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A Jewish reporter goes inside Rikers for a new book on a notorious jail
(New York Jewish Week) — Reuven Blau, son of a Holocaust survivor, suggests his father may have inspired him to strive for change within New York City’s notorious Rikers Island jail.
“There’s this subconscious drive to change things, or to help people in a way that you don’t understand,” said Blau. “Inside Rikers, you realize how difficult it is, and how terrible the circumstances are for everyone involved.”
A reporter for The City who studied at a yeshiva in Brooklyn, Blau is the co-author, with Graham Rayman, of “Rikers: An Oral History,” a new book on a jail that makes frequent headlines for the violence and despair trapped within its walls. The book seeks to humanize the people inside the jail — both inmates and the people who work there — and tell their stories.
Its aim, Blau told the New York Jewish Week, is to amplify the voices of “people who are rarely seen as people,” he said.
The jail complex, which opened in 1932, has long been criticized for its harsh conditions, which include horror stories of inmates caged in tiny showers, sleeping on excrement-smeared floors, suicides, beatings and more. Many have called for its closure since the 1970s. As of Dec. 14, 19 people died at Rikers in 2022 — the highest death rate since 2013.
Rikers Island, the jail complex located in the East River that has been open since 1932, is the site of a constant stream of violent news and headlines over the past few decades. (The City/Ben Fractenberg)
The reporters spent close to three years interviewing about 130 people, with most of the conversations taking place over the phone or in person with people already out of jail. They also made several trips to the jail complex.
One of the people they spoke with was Rabbi Gabriel Kretzmer Seed, a Jewish chaplain on Rikers. Seed spoke about singing Shabbat songs with an inmate who suddenly got up and punched him.
“He was a pretty strong person, but I only ended up with a bloody lip. He might have been mumbling something, but I don’t remember what he said specifically. I was quite shocked. Everything happened so quickly,” Seed said. “I was totally in shock because I had known him for a while and he was the last person I thought would hurt me.”
Seed then remarked that he was able to work with mental health staff and ultimately managed to have a good relationship with the inmate after the incident.
“It was such a revealing story, how there are people who are there to help others,” Blau said. “And they become aware of how people are misplaced there.”
Prior to joining The City, Blau had worked at the New York Daily News and the New York Post. Despite his deep reporting experience, Blau, 43, noted that it’s been “the weirdest thing” to become the “voice” of Rikers. “I’m this whole yeshiva guy,” Blau said. “I’d never been to jail. It wasn’t an issue I was familiar with at all in any way.”
Blau, who grew up in Denver and went to a yeshiva high school in Chicago, said that he remains observant. “Big cholent fan,” said Blau, who lives in New Jersey with his wife, Sara, who had a baby girl in May. “My favorite part of the culture is the social service network that exists in many communities.”
He fell into reporting after majoring in English at Brooklyn College. Before working for the tabloids, Blau wrote for The Chief, a newspaper dedicated to labor and local politics, where he covered the union that represents New York’s corrections officers, among other things.
In 2011, he landed a scoop with the Post about a “jailhouse bar mitzvah” which revealed that correction officers and supervisors attended a lavish Jewish coming-of-age cermony behind bars at a downtown Manhattan jail whose costs were carried by taxpayers.
“I always had some foot in the jail coverage,” Blau said of his time working in the news industry.
His co-writer, Rayman, covers criminal justice for the Daily News. Rayman told the New York Jewish Week that he doesn’t think people can read the book and “come away with a feeling that anything other than that particular jail system is deeply flawed and in need of major changes.”
The city is required by law to close Rikers Island by 2027, yet many are casting doubt over whether that will be possible.
“I really hope that there’s not a journalist behind me in 20 or 30 years that is writing about the same issues, because I think that means the coverage we’ve been doing hasn’t made an effect,” Blau said. “I look at it through that lens. I try to come up with ways that are going to change things for the better in a real meaningful way.”
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UK adopts sweeping measures against antisemitism in schools
(JTA) — The U.K. has adopted sweeping measures to combat antisemitism in English schools, prompting pushback from the country’s largest teachers’ union.
The move came after a new government-commissioned review found that three in five Jewish students reported experiencing antisemitism in English schools. The most common incidents were jokes, stereotypes and comments about Jewish people. About half of respondents who witnessed or experienced antisemitism said the incidents were not reported, most often because they did not think they would be taken seriously.
The government on Wednesday accepted 27 recommendations from the report, including dedicated antisemitism training for leaders and staff, improved recording of antisemitic incidents and moves to build a better understanding of Jewish life, identity and contemporary antisemitism.
The government commissioned the report following a spate of high-profile attacks on Jews in Britain, including an attack on a synagogue in Manchester last year that left two men dead.
The report’s author, Sir David Bell, the vice chancellor of the University of Sunderland and former chief inspector of schools in England, recommended addressing antisemitism distinctly from other forms of racism. He argued that antisemitism was a “uniquely complex” problem because of intertwined racial and religious dimensions, since Jewish identity can encompass both an ethnicity and a religion, along with expressions of prejudice that hold all Jews responsible for the actions of Israel.
The government will also encourage English schools to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. The definition is supported by many mainstream Jewish organizations and has been adopted by 47 countries, including the U.K., but critics say that it conflates some forms of antisemitism with criticism of Israel.
British Education Secretary Lucy Powell called Bell’s review a “generational moment” and said that “implementation is now my priority.”
However, the National Education Union, the largest union representing teachers, lecturers, teaching assistants and support staff in the United Kingdom and Europe, raised concerns on Wednesday about recommending the IHRA definition for schools. NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede said in a statement that the definition “risks deepening the problem rather than tackling it, and actively undermining efforts to confront antisemitism.”
“The IHRA’s contested framing risks blurring the line between antisemitism and legitimate criticism of the Israeli government and the genocide in Gaza, leaving teachers with uncertainty when they need clarity,” said Kebede. He cited a risk that “children who cannot critically explore issues through classroom discussion will instead seek their answers in online and unsafe groups.”
Kebede also encouraged Britain’s Department for Education to strengthen guidance on all forms of racism, not only antisemitism, saying that 65% of teachers report they have not received any antiracism training in the past year.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews, an umbrella organization for British Jewish communities, celebrated the antisemitism report and the government’s adoption of its proposed measures. The group specifically praised the report’s “clear recommendations that schools and local authorities follow government guidelines by adopting the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism as a tool to deepen understanding of contemporary antisemitism.”
“We remain concerned about undue external influence on schools driven by narrow political agendas, and tendentious materials seeping into schools and increasing disharmony, and we will continue to press for vigilance against this,” said the Board of Deputies.
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Orthodox Jewish man stabbed in midtown Manhattan
(New York Jewish Week) — An Orthodox Jewish man is in stable condition after being stabbed on Wednesday evening in the Diamond District of midtown Manhattan. Police are investigating the attack as a possible hate crime.
Police told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating the incident as a possible antisemitic attack, and Manhattan Shomrim — the Jewish community watch group — has asked people to share footage as police search for the suspect. No arrests have been made.
The victim was identified by police as a 26-year-old man, and Orthodox Jewish outlet COLLive identified him as a resident of Crown Heights, the neighborhood that is home to the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement’s headquarters.
He was taken to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition. Police said they were called at about 5:50 p.m. on Wednesday after the man was stabbed in the back with “an unknown sharp object” on 47th Street near Fifth Avenue. ABC7 reported that the victim told investigators he believed he was stabbed with a needle or syringe.
According to the Chabad website, which published an interview with the victim, he is a recently ordained Hasidic rabbi named Joseph, who commutes to Midtown each day to wrap tefillin with Jewish merchants. The attacker, Joseph told the website, was a woman who seemed to be following him prior to the stabbing.
The attack comes as Jewish New Yorkers have been targeted in more than half of the hate crimes committed in New York City this year, despite making up about 12% of the city’s population.
In July, an assailant stabbed two men on the Upper West Side, including one who was leaving a synagogue, while yelling “Allahu akbar,” and was charged with committing hate crimes.
Louis Keene contributed reporting.
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VIDEO: A Hasid gives us a tour of Morocco in Yiddish
דער ירושלימער יוטוב־שטערן וועלוול קירשנבוים האָט לעצטנס אַרויסגעשטעלט אַ ווידעאָ אויף ייִדיש פֿון אַ פּרעכטיקן וויזיט, וואָס ער האָט געמאַכט אין מאַראָקאָ. עס באַגלייט אים זײַן חבֿר אַבֿרהם פּרץ.
אינעם ווידעאָ זעט מען ווי קירשנבוים דאַוונט שחרית מיט די אָרטיקע ייִדן און באַזוכט אַ גוט אָפּגעהיטענעם בית־עולם, וווּ עס ליגן באַערדיקט גרויסע צדיקים ווי למשל הרבֿ חיים בן עתר (1696–1743), באַקאַנט ווי דער „אור החיים“. „מענטשן מיינען, אַז נאָר אין אייראָפּע זענען דאָ קבֿרים פֿון צדיקים!“ זאָגט קירשנבוים.
מיר זעען אַ גרויסע, שיינע שיל מיט אַ פֿײַנער אַרכיטעקטור אין קאַזאַבלאַנקאַ; דעם גרויסן אַראַבישן שוק, וווּ קירשנבוים קויפֿט זיך אײַן מלבושים פּונקט ווי די מאַראָקאַנער גייען אָנגעטאָן. ער באַוווּנדערט אויך די שיינע טיי־גלעזער און טשײַניקן, וואָס מע פֿאַרקויפֿט דאָרט, און באַקענט זיך מיט אַ ייִדישן סוחר וואָס האַנדלט מיט זילבער און גאָלד, פּונקט אַזוי ווי זײַן טאַטע און זיידע האָבן געטאָן פֿאַר דור־דורות.
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