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This Jewish radio reporter was ‘the dean of the press corps’
(New York Jewish Week) — Room 9, the compact space designed for journalists inside New York City Hall, has held its share of personalities over the years. But none has spent as much time there as Stan Brooks, a Jewish radioman who reported on the city for five decades, covering six of its mayors and some of its most pivotal moments.
“He was like the dean of the press corps,” longtime colleague and friend Glenn Schuck told the New York Jewish Week about Brooks, who worked at 1010 WINS for almost his entire career.
“Every mayor kind of revered Stan,” Schuck said. “All the mayors liked him, would call on him, and made sure that Stan was an important part of whatever question and answer session they were having.”
A few weeks before Brooks’ death from lung cancer at age 86 in December 2013, the city’s outgoing mayor showed up at his bedside in Hell’s Kitchen with cookies. “Mike Bloomberg showed up, went up into his room — Stan was not well, he was very, very sick at that point — he sat with him, held his hand,” Schuck recalled. “That’s how respected Stan was. I mean, he had the ear and attention of a lot of people.”
And then, just days before Brooks’ passing, Bloomberg renamed the radio room at City Hall the “Stan Brooks Radio Room,” citing Brooks as the “longest-serving member of Room 9.”
That would not be Brooks’ only lasting mark on the city he loved. In 2014, his local city councilman — Corey Johnson, who would go on to become the council’s speaker — spearheaded an effort to rename the corner of West 43rd Street and 10th Avenue, where Brooks and his wife Lynn lived at Manhattan Plaza, Stan Brooks Way.
“He loved that neighborhood,” Shuck said. “His life was that building and that neighborhood that he lived in.”
Schuck recalled how people would always ask Stan, “You’re 80-something years old, don’t you want a house in Florida?” and his response was always no. “He wanted to be in Hell’s Kitchen, in his apartment, on a Saturday, walking through the neighborhood. That was his life,” he said.
Stanley Bertram Brooks was born Jan. 24, 1927 in the Bronx to Herman and Mildred Brooks. His father was a paper salesman and the president of the Young Friends Association, a Jewish burial organization, and his mother was one of 11 children, coming from a very close family.
Stan, who grew up in a kosher home and attended a Conservative synagogue, lived on the same block — Walton Avenue — as practically his entire extended family, according to George Brooks, one of his three sons. Stan and Lynn raised raised their family on Long Island where they belonged to Temple Sinai, a Reform synagogue.
“He was kind of spiritual in nature. I think he felt his connection to Judaism very much through his parents and his family — I would call it a family-based religion,” George said, recalling how his father said Kaddish every morning for the first year after his parents died.
Brooks went to City College before serving in the army and graduating from Syracuse University.
Brooks once spoke about being on “Kitchen Patrol” duty while in basic training and seeing stacks of pork chops being fried in lard and going outside and throwing up because he had never encountered pig meat before and was overwhelmed, George said.
That was the beginning of “opening his mind to the wider world. He really was taken from kind of a sheltered, shtetl-y Bronx upbringing to seeing all kinds of people that he would never have met,” George said of his father’s time in the army.
Before joining WINS as news director in 1962, Brooks worked for newspapers in Westchester County and was a reporter and editor for Newsday on Long Island for 10 years.
Shortly after he joined 1010 WINS, it became an all-news operation — the first of its kind in New York City and one of the first in the country. He helped lay the groundwork for the station and for all 24-hour news stations to come.
“Being the first news director of the first all-news station, everyone looked up to Stan, admired Stan. He was, you know, he really was a trailblazer,” Schuck said. “I mean, he set a lot of the things in motion that are now 24-hour news channels, whether it’s TV or radio, are in place today,” Schuck said.
One reason for hesitancy with 24 hour news channels was the concern that there couldn’t possibly be enough news to fill all that time. But Brooks “knew New York had enough stories to tell and he was just a really, really good storyteller,” Schuck said.
And Brooks certainly found enough to report on. He became a local reporter for 1010 WINS in 1970 and had a full reporting repertoire of 30- to 60-second dispatches. Even at 80, “he would always be the first one to get his stories done,” Schuck said.
“He would bring the story to life. He could go to an endless news conference and somehow he would know what the center of the story was immediately and he’d have the lead written before he got back to the desk,” Rich Lamb, a reporter from WCBS and one of Brooks’ colleagues said after his death.
Brooks was a man of routine. For almost 50 years, every morning he drove from Hell’s Kitchen down to City Hall where he parked in the same spot each day. He ate the same cheese sandwich made by his wife at his desk for lunch every day because he wanted to be able to work without pause.
He brought that steadiness to moments of high intensity in the news.
During the 1971 Attica prison revolt — when inmates at the high-security Attica Correctional Facility took control of the prison and kept guards hostage resulting in 39 prisoners and guards killed by law enforcement gunfire — “he was famously on a payphone in the middle of this prison riot and was so calm,” Schuck said. ”Stan made his name for things like that.”
Then, in 2003, City Councilman James David was killed in City Hall right in front of Schuck and Brooks just seconds after they had just shaken his hand. Brooks delivered a live report on the scene.
“Because Stan was with me that day, it allowed me to get through something like that, because I felt like, ‘I’m with Stan so I’m good,’” Schuck said. “He was more than a colleague to me, he was a mentor and a friend. Almost like a second father. I just always felt better when he was around and he led by example.”
When Schuck joined 1010 WINS in 2000, Brooks sat down with him to answer all of his questions and would do that for anyone. “He was very welcoming, willing to sit with anybody, even if you had met them for the first time just to kind of, you know, set you on your path,” Schuck said.
Throughout his career, Brooks frequently shared his wisdom and experience with younger journalists. “He was firm, but never rude. He would teach that to younger journalists, you don’t have to be rude to get your answers. He asked tough questions, but he was always nice about the way he did it. And that’s how he got his answers,” Schuck said. “He always got the answers he wanted, because he had the right tact and the way he handled himself. And if people wanted to tell a story, they wanted to tell it to Stan, I think that was important and he taught journalists by the hundreds how to do that.”
“He never really even saw it as a job,” Schuck added. “He just loved what he did. He wanted everyone to learn how to do the job like he did.”
Not only did he love what he did, but he understood the importance of his work — and did it until just a few weeks before his death, even when he could barely make it up the City Hall steps.
“I think that he felt very strongly about uplifting the downtrodden, which I think of as tikkun olam, giving people who don’t have a fair shake a fair shake,” George Brooks said. “That’s part of why he was a journalist, to tell the stories of the people who needed to be heard who might not otherwise have a voice.”
When he wasn’t working, all of Brooks’ time was devoted to his family — his wife Lynn, to whom he was married for 60 years before she died just months before him, and his three sons, George, Rick and Bennet.
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The post This Jewish radio reporter was ‘the dean of the press corps’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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US Democrats Demand Release of Pro-Hamas Columbia University Activist Mahmoud Khalil From ICE Detention
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) addresses attendees as she takes part in a protest calling for a ceasefire in Gaza outside the US Capitol, in Washington, DC, US, Oct. 18, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis
Democrats in the US Congress are largely defending a leading anti-Israel agitator at Columbia University in New York following news of his arrest and detainment by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian from Syria who completed post-graduate studies at Columbia in December, was apprehended by federal authorities on Saturday night and transported to an immigration jail in Louisiana. The pro-Hamas activist was informed that his green card had been revoked and that he would be deported from the United States.
In a statement, the US Department of Homeland Security said ICE agents arrested Khalil “in support of” an executive order signed by US President Donald Trump aimed at combating antisemitism on university campuses.
“Khalil led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization. ICE and the Department of State are committed to enforcing President Trump’s executive orders and to protecting US national security,” the department said.
US President Donald Trump defended Khalil’s arrest and said it will be the first of many.
“We know there are more students at Columbia and other universities across the country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, antisemitism, anti-American activity, and the Trump administration will not tolerate it,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “Many are not students; they are paid agitators. We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again.”
However, a federal judge in New York City on Monday ordered that Khalil not be deported by the Trump administration until the court ruled on a lawsuit presented by his lawyers. According to ICE, the activist is currently being held at the Lasalle Detention facility in Louisiana. Khalil’s case is set to be heard on Wednesday.
Many observers criticized Khalil’s arrest and detainment, arguing that the Trump administration both violated his right to due process and undermined free speech. Critics also argued that the Trump administration does not possess the right to unilaterally revoke green cards from legal residents.
Congressional Democrats largely condemned the ICE arrest of Khalil, arguing that the Trump administration should release the pro-Hamas activist immediately.
“The warrantless arrest of any legal permanent resident seemingly solely over their speech is a chilling, McCarthyesque action in response to the exercise of first amendment rights to free speech,” said Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY).
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, lambasted the arrest, posted on social media that detaining a legal resident “for exercising his right to free speech is something we’d expect from Russia — NOT AMERICA [sic].”
The official BlueSky account of the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee accused the Trump administration of seeking retribution against Khalil for expressing “his First Amendment rights in a way Donald Trump didn’t like” and condemned the White House for practicing “straight up authoritarianism.”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), one of the most outspoken critics against Israel in Congress, said that Khalil’s arrest is part of a broader effort “to shred our constitutional rights to free speech and due process.” In addition, Tlaib spearheaded a letter to US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, demanding that Khalil be “freed from DHS custody immediately.” Thirteen other Democrats signed the letter.
The letter argued that Khalil has “not been charged or convicted of any crime” and that the Trump administration targeted him “solely for his activism and organizing as a student leader,” as well as his efforts in opposing Israel’s “brutal assault of the Palestinian people in Gaza.” The missive also claimed that the arrest of Khalil represents another example of the Trump administration’s purported “anti-Palestinian racism” and accused the White House of trying to dismantle the “Palestine solidarity movement in this country.” The lawmakers warned that the Trump administration’s tactics against Khalil “will be applied to any and all opposition to his undemocratic agenda.”
Some observers noted out that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), one of the most vocal opponents of the Jewish state in the US Congress, did not sign onto the letter calling for Khalil’s release. Though Ocasio-Cortez has spoken out in defense of Khalil, some on the political left have repudiated her for not taking more strident anti-Israel stances in the 16 months following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of Israel. The lawmaker came under fire by some of the political left last summer for calling for the release of the Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas to Gaza.
Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) also repudiated the arrest, writing that Khalil is “entitled to First Amendment protections like everyone in this country.”
Despite the widespread backlash over Khalil’s arrest, many congressional Republicans praised the announcement, arguing that the Trump administration has taken aggressive action to protect Jewish Americans and clamp down on antisemitism.
While at Columbia, Khalil spearheaded multiple pro-Hamas demonstrations on campus. He was a participant in Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a constellation of 100 anti-Israel campus organizations calling for the Ivy League institution to cut ties with the Jewish state.
In the aftermath of Khalil’s arrest, video circulated online showing the activist leading a takeover of a campus building at neighboring Barnard College. During the unsanctioned demonstration, activists spread pamphlets glorifying the Hamas Oct. 7 massacres across southern Israel.
In addition, Khalil helped lead the infamous Hamilton Hall takeover on Columbia’s campus in the final weeks of the 2023-2024 school year.
US Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) defended Khalil’s arrest, saying, “If you are on a student visa and you’re an aspiring young terrorist who wants to prey upon your Jewish classmates, you’re going home.”
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) condemned Democrats for “fighting for a pro-Hamas foreigner who has made life hell for Jews on campus.”
Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) also lauded the detainment of Khalil, writing that “obtaining a US visa is a privilege, not a right. Friends of Hamas — don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”
In the year following the Hamas-led Oct. 7 slaughters across Israel, Columbia University has emerged as a hotbed of anti-Israel student activism. Last spring, anti-Israel students and faculty erected a student encampment, protesting the university’s ties to the Jewish state. Moreover, Columbia has suffered an exodus of financial support from Jewish donors and alumni, alleging that the university has dragged its feet in combating antisemitism on campus.
Last week, the Trump administration cut $400 million in grants originally intended for Columbia, arguing that the university has not done enough to protect Jewish students. Mounting pressure from the Trump administration reportedly caused the university to collaborate with ICE to detain Khalil.
The post US Democrats Demand Release of Pro-Hamas Columbia University Activist Mahmoud Khalil From ICE Detention first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran’s President to Trump: I Will Not Negotiate, ‘Do Whatever the Hell You Want’
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian attends a press conference in Tehran, Iran, Sept. 16, 2024. Photo: WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Majid Asgaripour via REUTERS
President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran would not negotiate with the US while being threatened, telling President Donald Trump to “do whatever the hell you want,” Iranian state media reported on Tuesday.
“It is unacceptable for us that they [the US] give orders and make threats. I won’t even negotiate with you. Do whatever the hell you want,” state media quoted Pezeshkian as saying.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday that Tehran would not be bullied into negotiations, a day after Trump said he had sent a letter urging Iran to engage in talks on a new nuclear deal.
While expressing openness to a deal with Tehran, Trump has reinstated the “maximum pressure” campaign he applied in his first term as president to isolate Iran from the global economy and drive its oil exports down towards zero.
In an interview with Fox Business, Trump said last week, “There are two ways Iran can be handled: militarily, or you make a deal” to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Iran has long denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon. However, it is “dramatically” accelerating enrichment of uranium to up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent weapons-grade level, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, has warned.
Iran has accelerated its nuclear work since 2019, a year after then-President Trump ditched Tehran’s 2015 nuclear pact with six world powers and reimposed sanctions that have crippled the country’s economy.
The post Iran’s President to Trump: I Will Not Negotiate, ‘Do Whatever the Hell You Want’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syrians Riot in Front of Jewish Museum in Munich Amid Rise in Antisemitic Incidents
Illustrative: Pro-Hamas demonstrators marching in Munich, Germany. Photo: Reuters/Alexander Pohl
Three young Syrian men rioted in front of the Jewish Museum in Munich this past weekend, spitting on photographs of Israeli hostages and deceased soldiers before one of the assailants threatened security personnel with a knife.
The incident, first reported by German media, was one of the latest antisemitic cases in a country that has experienced a surge in open hatred toward Jews since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
During the Gaza conflict, the Jewish Museum has displayed photographs of hostages taken by Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists during their Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel as well as deceased Israeli soldiers, along with candles, to honor and remember them.
On Saturday afternoon, three men — Syrian citizens living in Austria — vandalized the memorial by spitting on it while shouting antisemitic slogans, the German newspapers Süddeutsche Zeitung and Jüdische Allgemeine reported.
After witnessing the attack, two employees from the Jewish community’s security service tried to stop the assailants, who responded aggressively. One of the three men, a 19-year-old, allegedly kicked one of the employees before drawing a knife.
Several police officers assigned to protect the Jewish Center, located next to the museum, noticed the incident and intervened. Soon afterward, more than 30 officers arrived at the scene. Police and security guards had to threaten to use their firearms before the teenager dropped the knife.
According to local police, the man and his two accomplices, a 20-year-old and a 31-year-old, have all been arrested and are under investigation for threats, assault, defamation, and insulting the memory of the deceased.
The Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office has taken over the case, with senior prosecutor Andreas Franck, who also serves as the antisemitism commissioner of the Bavarian judiciary, overseeing the case.
Germany has experienced a sharp spike in antisemitism since Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.
In just the first six months of 2024 alone, the number of antisemitic incidents in Berlin surpassed the total for all of the prior year and reached the highest annual count on record, according to Germany’s Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS).
The figures compiled by RIAS were the highest count for a single year since the federally-funded body began monitoring antisemitic incidents in 2015, showing the German capital averaged nearly eight anti-Jewish outrages a day from January to June last year.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), police registered 5,154 antisemitic incidents in Germany in 2023, a 95 percent increase compared to the previous year.
However, experts believe that the true number of incidents is much higher but not recorded because of reluctance on the part of the victims.
“Only 20 percent of the antisemitic crimes are reported, so the real number should be five times what we have,” Felix Klein, the German federal government’s chief official dealing with antisemitism, told The Algemeiner in an interview in 2023.
Earlier this year, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemned the ongoing discrimination faced by the Jewish community, calling it “outrageous and shameful.”
Last month, Germany’s federal parliament, the Bundestag, passed a motion to address antisemitism and hostility toward Israel in schools and universities, seeking to combat a surge in pro-Hamas demonstrations on campuses and antisemitic incidents across the country.
Jewish students at German universities widely expressed a growing sense of insecurity and uneasiness following Hamas’s Oct. 7 invasion of southern Israel, amid a slew of incidents purportedly meant to protest the war in Gaza.
The recently passed parliamentary motion stipulates that the federal government — in collaboration with the ministers of education and the German Rectors’ Conference, an association of state and state-recognized universities — must ensure that antisemitic behavior in educational institutions results in sanctions.
“This includes the consistent enforcement of house rules, temporary exclusion from classes or studies, and even … expulsion,” the motion reads.
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