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A new dance club in Williamsburg is bringing Tel Aviv party culture to Brooklyn
(New York Jewish Week) — On a recent Saturday at Silo, a new dance club in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, an aerialist was dangling above the crowd, doing flips on a hula hoop in front of hundreds of people, while hypnotic house music boomed through the venue’s world-class sound system. It was 1 a.m. and the party was just getting started.
Alex Neuhausen, a 39-year-old Jewish musician-turned-club owner, told the New York Jewish Week that this experience of starting the night well past most people’s bedtimes is inspired by Tel Aviv, the beachside Israeli city famous for its club culture.
“In Tel Aviv, they all get dinner with their family and everyone hangs out at 10 or 11, and then you hang out before the club until 2 or 3, and then you go to the club,” Neuhausen said. “They keep super-late hours. You turn the entire night into an experience. We want to do that.”
Some of the biggest night club venues in Brooklyn can hold thousands of people. Silo, by contrast, holds only 500, which carries a more intimate feel. The club is located on the eastern fringes of Williamsburg inside an repurposed airplane hangar, and its high ceiling provides an open, airy atmosphere to what would otherwise feel like a tightly packed room.
An aerialist performs while hanging above the crowd at Silo in Brooklyn. (Courtesy/Annie Forrest)
The team behind Silo is “mostly Jewish,” Neuhausen said, including co-founder Lily Wolfson, the booking consultant, the sound team and the lighting engineers. Neuhausen’s girlfriend, Ariel Lasevoli, who is the club’s director of performance and production, is half-Jewish. A massive two-sided mural, which separates the main club room from the bar area, was created by the Israeli artist Yoshi.
The striking mural is a piece that seems to change after a guest consumes a few drinks while the music plays. The mural portrays a seemingly endless array of black smoke or fire — gray clouds with some white streaks of electricity in the middle of it — but Neuhausen said it is open to interpretation.
“The front represents chaos,” Neuhausen said about the mural, which stretches 15 feet tall and 24 feet wide. “The show room side is a mix of organic patterns, fractals and flowers, but it never quite resolves into anything if you look closely. It’s like a Rorschach [test]; the viewer gives it meaning.”
The Tel Aviv club scene is only one of Silo’s Jewish inspirations: Neuhausen said his interest in dance music goes back to a young age, when he went to his cousins’ bar and bat mitzvahs in the Washington, D.C. area, where he grew up.
“What’s really striking about going to a bar mitzvah is that everyone dances,” Neuhausen said. “It’s the entire family, from the old folks to everyone. It’s just this joyous occasion. American white bread culture doesn’t have a lot of these elements.”
If a bar mitzvah party is a familial, albeit sometimes corny celebration that involves dancing with your loved ones, then it shares a great deal with the ethos of Silo — namely, to provide a place to party all night long while maintaining a welcoming feeling. It’s the antithesis of the exclusive environment that characterizes many high-end Manhattan and Brooklyn nightclubs, which often come with judgmental door policies and an intense, cooler-than-thou attitude.
At Silo on a Saturday earlier this month, the vibe was almost the complete opposite. The security guard cracked jokes with those waiting in line while checking IDs, and Neuhausen himself took our coats as we walked through the door. The attendees were not just Instagram models; college students, queer folks dressed in drag and 50-somethings were also in the mix. It wasn’t a sold out show, but there were nearly 400 people in the room, and almost everyone was focused on the music.
House music — which combines four-on-the-floor drum beats with R&B vocals and other layers — is Silo’s main focus, a style of music that originated at Black LGBTQ clubs in Chicago and Detroit in the 1980s. It’s a history that, Neuhausen said, shares commonalities with the Jewish people.
“These marginalized communities, maybe almost in spite of the oppression, generate great art,” Neuhausen said. “Jews have a lot in common with that shared cultural experience of oppression.”
At Silo in Brooklyn, the club takes inspiration from Tel Aviv’s party culture. (Courtesy/Annie Forrest)
Neuhausen’s father is Jewish, but not “devout about practicing,” he said. “We only went to synagogue a couple of times but I picked up a lot of cultural Jewish identity from him,” he added. “Whenever I see my extended family, it’s much more Jewish.”
In 2012, Neuhausen formed a band with Wolfson and they moved from San Francisco to New York, where Neuhausen took up residence in a garage in Williamsburg. Eventually, he turned the space into a makeshift venue for performances that included bands, comedians, aerialists and eventually DJs.
By 2017, Neuahusen and Wolfson’s parties were growing, so they opened up a commercial space called “Secret Loft” in Manhattan, which held only 80 people. It’s where, over the next five years, Neuhausen learned how to perfect the art of throwing parties — and where he assembled the team that would later go on to build Silo.
“It did really well immediately,” Neuhausen said. “We thought this was a thing we could actually do for a living. That was really the dream.”
Those parties ultimately became too big for the space. Wanting to be closer to the booming club scene in Brooklyn, the team eventually opened Silo, which is located next to the established megaclub Avant Gardner.
At Silo, the goal is to create a space that’s welcoming for all. “Last weekend, we had the DJs on the floor, on a little bit of an elevated platform,” Neuhausen said. “They were surrounded by people on all sides — everybody is facing inwards. It’s very different from a concert, it feels more like a community event.” During the week, the venue also hosts DJ workshops.
Neuhausen added that the booking team is “two women and a gay guy,” and the goal is to bring women DJs and people of color into the club. Neuhausen noted that, despite its origins, “there tends to be a lot of white guys” within some sub-genres of house music.
“We are booking more eclectic artists than a lot of venues,” he said. “We’re not about making people feel uncool. We’re not elitist. We book elite level talent, but we want everyone to see it.”
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The post A new dance club in Williamsburg is bringing Tel Aviv party culture to Brooklyn appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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JD Vance refuses to disavow Tucker Carlson
(JTA) — Vice President JD Vance acknowledged that he has “political disagreements” with Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News personality who has spread antisemitic conspiracy theories and sparked a rift within the Republican Party.
But that won’t impact their friendship, Vance said during a press conference on Thursday at the White House.
“Everybody knows that Tucker Carlson and I are friends, and I think it’s very obvious that Tucker has said some things that I disagree with,” Vance said.
He pointed to Carlson’s criticisms of Vance’s boss, President Donald Trump, as well as Carlson’s suggestion that he would rather Democratic progressive Abdul El-Sayed win Michigan’s U.S. Senate seat than Republican Mike Rogers, as examples of where they disagree.
“Tucker is a friend despite the fact that we disagree on a number of things. And I’m not going to play the game where I throw friends under the bus because I have political disagreements with them,” Vance said.
Vance’s refusal to disavow Carlson comes days after he appeared in a closed-doors session in Las Vegas before hundreds of Republican Jewish Coalition members, some of whom have indicated that they would prefer Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Vance as Trump’s successor in 2028.
His RJC appearance started and ended with standing ovations for the vice president, and he spoke about the importance of the U.S.-Israel relationship and denounced antisemitism during the 35-minute conversation. He angered a number of attendees and Jewish conservatives, however, when he sidestepped a question about Carlson and other controversial right-wing podcasters.
On Thursday, a reporter asked Vance about “those who are uneasy” with his close relationship to Carlson and believe that he is avoiding addressing questions about it.
“I’m not avoiding anything,” Vance countered.
After declining to distance himself from Carlson, Vance said that his refusal to do so should be a model for how other Americans engage in discourse across lines of disagreement.
“If you have a disagreement with someone politically — even over a deeply held issue — you should still be friends with that person, because the whole republic depends on people of different perspectives being able to talk to one another,” Vance said.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post JD Vance refuses to disavow Tucker Carlson appeared first on The Forward.
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Jerusalem cafe bows to Haredi protests, will no longer open on Shabbat
(JTA) — Cafe Basimta, the Jerusalem coffee shop that became a flashpoint in the city’s long-running dispute over Shabbat observance, will stop opening on Saturdays beginning this weekend after two months of weekly ultra-Orthodox protests.
The cafe said Thursday that the decision was made “after prolonged deliberation and with a heavy heart,” out of a desire to lower tensions and restore calm.
Eli Birnbaum, CEO of the messianic group Jews for Jesus, which runs the cafe, called the move a “difficult and painful decision” in the statement, saying it stemmed from a responsibility to its customers, its faith and Israeli society.
“Over the past few months, the cafe has become a focal point of friction and danger, a reality that contradicts our identity as Jews who believe in Jesus and our belief in loving others, respect and bringing people closer together, even with those who oppose us,” Birnbaum said.
He thanked Israel Police, the Jerusalem municipality and those who had come to support the cafe during the protests. “We now want to return Cafe Basimta to what it was intended to be: a calm, pleasant and open place for coffee, culture and dialogue.”
The decision marks a reversal for Cafe Basimta and its operator, Yoel Ben David, who said after the first protest on July 4 that the business would continue opening on weekends despite pressure from demonstrators. By late July, Ben David told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the protests had actually helped business financially, but added: “Me and the staff, we don’t love it. We’d all love it to just chill out.”
Basimta opened earlier this summer in Jerusalem’s central Nahlaot neighborhood, near the Mahane Yehuda market. It later emerged that the cafe was operated by Jews for Jesus, a missionary organization whose members identify as Jews who believe Jesus is the Messiah.
The demonstrations began July 4 and continued for nine consecutive Saturdays through Aug. 29. At the first protest, dozens of ultra-Orthodox demonstrators, many of them minors, surrounded the cafe, banged on its windows and overturned tables, according to staff and video from the scene.
Later protests saw demonstrators break through police barricades and try to approach the cafe, while a bag containing feces was thrown at its entrance on another weekend. In August, a woman was accused of putting glue in the front-door lock, delaying the cafe’s opening.
Supporters meanwhile began turning up each Saturday to patronize the cafe, at times forming long lines outside, while police deployed officers and barricades to separate the two sides. Politicians including Yisrael Beytenu Chairman and former Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman and Democrats Chairman Yair Golan, a former IDF deputy chief of staff, also visited or backed supporters of the cafe.
Golan denounced Thursday’s decision as the result of “haredi terror,” saying weeks of violence, demonstrations and threats had ultimately forced the cafe to give in. Liberman said the closure showed growing religious coercion, writing on X that in “Israel 2026,” drinking coffee on Shabbat was forbidden while “hating, attacking and rioting on Shabbat was permitted.”
Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Adir Schwartz, who heads the pluralist Hitorerut municipal faction, also criticized the closure. Hitorerut said it was examining ways to operate a cafe on Saturdays in response to Basimta’s closure.
A spokesperson for Jews for Jesus told JTA that any such initiative was unrelated to Basimta or the organization.
Basimta’s ties to Jews for Jesus have also prompted a separate campaign against the cafe by anti-missionary activists. Rabbi Binyamin Vulcan, who heads the counter-missionary activities of Or LeAchim, told JTA in July that the organization was planning a weekday demonstration focused specifically on the cafe’s connection to Jews for Jesus and was seeking to have it closed through municipal channels.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Jerusalem cafe bows to Haredi protests, will no longer open on Shabbat appeared first on The Forward.
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Spain’s Jewish federation reports over 200 antisemitic incidents in 2025
(JTA) —
MADRID — Spain’s Jewish umbrella organization and a watchdog group have reported that antisemitic incidents rose 14.5% in 2025, warning that hatred was being “normalized.”
The Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain (FCJE) recorded 221 antisemitic incidents in Spain last year, up from 193 in 2024, in a report released Wednesday together with the Movement Against Intolerance (MCI), a Spanish human rights group. Spain is home to an estimated 40,000 to 70,000 Jews.
The trend matches an increase in hate incidents documented by the Spanish government. Spain’s Interior Ministry said in June that Jews were targeted in 69 hate crimes and incidents in 2025, jumping from 37 in 2024. Data from the Interior Ministry reflects crimes that are formally reported or detected by police, while the FCJE monitors incidents collected from community members, social media and other sources.
The new report came from the Observatory of Antisemitism, a joint initiative by the FCJE and the MCI to track antisemitism since Hamas’s attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel’s ensuing assault in Gaza. The initiative has followed incidents such as the vandalism of Holocaust memorials with swastikas, the desecration of Jewish graves and the individual targeting of Jews, including a group of French tourists who were harassed and spat on in July while leaving a synagogue in Barcelona.
“Since October 7, 2023, Spanish Jews have had to go to our gathering places with special security measures,” FCJE president David Obadía said in a statement. “Our children are the only ones who go to school with a police presence, and insults and discrimination are part of our reality practically every day.”
María Royo, a spokesperson for the FCJE, blamed “campaigns against Israel” for the rise in antisemitic incidents. She told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that some groups, saying Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, also “blame all Jews.”
“The security forces are doing everything within their power, but the government, politicians, media and opinion leaders could be much more rigorous and careful to prevent this situation,” said Royo.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is among Europe’s most vocal critics of Israel, which he says has committed genocide. The Israeli government has repeatedly said the Spanish government is antisemitic, an accusation that Spain strongly rejects.
Esteban Ibarra, the president of the MCI, said in a statement that antisemitism should be distinguished from debates about Israel.
“Antisemitism is not an opinion or a political disagreement: it is a form of hatred and discrimination against Jews,” said Ibarra. “When it is tolerated, normalized or minimized, coexistence deteriorates and democracy is weakened.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Spain’s Jewish federation reports over 200 antisemitic incidents in 2025 appeared first on The Forward.
