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Book bans, Ukraine and the end of Roe: The year 2022 in Jewish ideas
(JTA) — Jewish eras can be defined by events (the fall of the Second Temple, the Inquisition, the founding of Israel) and by ideas (the rabbinic era, emancipation, post-denominationalism). A community reveals itself in the things it argues about most passionately.
It’s too early to tell what ideas will define this era, although a look back at the big debates of 2022 suggests Jews in North America will be discussing a few issues for a long time: the resurgence of antisemitism, the boundaries of free speech, the red/blue culture wars.
Below are eight of some of the key debates of the past year as (mostly) reflected in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s opinion section (which I have a hand in editing). They suggest, above all, a community anxious about its standing in the American body politic despite its strength and self-confidence.
Antisemitism and the Black-Jewish alliance
The rapper Kanye West spread canards about Jews and power. Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving shared an antisemitic film on Twitter. And comedian Dave Chappelle made light of both incidents on “Saturday Night Live,” suggesting comics like him had more to fear from cancellation than Jews did from rising antisemitism. The central roles played in these controversies by three African-American celebrities revived longstanding tensions between two communities who haven’t been able to count on their historic ties since the end of the civil rights era. The war of words was particularly vexing for Jews of color, like the rabbi known as MaNishtana and Rabbi Kendell Pinkney — who wondered whether “my mixed Jewish child will grow up in an America where she feels compelled to closet aspects of her identity because society cannot hold the wonder of her complexity.”
Jewish attitudes toward Ukraine
Russia’s war on Ukraine stirred up complex feelings among Jews. It led to an outpouring of support for the innocents caught up in or sent fleeing by Russia’s invasion, and the Jewish president who became their symbol of defiance. It reinvigorated a Jewish rescue apparatus that seemed to have been in hibernation for years. And it probed Jews’ memories of their own historic suffering in Ukraine, often at the hands of the ancestors of those now under attack.
Jews and the end of Roe v. Wade
In June the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to overturn Roe v. Wade. It was an unthinkable outcome for liberal Jewish activists, women especially, who for 50 years and more had regarded the right to an abortion as integral to their Jewish identity and political worldview. Before the decision came down, Jewish studies scholar Michael Raucher questioned long-held Jewish organizational views that justified abortion only on the narrowest of religious grounds without acknowledging that women “have the bodily autonomy to make that decision on their own.” Conversely, Avi Shafran of Agudath Israel of America welcomed the end of Roe on behalf of his haredi Orthodox organization, writing that the rabbis “who guide us indisputably hold that, absent extraordinary circumstances, terminating a pregnancy is a grave sin.” Responding to Shafran, Daphne Lazar Price, an Orthodox Jewish feminist, argued that even in her stringently religious community, getting an abortion is a “conscious choice by women to follow their religious convictions and maintain their human dignity.”
Colleyville and synagogue safety
A police chaplain walks near the Congregation Beth Israel Synagogue in Colleyville, Texas Jan. 15, 2022. (Andy Jacobsohn/AFP via Getty Images)
After a gunman held a rabbi and three congregants hostage at a Colleyville, Texas synagogue in January, Jewish institutions called for even tighter security at buildings that had already been hardened after the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre in 2018. And yet for some, the sight of armed guards and locked doors undermines the spirit of a house of worship. Raphael Magarik of the University of Illinois Chicago argued that the Colleyville incident shouldn’t lead to an overreaction, especially when congregations are struggling to come back together after the pandemic. Rabbi Joshua Ladon warned about the “impulse to allow fear to define our actions.” Meanwhile, Jews of color said armed guards and police patrols can make them feel unsafe. In a powerful response, Mijal Bitton and Rabbi Isaiah Rothstein of the Shalom Hartman Center wrote that Jewish institutions must think in “expansive and creative ways about how to fight for our combined safety in a way that takes into account the rich ethnic and racial diversity of our communities.”
Anti-Zionism, antisemitism and “Jew-free zones”
When nine student groups at UC Berkeley’s law school adopted by-laws saying that they will not invite speakers who support Zionism, the Jewish Journal in Los Angeles ran an op-ed with the provocative headline, “Berkeley Develops Jewish Free Zones.” In the essay, Kenneth L. Marcus, who heads the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, argued that “Zionism is an integral aspect of the identity of many Jews,” and that the bylaws act as “racially restrictive covenants,” precluding Jewish participation. Defenders of the pro-Palestinian students countered that groups often invite only like-minded speakers, and that while being Jewish is an identity, Zionism is a political viewpoint. Faculty, politicians and activists weighed in on both sides of what has become a central debate on campuses and beyond: When does anti-Zionism become antisemitism, and how do you balance free speech rights against the claims by some students that their personal safety hangs in the balance?
“Maus” and school book bans
A Tennessee school board voted to remove “Maus” — Art Speigelman’s epic cartoon memoir about the Holocaust — from middle-school classrooms. (JTA photo)
Caught up in an epidemic of book-banning were Jewish books for children and young adults, a list that includes “The Purim Superhero,” “Family Fletcher” and “Chik Chak Shabbat.” A Texas school board removed a 2018 graphic novel adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary. But perhaps the highest profile case of a Jewish-interest book being banned came when a Tennessee school board voted to remove “Maus” — Art Speigelman’s epic cartoon memoir about the Holocaust — from middle-school classrooms, citing its use of profanity, nudity and depictions of “killing kids.” Coverage of the ban misleadingly depicted “Maus” as an introduction to the Shoah for young adults, while Speigelman recently noted that he had become a reluctant “metonym” for the book-banning issue. Jennifer Caplan explained why the book is indispensable: “‘Maus’ forces the reader to bear witness in a way no written account can, and the [illustrations] are especially good at forcing the eye to see what the mind prefers to glide past.”
Artificial intelligence and real-life dilemmas
Artificial intelligence, or AI, has become a fact of corporate life, with computing advances that power robotic automation, computer vision and natural-language text generation. But what captured the public imagination — and dread — this year were sites like Dall-E, which threatened the livelihood of graphic designers by generating original, credible illustrations with no more than a simple prompt, and ChatGPT, which is able to expound cogently and humanly on practically any topic. Beyond everyday ethical dilemmas (“Can I write my book report using ChatGPT?”) AI raised profound questions about what it means to be human. “Rabbis have historically been very open to the idea of nonhuman sentience and have tended to see parallels between humans and nonhumans as an excuse to treat nonhumans better,” wrote David Zvi Kalman in an essay on the prospect of creating artificial life. Similarly, Mois Navon suggested in JTA that “if a machine is sentient, it is no longer an inanimate object with no moral status or ‘rights’ … but rather an animate being with the status of a ‘moral patient’ to whom we owe consideration.
A Pulitzer for “The Netanyahus”
Author Joshua Cohen won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for his novel “The Netanyahus.” (Roberto Serra—Iguana Press/Getty Images)
Joshua Cohen was the somewhat surprising winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for his novel “The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family.” Or maybe not so surprising: The book is a fictionalized treatment of a real-life visit in the late 1950s by the Israeli historian Benzion Netanyahu for a job interview at a university very much like Cornell. With Benzion’s son Benjamin angling for an ultimately successful return to office in real life, a satire about Jewish power, right-wing Zionism and Israeli self-regard might have seemed to the judges very much of the moment. As critic Adam Kirsch wrote in a JTA essay, Cohen concludes that both American and Israeli Jewish identities “are absurd, crying out for the kind of satire that can only come from intimate knowledge.” Others weren’t amused. Jewish Currents criticized the novel for being derivative of both Philip Roth and Saul Bellow, and the Jewish Review of Books said that the novel includes “a capsule history of Zionism that is so blatant a distortion that I just gave up.”
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There Are No ‘Moderates’: Most of the Democratic Party Is Turning Against Israel
Former Wayne County Health Director Abdul El-Sayed, a Democrat now running for US Senate in Michigan, speaks at a “Hands Off” protest at the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan, on April 5, 2025. Photo: Andrew Roth/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Americans are bracing for a politically charged summer as momentum builds for radical Democrats in key races across the country.
In what is emerging as a clarifying moment for just how far the Democratic Party is willing to swing, current polls depict a competitive race among the three candidates running for US Senate in Michigan’s August Democratic primary.
Some of the latest numbers show Abdul El-Sayed, the Bernie Sanders-endorsed physician, holding a slight lead over the other two Democratic challengers, Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow and Congresswoman Haley Stevens.
In a page pulled out of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s playbook, El-Sayed, who blamed Israel for the attempted terrorist attack in March that targeted preschoolers at Temple Israel in Detroit, often cloaks his radicalism in rhetoric that focuses on affordability and universal healthcare.
He displays open contempt for Israel, and has called the Jewish State “just as evil” as the genocidal terrorist group Hamas.
El-Sayed campaigns with people who justified the 9/11 attacks, and refused to take a position on the death of former Supreme Leader Khamenei for fear of offending the Islamist sensibilities of Michigan’s Dearborn residents.
For many Jewish Americans, the ascendance of El-Sayed, Mamdani, and Graham Platner, the Democratic Senate Candidate from Maine who has praised Hamas’ military tactics (and had an SS symbol tattooed on his body), reflects a new moment — a shifting of the Overton window that not only propels dangerous candidates to prominence, but paves a paradigm in which politicians whose views would have been disqualifying just a decade ago are rebranded as moderates.
Campaigning as a suburban mom trying to capture the votes of centrists and peel off some left-wing voters from El-Sayed’s camp, the present political landscape is planting the 39-year-old Mallory McMorrow firmly in the center of the Democrats’ electoral path in Michigan, with El-Sayed to her left, and the Congresswoman Haley Stevens, who has pro-Israel views, to her right.
Yet when it comes to the state senator’s platform regarding Israel, McMorrow engages with many of the same anti-Zionist ideas espoused by her challenger, El-Sayed.
She traffics in similar language falsely accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza with a deft talent for fashioning her far-left views in a palatable package: a Christian wife and relatable mother, whose husband also happens to be Jewish.
McMorrow satisfies the Democrats’ defined virtuous, big-tent philosophy with competing statements insisting that she would not meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but also believes that Democrats’ affinity for Hasan Piker is a step too far into the realm of radicalism.
Should McMorrow be elected to the US Senate, would she vote any differently than El-Sayed when it comes to supporting the US-Israel alliance and providing Israel with the critical weapons it needs for its self-defense? It seems highly unlikely.
Much of the public discourse surrounds the surge of left-wing Democrats such as El-Sayed, Platner, and Mamdani, but the larger story to consider lies with politicians like McMorrow, who are using the atmospheric conditions to claim the mantle of moderation, but adopting the exact far-left positions of the candidates who hate Israel, and spread libels about Israel committing “genocide” and practicing “apartheid.”
If McMorrow is victorious in Michigan’s Democratic primary, her win would certainly be used by the Democratic establishment and its media allies to uphold a false narrative that the election was a defeat for the far left.
Yet there is perhaps no better example that illustrates just how successful leftists have been in dragging the center down than last month’s vote in the United States Senate, when nearly 80 percent of Democrats voted in favor of two anti-Israel measures introduced by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) that, if passed, would have blocked approximately $450 million in weapons transfers to Israel.
The retreat from previously held pro-Israel leanings is reverberating beyond Congress, as “moderates” like Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (D) and Rahm Emanuel showcase their willingness to create daylight between the US and Israel.
For its part, AIPAC has been historically quick to praise and bolster the candidacies of politicians like New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, only to have the lawmaker court his state’s growing Muslim and Arab constituencies by announcing that he will no longer accept money from AIPAC. Senator Booker also backed both Senate resolutions halting military aid to Israel.
If there are legitimate debates about AIPAC’s policies to be had, Democrats aren’t engaging in it. They’re instead using AIPAC as a bogeyman to jump on the “Israel is evil bandwagon,” and perpetuate the libel that Jews control American politics with money.
Progressive populists and Muslim Socialists may differ in their ideological appeal, but both brands of candidates use their gaining leverage as a vehicle to inject their morally blind politics into the American ecosystem and generate a new standard of what constitutes a moderate in today’s Democratic Party.
There’s very little that separates El-Sayed and McMorrow’s foreign policy vision, just as there would be scant differences in how a Shapiro or a Kamala Harris White House would approach America’s relationship with Israel.
When it comes to supporting Israel’s right to exist and defend itself, the party appears nearly united in intensifying its hostility and moving the Democratic coalition onward — and firmly against Israel.
Irit Tratt is a writer residing in New York. Follow her on X @Irit_Tratt.
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Abraham Foxman, Former ADL Head and Advocate for American Jews, Dies at 86
Abraham Foxman, a Holocaust survivor and member of the US Holocaust Memorial Council, speaks at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Annual Days of Remembrance Commemoration in the Emancipation Hall of the US Capitol on April 23, 2025. Photo: Mattie Neretin/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Abraham H. Foxman, who was the national director of the Anti-Defamation League for nearly three decades, has died at the age of 86, the ADL announced in a statement on Sunday.
The organization said it “deeply mourns the loss of our longtime national director,” but did not provide details about where, when, and how Foxman died. He is survived by his wife Golda, children Michelle and Ariel, son-in-law Brandon Cardet-Hernandez, and grandchildren, Cielo, Leila, Gideon, and Amirit.
Foxman retired in 2015 after spending his entire 50-year career with the ADL. He was “one of the world’s foremost voices against antisemitism and hate,” as well as an “outspoken, passionate, and tireless advocate for the Jewish people and Israel,” according to the advocacy organization.
Foxman graduated from City College of New York and NYU School of Law. He joined the ADL immediately after graduating from law school and served in various roles in the organization, including assistant director of legal affairs, before being becoming its national director in 1987. When Foxman announced his retirement from the ADL, then-US President Barack Obama said the long-time civil rights activist was “irreplaceable.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, the current CEO of the ADL, described Foxman as “an iconic Jewish leader who embraced the ideal of an America free from antisemitism and hate and who strongly believed that these scourges could be defeated if good people opposed it.”
“America and the Jewish people have lost a moral voice, a passionate advocate for the Jewish people and the state of Israel, and a remarkable leader,” Greenblatt said in a released statement. “In his storied career, Abe transformed ADL while confronting antisemitism and hate (from both left and right), opposing the global rise in antisemitism, holding world leaders accountable and working to ensure that Israel was Jewish, secure and democratic. Abe’s voice was heard – and listened to – by popes, presidents, and prime ministers, a voice he used wherever Jews were at risk. Abe Foxman spoke on the global stage with moral authority and clarity and was relentlessly dedicated to his pursuit of a world without hate.”
“Abe Foxman helped build the modern liberal era of America,” ADL Board Chair Nicole Munchnik added in a separate statement. “He was recognized across the globe as a great leader and passionate advocate for tolerance, a voice of the generation rebuilding in the shadow of the Shoah, and longtime advisor to American presidents and world leaders. To those of us who knew him, Abe was a warm friend, advisor, spirited antagonist and hugger – all over lunch.”
The American Jewish Committee praised Foxman as a “towering figure in the fight against antisemitism and hatred” and someone who “brought moral clarity, courage, and unwavering conviction to generations of advocacy and leadership.” The AJC said his advocacy “helped shape the American Jewish experience and strengthened the global fight against bigotry in all its forms.”
Born in 1940 to Polish Jews in what is now Belarus, Foxman survived the Holocaust under the care of his Polish Catholic nanny Bronislawa Kurpi, who baptized him and raised him as a Catholic to hide his Jewish identity. He lost 14 family members in the Holocaust but was reunited with his parents after the war. Together they immigrated to the United States, where Foxman attended the Yeshiva of Flatbush as a teenager. He later served as vice chairman of the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City and was a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, to which he was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1987 and reappointed by Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Joe Biden.
The Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation (AJCF) called Foxman “one of the most consequential Jewish leaders of the postwar era” and a Holocaust survivor who “devoted his life to confronting antisemitism and defending the Jewish people.”
“Abe Foxman belonged to a generation that carried the weight of history personally and transformed it into public service,” said AJCF Chairman Simon Bergson in a statement. “He dedicated his life to ensuring that the lessons of the Holocaust were applied to the defense of democratic values, human dignity, and the Jewish people. His legacy will endure for generations.”
Following the news of Foxman’s death, Israeli President Isaac Herzog praised him as a “legendary leader of the Jewish people, a champion of justice and equality, and a longtime, dear friend of mine.”
“Coming into a world at war, the Holocaust shaped Abe’s character and defined his mission: Combating antisemitism and hypocrisy, calling out racism and bias, speaking up for the Jewish people and the Jewish democratic Israel,” Herzog shared in a post on X. “His story, of rising from the ashes, is our story, the story of our people.”
Israel’s president also described Foxman as “a prominent, distinguished force in the American Jewish community, and a bridge between Israel and the Diaspora” as well as a “passionate Zionist, a humanist, and an outspoken, wise friend.”
“The affection and the respect we had for one another enabled us to openly discuss every challenge and every obstacle,” added Herzog. “I am so grateful for the profound conversations we shared over the years, and for the brave leadership he exemplified. I will miss Abe’s counsel and voice, and I know that his legacy and his message will live on.”
Foxman was a board member of the Met Council on Jewish Poverty, America’s largest organization combating Jewish poverty. Its CEO and Executive Director David G. Greenfield said he was “heartbroken” by the passing of his “dear friend and mentor.”
“At Met Council, we were privileged to have Abe as a board member, adviser, and friend,” Greenfield explained. “He brought wisdom, compassion, and deep commitment to everything he did. Even near the end of his life, Abe continued showing up for the community. Just a few weeks ago, he joined us with his granddaughters at Met Council’s Passover Day of Service at the Spitzer Fulfillment Center, helping ensure that New Yorkers in need could celebrate Pesach with dignity.”
“Public leaders do not always match their public reputations in private,” Greenfield added. “Abe was the rare person whose private kindness, humility, and generosity were even greater than his public stature. All who knew him loved him … His voice, his courage, his friendship, and his leadership will be deeply missed.”
Foxman also served as vice chairman of the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City.
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George Washington University Says Substance Dropped Near Israel Fest Was ‘Stink Bomb’
Anti-Zionist protesters at George Washington University in May 2024. Photo: Candice Tang via Reuters Connect
George Washington University confirmed on Friday that the substance which injured a Jewish student after being dropped in “vials” near an “Israel Fest” event on campus last month was contained in “stink bombs.”
“We want to reassure members of our community that the vials that were dropped were commonly available ‘stink bombs’ and did not pose a serious health risk to those nearby,” the university’s media relations office said in statement shared with The Algemeiner. “While our ability to provide additional information at this time is limited, we will continue to keep the community informed as appropriate and in accordance with university policies and applicable laws.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Geroge Washington University (GW) Professor Jonathan Turley said on Wednesday that Israel Fest is a “celebration of Israeli food, music, and culture” which “often draws protesters.” Jewish students have been fearing attending the gathering “for weeks,” Turley added, noting that anti-Zionists told everyone it was “supporting genocide.” The anecdote suggests that activists could have set in motion their plan to sabotage “Israel Fest” several weeks ago.
This latest threat against the Jewish community comes amid an epidemic of antisemitic violence in the US. According to the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) latest annual audit of US antisemitic incidents, assaults against Jews increased 4 percent in 2025, and perpetrators are more often resorting to using “deadly weapons” in the commission of their crimes. That raises the likelihood that their actions result in severe injury or death.
The advocacy group noted that the upward shift was reflected in the shocking murders of Jews in antisemitic attacks in the US for the first time since 2019. Two Israeli embassy staffers — a young couple set be engaged — were shot dead in Washington, DC last May, and weeks later a firebombing in Colorado claimed the life of an octogenarian. In both crimes, the alleged killers cited anti-Zionism as their motivating ideology.
Other incidents which stopped short of the worst possible outcome continue to create a sense of insecurity for American Jews. Over the past year, for example, The Algemeiner has reported on a public-school principal’s inveighing against “Jew money,” an attempted arson at the Hillel International chapter in San Francisco, California, and the movement of some conservative students into the far-right ecosystem of antisemitism — a path cleared by Nicholas Fuentes, Candace Owens, Kanye West, and troops of social media influencers.
The American Jewish community has been the target of several hateful acts in recent days. Last week, Jewish residents of the Queens borough of New York City awoke to the carnage left by a spree of vandalism which left at least four Jewish properties — private homes and synagogues — marked with the swastika and other antisemitic graffiti. The perpetrators struck the Rego Park Jewish Center, the Congregation Machane Chodosh, as well as two private homes late Sunday night, according to local lawmakers and Jewish leaders.
The graffiti left a scourge on the buildings — appearing in one case next to a memorial to German Jews who survived Kristallnacht, a November 1938 pogrom when Nazi paramilitary forces launched a coordinated nationwide attack on the German Jewish community. The vandals left no doubt regarding their allusion to that period, graffitiing “Heil Hitler” at the Rego Park location.
At GW, Jewish students have claimed that the problem of widespread antisemitism has persisted there for years.
One ongoing lawsuit alleges that the university enabled an eruption of antisemitic discrimination on campus by declining to intervene in a slew of incidents in which anti-Zionists threw rocks at Jewish students, vandalized the campus office of Hillel International, and uttered slurs such as “filthy k—ke.” Meanwhile, The Algemeiner has reported extensively on the activities of its Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter, which once threatened a Jewish professor and continues to spread antisemitic tropes about Israel.
Responding to a phenomenon that is common to the point that is a prosaic facet of campus life, George Washington University’s Hillel International chapter said on Wednesday the Israel Fest incident “will not deter our community.”
It added, “GW Hillel will continue to support our students so they can proudly be Jewish.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.