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Eric Adams wants to combat hate in NYC through interfaith dinners. Can that accommodate Orthodox Jews?
(New York Jewish Week) — Mayor Eric Adams is famous for his love of the city’s nightlife, and that mood was on display last Thursday as he hobnobbed with more than 100 people at the 40/40 Club, an upscale bar and restaurant in the Barclays Center, while dining on lamp-warmed samosas and chicken skewers.
The gathering came with a goal: to jumpstart a program, called “Breaking Bread, Building Bonds,” that aims to bring together leaders of the city’s diverse ethnic and religious communities over food. The attendees, mostly city workers and nonprofit employees, were there to experience what such a dinner could feel like, and to learn how to host one of their own.
“We are going to finish with 1,000 dinners,” Adams said, speaking to the crowd. “Ten thousand people will become ambassadors for our city. Then those 10,000 people will branch out and do their dinners, turn into 100,000. We will continue to multiply until this city becomes a beacon of possibility.”
The dinner initiative was conceived with the Jewish community at its center — launching at a JCC in partnership with one of the city’s biggest Jewish nonprofits. Now, it faces an additional hurdle: Engaging the large haredi Orthodox communities in Brooklyn that have experienced a series of street attacks — and that observe a set of strict religious laws surrounding food that could hinder their participation in some interfaith meals.
Some haredi New Yorkers have attended the “Breaking Bread” dinners, and members of at least one large Hasidic community are planning to host one of the meals. But other haredi activists in the city told the New York Jewish Week that they’re skeptical the program can be sufficiently sensitive to their dietary and religious restrictions, which include close adherence to kosher laws and, for some, gender separation at public events.
The first catalyst dinner for New York City Mayor Eric Adam’s ‘Breaking Bread, Building Bonds’ initiative was held at Barclays Center on Thursday, March 2. (Jacob Henry)
Speaking on the sidelines of last week’s dinner, Adams said the initiative does account for the needs of observant Jews. When he held similar dinners as Brooklyn borough president in 2020, he said, the meals were always “considerate of Shabbos.”
“We allow the dinners to happen throughout the week,” Adams told the New York Jewish Week. “Those who can’t come on a Friday night or until sundown, we do that. If they eat kosher, we do that. We keep the meals simple, nothing complicated, so that everyone can feel at home at the same time.”
But the event where Adams was speaking did not, in fact, include kosher food, according to Rabbi Shlomo Nisanov, who leads Kehilat Sephardim of Ahavat Achim, a Bukharian community synagogue in Kew Gardens Hills, Queens.
“It was a mistake,” Nisanov said. “I didn’t eat the food, I only had the drinks. I was complaining about it.”
However, three of the dinners hosted so far have been certified kosher, and many local Jewish activists — including Orthodox leaders — said they support the initiative and believe it can accommodate a broad portion of the city’s Jewish spectrum.
Devorah Halberstam, an adherent of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement and longtime campaigner against antisemitism, said she plans to host a dinner in the future.
“It’s actually not that complicated,” said Halberstam, who serves as director of foundation and government at the Jewish Children’s Museum in Brooklyn. “You invite people to a table and you have conversations. If it’s Muslims, we’ll have halal stuff covered. Kosher food is in another setting. Ultimately, it ends up working.”
The initiative aims to hold 1,000 dinners across the city that bring together community leaders in the hope that eating together will foster mutual understanding that will trickle down to rank-and-file New Yorkers of different backgrounds. At the kickoff event at the Marlene Meyerson JCC on the Upper West Side in late January, Adams called the dinners a “potent weapon” against hate.
Breaking Bread is supported by multiple city agencies and Jewish organizations, including the UJA-Federation of New York; the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York; The People’s Supper, a non-profit that facilitates meals between people of different identities that began holding similar dinners in 2017; and the New York City Office of the Prevention Of Hate Crimes, which is overseen by the mayor. UJA is partially funding the program by reimbursing up to $150 per dinner.
The Adams administration, and organizations supporting Breaking Bread, declined to provide key pieces of information about the initiative, including a budget, list of hosts or people who had signed up or a list of scheduled dinners.
The initiative is designed around dinners of roughly 10 people each. The host is given a guide that includes instructions on how to facilitate a dinner and sample questions to ask fellow diners. One question asks attendees to describe “a time, recent or long passed, in which you were made to feel… fully seen, heard and like you fully belonged.”
Rabbi Bob Kaplan, who is the executive director of the Center for a Shared Society at the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, told the New York Jewish Week that the organization is “taking this program very seriously.”
“We will be looking to encourage as much of this as we can throughout the city,” Kaplan said. “We really think that Breaking Bread opportunities are incredible ways of bringing together leadership and community leaders to really talk to each other.”
The few dinners hosted thus far have included religious leaders, city officials and leaders of nonprofit organizations. Anyone can sign up to host or attend a dinner via a city website. Hassan Naveed, executive director of the OPHC, told the New York Jewish Week that thus far, nearly 500 people have signed up as hosts or participants.
“There is so much interest happening,” Naveed said. “We want this to be something that is movement-building, that brings folks together from different parts of the city, to really build a relationship between communities.”
There have been several dinners in the weeks since Breaking Bread launched, including one that Naveed attended last month at Talia’s Steakhouse, a kosher restaurant on the Upper West Side, where the mayor himself made a brief appearance. Diners ate Jamaican cuisine, served by chef Kwame Williams, in honor of Black History Month. Other attendees ranged from a senior city official to Tenzin Tseyang, a community liaison for Queens City Councilmember Julie Won; UJA’s Rabbi Menachem Creditor and others.
Other dinners have taken place at the Manhattan JCC and at Manhattan College, both of which were also kosher. The JCC dinner included the executive director of the New York City Anti-Violence Project and a representative of the Asian-American Foundation, in addition to Jewish leaders and cosponsors of the initiative.
“Those who are seated around the table with one another will be able to call on one another for both simple and hard things,” said Rabbi Linda Shriner-Cahn of Congregation Tehillah in the Bronx neighborhood of Riverdale, who hosted the Manhattan College dinner. “When we strengthen our own communities, we’re more able to reach out to other communities.”
Bringing New Yorkers together to break bread is one of the best ways we can talk through differences and defeat the pipeline of hate.
Last night’s Breaking Bread Building Bonds event at Talia’s Steakhouse on the Upper West Side did just that. pic.twitter.com/Meugkqdt7Q
— Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) February 17, 2023
Nisanov, the Bukarian rabbi from Queens, said he believes in the concept and has hosted his own dinners with neighborhood Muslim leaders.
“We sat together at my synagogue with people from the Muslim faith because people didn’t know each other,” Nisanov told the New York Jewish Week. “Now, they know that kosher is the same as halal.” (Jewish and Muslim dietary laws are similar, but they are not the same.)
The initiative has not yet involved some large segments of the Brooklyn haredi community, including a major Satmar Hasidic organization. Moishe Indig, a prominent activist affiliated with another faction of Satmar, and a close confidante of the mayor, has also not attended. City Council member Lincoln Restler, who is Jewish and represents South Williamsburg, which is home to a large number of Satmar Jews, told the Jewish Week in a statement that he is “in touch with City Hall and eager to convene Breaking Bread gatherings” in his district.
“This is a wonderful new initiative building on the mayor’s work as borough president,” Restler said. “We will never arrest our way out of hate violence, so we need to deepen cross-cultural understanding to address our collective safety.”
Adams does have a close relationship with the Hasidic community. The mayor appointed Joel Eiserdorfer to the role of advisor in his administration, the first Hasidic Jew to hold that title. Adams received considerable Hasidic support in his 2021 election victory.
But despite that relationship, some Orthodox leaders and activists still have their doubts that the dinner initiative will successfully engage the haredi community. Some spoke to the New York Jewish Week anonymously, out of a fear that their criticism could hurt their community’s relationship with the mayor.
One Orthodox leader who works in government told the New York Jewish Week that “at this moment, it feels like this initiative doesn’t exist.”
“Personally everyone is rooting for the mayor on this,” the leader said, but he added that the initiative was “not comprehensive” in terms of reaching out to major Orthodox groups.
“Most of us haven’t heard of it,” another Orthodox community activist said. “The mayor’s head is in the right place. I’m sure this program is well-intentioned.” But he added, referring to kosher restrictions and norms of gender separation, that ”on a practical level, it’s hard to see how it will work in this community.”
He added that he believes leaders in the Hasidic community may participate, but “we don’t need to bring together leadership… We need people on the street to understand each other.”
Nisanov believes the Breaking Bread dinners can help accomplish that task by helping community leaders influence their constituents.
“It starts from the leaders and it goes down to the regular people,” he said. “It’s going to take a while, but at least when the elders do it, it will trickle down to the young. We will have to include young people to show and explain.”
He said that there are some people within the Jewish community who “would like to live in a secluded world.”
“That’s not possible,” Nisanov said. “There will always be restrictions. God will not change. We will always have that, but we have to learn to coexist.”
Motti Seligson, a Hasidic communal leader and Chabad spokesman, told the New York Jewish Week that “there are dinners already planned in neighborhoods like Crown Heights that will certainly have participation from the Hasidic Jews.” He added, “Building these bonds is something that Mayor Adams has not only seen and experienced first hand… he also created many of them through events like the Breaking Bread dinners in Brooklyn, which he organized.”
Deborah Lauter, the inaugural director of the OPHC, said Breaking Bread “has enormous potential” but acknowledged that navigating the range of haredi groups takes time.
“There are so many different factions within the haredi community,” Lauter said. “Some will be more inclined to participate than others. There’s a lot more work to get people on the ground to know each other.”
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Iran Parrots Isolationist Right-Wingers Opposing US-Israel Strikes as Trump Denounces Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly
Megyn Kelly hosts a “prove me wrong” session during AmericaFest, the first Turning Point USA summit since the death of Charlie Kirk, in Phoenix, Arizona, US, Dec. 19, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Caitlin O’Hara
US President Donald Trump’s decision to launch joint military strikes on Iran with Israel has provoked an epic fury of opposition from parts of his so-called “America First” base, whose talking points have now apparently inspired Iranian officials to echo them.
“Mr. Rubio admitted what we all knew: US has entered a war of choice on behalf of Israel. There was never any so-called Iranian ‘threat.’ Shedding of both American and Iranian blood is thus on Israel Firsters,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted Monday on X, referring to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “American people deserve better and should take back their country.”
A brief excerpt of statements offered by Rubio explaining the rationale for the war began circulating online suggesting Israel had directed the attacks, eliminating the full context of his remarks which emphasized his view that the Iranian regime posed a threat to the US and the world. “The imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believed they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us,” Rubio said.
“No matter what, ultimately, this operation needed to happen,” he added, arguing that Iran was building up its missile arsenal to such an extent that it could “hold the whole world hostage” while having a degree of “immunity” from outside action due to the damage it could inflict.
Nonetheless, Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, wrote in all capital letters Monday on X that “TRUMP HAS BETRAYED ‘AMERICA FIRST’ TO ADOPT ‘ISRAEL FIRST.’”
In a Monday appearance on SiriusXM’s “The Megyn Kelly Show,” former US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican and outspoken opponent of the Jewish state, said, “I was out there on the front lines for ‘Make America Great Again.’ And ‘Make America Great Again’ was supposed to be ‘America first,’ not ‘Israel first,’ not any foreign country first, not any foreign people first, but the American people first in our problems.”
Pointing her finger and raising her voice, Greene told Kelly that “[US Vice President] JD Vance promised it. [US intelligence chief] Tulsi Gabbard promised it. All of them promised it. And we’re a year in, and we’re in another f**king war, and we’ve got American troops being killed. I think it’s time for America to rip the band-aid off, and we need to have a serious conversation about what the f**k is happening to this country, and who in the hell are these decisions being made for and who is making these decisions?”
Greene later added to her comments on X: “And just like that we are no longer a nation divided by left and right, we are now a nation divided be those who want to fight wars for Israel and those who just want peace and to be able to afford their bills and health insurance.”
Kelly praised Greene’s posting on her show, saying that “X is completely saturated in neocons, the pro-Israel crowd, and people who would love to cheerlead us right into another Middle East ground war that’s endless. I was grateful for your contrary perspective, Marjorie.”
Making her position further explicit, Kelly added, “I don’t think those four service members died for the United States. I think they died for Iran or for Israel … this feels very much to me like it is clearly Israel’s war.”
The next day, Trump was asked at the White House if Israel dragged the US into conflict with Iran and rejected the notion.
“I might have forced their [Israel’s] hand,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office as he met with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. “We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first. If we didn’t do it, they were going to attack first. I felt strongly about that.”
Beyond Kelly, far-right podcaster Tucker Carlson promoted a comparable point of view as reports circulated that over the past month, he had met with Trump three times in the Oval Office to make the case against a regime change war in Iran.
On Monday, Carlson released a new installment of his show — a monologue running more than 100 minutes — titled “Israel’s war and what it means.”
Carlson said within the first 60 seconds, :First, why did this happen? Now in this case there’s a really simple answer. This happened because Israel wanted it to happen. This is Israel’s war. This is not the United States’s war. This war is not being waged on behalf of American national security objectives to make the United States safer or richer. This war’s not even about weapons of mass destruction.”
Far-right podcaster Candace Owens said the same thing in an interview with Piers Morgan.
“The reason America wants a regime change in Iran is because Bibi Netanyahu is demanding it,” she said, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “There was no imminent threat to the United States when Trump made this decision to do what Bibi wanted. I want to be clear here. This was not Trump’s decision; it was Bibi Netanyahu’s decision. And that is why he did it. We’re very aware that Israel is dictating our foreign policy and we would now like that to stop.”
Owens wrote in response to a clip of Trump saying that US soldiers could die that “Goyim always must die so the Khazarian mafia can expand their borders,” a promotion of the conspiracy theory claiming that the origins of the Jewish people trace back not to Israel but to a Turkic population in the Middle Ages.
Continuing with her months long-efforts to link Israel to the murder of her friend, Turning Points USA chief Charlie Kirk, Owens wrote on Saturday: “Remember when they tried to gaslight us last June by calling us ‘Panicans,’ claiming we were lying about serial killer Bibi Netanyahu’s aims? The ONLY reason this war didn’t begin last June was because of Charlie Kirk. They eliminated that reason on September 10th.”
White nationalist podcaster Nick Fuentes — who has celebrated Adolf Hitler and encouraged his “Groyper” followers to rape women — also filtered the attack on Iran through an antisemitic conspiracist ideology.
“This war has nothing to do with nuclear weapons, terrorism, or dead protesters,” Fuentes wrote on Saturday, referencing the Iranian regime’s recent massacre of tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators. “For decades, Israel has openly pursued an agenda to topple Iraq, Syria, and Iran. They orchestrated all of these wars in order to eliminate their rivals and gain total hegemony over the Middle East.”
On Sunday, Fuentes wrote that “this is a war of aggression for Israel. Americans will die in terrorist attacks and in missile strikes so that Israel can expand its borders in every direction. Trump, Vance, and Rubio sold us out.”
Matt Walsh, a populist-nationalist podcast host for Owens’ former employer, The Daily Wire, said in response to Rubio’s comments that “he’s flat out telling us that we’re in a war with Iran because Israel forced our hand. This is basically the worst possible thing he could have said.”
Trump has rejected Carlson and Kelly’s criticism, however.
“I think that MAGA is Trump — MAGA’s not the other two,” he said in an interview with independent DC newsletter The Inner Circle on Monday night. “MAGA wants to see our country thrive and be safe. And MAGA loves what I’m doing — every aspect of it.”
Noting Kelly in particular, Trump stated she “was opposed to me for years when I ran the first time and nothing stopped me.” He said that “some people are against — and they always come back. She came all the way back. But now I guess she maybe doesn’t like the idea of this war, but I do because I have to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of the Iranians.”
Giving Carlson an apparent green light to continue with his outbursts and conspiratorial provocations, Trump said that the podcaster “can say whatever he wants; it has no impact on me.”
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FBI Investigates Antisemitic Threats at Stanford University
The Hoover Tower rises above Stanford University in this aerial photo in Stanford, California, US. Photo: REUTERS/Noah Berger
A recent antisemitic incident at Stanford University in which someone sent threatening notes to the California campus’s Hillel chapter is being investigated by the FBI and local law enforcement officials.
According to The Stanford Daily, the missives were signed by an entity claiming to represent a faction of Stanford alumni based in Europe which calls itself “exposingstanfordjews.” It vowed to “monitor” campus Jewish life and claimed to have knowledge of “acute credible threats against the personal safety of Jewish Stanford undergraduate and graduate students.” Several campus organizations received the notes, including the Daily, public safety, Stanford’s office for religious and spiritual life, and the Taube Center for Jewish Studies.
The FBI’s involvement in the matter comes amid a spate of attacks on Jewish institutions and individuals across the US.
Last month, for example, two men trespassed the grounds of the Olami Dallas Center in Texas and demanded entry to the home of its rabbi by claiming to be window cleaners. In January, an assailant set the Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson, Mississippi on fire over its “Jewish ties.” Another arsonist struck the San Francisco Hillel building in December.
Stanford University said on Monday that it “strongly condemns the targeting of our Jewish community in this manner,” adding, “The security of and wellbeing of our campus is our top priority, and we are following up with the affected individuals to provide all necessary support.”
In another statement, Stanford Hillel Rabbi Jessica Kirschner said, “The best way I know to combat hate is to be proudly, deeply Jewish, and to keep building community with each other and with caring people across Stanford.”
Antisemitism has previously been an issue on Stanford’s campus. School officials acknowledged the university’s failure to identify and respond to a spate of incidents in a comprehensive 2024 report. Across 148 pages, the document cited the desecration of Jewish religious symbols, swastika graffiti, extreme anti-Zionist activism, and other incidents as causing a hostile environment which deprives Jewish students of a normal college experience.
“Some of this bias is expressed in overt and occasionally shocking ways but often it is wrapped in layers of subtlety and implication, one or two steps away from blatant hate speech,” the report said. “We learned of instances where antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias reached a level of social injury that deeply affected people’s lives: students moving out of their dorms because of antisemitic acts or speech; students being ostracized, canceled, or intimidated for openly identifying as Jewish, or for simply being real, or expressing support for Israel, or even refusing to explicitly condemn Israel; students fearing to display Jewish symbols or reveal that they were Jewish for fear of losing friendships or group acceptance.”
Other elite colleges continue to deal with campus antisemitism nearly three year after it emerged as a major social phenomenon in the aftermath of the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
A significant portion of Jewish students at the University of Pennsylvania still find the climate on campus to be hostile and feel the need to hide their identity, according to a 2025 survey of Jewish undergraduates at the school.
The survey, conducted by Penn’s local Hillel International chapter, found that 40 percent of respondents said it is difficult to be Jewish at Penn and 45 percent said they “feel uncomfortable or intimidated because of their Jewish identity or relationship with Israel.” Meanwhile, the results showed a staggering 85 percent of survey participants reported hearing about, witnessing, or experiencing “something antisemitic.”
Another 31 percent of Jewish Penn students said they feel the need to hide their Jewishness to avoid discrimination, which is sometimes present in the classroom, as 26 percent of respondents said they have “experienced antisemitic or anti-Israel comments from professors.” Overall, 80 percent of Jewish students hold that anti-Israel activity is “often” antisemitic and that Israel’s conduct in war is “held to an unfair standard compared to other nations.”
In December, StopAntisemitism, a Jewish civil rights advocacy group, assigned mediocre and failing grades to over a dozen elite American colleges in a new annual report, citing the institutions’ failing to mount a meaningful response to campus antisemitism.
Of all the Ivy League universities assessed by StopAntisemitism, only three — Cornell University (C), Dartmouth College (B), and Princeton University (D) — merited higher than an “F.” StopAntisemitism, which is led by executive director Liora Rez, said other schools in the conference, such as Harvard University and Yale University, continue to offer Jewish students a hostile environment, citing as evidence feedback it has received from Jewish students who attend them.
“At Harvard, Jewish students report high levels of self-censorship and antisemitism, with federal authors finding the university showed ‘deliberate indifference.’ Despite new initiatives, the campus climate remains tense and accountability uncertain,” the report said. “At Yale, Jewish students faced harassment, exclusion, and blocked access, prompting a federal investigation. Despite policy changes, the campus remains hostile and unsafe for Jewish students.”
Other elite schools such as the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Wesleyan University didn’t perform well either. Ds and Fs were given to the lot. Meanwhile, in the Washington, DC metropolitan region, a destination for students aspiring to future roles in government, American University and Georgetown University earned Ds.
“Even since the recent Gaza ceasefire agreement, antisemitism remains loud, bold, and unchecked, revealing that none of this is about Israel but instead is about Jew-hatred, plain and simple,” the report said. “Coordinated protests, ideological harassment, and institutional apathy continue to endanger Jewish students. Families must confront the facts: Are you prepared to send tuition dollars to a school that allows your children to be threatened, targeted, and blamed simply for being Jewish?”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Hegseth Praises Israel’s ‘Unmatched Skill’ in Battle, Says Allies to Have ‘Complete Control of Iranian Skies’
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth holds a briefing amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, at the Pentagon in Washington, DC, US, March 2, 2026. Photo: REUTERS / Elizabeth Frantz
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday said that American and Israeli forces will soon achieve “complete control of Iranian skies,” warning that Iran “will be able to do nothing about it” while praising Israel’s military prowess and precision strike capabilities as a defining strategic advantage.
“I stand before you today with a clear message: America is winning unequivocally and without mercy,” Hegseth said during a press conference at the Pentagon alongside Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “We are only four days into the operation; the achievements are amazing and there are more forces on the way.”
The Pentagon chief emphasized that US and Israeli forces are rapidly expanding their operational reach over Iran.
“We’ve taken control of Iran’s airspace and waterways without boots on the ground,” Hegseth continued. “We control their fate.”
He also praised Israeli cooperation and rejected media reports claiming Israel was dragging Washington into war. Those reports followed remarks by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio that were taken out of context and circulated on social media explaining the timing of the strikes, which officials said was a deliberate and coordinated strategic decision.
Hegseth described Israel as a “steadfast partner,” praising its military performance and saying the campaign is being carried out with “unmatched skill and iron determination.”
“Our ally Israel is demonstrating tremendous capabilities. Extraordinary cooperation with such an ally is amazing and necessary. We salute you and appreciate you,” he said.
“The combination of Israel’s defense capabilities and our force is amazing. The Iranian regime knows it is finished,” Hegseth continued.
The defense chief also pledged that Iran will never obtain a nuclear weapon, echoing past remarks by US President Donald Trump that Washington remains committed to the effort and prepared to continue the campaign “for as long as we need to.”
Hegseth warned that continued Iranian aggression would bring “death and destruction from the skies,” stressing that the United States is “playing for keeps.”
Amid conflicting media reports and isolated Iranian drone breakthroughs, he also accused segments of the press of attempting to undermine Trump by framing the campaign in ways that downplay US and Israeli military progress.
Hegseth also assured reporters that the United States has prioritized protecting its troops “ahead of everything else,” noting that before the conflict, roughly 90 percent of American forces in the region were repositioned outside Iranian weapons range.
During the press conference, Caine emphasized that US forces are prepared to maintain operational pressure while prioritizing the safety and protection of American personnel in the region.
“We are attacking and destroying the Iranian missile system to neutralize the threat to the United States and its allies. We are destroying the Iranian navy to prevent them from attacking the US Central Command, and we are making sure that Iran does not rebuild its capability during the war,” he said.
“Iran’s missile capability has decreased by 86 percent since the beginning of the war, 35 percent just since yesterday,” the top uniformed US military official added.