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A new symbol at some Passover seders: an empty seat for Evan Gershkovich, Jewish journalist jailed in Russia
(JTA) — Shayndi Raice, a Wall Street Journal reporter based in Israel, is hoping that Jews around the world dedicate a portion of their Passover seder this week to one of her colleagues, currently detained in a Russian prison.
“This Passover, please consider setting a place at your Seder table for @evangershkovich,” Raice tweeted on Sunday. “As you celebrate freedom, join us in demanding freedom for Evan.”
The call — echoing a tactic used in the 20th-century campaign for the freedom of Soviet Jews — grew louder on Monday as it was shared by prominent personalities from tech journalist Kara Swisher to the former chief rabbi of Moscow to Rabbi Angela Buchdahl of New York City’s Central Synagogue, who said she would be leaving an empty chair at her own seder in honor of Gershkovich, a Moscow correspondent for the Wall Street Journal.
Gershkovich, 31, has been charged with espionage, in a move that human rights organizations are decrying and the Biden administration is fighting. He was arrested Wednesday while he was dining at a restaurant in the city of Yekaterinburg, about 800 miles east of Moscow in the Ural Mountains.
The Wall Street Journal has denied the allegations against Gershkovich, who pleaded not guilty during a court appearance last week, according to Russian state and international media. He reportedly has not been able to speak to an attorney representing him while he is held in the notorious Lefortovo Prison, whose past inmates include the famous Soviet Jewish dissident Natan Sharansky.
Gershkovich is the first American journalist since the Cold War to face spying charges in Russia, which carry a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. People charged with espionage are almost always convicted in Russia, according to the New York Times.
“Let him go,” President Joe Biden said Friday about his message to Russian authorities in Gershkovich’s case, using a phrase that itself is redolent of the Passover story and the Soviet Jewry movement.
The arrest has propelled Gershkovich to the front lines of deepening tensions between the United States and Russia. It has also drawn attention to Gershkovich’s background as the child of Jews who fled the Soviet Union — and renewed questions about whether people like him can be safe in Russia today.
“He cares a lot about his identity as a Jew, and especially his identity as the son of Soviet Jewish immigrants,” his college roommate Jeremy Berke told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “I think that was a large part of why he wanted to go back to Russia.”
Gershkovich was born in New York City to Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union who left in the late 1970s, when the Communist state briefly opened the gates to emigration for some of its Jewish citizens.
His father is from Odessa — today in Ukraine — and his mother is from St. Petersburg, Time Magazine reported. According to an account published by the Wall Street Journal, the only outlet to which his family has spoken, his mother fled Russia using Israeli documents with her mother, a Ukrainian Holocaust survivor, after hearing rumors that Jews were going to be deported to Siberia.
Gershkovich grew up speaking Russian at home in New Jersey, where he graduated from Princeton High School before heading to Bowdoin College in Maine. After college, he got a job first at the New York Times before moving to Moscow in 2017 to report for the Moscow Times, an English-language news organization that has been a launching pad for multiple high-profile Russia reporters. His reporting there included coverage of Hanukkah celebrations in Moscow. He was hired by the Wall Street Journal in 2021.
His mother told the Journal that Gershkovich had become more interested in his Jewish identity while in Russia, taking her to a synagogue that she had been warned as a child never to enter. “That’s when Evan started to understand us better,” she said.
“Part of his mission was to not only explain Russia to a Western audience, but to really kind of pierce the bubble and tell the stories of Russians themselves, which was something he was able to do, because he’s fluent in Russian,” Berke told JTA.
He said his friend sought to tell “stories that weren’t necessarily just the purely kind of economic stories that you saw coming out of the country, but that were really about what the people were doing — you know, people in synagogues, people in nightclubs, like all aspects of Russian society.”
Like many foreign journalists, Gershkovich left Russia in February 2022, after Russia invaded neighboring Ukraine and turned overnight into a pariah state that intensified its crackdowns on dissenters. But he returned later in the year on the longstanding assumption that foreigners would be insulated from the harsh treatment that Russian journalists can face.
“By detaining the American journalist Evan Gershkovich, Russia has crossed the Rubicon and sent a clear message to foreign correspondents that they will not be spared from the ongoing purge of the independent media in the country.” said the Committee to Protect Journalists. “Authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Gershkovich, drop all charges against him, and let the media work freely and without fear of reprisal.”
Gershkovich had most recently reported on Russia’s declining economic position and was reportedly in Yekaterinburg reporting on the Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary force, and Nizhny Tagil, a factory town where Russian tanks are made.
Wagner’s owner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, joked about Gershkovich and other journalists being found in a mass grave or a torture chamber when reached by the Daily Beast last week. Prigozhin said he had not known about Gershkovich’s arrest at that time.
Julia Ioffe, a fellow Russian-American Jew and journalist, said after Gershkovich’s arrest that the Kremlin takes criticism from people of their background differently than from other journalists.
“Although he was born in the U.S., his parents were immigrants from the Soviet Union, Jewish immigrants,” Ioffe told CNN. “There is a sense in Moscow, especially in the foreign ministry and in the Kremlin, that people of this background — my background — they are particularly sensitive to … our criticism. They feel that it is a different kind of betrayal.”
WSJ’s Evan Gershkovich, detained in Russia for espionage, is about the age @juliaioffe and I were when we met as Moscow reporters. We spoke today about what Gershkovich is facing, particularly as a reporter whose family fled the Soviet Union and how Russia is ‘banking’ hostages. pic.twitter.com/gsUbZz2N0q
— Alex Marquardt (@MarquardtA) March 30, 2023
The former chief rabbi of Moscow who fled Russia shortly after the invasion of Ukraine last year suggested that Russia had targeted Gershkovich because of his identity.
“He just happened to be Jewish, right?” Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt sarcastically tweeted last week.
Goldschmidt has emerged as a prominent critic of the Russian government after leaving the country last year, saying that as a prominent rabbi he faced pressure to support Putin’s war.
“When we look back over Russian history, whenever the political system was in danger you saw the government trying to redirect the anger and discontent of the masses towards the Jewish community,” he told the Guardian in an interview late last year.
Gershkovich is not the first American to be arrested in Russia amid rising tensions between the countries. Last year, the basketball star Britney Griner was sentenced to nine years in a Russian prison on drug charges, then traded to the United States in exchange for the release of Victor Bout, a Russian convicted of dealing arms.
In a social media post this weekend, Griner called on the United States to “continue to use every tool possible to bring Evan and all wrongfully detained Americans home.”
The Wall Street Journal has made Gershkovich’s reporting free and produced a video highlighting his importance as a journalist. Meanwhile, Gershkovich’s Jewish supporters are putting their own spin on the campaigns to raise awareness of Gershkovich’s plight and lobby for his release.
“Dear friends, if you are in shul this weekend, please say an extra tefillah for the release of @evangershkovich, a @WSJ reporter and son of Soviet Jewish immigrants, who was detained this week by the Russian government,” tweeted Chavie Lieber, a Wall Street Journal reporter, last week. (Lieber was a JTA reporter in 2012 and 2013.)
On Monday, Raice’s call for a place at Passover seders for Gershkovich was being shared widely.
“A worthy endeavour. However, Evan is not the only political prisoner in Russia and Byelorussia. Thousands of people are being held in prisons in Russia and Byelorussia, among them Alexei Navalny, Vladimir Kara Murza, Ilya Yashin and others, many, who are of Jewish descent,” Goldschmidt, the former Moscow chief rabbi, tweeted. “We should remember all of them, when we celebrate freedom at the Seder table Wednesday evening!”
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The post A new symbol at some Passover seders: an empty seat for Evan Gershkovich, Jewish journalist jailed in Russia appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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At a synagogue meeting about how to beat Mamdani, Sliwa faces calls to exit NYC mayor’s race
NEW YORK CITY — More than 100 people gathered Sunday morning in the basement of Fifth Avenue Synagogue, a Modern Orthodox congregation on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, to discuss one thing: how to stop Zohran Mamdani’s march to City Hall.
“Fifth Avenue Synagogue invites you to attend a parlor meeting to discuss DEFEATING MAMDANI PLAN B,” the invitation read.
Synagogue president Jacob Gold had invited Mamdani’s two competitors in New York City’s mayor’s race, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa, to join the event. Only Sliwa RSVPed yes, speaking to the group before taking questions from the mix of members and guests of the synagogue.
Over coffee and bagels with egg salad, attendees voiced their appreciation for the Guardian Angels founder, who was wearing his signature red beret — but their overwhelming message was one that he did not want to hear.
“We all love you, we want you to win,” said synagogue president Jacob Gold, who was standing by Sliwa at the podium. “But you’re at 15%, and Cuomo’s at what percent? And Mamdani’s at what percent?”
No one answered, but everyone knew the numbers: Cuomo netted 28% of the vote in the latest poll, which was also the first to show Mamdani crossing the 50% threshold.
“Let’s cut to the chase — you want me to drop out,” Sliwa interjected.
“No!” Gold replied. “I want you to merge with Cuomo.”
Many others in the room joined Gold in yelling out “No” in unison. But a smattering of voices told Sliwa he had sized the situation up correctly.
A number of attendees spoke up during the Q&A period, pleading their case that Sliwa, who is polling third, should team up with former Gov. Andrew Cuomo against Mamdani.
“Merge!” attendees blurted out at various points, as well as “Unite!” One suggested Sliwa could take a position in Cuomo’s administration. Another posited that Sliwa could take over as mayor once Cuomo runs for president of the United States in a couple years.
But Sliwa has resisted calls to drop out before and did so again during the synagogue meeting. “It’s not happening,” he said.
The pleas to unite with Cuomo did not necessarily reflect loyalty to the former governor, whom Gold said might visit the synagogue next week: The phrase “Plug your nose and vote Cuomo” was uttered more than once. Instead, they came as part of an attempt to overcome a sizable lead by Mamdani, the Queens state lawmaker whose harshly critical views on Israel and democratic socialist politics are anathema to many in Orthodox Jewish communities.
“He’s an antisemite, period!” one man yelled out.
Once Sliwa left after concluding his Q&A, other speakers took to the podium including Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran political consultant; former Lieutenant Governor Betsy McCaughey, who’s behind an anti-Mamdani independent expenditure committee called Save NYC; and Jason Meister, a former Trump advisor who’s heading Defend NYC, a super PAC aimed at thwarting Mamdani’s campaign.
They emphasized the importance of a major get-out-the-vote effort, citing their belief that Mamdani could still be beaten if voter turnout reached 45%. McCaughey distributed leaflets about Mamdani’s support for a law that she said could cause voters against him if they were aware.
“He’s the only candidate who backs rigorous enforcement of Local Law 97, which will force one million Homeowners like you to foot the enormous cost of converting oil or natural gas heat to electric heat throughout your building,” part of the leaflet reads, with “DO NOT VOTE FOR MAMDANI” in big red letters.
Sheinkopf urged attendees to combat the presence of Mamdani’s tens of thousands of volunteers by campaigning against him.
“The only thing that matters here is communicating with people and getting in the street. The rest of it is nonsense,” Sheinkopf said. “Sure as we’re in this room, I need your help to hit those doors and get in the street and get on those phones. Because if we do, we have the potential to win this thing.”
Ultimately, however, the biggest push from the attendees themselves was their attempt to talk Sliwa into a coalition with Cuomo.
“Everybody’s talking about it privately,” said Daria Fane, an attendee who is not a member of Fifth Avenue Synagogue, but frequently attends services there and at other Upper East Side congregations.
“We sit around the dinner table talking about it — where’s New York City going, and what are we going to be able to do?” Fane said in an interview following the event. “And one of the little truisms that always comes up is that Curtis Sliwa should drop out. If it’s just a two-way race, Cuomo would have a better chance of winning.”
She added, “We’ve had this conversation since before Eric Adams dropped out.”
During the Q&A, a woman who said she was wearing a red hat in support of Sliwa asked that he not “put down Cuomo” in the next debate, as he had done in Thursday’s. “You need to both go against Mamdani — Mam-dummy,” she said, getting some laughs with a derisive nickname.
But Sliwa did not entertain the idea of a coalition with Cuomo, and doubled down on his criticisms of the former governor.
“I was raised in America — one man, one woman, one vote,” Sliwa said. “I never heard of one man, one woman, and the rest of you drop out.”
“Andrew Cuomo needs to get out on the campaign trail. He’s spending all of his time trying to get me to drop out. It’s not happening. I’m out there to get my vote out,” he said, which was met with more shouts of “Unite!”
“But then you’re going to be a spoiler!” someone in the crowd said, which drew some boos.
“You guys would make the best government ever,” an attendee chimed in, appealing to the idea that they “unite” rather than using the term “drop out.”
Sliwa did not hold back from criticizing Cuomo, skewering him for signing cashless bail legislation reform as governor. He also came out hard against Mamdani, telling attendees that they must convince their Mamdani-supporting “children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren that they are committing a shanda,” the Yiddish term for “shame.”
Sliwa did defend Mamdani, however, when an angered attendee recalled when Mamdani asked Cuomo during the debate if he’d ever visited a mosque.
“Cuomo should’ve said, ‘Have you ever been in a synagogue?’” she said.
A mix of cheers and chatter erupted; Sliwa shook his head. “Excuse me — he has been in a synagogue,” he said, correcting the record.
Mamdani attended a mayoral candidates forum in the spring at B’nai Jeshurun, a non-denominational synagogue on the Upper West Side, as well as High Holiday services at the progressive Brooklyn congregation Kolot Chayeinu and the “God-optional experimental Jewish community” Lab/Shul. Last weekend Mamdani spoke at Congregation Beth Elohim, the biggest Reform synagogue in Brooklyn.
Even with Sliwa not budging on his position, speakers including McCaughey and Defend NYC’s Meister said a major voter turnout could swing the election against Mamdani. With the election on Nov. 4, however, time is not on their side, leaving some attendees wondering if it’s too little, too late.
“I don’t know,” said Monique Silberman, a member of Fifth Avenue Synagogue. “It’s last-minute — this whole thing is last-minute.”
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The post At a synagogue meeting about how to beat Mamdani, Sliwa faces calls to exit NYC mayor’s race appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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US Says It Hit Colombian Rebel Vessel as Trump Calls Petro ‘Illegal Drug Leader’
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attends a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on US President Donald Trump’s budget request for the Department of Defense, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, US, June 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
US forces attacked a vessel associated with a Colombian leftist rebel group, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Sunday, the same day President Donald Trump called Colombian President Gustavo Petro an “illegal drug leader” and said payments to the South American nation would cease.
Trump‘s comments marked a new low in relations between Bogota and Washington, which have frayed since Trump returned to office in January and since his administration launched a series of strikes on vessels allegedly transporting drugs in the Caribbean.
Hegseth wrote on X that the Pentagon had destroyed a vessel and killed three people on Friday “in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility,” which includes the Caribbean.
He said the ship was affiliated with the leftist rebel group National Liberation Army and was involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, without offering evidence to back the claim.
The Pentagon said it had nothing to add beyond Hegseth’s initial post.
COLOMBIA CONDEMNS TRUMP‘S REMARKS
Colombia’s Foreign Ministry condemned Trump‘s remarks as offensive and a direct threat to its sovereignty, and vowed to seek international support in defense of Petro and the country’s autonomy.
“These accusations represent an extremely serious act and undermine the dignity of the president of Colombians,” it said in a statement.
The post from Hegseth came hours after Trump lambasted Petro on social media and said the United States would stop large-scale payments and subsidies to Colombia.
“President Gustavo Petro, of Colombia, is an illegal drug leader strongly encouraging the massive production of drugs, in big and small fields, all over Colombia,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“The purpose of this drug production is the sale of massive amounts of product into the United States, causing death, destruction, and havoc,” Trump wrote.
Reuters could not immediately establish which payments Trump was referring to. Colombia was once among the largest recipients of US aid in the Western Hemisphere, but the flow of money was suddenly curtailed this year by the shuttering of USAID, the US government’s humanitarian assistance arm.
The US State Department referred questions to the White House, which did not immediately respond to a query.
FRAUGHT RELATIONS
Last month the United States revoked Petro’s visa after he joined a pro-Palestinian demonstration in New York and urged US soldiers to disobey Trump‘s orders.
The US administration’s deadly strikes on boats in the Caribbean have also outraged Colombians. Many legal experts and human rights activists have condemned the extraordinary series of military actions, with Amnesty International describing it as murder on the high seas.
Earlier this month, Petro said one of the strikes hit a Colombian vessel, an allegation the Trump administration denied.
Petro condemned the most recent bombing, saying the boat belonged to a “humble family,” not the National Liberation Army. He also hit back at Trump‘s remarks.
“Mr. Trump, Colombia has never been rude to the United States… but you are rude and ignorant to Colombia,” Petro responded on X. “Since I am not a businessman, I am even less a drug trafficker. There is no greed in my heart.”
Colombia is fighting its own longstanding drug problems. Last year, Petro pledged to tame coca-growing regions in the country with massive social and military intervention, but the strategy has brought little success.
In September, Trump designated countries such as Afghanistan, Bolivia, Burma, Colombia and Venezuela among those the United States believes to have “failed demonstrably” in upholding counter-narcotics agreements during the past year.
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Trump Urged Zelensky to Cut a Deal with Putin or Risk Facing Destruction, FT Reports
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy meets with U.S. President Donald Trump (not pictured) over lunch in the Cabinet Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., October 17, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
US President Donald Trump urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to accept Russia’s terms for ending the war between Russia and Ukraine in a White House meeting on Friday, warning that President Vladimir Putin threatened to “destroy” Ukraine if it didn’t comply, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.
During the meeting, Trump insisted Zelensky surrender the entire eastern Donbas region to Russia, repeatedly echoing talking points the Russian president had made in their call a day earlier, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter.
Ukraine ultimately managed to swing Trump back to endorsing a freeze of the current front lines, the FT said. Trump said after the meeting that the two sides should stop the war at the battle line; Zelensky said that was an important point.
The White House did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the FT report.
Zelensky arrived at the White House on Friday looking for weapons to keep fighting his country’s war, but met an American president who appeared more intent on brokering a peace deal.
In Thursday’s call with Trump, Putin had offered some small areas of the two southern frontline regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in exchange for the much larger parts of the Donbas now under Ukrainian control, the FT report added.
That is less than his original 2024 demand for Kyiv to cede the entirety of Donbas plus Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south, an area of nearly 20,000 square km.
Zelensky’s spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside business hours on whether Trump had pressured Zelensky to accept peace on Russia’s terms.
Trump and Putin agreed on Thursday to hold a second summit on the war in Ukraine within the next two weeks, provisionally in Budapest, following an August 15 meeting in Alaska that failed to produce a breakthrough.