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18 notable Jews who died in 2025
(JTA) — Jews around the world were already reeling after nearly two years of war and death in Gaza and the grim confirmation that many hostages hadn’t survived the Oct. 7 attacks or two years of captivity. Then came news of the shootings in Sydney, Australia, where 15 people were gunned down at a celebration of Hanukkah.
Despite its grief, the Jewish world also took time to celebrate the lives lived by a constellation of figures who made lasting contributions to film, architecture, politics and Jewish scholarship and letters.
In chronological order, here are obituaries of 18 notable Jews who died in 2025.
Marion Wiesel
Marion Wiesel (born Mary Renate Erster), a Holocaust survivor and humanitarian, married the writer and human rights activist Elie Wiesel in 1969, and was the translator of many of his award winning and influential books on the Holocaust, including the final edition of “Night.” Following Wiesel’s 1986 Nobel Prize win, the couple founded the Beit Tzipora Centers in Israel, an educational program for Ethiopian-Israeli youth, which Marion Wiesel went on to lead for a number of years. “In the alignment of stars that helped make Wiesel the international icon he became, his marriage to Marion was among the most significant,” wrote Joseph Berger in his 2023 biography “Elie Wiesel: Confronting the Silence.” She died on Feb. 2 at 94.
Jacqueline van Maarsen
In 1942, Anne Frank immortalized her friendship with Jacqueline van Maarsen, writing that she “is now my best friend.” While the pair were forced apart during the war, never to be reunited, van Maarsen went on to write multiple books about Frank, including 2008’s “My Name is Anne, She Said, Anne Frank.” In 1986, van Maarsen also began lecturing on the Holocaust and antisemitism at schools. “In her books and during school visits, Jacqueline spoke not only about her friendship with Anne but also about the dangers of anti-Semitism and racism, and where they can lead,” the Anne Frank House said of van Maarsen. She died on Feb. 13 at age 96.
Leonard Lauder
Leonard Lauder built his Jewish family’s business, The Estée Lauder Companies, into a cosmetics empire, serving as its president from 1972 to 1995 and as CEO from 1982 through 1999. But beyond his entrepreneurial prowess, Lauder also was a major patron of the arts, at one point donating a collection of paintings to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York valued at more than $1 billion. “The number of lives he touched and positively impacted across all his endeavors is immeasurable,” his younger brother, Ronald, said. “His passion and generosity have inspired us all, and there are no words to express how much he will be missed.” He died on June 14 at 92.
David Schaecter
After losing 105 relatives during the Holocaust, David Schaecter went on to spend his life pushing for restitution, Holocaust education and vigilance against antisemitism. In 1989, Schaecter founded the Holocaust Memorial in Miami Beach and in 2000 created the Holocaust Survivors’ Foundation USA, which often took a more aggressive stance than other Jewish organizations in pursuing restitution of goods looted during the Holocaust. “I am here to remind everyone that there are still thousands of survivors alive today who are in desperate need, and who cannot be forgotten,” Schaecter told the Senate Special Committee on Aging on April 30. He died on Sept. 4 at 96.
Ruth Posner
After Ruth Posner escaped the Warsaw Ghetto along with her aunt as a child, she went on to flee to the United Kingdom at 16 where she began an illustrious career as an actress and dancer. She was a founding member of the London Contemporary Dance Company and worked for the Royal Shakespeare Company, and also starred in films including “Leon the Pig Farmer” and “Love Hurts.” In 2022, she was awarded a British Empire Medal for her commitment to Holocaust education. She died on Sept. 21 at 96.
Aron Bell
Aron Bell was only 11 or 12 when he and his older brothers formed the famed Bielski partisans, a group that saved more than 1,200 Jews from the Nazis during the Holocaust. The brothers’ tale of defiance also inspired several adaptations of their story, including the books “The Bielski Brothers” by Peter Duffy and “Defiance: The Bielski Partisans” by Nechama Tec, which was later made into the 2008 film “Defiance” with actor George MacKay portraying Bell. “If you were in the company of those three brothers, you felt like you had a whole army behind you, you were fearless,” said Bell in his 1996 testimony to the USC Shoah Foundation. He died on Sept. 22 at 98 at his home in Palm Beach, Florida.
Katherine Janus Kahn
Katherine Janus Kahn’s vibrant watercolor illustrations in Jewish children’s books helped shape the imaginations of generations of Jewish children. Beginning with her paper-cut illustrations for “The Family Haggadah,” which became a bestseller when it was published in 1987, Janus Kahn later went on to illustrate more than 50 books for Kar-Ben, a publishing house for Jewish children’s books. Among her work for Kar-Ben was the “Sammy Spider” franchise, which includes more than two dozen books about Jewish holidays, prayers and practices. ““We are profoundly grateful for her legacy, and for the countless stories and memories she leaves behind,” said Kar-Ben. She died on Oct. 6 at age 83.
Rabbi Moshe Hauer
Rabbi Moshe Hauer, the executive vice president of the Orthodox Union since 2020, was widely respected across denominations and was considered an exemplar of Modern Orthodoxy’s historical blend of religious and secular expertise. In 2023, he testified about antisemitism on college campuses at a hearing of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, which prompted several investigations. “Rabbi Hauer was a true talmid chacham, a master teacher and communicator, the voice of Torah to the Orthodox community and the voice of Orthodoxy to the world,” the Orthodox Union said after his death. He died on Oct. 14 at 60.
Susan Stamberg
When Susan Stamberg first got behind the microphone at the newly minted National Public Radio in 1972, some board members feared she was “too New York” for Midwest audiences. But Stamberg nevertheless became one of the station’s “founding mothers,” helping to craft its intimate, often humorous and consistently eclectic voice. Stamberg was the co-anchor of “All Things Considered” for 14 years, before pivoting to cultural stories. “I think all of that is very Jewish, the telling of stories, but also the seeking of opinions and also being open to the range of opinions that are out there,” Stamberg told the Jewish Women’s Archive in 2011. She died on Oct. 16 at 87.
Tova Ben-Dov
Tova Ben-Dov devoted six decades of her life to the Women’s International Zionist Organization, serving as the president of World WIZO from 2012 to 2016. She also served as the vice president of the World Jewish Congress, a member of the executive committee of the Jewish Agency for Israel and a member of the International Council of Women according to JNS.“For 60 years, Tova devoted her heart and soul to WIZO—a lifetime of love, leadership and giving to women, children and families in Israel,” said World WIZO chairperson Anita Friedman. She died on Oct. 17 at 88 in Tel Aviv.
Arthur Waskow
Rabbi Arthur Waskow first became one of the most notable progressive rabbinic voices in 1969 when he created the “Freedom Seder,” a version of the Passover Haggadah that blended contemporary liberation struggles with the ancient passover story. Throughout his career, Waskow authored more than two dozen books that offered a Jewish perspective on civil rights, economic injustice, nuclear arms control and climate change. He was arrested more than two dozen times at protests. He died on Oct. 20 at 92.
Mark Mellman
At the height of his illustrious career as a pollster and political consultant, Mark Mellman was the go-to pollster for Democrats as well as a wide variety of firms and interests, including the NBA’s Washington Wizards, United Airlines and both Pepsi and Coca-Cola. In 2019, he founded the Democratic Majority for Israel, a group he said was formed to “strengthen the pro-Israel tradition of the Democratic Party, fight for Democratic values and work within the progressive movement to advance policies that ensure a strong U.S.-Israel relationship.” He died on Nov. 21 at 70.
Carrie Soloway
Carrie Soloway, a Jewish psychiatrist in Chicago, came out as a transgender woman at 70-years-old, a milestone that formed the basis for her children’s hit Amazon TV series “Transparent.” After the show’s 2014 premiere, Soloway visited the White House under then-President Barack Obama and became friends with trans elected officials, while “Transparent” blazed a path for modern LGBTQ Jews exploring their identity. “She loved the show and us and the character, but sometimes she wasn’t in the mood to be everyone’s favorite trailblazer,” her son, Joey, said after her death. She died on Nov. 21 at the age of 88.
Tom Stoppard
Tom Stoppard was in his 80s and had already won four Tony Awards during his prolific career as a playwright and screenwriter when he finished “Leopoldstadt,” which portrayed a Jewish family dealing with rising antisemitism in Vienna, and a young writer, much like him, who only earned of his Jewish forebears as an adult. His final work won the Tony for best play after it opened on Broadway in 2022. Stoppard’s other era-defining plays include “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” (1968), “Travesties” (1974), “The Real Thing” (1986) and “The Coast of Utopia” (2007). “I just live my life and let the Jewishness take care of itself,” Stoppard told the New York Times Magazine in 2022. He died Nov. 29 at 88.
Frank Gehry
Frank Gehry, born Ephraim Owen Goldberg, was one of the most influential talents in the history of modernist architecture. Among his most acclaimed works, which feature his signature sculptural style, are the Bilbao Guggenheim, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris, DZ Bank Building in Berlin and oversized fish sculptures he said were inspired by the carp his grandmother would turn into gefilte fish. In 1989, Gehry won the prestigious Pritzker Prize, considered one of the top awards in the field of architecture, and in 1999 won the Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects. While Gehry identified as an atheist throughout his adult life, he told the Jewish Journal that “there’s a curiosity built into the [Jewish] culture” that influenced his career. He died on Dec. 5 at 96.
Rabbi Eliezer Diamond
Rabbi Eliezer Diamond taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary for over three decades, where he also published several texts on the Talmud and left an indelible mark on generations of rabbis and Jewish scholars. In 2003, he published “Holy Men and Hunger Artists: Fasting and Asceticism in Rabbinic Culture.” “Wherever I am, God is there too. I hope that I will return home soon,” wrote Diamond in his last post on Facebook, where he detailed his long struggle with cancer. He died on Dec. 11 at 73.
Rob Reiner
Rob Reiner, a beloved Jewish film director, actor and liberal activist, left his mark on modern American comedy and drama with his generation-defining classics from the 1980s and 1990s, including “When Harry Met Sally…,” “The Princess Bride,” “Stand By Me,” “A Few Good Men” and “This Is Spinal Tap.” The son of legendary Jewish comedian Carl Reiner, he also starred in the ’70s sitcom “All in the Family” and became a prominent Democratic Party activist later in life. Reiner, 78, and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, 70, were found dead in their California home on Dec. 14. The couple’s son, Nick, has been charged in connection to their killing. Days after his death, Reiner gave a pre-recorded address at a virtual Holocaust survivor event where he told attendees, “If ever we needed to be resilient, it’s now.”
Norman Podhoretz
Norman Podhoretz was 30 when he was appointed to run the American Jewish Committee’s thought journal Commentary. Over his career, he charted a path from Jewish liberal to pro-Israel neoconservative, serving as the godfather to a movement that long dominated late- and post-Cold War conservative politics. He made waves in 2016 for endorsing Donald Trump in his first run for president. “He was a man of great wit and a man of deep wisdom and he lived an astonishing and uniquely American life,” his son, John Podhoretz, wrote in a remembrance for the magazine announcing his father’s death. “And he bound himself fast to his people, his heritage, and his history.” He died on Dec. 16 at 95.
As the year concludes, the New York Jewish Week also remembers 13 Jewish New Yorkers who died in 2025. Among them are people who left an indelible mark on New York City, including rabbis, musicians, writers, activists and a supercentenarian.
Peter Yarrow
As one-third of the American folk band Peter, Paul and Mary, the Jewish musician and progressive activist Peter Yarrow was one of the writers of the group’s hit song “Puff the Magic Dragon” and their Hanukkah hit “Light One Candle,” which Yarrow said he wrote to express his opposition to Israel’s 1982 war in Lebanon. The band performed “Light One Candle” in Jerusalem in 1983 to a positive response.
Rose Girone
A rare supercentenarian, Rose Girone was thought to be the world’s oldest living Holocaust survivor, turning 113 years old in January. As a young mother during the Holocaust, Girone was able to rescue her husband from the Buchenwald concentration camp, and the small family of three sought refuge in Shanghai, where they survived the war and Girone built a business selling her handmade clothing. In New York, she taught knitting and also ran a knitting shop in Forest Hills. She later divorced and remarried. Even after she closed her shop, she continued knitting until the end of her life.
Michelle Trachtenberg
Michelle Trachtenberg was a child and teen star known for her roles in “Harriet the Spy,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “17 Again,” “Ice Princess,” and “Gossip Girl.” Born in New York City and raised in Brooklyn, Trachtenberg was the daughter of Jewish immigrants: Her mother was from the former Soviet Union, and her father was from Germany. In 2022 and 2023, she reprised her “Gossip Girl” role in the series reboot.
Trachtenberg died Feb. 26 at age 39 from complications related to diabetes.
Max Frankel
The former executive editor of The New York Times fled the Nazis as a child, starting at the paper at just 19 years old as a Columbia University campus correspondent. In his 40-plus-year career at The Times, he wrote the memo that convinced the paper’s lawyers that it should cover the Pentagon Papers — the leaked documents that revealed how the government deceived the public about the scope of the U.S. war in Vietnam. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973 for his coverage of President Richard Nixon’s visit to China. In 2001, after his retirement, Frankel published an article in The New York Times acknowledging that before and after World War II, the publication had a policy of “reluctance to highlight the systematic slaughter of Jews.”
Frankel died on March 23 at age 94.
Ted Comet
A Jewish communal leader and longtime Upper West Sider, Comet founded New York’s Celebrate Israel Parade (originally the Salute to Israel Parade). In the 1960s, he helped organize some of the first large demonstrations in support of Soviet Jewry. He was also a founder of the annual Israel Folk Dance Festival. Following his wife Shoshana’s death in 2012, he conducted tours of the tapestries she made telling the story of the trauma she endured as a teenager fleeing Belgium during World War II and in the years beyond.
Comet died at age 100 on March 19.
Helena Weinstock Weinrauch
Helena Weinstock Weinrauch survived a 500-mile death march to Bergen-Belsen and eventually found her way to New York. After her husband of 56 years, Joe Weinrauch, died in 2006, she discovered, at 88, the solace and joy of ballroom dancing. Her story of survival and resilience was the subject of a 2015 documentary, “Fascination: Helena’s Story.”
Weinrauch died at her home on the Upper West Side on May 25, one week shy of her 101st birthday.
Tom Lehrer
The New York-born mathematician and satirist Tom Lehrer enrolled at Harvard University at just 15 years old. Though his post-college music career was relatively brief, he gained a cult following for musical parodies like “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park” and “The Vatican Rag.” Lehrer described his family’s relationship to Judaism as “more to do with the delicatessen than the synagogue.” But his iconic song “(I’m Spending) Hanukkah in Santa Monica” became what he called “a sort of answer to ‘White Christmas.’”
Lehrer died Jul. 25 at the age of 97.
Wesley LePatner
One of the highest-ranking women at Blackstone and a mother of two young children, Wesley LePatner was an alumna of Yale University, a board member for UJA-Federation of New York and an active member of various Jewish communities in New York and Massachusetts. On July 29, a gunman opened fire at her office building, 345 Park Ave., killing three people including LePatner. “She was the most loving wife, mother, daughter, sister and relative, who enriched our lives in every way imaginable,” her family said in a statement.
LePatner died Jul. 29 at the age of 43.
Julia Hyman
Julia Hyman was also a victim of the shooting at 345 Park Ave. A Manhattan native, Cornell graduate and an associate at Rudin Management, Julia Hyman was a fan of the United States women’s soccer team and Jewish singer-songwriter Gracie Abrams, her friends and family recalled at a memorial service in July.
Hyman died July 29 at the age of 27.
Saul Zabar
The son of the immigrant Jewish founders of the iconic Upper West Side grocery store and delicatessen Zabar’s, Saul Zabar served as the president and principal owner of the “food emporium” for more than seven decades. Zabar was known for his hands-on approach, often working behind the fish counter — the gem of his family’s market. Zabar’s is known for serving traditional Ashkenazi foods like bagels, babka, deli meats, fish salads, pickles and rugelach. On an average week, Zabar’s sells 2,000 pounds of smoked fish and 8,000 pounds of coffee each week to about 40,000 customers, according to The New York Times.
Rabbi Alvin Kass
The longest-serving NYPD chaplain, Rabbi Alvin Kass served New York’s police for 60 years. His career included managing the NYPD’s 9/11 response, and in the days following the terror attack, hosting Rosh Hashanah services at LaGuardia Airport for first responders. He attended the funerals of every NYPD officer who was killed on 9/11, including two who were Jewish. Kass was the third Jewish chaplain to work for the NYPD. In 1981, he attempted to disarm a Jewish hostage-taker by bribing him with a pastrami sandwich from Carnegie Deli.
Mayer Moskowitz
The early life of Rabbi Mayer Moskowitz, longtime educator at the Upper East Side’s Ramaz School and Camp Massad in the Poconos, was forever altered by the Holocaust.
Born in Czernowitz in what was then Romania and today Ukraine, Moskowitz watched the Gestapo shoot and kill his father, a 30-year-old Hasidic rabbi, in their synagogue. In the following years, he would be deported to a ghetto, separated from his mother and sister, escape the ghetto, make a life for himself in Israel, and learn his mother and sister had both survived the war, leaving his new life in Israel behind to join his mother in New York City, where he became a prominent teacher of thousands of students, including Israeli president Isaac Herzog. Moskowitz recounted his life story in his autobiography, “A Memoir of Sanctity.”
Moskowitz died Nov. 11 at 98 years old.
Helen Nash
Starting with “Kosher Cuisine” in 1984, philanthropist Helen Nash wrote cookbooks that proved that kosher cooking “could be as varied, elegant and exciting as one wished to make it,” as she put it. A refugee from Poland, she married Jack Nash, a pioneer in hedge funds, and together they supported numerous Jewish organizations in New York City, including UJA-Federation of New York, Mount Sinai Medical Center, the Israel Museum, Shaare Zedek Medical Center and Yeshiva University.
Nash died on Dec. 8 at the age of 89.
The post 18 notable Jews who died in 2025 appeared first on The Forward.
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Trump Says He Is Likely to Reject Peace Proposal as Iran Has ‘Not Yet Paid a Big Enough Price’
Ships and boats in the Strait of Hormuz, Musandam, Oman. Photo: May 1, 2026. REUTERS/Stringer
US President Donald Trump said that he had yet to review the exact wording of a new Iranian peace proposal but he was unlikely to accept it, because the Iranians had not yet “paid a big enough price.”
Trump’s remarks on social media concluded a day in which he publicly mused about the possibility of restarting airstrikes, the latest mixed signal as he seeks to end the war he launched more than two months ago.
On Sunday, Israel ordered thousands of Lebanese to leave villages in southern Lebanon, an escalation of a war between Israel and Iran’s Hezbollah allies that has run in parallel to the Iran war and could further complicate wider peace efforts.
Iran has said talks with Washington cannot resume unless a ceasefire also holds in Lebanon, which Israel invaded in March to attack Hezbollah after the Iranian-backed Lebanese group fired across the border in support of Tehran.
Lebanon and Israel agreed to a separate truce last month, but fighting has continued, though on a smaller scale. The Israeli military issued an urgent warning on Sunday to residents of 11 towns and villages in Lebanon’s south, urging them to evacuate their homes and move at least 3,300 feet away to open areas.
The military said it was conducting operations against Hezbollah following what it described as a violation of the ceasefire, warning that anyone near Hezbollah fighters or facilities could be at risk.
PEACE APPEARS NO CLOSER
The United States and Israel suspended their bombing campaign against Iran four weeks ago, but appear no closer to a deal to end a war that has caused the biggest disruption ever to global energy supplies, roiled global markets and raised worries about the possibility of a wider global economic downturn.
In his post on social media, Trump wrote: “I will soon be reviewing the plan that Iran has just sent to us, but can’t imagine that it would be acceptable in that they have not yet paid a big enough price for what they have done to Humanity, and the World, over the last 47 years.”
On Saturday, a senior Iranian official had said Iran’s proposal would first open shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and end a US blockade of Iran, while leaving talks on Iran’s nuclear program for later.
Though Trump had already said on Friday that he was not satisfied with the Iranian proposal, he said on Saturday he had yet to hear all the details.
“They told me about the concept of the deal. They’re going to give me the exact wording now,” he said. Asked if he might restart strikes on Iran, Trump replied: “I don’t want to say that. I mean, I can’t tell that to a reporter. If they misbehave, if they do something bad, right now we’ll see. But it’s a possibility that could happen.”
IRAN’S PROPOSAL APPEARS TO CONTRADICT WASHINGTON’S DEMANDS
Iran’s proposal to delay talks on nuclear issues until later appears to contradict Washington’s repeated demand that Iran give up its stockpile of more than 400 kg (900 pounds) of highly enriched uranium as a condition to end the war.
Washington says the uranium could be used to make a bomb. Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful but it is willing to discuss curbs on it in return for the lifting of sanctions, as it accepted in a 2015 deal that Trump abandoned.
Reuters and other news organizations have reported over the past week that Tehran was proposing to reopen the strait before nuclear issues were resolved. The senior Iranian official confirmed that this new timeline had now been spelled out in a formal proposal conveyed to the United States through mediators.
While saying repeatedly he is in no hurry, Trump is under domestic pressure to break Iran’s hold on the strait, which has choked off 20% of the world’s oil and gas supplies and pushed up US gasoline prices. Trump’s Republican Party faces the risk of a voter backlash over higher prices when the country votes in midterm congressional elections in November.
Iranian media said Tehran’s 14-point proposal included the withdrawal of US forces from areas surrounding Iran, lifting the blockade, releasing Iran’s frozen assets, payment of compensation, lifting sanctions and ending the war on all fronts, including Lebanon, as well as a new control mechanism for the strait.
Iran has been blocking nearly all shipping from the Gulf apart from its own for more than two months. Last month, the US imposed its own blockade of ships from Iranian ports.
Speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential diplomacy, the senior Iranian official said Tehran believed its latest proposal to shelve nuclear talks for a later stage was a significant shift aimed at facilitating an agreement.
“Under this framework, negotiations over the more complicated nuclear issue have been moved to the final stage to create a more conducive atmosphere,” the official said.
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Most Jewish voters rate Mamdani poorly, new poll finds
As New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani marks four months in office, a new survey of New York City’s Jewish voters suggests he has done little to ease concerns among a community that overwhelmingly did not support his election and remains uneasy about his handling of antisemitism and Israel.
A Mercury Public Affairs poll of 665 Jewish voters who cast ballots in last year’s mayoral election found that 58% rate his performance as “poor” or “fair,” compared to 32% who say “excellent” or “good.” Among the 18% who described his performance as “fair,” a majority — 56% — said they disapprove, while 24% approve.
The poll sponsored by The Jewish Majority, an advocacy group led by AIPAC veteran Jonathan Schulman, was conducted from Feb. 17 to 28 in English and Yiddish via landline and cell phone. The sample has a reported margin of error of plus or minus 3.7%. It included a diverse cross-section of the city’s Jewish electorate: 30% Orthodox; 32% Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist; and 20% unaffiliated.
The results published Sunday underscore a political reality that has shadowed Mamdani since taking the helm of the city that is home to the largest concentration of Jews in the U.S. He won just 26% of the Jewish vote in the 2025 election, compared to 55% for Andrew Cuomo and 8% for Curtis Sliwa, according to the poll. His support was strongest among younger voters ages 35-44 (34%) and unaffiliated Jews (42%). He drew just 7% among Orthodox voters.
Antisemitism and Israel loom large
A central tension in Mamdani’s relationship with Jewish groups has been his effort to separate his views critical of Israel from his repeated commitment to protect Jewish New Yorkers.
Mamdani, who rose to power aligned with pro-Palestinian activism, has so far declined calls from Jewish leaders to acknowledge the community’s connection to Israel more directly. That comes into sharper focus now as the Jewish community marks Jewish American Heritage Month. Mamdani is not expected to march in the annual Celebrate Israel Parade on Fifth Avenue on May 31, a choice likely to reinforce perceptions of that distance. This year’s parade theme is “Proud Americans, Proud Zionists.”
Last month, Mamdani vetoed a City Council bill requiring safety plans for protests near schools, while allowing a separate measure protecting houses of worship to become law. Mamdani said he shared concerns raised by progressive groups and labor unions that the legislation could impact their ability to organize and potentially limit demonstrations, particularly on campuses. He also faced backlash from Zionist Jewish organizations on his first day in office after revoking executive orders tied to antisemitism and campus protests.
At the time the poll was taken, an overwhelming 84% of respondents said they had supported the Council’s initial proposal to establish a safe perimeter around houses of worship to prevent harassment and intimidation, while preserving First Amendment rights. Only 7% opposed it.
According to the survey, 82% of respondents said they are concerned about the rise in antisemitism in New York City, and 58% said they believe the increase is linked to the normalization of anti-Zionism.
A majority — 61% — said Mamdani’s refusal to outright condemn the slogan “globalize the Intifada” has emboldened pro-Hamas protesters. Nineteen percent disagreed.
Mamdani stands firm
The Jewish Majority spearheaded an open letter during the mayoral election, signed by more than 1,100 Jewish congregational leaders opposing what it described as “rising anti-Zionism and its political normalization” among figures like Mamdani.
Four months in, Mamdani is showing little sign of changing course, sticking with the coalition that brought him to power even as many Jewish New Yorkers say their concerns remain unresolved.
“I am deeply committed to protecting Jewish New Yorkers,” Mamdani told the Forward last week. “It’s part of a commitment to ensure that public safety is delivered for each and every New Yorker. And I also believe that as we deliver that public safety, as we show an absolute rejection of antisemitism across the five boroughs, we can also do these things while protecting our fundamental constitutional rights.”
The post Most Jewish voters rate Mamdani poorly, new poll finds appeared first on The Forward.
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After a Maryland teacher’s death, her 200-piece Judaica collection finds new life in a Jewish museum
(JTA) — As Rae Ann Kaylie sat on her mother’s couch in the wake of her death, the Judaica felt overwhelming.
Over 50 menorahs adorned the shelves. A dozen seder plates had been meticulously hung alongside a trove of Jewish art on each wall. And countless dreidels, kiddush cups and shofars filled every corner of the 1,100-square-foot home in Rockville, Maryland.
There were so many hamsas hanging near the entrance, Kaylie joked, “Whoa, Mom, what on earth? Like, how much evil eye do we have in here?”
For 35 years, Kaylie’s mother, Deborah Brodie, had amassed a collection of over 200 Jewish ritual objects, which she had used as a hands-on classroom for her Hebrew school students with special needs. Among the collection, Brodie had also obtained a Torah from Ebay, which her students used to practice for their b’nai mitzvah.
“She wasn’t the one who was like, ‘Oh, don’t touch it. You’re going to break it,’” Kaylie said. “She was like, ‘Touch it, here, take a bunch,’ you know what I mean, and that was really cool about her entire collection.”
Brodie — known as “Bubbie Cookie” to her family — had not built the collection alone. Her longtime partner, Jay Brill, whom she met through a Washington Jewish Week personals ad in 1986, was alongside her throughout the journey, traveling with her to all 50 states to sell Jewish jewelry and a computerized Hebrew-learning program they created together.
Over the years, the couple attended both B’nai Shalom and Shaare Tefila Congregation, two Conservative synagogues in Olney, Maryland. Toward the end of their lives, they attended Chabad of Olney, whose rabbi officiated their funerals.
But after Brodie, 76, and Brill, 74, died in February just 19 days apart, Kaylie said she and her family were faced with a painful question: What would happen to the couple’s lifetime of Jewish devotion in their absence?
“We all picked something we wanted, but then, you know, you don’t want to sell it, you don’t want to make any money off of it,” Kaylie said. “It was just trying to figure out, like, what can we do to further her passion, her vision?”
The answer, Kaylie said, arrived through Instagram.
Earlier this month, Kaylie sent a simple message to Nick Fox, who operates a social media series titled “Millennial Inheritance,” writing, “Hey, you want to see a lot of menorahs?”
Since October, Fox has documented dozens of inheritance stories across his social media channels, featuring people grappling with their late parents’ vast collections of Breyer Horse figurines, salt and pepper shakers and Christmas decorations.
But while Fox said the mission of his page is not necessarily to help people find homes for inherited collections, Kaylie’s story felt different.
As he viewed images of Brodie and Brill’s home, Fox, who is Catholic, said that he immediately flashed back to childhood memories attending his classmates’ bar mitzvahs and receiving souvenir hamsas from their trips to Israel.
“It was the fact that she was actively grieving and really had no idea what to do, and I think the fact that I was raised how I was, where I was, that I had a knowledge of what this stuff was and what it meant,” Fox said.
Just days later, Fox posted a short video for his 200,000 followers featuring snippets of the sprawling collection along with a call to help find it a permanent home that would “love it the way Rae Ann’s mom did.”
As the post garnered hundreds of comments offering ideas for the collection’s future and tributes to Brodie’s contributions to Jewish education, it was also making its way through Washington’s Jewish community.
The morning after the post, Jonathan Edelman, the collections curator for the Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum, said he woke up to dozens of messages from people urging the museum to find a home for the collection.
“It was so meaningful that so many people in the broader community, and who have never stopped in our museum, tagged us and said, you know, this should be the home of this sort of wild story and this amazing collection,” Edelman said.
By the following weekend, Edelman had travelled to Brodie’s home to meet with Rae Ann to view the collection himself. But even after seeing Fox’s post, Edelman said he was unprepared for what awaited him inside.
“It was incredible, floor-to-ceiling Judaica like I’d never seen in anyone’s home before,” Edelman said. “It wasn’t just thrown on a shelf. It was so thoughtfully laid out. I mean, she had seder plates and hanukkiot hanging on the wall, which is no easy task to do…it felt like a museum quality display. It was really impressive.”
Edelman quickly reported back to the museum, which opened in June 2023, telling them that he believed he had stumbled upon an “incredible opportunity” to launch its inaugural education collection.
Now, the Capital Jewish Museum has plans to house the entirety of Brodie and Brill’s collection in its second-floor education and program space, the Community Action Lab, where visitors will be able to interact with the Judaica firsthand, just as Brodie encouraged her students to do in her home.
The museum also plans to photograph the collection so it is accessible online, and lend individual pieces to schools and organizations in the area for educational use.
“When I heard her mother’s story, you know, we were doing the same thing. Our goal was Jewish education, and she did it as an individual, we’re doing it as an institution,” Edelman said. “It means so much for us to honor her mother’s memory by doing the work that she dedicated her life to…it feels particularly special.”
But while Fox said he was not surprised by the outpouring of support and suggestions from the Jewish community, he said other Jews that inherit large quantities of Judaica should not look to Kaylie’s story as a roadmap.
“This is absolute best-case scenario, but it also makes it so very unique, because there aren’t going to be a lot of collections that museums usually are going to take on,” Fox said, adding that people should not assume that inheritances will find a place in a museum.
Instead, Fox said he encouraged people that inherit Jewish collections to consult their local Jewish community centers or synagogues to see if they might have a use for them.
“In the case of someone having a tremendous amount of Judaica, I think the best way would be to tap into your network, first, talk to people that you know that are in your community,” Fox said. “And then if it goes nowhere, then you have every right to, you know, if you’re looking to sell it, or if you’re looking to donate it, I think the big ask would be, what would your relatives want done with that stuff?”
Rachel Steinhardt, a California resident who organized a large-scale Judaica drive for people impacted by the Palisades and Eaton fires last year, recommended that people who find themselves with inherited Judaica they cannot keep turn to local Facebook groups or Judaica rehoming communities such as L’dor V’dor Judaica or Heritage Judaica.
“New Judaica is great, but people definitely value something that has been touched and loved and appreciated over the years…you want something that has a little soul in it,” Steinhardt said. “So I think that even something that’s not of value, other people can appreciate that it has been loved and want to acquire it.”
Reflecting on Fox’s decision to spotlight her mother’s collection, Kaylie said that he had been a “guardian angel.”
“He didn’t have to do that, and really, it’s because of him that we’re able to have my mom’s legacy be how we could have wanted it,” Kaylie said.
Edelman said he expects the collection to be installed in the museum sometime this summer, where it will be displayed alongside a plaque honoring “Bubbie Cookie” and “Zayde Jay,” names the couple were referred to by their families.
For Kaylie, imagining the future museum visitors handling her mother’s kiddush cups and menorahs felt like “exactly how she would have wanted it.”
“When we lost Bubbie Cookie, we said the legend of Bubbie Cookie was over,” Kaylie said. “And now, for the legend and the legacy to move on, I mean, it’s unreal. It’s, I have no words, I can’t even articulate it. It’s just amazing.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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