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An afternoon with Shayna Maydele, possibly the most Jewish dog in New York
(New York Jewish Week) — In my decades as a journalist, I’ve interviewed some pretty powerful, important and, yes, even famous people. But never before have I been so excited — starstruck, even — to meet a subject, and this one wasn’t even human.
I was positively giddy to visit the Upper East Side home last week of Shayna Maydele, a small, white dog who has captured the hearts of thousands of adoring fans on Instagram. Shayna Maydele’s popularity isn’t just owing to her adorable punim — though her punim is 100% adorable, as as this committed fluffy-dog lover can attest. It’s also because her Instagram is filled with charming, authentic expressions of Jewish pride, as well as humorous takes on life in New York City.
Leaving aside the big question of whether or not a dog can be Jewish (I say yes!) — or even if owning a pet is a Jewish thing to do — every Friday, Shayna Maydele’s account features a heartwarming “Shabbat shalom” message. The Shabbat photos often include homemade challah, other times they might feature her “Papa,” or her owner’s dad. I always let out a squeal of delight when I see the posts, and I’m hardly alone: “I wake up each a [sic] Friday and await such good posts,” wrote one commenter on a Shabbat post earlier this month. “Shabbat Shalom, Shayna!”
“My Shabbat posts get the most likes out of everything,” Shayna Maydele’s owner, Heidi Silverstone, told me.
Since emerging on social media in 2019, Shayna Maydele (whose name means “beautiful girl” in Yiddish) has garnered nearly 9,000 (and counting) fans from all over the world — many of whom go beyond simply “liking” or commenting on a post. The Jewish National Fund, for example, has, unbidden, planted a tree in her honor; she also played an important role in the engagement of one couple who happened to meet her at a dog park. Shayna Maydele’s Shabbat messages have been shared by a wide variety of high-profile social media accounts, including Humans of Judaism, Jewish Memes Only and several of the New York Jewish Week’s partner sites, including Hey Alma and The Nosher. Her followers include Grammy-winning Jewish musician Joanie Leeds and Jewish comedian Hannah Einbender, the star of the HBO comedy “Hacks.”
It’s a pretty remarkable following considering Silverstone — who is also Shayna Maydele’s social media manager, if you will — doesn’t have any social media accounts of her own, nor did she set out to make her pup a star. It all started in June 2019, when Silverstone and her husband, Rob, flew to Arizona to pick up their puppy from the breeder. (Shayna is a coton de tulear, a breed made famous by Barbra Streisand, who notoriously cloned her pup. The breeder later told Silverstone she also sold Streisand her famous dogs. “I’m not sure if they’re related,” Silverstone said of their mutual pets, “but I can pretend they are!”)
So many friends and family members had wanted to see pictures of the new puppy, said Silverstone, that she figured it would be easier to set up an Instagram account. “I didn’t make it private — I figured nobody’s gonna know her,” she explained. “And then, all of a sudden, people were following.”
Shayna Maydele’s account began to really take off when the Jewish content started, which happened organically. “It wasn’t a conscious thing — it was Shabbos and I put a yarmulke on her head and said, ‘Shabbat Shalom,’ thinking I’m wishing my family and friends a Shabbat shalom.” Followers took notice. “People were liking it so much I thought, ‘OK, we’ll do a Shabbat shalom post every week.’” Other Jewish holidays soon followed.
Heidi Silverstone poses with her coton de tulear, Shayna Maydele, whom she got in June 2019. (New York Jewish Week)
“The Jewish thing is just normal — it’s a part of our life,” said Silverstone, who chatted with me in her kitchen as Shayna Maydele, sitting beneath the table, interjected with an occasional woof.
Silverstone and her spouse are members of Park Avenue Synagogue; while they used to attend Shabbat services regularly, these days they are more likely to stream them. The parlor floor of the family brownstone is filled with Jewish art and Judaica (as well as some cool New York City treasures, such as coasters inspired by subway tokens).
In one corner of the the kitchen, where Shayna Maydele’s dog food sat untouched, hangs a framed Passover bagels recipe, handwritten by Silverstone’s grandmother, as well as a drawing her son Max made as a child of the Torah and other Jewish ritual objects made of cheese. (Max is now 25 and a fourth-year cantorial student at the Jewish Theological Seminary.) Around the corner is a painting made by a Shayna Maydele fan, a beautifully rendered version of an Instagram post featuring her holding a tub of Temp-Tee Whipped Cream Cheese.
A lifetime of shul-going means that there are enough kippahs in the home for Shayna Maydele to rarely pose wearing the same one twice — Silverstone estimates that a basket in the corner of the dining room contains some 200 skullcaps in a variety of textures and colors. Silverstone makes an effort to coordinate Shayna Maydele’s kippah to other accouterments that may be in the weekly Shabbat photo; on the day of my visit, Silverstone selects an orange kippah to match a painted ceramic tzedakah box, one that Silverstone had previously gifted to her grandmother.
When it’s time for the photo shoot, Silverstone’s “assistant” — that’s Silverstone’s husband, Rob, who is vice president of finance at media company Dotdash Meredith — emerges from his upstairs office. I had been warned that dogs, like babies, are notoriously difficult photo subjects, but on that December afternoon — with Shayna Maydele placed atop a low table next to the tzedakah box, and with Rob deftly sticking his fingers in Shayna Maydele’s mouth to elicit a smile — the whole adorable thing is over in minutes.
These days, Silverstone typically posts three or four times a week to Shanya Maydele’s account. Though she has no formal media background — a former dental hygienist, she now works as a workshop instructor for an au pair program — Silverstone said she is coached by her son, Michael, 28, who, in addition to working at a tech company, has his own photography business.
In addition to the Jewish content, there is other shtick. My favorites are the “new business ventures” that feature the coton posing beside or atop something someone has discarded on the street. (In one recent example, Shayna Maydele is seen in front of a play kitchen. “Fine dining on the lovely streets of NYC,” the caption reads. “I will cook and serve delicious meals prepared in this top of the line toy kitchen. FREE dog hair in every bite!”)
“We have so much trash on the street,” Silverstone said. “What’s really funny is that people in New York get it — they know what it is. But I have followers from all over the world. So probably, when they come to the city, they’re going to be looking for the streets paved in garbage.”
But the Jewish posts seem to be the heart and soul of the account, and Silverstone said she is moved by the positive reaction she gets from Shayna Maydele’s followers, both Jewish and not. She makes a conscious effort to define Jewish terms and holidays so they are accessible to everyone: On Simchat Torah in October, a photo of Shanya Maydele posing with a stuffed Torah is accompanied by an explanation of the holiday.
Though Silverstone jokes she spends “too much time” on the account, it’s clear the family is getting just as much joy out of the process as Shayna Maydele’s followers get from the results. When she hears from followers who are inspired to light candles or do something Jewish, “I love that,” she said.
Considering the impetus of the account was simply to save some time, Silverstone seems overjoyed that Shayna Maydele’s account is helping people learn more about Judaism.
“I guess my goal is just to expand reach — and if her Jewish comments could soften anyone’s opinion on Judaism or get another ally, I think that’s a pretty good goal,” Silverstone said when pressed on her hopes for the account. “But I certainly didn’t go into it that way.”
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Jewish library and Chabad near Buenos Aires attacked, Argentine Jewish advocates say
(JTA) — Counterterrorism officials in Buenos Aires are investigating after a Jewish library and a Chabad center in a suburb in the Argentine capital were attacked last week.
On Thursday night, a Molotov cocktail was thrown at the Israeli Literary Center and Max Nordau Library in La Plata, according to a statement published Friday by the center’s board of directors. Multiple individuals “threw a blunt object filled with fuel at the front of the library, breaking windows and causing material damage,” the board said, noting that the device did not ignite and no one was injured.
The library, a secular educational center founded in 1912 that promotes Argentine Jewish culture, said it is reinforcing security measures in light of the attack.
On Sunday, the Chabad of La Plata was also attacked, according to DAIA, the Argentine Jewish community group, which condemned both attacks. DAIA, which first reported the Chabad attack, did not describe the nature of the attack beyond reporting no injuries.
“We are deeply concerned about the recurrence and the short timeframe of these incidents,” DAIA said in a statement.
The Ministry of Security of the Province of Buenos Aires and the Complex Crimes and Counterterrorism Unit of the Buenos Aires Provincial Police are investigating both attacks.
La Plata’s Jewish population numbers about 2,000, and its Chabad center has existed for more than 25 years. Argentina as a whole is home to the sixth-largest Jewish community in the world and the largest in Latin America, mostly centered in Buenos Aires.
“These acts of violence threaten democratic coexistence and the values of respect and pluralism that we defend our neighbors,” La Plata Mayor Julio Alak said. “We will not allow hatred and intolerance to have a place in our city.”
Argentina is the site of some of the deadliest attacks on Jewish institutions in modern history. A 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires killed 29 people, while a 1994 attack on the AMIA Jewish community center left more than 80 people dead. Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, a pro-Israel and philosemitic economist, has advanced efforts to hold Hezbollah and Iran responsible for their alleged role in the attacks after years of foot-dragging by prior leaders.
The incidents in La Plata come as Jewish institutions around the world are on high alert amid a string of attacks since the start of the U.S.-Israel war on Iran in February. Several synagogues and Israeli outposts in Europe have faced arson attacks that a group seen as tied to Iran have claimed responsibility for staging. No one has been injured in those attacks.
Argentina has also faced homegrown antisemitism scandals. In September, a video of a group of Buenos Aires high school students on a graduation trip chanting “Today we burn Jews” went viral, earning condemnation from Jewish community advocates and even Milei himself. The group, from the private school Escuela Humanos, was traveling with Escuela ORT, a Jewish school.
Following the attacks in La Plata, comments on a local news outlet’s Instagram post about the attack on the local Chabad Sunday were filled with antisemitic tropes, including blood libel and false flag theories. Antisemitism watchdogs say false flag allegations, holding that an operation is staged to look like an attack in order to garner sympathy for the victim or attribute blame to another party, have flourished in recent years against Jews and Israel.
The post Jewish library and Chabad near Buenos Aires attacked, Argentine Jewish advocates say appeared first on The Forward.
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Cornell’s Jewish president clashes with students following on-campus debate about Israel
(JTA) — Cornell University President Michael Kotlikoff and student protesters are trading accusations after an incident in which protesters surrounded the president’s car following an on-campus debate about Israel.
The protesters, from a group called Students for a Democratic Cornell, released a video appearing to show that President Michael Kotlikoff had backed up into one of them while a protester shouts that the car ran over his foot.
In response, Cornell released its own video depicting what it said was a “harassment and intimidation incident,” its enhanced version of which it said offered “complete footage of the parking lot interactions, instead of clips to support a narrative.” That video shows students surrounding the president’s car as he tries to exit his parking space. After he eventually departs, the students continue to mill around with no obvious indication of injury to any of them.
In a statement of his own, Kotlikoff said that despite being surrounded by protesters who banged on his car windows, he waited until his backup camera showed a clear path before maneuvering out of the spot.
“The behavior I experienced last night is not protest,” Kotlikoff said in his statement, released Friday night. “It is harassment and intimidation, with the direct motive of silencing speech. It has no place in an academic community, no place in a democracy, and can have no place at Cornell.”
In an Instagram post, the protesters rejected Kotlikoff’s claims that they banged on his car and that they had previous records of misconduct on campus. They also reiterated their allegation that he had struck them.
The incident marks a relatively rare example of a clash between a university and pro-Palestinian student protesters two years after the student encampment movement roiled campuses across the United States, including at Cornell. The Ivy League university, like many others, enacted new rules designed to constrain protests that have kept demonstrations at bay amid pressure from the Trump administration to curb what it said was antisemitism among protesters. In November, Cornell agreed to pay $60 million to resolve federal antisemitism allegations.
Kotlikoff became Cornell’s president in early 2025, saying at the time that he was “very comfortable with where Cornell is currently” following “two relatively peaceful semesters” in which there were only isolated incidents that violated university rules around protest. He soon rejected pro-Palestinian students’ demands to cut ties with the Technion university in Israel. But he also urged the campus to foster academic debate around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The event that preceded his clash with students on Thursday represented a striking example of such debate. Sponsored by an ideologically diverse array of groups, including the pro-Israel advocacy groups StandWithUs and the Zionist Organization of America as well as the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, which has previously been suspended for violating university rules, the event was the second in a two-part “Israel-Palestine Debate Series.”
The series was organized by the Cornell Political Union according to a format its website says it has long maintained. The format features a lecture by a speaker followed by formal responses from students and an audience debate.
In the first event, held earlier in April, the Israeli historian Benny Morris lectured on the topic “The American-Israeli Alliance Serves America’s Interests.” Morris is a liberal Zionist critic of the Israeli government whose work has included foundational research on the founding of the state arguing that many Arabs were expelled, rather than fled, during the 1948 war.
The second, on Thursday, featured the pro-Palestinian Holocaust historian Norman Finkelstein, who lectured on the topic “Israel Was Not Justified in Its Response to October 7th.” Finkelstein, who has criticized Morris for showing a pro-Israel bias, has compared the plight of the Palestinians to that of Jews during the Holocaust, and Students for Justice in Palestine posted a picture of its members posing with him on Thursday.
Kotlikoff offered introductory remarks at the event, which promoted a no-technology policy designed “out of respect to student[s] who will be given the opportunity to speak openly on a divisive topic.”
The post Cornell’s Jewish president clashes with students following on-campus debate about Israel appeared first on The Forward.
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U of Michigan apologizes after faculty chair praises pro-Palestinian students during commencement speech
(JTA) — The University of Michigan has issued a formal apology after its faculty senate chair went off-script to praise pro-Palestinian student protesters during last weekend’s commencement address.
Derek Peterson, who also praised the memory of the school’s first Jewish professor in his speech, had drawn criticism from Michigan Hillel and from major organizations including the American Jewish Committee.
Now, a growing chorus of faculty members have signed a letter pushing back on the school president’s apology. On the right, Florida GOP Sen. Rick Scott has urged the federal government to stop funding the public university over the incident, writing, “If this is what Americans are paying for, it’s time to cut them off COMPLETELY.”
“At today’s U-M spring commencement ceremony, our outgoing Faculty Senate Chair made remarks regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict that were hurtful and insensitive to many members of our community,” Michigan’s interim president, Domenico Grasso, wrote in his letter on Saturday. “We regret the pain this has caused on a day devoted to celebration and accomplishment. For this, the university apologizes.”
Peterson, a history and African-American studies professor who is finishing a stint as faculty chair, had structured his commencement speech around pioneers in university history.
“Sing for Moritz Levi, the first Jewish professor at the University of Michigan. Appointed professor of French in 1896, he was to open the doors of this great university to generations of Jewish students who found in Ann Arbor a safe haven from the antisemitism of East Coast universities,” Peterson told the crowd at Michigan’s football field, to applause.
Shortly after, Peterson added, “Sing for the pro-Palestinian student activists who have, over these past two years, opened our hearts to the injustice and inhumanity of Israel’s war in Gaza.” Those remarks also received loud applause.
Michigan, like many campuses, was host to a critical mass of pro-Palestinian encampments and other forms of student protest. The tenor of such actions in Ann Arbor has escalated: Protesters have also cut down peonies at the university arboretum and vandalized the home of a Jewish university regent. Recently the attorney who defended the university’s encampment participants from some state-level charges received the Democratic Party’s nomination for a seat on the university’s board of regents.
Peterson’s comments, Grasso said, “were inappropriate and do not represent our institutional position,” which he said was “institutional neutrality.” (Many universities have adopted a stance of neutrality in recent years as they have sought to navigate tensions around Israel.)
Grasso added, “Commencement is a time of celebration, recognition and unity. The Chair’s remarks were expected to be congratulatory, not a platform for personal or political expression.”
Michigan Hillel also condemned Peterson’s speech on Sunday, in similar language.
“Commencement is a celebration of every graduate. It is not a stage for political statements that alienate the Jewish community,” the Hillel wrote on Instagram. “Michigan Hillel is deeply troubled that this occasion was used in that way.” The chapter also said it would “look forward to productive conversations” with Michigan administrators.
AJC head Ted Deutch, a Michigan alum, accused Peterson of choosing to “hijack a unifying moment to inject his anti-Israel politics.”
On campus, however, an open letter rebuking Grasso and defending Peterson’s speech had been signed by more than 1,100 faculty members, staff and students in less than 24 hours.
“His celebration of the students who engaged in those protests clearly connected to his discussions of past efforts by students to target injustice,” the letter said of Peterson, citing his linking of the protesters to Moritz Levi. The letter also claimed that Grasso’s apology itself violated the university’s “institutional neutrality” policy.
“Many members of our community have family members who have been killed, whose houses have been destroyed, and whose lives have been transformed by Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza,” the letter reads. “To many, protesting against the war was a central part of their University experience, and one that was an expression of the values of free speech and humanism that our institution supports when it is at its best.”
The reactions to Peterson’s speech were “totally predictable,” Karla Goldman, a Judaic Studies professor at Michigan who researches the university’s early Jewish life, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“Why throw a grenade?” Goldman said. “It’s not that what he said is terrible. I don’t find what he said terrible. But you could predict what the result was going to be. So my question would be, to what end?”
Goldman said she could understand why Peterson’s brief remarks had linked Moritz Levi to pro-Palestinian protesters.
“I get the trajectory of what he’s saying: People that higher education couldn’t see, eventually they were able to see,” she said.
Commencement ceremonies have been a frontier for tensions over Israel since Oct. 7, but it has typically been students, not faculty, raising the issue. In 2024, many college graduations featured pro-Palestinian demonstrations, including at Michigan. Last year, multiple schools disciplined students who made pro-Palestinian comments in their speeches in contravention of university policies. Some schools have done away with student speeches in an effort to stem disruptions.
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