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This Jewish non-profit in Brooklyn helps refugees furnish their new homes
(New York Jewish Week) – When S., a Pakistani refugee, finally moved to a stable living situation in New York City, there was still one thing missing: furniture.
S. had left Pakistan for New York hoping to provide a better, healthier life for her younger brother R., who has Down syndrome. After a year of moving around the city, applying for asylum and trying to get on her feet, S. — who asked that her name not be used while the rest of her family waits for their asylum cases to be approved — found a room in a semi-basement apartment in Jamaica, Queens in March 2022.
But even though they had a roof over their heads, S., 44, and R. hardly had any household items to their names. Instead of beds, for example, they slept on a shared rug on the floor.
Enter Ruth’s Refuge. The Brooklyn-based Jewish non-profit aims to provide New York’s refugee community with items needed to help jumpstart their new lives and fill their homes. The organization helped S. and R. secure many household essentials both large and small, from mugs to furniture.
“It’s one thing if you’re going to drop something on a doorstep; it’s another to bring every single thing into my house and help me set it up,” S. told the New York Jewish Week about the assistance she got from Ruth’s Refuge. “We cannot do much because it’s only me and R. But they did everything — every single thing. To be very honest, I’m really blessed.”
Ruth’s Refuge emerged from a task force at Congregation Beth Elohim in Park Slope that started in 2016 as a response to an influx of refugees fleeing Syria. Since then, they’ve expanded to a team of 120 volunteers and three full-time staff dedicated to meeting the needs of the thousands of refugees arriving in New York — first from Syria, then from Afghanistan, South and Central America and Ukraine. Last year, Ruth’s Refuge furnished over 100 households, providing more than $150,000 worth of furnishings and home goods, mostly accumulated from individual donations.
“I grew up embedded in the Jewish community and very much raised with the concept of ‘never again,’” said Leah Cover, the organization’s founder and executive director. “I always viewed that in a very universal way, that ‘never again’ meant for anybody, not just the Jewish people.”
“The idea that you would have this kind of thing repeating itself when we built the refugee system in response to the Holocaust, primarily, and then to have it just completely break down when it was most needed again was just really horrifying to watch,” she added.
Ruth’s Refuge joins a cadre of other Jewish-aligned organizations that endeavor to create softer landings for refugees in New York. Among them are Masbia, which has been meeting arriving migrants at Port Authority Bus Terminal with shoes, clothing and food, and New Neighbors Partnership, which matches incoming refugee families with small children with a New York-based family to receive clothing, toys and advice. HIAS, one of the largest refugee resettlement agencies in the country, was founded in New York City in 1902 to aid incoming Jewish refugees fleeing persecution and pogroms in Eastern Europe.
Cover said watching the worldwide response to the Syrian refugee crisis animated her to start the refugee task force at the Reform synagogue and eventually found Ruth’s Refuge — named for the biblical figure Ruth, who was welcomed as a stranger and integrated into the community. “One of the very heartening things in starting the refugee task force was just seeing how much the Jewish community wanted to be involved in a response to this and making sure that we lived our values,” she said.
At first, Cover and other volunteers fielded a lot of “ad hoc requests,” she said. Over time, resettlement agencies began to rely upon her team more and more, especially to help with apartment setups — including managing donations of homegoods, renting U-Hauls to transport them and assisting with building furniture.
Ruth’s Refuge became its own independent 501(c)(3) organization in the spring of 2019. These days, they work with a number of resettlement agencies, primarily HIAS, Catholic Charities, International Rescue Committee and Queer Detainee Empowerment Project.
Once asylum seekers have secured permanent housing, Ruth’s Refuge will assign each family a volunteer who acts as a personal shopper. Generally there is no limit to the amount of furniture a family can pick out — as long as it fits in their home, although for certain items like dish sets and TVs, Ruth’s Refuge can usually only provide one per family, Cover said.
The items, housed in storage units in Gowanus, are then packed up and delivered all over the city by teams of volunteers.
Kathy Fenelly, a retired professor of public policy and immigration policy, is one such volunteer. “I’ve worked on advising immigrants on immigration policy for a number of years,” she said. “But this is the first [organization] I’ve ever seen that has such a focused and specific mission to work with immigrants and refugees in order to be sure that they have the basics that they need in their apartments.”
Fenelly has been a part of the organization since it was founded at CBE, and said its mission strongly reflects the Jewish value of welcoming the stranger. “Everyday, I get to say, ‘Welcome to New York. I’m really happy that you’re here,’” she said.
As for S., Ruth’s Refuge helped her and R. secure a hair dryer, soap, towels and a table. Their modest room wasn’t big enough for two beds, so a bunk bed was ordered on Amazon and volunteers helped build the furniture when it arrived.
A group of volunteers from Ruth’s Refuge smile in front of a U-Haul van hired to bring furniture and household goods to a refugee family. (Courtesy Ruth’s Refuge)
S. had left Pakistan in February 2021 with R. with the intent to visit Chicago, where her father had relatives, and then New York, which she had visited before. She had planned to stay a few weeks; traveling with her brother, she assumed it would be a harrowing journey — in Pakistan, she said, her brother’s Down syndrome was often met with contempt, anger and confusion.
Here in the United States, however, S. was surprised by the degree of acceptance, warmth and respect shown to her brother. That’s why she came to believe immigration was necessary: As S. told the New York Jewish Week, she felt her and her brother’s lives were at stake, so she applied for asylum in April 2021.
S. learned their asylum applications were approved at the end of October 2022. Catholic Charities then helped S. and R. get IDs, Social Security numbers and health care, and also provided a few hundred dollars a month to help them get on her feet.
These days, S. works as a home health aide. “It’s becoming home,” she said. “It’s surprising because I was raised in Pakistan, but I never felt like this in my country.”
Left behind in Pakistan are her husband, two other brothers and her 21-year-old son. But her son’s asylum application was approved last month, she said, and she thinks her husband’s will be soon as well, so she’s optimistic they’ll be able to join her in New York later this year.
“I buy things [now] because I can save the money for it,” S. said. “But the first step was Catholic Charities and the second step was Ruth’s Refuge.”
“I’m very, very satisfied in the United States,” she added. “I’m very blessed.”
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The post This Jewish non-profit in Brooklyn helps refugees furnish their new homes appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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In a viral social media showdown, a glimpse of the real Israel
In amateur video footage circulated across Israeli social media in recent weeks, a disturbing scene unfolds. A young man in his mid-twenties, wearing a military-style jacket, looms over a silver car in the heart of Tel Aviv. Inside the vehicle sits an 89-year-old man, mouth agape, expression frozen.
“Dictator! Khamenei!” the young man shouts, his voice sharp, emotional and aggressive.
The young man was Mordechai David, a provocateur who has been documented in a series of confrontations with public figures, journalists and protesters, adopting a style built on creating moments designed for virality. The elderly passenger was former Supreme Court president Aharon Barak — the man whom Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s propaganda machine has painted as a demon, blamed for building, during his tenure in the 1990s, an allegedly over-independent judiciary that supposedly obstructs “governance” by a government eager for unrestrained power.
David, raised in Bnei Brak as the son of a convert to religious life, has become something of a celebrity. His past includes multiple criminal highlights. Blocking Barak’s car may have marked his peak. In a subsequent social-media video, David “apologized” for not blocking Barak’s vehicle “more.”
Two different visions of Israel
David’s stunt is one of several intertwined recent stories in Israel that, between them, outline the contours of a deeper struggle over the character of its society. It is a clash between two fundamentally different visions for the country. And Israel’s fate hangs in the balance.
David’s is a political culture where perpetual confrontation and boundary-breaking increasingly define public behavior. On the other side sits Lucy Aharish, a 44-year-old journalist who grew up in Dimona.
Aharish studied political science at the Hebrew University, and over the years has worked at a variety of radio and TV stations in Israel, including I24News in English, a channel on which I also frequently appear. Today, she hosts a current affairs program. The mother of a little boy, she is also a fierce opponent of Netanyahu and his circle.
That has attracted the ire of the Netanyahu machine’s street rabble. This week, Mordechai David arrived at her doorstep with a megaphone. According to reports, David and one of his followers managed to enter her building — and at the entrance, a tense confrontation unfolded.
This requires the introduction of another character: Tsahi Halevi, 50, an artist of unusual charisma. He is a singer and highly accomplished actor who portrayed Naor in the internationally acclaimed series Fauda, a character admired for intelligence, composure and moral clarity.
In a twist that could only occur in Israel, Halevi also partly plays himself. The son of a Mossad officer, he, like Naor, served as an officer in an elite undercover unit. On Oct. 7, 2023, he volunteered for reserve duty and rushed to the scenes of devastation, where he helped save many lives.
Matan Gendelman, a survivor of the Kfar Aza massacre, recently recounted in Israeli media that Halevi helped rescue her trapped family members after being directed to the scene by his wife, who received the family’s location through social media.
His wife is Lucy Aharish. “Pure gold, the salt of the earth,” Gendelman said of the couple.
The likes of David would vehemently disagree.
Why? Because Aharish, in addition to being a Netanyahu critic, is a member of Israel’s Arab minority. And because Aharish and Halevi are a mixed couple, the hostility against them burns even more intensely.
Back at their house, there was a scent of violence in the air as the decorated officer and provocateur traded barbs.
“You come to my home?” Halevi challenged; “I feel like protesting against your wife!” David replied. “How far do you want this to go?” Halevi asked, menacingly, as police separated the two. The police dragged David away, but he ensured himself another viral success; his future may hold a respectable place on the Likud list for the Knesset.
‘The affliction of Israeli society’
Aharish chose to respond on television. “Bullying — this is the affliction of Israeli society,” she said. “It is escalating. We see it in the streets, on the roads, in public discourse — and now it has reached my own doorstep.”
Worse, she added, “The spirit of this government is a bad spirit that encourages bullies. I will not bow my head before these inciters.” She also addressed Netanyahu directly: “This is precisely your way, Mr. Prime Minister — not to see, not to hear, not to know what is happening under your nose. … One day, these bullies will reach your doorstep as well.”
In the vision of Israel embodied by Aharish and Halevi, with their impassioned but civil approach, even the most fierce political disagreement remains bounded by restraint. An important distinction is drawn between rival and enemy.
In that advanced by David, those boundaries erode. Confrontation becomes personal. Intimidation is standard.
The first vision leads to an Israel that strives for peace within itself and with its neighbors, and remains a prosperous liberal democracy grounded in basic rights and openness to the world. The second leads to an unstable, isolated and increasingly theocratic state, which will be in constant conflict with its neighbors, and from which the most productive citizens will steadily depart. In short order it will be unrecognizable, and nothing will be left of “Start-Up Nation.”
The 2026 elections, which must be held by October, will not merely determine a government. They may decide with finality which of these two Israels prevails. And after four years of trauma under Netanyahu’s far-right government, there is urgency in the air.
The post In a viral social media showdown, a glimpse of the real Israel appeared first on The Forward.
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Trump’s pick for surgeon general gets her ‘daily dose of inspiring Kabbalah wisdom’
Casey Means, President Trump’s nominee for U.S. surgeon general, preaches a broad, loosely-defined spirituality that blends ideas such as the “divine feminine,” meditation, and connection with nature. In her email newsletter, she has endorsed practices such as full moon rituals and talking to trees. And, though she was raised Roman Catholic, she has expressed interest in kabbalah, the ancient Jewish mystical tradition focused on esoteric interpretations of scripture and the nature of the soul, the cosmos, and the divine.
In May 2025, she wrote about drawing inspiration from Kabbalah teacher and influencer David Ghiyam to help deal with those who judge her for taking breaks from work to rest and recover during certain phases of the lunar cycle, which she views as essential to “feminine creativity.” She directed her readers to follow Ghiyam “for a daily dose of inspiring Kabbalah wisdom.”
Cathy Heller, a Jewish wellness influencer who preaches mindfulness and manifestation drawing on her studies of Jewish mysticism with rabbis in Israel, told the Forward in a phone interview that Means is a close friend — and often asks her to share wisdom about the Torah and kabbalah.
“She loves it,” Heller said. “She sees such beauty and wisdom in this body of work, and how universal it is and how applicable it is.”
Means’ interest in mysticism expands well beyond kabbalah. In Good Energy, a book she co-wrote with her brother, Calley Means, who works as a senior advisor to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., she quotes Rumi, an influential figure in Sufism — the mystical dimension of Islam — and encourages her readers to practice yoga, tai chi, or qigong, try aromatherapy, and consider taking psychedelics. She has also opposed bans on raw milk despite the risk of serious bacterial infections, said more research is needed on a possible link between vaccines and autism, and criticized hormonal contraception as reflecting a “disrespect of life.”
Means’ interest in Kabbalah seems to reflect less a desire to engage in Jewish religious observance than a core belief of the Make America Healthy Again movement: that physical ailments often have underlying spiritual causes, and that tapping into the mind-body connection has the power to heal. Her promotion of kabbalah also represents the further mainstreaming of an ancient practice once reserved for only the most learned of Jewish scholars — repackaged for non-Jewish audiences and finding its way into spaces as unlikely as the U.S. Public Health Service.
“The idea that it’s controversial that we should BOTH trust unbiased scientific information AND our divine intuition is a sign of darkness in our culture,” Means wrote in November 2024.
‘A manifester’
Heller met Means in 2024 through a mutual friend in Los Angeles who hosts sound baths and other wellness events. They now take long walks and hikes together, share meals, and have celebrated several Shabbat dinners.
On one hike in Los Angeles, they came across a rabbi, and Heller says she asked him to offer a teaching. He shared an explanation of why Jacob’s name derives from the Hebrew root for “heel,” saying that Jacob had the capacity to draw the highest consciousness down into the lowest places.
Means “was literally beaming from ear to ear. We both had tears in our eyes,” Heller recalled. “I said, ‘What’s your name?’ And he said, ‘Rabbi Heller,’ which is funny because that’s my last name. And Casey’s like, ‘You’re such a manifester, that’s crazy.’”
In November 2024, Means promoted Heller’s book, Abundant Ever After: Tools for Creating a Life of Prosperity and Ease on her blog.
“Cathy is a goddess friend and her message resonates with me profoundly about how to live a limitless and spiritual life. Abundant Ever After is a transformative guide blending Jewish mysticism, meditation, and practical tools,” Means wrote. “Manifestation is real. Why wouldn’t we want to learn?”
One month later, Means appeared on Heller’s podcast, “Everything is Energy with Cathy Heller,” where she said that meeting Heller felt like “divine timing” and that their relationship was helping her make sense of concepts from Good Energy, including her belief that everything is interconnected.
“This idea that we’re oneness and everything is connected, it’s not a metaphor. It’s not hippie,” Means said on the podcast. “It’s literally truth on the physical, chemical level. And it’s so absent from our paradigm of healing.”
MAHA and religion
Adrienne Krone, a professor at Allegheny University and author of Free-Range Religion: Alternative Food Movements and Religious Life in the United States, sees a direct connection between the MAHA movement and religious ways of thinking about food, health and the body.
She said that the internet has accelerated a broader shift in wellness culture and its relationship to spirituality. On social media, mystical teachings can often be mistranslated and blended together, she said, sometimes losing their original cultural context.
“Some of what’s going on is people are picking up other religious ideas, other secular ideas, scientific research, and they bring it all together,” Krone said. “That’s what forms their understanding of what they’re supposed to eat, how they’re supposed to treat their bodies, what kinds of extra exercise regimens they should be doing. And so it doesn’t surprise me that Casey Means has this kind of collection of ideas that are more accessible than they used to be.”
Still, Means’ spirituality seems to be an outlier among the traditional Christian conservative worldview touted by most of Trump’s other nominees. Her calls to “EMBRACE THE ‘WOO WOO’” and engage in various spiritual ceremonies have drawn the ire of some activists, including conservative talk radio host Erick Erickson, who critiqued Means as “a near Wiccan” who has “dabbled in occult practices that amount to witchcraft.”
Two Republican senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, have not yet committed to vote “yes” on Means’ confirmation, and pressed Means at her confirmation hearing about her stance on vaccines and past use of psychedelic mushrooms.
If confirmed as the nation’s top doctor, Means has signaled that spirituality will play a significant role in how she approaches the position.
“I do believe that Americans are ready to hear about spirituality when it pertains to medicine,” Means said at her confirmation hearing.
The post Trump’s pick for surgeon general gets her ‘daily dose of inspiring Kabbalah wisdom’ appeared first on The Forward.
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More Americans now sympathize with Palestinians than with Israelis, new poll finds
(JTA) — Another major poll has founded that sympathy has surged among Americans for Palestinians and now exceeds support for Israelis.
Gallup, one of the country’s most respected polling outfits, found that 41% of Americans say they sympathize more with the Palestinians, compare to 36% who sympathize more with the Israelis. A year ago, a Gallup poll showed a 13-point advantage for the Israelis.
The poll comes nearly six months after a national poll found for the first time that Americans’ sympathies had flipped. In a New York Times and Siena University poll released in September, 35% of registered American voters said they sympathized more with Palestinians compared to 34% with Israel. Prior to the war in Gaza, 47% of respondents said they sympathized more with the Israelis.
Both pollsters have asked about voters’ sympathies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for decades. They each said the sympathy gap in their latest polls was not statistically significant but that the trajectory of sentiments was.
Between 2001 and 2018, the Gallup poll found that Americans were more sympathetic to the Israelis by an average margin of 43 points. The gap began narrowing the following year but did not flip until now.
In both polls, the stark recent shift was driven by sharp shifts in sentiments among Democrats. The Gallup poll found that voters under 55 prefer the Palestinians by a wide margin, while older voters remain more sympathetic to the Israelis. The New York Times poll found that older, college-educated Democrats had seen their sentiments shift most harshly.
The polls add to the data points showing a sharp drop in sympathy for Israelis since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack and the subsequent war in Gaza, for which the United States brokered a ceasefire in October. The Gallup poll is the first to demonstrate post-ceasefire sentiments among Americans.
The post More Americans now sympathize with Palestinians than with Israelis, new poll finds appeared first on The Forward.