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A Jewish group’s tip led to arrest of suspects who wanted to ‘shoot up a synagogue’
(New York Jewish Week) — A tip from a Jewish security organization helped lead to the arrest of two suspects Saturday in connection with online threats to attack a New York City synagogue.
The Community Security Initiative, a group created by UJA-Federation of New York and its affiliated Jewish Community Relations Council, discovered threatening tweets on Friday morning and brought the information to law enforcement, according to a UJA spokesperson.
In a news conference at City Hall on Monday, UJA CEO Eric Goldstein said that after they shared the lead with the New York Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, law enforcement “immediately sprung into action.”
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said during the news conference that Metropolitan Transit Authority police officers arrested the suspects — Christopher Brown, 21, of Aquebogue on eastern Long Island and Michael Mahrer, 22, of Manhattan — at Penn Station, adding that they had “an alleged plan to murder members of the Jewish community in our city.”
“This was not an idle threat,” Adams said. “This was a real threat.”
Join me, @NYPDPC Sewell and other law enforcement leaders at City Hall to discuss the efforts that stopped a potential attack on the Jewish community in New York City this past weekend. https://t.co/WyVz2qe44Q
— Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) November 21, 2022
Adams added: “Hate is on the rise in America. This hate cannot be allowed to take hold and build and gain further ground. We must reject the hate and the division that drives it.”
On Sunday, Gov. Kathy Hochul, responding to the arrest and Saturday night’s deadly shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado, said state police would increase surveillance and protection efforts at synagogues and other vulnerable sites.
Steve Weill of Flatbush Shomrim, a Jewish community watch organization in Brooklyn, said at the press conference that he received a call on Friday night from NYPD Inspector Ritchie Taylor, an Orthodox Jew, who advised him that there was “a credible threat to the community.”
“We put a plan in place where hundreds of trained volunteers would reach all the synagogues and all the houses of worship in the areas and warn them,” Weill said.
The suspects were caught before that plan was implemented. Weill added that the Jewish community has “an unprecedented relationship” with Adams.
“The information that flows is incredible, that we can get such sensitive information and that they can have the trust in us to relay that to the community in a calm and professional manner,” Weill said.
The Daily Beast reported that the NYPD intelligence division had become aware of Brown’s tweets talking about “shooting up a synagogue and dying.” MTA police, state police, the NYPD and the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force worked together on the investigation, according to Hochul’s office.
According to the Daily Beast, the hunt for Brown led police to an apartment on West 94th St. in Manhattan, where his acquaintance Mahrer was said to live with his parents. Neither Brown nor Mahrer were at the apartment, but detectives found a backpack with a Glock semi-automatic pistol and ammunition . In an intelligence alert, police said Brown had “a history of mental illness.”
What police described as a white supremacist Twitter group operated by Brown was taken down. After being caught, Brown was held on a weapons charge, and Mahrer was charged with illegal weapons possession. Each pleaded not guilty to state charges and are scheduled to appear in court on Nov. 23.
The New York Post reported that Mahrer is Jewish and the grandson of a Holocaust survivor.
UJA-Federation of New York and the JCRC of New York created the Community Security Initiative after the deadly attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018. CSI helps provide protection and safety training to Jews and Jewish institutions in New York City, Westchester and Long Island.
The arrests come just weeks after the FBI warned synagogues in New Jersey about a “credible threat” made to them; the NYPD heightened security at city synagogues as a precaution. The FBI later announced that a 19-year-old man who said he had sworn allegiance to ISIS had been arrested for making the threat.
The arrests also come a time of heightened anxiety about antisemitism in New York City and beyond. The NYPD has recorded an increase in the number of reported antisemitic incidents.
Meanwhile, celebrities Kanye West and Kyrie Irving have ignited concerns about antisemitism with their comments and tweets, and turmoil at Twitter has fueled a rise in hate posts, including about Jews, according to watchdogs who monitor the social media platform.
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The Jewish vote for NYC mayor went to Cuomo, but the Israel vote went to Mamdani, exit polls show
Zohran Mamdani clinched the New York City mayoral race in a decisive victory last night, but Jewish voters favored former Gov. Andrew Cuomo by a nearly two-to-one margin.
A CNN exit poll showed 63% of Jews voted for Cuomo, 33% for Mamdani, and 3% for Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa.
Those numbers suggest Cuomo performed better among Jewish voters than New York City voters as a whole, 41% of whom voted for Cuomo and 50% for Mamdani. Jewish voters make up an estimated 10% of the city’s electorate.
Mamdani won decisively in Brooklyn and in younger precincts across western Queens and parts of Manhattan. Cuomo carried Orthodox and senior-populated neighborhoods in Borough Park and Riverdale.
The Orthodox-populated Borough Park saw record turnout, as did New York City overall, with more than 2 million voters casting ballots.
An outspoken critic of Israel, Mamdani’s stance on the conflict in Gaza resonated with a majority of voters, according to public opinion polls taken after his primary win. Nearly half of Mamdani voters, 49%, on Tuesday said his position was a factor in their support, according to a CNN exit poll. For Cuomo supporters, only 44% said his position on Israel was a factor in their vote.
Cuomo had banked on strong turnout from Jewish voters to boost his momentum in the general election, a bet that ultimately didn’t secure the win. In July, Cuomo said a key factor in his primary loss was Mamdani’s support from young, Jewish and pro-Palestinian voters. “I would wager that in the primary, more than 50% of the Jewish people voted for Mamdani,” Cuomo said at the time.
Mamdani’s positions on Israel have roiled Jews across the country, and he’s often had to defend himself against allegations of antisemitism for: refusing to outright condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada;” reiterating support for Palestinians in his statement on the Gaza ceasefire; vowing to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits New York; and saying he doesn’t recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Yet Mamdani simultaneously built a coalition of Jews who support him. That included a surprise last-minute endorsement from a faction of the Satmar Hasidic community, though Cuomo had the backing of most Orthodox groups that helped swing the 2021 mayoral race for Eric Adams.
Jacob Kornbluh contributed reporting and writing.
The post The Jewish vote for NYC mayor went to Cuomo, but the Israel vote went to Mamdani, exit polls show appeared first on The Forward.
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The Problem with ‘Business as Usual’ in Philanthropy
The personal belongings of festival-goers are seen at the site of an attack on the Nova Festival by Hamas terrorists from Gaza, near Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel, Oct. 12, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
Many of today’s non-profit humanitarian organizations — well-funded, well-staffed, and highly visible — aren’t built for crisis. Their models are too slow. Their structures are too rigid. Their priorities are often disconnected from the realities on the ground. Most critically, too many are consumed by internal processes and fundraising goals that make real-time agility almost impossible.
This isn’t a condemnation of every non-profit — many do vital work. But there’s a growing gap between donor intentions and impact. People give from their hearts, yet their money often fails to reach the people or places they hoped to help — or doesn’t arrive in time to make a difference.
That gap became painfully clear after October 7, when Israel faced a national trauma that shook the Jewish world. Innocent civilians were attacked, families torn apart, and a nation’s very existence threatened. In those first few hours and days, the need for immediate aid — medical gear, protective equipment, trauma support — was overwhelming. And yet, the legacy systems of philanthropy couldn’t keep pace with the urgency of the moment.
The Jewish world, and Israel specifically, cannot afford to depend solely on these legacy systems. Too many aid dollars disappear into operations distant from the field and too removed from the moment. At a time when donor fatigue is real and scrutiny of nonprofits is higher than ever, transparency and efficiency aren’t just ideals — they’re survival tools.
This is not a call to tear down the existing ecosystem of aid organizations. It’s a call to evolve it. Large institutional NGOs play an important role, especially in the long-term recovery and rebuilding processes. But they cannot be the only model. The future of humanitarian response must include leaner, more nimble, and more accountable organizations that treat urgency as a core operating principle, not a marketing term.
Two years ago, when we launched Israel Friends, it wasn’t the result of a lengthy strategic planning process or a carefully crafted brand vision. It was a reaction and a necessity. A response to an absolute crisis. Our guiding question was simple: What can we do that will matter right now?
We come from the world of supply chains and logistics, not traditional philanthropy. Before starting an NGO, we used those skills in the private sector, and later, during moments of crisis, to get personal protective equipment to hospitals during COVID-19 and deliver trauma kits to frontline medics during the invasion of Ukraine. Those experiences shaped our approach: keep overhead low, move fast, cut red tape, and deliver aid directly where it’s needed most, as quickly as possible.
After October 7, that meant getting gear, medical supplies, and protective equipment to soldiers on the front lines — not months later, not after a funding cycle or committee review — immediately. We even invested our own money into purchasing aid at the start, and didn’t expect or want anything in return. Today, those needs have shifted. Mental health has become one of the most urgent and overlooked aspects of recovery, and we’ve shifted with it. Flexibility and responsiveness aren’t just features of our model; they are the model.
Operating this way isn’t easy – it runs counter to the grain of much of the nonprofit world, where large infrastructure and high administrative costs are often seen as signs of sophistication rather than inefficiency. But when lives are on the line, we believe the opposite is true: the ability to act quickly, with minimal overhead and maximum impact, is the defining measure of success.
We didn’t plan to build a new non-profit. We built it because, at that moment, it felt like we had no other choice. But now, two years in, we see this is bigger than one crisis. It’s about changing how we think about aid altogether. The future of philanthropy depends on the willingness to act first and fundraise later — to measure success not by size, but by speed and impact.
The next time tragedy strikes — whether in Israel or somewhere else — we hope there are more organizations ready to act without delay, to deliver without waste, and to serve without ego. Because that’s what the moment demands. If October 7 taught us anything, it’s that bureaucracy saves no lives. Agility, compassion, and courage do.
Teddy Raskin and Jordan Fried are co-founders of Israel Friends, a grassroots organization founded in the aftermath of October 7th, which has raised tens of millions in direct aid with minimal overhead since its launch.
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Mamdani’s victory worries many Jewish leaders
דער אַרטיקל איז אַ פֿאַרקירצטער נוסח פֿונעם ענגלישן אַרטיקל, וואָס געפֿינט זיך דאָ.
ווען זאָכראַן מאַמדאַני, אַ שאַרפֿער קריטיקער פֿון ישׂראל, האָט דינסטיק געוווּנען די ווײַלן פֿאַר ניו־יאָרקער בירגער־מײַסטער, האָבן אַ צאָל ייִדישע פֿירער אויסגעדריקט זאָרג בעת אַנדערע האָבן רעאַגירט מיט באַגײַסטערונג און אָפּטימיזם.
מאַמדאַני, וואָס וועט ווערן דער ערשטער מוסולמענישער בירגער־מײַסטער פֿון ניו־יאָרק, האָט באַקומען 50.4% פֿון די שטימען. דער געוועזענער ניו־יאָרקער גובערנאַטאָר אַנדרו קואָמאָ, וואָס האָט קאַנדידירט אומאָפּהענגיק פֿון קיין פּאַרטיי, איז געקומען אויפֿן צווייטן אָרט מיט 41.6%. דער רעפּובליקאַנער קאַנדידאַט קורטיס סליוואַ האָט געקראָגן 7.1% פֿון די שטימען.
לויט די לעצטע אַנקעטעס דינסטיק בײַ נאַכט האָבן 60% ייִדישע וויילער געשטיצט קואָמאָ.
אַ צאָל ייִדישע כּלל־טוער האָבן אויסגעדריקט זאָרג וועגן דער צוקונפֿט פֿאַר ייִדן אין ניו־יאָרק איבער מאַמדאַניס מיינונגען וועגן ישׂראל. ער האָט למשל זיך אָפּגעזאָגט צו פֿאַרדאַמען די לאָזונג „זאָל די אינטיפֿאַדע זיך פֿאַרשפּרייטן איבער דער וועלט“ און האָט געוואָרנט אַז דער ישׂראלדיקער פּרעמיער בנימין נתניהו וועט אַרעסטירט ווערן אויב ער קומט קיין ניו־יאָרק. ער האָט אויך דערקלערט אַז ער אָנערקענט נישט ישׂראל ווי אַ ייִדישע מדינה.
דער פֿאַקט אַז מאַמדאַני איז נישט געווען גרייט אָפּצוּוואַרפֿן דאָס באַצייכענען די ישׂראל־מחלמה אין עזה ווי „אַ גענאָציד“, ווי אויך זײַן באַשלוס זיך נישט צו באַטייליקן אינעם יערלעכן ישׂראל־פּאַראַד, האָבן אַרויסגערופֿן כּעס בײַ אַ סך ייִדן אין דער שטאָט.
בעת זײַן נצחון־רעדע האָט מאַמדאני אָבער צוגעזאָגט אַז אונטער זײַן קאַדענץ וועט די שטאָט־רעגירונג „שטיצן די ייִדישע ניו־יאָרקער און וועט זיך נישט וואַקלען צו באַקעמפֿן די מכּה פֿון אַנטיסעמיטיזם.“
אַ צאָל ייִדישע וויילער, בפֿרט בײַם ייִנגערן דור, האָבן אָבער געשטיצט מאַמדאַני מיט באַגײַסטערונג. רעאַגירנדיק אויף זײַן צוזאָג צו באַקעמפֿן אַנטיסעמיטיזם, האָט דער שרײַבער מאיר לאַבין געשריבן אויף „עקס“: „דאָס איז בײַ מיר ווי מוזיק אין די אויערן. מזל־טובֿ, מעיאָר זאָכראַן מאַמדאַני!“
אַ טייל קאָמענטאַטאָרס האָבן ספּעקולירט אַז צוליב מאַמדאַניס נצחון וועלן אַ סך ייִדישע אײַנוווינער זיך אַרויסציִען פֿון ניו־יאָרק. ראַבײַ מאַרק שנייער, למשל, וואָס דינט ווי דער גײַסטיקער פֿירער פֿון דער האַמפּטאָן־שיל, אַן אָרטאָדאָקסישע סינאַגאַגע אין לאָנג־אײַלאַנד, האָט שוין געמאָלדן אַז ער האָט בדעה דאָרט צו גרינדן אַ ייִדישע טאָגשול — די ערשטע אין די האַמפּטאָנס.
„איך ריכט זיך אַז טויזנטער ייִדישע משפּחות וועלן פֿאַרלאָזן די שטאָט ניו־יאָרק און זיך אַריבערקלײַבן אין די העמפּטאָנס און דעם ראַיאָן פֿון סאָפֿאָלק־קאַונטי, כּדי צו אַנטלויפֿן פֿונעם אַנטיסעמיטישן קלימאַט פֿון מאַמדאַניס ניו־יאָרק,“ האָט שנייער געזאָגט.
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