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Synagogues are joining the ‘effective altruism’ movement. Will the Sam Bankman-Fried scandal stop them?
(JTA) — A few years ago, Adam Azari was frustrated over how little he could do to alleviate suffering in the world with his modest income as a writer and caretaker for people with disabilities.
He kept thinking about a set of statistics and ideas he had encountered during his graduate studies in philosophy. For example, he remembered reading that for the price of training a guide dog for the blind in the United States, one could prevent hundreds of cases of blindness in the developing world.
This hyper-rational way of thinking about doing good was called effective altruism, and it was growing into a movement, known as E.A. for short. Some proponents were even opting to pursue lucrative careers in finance and tech that they otherwise might not have chosen so they would have more money to give away.
Azari, meanwhile, had become a believer who was stuck on the sidelines. Then, one day, he had what he calls a “personal eureka moment.” Azari would return to his roots as the son of a Reform rabbi in Tel Aviv and spread the word of E.A. across the Jewish denomination and among its millions of followers.
“It suddenly hit me that the Reform movement has this crazy untapped potential to save thousands and thousands of lives by simply informing Jews about effective giving,” he recalled.
He badgered his father, Rabbi Meir Azari, and, for a moment, thought of becoming a rabbi himself. But he abandoned the idea and focused on pitching E.A. to the Reform movement’s international arm, the World Union for Progressive Judaism. Azari found an ally in WUPJ’s president, Rabbi Sergio Bergman, and the organization soon decided to sponsor his efforts, paying him a salary for his work.
Over the past year, Azari’s Jewish Effective Giving Initiative has presented to about 100 rabbis and secured pledges from 37 Reform congregations to donate at least $3,000 to charities rated as the most impactful by E.A. advocates and which aid poor people in the developing world. Per E.A. calculations, it costs $3,000 to $5,000 to save a single life.
“Progressive Judaism inspires us to carry out tikkun olam, our concrete action to make the world better and repair its injustices,” Bergman said. “With this call we not only do what the heart dictates in values, but also do it effectively to be efficient and responsible for saving a life.”
This charitable philosophy appears to be gaining traction in the Jewish world just as one of the figures most associated with it, who happens to be Jewish, has become engulfed in scandal.
Sam Bankman-Fried built a cryptocurrency empire worth billions, amassing a fortune he pledged to give away to causes such as artificial intelligence, combatting biohazards and climate change, all selected on criteria developed by the proponents of effective altruism.
A few weeks ago, Bankman-Fried’s fortune evaporated amid suspicions of financial misconduct and revelations of improper oversight at his company, FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange that was worth as much as $32 billion before a run of withdrawals ultimately left it illiquid. The situation has drawn comparisons to the implosion of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, and authorities investigating the situation have said Bankman-Fried could face criminal penalties over his role.
In the wake of FTX’s collapse, Bankman-Fried has suggested that his embrace of E.A. was insincere, a tactic to bolster his reputation.
But Azari and the organizer of another initiative, a growing reading and discussion group called Effective Altruism for Jews, are undaunted and don’t believe the scandal should taint the underlying principles of the movement.
“Whether you call it E.A. or just directly donating to global health and development, it doesn’t matter,” Azari said. “The basic idea is to support these wonderful charities, and I don’t think the FTX scandal changes any of that. Malaria nets, vitamin A supplements and vaccine distribution are still super cost-effective, evidence-based ways of helping others.”
Azari added that he has had several meetings with rabbis since the news about Bankman-Fried broke and that no one has asked him about it.
“I don’t think people are making the connection,” he said. “And to me, there is no connection between us and FTX.”
When talking to rabbis about why E.A. would make a good fit with their congregation’s charitable mission, Azari cites the Jewish value of tikkun olam, a mandate to “repair the world” often used to implore people to care for others. He explains that donating to charities with a proven track record is a concrete way to fulfill a Jewish responsibility.
That kind of thinking proved attractive to Steven Pinker, the prominent Harvard psychologist, who has endorsed Azari’s initiative. In a recorded discussion with Azari and others last year, Pinker recalled his Reform upbringing, which included Hebrew school, summer camp and synagogue services.
“The thing I remember most is how much of my so-called religious education was like a university course in moral philosophy,” Pinker said. “We chewed over moral dilemmas.”
As an adult, Pinker returned to Jewish teachings on charity and, in particular, those of the medieval philosopher Maimonides, examining these ideas through the lens of E.A. He began to wonder about the implications of Maimonides’ focus on evaluating charity based on the motives of the donor. That focus, he concluded, doesn’t always lead to the best outcomes for the beneficiary.
“What ultimately ought to count in tzedakah, in charity, is, are you making people better off?” he said.
Also on the panel with Azari and Pinker was the man credited with authoring the foundational texts upon which E.A. is built. Peter Singer, who is also Jewish and whose grandfather died in the Holocaust, teaches bioethics at Princeton. Starting in the 1970s, Singer wrote a series of books in which he argues for a utilitarian approach to ethics, namely, that we should forgo luxuries and spend our money to save lives. The extremes to which he has taken his thinking include suggesting that parents of newborn babies with severe disabilities be permitted to kill them.
From Bankman-Fried to Singer, the list of Jews who have either promoted E.A. or lead its institutions is long. With their estimated fortune of $11.3 billion, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and his wife Cari Tuna have eclipsed Bankman-Fried as the wealthiest Jews in the field. There’s also popular philosopher Sam Harris and New York Times columnist Ezra Klein, who have each dedicated episodes of their podcast to the topic.
The website LessWrong, which defines itself as “a community blog devoted to refining the art of rationality,” is seen as an important early influence; it was founded by Eliezer Yudkowsky, an artificial intelligence researcher who grew up in a Modern Orthodox household but does not identify religiously as a Jew anymore. Two other Jews, Holden Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld, left the hedge fund world to establish GiveWell, a group whose research is considered the premier authority on which charities are deserving of E.A. donations.
The prevalence of Jews in the movement caught the attention of E.A. enthusiast Ben Schifman, an environmental lawyer for the federal government in Washington, D.C. About two years ago, Schifman proposed creating a group for like-minded individuals in hope of helping grow the movement. In an online post, he laid out the history of Jewish involvement and wrote a brief introduction to the topic of Judaism and charity.
Today, Schifmam runs a group called Effective Altruism for Jews, whose main program is an eight-week fellowship involving a reading and discussion group with designated facilitators. Schifman said about 70 people spread across 10 cohorts are currently participating. There’s also a Shabbat dinner program to bring people together for informal meetings with funding available for hosts.
Participants discuss how ideas that are popular in E.A. might relate to Jewish traditions and concepts, and also brainstorm ways to popularize the movement in the wider Jewish community, according to Schifman.
“There’s a lot of low-hanging fruit with regards to the Jewish community and sharing some of the ideas of Effective Altruism, like through giving circles at synagogues or, during the holidays, offering charities that are effective,” Schifman said in an interview that took place before the Bankman-Fried scandal broke.
Asked to discuss the mood in the community following the collapse of Bankman-Fried’s company and an affiliated charity, FTX Future Fund, Schifman provided a brief statement expressing continued confidence in his project.
He said, “While we’re shocked by the news and our hearts go out to all those affected, as an organization EA for Jews isn’t funded by FTX Future Fund or otherwise connected to FTX. We don’t expect our work will be impacted.”
Even if Schifman and Azari are right that their movement is robust enough to withstand the downfall of a leading evangelist, a debate remains about what impact E.A. can or should have on philanthropy itself.
Andres Spokoiny, president and CEO of the Jewish Funders Network, wrote about the question with skepticism in an article published more than two years ago. He argued against “uncritically importing the values and assumptions” of effective altruists, whose emphasis on the “cold light of reason” struck him as detached from human nature.
In a recent interview, Spokoiny echoed similar concerns, noting that applying pure rationality to all charitable giving would mean the end of cherished programs such as PJ Library, which supplies children’s books for free to Jewish families, that may not directly save lives but do contribute to a community’s culture and sense of identity.
He also worries that too strong a focus on evidence of impact would steer money away from new ideas.
“Risky, creative ideas don’t tend to emerge from rational needs assessments,” he said. “It requires a transformative vision that goes beyond that.”
But Spokoiny also sounded more open to E.A. and said that as long as it does not try to replace traditional modes of philanthropy, it could be a useful tool of analysis for donors.
“If donors want to apply some of E.A. principles to their work, I’d say that is a good idea,” he said. “I am still waiting to see if this will be a fad or buzzword or something that will be incorporated into the practice of philanthropy.”
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The post Synagogues are joining the ‘effective altruism’ movement. Will the Sam Bankman-Fried scandal stop them? appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Illinois primary pits Jewish candidate with deep Israel ties against AIPAC spending
Daniel Biss might seem like the kind of candidate the American Israel Public Affairs Committee could live with. The two-term Evanston mayor grew up partly in Israel, where his family spent summers. His mother is Israeli. He speaks Hebrew. And in his political career, he regularly engaged with pro-Israel groups, including AIPAC.
But with voters going to the polls Tuesday in Illinois for a closely watched Democratic congressional primary, Biss, 48, finds himself in the unusual position of defending himself against nearly $6 million in spending from an AIPAC-aligned super PAC. His district includes Evanston and Chicago’s North Shore suburbs, with one of the largest Jewish populations in the Midwest and a history of Jewish representation. An estimated 11% of the electorate is Jewish.
Speaking with the Forward, Biss acknowledged that the barrage of negative ads has been unpleasant. But he said the outside spending has become central to his campaign, as he seeks to highlight who is behind the attacks. Once voters learn about AIPAC’s role, he said, “they are repelled.”
Biss is the latest target of the major Israel lobby group’s campaign to eliminate candidates for Congress who have substantial engagement on Israel aimed at taking a more moderate path for U.S. policy — even if that means helping get far-left candidates who denounce Israel nominated instead.
That’s what happened in AIPAC’s first intervention in Democratic primaries this year, in a New Jersey special election for a House seat. There, progressive candidate Analilia Mejia — who described Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as a genocide — prevailed after an AIPAC-associated super PAC spent more than $2 million targeting former Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski.
Elect Chicago Women, a super PAC aligned with AIPAC, has invested more than $5.7 million in attacking Biss and boosting State Sen. Laura Fine, who is also Jewish.
Recent polling, however, showed the spending has not necessarily reshaped the race in Fine’s favor. Kat Abughazaleh, a young Palestinian-American progressive candidate, has risen to second place in recent weeks. She is backed by Justice Democrats and a newer pro-Palestinian political group called Peace, Accountability, Leadership PAC. Her surge has fueled concerns among some Democrats that the race could produce another member of the progressive “Squad” in Congress and make it harder to win the general election.
Biss had tried to get into AIPAC’s good graces. He acknowledged that he had previously engaged with local AIPAC representatives in “good faith,” even submitting a position paper outlining his views on Israel. But he now believes the organization’s approach has become too inflexible to allow for meaningful dialogue.
He called “absurd” AIPAC’s stance opposing any conditions on U.S. military aid to Israel. “And then try to enforce it with millions of dollars of dark money, is certainly bad for democracy and bad for our politics here in America,” Biss added.
Biss said he supports a pair of measures that would restrict certain offensive arms sales to Israel and increase oversight of Israel’s policies in the occupied West Bank and in Gaza. Current Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who is Jewish and has held the seat for nearly three decades, is a co-sponsor of both the Block the Bombs Act and the Ceasefire Compliance Act.
Biss’ views on Israel are shaped in part by his own family’s history. All four of his grandparents were born in Europe. His father’s parents fled Nazi-era Europe in the late 1930s, settling in Decatur, Illinois, where his grandfather established a medical practice.
His mother’s family had a more harrowing journey. Ethnic Hungarians living in what was then Romanian-controlled Transylvania, they were deported to Auschwitz in 1944. Biss’ grandmother, her sister and one brother survived, while her parents and two other siblings were killed. After the war, the surviving members of the family returned to their hometown before immigrating to Israel, where Biss’ mother was raised. Much of his extended family still lives there today.
He said he visited Israel nearly every year from childhood through his early adulthood and speaks Hebrew, which he learned as a child from his mother.
“My connection to Israel is very deep, real and personal,” Biss said. “This is not some political position I take for a questionnaire.”
At the same time, he said, his Jewish upbringing also shaped how he thinks about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
If elected to Congress, Biss said, he would push the United States to bring diplomatic and economic pressure to bear on Israel, measures backed by J Street, a more liberal alternative to AIPAC. “I think that it’s important to have people in Congress who advocate for that kind of position, from a standpoint of supporting Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish democratic state, understanding Israel’s need to defend itself, and advocating for a vision of Israeli defense and security that is not inconsistent with basic humanitarian principles, and with the Jewish values of treating every life as equally sacred,” he said.
Steve Sheffey, a longtime Chicago Democratic activist who writes an insider politics newsletter, said that AIPAC’s attacks on Biss seem perplexing — until understood as targeting someone who poses a threat to uncritical U.S. backing. “Biss’ background on Israel is so much deeper and more extensive than almost any member of Congress in either party,” Sheffey said. “When Daniel Biss says something about Israel, it comes with authority.”
Sheffey suggested that independent thinking may be exactly what worries AIPAC.
“AIPAC sees me as a threat because they know that in Congress, I can’t be dismissed,” Biss said in a recent statement.
More districts, more division
The contest is not the only Illinois primary where hardline Israel advocacy groups are playing a major role.
In the 2nd District, a crowded race to replace Rep. Robin Kelly — who is running for the U.S. Senate — has drawn attention after Schakowsky withdrew her endorsement of Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller over her ties to AIPAC-aligned donors. One of Miller’s chief rivals is State Sen. Robert Peters, a Black Jew who has been endorsed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, accused Israel of genocide and signed on to the Block the Bombs Act. Peters wrote in an op-ed for the Forward that AIPAC’s opposition to him is driven by concern that outspoken Jewish critics of Israeli policy like himself will prompt “others who may have been nervously hanging back…feel like they can take bolder action as well.”
In the crowded race to replace retiring Rep. Danny Davis in the 7th District, the campaign of Chicago City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin has received about $5 million in spending from AIPAC’s United Democracy Project and an endorsement from Democratic Majority for Israel. Jason Friedman, who is Jewish and previously got AIPAC support, has been “approved” in the primary by J Street.
AIPAC is also boosting former Rep. Melissa Bean, vying to replace incumbent Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who is running in a Senate primary. Elect Chicago Women spent $3.9 in the race. Bean’s campaign also received more than $400,000 in donations from AIPAC donors. Her chief rival is Junaid Ahmed, a critic of Israel who supports an arms embargo on the Jewish state. Chicago Progressive Partnership, a group that shares vendors and donors with other AIPAC-affiliated PACs, aired an attack ad against Ahmed, attacking his personal wealth and investments in Tesla.
In an email to its supporters, AIPAC attempted to frame the races as a fight against potential “Squad” members. It listed Abughazaleh, Peters and Ahmed, along with an additional three progressive lower-tier candidates, as people with “dangerous visions for America,” who need to be stopped. “The pro-Israel community is taking the political fight to them, and we are not backing down,” Jake Braunstein, AIPAC senior director, wrote.
Biss, the candidate most heavily targeted by AIPAC-aligned spending, was not mentioned.
“AIPAC is backing a candidate who has almost no chance of winning,” Sheffey said, referring to Fine.
Joe Rubin, a Democratic commentator and foreign policy expert, said the Biss-Fine-Abughazaleh race differs from AIPAC’s earlier intervention in New Jersey in ways that could prove more embarrassing for the group. In the New Jersey election, AIPAC sought to defeat Malinowski without backing a clear favorite and was willing to take that risk. In Illinois, however, the group is investing heavily to elect Fine — so far unsuccessfully.
“I don’t believe AIPAC is necessarily heartbroken” if they empower a far-left candidate, Rubin said. “But I do think that they’re trying to defeat who they feel will be a very strong opponent.”
The post Illinois primary pits Jewish candidate with deep Israel ties against AIPAC spending appeared first on The Forward.
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Trump Proclaims Isolationist Critics ‘Are Not MAGA’ While Defending Mark Levin From Vulgar Insult
US President Donald Trump speaks during a visit at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, US, Feb. 13, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
An uncouth online argument between two of the most prominent American conservative commentators inspired an intervention on Sunday night from US President Donald Trump, who backed radio host Mark Levin during a heated exchange with podcaster Megyn Kelly.
Trump also defended his policy toward Iran in his Truth Social post, lambasting isolationist critics of his foreign policy as not being part of his so-called “Make America Great Again (MAGA)” movement.
“Mark Levin, a truly Great American Patriot, is somewhat under siege by other people with far less Intellect, Capability, and Love for our Country. Mark is Tough, Strong, and Brilliant, hence the nickname, ‘THE GREAT ONE,’ conceived by our MAGA friend, the wonderful Sean Hannity,” Trump wrote before effusively praising Levin as “a true Conservative, and Intellect” who was “far smarter than those who criticize him but, above all, he is a man of Great Wisdom.”
Trump warned that “those that speak ill of Mark will quickly fall by the wayside, as do the people whose ideas, policies, and footings are not sound.” He went on to proclaim, “THEY ARE NOT MAGA, I AM, and MAGA includes not allowing Iran, a Sick, Demented, and Violent Terrorist Regime, to have a Nuclear Weapon.”
Repeating his pledge to obliterate the Islamic regime in Iran, Trump vowed that “MAGA is about stopping them cold, and that is exactly what we are doing. GOD BLESS OUR GREAT MILITARY, WHICH I HAVE REBUILT SINCE THE BEGINNING OF MY FIRST TERM, TO ACHIEVE EVERLASTING PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
While not naming the specific individuals who had attacked Levin, online observers recognized the commander-in-chief had written in response to a provocative exchange between “the Great One” and Kelly which had devolved into grade-school-level taunting.
In recent months, Kelly has earned the ire of pro-Israel advocates due to her decision to align herself with the antisemitic positions and conspiracy theories promoted by fellow podcasters Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and Nick Fuentes. During a discussion with Carlson in January, Kelly praised Fuentes — a man who has celebrated Adolf Hitler, promoted Joseph Stalin, supported Hamas, and urged his “Groyper” followers to rape women — as “very interesting and he’s very smart.” She said, “There is value to be derived from that guy’s messaging.”
Kelly, Owens, Carlson, and Fuentes have also been adamantly opposed to the US military campaign against Iran, claiming without evidence that Israel dragged Trump into the conflict.
On Sunday, Levin wrote on X: “Poor Megyn Kelly. An emotionally unhinged, lewd, and petulant wreck. She’s completely revealed and destroyed herself. She’s everything people say she is, but much worse. Never an intelligent, thoughtful, or substantive comment. Utterly toxic.”
Kelly reposted Levin’s remarks before she struck below the belt. In a post that has since received 6.3 million views, Kelly wrote, “Micropenis Mark @marklevinshow thinks he has the monopoly on lewd. He tweets about me obsessively in the crudest, nastiest terms possible. Literally more than some stalkers I’ve had arrested. He doesn’t like it when women like me fight back. Bc of his micropenis.”
Levin then reshared Kelly’s jab at his manhood and responded with a Freudian implication, writing, “Busy Sunday morning for Megyn Kelly. She wakes up and has ‘micrope*is’ on her mind. Suffice to say, if it talks like a harlot, and posts like a harlot, it’s … well, you know the rest. Shalom!”
Early Monday morning, Kelly doubled down on her vulgarity and responded to Trump’s Truth Social post, suggesting that Levin had requested support.
“Micro penis @marklevinshow is such a SMALL MAN he had to go beg the president for a pat on the head (in the middle of a war!) to make himself feel better about … well, you know,” Kelly wrote. “This, after one mean tweet about him – following his 111 (!) nasty, non-stop, personal, misogynistic attacks on me. (Fox has an OBSESSED HARASSER on its hands.)”
Kelly added, “Just like all feckless, weakling bullies Micro can dish it out but he can’t take it. After just one post putting the so-called ‘great one’ in his place, he ran crying to Daddy.”
Rejecting the charge that he had solicited support in their flame war from the president, Levin wrote on X that “no, I did not speak to the president about releasing any statement. These reprobates have nothing but lies and conspiracies and hate. And the more they talk and post, the more people have had enough of them. They will eventually dry up and blow away, like those who’ve come before them.”
On Sunday night, Levin thanked Trump for his praise, writing, “I am beyond humbled by your words and graciousness in writing such a beautiful note and sharing it on Truth Social. I am honored that you took the time to write it. Your courage, strength, and moral clarity are truly unparalleled. And your leadership has made our country and the world much safer.”
Six hours after Kelly’s initial insult against Levin, her ally Owens took her own shot, writing in a long note on X that “no matter how many articles Bari Weiss publishes or how many monologues Mark Levin stammers through, the overwhelming majority of people in the world sense that Charlie Kirk was murdered for opposing this war and that Israel’s hands are not clean in the story.”
Owens further aligned herself with Carlson and Kelly, stating, “People like myself and like Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly (however ignorant we may or may not have been in our earlier assessments) once genuinely supported Israel and thought Zionism was a moral position.”
Continuing to advance her conspiracy theory of Israeli involvement in the murder of her friend Kirk, Owens wrote, “In their sheer arrogance, rather than meaningfully working to restore relationships, zionists continue to use tactics of slander, deception, law-fare and yes, murder to force their perspectives. They no longer seem capable of making a distinction between illusion and reality. They wrongly assumed that with enough money, they could purchase truth.”
On Monday, former US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene backed Kelly in the feud, writing, “I wholeheartedly support Megyn Kelly telling the world that Mark Levin has a micropenis. It’s the most deserved insult and I don’t care if it’s vulgar. And Trump’s gigantic defense of Levin only enraged the base more. People are DONE. MAGA destroyed by micropenis Mark Levin.”
Greene had written her comment in response to Kelly defending her rhetoric to far-right influencer Mike Cernovich, who criticized the intra-right battle as a “total distraction to spend hours a week reacting to each other. It’s slave behavior.”
Kelly responded to Cernovich by justifying herself, writing, “Disagree. You can take the high road and ignore for a while but eventually after hundreds of tweets/attacks you punch the bully in the rhetorical face. And then he goes running to daddy about his Micropenis.”
While debates about Israel and the Iran war may engage online pugilists with audiences to entertain, polling shows that the vast majority of Republicans (85 percent) and self-identified “MAGA” supporters (91 percent) back Trump’s decision to bomb the Islamic regime in Iran.
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German Antisemitism Commissioner Leaves the Left Party Over Anti-Israel Stance, Lack of Support Amid Death Threats
Andreas Büttner (Die Linke), photographed during the state parliament session. The politician was nominated for the position of Brandenburg’s antisemitism commissioner. Photo: Soeren Stache/dpa via Reuters Connect
Andreas Büttner, the commissioner for antisemitism in the state of Brandenburg in northeastern Germany, has resigned from the Left Party, citing a rise in antisemitism within the ranks, relentless personal attacks, and a party climate that has become intolerable.
“I struggled with this decision for a long time, as I have felt a deep connection to the party over many years,” Büttner wrote in a letter to the party leadership, as reported by German media.
“But I have reached a point where I must acknowledge that I can no longer remain a member of this party without betraying my own convictions,” he continued.
According to several German media reports, the commissioner, who had been a member of the Left Party since 2015, said he was resigning over the party’s handling of antisemitism, internal expulsion proceedings aimed at removing him, and relentless personal attacks.
“The fight against antisemitism is a task that transcends party lines,” Büttner wrote in his letter. “All the more shocking for me is what I have had to witness within my own party for years.”
He criticized the Left Party’s rejection of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, noting that the party falsely regards it as a tool to repress protest while continuing to relativize antisemitic rhetoric.
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.
In his letter, Büttner also condemned the Left Party in Lower Saxony, a federal state in northwestern Germany, for its position on Zionism, insisting that challenging Israel’s right to exist is unacceptable — especially after the state convention passed resolutions branding Israel a “genocidal state” and an “apartheid state.”
“These resolutions are no longer acceptable to me,” he said.
In recent years, Büttner has faced not only external threats but also a sustained campaign of insults and defamation from members within his own party.
“The way my own party has handled attacks against me is particularly troubling,” Büttner wrote in his letter. “Instead of clear solidarity, I have too often experienced silence.”
Federal party leader Jan van Aken expressed regret over Büttner’s resignation but rejected any accusations of antisemitism within the Left Party, reiterating that the party “stands unequivocally against antisemitism.”
Earlier this year, Büttner endured two personal attacks within a single week, the second escalating into a death threat.
The Brandenburg state parliament received a letter threatening Büttner’s life, with the words “We will kill you” and an inverted red triangle, the symbol of support for the Islamist terrorist group Hamas.
A former police officer, Büttner took office as commissioner for antisemitism in 2024 and has faced repeated attacks since.
In the week prior to this latest attack, Büttner’s private property in Templin — a town approximately 43 miles north of Berlin — was targeted in an arson attack, and a red, inverted Hamas triangle was spray-painted on his house.
According to Büttner, his family was inside the house at the time of the attack, marking what was at the time latest assault against him in the past 16 months.
In August 2024, swastikas and other antisemitic symbols and threats were also spray-painted on his personal car.
Like most countries across Europe and the broader Western world, Germany has seen a shocking rise in antisemitic incidents over the last two years, in the wake of the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
According to newly released figures, the number of antisemitic offenses in the country reached a record high in 2025, totaling 2,267 incidents, including violence, incitement, property damage, and propaganda offenses.
By comparison, officially recorded antisemitic crimes were significantly lower at 1,825 in 2024, 900 in 2023, and fewer than 500 in 2022, prior to the Oct. 7 atrocities.
Officials have noted that the real number of antisemitic crimes registered by police is likely much higher, as many do not get reported.