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How Jewish leaders tried — and failed — to keep a Farrakhan follower off a Florida city council
(JTA) – When Brother John Muhammad emerged this fall as the leading candidate for a vacant city council seat in St. Petersburg, Florida, local Jews were distressed.
Muhammad is well known in the city as the president of a local neighborhood association and as a frequent advocate for minority groups. But Jewish leaders learned that he was also a follower of Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader who has a long history of antisemitism, and that he had made comments dismissing concerns about Farrakhan’s record.
Jewish leaders tried to stave off Muhammad’s appointment, pushing for more extensive vetting of the seven candidates and, in the case of the local Holocaust museum, actively lobbying against him. But the council confirmed him in a 4-3 vote, leaving local Jews frustrated — before they considered ways to make the situation a learning experience for their city.
“When I see a situation like this, it screams ‘opportunity’ to me,” Michael Igel, chair of the Florida Holocaust Museum, located in St. Petersburg, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The saga playing out in St. Petersburg, Florida’s fifth-largest city, unfolded during the same period that a handful of Black celebrities, including Kanye West and Kyrie Irving, first became enmeshed in controversy over their own antisemitic comments and social media posts. The coincidence meant a dicey environment for broaching a conversation about the antisemitism of the Nation of Islam, whose rhetoric disparaging Jews overlaps with that of Hebrew Israelites, the ideology that Irving promoted by sharing a link to an antisemitic film.
It also turned St. Petersburg into a window for understanding how ties forged between Jewish groups and others can be tested.
Local Jewish leaders initially sought to stop Muhammad from gaining the city council seat, which was vacated after its previous holder resigned following redistricting and accusations she no longer lived in her district. They learned about Muhammad’s city council application only a week before the council’s vote, leaving them with little time to mobilize. The information came from a political rival of Muhammad, former mayoral candidate Vince Nowicki, who shared information about Muhammad’s Nation of Islam affiliation with local Jewish groups.
Nowicki also shared a comment Muhammad had made about Jews in a 2016 video in which Muhammad interviewed local Black LGBTQ activists. In the video titled “A Conversation About Growing Up Black And LGBT,” which JTA viewed, Muhammad said, “Minister Farrakhan got accused of being antisemitic for a long time because he pointed out and made some corrections about the activity of Jews. And anybody who says anything critical of the Jewish community is labeled as being antisemitic. Good, bad, right or wrong, it doesn’t matter what you say. If you criticize them that’s what you are.”
He continued, saying, “And I’m finding that it happens when you are critical of the gay community, when you say anything critical or anything that doesn’t align with that ideology, now all of a sudden you’re homophobic.” Muhammad’s comments about gay people received some light but friendly pushback from his interview guests.
Muhammad did not reply to multiple requests for comment by JTA, including to questions emailed to him at his request. He said during a public meeting ahead of the council vote that he thought scrutiny of him by Jewish groups had been unfair.
To Jewish leaders, the comments in the video coupled with Muhammad’s Nation of Islam affiliation were clear signs that he should not be appointed to the city council.
“I would sure hope that being antisemitic would be a red line, that you could not be a candidate,” said Rabbi Philip Weintraub of Congregation B’nai Israel, a Conservative synagogue in the city.
Jewish leaders began to take action, issuing statements and launching a letter-writing campaign to the council. They felt so much urgency that some even conducted business on Simchat Torah, a Jewish holiday when Jewish organizations typically pause their activities in accordance with Jewish law.
As a nonprofit, the local federation was constrained in how it could weigh in. Since it could not endorse or oppose specific candidates, it instead pushed for every candidate to be “properly vetted” and informed council members about Muhammad’s affiliations and past comments, according to Maxine Kaufman, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Florida’s Gulf Coast. She said the efforts did not have their intended effect.
“I don’t think anybody said, ‘Well, who is this Farrakhan, what does he stand for?’” Kaufman said. “I don’t think enough was done, personally.”
The entrance to the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg, Nov. 27, 2016. (Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
The Florida Holocaust Museum took another approach, circulating information about Muhammad to the wider community, along with a statement opposing the candidacy of anyone who would support Farrakhan’s antisemitism. Their goal, Igel said, was to educate the community about the severity of these views.
“There’s nothing else to talk about when somebody is supporting Louis Farrakhan,” Igel told JTA. “Particularly when you are seeking a position representative of a city, particularly one like St. Petersburg that is so known for its inclusivity and its openness.”
Igel praised some members of the city council who asked Muhammad pointed questions about his views at the vote, giving him the opportunity to refute Farrakhan’s comments about Jews. One council member who voted against Muhammad, Lisset Hanewicz, said her stepfather is Jewish and read Farrakhan’s past antisemitic statements into the record, saying, “I think people need to understand why a certain part of this community is upset.”
Igel acknowledged that getting involved in a city council appointment was an unusual move for a Holocaust museum. He said museum leaders had held a meeting beforehand to determine how to proceed but made a decision fairly quickly to weigh in.
“In this case, we don’t consider this to be a matter of politics,” Igel said. “This is a matter of morality. And this is what we teach.” If the candidate had been a white supremacist, Igel said, “that person would have been disqualified out of the gate.”
The Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center, two hate watchdogs, define the Nation of Islam as a group that propagates antisemitism and other forms of bigotry, not a religion. Founded in 1930 by Wallace Fard Muhammad, the Black nationalist group is not the same as traditional Islam and is rejected by most Muslim clerics; it entered mainstream prominence in the 1960s after civil rights leader Malcolm X and boxer Muhammad Ali publicly joined the movement. (Both later left the group, with Malcolm X publicly denouncing its leadership; he was assassinated shortly after, and two Nation of Islam members who were wrongfully convicted of his murder recently received a large settlement from New York City.)
The Nation of Islam entered its current era after Farrakhan took over the group in 1977. Now 89, he has used his platform to issue a steady stream of antisemitism, including calling Jews “wicked” and the “synagogue of Satan,” saying they have “wrapped your tentacles around the U.S. government,” and calling Hitler “a very great man.” Only a few years ago, the Women’s March progressive activist collective was nearly derailed over some of its founders’ associations with Farrakhan.
It is rare, but not unheard of, for public officials to have current or former associations with the Nation of Islam. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a practicing Muslim, was dogged by accusations that he had formerly been a member of the group when he first ran for Congress in 2006; he apologized for his past associations with the group. Trayon White, a Washington, D.C. council member and onetime mayoral candidate who has spread antisemitic conspiracy theories, has donated to the group in the past. Former President George W. Bush once praised the group, and a photograph showing Barack Obama in the same room as Farrakhan was fodder for Obama’s critics during his presidential run.
Muhammad, who is referred to on the city council website as John Muhammad and whose legal name is John C. Malone, declined to condemn Farrakhan at the city council meeting.
“I am not willing to denounce the leader of my faith no more than a Catholic would be willing to denounce their pope,” he said.
Muhammad’s reaction to questions about Farrakhan particularly concerned the federation and other local Jewish groups. Kaufman told JTA she didn’t know whether Muhammad himself is antisemitic, but she said his refusal to disavow Farrakhan was alarming.
“I do have issue with his reverence of someone who is blatantly antisemitic, and he won’t disavow him, he won’t reject him,” she said, echoing the the federation’s official statement on the vote.
At the meeting, Muhammad did say that he had reached out to the Florida Holocaust Museum but had not heard back — and that he thought the museum’s criticism of him was unfair.
“What I found when we reached out to have dialogue with the Holocaust Museum director, they did not want to talk to me,” he said. “They wanted to evaluate and disqualify me based on the association that I have as an individual. I don’t think that that’s just.”
Muhammad also defended his record with Jews by claiming that they were among the “diversity of those who support me.” He added, “And if you look at those who oppose me, they’re coming from one particular group.”
Since the vote, a local Black newspaper condemned the scrutiny on Muhammad, calling it a “perusal into his faith practice.”
Igel said the museum had no record that Muhammad had reached out but encouraged him to come and learn more about the Holocaust and the nature of antisemitism. Stuart Berger, head of the local Jewish Community Relations Council, acknowledged at the city council meeting that Muhammad “has made himself available to us” at the federation, but that none of the federation staff “had been in direct contact with him.”
The federation’s involvement in Muhammad’s case became its own issue at the council vote, when the candidate referenced an email Berger had written to the county commissioner. In the email, Berger wrote that Muhammad’s vetting process had been “good enough for me!”
While Muhammad took the email as proof that the federation believed him to be fit for office, Berger and Kaufman maintain that it meant nothing of the sort. Berger had not been speaking on behalf of the federation, they say, and had not intended for his email to be shared publicly.
Now that Muhammad is on the council, attention has turned to building relationships with him. Kaufman has been meeting with individual city council members, and hopes to eventually meet with Muhammad himself. She also aims to have the federation make a presentation to the council about the dangers of antisemitism and push them to make a statement about it.
She doesn’t think it’s complicated. “I think hate’s hate,” she said. “Many different colors.”
Weintraub’s congregation is celebrating its 100th anniversary in March, and one of its congregants, Eric Lynn, is also involved in politics: he was the Democratic nominee for Florida’s 13th Congressional district in the midterms but lost his race to Republican Anna Paulina Luna, who said she was raised as a Messianic Jew and campaigned with far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Weintraub himself is a member of an interfaith ministerial dialogue group with Black churches and says he’s “a professional optimist” when it comes to managing conflict between different communities. He sent JTA an episode of the public radio podcast “Hidden Brain” about how to keep conflict from spiraling, saying it “describes what I’ve tried to do.”
Since Muhammad was appointed, Weintraub has met with him; the pair had what Weintraub described as “a pleasant conversation.” The two talked about parenting and “shared traumas,” he said. They did not discuss Muhammad’s comments supporting Farrakhan, but the rabbi couldn’t help but think about him.
“I thought I was a termite, according to Farrakhan,” Weintraub said. In contrast, Muhammad “said I was a person, so that was nice.”
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The post How Jewish leaders tried — and failed — to keep a Farrakhan follower off a Florida city council appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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What pledges Eisenkot and Netanayhu need to break to become PM
(JTA) —
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his opponent Gadi Eisenkot will have to break their promises to their constituents if they want to form and lead Israel’s next government.
Their potential political allies will have to do the same.
Netanyahu’s Likud and Eisenkot’s Yashar party both garnered more votes than any of the other nine parties that met the threshold to join the next parliament.
Netanyahu and the bloc of parties that ideologically align with him, however, secured only 53 of the 61 seats needed for a governing majority in the 120-seat Knesset. The Eisenkot bloc won 48.
For Eisenkot, three divisive issues are likely to dominate the debate and force some politicians to renege on campaign pledges: aligning with Arab parties, mandatory military service for Haredi men and a unity government with Netanyahu.
Support from the Arab parties
Eisenkot’s bloc includes four Jewish Israeli parties, referred to as Zionist parties: his own party Yashar, B’Yachad led by former prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, Israel Beytenu led by Avigdor Liberman, and the Democrats led by Yair Golan.
Eisenkot could easily become prime minister with a 67-seat coalition if he added the Arab parties, Ra’am with 8 seats and the Joint List with 11. But that is far from straightforward. Three of the bloc’s four parties — Yashar, B’Yachad and Israel Beytenu — explicitly pledged not to form a government with the Arab parties. And relying on their support would face an additional legitimacy hurdle given Netanyahu’s advantage among Jewish voters.
Eisenkot himself has repeatedly and unequivocally said he does not intend to form a government with the Arab parties. During the campaign, he set four conditions for joining his government, including a commitment to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state and to the values of the Declaration of Independence, mandatory military or national service, and recognition of Hamas as a terrorist organization.
In an interview with Channel 12 News in late September, Eisenkot, a former IDF chief of staff, said the Arab parties did not meet his conditions and therefore would not be part of the government.
On election night and since then, he has continued to speak of a coalition with Jewish Zionist parties.
Naftali Bennett, the former prime minister who relied on the support of the Ra’am party in 2021, when he and Lapid formed their coalition, also ruled out sitting in a government with the Arab parties. Liberman, whose party won seven seats, said he would form a coalition made up of “Zionist parties only.” Only Golan spoke prior to the election of sitting with Arab parties and has since the election called on the other three parties in his bloc to do so.
One attempt to circumvent the issue would be for Eisenkot to form a minority government that would depend on votes from Ra’am and the Joint List from outside the coalition. A more solid version of that game plan would be a coalition that included Ra’am but relied on the Joint List from outside the government. However, this option is also likely to face significant political and public opposition.
The Joint List stated in an official declaration following the election that it was willing to engage in “political cooperation to bring down Netanyahu’s government,” but it did not publicly clarify whether, and under what conditions, it would support a government led by Gadi Eisenkot. Ra’am leader Mansour Abbas said in an interview with Channel 12 News on the eve of the election: “I will know how to bring a government to the Knesset.”
The draft issue
Without the Arab parties’ support, the change bloc could theoretically turn to the 13 seats held by the ultra-Orthodox parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism, to form a government.
All four parties in the bloc made ending the ultra-Orthodox exemption from military service a central campaign issue. Cooperation with those parties would amount to breaking an explicit campaign promise.
Shas and UTJ have similarly promised their Haredi constituents that they would not allow for forced conscription.
A unity government with Netanyahu
With the path to a government that excludes Netanyahu looking tenuous at best, the change bloc’s alternative would be to join Netanyahu in a national unity government.
But that, too, would represent a flagrant breach of its campaign pledges. The one clear binding principle of these four parties is their goal of unseating Netanyahu, Israel’s longest serving prime minister, whom they have said poses an existential threat to the country.
In a late-October radio interview, Eisenkot said, “I unequivocally commit that I will not sit under Netanyahu, not even in a rotation,” in which he and Netanyahu would share the prime ministership. Bennett said in a radio interview, “I am not going to sit under him because he is the person destroying the State of Israel.” Liberman wrote on X two weeks ago, “With Netanyahu — even if the world turns upside down, we will not sit with him under any circumstances.” Yair Golan, leader of the Democrats party, said, “We will not sit with Netanyahu and his partners. Period.”
The challenge for Netanyahu
On the other side, Netanyahu also has no clear path to forming a government. The parties in his coalition defied expectations by winning 53 seats, but securing the eight additional seats needed for a majority appears out of reach. Netanyahu deployed the prospect of the Arab parties in the coalition as a cudgel to bash the opposition during the campaign. In a speech on the eve of the election, Netanyahu called cooperation with those parties “a disgrace.”
That may not stop him from trying to form a government with one of the Arab parties, particularly Ra’am, whose leader Mansour Abbas told Channel 12 on election night that he was speaking with politicians from both blocs.
Netanyahu during the 2022 election held talks with Abbas about forming a government.
Even if Netanyahu were to do the unthinkable and cooperate with the Arab parties, however, he would be unlikely to secure a majority. His ultra-nationalist partners, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, made clear during the campaign that such cooperation was out of the question for them.
With all apparent paths to a government blocked, forming a coalition in Israel may require a fundamental breach of campaign promises that would shake up the entire political system. The alternative is another election, which would be held if no side succeeds in forming a government.
The post What pledges Eisenkot and Netanayhu need to break to become PM appeared first on The Forward.
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The Ethan Klein YouTube cheating scandal is reigniting a debate about IDF service
The chronically online are still reeling from — and reveling in — the cheating scandal surrounding Jewish YouTubers Ethan and Hila Klein. And, after Hila’s estranged brother spoke out for the first time this week, commenters have revived a debate over the siblings’ service in the Israel Defense Forces, reflecting the ways in which shifting political trends online can impact even seemingly-unrelated stories.
Hila, an Israeli who met Ethan during his Birthright trip to Israel in 2007, posted a statement accusing Ethan of the affair on Oct. 22. The two had built a joint YouTube career in America garnering millions of subscribers to their show, the H3 Podcast. They married, had three children together and employed around a dozen people on their production crew — one of whom is alleged online to be Klein’s affair partner.
Because of the show’s Israeli connections, the Kleins’ Birthright meet-cute, and the show’s myriad other Jewish connections — the podcast employee allegedly having the affair with Ethan is also Jewish — discussions of Israeli politics have long swirled around the show. Ethan feuded with numerous other YouTubers and internet figures, including Hasan Piker, with whom he used to cohost a podcast, over the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and Israel’s war in Gaza.
In recent years, especially after Oct. 7, with pro-Palestinian sentiments increasingly dominating online, the H3 Podcast’s connection to Israel has become a central part of its identity, and drawn controversy and analysis across the internet from Piker and general viewers. Each time Israel has been brought up on the show the conversations are closely tracked and analyzed in relevant subreddits.
With the Kleins making headlines because of the affair, old Israel discourse has resurfaced surrounding the internet celebrities. Central to it is the question: what level of Israeli military service is forgivable in the eyes of the far left? As Hila routinely came under scrutiny for her service, the Kleins would point to Hila’s brother Moses Hacmon, who also served but has faced far less criticism for doing so.
Hacmon, another internet celebrity, has long been feuding with Hila and Ethan, thanks to his now-wife, infamous YouTuber Trisha Paytas. (Paytas is known for an endless string of controversies including taboo OnlyFans content and saying the n-word while singing along to a rap song, as well as being accused of physically abusing Hacmon.)
Hacmon, who moved to the U.S. in 2002 to launch his art career after finishing his IDF service, met Paytas through Ethan and Hila. The Kleins had just begun having Paytas on their show, which led to Ethan launching a new podcast, Frenemies, with Paytas. Initially, the two couples were close. But the show lasted less than a year and ended in a bitter falling-out over revenue, creative disagreements and family drama, severing ties between the two couples. Now, that conflict is finding new life as fans fight over which siblings’ IDF service was most immoral.
Scrutiny over military service
In defending Hila’s IDF service, Ethan mentioned multiple times that she worked a noncombat desk job and never hurt anyone personally.
The Kleins, who show a vindictive streak against their enemies, also often deflected criticism of Hila by pointing at Hacmon, saying he was an active combatant in the air force, and pointing angry commenters in his direction. (Hacmon and Paytas, while they have drawn their own controversies in the past, have come under less fire as of late and currently are popular in the online ecosystem.)
The Kleins said that they didn’t take issue with Hacmon’s service. But, they said on numerous episodes of the podcast, if people were upset with Hila for serving in the IDF, they should be just as upset with Hacmon.
Until this week, Hacmon hadn’t publicly spoken to or about the Kleins for five years as tensions simmered. He did not invite them to his wedding with Paytas or introduce them to the couple’s three children (who are named — actually — Elvis, Malibu Barbie and Aquaman).
But Hacmon broke his silence on Tuesday to talk about the affair. He said he felt for his sister and that his door was open to her, but added that things the couple had said about him, particularly his military service, were painful lies.
“I never graduated from flight school,” said Hacmon on his podcast with Paytas. “I never was a pilot. I’ve never been in combat. I’ve never hurt anyone. I’ve never shot a gun at anyone.”
This may sound like a petty feud over minor details; either way, both siblings served in the IDF. But it reflects the shifting tides of political trends and viewer favor online.
Pro-Palestinian activism, and harsh criticism of Israel’s army in light of the war in Gaza, has become the mainstream acceptable stance online, and views are so black and white that small details can ruin an online career. Fans, hungry to cancel their enemies, scour the internet for evidence of what they consider to be a sin — for some people, even recommending the wrong book or using the wrong brand of makeup can be an indication of cancellable politics around Israel.
For many influencers, serving in the IDF at all, regardless of role, is enough for online cancellation, but since both of the siblings served, the fight boils down to details, with each sibling attempting to distance themselves from the violence as much as possible to prove that they are not the wrong kind of Jew.
Getting into the weeds on Israel
But a decade ago, this political framework had not yet taken hold of the internet, and Israel was not a pariah online — meaning that the evidence on both Hila and Hacmon’s service can get muddled, as they presented their records differently back when they seemingly thought it sounded cool to be in the army.
An interview with Hacmon published sometime circa 2015 seems to corroborate some of his most recent statement:
“I spent a year and a half in the flight school,” Hacmon said about his service in the air force. “When I left the military after three years I really wanted to catch up for that time.”
But despite his insistence that he did not see combat, in a 2021 episode of Frenemies, long before Oct. 7, Paytas seemed eager to prove her husband had been an active combatant. She bragged about Hacmon’s service in the IDF saying he deactivated bombs in Lebanon and was a “bomb specialist.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” replied Ethan.
“That’s what he did,” yelled Paytas, gesturing to Hacmon who sat silently off screen.
Hila, on the other hand, worked a desk job throughout her service and at one point was, as she described it, a secretary for a brigade that conducted military missions in Ramallah, a major city in the occupied West Bank. One night, unauthorized and acting out of curiosity, she accompanied the brigade on a mission to detain “a terrorist.” This anecdote, which she shared during a 2017 episode of the couple’s podcast, would be used against her time and time again by Piker and various critics after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza.
Viewers commenting on the siblings’ mandatory service had various takeaways.
“I don’t like either of them but you can’t call out one without the other being terrible too,” said one X user. “It’s hypocrisy.”
One commenter, coming to Hila’s defense argued: “Moses was in the IDF, just like Hila. The difference is Hila worked a desk job then asked to go out on the field ONE TIME out of curiosity. Moses worked with bombs and was actually out doing field work, as Trisha loved to brag about.”
While the exact details of each siblings’ service remains disputed, one thing is certain: the casualness with which they once discussed the IDF is gone. What used to be simple background in their personal histories — an experience most Israelis share — has become ammunition in arguments over their alleged complicity in the conflict and an opportunity for moral grandstanding.
All of this is old news, really, though; today, its main effect is drawing attention away from Ethan’s affair. The military debate and disdain many online feel for the IDF — especially in the left wing circles these four worked in — has left little sympathy for the mother of three navigating separation after a devastating affair.
The post The Ethan Klein YouTube cheating scandal is reigniting a debate about IDF service appeared first on The Forward.
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Zoom chat: Memories of Yiddish and Bund gatherings in Melbourne
אין קאַרלטאָן, אַ געגנט אין מעלבורן, האָט מען אַ מאָל געהערט ייִדיש אויף דער גאַס; געגאַנגען אויף בונדישע פֿאַרזאַמלונגען און אין ייִדישן טעאַטער, און געזונגען ייִדישע לידער.
אין אָט דער וועלט איז אויפֿגעוואַקסן דער שרײַבער אַרנאָלד זייבל, אַ קינד פֿון בונדישע אימיגראַנטן פֿון פּוילן. זונטיק, דעם 15טן נאָוועמבער, 7 אַ זייגער אין אָוונט ניו־יאָרקער צײַט, וועט אלי בענעדיקט, פֿון דער ייִדיש־ליגע, פֿירן אַ זום־שמועס מיט זייבלען וועגן זײַנע קינדער־יאָרן אין מעלבורן — דער עיקר, וועגן די ייִדישע שולן, טעאַטערס, לידער און די מענטשן וואָס האָבן געשאַפֿן יענע וועלט.
זיי וועלן אויך אַרומרעדן ווי אַזוי די זכרונות פֿון יענער וועלט לעבן ווײַטער אין זײַנע ביכער.
אַרנאָלד זייבל איז אַ שרײַבער, דערציילער און אַקטיוויסט פֿאַר מענטשנרעכט. זײַנע ביכער, וואָס זענען אויף ענגליש, באַהאַנדלען טעמעס פֿון אימיגראַציע, זכּרון און גלות. צווישן זײַנע באַקאַנטע ביכער געפֿינען זיך „קאַפֿע שעהעריזאַד“ און „בריליאַנטן און אַש“.
די אונטערנעמונג איז פֿרײַ פֿון אָפּצאָל. כּדי זיך צו פֿאַרשרײַבן, גיט אַ קוועטש דאָ.
The post Zoom chat: Memories of Yiddish and Bund gatherings in Melbourne appeared first on The Forward.
