall and others enduring persistent droughts and water scarcity.”
The effort in Kenya comes as Israel has expanded efforts in Africa to counter the impacts of climate change and the widespread droughts that have followed.
In February, officials and workers from Somaliland’s National Water Authority arrived in Israel for a course developed to train them on Israeli technology and techniques for water preservation and treatment. The trip came two months following Israel’s recognition of Somaliland, located in the Horn, as an independent, sovereign state.