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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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The post Book bans, Ukraine and the end of Roe: The year 2022 in Jewish ideas appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Gunmen Kill Three People and Abduct Catholic Priest in Northern Nigeria
A police vehicle of Operation Fushin Kada (Anger of Crocodile) is parked on Yakowa Road, as schools across northern Nigeria reopen nearly two months after closing due to security concerns, following the mass abductions of school children, in Kaduna, Nigeria, January 12, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Nuhu Gwamna/File Photo
Gunmen killed three people and abducted a Catholic priest and several others during an early morning attack on the clergyman’s residence in northern Nigeria’s Kaduna state, church and police sources said on Sunday.
Saturday’s assault in Kauru district highlights persistent insecurity in the region, and came days after security services rescued all 166 worshippers abducted in attacks by gunmen on two churches elsewhere in Kaduna.
Such attacks have drawn the attention of US President Donald Trump, who has accused Nigeria’s government of failing to protect Christians, a charge Abuja denies. US forces struck what they described as terrorist targets in northwestern Nigeria on December 25.
The Catholic Diocese of Kafanchan named the kidnapped clergyman as Nathaniel Asuwaye, parish priest of Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Karku, and said 10 other people were abducted.
Three residents were killed during the attack, which began at about 3:20 a.m. (0220 GMT), the diocese said in a statement.
A Kaduna police spokesperson confirmed the incident, but said five people had been abducted in total and that the three people killed were members of the security forces.
“Security agents exchanged gunfire with the bandits, killed some of them, and unfortunately two soldiers and a police officer lost their lives,” he said.
Rights group Amnesty International said in a statement on Sunday that Nigeria’s security crisis was “increasingly getting out of hand”. It accused the government of “gross incompetence” and failure to protect civilians as gunmen kill, abduct and terrorize rural communities across several northern states.
A presidency spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment.
Pope Leo, during his weekly address to the faithful in St. Peter’s Square, expressed solidarity with the victims of recent attacks in Nigeria.
“I hope that the competent authorities will continue to act with determination to ensure the security and protection of every citizen’s life,” Leo said.
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Israeli FM Sa’ar Stresses Gaza Demilitarization, Criticizes Iranian Threats in Talks with Paraguay’s Foreign Minister
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar speaks next to High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission Kaja Kallas, and EU commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka Suica as they hold a press conference on the day of an EU-Israel Association Council with European Union foreign ministers in Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
i24 News – Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar made the remarks on Tuesday during a meeting at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem with Paraguay’s Foreign Minister Rubén Ramírez Lezcano. The meeting included a one-on-one session followed by an expanded meeting with both countries’ bilateral teams.
Sa’ar told the media, “We support the Trump plan for Gaza. Hamas must be disarmed, and Gaza must be demilitarized. This is at the heart of the plan, and we must not compromise on it. This is necessary for the security and stability of the region and also for a better future for the residents of Gaza themselves.”
He also commented on Iran, saying, “I praise President Peña’s decision in April of 2025 to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization. The European Union and Ukraine have also recently done so, and I commend that. The Iranian regime is murdering its own people. It is endangering stability in the Middle East and exporting terrorism to other continents, including Latin America. The attempt by the world’s most extremist regime to obtain the most dangerous weapon in the world, nuclear weapons, is a clear danger to regional and world peace.”
Sa’ar added that Iran’s long-range missile program threatens not only Israel but other countries in the Middle East and Europe. “The Iranian regime has already used missiles against other countries in the Middle East. European countries are also threatened by the range of these missiles,” he said.
Lezcano praised his country’s decision to open an embassy in Jerusalem. “Paraguay’s sovereign decision to open its embassy in Jerusalem was made in faith and responsibly. It reflects the coherent foreign policy that we consistently and clearly hold with regard to Israel,” he said. He added that Paraguay “unequivocally and unquestionably supports the right of the State of Israel to exist and to defend itself,” a position reinforced after the October 7, 2023, attacks.
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In Economic Speeches, Trump Claims Inflation Victory Nearly 20 Times Even as Prices Bite
US President Donald Trump gestures on the day he delivers a speech on energy and the economy, in Clive, Iowa, US, January 27, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo
Donald Trump has cast himself as Republicans’ chief messenger on the cost of living in an election year, but a Reuters review of his speeches shows a president repeatedly declaring inflation beaten while rarely acknowledging the strain many Americans say they still feel.
In five speeches on the economy since December, Trump asserted that inflation had been beaten or was way down almost 20 times and said prices were falling almost 30 times, assertions at odds with economic data and voters’ daily experiences. Much of the remaining time was spent on grievances and other issues, including immigration, whether Somalia was a country, and attacks on opponents.
Taken together, the speeches portray a president struggling to reconcile his central claim — that he has fixed the cost-of-living crisis — with inflation near 3% over the past year and voters’ lived experience of paying more for grocery staples. The price of ground beef, for example, is up 18% since Trump took office a year ago, while ground coffee prices are up 29%.
Republican strategists told Reuters that his mixed messaging on the top issue for voters risks creating a credibility gap for him and the Republican Party ahead of the November midterms, when control of Congress will be at stake. Opinion polls show voters are deeply unhappy with Trump‘s handling of the economy.
“He can’t continue to make claims that are demonstrably false, particularly at the expense of Republicans who are in competitive House districts or Senate races,” said Rob Godfrey, a Republican strategist. Trump “must be disciplined and focused,” he added.
One source close to the White House said the president needed to hit the issue of affordability harder and through personal visits to critical districts.
“He needs to bring the message out because the message is not resonating,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity to more freely discuss the issue.
Kush Desai, a White House spokesman, said Trump’s focus on illegal immigration in his speeches is directly connected to his argument that people in the country illegally have an adverse impact on the economy. Desai said it causes “public services being overburdened, business activity disrupted by crime, housing markets flooded, and workers’ wages depressed.”
Trump has repeatedly stressed that much work remains to clean up the economic mess he says his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, left him, Desai added.
TRUMP VEERS OFF MESSAGE TO RAIL ABOUT IMMIGRATION
The Reuters analysis found that Trump – when not declaring inflation beaten – devoted nearly half his speaking time to grievances and other issues.
In about five hours of speaking time, he spent roughly two hours straying into about 20 topics unrelated to prices, the Reuters review found. When he veered off message, his top issue was illegal immigration, which he spent a total of about 30 to 40 minutes talking about.
In the speeches he insulted Somali Americans in Minnesota, who voted against him in the 2024 election. He referred to Somalia as “not even a country” – and in four speeches he disparaged Somali-born Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar.
A progressive, high-profile Democrat and Muslim, Omar has been a frequent Trump critic, especially over his immigration policies.
“Every time the president of the United States has chosen to use hateful rhetoric to talk about me and the community that I represent, my death threats skyrocket,” Omar said last month, the day after a man sprayed a foul-smelling liquid on her at a town hall event.
Trump also talked about men in women’s sports, Venezuela, Iran, the Islamic State militant group, Greenland, Ukraine and Russia, military recruitment, his false claim that the 2020 election was rigged, US weaponry, his exaggerated claim to have ended eight wars, and even how much a Fox News anchor likes him.
TRUMP‘S MEANDERING WORRIES STRATEGISTS
“Inflation is stopped. Incomes are up. Prices are down,” Trump said in an Iowa speech on January 27.
Only twice in the five speeches did Trump acknowledge that prices are still too high, but he blamed them on Biden. Trump was elected in 2024 because of voter unhappiness with Biden’s handling of inflation – which spiked to over 9% in 2022 – and illegal immigration.
Democrats caused prices “to be too high,” Trump told a rally in Pennsylvania on December 9. “But now they’re coming down.”
In the same speech he called the term “affordability” a Democratic “hoax”. After a public backlash, he has ceased saying that in more recent speeches.
In four of the speeches Trump repeatedly and haphazardly switches topics, often when he is in the middle of talking about the economy, the Reuters review found.
Four Republican strategists interviewed by Reuters said Trump‘s meandering style – which he proudly calls “the weave” – risked drowning out his core economic argument that he has brought inflation and prices down.
Speaking to world leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on January 21, Trump spent the first 22 minutes on topic, then suddenly, for the next 22 minutes, insulted Europeans, said they would be speaking German if it wasn’t for America, called NATO ungrateful, and decried the “crooked” media before pivoting back to the US economy.
Doug Heye, a Republican strategist, said voters want to hear what Trump is doing to lower costs. “But they have no memory of what Trump says about economic issues because of the volume of his own rhetoric.”
One source familiar with the White House’s thinking said Trump was likely to use his State of the Union address on February 24 as the kickoff for more intense domestic travel to amplify his message on affordability.
TRUMP DOES OFFER SOLUTIONS
For many Americans, the economy still feels unforgiving. Prices remain high, even though the inflation rate has inched down since Trump took office, from 3% to 2.7%. A lower inflation rate does not mean prices are decreasing – just that they are growing at a slower pace, economists stress.
In the 12 months through December 2025, food costs were up over 3%, while average hourly earnings were up only 1.1% year over year. The unemployment rate was 4.4% in December, up from 4% when Trump took office in January 2025, according to government data.
In some of the speeches Trump correctly identifies a drop in prices for a few everyday goods, including eggs and gas. The cost of eggs fell about 21% in December from a year earlier after being 60% higher during Trump‘s first months back in office. Gas prices are about 4% lower since January last year.
But the cost of an average grocery basket has risen. The price of coffee, beef, and some fruits, among other items, has risen in the past year.
Trump does offer solutions in his speeches, including his tax cuts that kicked in last month that will produce greater savings for tens of millions of families; the scrapping of taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security payments; his plan to reduce mortgage interest rates; a proposal to lower housing prices; and deals with health insurance companies to reduce drug prices.
Most economists expect US households and the economy at large to benefit in the months ahead from the tax cuts. But Trump‘s more recent proposals are unlikely to have a significant impact on the cost of living between now and November, some economists told Reuters. One of Trump‘s ideas – to cap credit card interest rates to 10% for a year – could even backfire since it could limit access to credit for lower-income families, some economists have warned.
Mike Marinella, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, which supports candidates for the House of Representatives, said Trump and Republicans were helping working families. “Voters are seeing this clear contrast, and the best is yet to come.”
Some 35% of Americans approve of Trump‘s overall handling of the economy, according to a January 25 Reuters/Ipsos poll, up slightly from 33% in December. But it is well below his initial 42% rating on the issue when he first took office a year ago.
FALLING INTO BIDEN TRAP
Former economic officials in previous administrations say Trump is falling into the same trap Biden did in 2024 when confronted with persistently high inflation.
Biden kept claiming the US economy was strong and urged voters to look at other economic data. That strategy failed badly and Democrats were punished at the polls.
The officials agreed it was important for presidents to show voters they understood their economic pain, especially in an election year.
“We definitely talked past people on inflation,” Jared Bernstein, the head of Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers, said in an interview.
“What we typically did was to say, ‘A new report just came out on jobs, it’s very strong,’ and that was all true. But the fact is that there wasn’t much we were able to do in terms of the price level.”