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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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Two plays stage three years of infighting over Israel
The last three years of Jewish life can be read as a singular drama with no last act.
The Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023 proved to be just the first bloodletting in a renewed cycle of violence and recrimination. Israel responded with its destructive campaign in Gaza. Far from the theater of war, American Jews reckoned with renewed fears of antisemitism and fractures within their own communities and families.
Before that October had even ended, about two weeks into a discourse that’s still nowhere near to disappearing, Michel Hausmann, the artistic director of Miami New Drama, reached out to playwright Jonathan Spector to create a play reacting to the moment.
The writer’s response: a categorical no.
“I was like, ‘That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard. I wouldn’t touch that with a 10-foot pole, it’s too scary and hard and complicated,’” Spector, a Tony winner for his play Eureka Day, recalled, “but you know, he was very persistent.”
“I think I wore him down,” Hausmann, a Venezuelan-born Jew, told me.
The result of this exploration is Birthright, a domestic epic that touches on international news and centuries of Jewish thought. The play, now at MCC Theatre after a 2025 debut at Miami New Drama, follows six friends, most of whom met on a Birthright trip in 2006. It opens in the pre-smartphone age and ends in the social media-saturated aftermath of Oct. 7. Overall, it covers 18 years, an intentionally Jewish number.
“I feel like so many of the ways that these kinds of arguments play out is people leap very quickly from a thing that happened yesterday to a thing that happened 80 years ago to a thing that happened 2000 years ago,” Spector said. “It’s too narrow a lens if we’re only looking at this moment.”
Spector landed on the organizing idea of a Birthright trip after conducting interviews with a diverse group of American Jews, most of whom mentioned the free journey to Israel. (Spector, raised Conservative in the DC suburbs, like his characters, didn’t participate in Birthright; he hasn’t been to Israel since he was 15.)
Hausmann, whose theater only produces world premieres and designs its season to cater to the local Cuban, Venezuelan and Jewish communities, commissioned Spector because as early as Oct. 8, he imagined the response from the cultural field would be missing complexity or morphing into activism.
In truth, theaters have been slow to respond. Seasons have featured shows about antisemitism and Israel, but for the most part, they’d been in development before these issues were on everyone’s minds and social feeds.
Joshua Harmon’s A Prayer for the French Republic moved from its 2022 off-Broadway run to a Dec. 2023 Broadway opening largely unchanged. But amid the mounting headlines, the historical irony of the central family’s ultimate choice to relocate to Israel for safety was devastating in its new theater.
Itamar Moses’ The Ally, which premiered at the Public in Feb. 2024, looked prescient in its dissection of campus activism surrounding Israel. It concerned a Berkeley professor caught between his liberal values and his Israeli parentage. Moses’ show was scheduled for the season well before Oct. 7, but debuted just after. The playwright chose not to touch the Hamas attack, but conclude right on the cusp of it.
By the time Giant, about Roald Dahl’s antisemitism, transferred from the West End to Broadway earlier this year, many online seemed to have no problem with Dahl’s blithe Holocaust inversion, accusing the play of vilifying someone who was merely an advocate for the persecuted neighbors of the Jewish state.
Birthright and S. Asher Gelman’s The Zionists: A Family Storm, which opened at Miami New Drama in April and is now playing at Barrington Stages in the Berkshires, are the first major American plays directly addressing a post-Oct. 7 Jewish world.
Gathering the storm
Gelman told me his play emerged out of what he saw as betrayal from his progressive artistic community, which immediately sought to “contextualize” Hamas’ barbarity.
“I watched complex histories become flattened and simplified for ostensibly propaganda,” said Gelman, whose previous plays include the gay polyamory play Afterglow. He was floored by the views of some people in his circle who labeled him, as an American-born Israel citizen who lived in Tel Aviv from 2006 to 2016, a “white colonizer.”
He started taking notes, and about a year after Hamas’ invasion of Israel, began work on his play, about a wealthy and well-connected Jewish family on vacation in the Turks and Caicos. (Gelman’s parents are Jewish philanthropists, like the matriarch and patriarch in the play; one of his sisters, like the play’s youngest son, has funded pro-Palestinian groups.)
In setting up the drama, a kind of staged debate between the liberal Zionist family and the anti-Zionist wicked son and his husband, Gelman had to think of a way to keep the warring factions in the room to have the conversation.
His solution was a violent metaphor: a hurricane raging outside their deluxe bungalow.
“I think that the beauty of The Zionists is that you have to sit down through it, you have to hear a point of view, wherever you stand,” said Hausmann. Perhaps because of the play’s title, he said, members of Jewish Voice for Peace picketed the production in Miami. In one performance, an audience member shouted back as one character made his case for anti-Zionism.
“All extremes are upset at us, and so I think that we’re doing something right,” Hausmann said.
The yelling matches in the play tip into the tedious at times, and the grievance-laden backstory given to the anti-Zionist Aaron — he’s a recovering drug addict whose IDF donor brother outed him as gay when they were kids — seems to support a familiar claim made against Jewish critics of Israel: They are acting out against their upbringing rather than out of a real conviction.
While the show pays lip service to the Jewish value of questioning, it often seems disinterested in the anti-Zionist perspective, privileging the gradient spectrum of liberal Zionism in a queer, multiracial modern family with at least one convert and two descendants of refugees.
Gelman, 42, says he thinks anti-Zionist Jews of a younger generation (the Aaron character is 34) may arrive at their beliefs because they don’t remember a pre-Netanyahu Israel or Rabin and Arafat shaking hands on the White House lawn.
They’ve only “known one type of Israel,” he said.
The art of argument
Spector wrestled with the arguments he wanted his characters to make. The show could have easily been a back and forth about the Peel Commission or suicide bombings during the Second Intifada, but the more ideas he included, the more the play flatlined.
“It’s, like a three hour 10 minute running time and only 15 minutes of it is arguments,” Spector said, “but I probably wrote and have cut two hours worth of arguments.”
He took care to make sure the points of view were rooted in character and their evolution: The most outspoken anti-Zionist character, Izzy (Molly Bernard), evolves from working for J Street to leaving the group chat when her friends send a link to The New York Times walking back its reporting on the 2023 Al-Ahli hospital explosion, which rushed prematurely to blame Israel for the strike. By that point, we can glean how everything from Izzy’s fertility to her disillusionment with her work has shaped her worldview.
Spector came to realize that the question he was examining wasn’t a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis or in winning a debate (he thinks social media has gamified conversation), but a change within American Judaism.
In the second half of the 20th Century, he said, Jewish institutions made an effort to pitch a big, tolerant tent to embrace all levels of observance. “As the main dividing line within American Jewish life has shifted from your religious practice to your beliefs about Israel, there’s been a similar kind of shift away from tolerance from people on both sides of that divide,” he said.
He’s less interested in passing judgment on this development than trying to make sense of it. It’s a view expressed by the character of Izzy in his play.
“I can go up on the bimah at my parents’ shul and I can say I am married to a woman, I can say I don’t keep kosher, I can say I don’t believe in God,” she said, noting how she’d not just be accepted but welcome. “The one thing that would get me kicked off the bimah, kicked out of the shul, kicked out of my family is if I say I am an anti-Zionist.”
Spector said so far a minority of audience members have been uncomfortable with his show. (The evening I saw it, there were young people with tattoos and men in kippot; by contrast, the crowd at The Zionists, typical of my theatergoing there, looked to be almost exclusively of retirement age.) His own views have naturally evolved with the play – he’s been working on it for years, and the facts on the ground have changed.
“It’s a little bit difficult for me to separate the work on the play and the evolution of my own feelings and beliefs,” he said. “If I could sum those up in a sound bite, I wouldn’t need to write a three-and-a-half hour play.”
Hope for healing?
Birthright was the first entry in Miami New Drama’s Jewish Play Commission. Hausmann said some donors wished the piece was more “feel-good,” but said he thinks it is, ultimately, healing.
Spector doesn’t use that word.
”Midway through writing it, I was definitely like, ‘Oh my God. How am I going to find an ending to this that is not just like unrelentingly bleak and depressing,’ because that was certainly how I felt in the moment about where things were.” We black out on a scene of people coming together in a shared grief.
The Zionists ends at a moment of uncertainty amid a wrathful, Act of God weather event. For Gelman, the ambiguity and anger are the point, and point to a way forward.
“Discomfort, disagreement, it’s a feature of a great relationship, not a bug,” Gelman said. “With the privilege and luxury of actual physical safety comes the responsibility to be brave and the responsibility to be uncomfortable. Discomfort is the price we pay for community.”
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Colorado congressional race upset hinged on Israel
A democratic socialist who put condemnation of Israel front and center in her campaign defeated a long-serving member of Congress in Colorado’s congressional primary Tuesday, adding to recent upsets that are rocking the Democratic party and Jewish politics.
Melat Kiros beat U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, a 15-term incumbent first elected in 1996, just one week after two New York members of the Democratic Socialists of America movement defeated sitting congressmen targeted as supporters of military aid to Israel.
“Denver voters of all ages, of all races, of all religions sent a clear message: We will not wait!” Kiros declared in her victory speech, which took aim at U.S. aid for Israel. “We will not wait to reject corporate PACs like AIPAC. No, we will not wait to end the genocide in Palestine.”
She will face Republican Christy Peterson in the general election but is favored to win the heavily Democratic district.
Meanwhile, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, the son and grandson of Holocaust survivors, won the Democratic nomination to replace the term-limited Gov. Jared Polis, who also is Jewish. David Seligman, a progressive Jewish candidate for the open attorney general seat, lost in a four-way contest to Secretary of State Jena Griswold, who gained notoriety for removing Donald Trump from Colorado’s 2024 ballot.
Kiros, who was born in 1997, the year DeGette took office, used Israel as a wedge throughout the campaign — calling for an arms embargo against Israel, including a suspension of funding for defensive weapons including the Iron Dome.
She also vows to abolish the federal Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency and pass Medicare for all.
Hasan Piker, the progressive streamer who has been accused of trafficking in antisemitism, attended Kiros’ victory party in Denver Tuesday. She also picked up endorsements from U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and a slew of leftist groups. Some Jewish Coloradans supported her, saying that her harsh criticism of Israel is necessary and warranted.
In her victory speech on Tuesday, Kiros reminded supporters that she did not flinch when her former law firm, Sidley Austin, threatened to fire her if she didn’t take down a post on Medium addressed to law firms nationally supporting anti-Israel student protesters on college campuses — and was ultimately terminated.
Kiros’ victory on Tuesday comes on the heels of the defeat of two Democratic incumbents in New York targeted specifically for their support of aid to Israel. A former Gaza war encampment leader on Columbia University’s campus, Darializa Avila Chevalier, beat incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat, while former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander will replace Rep. Dan Goldman. Another candidate who campaigned on Israel, Claire Valdez, secured the nomination for another House seat being vacated by Rep. Nydia Velazquez in New York’s 7th district.
Like Kiros, both Valdez and Avila Chevalier are DSA members. Lander, who is Jewish, left DSA after Oct. 7, 2023, when DSA promoted a pro-Palestinian Times Square rally that Avila Chevalier attended.
Like Avila Chevalier, Kiros has come under scrutiny for her repudiation of Israel and its supporters.
In the final stretch of her campaign, Kiros gained national attention for declining to declare antisemitic the 2025 firebombing of a group holding a vigil in Boulder, saying in an interview: “I don’t know what was in the heart of the perpetrator. All I know is that he attacked innocent people because of what they might have believed,” adding that she could not say what they believed, either: “most of them were probably just there to ask that the people who were kidnapped on Oct. 7 be returned to their families.”
The attacker, Mohammed Soliman, was heard saying “Free Palestine” as he threw molotov cocktails and used an improvised flamethrower to burn 13 people, including an 82-year-old woman who later died of her wounds.
As a candidate, Kiros has said in interviews that weapons that defend Israeli citizens against attacks from Iran and Hezbollah “give Israel the cover” to continue policies of genocide and ethnic cleansing. (Genocide scholars have debated whether the war in Gaza rises to the level of genocide.)
And asked whether Israel “had it coming” on Oct. 7, Kiros told a local news channel “no, not at all — it’s about understanding the conditions in which violence and war happens.” She said Israel had resisted change despite decades of international frustration with its policies; her job as a member of Congress, she said, was to change those conditions.
In the gubernatorial contest, Weiser’s victory over U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet made him the likely next governor of the state. Colorado has not had a Republican governor since 2007.
Bennet’s mother, like Weiser’s, survived the Holocaust. She was smuggled out of the Warsaw Ghetto as a child before her family immigrated to New York. But Bennet was raised Christian and does not identify as Jewish.
Estare Weiser was born in Buchenwald the day before the camp was liberated. Now 81, she was photographed celebrating with Weiser, 58, at his victory party Tuesday.
Weiser’s platform focuses on expanding the state’s universal preschool program, defending LGBTQ+ and women’s rights and countering Republican gerrymandering efforts in other states. He entered the race as an underdog, but successfully attacked Bennet for backing several Trump cabinet nominees.
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Survey: Jews in smaller communities feel less heard when raising concerns about antisemitism
(JTA) — Jews living in smaller communities are less likely than those in large communities to feel their concerns about antisemitism are taken seriously by law enforcement and would-be allies, a new survey from the Jewish Federations of North America has found.
Jews in smaller communities were “lacking a sense of allyship in the communities around them,” said Mimi Kravetz, the chief impact and growth officer for JFNA.
“Jews in small communities tell us that they feel deeply concerned that they’re looking for support, that their leadership is looking for network and resources, because it can feel like they’re on their own,” Kravetz told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The JFNA survey, which was compiled from its March 2025 study of Jewish Life in North America, found that 22% of Jews live in small communities. Defined as Jewish communities with fewer than 5,000 Jews living within five miles of their zip code, small Jewish communities are also more likely to be found in the South or in rural or suburban areas.
Although the survey found no statistically significant difference in the antisemitism experienced by Jews in smaller and larger communities, it found that Jews in small communities are more likely to feel that antisemitism is invalidated or dismissed.
Among respondents, 58% of Jews in small communities reported feeling more likely to be invalidated, compared with 48% of Jews overall.
Jews in small communities were also less likely to express confidence in local law enforcement’s responses to antisemitism. Just 39% of Jews in small communities say local law enforcement takes antisemitism seriously, compared with 47% of Jews in larger communities.
Leaders of small Jewish communities also feel less physically safe in Jewish spaces than their big city counterparts: 60% of those small-community leaders said they feel safe, compared to 86% of community leaders overall.
While the survey found that 50% of Jews in smaller communities report being unengaged in Jewish life, compared to 36% of Jewish respondents overall, they were just as likely to say they wanted greater connection to Jewish life.
The survey suggested that geographic constraints and limited availability of Jewish life likely caused the disparity in engagement, even as Jews sought out Jewish connections in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel.
Kravetz said Jews in small communities were just as likely as Jews in big communities to crave those connections.
“What’s needed in small Jewish communities is more leadership infrastructure and support for Jewish life,” Kravetz said.
The survey was conducted before the January arson attack on Beth Israel Congregation, the only synagogue in Jackson, Mississippi, which drew renewed attention to the security challenges facing smaller Jewish communities.
Michele Schipper, the CEO of the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life, a nonprofit that supports Jewish communities across the South and was housed inside Beth Israel Congregation prior to the arson attack, said security remains a challenge for some smaller congregations.
“For some of those smaller communities, they may not be able to have personnel on site every time they’re open,” Schipper said. “It may be an older building. Not everyone is able to get one of the secure community grants,” she said, referring to federal and state government grants to nonprofits seen as vulnerable to attack.
Earlier this month leaders from Jewish communities across the South convened at the ISJL’s annual conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, where Schipper said they discussed strategies for keeping smaller communities safe.
“One of the things we really did share is how important it is not to isolate ourselves in these communities, but to continually build relationships with the local community, with local law enforcement, so that when, God forbid, something happens, you’re not starting to reach out or wait for somebody to contact you,” Schipper said.
Looking ahead, Schipper said her message to Jews in small communities was to “continue to build relationships in your own local community, and just continue to participate in the Jewish community and stay strong and positive.”
The study, which was conducted online by JFNA from March 5-25, 2025, surveyed 5,798 total U.S. adults, of which 1,877 identified as Jewish. The margin of error for Jewish adults was ± 2.26%, and samples were weighted to be representative of the U.S. population and Jewish community.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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