It’s inevitable — the beginning of spring and the scent of magnolias always remind me of Passover.

Growing up, I lived with my parents in a two-bedroom apartment on the second floor of a three-story apartment building in Borough Park, Brooklyn. The living room window faced the street. A beautiful magnolia tree grew in front of that window, partially obscuring the houses across the way. In late March or early April, I’d start to notice the buds on the magnolia’s branches morph into a rich velvety green that would grow and grow, and soon unravel into huge blossoms, the color of pink ballet slippers.

There was a fire escape in front of that window, and when I was a teenager I’d sit on the windowsill and swing my feet onto the rusty rungs. It was a good place to imagine, to think, write and stare at that beautiful tree, coming alive.

I’d often try to extend my arm and reach a flower, but since I was afraid of heights and didn’t look down, I could usually only graze it. Once in a while, though, with heart thumping and some wobbly finesse I could manage to stand and quickly snip off several blossoms. The delirious scent of spring in Brooklyn, its air vacuumed fresh and clean was unbelievable — winter was finally gone and spring was here. The large pink flower felt like my very own special bouquet. Excitedly, I would take one or two of the petals, press them between my fingers, desperately trying to extract its perfume and dab it behind my ears, before I placed the flower in a small vase.

Meanwhile, inside the house, my very petite mother would busily iron our crisp, white damask tablecloth until it was smooth as paper. With sturdy fingers she would then unfurl it on our dining room table.

Then, my mother would climb a ladder to reshelve all our dairy and meat dishes in the top cupboard, making sure they were out of sight and out of mind for Passover; she’d cover them with a long layer of aluminum foil just to make sure.

Then, out came the blue bubble Depression-era glass dishes, Bakelite knives, forks and spoons with bright red handles, pots, pans and heavy crystal wine glasses.

Like the magnolia tree outside, all these dishes and silverware felt like welcome guests who we hadn’t seen for a year.

Soon, that beautifully ironed tablecloth was layered with all things Passover — the Seder plate; the Maxwell House Haggadah; the treasured well-worn haggadah from The Home of the Sages of Israel on the Lower East Side; Elijah’s cup, not just for Elijah, but for all the relatives, long gone, who couldn’t be present. And, of course, the bottle of Manichewitz grape wine, matzo and matzo balls the size of tennis balls sloshing around in a bowl of chicken soup; hard-boiled eggs; saltwater; a jar of potent horseradish capable of inducing actual tears; velvet and satin yarmulkes, the inside imprinted with someone’s Bar Mitzvah or wedding date. Finally, aunts and uncles on one side of the table, my cousins and I on the other.

On the table, in addition to the wine, there were blue and green seltzer bottles, delivered by the seltzer man. In those days, it was either water from the faucet or seltzer. My cousins and I would press the siphon into the little bit of wine we were allocated and concoct our own, not so good, drinks. Inevitably, someone would accidentally tip over a glass of wine and those beautiful white damask roses would suddenly be transformed into purple ones.

Soon, the magnolia tree would shed all its blossoms and create a beautiful pink blanket on the ground. My mother would take our dairy and meat dishes down from the top shelves in the cupboard, and Passover, like those blossoms, would once again become a memory.

No longer a teenager, I now live in the suburbs, my house surrounded by grass and trees, but not that magical magnolia.

Sometimes, though, while I’m walking, I’ll see one of those trees. I’ll stop and stare at its blossoms scattered on the grass and remember those Passovers past.

The post In my Passover memories, the magnolia trees of Brooklyn are always in bloom appeared first on The Forward.

The New York City Council’s passage of protest restrictions outside synagogues and schools is being closely watched by states and cities grappling with the targeting of Jewish institutions — but the two key bills both leave what happens next an open question.

Those uncertainties let Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the Jewish Council speaker who drove the package, Julie Menin, both declare victory and appeal to their respective sides of the anti-Israel protest divide.

Menin had originally sought to establish a 100-foot buffer zone around synagogues as part of a broader agenda to combat antisemitism — only to revamp it after Mamdani’s police commissioner and civil liberties groups objected. That amended bill now directs the NYPD to craft a plan within 45 days for managing protests around houses of worship. It passed by a 44-5 vote, a veto-proof margin.

But Mamdani could choose to veto the other key measure, which would similarly direct the NYPD to devise a protest response plan to protect access to schools — including institutions of higher education like Columbia University, where Gaza war protests roiled the campus. That bill passed 30-19.

This outcome offers Mamdani a political off-ramp. A strident critic of Israel who rose to power aligned with pro-Palestinian activism, Mamdani faces a different governing reality. The veto-proof synagogue bill allows Mamdani to avoid a direct confrontation with the Jewish community, already concerned about his recent responses to antisemitism and pro-Palestinian protests.

Meanwhile, his power to veto the schools measure gives him room to declare solidarity with the protest movement that helped bring him to power.

Mamdani also has a third option: take no action. Under city law, the bill would automatically take effect after 30 days without his signature or a veto.

The mayor has not indicated he would refuse to sign the bills. However, he cited “serious concerns” expressed by his allies about limiting New Yorkers’ constitutional rights.

Since taking office, Mamdani has walked a tightrope, resisting pressure to take clear positions that could alienate either progressive allies or Jews worried about rising antisemitism.

Menin’s major win

The vote also spotlighted Menin’s role as a counterweight to Mamdani on Jewish issues. The synagogue bill was her first piece of legislation, and her first major win since becoming the first Jewish speaker in city history, at a time when anti-Jewish incidents continue to make up a majority of reported hate crimes in the city. In remarks after the vote, Menin called it a “victory” and a personal milestone.

“We passed a historic package of bills that protects every single faith and allows every single person in New York City to go to their house of worship without fear of intimidation and harassment,” Menin said at the start of an Interfaith Passover seder she co-hosted with the Jewish Community Relations Council. “This is a very personal bill to me. This matters so much.” The event was held at Tsion Cafe, an Ethiopian Jewish restaurant in Harlem that closed earlier this year, citing security concerns after harassment and vandalism following Oct. 7.

Menin is expected to celebrate the bill’s passage with Jewish leaders Friday morning at Park East Synagogue, which was the site of a November protest that included antisemitic slogans and helped spur this action.

Jewish communal and pro-Israel organizations praised Menin for her leadership in statements after the bill’s passage.

Divisions within the Jewish Caucus

The divide around the schools measure, introduced by Councilmember Eric Dinowitz, co-chair of the Jewish Caucus, could prove less politically fraught for Mamdani. The bill drew opposition from 19 members, including two Jewish colleagues.

Dinowitz told the Forward that if Mamdani vetoes the measure, it would undermine police transparency and accountability, “and make students less safe.” He added that he would continue pushing the issue regardless of the mayor’s decision. “I look forward to the conversation the mayor may want to have about how we protect our students’ safe access to schools,” Dinowitz said. 

His co-chair, Councilmember Lynn Schulman, said at the Seder event that she is prepared to whip the votes needed to override a veto. “We only need four votes,” she said.

Councilmember Lincoln Restler, who is Jewish, said in the council chambers that he opposed the measure over concerns it could restrict protests on college campuses. Dinowitz pushed back, saying the bill applies only to educational facilities on public property and does not target campus demonstrations.

A watered-down approach

The synagogue bill’s passage comes as similar protection proposals are surfacing elsewhere. Last week, a California state lawmaker proposed a 100-foot buffer around synagogues, and New York is weighing a 25-foot zone statewide.

The bills were revised multiple times from their original proposal following pushback from Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, some progressive Jewish groups and free speech advocates, under threat of legal challenges. What began as a plan to establish buffer zones of up to 100 feet outside synagogues and other houses of worship was scaled back to giving the police department broad authority to design and implement enforcement guidelines. The final version does not explicitly ban protests or set a fixed distance requirement.

Menin said that in her early conversations with the mayor, Mamdani did not “indicate particular concerns.” Mamdani said in January that he ordered his law department and police leadership to review the proposal’s legality. Menin said those officials “had input on the bill,” and that input is reflected in the current language of the bill.

Outside City Hall, a group of Mamdani allies gathered during the vote to protest the measures.

Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, told the Forward that even the modified version of the bill gives the NYPD “free rein” in how the rules are enforced and risks signaling that protest activity is problematic.

“What it’s going to do is make it hard to protest in New York City,” Lieberman said. That runs counter to efforts to reduce over-policing, she added.

Audrey Sasson, executive director of Jews For Racial & Economic Justice, called on Mamdani to veto both pieces of legislation.

“We’re extremely disappointed that the City Council voted to pass Intros 001 and 175, bills that serve to generate headlines and convey concern, but not to materially make our city safer for all New Yorkers, including Jews,” Sasson said in a statement. “At best, the legislation changes little. At worst, it restricts New Yorkers’ free speech rights and empowers the NYPD to engage in discriminatory policing of protest outside houses of worship and educational facilities.”

Lieberman said the NYCLU will hold off on further action until the NYPD releases its implementation plan.

The post Analysis: NYC synagogue protest protection vote gives Mamdani cover appeared first on The Forward.

If the war in Iran ends with every objective achieved — and it won’t — Israel may still come to regret its victory. The warnings of an ancient Athenian writer, an early right-wing Zionist and an Orthodox Jewish professor of biochemistry illustrate why.

Since the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has dismantled nearly every adversary that once threatened it. Hamas can no longer effectively launch rockets. Hezbollah is degraded. The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime gave Israel an opportunity to destroy Syria’s weapons stockpiles. And now Iran: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is dead, other key leaders have been assassinated, and the country’s ballistic missile and nuclear capabilities appear to be in tatters.

None of this is likely permanent. Hamas is regrouping, Hezbollah is launching rockets, Syria may yet radicalize, and Iranian regime change is a fantasy. But even if Israel really does defeat its foes, history teaches a painful lesson: it is victory, rather than defeat, that can set the stage for a country’s collapse.

An ancient analog for modern Israel 

When the historian Thucydides documented the rise and decline of Athens some 2,500 years ago, he told a story that feels eerily applicable to Israel in 2026: that of a vibrant state poisoned by its own power.

Athens’ emergence as a military hegemon also marked the onset of its corruption and decline. Initial victories over strong enemies set the stage for later follies, arrogance, and cruelty. Flush with confidence, the Athenians embarked on the Sicilian Expedition and overextended catastrophically. Before that, even, they articulated a credo that almost perfectly encapsulates Israel’s current approach to the Palestinians: “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”

This isn’t to say that any country should forego military power. But even right-wing architects of Zionism recognized that such power must eventually become a conduit to sustainable peace.

‘The iron wall’

In 1923, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the ideological founder of the Zionist right, wrote a famous essay arguing that Palestinians would never voluntarily agree to convert what was then mandatory Palestine “from an Arab country into a country with a Jewish majority.”

Therefore, he wrote, a Jewish state “can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population — behind an iron wall.”

But while that part of Jabotinsky’s philosophy clearly aligns with that employed by today’s Israeli right, there are two crucial differences between the two.

The first is that Jabotinsky affirmed that it is “utterly impossible to eject the Arabs from Palestine” and that “there will always be two nations in Palestine” — a far cry from Israeli messianists’ current dreams of wholesale ethnic cleansing.

The second is that Jabotinsky saw the “iron wall” he envisioned as the first step to eventual agreement in which both sides “agree to mutual concessions.” Power was a precondition for safety, but eventually diplomacy would reap the fruits of long-term peace.

Yet in recent years, Israel has largely eschewed the second part of Jabotinsky’s vision in favor of a “strong do what they can” attitude towards the Palestinians — and the rest of the world.

A ‘secret-police state’

Which brings us to Yeshayahu Leibowitz, a brilliant and influential Orthodox Jewish philosopher and biochemist who foresaw the danger that a “might makes right” ideology would incur for Israel.

Leibowitz dared to challenge the euphoria of victory following the 1967 Six-Day War, in which Israel defeated a coalition of Arab armies and drastically increased its territory. Writing the following year, he warned that “a state ruling a hostile population of 1.5 to 2 million foreigners” — the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank — “would necessarily become a secret-police state, with all that this implies for education, free speech, and democratic institutions.”

Leibowitz was not naive: he firmly recognized the need to “continue to fortify ourselves in our Jewish state and defend it.” But he understood that the military victory of permanent occupation would erode Israeli democracy from within. Nearly 60 years later, Leibowitz is, sadly, vindicated: Settlers are on the rampage, public media and the judiciary are under attack, and some experts have suggested Israel can no longer be considered a true liberal democracy.

A deal in the works

Leibowitz warned that, under the wrong conditions, victory can corrode democracy. The question: Can the gains earned through military success ever justify that risk?

Some might argue that a potential Iran deal in the works would validate Israel’s strategy, because it shows that successful negotiation sometimes depends on military action. That is partially true. Israel has effectively negotiated with countries like Egypt after conflict. Long-term peace with Arab states has emerged precisely from the diplomacy that occurred after victory.

But we should be extraordinarily skeptical that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the man to manage that process. Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who returned the Sinai to Egypt to secure peace, had to muster extreme political courage to go against settler elements within his Likud party. Netanyahu, on the other hand, has folded over and over again to the radical demands of his ultra-right wing coalition.

The man who at this very moment is allowing Hamas to regroup in Gaza because he is avoiding a postwar plan should not be trusted to manage any kind of victory with Iran.

The paradox of victory

What’s even more worrying is that the more successful the campaign in Iran is, the more the Israeli right will likely weaponize victory as proof that force is the only strategy that works for Israel, and that all external critics can be safely ignored.

They will be wrong. And we know that, because that’s exactly the same argument that the right offered during and after the Second Intifada: unilateral security, achieved through Israeli might.

The Oct. 7 attack showed the folly of that promise.

Israeli military strength has perhaps never been greater, and its regional foes have never been less powerful. And yet the country’s international standing is at historic lows, and its people are being harassed, injured and killed by Iranian ballistic missile launches that persist despite the country’s best defensive efforts.

No, Israel should not lay down its arms. No, peace with the ayatollahs was never possible. And yes, sometimes force is the only option.

But long-term security, like the kind we’ve seen Israel successfully build with some Arab states like Egypt, comes from resisting the temptations of radicalization that military success brings.

Israel’s current government lacks the wisdom to take advantage of those successes. It will, in fact, warp a win into a reason to double down on isolationist thinking that will push the country further away from liberal democracy.

In other words: victory in Iran — a best-case scenario for Israeli security in the short run — may turn out to be the worst-case scenario for Israeli democracy long-term.

The post Israel’s best-case scenario in Iran may also be its worst appeared first on The Forward.