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The quest to replace Park East Synagogue’s 92-year-old rabbi is not going smoothly
(New York Jewish Week) — More than a year after it attracted attention for the abrupt termination of its popular assistant rabbi, Manhattan’s Park East Synagogue was again the scene of a heated squabble on Sunday.
And like last time, the spat centered on who will succeed the Orthodox congregation’s 92-year-old spiritual leader, Rabbi Arthur Schneier.
In the time since the former assistant rabbi, Benjamin Goldschmidt, was ousted, no one has been appointed to take Schneier’s place after his tenure ends. The synagogue announced a search for a “worthy successor” to Schneier 11 months ago, and a public event on Sunday night was supposed to herald the next stage in that process. A candidate for the position, Rabbi Yitzchok Schochet, delivered an hour-long lecture to a crowd of 100 people, including members of the search committee.
But following the talk, the event held in the synagogue’s Charles Brooks Ballroom devolved into a verbal sparring match between Schochet, the rabbi of London’s Mill Hill Synagogue, and Kalman Sporn, a political consultant who describes himself as a “human rights activist.” Sporn questioned Schochet’s past outspoken opposition to same-sex relationships. Schochet claimed that Sporn was engaging in “cancel culture.”
“Park East’s bimah is New York’s hallowed ground for human dignity,” Sporn told the New York Jewish Week. “It must not become a pulpit for prejudice.”
Michael Scharf, who serves on the rabbinic search committee, told the Jewish Week in an emailed statement that Sporn’s comments were “disrespectful” to Schochet.
“Rabbi Schochet is a most distinguished Rabbi with a demonstrable record of great accomplishment, an incredible speaker, a true man of faith, and certainly not one who should be the subject of a smear and libelous campaign emanating from a group of nasty malcontents who obviously did not listen to Rabbi Schochet’s eloquent rejoinders to their issues,” Scharf wrote.
Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet spoke at Park East Synagogue on Sunday about the pursuit of happiness, when some synagogue members began to question him about his record on LGBTQ and Palestinian issues. (Zoom Screenshot)
The incident has prompted congregants to consider whether Schochet has the right temperament to lead a congregation that has hosted a succession of dignitaries, including Pope Benedict XVI. Critics say Schochet’s history of controversy, in addition to his response to being criticized on Sunday, do not accord with the synagogue’s self-image as a distinguished public forum.
And the drama Sunday night has raised the same question that has nagged at the synagogue for more than a year: Who is a fitting replacement for Schneier, a longtime religious freedom activist and former U.S. alternate representative at the United Nations?
Goldschmidt, who was popular among young congregants and was once seen by some as Schneier’s heir apparent, was fired in October 2021. He was subsequently derided by Schneier’s allies as lacking the education and gravitas needed to lead the synagogue. That dispute ended with Goldschmidt founding a breakaway congregation, the Altneu, which also meets on the Upper East Side and has attracted a growing membership.
“Park East has a problem where they really haven’t had a rabbi for many years,” said one member who, like several who discussed the synagogue’s internal debates, wished to remain anonymous. “We’re down on people coming on Saturday. The schools are a problem. Covid hurt us. [Rabbi Schnier] is 92, so on a day-to-day basis, he hasn’t really been involved.”
Schochet, 58, is a Chabad-affiliated rabbi who has held a number of prominent positions in British Jewish communal organizations. For three decades, he has been the rabbi of London’s Mill Hill United Synagogue, an 1,800-member Orthodox congregation in northwest London. According to a biography on the synagogue website, he has also served as the chairman of the Rabbinical Council of the United Kingdom’s United Synagogue, and as a member of the British Chief Rabbi’s cabinet.
But Schochet has also faced backlash for his comments about Palestinians and their supporters. In 2018, the British Holocaust Memorial Day Trust condemned Schochet for referring to Jews who said Kaddish for Palestinians as “kapos,” or Jews who served in positions of authority in Nazi concentration camps.
In 2015, Middle East Monitor, a pro-Palestinian media outlet, criticized Schochet for two tweets he had written four years earlier in response to a user called “Jew4Palestine.” In one, he wrote, “I have a spare Israeli flag if you want to hang yourself on it.” In the second, commenting on unemployment statistics in Gaza, he wrote, “Then again if you include terrorism as work, it’s 100% employed.” Soon afterward, Schochet was removed as a patron of a charity called Faith Matters.
At the meeting on Sunday, however, much of the criticism of Schochet revolved around his past public opposition to same-sex marriage. Jewish law has traditionally prohibited same-sex relationships, and refusing to conduct same-sex weddings remains normative practice among nearly all Orthodox rabbis.
In 2011, Schochet said that “the time-hallowed sacredness of marriage should always be preserved.” In 2012, the rabbi called gay marriage “an assault on religious values.” That same year, he penned an essay for PinkNews, an LGBTQ-focused publication, called “Homosexuality is prohibited in Orthodox Judaism but so is eating bacon, everyone is welcome.”
In 2014, England, Scotland and Wales legalized same-sex marriage. The following year, Schochet wrote that the Torah prohibits homosexual acts, but does not condemn a person for having homosexual feelings.
Schochet did not respond to a New York Jewish Week request for comment.
Sporn has posted tweets criticizing Schochet’s positions, and at the meeting on Sunday, brought up Schochet’s record of controversial statements during the question-and-answer portion of the event.
“I personally have been troubled by some of the positions you have taken in the past,” Sporn said. “You have openly fought efforts for marriage equality, while you want gay people to in your words feel reassured that they are always welcome into synagogues.”
Sporn was eventually cut off from using the microphone. Schochet responded, saying he had seen Sporn’s tweets. He said he had been invited to write an essay for PinkNews in 2012 “precisely because I was deemed as being the more moderate amongst all the Orthodox rabbis on gay issues.”
He added that the previous year, in a segment that aired on the BBC, he defended a gay couple who were denied access to a hotel room by a Christian owner. Schochet also said that a high-ranking member at his synagogue was gay.
“To everyone’s surprise, other than my own and those who know me to be a liberal conservative, I argued that everyone has a right to uphold their religious convictions without compromise,” Schochet wrote in a blog post about the BBC broadcast. “However, what you cannot do is look to impose those on others. That’s religious fundamentalism.”
In that same blog post, Schochet doubled down on his opposition to gay marriage. “If you choose to reject religion and lead a gay lifestyle, or conduct extra marital affairs, then frankly that is your business,” Schochet said. “That I choose to frown upon what you do because my G-d says it is wrong is very much my entitlement.”
Schochet then began to criticize Sporn, mentioning Sporn’s involvement in a scheme to apportion Catholic papal knighthoods for cash.
“You and I can go on canceling each other all night long,” Schochet said. “Cancel culture, which is the scourge and the malaise of our 21st century is, in the words of Barack Obama, scorched earth, partisan politics, where people we disagree with are maligned.”
(In 2019, regarding condemnations of people on social media, Obama said, “That’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change, if all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far. That’s easy to do.” A column on the Jewish website Aish.com about Obama’s comments does criticize “this scorched-earth partisan politics – where people with whom we disagree are denied a fair hearing and a voice in public life.”)
Schochet continued, “it divides families, it divides society, it tears apart relationships, it polarizes and pits people against one another. We may always be two Jews as indeed we are with three opinions, but we should always maintain one heart. I invite you to join me in that mission statement.”
When he finished, the crowd erupted into applause. The room became calm, until later, another member of the congregation, who did not use a microphone, stood up and confronted the rabbi about his exchange between him and Sporn — leading Schochet to apologize to Sporn.
“If I did embarrass you, I do genuinely apologize to you profusely and I hope you forgive me, and I mean that sincerely,” he said.
Addressing the crowd following the incident, Schneier — who has led Park East for more than 60 years — said, “When it comes to the selection of a rabbi, it is entirely up to the membership.”
“The purpose of Rabbi Schochet coming here with us, some of you did not have a chance to to hear him, to meet with him, and now I hope you get to know him a bit better,” Schneier said. “All kinds of rumors, forget about them.”
Schochet’s reaction to Sporn was “a personal attack,” the member who wished to remain anonymous said. He added that Schochet’s conduct did not reflect the decorum the synagogue strives to maintain.
“He ganged [the crowd] up in a mob mentality where they cheered for him,” the member told the Jewish Week. “Instead of answering the question, he attacked him. [Schochet] had such a great opportunity to be diplomatic. This guy is not diplomatic on an interview. Could you imagine if he had a contract? This is almost beyond belief.”
This member also said that Schochet is the only rabbi who has been brought to the synagogue by the search committee.
Another synagogue member told the Jewish Week that Sporn’s tweets attacking Schochet provided critical context for their exchange.
“It did not come across to me as embarrassing to Kalman,” the member said. “It came across to me as Rabbi Schochet saying that what you’re doing is being unfair.”
He added that what is getting lost amidst the squabble is that Park East “is looking for a rabbi.”
“Every member should have the opportunity to come and ask questions,” the member said. “The sense I had from people is that they got a really good understanding of where Rabbi Schochet stands on the issues. Yes, Kalman brought up an issue, and Rabbi Schochet apologized.”
That member said no decisions have been made thus far as to who will be hired.
Meanwhile, Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt, the wife of Benjamin Goldschmidt, told the New York Jewish Week that the new synagogue they started is “only growing” and that she hasn’t followed developments at her husband’s old congregation.
“I really don’t have anything to do with that place,” Goldschmidt said of Park East Synagogue. “We have moved on.”
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Netanyahu to meet Trump with Iran, Gaza and Saudi Arabia on the line
(JTA) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump Tuesday, as the American leader is weighing whether to expand his bombing campaign against Iran or to find a diplomatic resolution regarding the Straits of Hormouz and the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.
Israel fears that Trump is going to negotiate a premature end to the war without eliminating Iran’s capacity to develop nuclear weapons in the future. Trump has persistently insisted that Iran can’t possess nuclear weapons, but the war and the economic upheaval it has spurred has contributed to Trump’s approval rating hitting record lows in his second term. The poor marks are ringing alarm bells for Republicans ahead of midterm elections that could return Democrats to leadership in at least one chamber of Congress.
Netanyahu and Trump are also at odds over other issues, however, including the recent U.S.-Saudi nuclear deal, the pending sale of F-35 advance fighter jets to Turkey and the extent of Israel’s troop presence in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria.
Netanyahu is coming to the United States to attend the funeral for Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who remained one of Israel’s most unyielding advocates even as its popularity plummeted and was one of the most important Trump associates in pressing for the Iran war. Former Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, now the opposition leader, will also be at the service at Washington’s National Cathedral on Tuesday.
But while in Washington, Netanyahu will seek to close the widening gaps between himself and Trump over Middle East strategy. In a video statement he released before Monday‘s departure, Netanyahu said, “I am embarking on this mission with one clear goal – to ensure the security, strength and future of our dear State of Israel.”
“We will discuss all the issues on the agenda, first and foremost, Iran,” he said. “Naturally, our goal is to safeguard our security and also to expand the circle of peace around us.”
During the trip, Netanyahu said he would also pay his final respect to Graham, “one of the greatest friends the State of Israel has ever known.”
Israelis are acutely aware of the emerging differences between the allies. “It will not be an easy visit,” former IDF intelligence chief Amos Yadlin told Israel Radio on Monday morning. “There is no doubt that Netanyahu wants the United States to return to war.”
Trump himself spoke on Monday of the discord between himself and Netanyahu, even as he lauded Netanyahu, while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, stating that Netanahu had been “great” and that “we did very well together.”
On the plane Trump was quizzed about U.S. plans to sell advanced F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, which Netanyahu has publicly opposed. “Turkey has been a great ally for me,” Trump told reporters, stressing, “No one tells me what we should be selling or not.” He acknowledged that Turkey “is not a big fan” of Israel and Netanyahu.
When it comes to the Saudi civilian nuclear power program that the Trump administration recently completed, Israel has been more circumspect. But it has deep concerns about an agreement that allows for plants with the capacity to enrich uranium. Assisting in the building of those plants had been one of the key incentives former President Joe Biden had used as a means to sway Saudi Arabia to normalize ties with Israel and join the Abraham Accords between Israel and several other Muslim countries.
Trump has since said that U.S. support for a Saudi civilian nuclear program would be contingent on normalization with Israel and that the plants would not be allowed to enrich uranium. But on Monday, he told reporters aboard Air Force One that he hadn’t spoken with Saudi Arabia about the Abraham Accords. Tuesday’s meeting is the first face-to-face encounter between Trump and Netanyahu since the announcement.
The closer Netanyahu appears to Trump and the center of U.S. decision making, the better it is for him domestically ahead of Israel’s Oct. 27 election. Trump has in his second term met with Netanyahu more than any other leader. This will be their eighth such conversation, and the fifth time he has hosted the Israeli leader in the White House.
Tight ties with Netanyahu also plays well for Trump with his evangelical base ahead of the U.S. mid-terms in November, but they run the risk of further alienating the larger American public that opposes the conflict.
Netanyahu’s influence in America had diminished, in part because of how unpopular the war has become in the United States and the role he played spurring it on.
“This is not the same Netanyahu of 2025 or even of February 2026. He is greeted with suspicion,” Yadlin said of the reception he expects for the prime minister in the United States.
Netanyahu last visited Washington in February, where he successfully advocated for the joint Israeli-U.S. military aerial bombing campaign against Iran launched on the 28th of that month.
Tehran retaliated by closing the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway through which 20% of the world’s oil supply is shipped. That step caused crude oil prices to spike in the first quarter of 2026 from $61 a barrel to $118, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Iran allowed the strait to reopen in a limited way after an April ceasefire that was followed by a Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. in June. The agreement fell apart in early July, with the parties resuming attacks – but without any Israeli military involvement. The United States bombed Iran for 13 consecutive nights, ending on Thursday, even as talks with the Islamic Republic continued.
The United States and Israel in February were initially aligned around their joint goal of destroying Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile program, with Netanyahu also focused on the collapse of the Islamic Republic.
Over the weekend, Trump stressed that the war was still about eliminating Iran’s nuclear program. Last week he spoke about specifically hitting the nuclear facility at Pickaxe mountain.
In an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz said the United States was “keeping all options on the table,” but was giving space for talks.
He dismissed media reports that lack of military supplies was part of Trump’s motivation to pause its bombing campaign, stating that the United States had everything it needed militarily.
Waltz warned Iran not to ignore American military threats. Early Monday morning, Trump published a short AI video in which his likeness planted an American flag on an Iranian oil tanker, with a slogan that stated, “it’s our oil tanker now.”
Later in the day, the president told reporters on Air Force One that he was having “good talks” with the Iranians, “so we will see what happens. I think there is a good chance something could happen. If it does, good. If it doesn’t, we go back to doing what we were doing two days ago.”
Yadlin told Israel Radio that at the end of the day, “What interests President Trump is the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.”
The war might have begun in February with a focus on the Iranian regime and its nuclear program, but it will end, Yadlin predicted, with the reopening of the strait and some kind of diplomatic achievement with regard to Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
Israel has watched the U.S.-Iran reengagement warily from the sidelines.
Sima Shine, an Iran expert at the Tel Aviv-based International Institute of Strategic Studies, said that until now, neither Washington nor Tehran had wanted Israel’s involvement in the resumed fighting, fearing that such a step would “widen the scope of the war.”
Maintaining its status as a bilateral conflict makes it easier to return to negotiations, she told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The United States can better control the battlefield without Israel, which would have its own military agenda and objectives, Shine said. Israel can only enter the war if it is attacked by Iran or invited to do so by the United States, she added.
In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, Netanyahu warned of a forceful response should Iran attack Israel.
Iran has to end its nuclear program, he stressed, saying that the military strikes so far have set the program back but have not eliminated it.
A nuclear-armed Iran is a danger to Israel, the region, the United States and the world, he said, adding, “President Trump and I are both committed to prevent this danger.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Netanyahu to meet Trump with Iran, Gaza and Saudi Arabia on the line appeared first on The Forward.
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In Detroit, pro-Israel Senate candidate Haley Stevens meets a pro-Palestinan El-Sayed supporter
(JTA) — DETROIT — Hours before a big debate showdown with her primary rival, U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens began a routine campaign stop Monday seemingly comfortably in her element.
The Michigan candidate for U.S. Senate walked into The Roost, a cafe and wine shop in the Woodbridge neighborhood, chatting up her record on small businesses with the owner, Jeff Tatum. She gamely made herself a cappuccino, exclaiming with glee that the store used Dial soap like her father’s business had.
She also made a play for party unity. Asked by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about Jewish Democratic donors who have indicated they would fundraise for Republican candidate Mike Rogers if Stevens lost the primary, she responded, “I’m on the Democratic team. I’m on the Beat Mike Rogers team.”
But things went off-script for Stevens when she sat down with Jai Singletary, director of a local neighborhood improvement association — who revealed, midway through their conversation, that he had already cast his early voting primary ballot for her opponent, former county health director Abdul El-Sayed.
What’s more, Singletary made it clear to Stevens that the candidates’ respective stances on aid to Israel were the deciding factor for him.
“Genocide isn’t a Palestinian issue. We’ve all got to care about this,” Singletary told Stevens, a pro-Israel centrist who has received nearly $30 million in outside spending from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to date in her primary — the organization’s largest-ever investment in a single race, according to CBS News. He believes, he said, that “our country is directly responsible for peace not being achieved.”
The director of Woodbridge Neighborhood Development and local soccer coach added, “We’ve got to have the money stay here. I don’t think we should be giving any more aid to the State of Israel while they’re committing the atrocities they’re committing in widespread collective punishment.”
The interaction spotlighted two of the biggest questions hanging over Michigan’s closely watched and hard-fought Democratic Senate primary: To what degree are the state’s voters factoring Israel into their decisions, and does the pro-Palestinian sentiment driving El-Sayed’s campaign cross racial lines — including in the Black communities where Stevens has long maintained strong relationships?
Many of the Jews in Michigan who form a major base of support for Stevens have made clear their distrust of El-Sayed, who has questioned whether Israel should exist as a Jewish state. Meanwhile, the state has a large Arab and Muslim voting bloc, and voters here helped propel a 2024 Democratic revolt over Israel’s war in Gaza that helped lead to the party’s current civil war. But the situation is less clear with voters from other groups.
El-Sayed and the insurgent progressive movement he represents have sought to make Israel central to the race and have tried to turn Stevens’ AIPAC support into her biggest liability. But the Stevens campaign has made the calculation that most of the state’s voters — including Detroit’s majority-Black population, with whom she has enjoyed good relations in the past — would rather talk about other things.
Not so, according to Singletary, who is Black. In his own Detroit community, he told JTA, Israel was an important issue.
“It’s connected,” he said, comparing the Israeli-Palestinian state of affairs to Apartheid-era South Africa, adding, “$3.3 billion to the state of Israel, and that’s money that could be helping out here. I think people are now seeing the links.” He told reporters that, though he does not have Palestinian family himself, his own vote was “100% exclusive” based on Israel.
After the campaign left, Singletary told JTA that he had no affiliation with the El-Sayed campaign and had stopped by on an invitation from the store’s owner. He said he would not vote for Rogers in the general election even if Stevens wins and came because he hoped to develop a connection with her in the event she became the nominee.
The issue of whether backers of either candidate across the yawning policy divide would continue to vote for a Democrat in the general if their preferred choice loses has become an emerging question. Last week, Democratic U.S. Rep. Hillary Scholten of Michigan, a Stevens backer, refused to commit to voting for El-Sayed if he wins the primary. Scholten cited the candidate’s campaigning with left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, who has repeatedly said he would “vote” for Hamas over Israel. Her objection, she said, was to his comment that “America deserved 9/11.”
“Abdul El-Sayed is taking us in a direction we don’t want to go as a party,” Scholten told CNN host Jake Tapper.
Stevens’ campaign is also touting her backing from a growing number of establishment Democrats, including, on Friday, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. She and El-Sayed face off Monday evening in their final televised debate before the Aug. 4 primary.
Speaking to Singletary, Stevens smiled and nodded. She name-dropped a Palestinian supporter of hers, and mentioned legislation targeting China that she’s worked on with “my colleague Ro Khanna” — the staunchly pro-Palestinian Democratic congressman from California, who has endorsed El-Sayed. She added that she believes in a two-state solution and has been attacked “by name” by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
She also turned to her staff and excitedly indicated to Singletary: “He voted for Abdul in the primary, and he came here to talk to me.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post In Detroit, pro-Israel Senate candidate Haley Stevens meets a pro-Palestinan El-Sayed supporter appeared first on The Forward.
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‘If you’re ever confused: I stand with the Jews’ Boy George sings in new pro-Israel song
(JTA) — The British pop icon Boy George has gone to bat for Israel and its supporters multiple times in recent months, rejecting boycott calls and expressing solidarity after antisemitic violence. Now, he has released a single in the same key.
“We Will Dance Again” defends Israel’s military response in Gaza, criticizes musicians and activists who have publicly supported the Palestinian cause and declares, “If you’re ever confused: I stand with the Jews.”
The song borrows its title from the slogan of survivors of the Nova music festival, where Hamas terrorists killed 378 young people and kidnapped dozens more as part of the Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel. The slogan has become a symbol of resilience in the aftermath of Oct. 7.
The singer released the reggae-inspired track, titled “Od Nirkod” in Hebrew, on his social media accounts on Monday with a single hashtag: #Shalom.
“You say genocide, I say war / When you’re attacked, that’s what the army’s for,” the song opens. Later, Boy George sings, “You never mention Oct. 7,” in a criticism of those he sings have “selective memory” about atrocities deserving their reprobation. The song ends by repeating the opening lyrics in Hebrew.
Although Boy George is not Jewish, he has become increasingly vocal when it comes to supporting Jewish communities in the wake of Oct. 7.
#Shalom pic.twitter.com/0BfHIrThzO
— Boy George (@BoyGeorge) July 26, 2026
He rejected calls to boycott this year’s Eurovision Song Contest over Israel’s participation, saying he would not “turn my back” on his Jewish friends. The singer participated this year representing San Marino, in a counterpoint to artists and countries that pulled out rather than compete alongside Israel.
Boy George had a long relationship with Jon Moss, the Jewish drummer who with him launched Culture Club, the New Wave band that dominated much of the 1980s with its melodic soul infused music and its outlandish styles. Boy George then often wore a tunic with “Culture Club” in Hebrew translation.
Following an antisemitic stabbing in London’s heavily Orthodox Golders Green neighborhood earlier this year, where the singer happened to be at the time, he said Jewish people should know “we support them.”
Boy George’s new song has drawn appreciation from pro-Israel voices. Stop the Hate UK, a British Jewish anti-antisemitism campaign, called Boy George a supporter of “Jewish joy” and thanked him publicly for standing with the Jewish community.
And the official Nova Music Festival account on Instagram responded to Boy George’s post announcing the song with a simple comment: “We will dance again.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post ‘If you’re ever confused: I stand with the Jews’ Boy George sings in new pro-Israel song appeared first on The Forward.
