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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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The Knicks won on 6/13. Jewish fans think that’s more than a coincidence.
(JTA) — For some Jewish fans of the New York Knicks, the most salient number related to the team’s NBA championship win on Saturday was not 94, the team’s final score, or 53, the number of years since the last title. It was 613.
The number is meaningful in Jewish tradition because it signifies the number of commandments, or mitzvot, outlined in the Torah.
For years, the number has hung from the rafters at Madison Square Garden — a reference to the number of lifetime wins notched by Red Holzman, the Jewish coach who led the Knicks during their previous championship runs, in 1970 and 1973.
On Saturday, it also became the date that the Knicks’ championship dry spell was broken: June 13, or 6/13.
For some Jews watching, the confluence of 613’s was evidence of divine intervention in the Knicks’ title win.
“Today is 6/13. There are 613 commandments in the Torah. Tonight, the Knicks are the champions. 🧡🩵,” tweeted Simone Weichselbaum, a native New Yorker. “I rest my case. 🏆”
Yossi Farro, who has made a name online by posting pictures of himself aiding Jewish celebrities, including athletes, in applying prayer phylacteries, tweeted an image showcasing the 613s in Knicks lore. “Faith. History. Legacy,” he wrote. “Amazing how sometimes everything comes full circle.”
Some online Jewish commentators found even more to read into the date. Moshe Spern, a New York City educator and activist, noted that not only is 613 significant in Jewish tradition, but 26, the rest of the date, also resonated. “And 26 is the gematria of Hashems name,” he tweeted, using a Hebrew name for God and referring to the kabbalistic practice of assigning numerical value to letters and their combinations. He concluded, “Today is a miracle!!”
Jewish Knicks diehards were talking about the 613 tie-in well before the date breaking the championship dry streak was revealed.
The Manhattan psychologist to the stars Ike Hershkopf, who would later be accused of abusing his power in a 2019 podcast, told the New York Jewish Week in 1998 that he had informed Holzman about how meaningful his lifetime achievement was.
“I wrote a letter telling him that 613 is the single most special number in the Jewish religion, signifying the number of commandments that an observant Jew observes,” Herschkopf said. “I told him the highest praise that one could give to a Jew is to say he is a 613 man. … Subsequently he told me that he was so taken with this that he not only framed the letter but sent out copies to his friends.”
Red Holzman, coach of the New York Knicks, shown on the sidelines during game action against Philadelphia 76ers, March 5, 1977. (Getty Images)
Last week, Rabbi Justin Pines, the chief executive officer of the Jewish Broadcasting Service, noted the Holzman banner in a broadcast. “Coincidence?” he asked. “Or a divine reminder hanging right over the court?” (The championship win unfolded in Texas at the home arena of the San Antonio spurs.)
Even those who satirize Jews online got in on the action on Saturday night.
“The Knicks won on 6/13. 613 is the number of Jewish commandments,” tweeted a parody account ostensibly attributed to a fake rabbi that often goads antisemites online. “And you’re telling me the Mossad didn’t have to do with Jew York winning the finals??”
For OG Anunoby, the Knicks’ forward who scored the game-winning putback in game four, the date of the victory had its own significance: It was the seventh anniversary of his first NBA title, with the Toronto Raptors.
“It’s a great day — what’s it, June 13th?” he said during a postgame press conference. “Yeah, June 13th is an amazing day.”
Not everyone appreciated the numerical reading between the lines, saying that there was more to marvel at in the Knicks’ win. In the leadup to the championship, and under siege in New York City.
“Guys stop giving divrei Torah about the date being 613 and the Knicks winning. There’s no connection between the number of mitzvot, today’s English date and a basketball team. Y’all are far-fetched,” tweeted a New York woman who goes by the Jewish Meme Queen online.
“You know what’s actually inspiring?” she continued. “The Knicks working their butts off to win. The sacrifices their families made for this moment. NYC coming together despite our differences.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Trump announces deal with Iran is ‘now complete’
(JTA) — President Donald Trump announced Sunday that a deal to end the war with Iran and reopen the Strait of Hormuz is “now complete.”
“Congratulations to all! I hereby fully authorize the toll free opening of the Strait of Hormuz, and, simultaneously herewith, authorize the immediate removal of the United States Naval blockade,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!”
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who has played a key mediating role in talks between the U.S. and Iran, also announced that a deal had been reached minutes before Trump made his post, adding that an official signing ceremony would take place Friday in Switzerland.
“Both sides have declared the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon,” Sharif wrote in a post on X.
The announcement comes more than three months since Israel and the U.S. launched its joint strikes on Iran in February. While the deal’s details have not yet been publicly announced, it is expected to extend a ceasefire between Iran and the U.S. for 60 days, during which the countries will negotiate a broader agreement addressing Iran’s nuclear program.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu did not immediately put out a statement following the announcement, but earlier Sunday he had posted a message on X celebrating Trump’s birthday.
Also earlier Sunday, Israel launched strikes on Hezbollah targets in Beirut, prompting Iran to vow retaliation and drawing a sharp rebuke from Trump, who said the strikes had “delayed the signing by a few hours.”
“Why did Bibi have to do a f–cking attack? I was so pissed off. I let him know. He has no fucking judgement. I let him know that,” Trump told Axios Sunday.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Jane Yolen, children’s book author whose ‘The Devil’s Arithmetic’ became a Holocaust classic, dies at 87
(JTA) — Jane Yolen was already an award-winning author and illustrator of more than 100 titles for young readers when her editor suggested she write a Jewish children’s book.
At first, she resisted the idea. Sure, she was Jewish. But she didn’t grow up in a religiously observant family, and she insisted she didn’t know enough about Judaism to take on the project.
Finally, she relented. Drawing on a spark of an idea about a Holocaust time-travel fantasy, Yolen turned in the first draft of what would become “The Devil’s Arithmetic,” her 1988 young adult novel. “I thought, ‘OK, I’m going to try this,’” Yolen recalled to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency years later.
The book won immediate acclaim and garnered multiple awards. Today, it’s seen as a classic of the genre — and one that remains caught up in banned-book lists.
For Yolen, who died Thursday at 87 in her home in Western Massachusetts, “The Devil’s Arithmetic” became her signature title. Still in print, the book was also made into an Emmy Award-winning Showtime feature starring Kirsten Dunst. It was the cornerstone of a titanic legacy in children’s literature, her family said in a statement.
“It is with profound sadness that I, along with my brothers, Adam Stemple, and Jason Stemple, share the news of our mother, Jane Yolen’s passing,” her daughter Heidi Stemple wrote on Facebook, adding that Yolen had “passed gently with no pain or stress” and her family by her side, reading one of her books to her.
Yolen was born on Feb. 11, 1939, in New York City. Her father was a journalist and her mother was a psychiatric social worker until Yolen was born.
An alumna of Smith College, where she won poetry and journalism awards, she worked first as an editor in New York City, writing at her breaks and time off. Her first published book, “Pirates in Petticoats,” a nonfiction work about women on the high seas, was published when she was 22.
She soon pivoted to children’s literature, becoming one of the most prolific authors in the genre. She went on to publish 450 children’s books, including more Jewish titles, and was known as “the Hans Christian Andersen of America.” She won the prestigious Caldecott Medal for her 1987 picture book, “Owl Moon,” and her “How Do Dinosaurs …” series is a staple in many preschool classrooms. (It includes one Jewish title: “How Do Dinosaurs Say Happy Chanukah?” Her 450th title was published just this year, her children said.
But it was “The Devil’s Arithmetic,” scholars have said, that cemented her legacy as a leading author for young Jews. The novel was a trailblazer for its blending of time-travel with historical veracity, according to the late Norman H. Finkelstein, a National Jewish Book award winner who was a children’s librarian himself.
“It was a different Holocaust book,” Finkelstein told JTA in 2018, on the occasion of the title’s 30th anniversary. “It was not strictly factual, it was not a memoir. Jane did a superb job in taking the story of the Holocaust down to a level that ordinary American kids could understand. The characters were realistic, not paper cutouts.”
Other titles of hers included “Meet Me at the Well: The Girls and Women of the Bible,” with Barbara Diamond Goldin, and “Jewish Fairy Tale Feasts,” with her daughter Heidi, who developed and illustrated the hands-on recipes.
Yolen relished the collaborations with her daughter. They lived next door to each other, along with Stemple’s family, with two grandchildren who were taste-testers of Stemple’s recipes.
“Jane was a treasure, and it is difficult to think of the world of books — indeed the world itself – without her,” Richard Michelson, an award-winning author of Jewish children’s books and Yolen’s friend and neighbor, wrote on Facebook. Describing her as a cherished mentor of younger writers, he added, “Jane created classics as if it were as easy as breathing.”
While often assigned in schools as part of lessons on the Holocaust, Yolen’s titles are not without controversy. In 2025 a Texas school district, using artificial intelligence, flagged “The Devil’s Arithmetic” for removal as a title containing “DEI,” or diversity, equity and inclusion content. The book became one of several well known Holocaust titles to be pulled from schools in the last few years.
Though she had initially resisted the idea of being a Holocaust author, Yolen would go on to publish a trilogy of unconventional young-adult novels about the subject. She incorporated elements of “Sleeping Beauty” into 1992’s “Briar Rose.” “Mapping the Bones” followed in 2018 as a riff on “Hansel and Gretel.”
“Whenever we think of the Holocaust, we think of remembering,” Yolen told JTA in that same 2018 interview. “We think of never forgetting. Soon all we will have are the stories.”
In addition to her children, Yolen is survived by six grandchildren. Her husband, David Stemple, to whom she was married for 44 years, died in 2006.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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