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How a Catholic university amassed a treasure trove of Jewish artifacts from the Bronx
(New York Jewish Week) – A Catholic university may be the unlikeliest place for what may be the largest depository dedicated to the Jewish history of the Bronx.
But at Fordham University — the private, Jesuit institution in the Bronx — decades worth of archival documents and artifacts from the local Jewish community have found a home, thanks to its Jewish studies department.
For the last three years, Fordham has been collecting and cataloging items that detail a once-thriving Jewish community in the Bronx: yearbooks full of Jewish last names, Bar Mitzvah invitations, phonebooks full of Jewish-owned businesses — all the simple transactions that define an era in history.
The archive at Fordham is one of the only physical collections of everyday material from Jewish residents of the borough, according to Magda Teter, the chair of the Center for Jewish Studies at the university, who spearheaded the project.
“It’s not only preserving a piece of New York Jewish history, but also a way of life,” Teter told the New York Jewish Week. “Bringing this voice to the dominant Christian identity of Fordham and teaching about Jews [as a minority] within the dominant cultures is very important.”
A song and dance book in the Fordham University collection features the lyrics for “Hatikvah” and “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” and a “Jewish dictionary.” (Julia Gergely)
During the first half of the twentieth century, Jewish life thrived in the Bronx. There were 260 registered synagogues in 1940, and the borough produced some of the biggest Jewish names in show business, fashion, literature and more: designer Ralph Lauren, politician Bella Abzug, novelist E.L. Doctorow, filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, Miss America Bess Myerson, Nobel Prize-winning chemist Robert Lefkowitz.
At the community’s peak in 1930, the Bronx was approximately 49% Jewish, according to the borough’s official historian, Lloyd Ultan. South of Tremont Avenue, the number reached 80%. Most of the Jewish Bronx was of Eastern European descent; many were first generation Americans whose parents had immigrated and lived on the Lower East Side, but who could now afford to live in less cramped neighborhoods with more trees and wider streets.
Though there is a strong Jewish community in the neighborhood of Riverdale, most of the Jewish community moved out of the Bronx for the suburbs after World War II when mortgages for white would-be homeowners were being subsidized by the government and Blacks and Latinos were steered to Bronx neighborhoods they couldn’t afford or that the city had chosen to neglect. The Jewish population of the Bronx dropped from 650,000 in 1948 to 45,000 in 2003. Many of the synagogues have been converted for other uses, and the physical legacy of the Jewish community there has begun to erode over time, making an archive all the more necessary.
While Teter was always interested in collecting items from the Jewish Bronx, the archive got an unexpected boost from a member of the public. In the spring of 2020, at the height of the pandemic, Fordham hosted a virtual event, “Remnants: Photographs of the Jewish Bronx,” which featured evidence of the area’s faded Jewish history gathered by writer and photographer Julian Voloj. (Voloj is the husband of the New York Jewish Week’s managing editor, Lisa Keys.)
An invitation for the bar mitzvah of Freddie Rothberg, which took place on Oct. 6, 1951 at Beth Hamedrash Hagadol. (Julia Gergely)
In the audience was Ellen Meshnick, who had grown up in New York and now lives in Georgia. Inspired, she offered Fordham a trove of material her parents, Frank and Martha Meshnick, had kept throughout their lives in the Bronx. The boxes included donated yearbooks from Morris High School and Walton High School, songbooks, bar mitzvah invitations, a marriage certificate, receipts for a flower delivery — even a document from the hospital from when she was born — mostly from the 1930s through the 1960s.
The donation significantly bolstered what materials Fordham already had on hand, which included less personal but still unique items like matchbooks from kosher restaurants. Now, Teter is growing the archive through other private donations and occasionally by purchasing materials online — personal family archives, books about Bronx Jewish history, songsheets and the like.
The marriage certificate, or ketubah, recognizing the marriage between Frank Meshnick and Martha Farber on Aug. 23, 1942. The certificate was part of an archive donated to Fordham University by the couple’s daughter Ellen. (Julia Gergely)
“They may not be the most beautiful things, but we are interested in what people actually used and lived with,” Teter said.
Teter said that while the American Jewish Historical Society in Manhattan does collect the types of quotidian and personal items that American Jews kept with them in the last few centuries, they don’t have much that uniquely focuses on Jewish life in the Bronx.
The entire collection is part of a greater effort by Teter, the Jewish studies department and the librarians at Fordham to increase awareness about Judaism and Jewish people. “I will not hide that I think it’s an important way to fight antisemitism — to teach Jewish history and Jewish culture in all its colors and in all its experiences,” she said. “It enriches the students’ appreciation and understanding of Jewish life beyond how Jews are usually portrayed.”
The Jewish studies department at Fordham is relatively new: The college began offering a Jewish studies minor in 2016, and opened the department in 2017. At the time, the highlight of the library’s archives was the Rosenblatt Holocaust collection, which was funded by an alumnus. Since 1992, the library has amassed over 11,000 titles, videos and artifacts on the Holocaust, according to librarian Linda Loschiavo.
When Teter arrived, Loschiavo worked with her to bring in historical Passover haggadahs from all over the world. Fordham now possesses two Italian haggadahs from the 1660s, as well as Jewish artifacts from unexpected places, like playbills from Jewish Bollywood.
Last month the university opened the Henry S. Miller Judaica Research Room on the fourth floor of the campus’ main library — named for Fordham’s first Jewish student, who graduated in 1968. Miller, a leader of a financial restructuring firm, is now a trustee of the college.
Fordham President Tania Tetlow described herself jokingly as “a wannabe Jew” at the room’s unveiling. “I’ve understood how deeply intertwined Judaism and Catholicism are,” she said, “and the connections we have of the deep intellectualism of both faiths, of the desire to study text and the interpretation of text going back for thousands of years, of the love of ritual — and the central place of food and guilt!”
The former Jacob Schiff Center on Valentine Avenue. (Julian Voloj)
“At the moment, we envision that the research room will be a space for exhibitions that would foster the curatorial skills of our students and that will bring Jewish art and artists to campus,” Teter said. “We would now be able to display their art and combine the exhibitions with some items from the Judaica collection.”
The research room is currently displaying Voloj’s Bronx photographs, along with some of the recently acquired local archival materials, curated by sophomore Reyna Stovall, who is interning in Fordham’s Jewish studies department this semester.
“It is really, really rewarding,” said Stovall, who is Jewish. Stovall became involved in the Jewish studies department because of her interest in Holocaust studies, but as she began her internship, she was excited to work on the archives cataloging the once thriving Jewish history of the Bronx.
The yearbook photo of Frank Meshnick (bottom right), who graduated from Morris High School in Morrisania in 1931. (Julia Gergely)
“It’s pretty amazing that they have the collection to begin with,” she added. “It really shows Fordham’s commitment to diversity and inclusivity that they’re willing to take on this massive collection of Judaica, even though that’s not the religion that the school was founded on.”
Teter estimates there are about 300 Jews among the school’s 15,000 undergrads. As a result, the Center for Jewish Studies and the research room offers students from all backgrounds the opportunity to learn more about Judaism — as well as marginalized communities in general, and connect their stories to their own lives.
“Our identity grew to showcase Jewish studies at the intersection and in conversation with other fields and areas of study,” Teter explained.
The Center’s goal, she added, is “to make students, faculty and the public realize that studying Jews is not just for Jews, and that they can learn so much about the areas of their own concern and interest by studying Jews.”
“Something magical happens when you give students the opportunity to work with historical artifacts, and really touch history,” Teter said. “That’s what I think inspired the director of the library to devote that space to that kind of research and to that kind of student experience.”
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The post How a Catholic university amassed a treasure trove of Jewish artifacts from the Bronx appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Amid revolt against ‘Israel lobby,’ J Street seeks elusive middle ground in primaries
A website and social media posts from “Track AIPAC,” associated with a group called Citizens Against AIPAC Corruption, is targeting members of Congress it hopes to unseat in the upcoming primary season with large dollar figures alongside their photos, declaring them captive of the “pro-Israel lobby.”
Such posts give the impression that the candidates have received significant financial support from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the largest group working to elect candidates who support Israel uncritically — which has made clear this election year that it will not provide support to candidates who even mention conditioning U.S. aid to Israel.
But the Track AIPAC dollar figures in many cases also include contributions from other fundraising committees whose aims are at odds with AIPAC’s, such as J Street, a progressive group that is trying to push Israel to change direction as it carries out a new war alongside the U.S.
It’s just one attempt to lump together all campaign funding groups that recognize Israel’s right to exist and the candidates they support as targets for defeat in this year’s primary elections, no matter how critical they have been of the Israeli government. The tactic is aimed at voters in a party where support for Israel has collapsed, and risks obscuring where candidates stand on crucial questions as voters head to the polls.
Against that backdrop, J Street is holding its line while focusing on its lane in 2026: Endorse only candidates committed to Israel as a Jewish state, but who also advocate changes for the direction of Israel’s government.
“The minimum is the recognition that there must be, and there is an Israel that is the national homeland of the Jewish people,” Jeremy Ben-Ami, J Street’s president, said in a recent interview. “If you don’t want to say that out loud publicly, you won’t be on our list.”
Ben-Ami himself has shifted his position on Israel in recent years. Last August, Ben-Ami wrote that he was “persuaded” by the claim that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, after rejecting the term throughout most of the nearly two-year military campaign. Earlier in the war, he had described the military’s conduct as a “moral stain on the state of Israel.”
J Street also supported the pair of resolutions introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Jewish Vermont Independent and longtime critic of U.S. aid to Israel, to block weapons transfers to Israel. A record 27 Senate Democrats — a majority of the caucus — voted in favor. And even before that, J Street urged oversight of U.S. military assistance to Israel.
Where J Street fits in
Founded in 2007, the organization describes itself as a pro-Israel, pro-peace and pro-democracy group that supports a two-state solution and diplomacy to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Its federal political action committee, launched in 2009, has gradually expanded its list of endorsees as it seeks to position itself as a bridge between pro-Israel voices and the party’s progressive wing.
This cycle, J Street PAC is backing 133 House and Senate incumbents as well as Democratic challengers running against Republican incumbents. The group has also approved several candidates competing in open Democratic primaries, allowing its donor network to support their campaigns. In one New York race, J Street endorsed the incumbent, Rep. Dan Goldman, and also “approved” his challenger, former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander.
Even the minimal recognition of Israel and support for U.S. defense aid to the Jewish state have increasingly become a political flashpoint in Democratic primaries.
In some competitive races, progressive candidates critical of the U.S.–Israel alliance have gained traction, benefiting from crowded fields or backlash to heavy outside spending. That dynamic has been visible in contests such as the New Jersey special election for a House seat, where progressive candidate Analilia Mejia prevailed after an AIPAC-associated super PAC spent more than $2 million targeting former Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski, a J Street–approved candidate.
Ahead of next Tuesday’s Illinois primary, another super PAC aligned with AIPAC, Elect Chicago Women, has targeted the frontrunner, Daniel Biss, contributing to the rise in polling of a younger Palestinian-American candidate, Kat Abughazaleh. J Street is backing Biss.
AIPAC has become increasingly controversial among mainstream Democrats for backing pro-Israel Republicans who joined President Donald Trump’s crusade to question the 2020 election results. That opposition deepened during the Gaza war as Democratic voters became more polarized over U.S. policy on Israel. Many congressional candidates, including some Jewish Democrats, have promised not to take contributions from AIPAC. The group has also drawn attacks from white nationalists and some leaders of the MAGA movement.
The test: A future for Israel
Amid the larger conflict, J Street is trying to define a middle ground.
Ben-Ami outlined the organization’s red lines for endorsements during J Street’s annual conference in Washington, D.C., earlier this month, saying the group looks for candidates who acknowledge Israel’s legitimate security needs while avoiding unconditional support for its government. “If you’re in favor of a complete arms embargo against Israel, and you don’t recognize that Israel should be the national homeland of the Jewish people, you won’t come anywhere near our list,” Ben-Ami said.
The strategy reflects a broader shift in progressive politics, where Israel policy and Palestinian rights — once a marginal issue in most congressional races — have become a litmus test for progressive candidates seeking to define themselves against establishment Democrats. Recent polls showed the wider tensions within the Democratic Party, which loomed large in the 2024 presidential election in the wake of the Gaza war — and now opposition to the war in Iran — are likely to shape the midterm elections.
Gallup, which has tracked Americans’ views of Israel for more than two decades, found that sympathy for Palestinians in the decadeslong Middle East conflict has jumped 22 percentage points over the past two years. Only 17% of Democrats now sympathize more with Israel.
J Street’s leaders reject that characterization. Ben-Ami said polling on Israel shouldn’t be a zero-sum choice. He faulted some established pro-Israel organizations for pushing a binary framework that pressures people to pick one side or the other, which he sees as a “self-defeating approach” that has backfired politically. J Street, he said, tries to create space for candidates who acknowledge both the trauma of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in Israel and the humanitarian toll of the war in Gaza. Ben-Ami added that many voters hold both views at once and are looking for leaders with clarity on the issue.
For some progressive activists, however, the distinction is: any organization that defends Israel as a Jewish state is increasingly treated as part of the same establishment.
Massively outspent
Also looming over J Street as it tries to reach voters is AIPAC’s vastly bigger bank account.
AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, spent $28 million in high-stakes Democratic primaries in 2024. The group has already invested more than $7.3 million of the $78 million it raised in the 2026 election cycle, and its affiliated Illinois group, Elect Chicago Women, has to date spent an additional $5.7 million to defeat Biss in the March 17 primary for the open seat in Illinois’ 9th District.
J Street hasn’t been able to match that scale, even as it framed its efforts as a counterweight to AIPAC spending. J Street raised $3 million for the J Street Action Fund super PAC for spending in competitive House and Senate races.
Ben-Ami said J Street plans to be “very targeted” in deploying its resources to influence key races, particularly contests that could determine control of Congress or where candidates aligned with its positions are facing attacks backed by AIPAC spending.
The Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project, a progressive research group, said it plans to spend $2 million in ads this cycle, targeting Republicans over their support for Israel and backing Democrats in favor of blocking weapons to Israel.
Democratic Majority for Israel, a mainstream Democratic-affiliated political action committee, said its budget for the midterms exceeds “seven figures.” Brian Romick, DMFI’s president, said in an interview that his group’s “number one goal” will be to help Democrats take back the House “with a pro-Israel majority.” Its primary spending, he said, will support candidates who’d increase the odds of a Democrat winning the seat.
The post Amid revolt against ‘Israel lobby,’ J Street seeks elusive middle ground in primaries appeared first on The Forward.
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Iran’s Shi’ite Allies Step Up Strikes Despite Weakened Hand
The sky is illuminated as an Iranian missile lands in Israel, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, as seen from Tel Aviv, Israel, March 12, 2026. PhotoL REUTERS/Dylan Martinez
Shi’ite Muslim armed groups in Lebanon and Iraq are stepping up their role in the war with the US and Israel, showing the Iran-backed “Axis of Resistance” can still wage attacks despite damage inflicted on the alliance during the Gaza conflict.
Groups that have long been armed and financed by Iran and loyal to its Shi’ite Islamist rulers are now helping Tehran intensify the war around the region, strikes in recent days show.
Hezbollah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Wednesday launched their first-ever simultaneous rocket barrage on Israel, with the Lebanese terrorist group firing 200 missiles. Israel reported that only two of these hit its territory.
Iraqi Shi’ite militants have also picked up the pace of drone and missile attacks on US interests in Iraq in the last 3-4 days, according to three Iraqi security sources and two sources close to the groups.
One group yet to enter the fray are Tehran’s Houthi allies in Yemen, heavily armed and capable of disrupting maritime navigation around the Arabian peninsula, as shown during the Gaza war when they fired at Red Sea shipping and Israel. Houthi attacks could further disrupt oil markets because Saudi Arabia diverted exports to the Red Sea after Iran shut the Hormuz straits.
Last week, Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said the group had its “fingers on the trigger” and was ready to act militarily when developments warrant it.
The alliance that Tehran calls the Axis of Resistance suffered major blows after Hamas – one of its key members – attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, igniting a war that decimated the Palestinian terrorist group and pummeled Hezbollah, with Israel killing the Lebanese group‘s leader Hassan Nasrallah. The ripple effects helped topple Bashar al-Assad in Syria, knocking away a pillar of the Axis.
“Iran built the Axis for a moment like this,” said Mohanad Hage Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center think-tank, describing it as an “existential war” for Iran and Hezbollah, which joined the fight even though its military power remains well below levels seen in 2023.
“If the Iranian regime is destroyed, there would be nothing left” of the Axis, he said.
Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said the Hezbollah attack on Wednesday comprised 200 rockets and 20 drones.
“There’s no contradiction between the fact that we heavily, heavily diminished Hezbollah in the last three years, and the fact that they are still a relevant, dangerous force,” he told reporters on Thursday.
A US State Department spokesperson said Washington “unequivocally condemns Iran and Iran-backed terrorist militias’ attacks on diplomatic, military, and civilian infrastructure, in Iraq, including in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region,” and it fully supports “Israel’s right to defend itself against” Hezbollah.
HEZBOLLAH EXECUTES IRANIAN PLAN
Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei thanked “the fighters of the Resistance Front,” according to a statement issued on Thursday and read out by a state TV announcer.
“We consider the countries of the Resistance Front as our best friends,” he said in the statement, the first issued in his name since he was named as leader on Sunday.
Hezbollah, founded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in 1982, entered the Iran war on March 2, saying it aimed to avenge the killing of Mojtaba’s father, former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, killed on the first day of the war.
Israel has retaliated with a new offensive against the group in Lebanon, just 15 months after the last one, killing more than 600 people, forcing more than 800,000 from their homes.
Hezbollah’s rocket barrage on Wednesday night – its heaviest during this war – was launched at the same time as Iran fired ballistic missiles at Israel, according to the Israeli military and two Lebanese sources familiar with Hezbollah operations.
The Lebanese sources said the coordinated strikes were part of Iran’s plan in the event of a major war, aiming to confuse Israeli air defense systems.
Despite the volleys of rockets, Hezbollah’s attacks have caused relatively little damage so far. Two Israeli soldiers have been killed in Lebanon.
No fatalities have been reported in Israel as a result of Hezbollah rocket attacks.
LOYALIST CORE MOBILIZES IN IRAQ
Hezbollah played a major part in Iran’s regional strategy under the leadership of Nasrallah, the secretary general killed in 2024, backing Shi’ite factions in Iraq, Hamas, and the Houthis.
In Iraq, not all the Iran‑backed armed groups appear to support attacks on US interests. Reuters reported last week that many of the fighters and militia groups the Iranians cultivated in Iraq had not entered the fight.
But analysts and officials say a core group of Tehran‑aligned factions remains active and capable of exerting pressure.
Operating under the umbrella of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, these groups said on Thursday they’d carried out 31 attacks over the past 24 hours using dozens of drones and rockets against what they described as “occupation bases” in Iraq and the region.
Security officials say the militias have also sought to extend pressure to energy projects and oilfields in southern Iraq, where several US companies and US‑linked service firms operate alongside international partners.
Among the claimed attacks, two security sources said two drones hit the southern Majnoon oilfield on Wednesday, where US-based KBR is the operator. No casualties were reported. The attack was corroborated by a field engineer who said there had been five such strikes in less than a week.
On Tuesday a US diplomatic facility near Baghdad International Airport was struck by a drone, according to the US State Department, which said there were no injuries and everyone was accounted for.
Four security sources told Reuters the same site has come under repeated attack and was also hit on Wednesday.
Separately, two drones targeted a US military base near Erbil airport in Iraqi Kurdistan on Wednesday, three Kurdish security sources said.
In northern Iraq, a drone attack struck an oilfield operated by US firm HKN Energy in Iraq’s Kurdistan region on March 5, causing a fire and halting production, two security sources and an oilfield engineer said. The sources said the drones belonged to Iran-backed militias and came from an area they controlled.
Reuters could not independently verify who was behind the attacks.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq also claimed responsibility for downing the US military refueling aircraft on Thursday. The US Central Command said the aircraft crashed in an incident that involved another aircraft but was not the result of hostile or friendly fire.
Andreas Krieg, a lecturer at King’s College London’s security studies department, said that while the Axis of Resistance had been degraded since 2023, Hezbollah, Iraqi Shi’ite militias, and the Houthis were “very much operational.”
“They still retain capabilities, they still show very strong intent, and they remain well resourced,” he said.
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Six US Service Members Killed in Plane Crash Over Iraq
A US Air Force KC-135 aerial refueling aircraft is seen at Riga International Airport, Latvia, June 6, 2018. Photo: REUTERS/Ints Kalnins
All six crew members aboard a US military KC-135 refueling aircraft that crashed in western Iraq are confirmed to have been killed, the US military said on Friday.
The refueling aircraft crashed in western Iraq on Thursday, in an incident the military said involved another aircraft but was not the result of hostile or friendly fire.
The deaths add to the seven US service members who have already been killed as part of US operations against Iran which began on Feb. 28.
“The circumstances of the incident are under investigation. However, the loss of the aircraft was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire,” a statement from US Central Command said.
Speaking with reporters at the Pentagon on Friday, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said operations against Iran would continue.
“War is hell. War is chaos, and as we saw yesterday with the tragic crash of our KC-135 tanker, bad things can happen,” Hegseth said.
A US official told Reuters that the second aircraft involved in the crash, which landed safely, was also a military refueling aircraft known as the KC-135.
The United States has deployed a large number of aircraft into the Middle East to take part in operations against Iran. The incident highlights the risk of not just operations but also of refueling aircraft in the air.
The KC-135, built by Boeing in the 1950s and early 1960s, has served as the backbone of the US military’s air refueling fleet and is critical to allowing aircraft to carry out missions without having to land.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed armed factions, claimed responsibility for downing the US military refueling aircraft.
Reuters reported on Tuesday that as many as 150 US troops have been wounded in the US-Israeli war on Iran. The crash happened the same day two US sailors were injured after the USS Gerald Ford suffered a non-combat-related fire on board.
The first seven US troops were killed when a drone slammed into a US military facility in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait and in another attack in Saudi Arabia.
President Donald Trump and other senior officials have warned the Iran conflict will result in more US military deaths as Tehran retaliates against US and Israeli strikes.