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1 year ago, a mass shooting in Buffalo brought our Jewish and Black communities together. What took so long?
(JTA) — The attack on the Tops Friendly Market on Buffalo’s Jefferson Avenue last May 14 shook Western New York to the core. In the span of less than 10 minutes, an 18-year-old wielding an AK-47 killed seven and injured three Black people.
The victims were teachers, caretakers, activists, new fathers, grandmothers, community leaders and all around good people. If not for the heroism of retired police officer Aaron Salter Jr., who lost his life in the attack, and the quick response of the Buffalo Police Department, the death toll could have been far higher.
For our Buffalo Jewish community, the attack was a call to action. In years past, the Jefferson Avenue corridor was the heart of the Jewish community. As Jews joined the white flight to the suburbs, it became a place where very few Jews ever frequented. The vigils held in the aftermath of the attack were the first time many Jews in our community had been back in the East Side of Buffalo in decades, if not more.
The gunman had specifically targeted the neighborhood, traveling three hours away from his home to “kill black people.” As the national media emphasized over and over, Buffalo is the sixth most segregated city in the country.
What does it mean that our white Jewish community is so removed from our Black and brown neighbors? A casual remark by a young Jewish parent a few weeks after the attack really struck home for me. He said the shooting at the school in Uvalde, Texas in June 2022 hit a lot closer to home than the shooting just down the road at Tops. As a parent of school age children he could relate to the suffering of the parents in Texas, not to the horror that occurred in Buffalo’s inner city. How could this be? Where did our community go wrong?
As the rabbinic consultant at our local Jewish Communal Relations Council, I take this disconnect very personally. I grew up in a predominantly Black part of West Philadelphia. Back in the 1980s, none of my classmates in my suburban Jewish day school would come to visit my house. They and their parents were afraid to come by, locking their car doors whenever they happened to drive by my home. Sadly, the divide has only grown worse.
Starting in 2017, our local Jewish federation has made a concerted effort to bridge this divide. We have held two missions to Israel, specifically geared to our local African-American leadership. We hired a racial justice coordinator, and are part of the initial cohort of the Jewish Federations of North America’s Jewish Equity and Diversity Initiative.
It has begun to make a difference. The Sunday after the May 14 attack, dozens of Jewish communal leaders showed up on the street outside Tops. Over the course of the past year, we have held racial healing circles, hosted museum tours of local Black artists, held a Freedom Seder and toured gardens on Buffalo’s predominately Black East Side. While we are very far from the shared society we aspire to, I can honestly say we are making strides toward closing the gap. Our community is much more open and accepting of Jews of color, and its members are beginning to accept our role in the systemic racism that is pervasive in our society.
This has been a very bad year for us in Western New York. Beyond the mass shooting at Tops, we had the stabbing of Salman Rushdie at the Chautauqua Institution, two major blizzards that left more than 40 people dead and the near death of Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin on the football field.
The one-year anniversary of the Tops attack will hit us hard, but it will not deter us from the work ahead. We, the Buffalo Jewish community, will be there in full force at the various events planned to mark the occasion, not as bystanders, but as upstanders. We are, after all, not only Jews, but Buffalonians.
As my friend, fellow recent traveler to Israel and poet laureate of Buffalo, Jillian Hanesworth, wrote in her poem “Choose Love”: “[W]hen evil tries to break us / we choose to stand tall/ We’ll shout loud and live louder / until the walls of hate fall / because justice can’t be limited / so we choose it for all… So, no matter what others say / no matter what they try to do / love, light, and each other / is what we will always choose.”
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Trump extends ceasefire with Iran, even after Iran balks at new round of negotiations
(JTA) — President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he would unilaterally extend the U.S.-Israeli ceasefire with Iran, even though Iran had not agreed to his conditions or even to return to the negotiating table.
Trump announced the decision on Truth Social just hours before the two-week-old deal was set to expire. Citing Iran’s “fractured” leadership, Trump wrote that he had been asked by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to “hold our Attack on the Country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal.”
Vice President JD Vance’s planned trip to Islamabad, where talks were set to take place, was postponed indefinitely after Iran failed to confirm its participation in negotiations.
Trump added that the United States would maintain its naval blockade of Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz, despite Iran’s repeated calls for the restrictions to be lifted.
The announcement marked a sharp departure from the president’s statements earlier in the day, telling CNBC that, if a deal was not made before the deadline, “I expect to be bombing.”
In a statement Tuesday, Sharif thanked Trump for his “gracious acceptance” of Pakistan’s request to extend the ceasefire, adding that the country would “continue its earnest efforts for a negotiated settlement of the conflict.”
The announcement adds to uncertain about the war’s future, including for Israelis who lived through six weeks of Iranian bombing, and renews questions about Trump’s commitment to achieving his war goals, which have varied and included blunting Iran’s nuclear ambitions, achieving regime change, and destroying Iran’s stockpile of ballistic missiles. He said earlier this week that he was asking Iran to limit its nuclear program for 20 years, five years longer than was required by the deal struck by Barack Obama in 2015. Trump exited that deal in 2018.
Last week, Trump announced a different ceasefire, between Israel and Lebanon, on Truth Social, contradicting Israel’s claim that the Iran ceasefire would not apply to its fighting with Hezbollah, an Iran-backed proxy in Lebanon.
Trump’s announcement of the ceasefire extension came during the night in Israel, after Israelis began their celebration of Independence Day. It drew criticism from one of his staunchest pro-Israel supporters, the Zionist Organization of America, whose national president Morton Klein said in a statement that “interminable delay is the standard Islamic Iranian regime negotiating tactic” and that acceding to it represented a victory for Iran. The statement did not mention Trump.
The post Trump extends ceasefire with Iran, even after Iran balks at new round of negotiations appeared first on The Forward.
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Alan Dershowitz quits Democratic Party, calling it ‘most anti-Israel party in U.S. history’
(JTA) — Alan Dershowitz, the prominent pro-Israel attorney whose clients have included Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, announced on Monday that he was leaving the Democratic party and registering as a Republican.
Describing himself as a “lifelong Democrat,” Dershowitz wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that he had decided to “bite the bullet and register as a Republican,” citing Democratic support for an arms embargo on Israel last week and the Michigan Senate candidate Abdul el-Sayed’s anti-Israel rhetoric.
“There is no denying that the hard left, anti-Israel wing of the Democratic Party has moved from the fringe to the mainstream,” Dershowitz wrote, adding that “Republicans have their own antisemitic fringe, but for now it remains a fringe.”
The announcement formalized a political evolution for Dershowitz, who defended Trump during his first impeachment and has increasingly broken with Democrats over Israel in recent years.
In 2021, Dershowitz nominated Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and Avi Berkowitz, Trump’s top Middle Eastern envoy during his first administration, for the Nobel Peace Prize over their hand in shaping the Abraham Accords.
Dershowitz — who has recently faced scrutiny over his ties to Epstein, and previously denied allegations of sexual misconduct made by one of Epstein’s accusers — panned the Democratic Party as the “most anti-Israel party in U.S. history” in the op-ed.
“I believe that the Democratic Party’s hostility to Israel represents a deeper and more dangerous shift away from the center and toward a radical approach that is bad for America and the free world,” Dershowitz wrote, adding that he intended to “work hard to prevent the Democrats from gaining control of the House and Senate.”
Dershowitz’s comments are in line with Trump’s statements about Jews and the Democratic Party. He has repeatedly expressed amazement at how any Jews could vote for the Democrats considering his own record when it comes to Israel.
The post Alan Dershowitz quits Democratic Party, calling it ‘most anti-Israel party in U.S. history’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas says Zionists ‘talk like Black people during slavery’
(JTA) — In an interview on a popular web series posted Tuesday, rock musician Julian Casablancas alleged that “American Zionists” are deeply privileged yet behave as if they are “Black people during slavery.”
The comment appears in a 21-minute “uncut” edition of the web series SubwayTakes, in which host Kareem Rahma interviews both famous and up-and-coming New Yorkers about their most controversial opinions.
“Well, it’s been nice having a career,” Casablancas, the frontman for the band The Strokes, said before he dove into his hot take: “American Zionists get the benefits of white privileged people, but talk like they are Black people during slavery.”
Rahma, a comedian, responded immediately, as he always does, with his personal view on the opinion: “100% agree.”
The full-length video was posted to SubwayTakes’ YouTube channel, which has nearly 1 million subscribers. An abridged version without the comments about American Zionists was shared to SubwayTakes’ other channels on Instagram and TikTok, where the project’s followings are larger.
Casablancas’ comments were not unprecedented for him: Earlier this week, his band used its final song at the Coachella music festival to condemn the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran and Israel’s campaign in Gaza. The frontman previously signed onto a letter calling for a cultural boycott of Israel.
But his discussion with Rahma pointed to how blanket criticism of “Zionists” has grown commonplace in youth-oriented and left-leaning spaces. In the comments section, some viewers said Casablancas represented a model for how artists should take a stand against Israel and its supporters.
“Julian doubling down on criticising (american) zionists and zionism and american imperialism at large got me feeling hopeful and proud. smart, loud, and so f–king cool,” one commenter wrote on YouTube. “it truly is that easy @ everyone else in the industry.”
The video also marked Rahma’s strongest public comments about Israel, even as neither he nor Casablancas uttered the country’s name. He previously said he asked to press Vice President Kamala Harris for her take on the war in Gaza, which he opposed, during her appearance on the show in 2024 but was rebuffed.
“I’ve never seen something so shocking where they’re like ‘I’m so oppressed. I’m an oppressed person,’” Rahma said after agreeing with Casablancas’ take. “I’m like, ‘You are going to a wedding in Tel Aviv right now, when there are 80,000 dead people — and more — 80,000-plus dead people, including women and children half a mile away.” (The Gaza border is about an hour’s drive south of Tel Aviv.)
Rahma concluded, “Absolutely f—ed. And totally — you know what? I don’t think it’s bad to say that.”
In a further explanation of his “take,” Casablancas acknowledged that the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel was “bad” and also anticipated what those who disagree with him about Israel might say.
“I mean, just for the people that are going to be like, ‘Hamas, Oct. 7 —’ yes, bad,” he said. “But, you know, Native American rebellions didn’t mean it was OK to do what we did. Slave rebellions that were violent didn’t mean that slavery is not bad. You know what I mean? So, that’s the scope of that answer. Just to be — for the haters, for the media illiterate.”
In the 21-minute SubwayTakes video, Casablancas also came out against long audio voice messages and said that conservatives and progressives need to come together and “do a non-corporate consensus populist party, fight the billionaire gang agenda villains.”
When Rahma suggested that Americans should be allowed to stop paying taxes if the United States bombs their native country, Casablancas noted, “I know Iranian Americans that want America to bomb Iran, though.”
Rahma, who is Egyptian-American, is the creator of “Keep the Meter Running,” a web series where he interviews cab drivers and asks them to take him to their favorite place while keeping the meter running. In an August 2023 episode, he meets a Bukharian cab driver from Uzbekistan who takes him to 2nd Avenue Deli, a kosher staple on the Upper East Side.
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