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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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Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens ‘Significantly Increased’ Anti-Israel Content in 2025, Study Shows
Tucker Carlson speaks at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, Oct. 21, 2025. Photo: Gage Skidmore/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens ramped up their anti-Israel and, in some cases, overtly antisemitic content over the last year, according to a new study, which tracked the prominent far-right podcasters’ disproportionate emphasis on attacking the Jewish state in 2025.
The Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI), a think tank based in Israel, used artificial intelligence to analyze the transcripts from 3,000 videos posted to the YouTube channels of Carlson and Owens, each of whom has collected more than five million subscribers. JPPI researchers looked at keywords around Jews and Israel, comparing how the populist-nationalist presenters spoke about those subjects compared to other nations and peoples.
The report identified February 2025 as when Owens initiated her anti-Israel shift, while noting Carlson intensified his focus on disparaging the Jewish state in April.
“Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens have significantly intensified their focus on Israel in recent months, accompanied by a marked escalation in anti-Israel rhetoric and, in the case of Owens, explicit antisemitism,” the research stated. “While both figures have long been known for their critical stance toward Israel, the study documents a sharp and recent increase in both the volume and intensity of negative content.”
The report described how for Carlson “the share of negative content about Israel rose sharply from 48.9% in the previous six-month period to 70.3% over the last six months,” while for Owens “the primary change in her case is quantitative — a substantial increase in the overall volume of such negative content.”
Specific instances of hate cited in the report included that “across multiple videos, both figures employ sharp rhetoric, including comparisons between Israel and Hamas, use of the term ‘genocide,’ accusations of deliberately killing children, and the circulation of conspiracy narratives alleging Israeli influence over the United States.”
Analysts deployed OpenAI’s o3 reasoning model to make the assessment regarding whether Owens or Carlson’s statements ran afoul of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, which has been widely adopted by hundreds of governing institutions, including the US State Department, European Union, and United Nations.
For Owens’ videos fed into the analysis, 45 percent initially came up as antisemitic. However, that number in the past six months “rose to roughly 75% — nearly double the rate for the previous six-month period.”
The report described how many of these videos by Owens described Jews as part of a “cult” or engaged in “Jewish supremacy.”
“Antisemitism on the American far right is now overt and out in the open,” JPPI Director-General Shuki Friedman said in a statement. “The data should serve as a flashing warning light for Israel and its leadership regarding the kind of support it can expect from the right, today and in the future. Only a determined effort to counter this extremism can help preserve this vital base of support in the United States.”
In November, The Algemeiner reported that Owens admitted she had become “obsessed” with the Jewish people.
A user asked Owens directly, “Why are you so obsessed with Jews?”
The longtime associate of Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, answered, “Because they are so obsessed with me. Feeling is mutual now.”
In March, Owens argued that Jeffrey Epstein-style blackmail plots undergirded the US-Israel relationship and that “this is the reason we don’t get to open the Epstein files, we don’t get to open the JFK files.” She asserted that a special relationship between the US and the Jewish state was actually “a form of gaslighting.”
In recent months, Carlson’s decision to platform white supremacist podcaster Nick Fuentes has roiled the American political right, prompting resignations within the Heritage Foundation following its president Kevin Robert’s choice to support his longtime friend’s decision to platform a vocal advocate of Adolf Hitler.
Carlson also provoked condemnations when appearing to suggest a Jewish hand behind the killings of both Jesus of Nazareth and conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
On Monday, the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) highlighted statements that Carlson had made during a Saturday interview with The American Conservative, the longtime paleo-conservative publication founded by perennial presidential candidate Pat Buchanan.
CAM described how in the interview, “Carlson described pro-Israel supporters as believing they are ‘specially chosen by God’ while viewing others as ‘sub-human.’ Such language echoes long-standing antisemitic stereotypes portraying Jews as inherently supremacist or morally corrupt. Carlson presented these claims as proof of Israel’s alleged ability to manipulate American public opinion. In doing so, he framed Jewish identity and support for Israel as tools of coercive power rather than political belief.”
Earlier this month, Carlson appeared at the Doha Forum in Qatar and announced his plans to purchase a home in the Arab monarchy which has long sponsored the Muslim Brotherhood and its Palestinian terrorist wing Hamas. His brother Buckley Carlson also suggested that the recent Islamist terrorist attack in Bondi, Australia which left 15 Jewish people murdered, was a false flag incident.
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Florida Gubernatorial Candidate Vows to Divest From Israel Bonds if Elected
Florida gubernatorial candidate James Fishback. Photo: Screenshot
James Fishback, a Florida gubernatorial candidate in the 2026 Republican primary, has pledged to direct all state government entities to “divest” from bonds issued by the Israeli government on his first day in office, a move that could pose a range of economic hurdles in Florida and has previously been lambasted by critics for singling out the Jewish state for political punishment.
In a campaign statement over the weekend, Fishback, chief executive of the investment firm Azoria, said that Florida state agencies and taxpayer-funded colleges have invested approximately $385 million in Israel Bonds over the past two years. He argued that public funds should never be invested abroad and vowed to redirect the money toward a statewide housing assistance initiative if elected.
“That money should have been invested in our communities. Instead, it was foolishly sent abroad to a foreign government,” the statement read.
Despite Fishback’s suggestion that Floridian money was “sent abroad,” however, Israel Bonds are investments, not aid. According to the Israel Bonds website, they are loans that investors make to the State of Israel, which are expected to be paid back in full, with interest.
Israel Bonds have historically yielded a positive return for Florida taxpayers. State and municipal funds across the US have invested in such bonds for years because they are considered low risk, consistent performers, and maintain creditworthiness among democracies with advanced economies. Observers have argued these bonds are valuable because they are predictable interest income and diversify public portfolios.
Fishback’s proposal echoes elements of the global boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel economically and has been condemned by lawmakers in Florida and across the US as discriminatory and counterproductive. Florida currently has anti-BDS laws on the books and has repeatedly affirmed its strong political, economic, and security ties with Israel.
Fishback’s antagonistic stance toward Israel represents a stark contrast to sitting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has repeatedly signaled support for Israel and condemned anti-Israel movements as a symptom of antisemitism. Florida has been among Israel’s strongest allies at the state level, with successive governors expanding trade ties, supporting Israeli innovation, and opposing international efforts to isolate the country. Any attempt to reverse that policy would likely face legal challenges as well as resistance from lawmakers in both parties.
Last month, Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton purchased $5 million in Israel Bonds, bringing its total investment up to $8.2 million and making it the largest university investor in the US.
Under Fishback’s proposal, the divested funds would be used to create a $385 million down-payment assistance program called “Rise and Shine,” offering $10,000 grants to married Florida couples. The candidate also outlined a broader housing agenda, including restrictions on institutional and foreign ownership of single-family homes and calls to eliminate property taxes and reduce insurance premiums.
Fishback, a successful investor, entered the gubernatorial race on a slate of populist agenda items. He has raised eyebrows in recent weeks by flirting with members of the antisemitic Groyper movement and signaling acceptance of its leader, Nick Fuentes.
During a December appearance on Rift TV, a podcast hosted by antisemitic social media pundit Elijah Schaffer, Fishback said that he finds “the audience of young men who follow and watch Nick Fuentes to actually be incredibly informed and insightful.”
Observers have noted that Fishback’s attempts to entice younger, more online portions of right-wing audiences are a microcosm of the growing rupture between Gen Z and older conservatives on the topic of Israel. Recent polls have indicated a collapse of support for Israel among young Republicans, with this portion of the party expressing more skepticism of providing military aid to the Jewish state. Large swaths of GOP voters under 30 have more broadly voiced vocal criticism of US support for Israel and the supposed influence of the America Israel Public Affairs Committee, a prominent pro-Israel lobbying group, in US politics.
Recent surveys have also shown a substantial rise of antisemitic views among younger cohorts of the Republican Party.
Fishback’s candidacy remains a longshot, however. A recent poll from The American Promise showed US Rep. Byron Donalds leading the field with 38 percent support among likely Republican voters. Lt. Gov. Jay Collins trailed far behind at 9 percent, while Fishback registered just 2 percent and former Florida House Speaker Paul Renner garnered 1 percent. Nearly half of respondents, 49 percent, said they remained undecided.
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Mikveh unearthed beneath Western Wall plaza shows evidence of Temple’s destruction
Archaeologists have uncovered a 2,000‑year‑old Jewish ritual bath beneath the Western Wall Plaza in Jerusalem that bears ash and destruction debris from the Roman conquest of the city in 70 C.E., officials said.
The find, announced Monday by the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, lies just west of where pilgrims once entered the Temple Mount, offering a rare physical link to everyday life in late Second Temple Jerusalem.
The mikveh, hewn into the bedrock, measures approximately 10 feet long; 4 feet, 5 inches wide; and 6 feet, 1 inch high, with four steps leading into the bath. It was found sealed beneath a destruction layer dated to the year 70 C.E., filled with ash, pottery shards and stone vessels.
“Jerusalem should be remembered as a Temple city,” Ari Levy, the excavation director for the Israel Antiquities Authority, said in the announcement. “As such, many aspects of daily life were adapted to this reality, and this is reflected especially in the meticulous observance of the laws of ritual impurity and purity by the city’s residents and leaders.” Levy noted that stone vessels, which do not contract ritual impurity under Jewish law, were common in the area.
Heritage Minister Rabbi Amichai Eliyahu said the discovery “strengthens our understanding of how deeply intertwined religious life and daily life were in Jerusalem during the Temple period” and underlined the importance of continuing archaeological research in the city.
Mordechai (Suli) Eliav, director of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, described the mikveh and its contents as a vivid historical testament: “The exposure of a Second Temple period ritual bath beneath the Western Wall Plaza, with ashes from the destruction at its base, testifies like a thousand witnesses to the ability of the people of Israel to move from impurity to purity, from destruction to renewal.”
Researchers say the mikveh likely served both local residents and the many pilgrims who visited the Temple in the years leading up to the Roman siege.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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