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These Jews are defending Drag Story Hour against far-right protestors. Here’s why.
(New York Jewish Week) — As right-wing protestors descend upon Drag Story Hour events across New York, they have frequently been met by a loosely connected movement of counter protestors that includes many progressive Jewish groups.
Since September, right-wing activists have routinely protested Drag Story Hour events, where a person dressed in drag reads to children. The aim of these story times, according to the founder of the Drag Story Hour New York chapter, is to promote literacy while giving children positive queer role models.
At the Queens Public Library in Jackson Heights on Dec. 29, at least five members of the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group, showed up to harass people attending a story session. Those protestors were met by hundreds of activists from the other side, many of whom are Jewish. They included members of Jews For Racial and Economic Justice, Outlive Them, United Against Racism and Fascism and other other organizations.
“We’re out here,” said Sharona Farber, 32, who is a member of the Jewish anti-fascist group Outlive Them, which formed in response to the 2018 Pittsburgh Tree of Life shooting and has since become involved with other forms of activism across New York such as fighting for the homeless and against U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) raids.
Those protesting Drag Story Hours claim the events are harmful to children, calling parents who are bringing their kids to the event “groomers” and “pedophiles” to their face. Demonstrators have breached library doors in the city on three separate occasions. They have also vandalized the homes and offices, using anti-LGBTQ slurs, of three New York City Council members who have shown support for Drag Story Hour.
Hundreds of people defended the Queens Public Library at Jackson Heights against right-wing protestors, including members of the Proud Boys and neo-Nazis, last Thursday. (Gili Getz/Courtesy)
Protestors have targeted 10 Drag Story Hour events in New York, according to independent reporter Talia Jane, who has been documenting the group on Twitter since September.
This group of protestors, which calls itself the Guardians of Divinity, started as an anti-vaccine movement in the pandemic. “We have lost our jobs and been arrested for protesting this madness,” a statement on the group’s Twitter said. “Now they are coming for your kids with programs like Drag Queen Story Hour, where they steal your tax money to pay grown men in dresses to read gender questioning books.”
Farber told the New York Jewish Week that last Thursday there were at least 300 people defending Drag Story Hour at the Queens library branch, from all ages and backgrounds. Farber added that “there are a lot of Jews” doing the behind-the-scenes work, the organizing and the outreach that goes into “pulling these defenses off.”
“Jews are so heavily represented in the left,” Farber said. “There’s been a reinfusion of energy on what people call the Jewish Left. There are people getting self organized into small groups that do take political action into what they believe is needed to create a better world.”
Sophie Ellman-Golan, communications director for Jews for Racial & Economic Justice, another prominent activist group that’s defending Drag Story Hour, told the New York Jewish Week that it’s important “to drown out fascists and neo-Nazis” by showing up in solidarity.
“When there’s a threat of neo-Nazi violence against synagogues, the idea is not that we should stop going to synagogue,” Ellman-Golan said. “We actually deserve to be able to gather and pray or engage in whatever culture and ritual we want to. We believe that a community of diverse New Yorkers coming together to ensure that can happen, that’s the best way to do that, with community defense.”
She described the scene as “two sides”: one that included colorful rainbow signs, glitter and Disney songs, while the other side included a neo-Nazi giving a “Heil Hitler” salute while talking about “a future for white children.”
A man seen throwing a ‘Nazi Salute’ outside of NYC Drag Queen Story Hour event was confronted by both sides “If you are doing a Roman Salute get the fuck out of here, you are worse than them”
4/10 pic.twitter.com/8TgAQbz1Ft
— Oliya Scootercaster (@ScooterCasterNY) December 30, 2022
“It’s a violent attempt to stamp out trans people,” Ellman-Golan said, adding that there is “a very clear link between antisemitism and transphobia that is increasing at a terrifying rate.”
Ariela Rothstein, a queer Jewish parent who took her 6-month-old child to the Jackson Heights Drag Story Hour last Thursday, told the New York Jewish Week that these shouldn’t be controversial events. “It’s people sharing stories with kids,” Rothstein said. “There were people shouting all kinds of names. Things that are really disgusting, that I don’t really want to repeat or put in print. All we wanted to do was go into the library and hear some stories for our child.”
Rothstein’s partner, Lauraberth Lima, told the New York Jewish Week that the right-wing protestors are “embarrassing themselves.”
“It’s actually sad,” she said. “What we’re actually doing is talking about love and spreading representation of different types of people.”
After last Thursday’s event, a video circulated online showing members of the Proud Boys being led by members of the New York Police Department into the 74th Street-Broadway subway station in Jackson Heights without paying.
“We don’t feel like the NYPD is there to actually protect or defend or anything like that,” Ellman-Golan said. “If their goal is to make sure that Drag Story Hours can continue in peace, they are failing.”
NYPD help Proud Boys commit fare evasion & then tell journalists to go back and pay for the fare. Everyone should see this video. pic.twitter.com/wrkPjFhQoq
— Brenna Lip (@LipBrenna) January 2, 2023
The NYPD said in a statement on Monday that it was trying to “to deescalate the situation and prevent further violence a decision was made to escort one group to the Jackson Heights subway station to remove the group from the area.”
According to Lima, however, the video of the police letting the Proud Boys into the subway showed them getting “a literal free pass for what they were doing.”
“The police never protected families like ours,” Lima said. “That’s not who we turn to for safety. We are protecting ourselves. The queer community understands very well what it means to be ostracized or hated, and knows how to show up for people.”
Miriam, a queer Jewish activist who regularly shows up to defend Drag Story Hour, told the New York Jewish Week that she was only comfortable giving out her first name out of fear of being doxxed — having her private information made public — by the right-wing protestors. “This can result in significant stress, but also loss of unemployment, housing and in some cases physical attacks,” Miriam said. “If your employers get 50 calls a day from people telling them that you are a pedophile, that may make your life hard. It’s a significant concern.”
Miriam said that these protests are a personal attack on her queer identity, but “it doesn’t mean I’m there as a queer person rather than a Jew.”
“I’m there as both things,” Miriam said. “Jews have to be opposed to fascism because fascism is opposed to Jews. Jewish history and Jewish culture gives us ample reasons to oppose fascism. We should never be letting fascists in the streets unopposed, no matter what they are doing.”
Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg of Malkhut, a progressive congregation in Jackson Heights, showed up at a Drag Story Hour defense on Oct. 28 at the library. She told the New York Jewish Week that “it was a pretty unnerving experience, to be facing such right-wing vitriol.”
“The hatred feels like it’s coming from the same place of white supremacist activism, which holds hands with antisemitism,” Goldenberg said. “It was really painful and shocking to hear the language that was being used.”
She recalled how a large man burst into her group while they were singing in front of the library. “He was very loud, hostile and violent,” Goldenberg said. “Not by throwing punches, but he had a violent vibe. You get the sense that they have been riled up by lies and conspiracy theories. They have no qualms about getting in our faces and accusing us of wanting to groom children.”
Goldenberg surmised that so many Jews are showing up to protect Drag Story Hour because they’re inspired by the emphasis Judaism places on education. “We value learning,” Goldenberg said. “We value being open to multiple opinions, we value open discussion — that’s what Torah is about. Drag Story Hours and public libraries are then all very much tied into Jewish values.”
“These are our family members,” she added. “These are our friends. These are our neighbors. This is us as Jews.”
—
The post These Jews are defending Drag Story Hour against far-right protestors. Here’s why. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Cameron Kasky, Jewish Parkland shooting survivor, is running for Congress on platform to ‘stop funding genocide’
(JTA) — Cameron Kasky, the 25-year-old Jewish activist and school shooting survivor, has entered the race to represent one of the United States’ most Jewish congressional districts — on a platform that includes stopping Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza.
“We need leaders who aren’t going to coddle their billionaire donors, who won’t support a genocide and who aren’t going to settle for flaccid incrementalism,” Kasky said in the launch video posted on Tuesday for his campaign to represent New York City’s 12th Congressional District.
The video’s caption includes the three main points of his campaign: “Medicare for all. Stop funding genocide. Abolish ICE.”
While Kasky’s anti-Trump positions are likely to go over well with the district’s largely liberal populace, his stance that Israel is committing a genocide — and the apparent centrality of that stance to his campaign — could be an issue for constituents. The district includes the Upper West and East Sides of Manhattan, where many voters sided with the pro-Israel Andrew Cuomo over Zohran Mamdani in the city’s recent mayoral election, as well as Midtown Manhattan.
Kasky’s messaging may, however, speak more to young voters in the district. A New York Times/Siena poll from September found that 66% of New York City voters ages 18 to 29 found that Mamdani, an anti-Zionist, “best addressed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” among the mayoral candidates.
A democratic socialist, Kasky was a vocal supporter of Mamdani throughout the mayoral election — and an aggressive critic of fellow Democrats who objected to the mayoral candidate’s anti-Israel stances.
“‘Vote blue no matter who unless it’s a Muslim who criticizes Israel’s extremist far right nationalist government’ is not ‘vote blue no matter who,’” he wrote in one tweet.
In another, he wrote that Democrats who refused to endorse him after the primary should “go get a consulting gig and stop disrespecting your own voter base.”
Kasky had teased entering the crowded race for months, ever since Rep. Jerry Nadler, Congress’ most senior Jewish member, announced he would not be running for reelection.
In that time, Kasky has also weighed in on the viability of Micah Lasher, the Jewish state Assembly member and former Nadler aide who launched his own campaign for the seat earlier in the fall.
Lasher is unable to “fight fascism” because of his “genocide denial and free speech attacks on students,” Kasky wrote, with a screenshot of a Lasher tweet from Oct. 28, 2023, that criticized what Lasher called the “awful use of the word ‘genocide’ by some westerners to describe Israel’s actions.” (As the war in Gaza neared its two-year mark this summer, a poll found that half of Americans believed Israel had committed genocide, a claim that Israel and the United States both reject.)
Kasky also reposted a poll according to which Brad Lander, Mamdani’s most prominent Jewish ally, would beat the moderate congressman Dan Goldman, who is Jewish and withheld an endorsement due to “some of the rhetoric coming from Mamdani.”
“Needless to say, I am looking forward to working with Brad Lander,” Kasky wrote.
Kasky is the co-host of the “For You Podcast” with Tim Miller, which attempts to “break down the politics of the TikTok generation,” for The Bulwark, a center-right, anti-Trump media company.
One of Kasky’s podcast guests over the summer is now his opponent: Jack Schlossberg.
Schlossberg, who is the grandson of President John F. Kennedy and has said he is “at least 100% half Jewish,” announced his own candidacy for the 12th Congressional District last week.
Kasky remarked on their podcast that many women in his life have crushes on Schlossberg — and Schlossberg replied that the two men have a similar appeal.
“I always say, when you go unhinged politics Jew, it’s hard to go back,” Kasky said.
Kasky was thrust into the national spotlight as a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, in 2018. Together with other survivors, he led a march in Washington and spurred a national movement that is seen as crucial to the 2022 passage of the most significant federal gun control legislation in decades.
Kasky, a junior at the time of the shooting, is credited with having selecting the name and hashtag #NeverAgain — which has long been linked to Holocaust commemoration — for the student-led gun control campaign. (Another co-founder of Never Again MSD is David Hogg, who recently stepped down as the youngest-ever vice chair of the Democratic National Committee.)
Before the shooting, Kasky said he played Motel in a school production of “Fiddler on the Roof.” The quality of his performance was proof, he joked, that he was not a paid actor in the protests, as some conspiracy theorists accused.
Kasky attended Hebrew school growing up, which he referenced when speaking on MSNBC about the “No Kings” protests against Trump.
“This kind of reminded me of my education growing up — when you go to Hebrew school, you learn about fascism a little bit younger than the other kids,” he said. “And you find yourself asking, in the face of authoritarianism, in the face of seeing a genocide happen before the entire world, what would I do? How would I react?”
He moved to New York City to attend Columbia University, where he later dropped out, and lives in the 12th Congressional District that’s been described as a “crown jewel” of New York politics.
Now, Kasky is running on a progressive agenda that emphasizes fighting Trump and stopping U.S. military aid for Israel, referring to the country’s actions in Gaza in no uncertain terms as a “genocide” — a response which he says has been informed in part by his Jewish identity.
“I am always surprised when people ask me why I focus so much on Palestine,” he wrote. “Beyond my Jewish identity making me strongly opposed to genocide, I’m a school shooting survivor-turned-activist. I started my adult life demanding an end to American-made weapons slaughtering children.”
The post Cameron Kasky, Jewish Parkland shooting survivor, is running for Congress on platform to ‘stop funding genocide’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Democrats urge Senate to oppose Trump’s pick for antisemitism envoy ahead of confirmation hearing
(JTA) — On the eve of a long-delayed Senate confirmation hearing for President Donald Trump’s pick for antisemitism envoy, a group of House Democrats is urging senators to reject the nomination of Yehuda Kaploun, arguing that he lacks the judgment and moral authority the post requires.
In a letter obtained by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and sent Tuesday to Sen. Jim Risch, the Idaho Republican who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, its top Democrat, the lawmakers call Kaploun’s nomination “partisan and controversial” and say his “comments and actions demonstrate a clear unfitness for this post.”
A total of 18 House Democrats signed the letter, including several Jewish lawmakers such as Jerrold Nadler, Jamie Raskin, Jan Schakowsky, Becca Balint and Steve Cohen.
The intervention is atypical: House members almost never publicly oppose sub-cabinet nominees, a category generally considered routine Senate business.
The committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on Kaploun’s nomination on Wednesday morning.
Trump tapped Kaploun in April to serve as the State Department’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, an ambassador-level role focused on antisemitism abroad. The Senate did not move for months to schedule a hearing, leaving the position vacant even as administration officials warned about a spike in antisemitism.
Kaploun, a Hasidic rabbi, Miami-based businessman and longtime political operative close to Trump, would be the first Hasidic Jew to serve in the role if confirmed. In a May profile, JTA detailed how he rose from a Brooklyn yeshiva student and community activist affiliated with the Chabad movement to a prominent figure in Republican politics and a visible surrogate in Trump’s 2024 campaign.
The Democratic letter focuses first on Kaploun’s rhetoric about Trump’s political opponents. It cites a comment in which Kaploun said that after the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, “Democrats refuse to even recognize the butchers of women and kidnappers of children as terrorists,” calling the statement “absurd, insulting, and malicious.” The lawmakers argue that the remark maligns Democratic members of the Foreign Relations Committee who condemned the attacks and raises questions about his ability to work across party lines.
In addition, the Democrats point to an event Kaploun organized during the 2024 campaign at which Trump said that if he were to lose the election, “the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss,” and spoke of a “Democrat curse” on Jews who vote for the party. The letter describes those remarks as antisemitic scapegoating and says Kaploun’s failure to publicly condemn them — or what the letter calls the administration’s hiring of “antisemites and Christian Nationalists” — should be a central topic of Wednesday’s hearing.
The lawmakers also cite JTA’s earlier reporting on dueling lawsuits in Miami-Dade County involving Kaploun and another member of his synagogue, which alleged threats and an extramarital affair. Court records show that judges issued restraining orders on both sides and that the case was settled in April, days before Trump announced the nomination. Kaploun has denied having an affair and has said, through an attorney, that he was drawn into a marital dispute that has now been resolved.
The letter closes by turning Kaploun’s own past standard for nominees back on him, quoting a 1993 submission he made to the Senate, in which he argued that nominees must be judged on “honor,” “fidelity to principle” and respect for civil rights. “By his own standards, Mr. Kaploun fails,” the lawmakers write, urging senators to vote no.
Their intervention comes as a broad coalition of Jewish organizations has pressed the Senate to move quickly to confirm an antisemitism envoy and a parallel ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. In an August letter led by the Jewish Federations of North America, groups from across the Jewish communal spectrum urged Senate leaders to “swiftly” fill both roles, warning that “we dare not delay in filling these critical positions.”
Kaploun has previously said he is refraining from interviews until after his confirmation process, but he has publicly argued for the importance of rising above partisanship. In a May op-ed published by JTA and co-authored with the previous two antisemitism envoys, Elan Carr and Deborah Lipstadt, Kaploun wrote that “the fight against this terrible scourge… must be bipartisan and non-political.”
The post Democrats urge Senate to oppose Trump’s pick for antisemitism envoy ahead of confirmation hearing appeared first on The Forward.
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Maduro Accuses Zionists of Trying to Deliver Venezuela to ‘Devils’ as US Threatens Terror Designation
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro speaks during a march amid the disputed presidential election, in Caracas, Venezuela, Aug. 3, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Maxwell Briceno
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro accused Zionists of trying to hand his country over to “devils,” as the United States ramped up military pressure and opposition leaders continued to voice support for action against his regime.
“There are those who want to hand this country over to the devils – you know who, right? The far-right Zionists want to hand this country over to the devils,” Maduro said on Saturday during a speech to local pro-government grassroots organizations.
“Who will prevail? The people of [King] David, the people of God, the people of [Simón] Bolívar, or the imperialist demons?” he continued. “We are the people of David against the Goliaths that we have already defeated in history. If God wills it, we will face them.”
| Nicolás Maduro: “Algunos quieren entregar este país a los demonios; ya saben quiénes son: la facción sionista de ultraderecha”.
pic.twitter.com/i7IJ5W0kOs— Alerta News 24 (@AlertaNews24) November 16, 2025
The Venezuelan leader has a long history of blaming the Jewish state and Jewish communities for the country’s problems, even as opposition leaders continue to publicly voice support for Israel and denounce his regime.
Last year, Maduro blamed “international Zionism” for the large-scale anti-government protests that erupted across the country following the presidential elections, in which he claimed victory amid widespread claims of fraud.
He also called the Argentinian government “Nazi and Zionist” earlier this year, amid an ongoing dispute over the arrest of an Argentine military officer in Venezuela.
Maduro broke diplomatic relations with Argentina after President Javier Milei refused to recognize his reelection in July.
During his Saturday speech, the Venezuelan leader insisted that the country is a Christian nation and questioned why Americans would want to kill Christians, as he urged Washington to refrain from military escalation amid a US buildup in the Caribbean and strikes on alleged drug trafficking vessels.
“I place at the forefront of this battle our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom our homeland has been entrusted, the only king between heaven and Earth, Jesus of Nazareth, the young child and Palestinian martyr, Jesus of Nazareth,” Maduro said.
“I place Jesus of Nazareth as commander-in-chief of the battle for peace and the sovereignty of the Venezuelan people,” he continued.
He also tried to appeal to the American people, urging them to say “no” to war and “yes” to peace.
Maduro’s latest remarks came just before the Trump administration on Sunday announced the decision to designate the Cartel de los Soles, which the Trump administration has accused Maduro of leading, as a foreign terrorist organization. The designation could open the door to strikes on Maduro’s assets and infrastructure inside Venezuela.
“Based in Venezuela, the Cartel de los Soles is headed by Nicolás Maduro and other high-ranking individuals of the illegitimate Maduro regime who have corrupted Venezuela’s military, intelligence, legislature, and judiciary,” the US State Department said in a statement, noting the designation will take effect next week, on Nov. 24.
“Neither Maduro nor his cronies represent Venezuela’s legitimate government. Cartel de los Soles by and with other designated [foreign terrorist organizations] including Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa Cartel are responsible for terrorist violence throughout our hemisphere as well as for trafficking drugs into the United States and Europe,” the statement continued. “The United States will continue using all available tools to protect our national security interests and deny funding and resources to narco-terrorists.”
Congress has seven days to review the decision after being notified, and “in the absence of congressional action to block the designation,” it will take effect, according to the State Department.
US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that, while he doesn’t believe the administration needs congressional authorization for potential military strikes inside Venezuela, he would like to keep lawmakers informed.
“We like to keep Congress involved. I mean, we’re stopping drug dealers and drugs from coming into our country,” he said. “We don’t have to get their approval. But I think letting them know is good.”
In recent weeks, Trump has ordered at least 21 strikes on boats believed to be carrying narcotics and has built up thousands of troops in the region.
Last month, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the creation of a new counter-narcotics Joint Task Force, saying it was established “to crush the cartels, stop the poison, and keep America safe.”