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With Israel in turmoil, group of US rabbis visits with a mission: to listen and learn
Over the last few weeks, while Israel has been roiled by demonstrations involving hundreds of thousands, and President Isaac Herzog has warned about the possibility of civil war, American Jews have been watching with grave concern.
Even after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a delay in the government plan to overhaul the judiciary that sparked the mass protests, tensions in Israel remained high.
It was precisely at this fraught moment that UJA-Federation of New York decided to bring a group of rabbis from the New York area to Israel — to listen, learn and talk with key Israeli figures, and to communicate the nuances of what they heard back to their communities in New York.
“I learned more than I thought was possible,” said participant Rabbi Jonah Geffen, senior Jewish educator and campus rabbi at Hunter College Hillel in New York.
Over four days in March, the diverse group of 24 rabbis met with a wide range of Israelis, ranging from politicians — including architects of the judicial reform and representatives from the opposition — to leading public intellectuals, journalists representing publications from both the left and the right, community activists, and thought leaders. The trip was funded by the Paul E. Singer Foundation.
“UJA has a tradition of getting our community leaders and our rabbis proximate to the issues of the day to help them as they lead their communities,” said Hana Gruenberg, managing director of Jewish life at UJA-Federation, who accompanied the delegation of rabbis. “We’ve brought rabbis to Israel when there have been security issues, we’ve brought rabbis to Ukraine, and most recently, during this time of challenge in Israel around internal domestic issues and judicial reform, we wanted to give rabbis support in leading their communities at this complicated time.”
Among those with whom the rabbis met to discuss the current political situation in the country were leaders of two Israeli civil society organizations, Yozmat Hameah (the Initiative of the Hundreds) and a group called the Israeli Congress, which strives to address the tension between the state’s Jewish and democratic identities.
The delegation also participated in a program with Co.Lab, a collaborative sponsored by UJA-Federation comprised of social influencers from diverse backgrounds. The group is working on initiatives to advance cohesion in Israeli society.
The group heard from Micah Goodman, research fellow at the Kogod Research Center at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem; Knesset member Simcha Rothman of the Religious Zionist Party, who as chairman of the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee is trying to advance the judicial reform; Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli; and Rabbi Gilad Kariv, a Knesset member from the Labor Party.
The rabbinic delegation met with several journalists, including author Matti Friedman, Times of Israel political correspondent Carrie Keller- Lynn, and Jewish world reporter Zvika Klein of the Jerusalem Post.
Rabbis from the New York area gather in a Knesset meeting room ahead of a meeting with Knesset Member Simcha Rothman, an architect of the proposed judicial overhaul in Israel, March 17, 2023. (Courtesy of UJA-Federation)
“UJA was really thoughtful about our hearing from so many different perspectives explaining to us the complexity of these issues,” said Bracha Jaffe, associate rabba at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale in the Bronx. “It struck me as such an eye-opener that it’s more than just about judicial reform. All the different societal factions have felt at one time marginalized, coerced on one side, not being seen, not being represented.”
One of the many reasons for this sort of mission to Israel, said Eric S. Goldstein, CEO of UJA-Federation, is to convene rabbis from different denominations and across the cultural spectrum that represent the diversity of the New York Jewish community.
“These trips give prominent New York rabbis the opportunity to have their voices heard by leaders in Israel. They provide the rabbis with the ability to better understand the complex reality there so they can more effectively lead their communities in these challenging moments,” Goldstein said. “And they bring together rabbis from across the denominational spectrum, helping to more closely knit our own New York Jewish community — an ever-more important priority.”
Often, the day-to-day life of a rabbi does not lend itself to reflective moments with colleagues to listen and share multiple viewpoints on complex issues facing the Jewish community and Israel.
“What made this trip significant was that people who love Israel equally can have a varied view about what is in the best interest of the Jewish state,” said Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove of Park Avenue Synagogue in New York City.
With an itinerary that carefully struck a balance between intellectual, spiritual and political leaders, as well as advocates and activists, the group was exposed to a kaleidoscope of viewpoints, Cosgrove said.
“I was engaging with ideas that affirmed my beliefs about judicial reform and also challenged my beliefs,” he noted.
Both during and after the trip, the rabbis discussed the question of what it means to be a spiritual leader at this moment.
“One of our most important roles is to make sure that our people find reasons to maintain that connection both to the Land of Israel and the people of Israel,” said Rabbi Joshua Davidson of Temple Emanu-El in New York. “For me, that is a critical part of my identity as a Jew and my role as a rabbi. I believe that it is going to be a harder and harder but a more and more important
endeavor in these months to come.”
Rabbi Ari Lorge of Central Synagogue in New York said each participant came to the trip with different viewpoints on Israel, but with a common hope to see the country and its citizens flourish.
“Each of us comes with our own dreams for Israel,” he said. “We’re not neutral observers. We must continue to advocate and encourage this kind of dialogue and hold fast to those dreams.”
While any Knesset vote on judicial reform is unlikely before late April, the political tumult in Israel is far from over, and American Jewish leaders intend to stay as involved as possible.
“In this rapidly evolving situation, we’ll continue with these kinds of engagements for rabbis, knowing that we’re still in the middle of this,” Gruenberg said. “We care deeply about what comes next.”
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Netanyahu heckled at Israel’s official Memorial Day ceremony as bereaved families grasp for comfort
(JTA) — TEL MOND, Israel — Thousands of Israelis gathered in cemeteries all over Israel to commemorate the nation’s fallen soldiers and terror victims on Memorial Day, as public mourning collided with political anger, fresh wartime uncertainty and the private aftershocks consuming bereaved families.
In a Memorial Day message to bereaved families, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also addressed the war against Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah, saying Israel has “already removed an existential threat.”
A short while later, President Donald Trump told CNBC’s Joe Kernan that he “expects to be bombing” Iran again if talks collapse ahead of Wednesday’s ceasefire deadline.
“We have returned all our hostages, struck our enemies hard, and made Israel a nation stronger than ever before,” Netanyahu said at an official Memorial Day ceremony at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.
His comments prompted a heckler in the crowd to yell out, “Some of them died in tunnels,” in reference to the Israelis kidnapped to Gaza by the Hamas terror group and held underground.
Skirmishes broke out during a speech by MK Ofir Sofer, of the far-right Religious Zionist party at the Kiryat Shaul military cemetery in Tel Aviv, when attendees attempted to snatch signs held up by protesters that read “Government of death” and “I refuse to hear words of comfort from a government of criminals.”
At a cemetery in Tel Mond, Eyal Golan, whose sister Shirel died by suicide on her 22nd birthday, a year after surviving the Nova massacre near the Gaza border, also had harsh words for the government.
Reflecting on Knesset debates he attended after his sister’s death, as he pushed for a law in her name to provide unlimited, comprehensive mental health care to victims of terror, Golan said he was furious at what he described as the performative behavior of politicians from both the coalition and opposition.
“Off camera, they speak to each other normally,” he said. “But the moment the cameras turn on, it’s showtime. They fall into their roles, shouting and attacking each other. I’m sitting there thinking, how can this be real?”
“Instead of coming together, they just deepen the divide,” he said, but he credited two Knesset members from opposite sides of the political aisle — Moshe Gafni of United Torah Judaism and Merav Michaeli of Labor — with taking up the cause and advancing the legislation.
Eyal and other members of his family say the government failed Shirel as she grappled with acute PTSD in the months after the attack. Now advancing the bill, he said he hopes it will spare other families the same fate.
“The whole point of my crusade is to save others. No one will be able to bring back my sister. If I’m able to save one more soul, I’ve done my job,” he said.
The legislation, known informally as the Shirel Golan law, passed a preliminary reading in January 2026.
Sitting close to his daughter’s grave, covered in flowers, wreaths and candles, Eyal’s father Meir said he has fallen into a strange nightly ritual. Every night, he wakes up at 3 a.m. and makes himself a cup of coffee. He opens the smart TV to her YouTube account and for an hour or so watches the videos she had liked and subscribed to, including trance music emblematic of the Nova scene. At 4 a.m., he returns to bed.
“As soon as I turn it on, it says, ‘Hello Shirel, welcome back,’” Meir said, adding that it gives him a measure of tranquility, as if his daughter “is still around.”
Later, as Eyal made the 45-minute drive back to his home in the central Israeli city of Holon, he described the journey as the emotional hinge between mourning and the return to ordinary life.
“It’s a kind of magic hour during which I store the grief of the day in a box in my mind,” he said. “By Independence Day, I’ll go back to my main role, being a father to two daughters.”
He added, “That journey is a microcosm of Israeli society.”
Meir’s late-night visits to his daughter’s digital world are part of a wider private language of mourning that has taken hold among bereaved Israeli families, many of whom continue to reach for their dead through screens. On phones across the country, especially on the popular messaging platform WhatsApp, parents and siblings keep sending messages to loved ones who were killed, writing as if the conversation never ended. The messages, some of which were recorded in a special Memorial Day project by the Ynet news site, come at unguarded moments, during a football game, before a birthday, or in the middle of the night.
“What a goal, Yahav,” one father, Nir Maayan, wrote to his son, Yahav, who was killed in Gaza in January of last year.
Texting his son from his graveside, Nir wrote: “There are days of collapse, of longing, of not being able to accept reality. Moments when I try to imagine your final moments. What did you think? What did you feel? Answers I will never know. So I just rest my head on you, and somehow you comfort me and hold me. Someone is watching over me from above.”
“Tomorrow is your birthday, send mom a message,” a sister wrote to her deceased brother.
“The sky is beautiful today,” another wrote.
Dorit Ron keeps on texting her son Itai, who was killed on Oct. 7 at the Nahal Oz base near the Gaza border. “I expect an answer, a sign that he’s okay and with his father,” she said, according to the report. “Even though I know he won’t reply, to me he’s alive, just nearby, in another dimension.”
The post Netanyahu heckled at Israel’s official Memorial Day ceremony as bereaved families grasp for comfort appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel jails soldiers who smashed Jesus statue in Lebanon, installs a new one
(JTA) — An Israeli soldier who bludgeoned a statue of Jesus in southern Lebanon and another soldier who photographed the act have both been dismissed from combat duty and sentenced to 30 days in military detention, the Israeli military said on Monday.
“The IDF expresses deep regret over the incident and emphasizes that its operations in Lebanon are directed solely against the Hezbollah terrorist organization and other terrorist groups, and not against Lebanese civilians,” the IDF said in a statement.
The military also announced it had replaced the damaged statue with a new one “in full coordination with the local community of Debel in southern Lebanon.” The town is a Christian enclave within a region that is a Hezbollah stronghold.
A short while ago, in full coordination with the local community of Debel in southern Lebanon, the damaged statue was replaced by IDF troops. The Northern Command worked to coordinate the replacement of the statue from the moment it received the report of the incident.
The IDF… pic.twitter.com/nGh1s1iia1
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) April 21, 2026
Photos of the incident, which depicted the soldier striking an overturned Jesus statue, were quickly condemned by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the IDF as they spread on Sunday.
By Monday, a letter condemning the act had drawn over 80 signatures by prominent Jewish leaders, including former Israeli cabinet minister Michael Melchior; American antisemitism activist Shabbos Kestenbaum; and Orthodox rabbis in Israel and the United States.
“This act is a chillul Hashem — a desecration of God’s name,” the letter said. “It is an affront to the ancient Christian communities of the Middle East and to Christians all over the world. It is a vile betrayal of the Jewish values upon which the State of Israel was founded. And it is a wound inflicted upon the fragile Jewish-Christian friendship that is more important than ever.”
The announcement of the punishment comes as the IDF said it was probing an incident in the West Bank in which a reservist soldier reportedly killed two Palestinians, aged 14 and 32.
The post Israel jails soldiers who smashed Jesus statue in Lebanon, installs a new one appeared first on The Forward.
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Confronting Wexner-Epstein ties, alumni of Jewish leadership programs launch new survivor fund
(JTA) — Graduates of the Jewish leadership programs funded by Leslie Wexner have long grappled with the Jewish philanthropist’s ties to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
At least two rabbis have already donated to organizations supporting victims of sexual violence to make amends for benefitting from Wexner’s largesse. Now, a new Jewish fund devoted to the issue has launched — and raised more than $30,000 in its first day.
The announcement of the ASHRU Fund comes as the ongoing release of documents from a federal investigation into Epstein has renewed scrutiny on Wexner, one of his earliest and most significant benefactors, and others with ties to the disgraced financier. Wexner has not been charged with any crime in connection with Epstein’s sex-trafficking offenses and has repeatedly denied knowledge of Epstein’s criminal conduct.
The fund’s name is drawn from a teaching from the prophet Isaiah and stands for Advocacy for Survivors, for Healing, Repair and Understanding. Its architects say whether Wexner actively endorsed Epstein’s behavior is immaterial.
“Regardless of what you believe was done or known, those who were harmed by sexual trafficking and violence need to know that Jewish leaders care about them,” a description on the fund’s website reads. “This fund represents what we believe Jewish leaders must do in a time of crisis — even when the topic may be uncomfortable and hits close to home.”
The fund was founded by Josh Feigelson, the CEO of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality; Guila Benchimol, a gender-based violence advocate; Rachel Faulkner, the senior director of program and event engagement for the National Council of Jewish Women; Rebecca Kobrin, an associate professor of American Jewish history at Columbia University; Rabbi Jon Spira-Savett, the leader of Temple Beth Abraham in Nashua, New Hampshire; Michael Rosenzweig; and Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg.
Ruttenberg was one of the two rabbis who already publicly announced a donation to make amends for her own indirect Epstein ties. In 2022, she said she donated more than she had received from the Wexner Foundation to the National Survivor Network, an advocacy organization led by survivors of sex trafficking. (The other rabbi, Raysh Weiss, said in 2019 that she would direct her charitable giving toward organizations supporting survivors of sexual abuse.)
“For decades, one prestigious site of training for Jewish leaders was … the Wexner Foundation,” Ruttenberg wrote in a post on Facebook announcing the new fund. “In the years since Julie K. Brown’s reporting* + especially since the Files, many who benefited from it have struggled with What To Do. Many in our broader community have also looked for a way to engage with all of these horrors in productive way. Meet AshruFund.com.”
On its website, the ASHRU fund pledged to donate the first $100,000 raised to World Without Exploitation, a human trafficking advocacy network, and the National Survivor Network. After that, it said, it would listen to survivors about what they need before deciding where to give.
“By donating, we can collectively affirm our opposition to sexual exploitation and abuse, and demonstrate our Jewish commitment to responding with accountability, care, and justice,” the website reads. “Funds raised will be directed to provide the most direct support possible to survivors of sexual exploitation and trafficking through the organizations that serve them.”
Roughly 3,000 people have participated in various programs offered by the Wexner Foundation, based in Wexner’s hometown near Columbus, Ohio. They include rabbis, nonprofit executives and communal leaders across the United States and Israel. The ASHRU Fund’s creators hope many of them will donate — and they’re happy if the giving comes from an even wider network.
“If, like me, you’re a Wexner alum, or if you’re simply someone who wants to help the victims of Jeffrey Epstein specifically and sexual violence in general, I hope you’ll contribute what you can,” Feigelson wrote in a post on Facebook.
The post Confronting Wexner-Epstein ties, alumni of Jewish leadership programs launch new survivor fund appeared first on The Forward.