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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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A comedian went viral for saying he supports Israel onstage — he wasn’t even there
Menachem Silverstein’s High Holidays were interrupted by what he calls a beautifully ironic “monkey paw situation.”
“Like any good Jewish comedian, I’m in Rosh Hashanah services praying to God for a little bit of a boost in my career, for something to go viral, for something to hit,” Silverstein, a 30-year-old comic in Los Angeles, told me. “I turn my phone after hag. I have about 40-plus messages from people being like, ‘What the hell’s happening? Is this you?’”
Friends were sending him links to a video of a crowd leaving a theater in the middle of a standup set. The caption overlaid on the clip said, in English and Arabic, “audience walks out after comedian backs Israel.” On an X post with more than 2 million views, an account named “Truthseeker” identified the comic as Silverstein.
Silverstein knew immediately the video was of the Laugh Factory in Chicago, a venue he last played this summer. He had no memory of the crowd walking out — a traumatic experience for any standup. In fact, as he took a closer look at the video, he realized it wasn’t even him onstage.
“My most viral thing was not showing up to a comedy club, which is hilarious in itself,” said Silverstein, who estimates across platforms the clip has been seen more than 10 million times. “If I would have known, I would have missed more shows.”
By the time Silverstein was clued into his virality, it was too late to contain the disinformation.
Alex Jones picked the clip up, commenting, “It’s got one guy in a yarmulke. He literally says, ‘If you don’t support what Israel is doing in this war, leave.’”
No such statement is made in the clip. There’s no guy in a yarmulke, only a man in a dark t-shirt who appears to be blindfolded. This didn’t stop news outlets like Palestine Chronicle and the 1.1 million follower Global Reports Instagram account from running with the story.
Someone captioned the original clip — now deleted — indicating the comedian stated their support for Israel, leading to a mass exodus. From there, Truthseeker identified Silverstein as the comic, based, Silverstein believes, on a joke he retired about three years ago.
“Basically, the joke was, ‘Hi, my name is Menachem. I stand with Israel. It’s not political; they’re just the only people that can pronounce my name.’”
Grok and other AI models reinforced the claim that Silverstein was the person in the clip. But the real reason for everyone leaving their seats was something much less loaded: a prank.
David Fuhrer, president of the Laugh Factory said, based on an account confirmed by the Chicago Laugh Factory’s head of operations, that the video was from a Sept. 10 performance of a regular show called “What Could Go Wrong?,” in which practical jokes are played on comics.
“In this particular case, we had a comedian named Kieron Harrell and we blindfolded him and put headphones on him,” Fuhrer said. “They walked the entire audience out into the lobby as a joke so he had an empty room he was performing to.”
Fuhrer said it had “nothing to do with antisemitism or people walking out on Menachem.” He doesn’t know who repurposed the video, only that it had gone viral.
“It’s a shame because he’s a wonderful person and a great performer and a part of our family here.”
If you go to the “What Could Go Wrong?” Instagram, you’ll see a better image of the real comic, Harrell, who looks nothing like Silverstein.
Daniel Cassilagio, who produces “What Could Go Wrong,” captioned the images of the performer, saying the show was “so good that it was used as a geo political [sic] disinformation campaign.”
Cassilagio wrote on Instagram that the clip was recorded, uploaded without the producers’ knowledge and “then virally shared by what are most likely bots from China.”
People who don’t check their sources have “been harassing both the comic that was on stage, and a comic from LA who I’ve never even heard about or met,” Cassilagio wrote on a post that, judging by its 166 likes, has far less visibility than the fake account. “He wasn’t even in Chicago at the time.”
Silverstein told me that, while he added around 200 followers, he’s been inundated with hateful comments and his reach has dropped as people have been reporting his account. If you search his name now, the top hits are for his nonexistent scandal. When he’s looking to play clubs, he’s concerned that bookers will see he “walked a crowd” and deny him a slot.
Beyond the made-up controversy, there’s not much about geopolitics in Silverstein’s act. His material includes jokes on fatherhood, being 5’9” (“a Jewish 6’2”) and some well-deserved ribbing of Kanye West. In videos, he can be seen circumcising a baby carrot.
In an age when performers like Macklemore and Jerry Seinfeld have been canceled for their views on Israel and Palestinians, Silverstein sees a new frontier in his experience.
“It used to be you watch a podcast or watch a stand-up clip, clip someone out of context, post it, and get them canceled,” he said. “Now they’re getting away with just posting a random thing, putting your name on it, and then people believe it.”
The post A comedian went viral for saying he supports Israel onstage — he wasn’t even there appeared first on The Forward.
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‘Run, hide, fight’: Synagogues make threat preparedness part of High Holiday services
Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky plans to open his Yom Kippur sermon this year in an unusual way: with an emergency evacuation plan.
It’s how he opened his Rosh Hashanah sermon, too.
“I mentioned [that] people should understand where the exits are,” Kanefsky said. “I mentioned what our plan is, God forbid, if we need to evacuate the children in the youth program — that we have volunteers for that.”
Kanefsky, senior rabbi at B’nai David-Judea Congregation in Los Angeles, acknowledged that the reminder to prepare for the worst could be “potentially a little bit jarring” on the holiest days of the year. But with synagogues on heightened alert, he said, it felt unfortunately necessary.
“It’s just part of our lives right now,” he said. “That extra measure of vigilance.”
Extra security measures at synagogues are nothing new. Since the 2018 shooting that killed 11 worshippers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue, Jewish institutions have invested heavily in infrastructure, personnel and training to counter the threat of violence. But this High Holiday season, several synagogues are taking the unusual step of integrating emergency preparedness into the services themselves, whether through verbal instructions like Kanefsky’s or written plans handed out alongside prayer books.
A flyer distributed at Beth Tzedec Congregation in Toronto outlines a three-point plan in the event of an attack: Run, hide or — as a last resort — “Be prepared to defend yourself.”
“Remember: Your actions before police arrive may save your life,” it reads in all-caps.
In August, the Jewish nonprofit Secure Community Network released a safety card that synagogues can customize with their own evacuation maps then place in their pews. While a range of scenarios could prompt a building evacuation, like a fire or earthquake, the card focuses on reacting to an attack.
It includes instructions for how to make a tourniquet to stop bleeding and tips for fleeing or fighting “the shooter.”
And at Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco, a flyer advising congregants to run, hide, or fight in the event of an attack was placed on every other seatback during Rosh Hashanah.
“It brought home the potential dangers in a way I hadn’t seen before,” Frances Dinkelspiel, a member of Congregation Emanu-El, told the Forward. “You’re going in for services. You’re opening your heart. There’s a sense of community. You’re embracing one another. And then there’s this piece of paper that’s reminding you: Don’t relax too much.”
Kanefsky said he felt a responsibility to his congregation to provide safety instructions, noting that the High Holidays may attract out-of-town visitors unfamiliar with the building.
But he also acknowledged that such warnings “can take away from the spiritual mood that we’re working so hard on building,” he said.
Kanefsky said he tried to make the announcement as unobtrusive as possible — giving the instructions in what he called “a spiritual and emotional envelope” by thanking the synagogue’s security team and framing preparedness as “part of the devotion to one another and our devotion to God.”
Michael Masters, Secure Community Network’s CEO, said the High Holidays present an elevated security risk at synagogues compared with other times of year. Even basic preparedness measures, like knowing where the exits are, can make a meaningful difference in a threat situation, he said.
He cited the ramming attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, in March as a prominent recent example. Seconds after the assailant drove a truck filled with explosives through a building entrance, a security guard opened fire on the vehicle; after the vehicle caught fire, the campus was safely evacuated.
“The guard was there, and he was well trained, and he did an amazing job, as did law enforcement,” Masters said. “But the faculty and the staff and the students were all trained as well.”
Dinkelspiel emphasized that she feels safe at her synagogue, which has a modern security system and bollards around the sidewalk to prevent cars from driving onto the property. But that sense of safety, she said, was part of what made the flyer so unnerving.
“After all these security measures the congregation has,” Dinkelspiel said, “there was still this reminder on this flimsy piece of paper that Jews can be attacked at any time.”
The post ‘Run, hide, fight’: Synagogues make threat preparedness part of High Holiday services appeared first on The Forward.
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Mamdani once vowed to arrest Netanyahu. Now he won’t join protests against him.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Wednesday that he will not join protests against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he arrives in the city to address the United Nations annual gathering next week and pushed back on the suggestion that he ever encouraged New Yorkers to protest the Israeli leader.
“I do not have any plans to attend any protest at the U.N. General Assembly,” Mamdani told reporters. “To New Yorkers, I have never encouraged them to protest. What I have always told them is that they have the right to do so in the city.”
But two months ago, when Mamdani was asked what New Yorkers frustrated with Netanyahu should do when the Israeli leader came to the city for the annual fall U.N. event, the mayor repeatedly pointed to protest as an option. “I think one of the bedrocks of our city is protest,” Mamdani said at a July 22 press conference. “It is something that has been a part of what makes our city so special: that New Yorkers can express themselves, whether they are in support or in opposition, no matter the topic.”
Mamdani’s July remarks came after a legal review the mayor ordered concluded that he lacks the power to order the arrest of Netanyahu, a pledge he made during his mayoral election campaign.
In July, when a reporter followed up directly, “Are you urging them to protest?” Mamdani stopped short of saying yes. But he again pointed to protests as a way for New Yorkers who oppose Netanyahu to make their voices heard. “I’m simply saying that this is a city where — if anyone feels a level of frustration or opposition, protest is something that we will always respect,” Mamdani said. “I leave it to New Yorkers themselves to make that decision,” he added.
From arrest pledge to protest rights
Mamdani had campaigned on ordering Netanyahu’s arrest based on a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court in November 2024, which accused the Israeli prime minister, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Netanyahu has rejected the charges. The United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court and the Trump administration imposed sanctions on the ICC months after it issued the warrants.
After taking office, Mamdani ordered a legal review and acknowledged in July that New York City does not have the authority to execute the ICC warrant.
He made that announcement in an unusual video address describing Netanyahu as “a war criminal, the architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people” and declared that the Israeli leader would not be welcome in New York, home to the largest concentration of Jews in the United States.
The address drew criticism from Jewish leaders who questioned why the mayor was devoting so much attention to an arrest he acknowledged he could not legally carry out. The criticism came amid growing tension between Mamdani and parts of New York’s Jewish community over his rhetoric about Israel. Jewish organizations have also raised concerns about it contributing to a hostile climate for Jews across the city.
It was against that backdrop that Mamdani was pressed at the July press conference about what he would tell Palestinian supporters who had welcomed his promise to arrest Netanyahu, and were disappointed that he could not fulfill it. That is when he turned to protest as a remaining option. “I want to make it very clear that that welcome ends with me,” Mamdani said. “ I will not be welcoming Benjamin Netanyahu or any other war criminals when they come to this city.”
Netanyahu is expected to arrive in New York City next Wednesday under heavy security measures and address the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday before returning to Israel. One Israeli media outlet reported that the official plane carrying the Israeli leader, known as “Wings of Zion,” will land at Newark International Airport in New Jersey instead of John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York due to concerns that Mamdani could try to prevent the aircraft from remaining parked at JFK during Netanyahu’s visit.
Protests against Netanyahu are planned outside his hotel and near the United Nations during his address. Jewish groups are also planning a mass rally against antisemitism on Wednesday.
At Wednesday’s press conference, Mamdani drew a sharper distinction between encouraging protests and defending the right to hold them. “We respect that right,” he said. “And this is a city that is proud of the Constitution, proud of the First Amendment; we’ll continue to do so.”
Mamdani cited the same First Amendment right when asked about students from Ramaz and SAR, two prominent Modern Orthodox schools, who are planning a prayer vigil outside the mayor’s residence on Friday morning in support of Israel. “They can have a vigil, or I’ve heard some describe it even as a ‘protest,’” he said. “Whatever it is intended to be, they have the room and space to do so outside of Gracie Mansion. Though, he added, he would “probably be somewhere else across the city” when they gather.
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