Uncategorized
Iranian Jews caught between frustration and hope as US debates intervention
Over the past several weeks, Iranian American Jews have watched a historic uprising unfold in Iran. For many in the diaspora, the protests feel like a potential watershed moment for revolution in Iran. But alongside that hope is concern that the American conversation around Iran has been subsumed in domestic debates about American power abroad.
For Iranian Jews, this moment is sharpened by history. Most fled Iran during and after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, when social and political instability became widespread, Sharia law was imposed, and life for religious minorities fundamentally changed. The Jewish population, once estimated at around 100,000, has since dwindled to between 8,000 and 10,000. As Iranian Jewish human rights activist Marjan Keypour told the Forward, “the Jews in Iran were given a one-way ticket right out of the country.”
These protests have unlocked long dormant possibility that Jews might one day return to Iran — if not to live, then at least to visit on their own terms.
“Every Persian kid is asking their parents, ‘Where would you go first? If we go back to Iran, where will you take me?’” said Moji Pourmoradi, former assistant director of the High School at Temple Israel of Great Neck, a community that is home to one of the largest Persian Jewish populations in the country. “People haven’t asked those questions since they left. They were not allowed that hope.”
America First?
That newfound optimism makes the stakes of the uprising profound for Iranian Jews. “When I’m with my family, we talk about Iran every day,” said Tyler Moshfegh, a 21-year-old Iranian Jew from Los Angeles who still has relatives in the country. Recently, he said, those conversations have been marked by frustration over how many other anti-regime protest movements in Iran since 1979 have been crushed.
“Every time, the U.S. government says they’re going to support the people of Iran,” Moshfegh said, “and then it just gets thrown under the rug after a week.”
Iranian Jews had initially been buoyed by comments from President Donald Trump, who said in a Jan. 14 Truth Social post addressed to Iranian protesters, “KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!… HELP IS ON ITS WAY.” The U.S. moved major military assets to the Middle East this week, and threatened the use of force unless Iran agreed to a nuclear deal.
But in the time between the message and the military movement, thousands of protesters were reportedly killed by Iranian regime forces, giving some the impression that Trump’s shifting rhetoric had left the protesters defenseless. For them, allowing the regime to evade accountability for the mass killing of demonstrators in exchange for a nuclear deal does not go far enough.
“There are many people who are like, ‘Trump, you better not back down,’” said Rabbi Tarlan Rabizadeh, a vice president at American Jewish University and the daughter of Iranian immigrants. “We believed in you. If you do this, we’re never going to believe in you again. And you’re going to have blood on your hands.”
At the same time, some Iranian American Jews described feeling pressure to defend their concerns as calls grow on the American right to avoid foreign intervention altogether. Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote on X that “President Trump threatening war and sending in troops to Iran is everything we voted against in ’24.”
Anna Hakakian, a community leader and president of the Babylonian Jewish Center Sisterhood in Great Neck, said, “The ‘staying out’ rhetoric feels like abandonment, especially when it translates into silence on human rights or appeasement of the regime.”
Rabizadeh said she struggles to understand how critics ignore the Iranian regime’s broader threat to the U.S. because it is the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism, funding groups like Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.
“Forget about Israel,” she said. “What about the Houthis and all of the American ships they keep bombing?”
A deafening silence
Yet even more resistance to the idea of U.S. military action in Iran comes from Democrats — 79% of whom oppose intervention even if protesters are killed while demonstrating, compared to 53% of Republicans.
For Hakakian, the paucity of activism supporting the protesters revealed a double standard.
“Where are all the celebrities who speak loudly about human rights?” Hakakian said. “Where are the feminists? Where are the campus activists? It’s not west versus east, it’s not colonizer versus oppressed, so the suffering is ignored.”
That frustration has been compounded by antisemitic conspiracy theories circulating in some progressive spaces – including one shared by a Columbia University professor – claiming the protests in Iran were instigated by the Mossad to distract from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“In Great Neck, where many families have direct memories of persecution and exile, this framing seems dehumanizing, and it has an antisemitic undertone,” Hakakian said, adding, “It’s very much in line with what the regime narrates and what they want people to believe.”
On social media, some on the left have criticized the Iranian diaspora’s support for opposition figure Reza Pahlavi, who has been widely attacked for being pro-Israel. Pourmoradi said that Iranian Jews are frustrated by the refusal of those on the left who refuse to back U.S. intervention because they believe it is connected to promoting Israeli interests.
“Their ignorance isn’t just ignorance anymore. It’s detrimental. How many of those people that can’t back it have spoken to anybody who lived through it?” she said. “I think that most of my community feels the same way.”
Keypour said involving Israel in the conversation was a cheap way to dismiss the thousands of lives that had already been sacrificed in the Iranian people’s struggle for freedom.
“If we are mixing the conversation about Iran with Israel, Zionism, and Mossad,” said Keypour, “we discredit the agency of the Iranian people that they have exhibited so bravely.”
The post Iranian Jews caught between frustration and hope as US debates intervention appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Man Charged With Hate Crime for Car Ramming at Chabad Headquarters in Brooklyn
Police control the scene after a car repeatedly slammed into Chabad World Headquarters in Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. The driver was taken into custody. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
Police in New York City charged a man on Thursday with a hate crime and other charges after he allegedly rammed his car repeatedly into Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters in Brooklyn.
The suspect, 36-year-old Dan Sohail, has been charged with attempted assault as a hate crime, reckless endangerment as a hate crime, criminal mischief as a hate crime, and aggravated harassment as a hate crime, New York City Police Department (NYPD) Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny announced at a press conference on Thursday.
“The hate crime right now is that he basically attacked a Jewish institution,” Kenny explained. “This is a synagogue, it was clearly marked as a synagogue, he knew it was a synagogue because he had attended there previously.”
The Chabad-Lubavitch movement is an influential force in Orthodox Judaism that operates around the world. The iconic 770 Eastern Parkway building in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn became the world headquarters of the Hassidic movement in 1940.
The NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force is leading the investigation into the car ramming.
Sohail is a resident of New Jersey and has no criminal history in New York City, Kenny said. The vehicle he allegedly used on Wednesday night was registered under his name and, earlier this month, Sohail attended an event at the Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters.
“We believe that he was in Brooklyn last night to continue this attempt to connect with the Lubavitch Jewish community,” Kenny said. Sohail was due in court on Friday.
Footage from the incident showed Sohail drive his vehicle multiple times into the rear door of the 770 Eastern Parkway building in Crown Heights, according to Kenny, who added that the suspect stepped out of his vehicle, removed several blockades from his path, and cleared snow away from a sidewalk before ramming into the building.
Later, when talking to police, Sohail claimed his foot slipped and that he lost control of the car because he was wearing “clunky boots,” Kenny said. No injuries were reported and the damaged synagogue door is currently being repaired, according to Yaacov Behrman, head of public relations at the Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters.
“It is clear the incident was intentional,” Behrman added. “The attacker removed the metal bollards that typically block the ramp and protect the entrance shortly before driving into the building. The bollards have since been restored.”
The car ramming took place the same day as the 75th anniversary of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson being chosen as the leader of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.
Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, chairman of the Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters, said in a statement on Thursday night that the incident “underscores a painful and undeniable reality: acts of hate, intimidation, violence, and antisemitic aggression are no longer isolated incidents or abstract threats.”
“Condemnation alone is insufficient. Real deterrence requires prompt, decisive action by the justice system — through swift prosecution and meaningful consequences — to discourage further incidents and ensure public safety,” he said. “As this incident occurred while the anniversary of the beginning of the Rebbe’s leadership was being observed worldwide, we reaffirm our faith that the world is meant to be refined — not ruled by fear or force, but cultivated as a place of moral clarity, responsibility, and goodness. We remain committed to that vision, even in the face of events such as this.”
The ramming incident occurred amid an alarming surge in antisemitic hate crimes across New York City.
Uncategorized
Left-Wing Conspiracists Attempt to Connect Israel With Minneapolis ICE Shootings
People tend to a candlelight vigil assembled for Alex Pretti at the Veterans Affairs New York Harbor Healthcare System on Jan. 29, 2026, in New York, New York, USA. Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital, died Jan. 24 after being shot multiple times during a brief altercation with border patrol agents. Photo: Derek French / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
Political progressives are attempting to draw a direct link between the ongoing unrest in Minneapolis over US Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) and Israel, suggesting that the Jewish state has trained or infiltrated critical American governmental agencies.
A sprawling constellation of left-wing social media accounts and news outlets have argued that Israeli agencies have trained or assisted ICE, a federal agency responsible for conducting criminal investigations and enforcing immigration laws. They claim that Israel has collaborated with ICE in surveillance and detainment strategies. On social media platforms such as TikTok, baseless claims that ICE agents are from Israel have gone viral.
“From Palestine to Minneapolis, ICE and Israel use the same playbook,” wrote popular, far-left social media pundit Sulaiman Ahmed on X/Twitter.
Protests in Minneapolis have intensified following a surge in federal immigration enforcement operations and two controversial fatal shootings involving federal agents this month. Demonstrations grew after large numbers of ICE and partner agents were deployed to the area under an expanded enforcement initiative, drawing criticism from local activists and officials. A statewide strike and mass rallies followed, then expanded nationally after the shooting of a Minneapolis hospital worker during an ICE operation, prompting a US Justice Department civil rights investigation.
Controversial leftist social media personality Hasan Piker was suspended from the Twitch streaming platform for spreading anti-Israel conspiracy theories and making antisemitic comments in attempt to connect ICE to the Jewish state.
“This is another big suck my d**k to all the f**king Israel d**k riders out there. You f**king rabid ultra-Zionist pigs,” Piker wrote.
“You run around going ‘Why are you tying this back to Palestine?’ Because this is precisely the same s**t. You Israel-first monsters,” he added.
Piker also posted that Israel had helped the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) implement a “censorship regime” to label Americans “domestic terrorists” and carry out surveillance “on the basis of their anti-Israel & anti-ICE activism.”
“Two senior national security officials tell me there are more than a dozen secret watch lists that homeland security is using to track protestors (both anti-ICE and pro-Palestinians),” he wrote.
Other progressive commentators pointed out that ICE maintains offices in Tel Aviv, suggesting that the agency is controlled by Israel
“ICE isn’t just trained by the IDF [Israel Defense Forces], they have a whole office on Israeli-occupied land,” wrote another left-wing account on X/Twitter.
However, ICE maintains a broad international presence through its Homeland Security Investigations division, operating dozens of offices at US embassies and consulates in more than 50 countries worldwide. While ICE is best known domestically for immigration enforcement, its overseas units primarily serve as investigative and liaison posts focused on transnational crime, including human trafficking, smuggling networks, financial crimes, and sanctions violations.
Josh Paul, a self-described “human rights activist” and a former director of congressional and public affairs for the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, attempted to draw parallels between ICE and Israeli policy in the West Bank
“You have units of a security force that are imposed on the local authorities, imposed on the local police, that engage in checkpoints, detentions, including of children […] And it seems to operate broadly with impunity,” Paul told Responsible Statecraft, a publication of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a think tank critical of US support for Israel.
“It’s kind of every man for himself. They are obviously not operating under any standard operating procedures,” Anthony Aguilar, a US Army veteran and former contractor for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) who has made discredited claims against Israel, told the publication. “This is exactly how the Israel Defense Forces operate in Gaza.”
Aguilar claimed he witnessed the IDF shoot a child — Abdul Rahim Muhammad Hamdene, known as Abboud — as the GHF was distributing humanitarian aid on May 28. The GHF was an Israeli and US-backed program that delivered aid directly to Palestinians, blocking Hamas from diverting supplies for terrorist activities and selling them at inflated prices. An independent investigation later revealed that Abdul had not been killed and was alive with his mother, exposing that Aguilar’s story was fabricated.
There is no evidence to suggest that ICE, which is part of the US government and charged with enforcing American immigration laws, has taken any direction from Israel in Minneapolis.
Uncategorized
Israeli NGO Uncovers Online Terror Plot Targeting Jews in US on Passover, Shares Data With FBI
Rabbi to the UAE Rabbi Levi Duchman helping to prepare matzah. Photo: Jewish UAE/Shneor Shif.
The Israeli nongovernmental organization Fighting Online Antisemitism (FOA) announced this week that it uncovered a terrorist plot by white nationalists to target Jewish communities in the United States on the eve of Passover and that the intelligence was handed over to the FBI.
The NGO said the planned terrorist attack was orchestrated by a “white nationalist accelerationist cell” and was scheduled for April 1, the first night of the Jewish holiday. FOA discovered messages by the terrorist cell on X in which the white nationalists discussed their goal to “bring the Nova massacre home,” which is a reference to the deadly Hamas-led terrorist attack at the Nova music festival in Re’im, Israel, of Oct. 7, 2023. Members of the cell talked about their intent to repeat the Nova attack in the US by using weapons and targeting Jewish families that would be gathering to celebrate Passover.
“We have been following this X account for a few months and recently we have noticed a shift from general slurs to operational specifics,” said Tomer Aldubi, FOA’s founder and executive director. “The group began discussing the acquisition of knives and celebrating the Oct. 7 atrocities as a blueprint. They explicitly stated it was ‘time for violence’ because ‘Jews don’t learn.’ We realized they were counting down to April 1.”
FOA shared several of the messages it found on X that were related to the terrorist plot. One post read: “Honestly we don’t have to go anywhere. Everyone just wake up on April t, choose violence, clean up our communities and cities.” Another message said: “April 1. Delete the Invaders. Pass It On!
FOA, which was founded in 2020, said it shared its intelligence with X so that the platform could remove the accounts owned by members of the terrorist cell. FOA has worked with X for many years, according to the Israeli organization. The data has also been shared with the FBI.
“The team secured a comprehensive evidentiary file, including digital fingerprints of the ringleaders, operating under specific handles, and transmitted the intelligence directly to the FBI Detroit Field Office’s hate crimes division via a confidential channel,” FOA stated.
“The distance between an online post and a terror attack is shrinking,” said Aldubi. “This success was made possible by our trained volunteers, proving that individuals have the power to protect their communities and fight antisemitism. Join us and get training on how you too can stop the next attack.”