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Yeshiva education reform activist launching independent haredi news organization
(JTA) — Naftuli Moster, the founder and former executive director of Yaffed, the advocacy group focused on improving secular education in haredi Orthodox Jewish schools, is launching a news organization focused on what he sees as a news desert in the haredi world.
With a board that includes seasoned Jewish journalists, Shtetl: Haredi Free Press will launch online in 2023, and Moster said he is exploring a print option as well. Shtetl’s online announcement said it had seed funding for two years; Moster declined to comment on who the funders are but emphasized that the media organization would produce independent journalism.
“Every community needs a free press,” Moster told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “Members of this community, my community, deserve a free media as well. Shtetl’s existence is an exciting development in the Jewish and media spaces, and we are looking forward to making a big splash in early 2023.”
Moster, who grew up in a haredi Orthodox family in Borough Park, Brooklyn, stepped down from his position at Yaffed in September after a decade as its founder and leader. During that time, Yaffed got the attention of city and state education officials as the group filed multiple lawsuits meant to increase access to secular education in haredi yeshivas. In turn, he drew the ire of haredi Orthodox leaders, who resented an ostensible insider inviting scrutiny of their educational institutions.
The haredi communities of Brooklyn and New York’s exurban Rockland and Orange counties are currently served by successful print and online newspapers, in English and Yiddish, that tend to be protective of community interests, including the yeshivas.
Elad Nehorai, an ex-Hasidic writer and progressive activist, said these sites are more akin to community newsletters than journalistic enterprises, publishing local interest stories like death and wedding announcements, notices about community events and stories about construction of new synagogues or schools. National and world news coverage tends to focus on the haredi community in Israel and syndicated news copy about events outside of the religious world.
“The haredi world in general is not used to the kind of journalism that exists in the secular world,” Nehorai said. “In the secular world, investigating wrongdoing of leaders is a normal thing.”
For example, it was a secular newspaper — the Israeli daily Haaretz — that in 2021 reported on allegations surrounding Chaim Walder, a once-celebrated Israeli haredi children’s author, who was accused of having sexually assaulted more than 20 women, and several underage girls. Only after the allegations became a prominent topic of conversation in haredi communities did the press there begin to cover them — often with apparent sympathy to Walder.
“Very often if you look at the press there, it’s more about building community,” Nehorai said of the haredi world. By contrast, “If you open the New York Times it’s generally a lot of negative stories.”
Leaders of the haredi community were incensed when, in September, the New York Times published a major investigation that found that in New York’s Hasidic yeshivas, “generations of children have been systematically denied a basic education, trapping many of them in a cycle of joblessness and dependency.”Backlash from the Hasidic and other Orthodox communities began before the story was even published, with people claiming the New York Times and the Jewish reporters themselves were biased and even antisemitic in their reporting.
Moster envisions a role for Shtetl that will foster “important discussions that are crucial for the well-being of the Haredi community and beyond,” according to an online announcement. At the same time, “it will produce content that other outlets are unable, unequipped, or unwilling to provide to their readers, whether owing to the lack of resources, cultural competency, access to insiders or Yiddish language proficiency.”
The project is currently recruiting board members, full-time and freelance reporters, editors and marketing professionals. Its founding board includes journalists Larry Cohler-Esses of The Forward and Ari Goldman of Columbia Journalism School, neither of whom is haredi, as well as Adelle Goldenberg, a recent Harvard University graduate who grew up in the Hasidic neighborhood of Borough Park. Goldenberg was the winner of the 2021 Yaffed Changemaker Award for her assistance to haredi students who want to go to college outside of the yeshiva system.
Goldman, a former New York Times religion reporter who attends a Modern Orthodox synagogue, told JTA he became familiar with Moster’s work with Yaffed about five years ago. He said he was impressed by Moster’s efforts to get haredi young people a strong secular education and believed that haredi communities could benefit from improved journalism, as well.
“I want to be supportive of an effort that tries to shine more light on a community about which a lot is hidden and unknown,” Goldman said. “I’m also very interested in good journalism, which I think is a cornerstone of our society. And I want to see it put to the best of use in the haredi community.”
Critics of Shtetl, purporting to be from within the haredi and Orthodox world, have already voiced their opinions on social media, claiming that the new media endeavor has some sort of agenda to undermine their communities.
The backlash echoes the one that Moster has received for a decade already, when his education advocacy even earned him the label of “moser,” reflecting a dangerous accusation that he had inappropriately involved secular authorities in Jewish affairs.
“The people who are reacting negatively don’t see it as, ‘Oh they’re just writing negatively about us,’” Nehorai said. “They see it as traitorous. They see it as someone who’s turned on us. And what’s fascinating about that is that it doesn’t matter if you are haredi or you are ex-haredi, what occurs then is you are labeled as an outsider.”
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Iran Fast-Boat Swarms Add to Hormuz Threats for Shipping
A satellite image shows a fleet of small boats at sea, north of the Strait of Hormuz near the Kargan coast, Iran, April 22, 2026. Photo: European Union/Copernicus Sentinel-2/Handout via REUTERS
Iran‘s use of a swarm of small, fast boats to seize two container ships near the Strait of Hormuz could undermine suggestions US forces have disabled its naval threat and reveals the challenges facing reopening one of the world’s most important oil export routes.
US President Donald Trump on Monday acknowledged that while Iran’s conventional navy had been largely destroyed, its “fast-attack ships” had not been considered much of a threat.
He said any such vessels coming near a US blockade set up outside the strait would be “immediately ELIMINATED” using the “same system of kill” deployed in the Caribbean and Pacific where US air strikes have hit suspected drug boats and killed at least 110 people.
Those boats were not attacking large, unarmed commercial ships, however, nor nearly as heavily armed, with Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards packing heavy machineguns, rocket launchers and, in some cases, anti-ship missiles.
Speedboat attacks now form part of a “layered system of threats,” alongside “shore-based missiles, drones, mines, and electronic interference to create uncertainty and slow decision-making,” Greek maritime security company Diaplous told Reuters.
Iran was estimated to have hundreds, if not thousands, of these boats before the war, often hidden in coastal tunnels, naval bases, or among civilian vessels, according to maritime security specialists.
Some 100 or more may have been destroyed since the Iran war began on Feb. 28, said Corey Ranslem, chief executive of maritime security group Dryad Global.
CHANGE IN TACTICS
Before this week, Iran had relied on missile and drone strikes to hit shipping traffic around the strait, a route which normally handles 20% of the world’s daily oil and liquefied natural gas supply.
Those attacks had stopped with the April 8 ceasefire.
The seizure of the two container ships by Iran followed Washington imposing a blockade on Iran‘s trade by sea and the start of it intercepting Iran-linked oil tankers and other ships.
“The civilian shipping industry is not equipped to prevent Iranian armed forces from seizing vessels,” said Daniel Mueller, a senior analyst at British maritime security company Ambrey.
Typically, about a dozen boats are used in a seizure operation, he added.
Iran‘s fast boats now serve as the “backbone” of Iran’s naval strategy, able to deploy rapidly as part of its “asymmetrical war against the enemy,” a senior Iranian security official told Reuters.
“Because of their very high speeds, these boats can successfully carry out hit-and-run attacks without being detected,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
FAST BOAT LIMITATIONS
Including this week’s seizures, Iran has used small, fast boats at least seven times going back to 2019, Ambrey’s Mueller said.
High winds and swells in the waters off Iran during summer make it hard to conduct such operations, said one Iranian shipping source familiar with the waters.
“When it is very bumpy, they [armed forces onboard] cannot shoot,” the source said.
They are also ill-equipped to go head-to-head with a warship, and would likely suffer “very heavy casualties” in any direct assault on one, said Jeremy Binnie, a Middle East specialist at defense intelligence company Janes.
“Even if they tried to saturate the ship’s defenses by attacking from multiple directions, they would be extremely vulnerable to the air support that would be called in,” he said.
On paper, guided missile strikes would easily destroy these boats, but shoulder-fired missile launchers would pose a threat to low-flying US aircraft, Binnie said.
“It is going to be much harder to eliminate the small boat threat than it was to destroy Iran’s larger naval vessels, which were big targets that were relatively easy to find and track and, at most, only had a limited ability to defend themselves from air attack,” he said.
The reality for the shipping sector is further disruption as well as elevated insurance costs.
After the so-called “tanker war” of the 1980s, Iran increasingly used asymmetric tactics as the Iranian navy was effectively destroyed, much as it has been in the current conflict, said Duncan Potts, a director with consultancy Universal Defense and Security Solutions and a former British Royal Navy vice admiral.
“When the US Navy and the president say, ‘We’ve destroyed the navy, we’ve sunk a frigate off Sri Lanka’ – you’ve done that before, but you’ve forgotten that your opposition here went asymmetric. And they’ve perfected it.”
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UK’s Starmer Worried by Foreign-Backed Proxy Attacks on Jewish Sites in Britain
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and US President Donald Trump (not pictured) hold a bilateral meeting at Trump Turnberry golf course in Turnberry, Scotland, Britain, July 28, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Thursday he was “increasingly concerned” about a growing use of proxies by foreign states to carry out attacks in Britain, pledging to bring forward new legislation following recent attacks.
London has seen a string of attacks – mostly arson – on Jewish-linked sites in recent weeks. Some of these are being investigated by counter-terrorism officers, although police say they are not currently being treated as terrorist incidents.
British authorities have increasingly pointed to hostile state activity as part of the backdrop to recent incidents, warning that foreign governments may seek to operate through criminal networks or proxies to maintain deniability.
“I’m increasingly concerned that a number of countries are using proxies for attacks in this country,” he said, speaking after meeting members of the Jewish community at Kenton United Synagogue, which was the target of an arson attack last Sunday.
The fire caused minor smoke damage to an internal room and there were no injuries. A 17-year-old British boy pleaded guilty on Tuesday to arson not endangering life in connection with the incident.
“We have to deal with malign state actors,” Starmer said, adding that it would require legislation by the government.
“I want this country to be a place where everybody feels safe and secure. This is not just a battle for the Jewish community,” Starmer said. “It is our battle. The Britain that I want is a Britain where people can practice their religion, their faith, in safety and security.”
British counter-terrorism police on Wednesday made two further arrests over an alleged plot to carry out an arson attack on a Jewish-linked site in London.
Detectives arrested two men aged 19 and 26 in Watford, northwest of London, on Tuesday, police said. Both remain in custody.
Police did not name a specific location but said the intended target was connected to the Jewish community.
Seven other people arrested earlier in the investigation have since been released on bail, London’s Metropolitan Police said.
British police have been investigating the string of attacks as part of a wider rise in antisemitic threats and criminal activity since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza in October 2023.
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Son of Former Shah of Iran Appeals to Western Countries for Support
Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah and an Iranian opposition figure, gestures as he speaks during a press conference at the House of the Bundespressekonferenz in Berlin, Germany, April 23, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Liesa Johannssen
The son of the former Shah appealed to Western countries to join the war against Iran and criticized the decision of the German government not to meet him during his visit to Berlin on Thursday.
Reza Pahlavi, whose father was deposed in the revolution that brought Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power in 1979, accused Europe of standing by and allowing the Tehran government to continue the bloody repression of protests that killed thousands at the end of last year.
“The question is not whether change will come. Change is on the way,” he told a press conference in Berlin. “The real question is how many Iranians will lose their lives while the community of Western democracies continue to merely watch.”
Demonstrations by both supporters and opponents were held in central Berlin and a person was detained after Pahlavi, who made an appearance, was spattered with some form of red liquid.
POTENTIAL OPPOSITION LEADER
Pahlavi, who has spent most of his life in exile, emerged as a potential opposition leader after anti-government protests erupted in Tehran and other Iranian cities last year.
But Iran‘s opposition movements are deeply divided and many Western governments have been cautious about offering their endorsement because it remains unclear what support he enjoys, almost half a century after his father’s reign was overturned.
European countries, including Germany, have ruled out joining the United States and Israel, which opened the war on Feb. 28 with a wave of airstrikes that killed Iran‘s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Pahlavi’s visit to Germany came as efforts to end the conflict appear to have stalled, with Iran and the United States both maintaining blockades of the vital Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for around a fifth of the world’s oil.
He said it was a shame that Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government had not offered a meeting during his visit to Germany.
“Exercise your prerogative. As democracies, you’re entitled to talk to whoever you want,” he said.