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Reuben Efron, the CIA agent who tracked JFK’s assassin, tried to recruit his nephew — to be an observant Jew
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Visiting his uncle Reuben in his Washington D.C. law office when he was a teenager, something seemed amiss for Barry Effron.
“There was a wooden desk, and a couple of wooden chairs, [but] there were no bookcases,” he recalled of the visit, which would have taken place in the late 1960s or early 1970s.
Lawyers frequently have legal volumes at arm’s reach, but the absence of bookshelves wasn’t the first gap that Barry and his dad, Irving, had noticed when it came to Irving’s brother. “He had traveled a lot, yet he had no visible means of support,” Effron said this month in an interview.
Reuben Efron did, in fact, have a good job, one that would have come with a pension and a generous expense account. He was a CIA spy, and documents recently declassified by the Biden administration show that Efron was involved in tracking John F. Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, in the years prior.
After that revelation, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency uncovered another side to Efron: a scholar who after his retirement wrote passionately about spies in the Bible, applying the spycraft he learned on the job to assess figures as diverse as Joshua, David and Rahab the courtesan.
Reuben Efron was expansive about his Orthodox faith, Barry Effron recalled, urging Barry to intensify his Jewish observance. “He talked mostly about Judaism, about being religious and being righteous, being prayerful.”
Jewish spies have at times been integral to the American intelligence complex, and at others have been viewed as suspect because of their purported ties to Israel. Efron seems to have been among those who thrived in the service.
Abba Cohen, the Washington director of Agudath Israel of America, whose father was an Orthodox CIA agent, recalled in an email that his parents socialized with the Efrons when they lived in Washington in the 1970s, as members of both the Orthodox and CIA communities.
“I would visit them for dinner after school sometimes, as the Rittenhouse where they lived was across the street from the Hebrew Academy on 16th Street,” he said. “Reuben was an extremely good-natured, low-key, scholarly and modest person.” The friendship between his parents and the Efrons continued after both couples moved to Israel, Cohen said.
After the D.C. visit, the Effrons, father and son, began to put two and two together. (Reuben Efron, the elder brother, and Irving Effron spelled their last names differently.)
“He didn’t have much of a law practice, he knew a lot of languages and he was very, very, very erudite, and he traveled a lot and he had a PhD in international affairs, and he wrote dense scholarly articles that appeared in places like Foreign Affairs Quarterly,” said Barry Effron, who is now a cardiologist in Cleveland. “We thought Reuben was in the CIA.”
The turmoil of the first half of the last century kept the brothers apart for years; Irving Effron was the first to come to the United States, finding work with uncles in Cleveland. Then he returned to their native Lithuania. He used his skills in English to return to the United States via England as Hitler’s shadow loomed larger over Europe; around the same time Reuben managed to arrive in the United States via Cuba. Their widowed mother perished in the Holocaust.
The brothers were not close, but they kept in touch and got together for major occasions; Reuben Efron attended Barry Effron’s bar mitzvah in Cleveland and his wedding in Columbus, and Irving and his wife attended Reuben’s late-in-life wedding to Edna, the “spinster” secretary at the Orthodox synagogue in Miami where Reuben prayed.
The wedding was at the Fontainebleau. Efron in his retirement had purchased an apartment on ritzy Collins Avenue, and also a garden apartment on Keren Hayesod street in the heart of Jerusalem. For Barry Effron, the displays of wealth were additional evidence that there was more to his uncle than met the eye.
Lorri, Barry’s wife, chimed in during his interview, saying she recalled that Reuben Efron’s Jerusalem apartment was near those of government officials (he lived a five-minute walk away from the prime minister’s residence). “He used to have meetings,” she said. (Barry Effron did not recall that detail.)
When they visited him, whether it was in Miami or in Jerusalem, much of the conversation was about Jewish observance, Effron recalled.
“He was proud of his religion, he believed in Jewish law and he believed in kashrut, he believed in davening and all that so he was particularly interested in passing it on,” Effron said. “He had no children of his own, so he was interested in conveying his love of Judaism to his nephew and niece,” Barry’s sister.
He was taken with his great-nieces, Barry and Lorri Effron’s daughters. One had bright blue eyes; he would call her a “shayneh maydeleh,” Yiddish for pretty girl. One of the last times they saw him before he died in 1993, at a home for the elderly in Florida, the girls joined him in Shabbat prayers.
Barry’s family was all Reuben had, Barry Effron said, besides his wife, Edna. “He had my dad and then he had my sister and me,” he said.
Irving Effron was proud of his brother. Effron recalled that his father kept copies of Foreign Policy Quarterly, with its august gray cover and its thick interiors paginated by volume instead of by issue, inside a desk drawer. He was thrilled to see his brother’s name on the same contents page that had featured luminaries like Henry Kissinger.
“My dad was very proud of it, even though he probably didn’t understand the article and of course I didn’t as a young kid or a teenager, but that was pretty exciting,” Effron said.
After Reuben Efron died in 1993 and Irving Effron died in 1996, Barry Effron took to searching for clues about his uncle on the Internet. He soon realized that his and his father’s guess, that Reuben was a CIA agent, was correct.
One piece of evidence was Efron’s presence as a translator for Marina Oswald, the assassin’s Russian-speaking widow, when she was interrogated by the congressional committee investigating the assassination. Another was his uncle’s involvement in the alleged sighting of a UFO in the Soviet Union, while accompanying U.S. Sen. Richard Russell, a Georgia Democrat on a visit to the Soviet Union.
“The guy’s traveling in Russia at the height of the Cold War in 1957, with a congressman, he’s obviously a CIA attache of some kind,” he said.
Barry Effron was in Israel recently for a wedding. He sought out the Keren Hayesod address where his uncle once lived.
“It’s now a very wealthy area in Jerusalem,” he said. He would have ventured closer, but he couldn’t find parking.
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The post Reuben Efron, the CIA agent who tracked JFK’s assassin, tried to recruit his nephew — to be an observant Jew appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Hamas Warns Against Cooperation with US Relief Efforts In Bid to Restore Grip on Gaza
Hamas terrorists carry grenade launchers at the funeral of Marwan Issa, a senior Hamas deputy military commander who was killed in an Israeli airstrike during the conflict between Israel and Hamas, in the central Gaza Strip, Feb. 7, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
The Hamas-run Interior Ministry in Gaza has warned residents not to cooperate with the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, as the terror group seeks to reassert its grip on the enclave amid mounting international pressure to accept a US-brokered ceasefire.
“It is strictly forbidden to deal with, work for, or provide any form of assistance or cover to the American organization (GHF) or its local or foreign agents,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement Thursday.
“Legal action will be taken against anyone proven to be involved in cooperation with this organization, including the imposition of the maximum penalties stipulated in the applicable national laws,” the statement warns.
The GHF released a statement in response to Hamas’ warnings, saying the organization has delivered millions of meals “safely and without interference.”
“This statement from the Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry confirms what we’ve known all along: Hamas is losing control,” the GHF said.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza in late May, implementing a new aid delivery model aimed at preventing the diversion of supplies by Hamas, as Israel continues its defensive military campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group.
The initiative has drawn criticism from the UN and international organizations, some of which have claimed that Jerusalem is causing starvation in the war-torn enclave.
Israel has vehemently denied such accusations, noting that, until its recently imposed blockade, it had provided significant humanitarian aid in the enclave throughout the war.
Israeli officials have also said much of the aid that flows into Gaza is stolen by Hamas, which uses it for terrorist operations and sells the rest at high prices to Gazan civilians.
According to their reports, the organization has delivered over 56 million meals to Palestinians in just one month.
Hamas’s latest threat comes amid growing international pressure to accept a US-backed ceasefire plan proposed by President Donald Trump, which sets a 60-day timeline to finalize the details leading to a full resolution of the conflict.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump announced that Israel has agreed to the “necessary conditions” to finalize a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza, though Israel has not confirmed this claim.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to meet with Trump next week in Washington, DC — his third visit in less than six months — as they work to finalize the terms of the ceasefire agreement.
Even though Trump hasn’t provided details on the proposed truce, he said Washington would “work with all parties to end the war” during the 60-day period.
“I hope, for the good of the Middle East, that Hamas takes this Deal, because it will not get better — IT WILL ONLY GET WORSE,” he wrote in a social media post.
Since the start of the war, ceasefire talks between Jerusalem and Hamas have repeatedly failed to yield enduring results.
Israeli officials have previously said they will only agree to end the war if Hamas surrenders, disarms, and goes into exile — a demand the terror group has firmly rejected.
“I am telling you — there will be no Hamas,” Netanyahu said during a speech Wednesday.
For its part, Hamas has said it is willing to release the remaining 50 hostages — fewer than half of whom are believed to be alive — in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and an end to the war.
While the terrorist group said it is “ready and serious” to reach a deal that would end the war, it has yet to accept this latest proposal.
In a statement, the group said it aims to reach an agreement that “guarantees an end to the aggression, the withdrawal [of Israeli forces], and urgent relief for our people in the Gaza Strip.”
According to media reports, the proposed 60-day ceasefire would include a partial Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, a surge in humanitarian aid, and the release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas, with US and mediator assurances on advancing talks to end the war — though it remains unclear how many hostages would be freed.
For Israel, the key to any deal is the release of most, if not all, hostages still held in Gaza, as well as the disarmament of Hamas, while the terror group is seeking assurances to end the war as it tries to reassert control over the war-torn enclave.
The post Hamas Warns Against Cooperation with US Relief Efforts In Bid to Restore Grip on Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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UK Lawmakers Move to Designate Palestine Action as Terrorist Group Following RAF Vandalism Protest
Police block a street as pro-Palestinian demonstrators gather to protest British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s plans to proscribe the “Palestine Action” group in the coming weeks, in London, Britain, June 23, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jaimi Joy
British lawmakers voted Wednesday to designate Palestine Action as a terrorist organization, following the group’s recent vandalizing of two military aircraft at a Royal Air Force base in protest of the government’s support for Israel.
Last month, members of the UK-based anti-Israel group Palestine Action broke into RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, a county west of London, and vandalized two Voyager aircraft used for military transport and refueling — the latest in a series of destructive acts carried out by the organization.
Palestine Action has regularly targeted British sites connected to Israeli defense firm Elbit Systems as well as other companies in Britain linked to Israel since the start of the conflict in Gaza in 2023.
Under British law, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has the authority to ban an organization if it is believed to commit, promote, or otherwise be involved in acts of terrorism.
Passed overwhelmingly by a vote of 385 to 26 in the lower chamber — the House of Commons — the measure is now set to be reviewed by the upper chamber, the House of Lords, on Thursday.
If approved, the ban would take effect within days, making it a crime to belong to or support Palestine Action and placing the group on the same legal footing as Al Qaeda, Hamas, and the Islamic State under UK law.
Palestine Action, which claims that Britain is an “active participant” in the Gaza conflict due to its military support for Israel, condemned the ban as “an unhinged reaction” and announced plans to challenge it in court — similar to the legal challenges currently being mounted by Hamas.
Under the Terrorism Act 2000, belonging to a proscribed group is a criminal offense punishable by up to 14 years in prison or a fine, while wearing clothing or displaying items supporting such a group can lead to up to six months in prison and/or a fine of up to £5,000.
Palestine Action claimed responsibility for the recent attack, in which two of its activists sprayed red paint into the turbine engines of two Airbus Voyager aircraft and used crowbars to inflict additional damage.
According to the group, the red paint — also sprayed across the runway — was meant to symbolize “Palestinian bloodshed.” A Palestine Liberation Organization flag was also left at the scene.
On Thursday, local authorities arrested four members of the group, aged between 22 and 35, who were charged with conspiracy to enter a prohibited place knowingly for a purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the UK, as well as conspiracy to commit criminal damage.
Palestine Action said this latest attack was carried out as a protest against the planes’ role in supporting what the group called Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza.
At the time of the attack, Cooper condemned the group’s actions, stating that their behavior had grown increasingly aggressive and resulted in millions of pounds in damages.
“The disgraceful attack on Brize Norton … is the latest in a long history of unacceptable criminal damage committed by Palestine Action,” Cooper said in a written statement.
“The UK’s defense enterprise is vital to the nation’s national security and this government will not tolerate those that put that security at risk,” she continued.
The post UK Lawmakers Move to Designate Palestine Action as Terrorist Group Following RAF Vandalism Protest first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US-backed Gaza Relief NGO Vows ‘Legal Action’ Against AP Claim Group Fired on Palestinian Civilians
Palestinians collect aid supplies from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, June 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hatem Khaled
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US-backed nonprofit operating aid distribution centers in the Gaza Strip, is pushing back forcefully against an Associated Press report alleging that its contractors opened fire on Palestinian civilians.
The GHF is accusing the AP of withholding key evidence and relying on a “disgruntled former contractor” as a central source.
“In response, we are pursuing legal action,” the organization said in a statement released Wednesday.
GHF said it conducted an “immediate investigation” after being contacted by the AP, reviewing time-stamped video footage and sworn witness testimony. The group concluded that the allegations were “categorically false,” stating that no civilians were fired upon at any of their distribution sites and that the gunfire heard in the AP’s video came from Israeli forces operating outside the vicinity.
“What is most troubling is that the AP refused to share the full video with us prior to publication, despite the seriousness of the allegations,” the statement read. “If they believed their own reporting, they should have provided us with the footage so we could take immediate and appropriate action.”
The nonprofit’s public rebuttal raises sharp questions about the AP’s reporting process, suggesting the outlet declined to engage with the organization in good faith and instead leaned on a source GHF describes as having been terminated “for misconduct” weeks prior. The group also claimed the AP’s recent coverage of its activities had begun to “echo narratives advanced by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health.”
The AP has not yet responded publicly to the GHF’s accusations or provided clarification about its decision not to share the video footage before publication. The original report alleged that American contractors employed by GHF had fired weapons near or toward civilians.
The GHF statement confirmed that a contractor seen shouting in the AP’s video had been removed from operations, though the group insisted this was unrelated to any violence and did not constitute evidence of wrongdoing.
GHF, which describes its mission as delivering food to Gaza “safely, directly, and without interference,” said it remains committed to transparency but would not allow its operations to be “derailed by misinformation.”
The dispute highlights the fraught information environment in Gaza, where limited access and competing narratives frequently complicate the verification of on-the-ground events.
The post US-backed Gaza Relief NGO Vows ‘Legal Action’ Against AP Claim Group Fired on Palestinian Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.