Uncategorized
Jack Kirby finally gets his corner of the city that made him super
Jack Kirby Way is located at the intersection of Essex and Delancey Street and at the crossroads of a created universe.
More prosaically, it shares a corner with a McDonald’s and a halal truck. Across the street is the subway stop and the old, permanently closed Essex Street Market building from whence Levy’s sold its famous frankfurters. If you cross Delancey, you reach the new Essex Market, boasting world cuisines and the singular hybrid food of macaroni-and-cheese pancakes at Shopsins General Store.
A few blocks away: Forget it, Jack, it’s Chinatown. But in this small patch of the world, Jacob Kurtzberg came of age amid the pushcarts and street melees he documented in his graphic story Street Code and reimagined in Yancy Street, the home turf of the Fantastic Four’s Ben Grim.
“You became a toreador at an early age, just dodging ice wagons,” Kirby, born on 147 Essex, later recalled, not disguising his fear of “the ghetto,” and his desire to break free from a world that all but required membership in a street gang to survive.
On May 11, Kirby made a homecoming nonetheless. Dozens, many in costume, gathered to witness the dedication of the street that now bears his name. The word on everyone’s lips: “overdue.”
“I think everyone on Earth at this point knows something Jack Kirby made without knowing the name,” said Alex Baglio, dressed in the original, Kirby-designed costume of Captain America’s sidekick Bucky Barnes.
For years, devotees of King Kirby have had to settle for hints of his massive influence in Marvel’s new age of mass appeal — a forgettable Eternals film here, an homage to his art there.
“I was just excited by the wall painting in the back of Thor: Ragnarok; it took so little for me to be happy,” said Baglio, there with his coworker Kris Nedelka, who was dressed like Captain America.
More professional cosplayers were also in attendance; the Thing kicked off the occasion with the cry of “it’s clobberin’ time.” (Another, amateur Thing was so committed to character he kept his mask on, rendering his interview inaudible.)
The naming was more than symbolic recognition. For many, it was justice for a creator whose contributions were eclipsed, and arguably erased, by his creative partner and boss, the writer and editor Stan Lee, with whom he developed the Fantastic Four, X-Men, Black Panther and Thor, to name just a few.
Marvel has been slow to give him his full credit even after it exploded into a multibillion dollar multimedia franchise over a decade after Kirby’s 1994 death. (Lee, who wrote the credits on the comics, had a way of fudging exactly who had what idea.)
The effort to get Kirby his street cred due — there’s a Stan Lee Way in Lee’s old neighborhood in the Bronx — was fan-driven, following an earlier, one-day renaming at the same intersection in advance of last summer’s film Fantastic Four: First Steps.
“The street naming on July 9, 2025, what was meant as a homage and was done with full hearts, struck me as almost an injustice, because Jack Kirby deserved the street name in perpetuity,” said Roy Schwartz, a comic historian and Forward contributor who spearheaded the renaming effort.
It took the help of council member Chris Marte, who spoke movingly of Kirby’s origins and how they mirrored his own.
“His story is more than just the story of an incredibly influential comic book artist. His story is the story of the Lower East Side,” Marte said.
Both men were the children of immigrants (Kirby’s from Galicia, Marte’s the Dominican Republic) and garment factory workers. Both are alumni of PS 20. Both went to the Henry Street Settlement — in Kirby’s day, the Boys Brotherhood Republic — to escape their rough neighborhood.
A key difference: Kirby left. But never in his imagination, or arguably, his ethics.
The subtext of the ceremony, like the very intersection itself, was very Jewish.
Former president of DC Comics Paul Levitz remarked “the reason he’s Jack Kirby and not Jacob Kurtzberg is the name Jacob Kurtzberg would have been an anchor holding him down from doing what he dreamed and what he wanted to do.” (In 1990, when Kirby was asked if he changed his name because antisemitism was prevalent at the time, he said “Yes. A lot of it… And it hasn’t changed.”)
Kirby’s youngest granddaughter, Jillian, explained how his “acts of mitzvah” inspired her nonprofit Kirby4Heroes, which helps comic book workers in financial and medical need. Keeping with the theme, she read a letter from her father, Kirby’s son, Neal, who described his first visit to his dad’s neighborhood, for a cousin’s bar mitzvah, in 1962.
The service was in an Orthodox shul, conducted in Yiddish, English and Hebrew. Afterwards there was a kiddush in the foyer. Neal watched as his father, seeing an elderly man at the door of the temple, got up, took the man by the arm to an empty table, filled a platter with food and brought it to him without exchanging a word.
“I didn’t realize it then as a 14 year old, but the stereotype of the Lower East Side producing nothing but tough guys was a myth,” Kirby wrote. “When you grow up and every family is as poor as yours, and your friends and enemies alike are as poor as you are, I believe that breeds a compassion and empathy that most of us cannot understand. When you hear the expression that someone is in the same boat as you, in the case of the Lower East Side immigrant community, it probably was literally true.”
The neighborhood, largely Asian and Latino, looks different now— though a few kippot were in the crowd, along with a crew of Yeshiva boys who passed by — but the tribute, Jillian Kirby hoped, would continue to inspire, even as the family now lives on the West Coast.
With the move to Southern California in December 1968, Kirby’s creative life continued, and arguably became more Jewish. As an exhibit at the American Jewish Historical Society, coinciding with the naming, notes, it was in his California era that Kirby developed his New Gods series for DC.
“Even the New Gods, which is the space opera, like warring gods and faraway planets, all the bad guys are based on Nazi archetypes, and all the good guys are based on Jewish archetypes,” Schwartz said.
The Kirbys joined Temple Etz Chaim in Thousand Oaks, and Kirby made personal art — on display at the Center for Jewish History — of God, Jacob wrestling the angel and Joshua at the battle of Jericho. They are replete with Kirby’s signature “krackles” of negative space and the sci-fi piping he drew into characters like Galactus.
Jack was a family man; he and his wife Rosalind (Roz) hosted the Passover Seders. His granddaughter Tracy told me they hid the afikomen in the exact same spot every year: inside the piano bench. For Hanukkah, he sent a greeting card featuring the Thing with a kippah and siddur, on view at the AJHS exhibit.
Daniel Greenberg arrived early to the show, there in part to scope out evidence of Kirby’s neglected writing and story credits on his comics with Stan Lee.
“Jack Kirby’s place in history was stolen by a guy named Stan Lee,” said Greenberg, who is involved with a social media campaign to recognize Kirby as the primary author of his collaborations with Lee.
There are hints that the narrative is now breaking in Kirby’s favor in the years since Lee’s passing and the end of his cameos in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Fantastic Four: First Steps seemed to acknowledge Kirby’s pivotal role in the Marvel Universe, calling the world in which it takes place Earth-828 and explicitly acknowledging the origin of that number: Kirby’s birthday of Aug. 28.
The film also follows Ben Grimm — Kirby’s not-so-secret avatar — to Yancy St. where he meets a Hebrew school teacher named Rachel Rozman (Roz, no doubt a tribute to Kirby’s wife) and spends some time bearded and in shul.
A small but scrappy film crew was at the renaming, gathering footage for a documentary on Kirby. But real awareness starts at home.
“The city is recognizing that the city itself owes something to comics and that the city is a key player in comic books,” said Miriam Mora, a historian of American immigration, who sported X-Men earrings at the dedication.
“It’s not just this corner on the Fantastic Four, and it’s not just comics creators like Kirby, who grew up right here, it’s comics creators who grew up in Cleveland who still place their comics in New York City. It’s comic creators who grew up in San Diego, and still set their comics in New York, because there’s something magical about this space, and it’s where heroes come from.”
Curiously, a benediction was offered, just before the green paper covering was tugged away to reveal the bright new signage, not by a rabbi, but a reverend. Perhaps that speaks not only to the changed character of the neighborhood, but to the nature of Kirby’s universal appeal.
While Neal Kirby, due to health issues, couldn’t be there in person to see his father honored, he made the case for the neighborhood’s role in shaping Kirby’s life’s work.
“If you examine my father’s characters and you peel away the muscles, peel away the sinew and peel away the superpowers, you are left with a character of compassion, tolerance and empathy for his fellow man,” he wrote. “I believe that is the true legacy of being born and raised on the Lower East Side.”
The post Jack Kirby finally gets his corner of the city that made him super appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Hamas Blocks Rafah Reconstruction, Halting Gaza Rebuilding Effort Amid Ceasefire Stalemate
The damaged Al-Shifa Hospital during the war in Gaza City, March 31, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas members have reportedly blocked international efforts to begin reconstruction work in Rafah, a city in southern Gaza, in what appears to be the Palestinian terrorist group’s latest attempt to undermine a US-backed peace plan, as it continues to reject disarmament and stall progress on the ceasefire agreement with Israel.
According to a report by the Israeli broadcaster Kan News, armed Hamas operatives threatened contractors who were set to enter an area under Israeli control in Rafah in coordination with Israeli and American forces to begin reconstruction work funded by the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The team was forced to abandon the operation and turn back after Hamas members appeared on site and blocked access, derailing what was expected to be a key reconstruction project.
As the Palestinian terrorist group continues to refuse disarmament and negotiations have yet to yield any results, the UAE has reportedly tightened conditions for its continued funding of a new reconstruction project in Gaza.
Abu Dhabi has informed Israel that the reconstruction initiative — still in its planning stages — cannot proceed in any form unless the Hamas threat is neutralized.
The UAE has also conditioned progress on the project on Israel providing assurances that reconstruction infrastructure would not be damaged if fighting resumes.
For months now, the US-led Board of Peace has been conducting parallel negotiations with Israel and Hamas, attempting to tie the large-scale reconstruction of the war-torn enclave to the complete dismantling of the terrorist group’s weapons arsenal.
However, Hamas has consistently refused to relinquish its weapons, insisting that Israel must first fully comply with phase one of the ceasefire — including expanded humanitarian aid deliveries, full reopening of the Rafah crossing, and withdrawal of Israeli forces to the agreed Yellow Line — before any disarmament process can proceed.
For its part, Israel has warned that the Islamist group must fully disarm for the second phase of the ceasefire to move forward, pointing to tens of thousands of rifles and an active network of underground tunnels still under the terrorist group’s control.
In a joint operation by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, the Shin Bet, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad weapons production site in the northern Gaza Strip was destroyed this past weekend.
According to an IDF spokesperson, the site had also recently been used by Hamas to manufacture explosive devices and store weapons “intended to harm IDF troops operating in the yellow line area and Israeli civilians.”
Israeli forces additionally destroyed two underground tunnel routes, where they found several living quarters and weapons, and recovered dozens of rockets and explosive devices.
In the midst of stalled negotiations, Israel has expanded its control over the Gaza Strip, with the IDF now holding 64 percent of the territory, reportedly with the knowledge and approval of the Board of Peace, Israel Hayom reported.
The new boundary line, dubbed the Orange Line, replaces the more limited Yellow Line and expands Israel’s security zones by 34 kilometers (13 miles), covering roughly 11 percent of the war-torn enclave.
Israeli officials have vowed not to withdraw any troops from Gaza unless Hamas surrenders its weapons, warning that reconstruction efforts will also be blocked, effectively stalling the ceasefire agreement.
In its latest counterproposal, the terrorist group said that any transfer of its weapons would only be possible as part of a wider process leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Should negotiations collapse entirely, Israeli officials are now weighing contingency plans for a renewed military campaign, pushing the army to prepare for a potential return to combat and initiate a wide-ranging reassessment of its ground maneuver strategy and operational approach.
According to multiple media reports, Hamas has been quietly exploiting the pause in fighting to tighten its control over civilian life while simultaneously rebuilding its military capabilities behind the scenes.
The Palestinian terrorist group has been gradually reestablishing its civilian governance structures across the war-torn enclave, through checkpoints, strict regulation of goods, and control over key public institutions, including hospitals.
Hamas has also been reactivating internal security mechanisms to enforce day-to-day order, while conducting extensive intelligence operations aimed at identifying alleged collaborators with Israel and suppressing any opposition.
Even after more than two years of war, the group is also rebuilding its military capabilities, including recruiting new operatives, conducting field and command-level training, restoring intelligence and surveillance networks, and reconstructing underground tunnel systems and weapons stockpiles.
Uncategorized
Gen Z New Hampshire Congressional Candidate Refuses to Acknowledge Israel’s ‘Right to Exist’
New Hampshire state Rep. Heath Howard, a Democrat who is running for US Congress in the 2026 election, speaks during televised interview. Photo: Screenshot
A Democratic state lawmaker in New Hampshire now running for US Congress is facing mounting criticism after comments in which he refused to affirm the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state, reigniting a broader political debate over antisemitism and the boundaries of criticism of Israel.
During a new interview on WMUR’s “Close-Up,” congressional candidate Heath Howard rejected the idea that Israel possesses a unique “right to exist” as a Jewish nation. Howard also drew an equivalence between Israel, the closest US ally in the Middle East, and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, a US-designated terrorist organization.
“While there are a number of condemnable actions that they’ve taken, like any sort of government, I don’t think that Hamas has a right to exist. I don’t think Israel has a right to exist. I think that people have a right to exist,” Howard said.
Howard then appeared to defend the prospect of Hamas’s continued rule over Gaza as a form of Palestinian autonomy, saying, “We need to respect the will of the Palestinian people, and we need to make sure that they have access to democracy. We need to make sure that we allow the people to have self-determination.”
Heath has criticized the US relationship with Israel, saying that it has “furthered a lot of conflict in the Middle East,” and called for imposing enhanced restrictions on military assistance to Jerusalem.
He has also hand-waved suggestions that Hamas could be a danger to Jewish people and called for the transformation of Israel into a “secular state.”
Skeptics claim the comments crossed a line from criticism of Israeli government policy into opposition to Israel’s existence as a homeland for the Jewish people, a distinction many Jewish organizations say is central in determining when anti-Israel rhetoric becomes antisemitic.
Benjamin Sharoni, consul general of Israel to New England, rebuked Howard’s commentary.
“To suggest that Israel has no right to exist is not a nuanced policy position. It is a denial of history, reality, international law, and the very principle that grants legitimacy to every nation on earth,” Sharoni told NHJournal.com.
“Israel is a sovereign state, a member of the United Nations, and the national home of the Jewish people,” he continued. “Invoking universal rights while calling for the dismantling of a recognized state is not humanitarianism. Those who are genuinely committed to the rights of people must begin by acknowledging the right of nations to exist and defend their citizens.”
Howard’s policy platform contains a number of unorthodox suggestions, such as implementing a complete arms, trade, and intelligence embargo on Israel, forging closer ties with China, and the removal of the US blockade on Cuba.
“It is essential that we immediately cease our involvement in these endless imperial wars and adopt non-interventionism as a general policy. Moreover, we must immediately end all military aid and weapons sales to both Israel and Saudi Arabia and impose a complete arms, technological, and cultural embargo on Israel,” Howard’s campaign website reads.
“We must also work to restore and improve our relationship with China and work with them, not against them, to make technological, political, and societal progress — and above all, we must honor our commitments to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Charter of the United Nations,” his website continues.
The controversy comes at a particularly sensitive moment in American politics, as tensions surrounding Israel and the war in Gaza continue to divide parts of the Democratic Party following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. The massacre, which killed roughly 1,200 people and saw hundreds taken hostage, prompted widespread expressions of solidarity with Israel across much of the US political establishment. Since then, however, divisions have emerged between mainstream Democrats and a growing activist wing increasingly critical of Zionism and American support for Israel.
Supporters of Israel argue that denying Jews the right to self-determination to maintain a nation-state is discriminatory, especially given the existence of dozens of countries organized around national, ethnic, or religious identities. They also note that Israel serves as a refuge for Jews facing centuries of persecution.
Critics argue that Howard’s comments may fuel concerns among some Democratic strategists that rhetoric perceived as hostile to Israel could alienate moderate voters and Jewish Americans, particularly in swing districts. Several prominent Democrats nationally have faced similar scrutiny in recent months over statements questioning Israel’s legitimacy or character as a Jewish state.
The dispute reflects a broader ideological battle playing out inside the Democratic Party, where debates over Zionism, antisemitism, and Middle East policy have increasingly become litmus tests in some progressive circles.
Howard, a 25-year-old left-wing candidate, may be reflective of a newer generation of Americans which are broadly skeptical of the US-Israel relationship. Recent polling suggests that overwhelming majorities of younger Americans disapprove of the Jewish state.
Uncategorized
Mamdani supersizes NYC hate crimes office, as tensions simmer over synagogue protests
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced a nearly ninefold increase in New York City’s budget for preventing hate crimes as part of his budget proposal announced Tuesday, fulfilling a campaign promise that was central to his outreach to Jewish voters amid concerns about his stance against Israel.
The Jewish community overwhelmingly did not support his election, and his proposal comes amid rising tensions stoked by anti-Israel protests — most recently on Monday night, when dozens descended on a heavily Jewish Brooklyn neighborhood where a synagogue hosted a real estate sale that included West Bank properties.
Mamdani’s $26 million for the Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes would significantly expand an agency created in 2019 to combat rising antisemitism and other forms of hate, which currently has a $3 million annual budget
The office is tasked with addressing all hate crimes, and Mamdani did not specify how much of the $26 million would be directed specifically toward combating antisemitism, since the office is. According to the New York City Police Department, antisemitic incidents accounted for 57% of all reported hate crimes in 2025. The Anti-Defamation League’s 2025 annual audit found that while antisemitic incidents in New York declined by 19%, last year was still the third-highest year on record.
“Too often, the only response offered to a hate crime is exactly that, it’s a response,” Mamdani said. “Today we want to also do the work of preventing those hate crimes.” The mayor said most of the funding would go toward expanding existing city programs that have proven effective, alongside the rollout of the city’s first comprehensive municipal strategy to combat antisemitism, which is expected this fall.
Most of the office’s current funding goes towards a program called the Partners Against the Hate FORWARD initiative — in partnership with the NYC Commission on Human Rights — that offers grants up to $10,000 for community-based initiatives.
The proposal resembles a plan authored by Jews For Racial & Economic Justice, a progressive organization that supported Mamdani during the election. The JFREJ proposal called for between $26 million and $30 million in hate violence prevention initiatives, including expanded reporting systems, proactive relationship-building and anti-bias education.
In a statement Tuesday, the group hailed the investment as a “huge win” for advocates of a broader approach. “The Mamdani administration has significantly raised the bar for what it looks like to seriously address antisemitism and hate violence,” said Audrey Sasson, JFREJ’s executive director.
The hate crimes office expansion drew swift praise from Jewish elected officials, including some who have distanced themselves from Mamdani in their support for Israel. “Promises made, promises kept,” Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal posted on X. Rep. Dan Goldman — whose primary challenger, Brad Lander, is backed by Mamdani — said the funding is a worthy tool to combat hate: “It is vital that we all work together to ensure we do everything possible to keep New Yorkers safe.”
Hasidic leaders of both Satmar sects also applauded the mayor, with one organization calling the investment a “massive increase of resources to stop the rising tide of antisemitism in NYC.”
Still, Mamdani’s prevention strategy does not include measures in response to protests outside synagogues, which have included antisemitic displays and slogans.
On Monday night, pro-Palestinian protesters marched through the heavily Orthodox neighborhood of Midwood in Brooklyn, chanting slogans including calls for “intifada revolution” during a demonstration outside a synagogue hosting an event marketing real estate in Israel and West Bank settlements. The protest also drew a crowd of pro-Israel counterprotesters, many of them teenage boys, as police intervened to keep the groups apart. The NYPD reported four arrests, including two Jewish teens.
Under a new law recently passed in the City Council by a veto-proof majority, the NYPD is currently devising a synagogue protection plan that it must make public. But meanwhile, police officers accompanied the protesters as they circled residential blocks chanting anti-Israel slogans.
Many Jewish residents have said such protests leave them feeling intimidated or unsafe. The administration has yet to outline a more robust enforcement or public safety approach to demonstrations, and Mamdani — who has not commented on the Brooklyn confrontations — recently defended a similar protest of a real estate sale held on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
In a statement shared with the Forward, Mamdani condemned the violence at the protest and counter-protests on Monday night “alongside antisemitic, anti-Muslim and racist rhetoric, as well as racial slurs, displays of support for terrorist organizations, and calls for the death of others” as “despicable.”
“New Yorkers have the constitutional right to protest and to counter-protest, but no one should face violence, intimidation, or hatred because of who they are or what they believe,” the mayor added. “We can simultaneously protect both public safety and civil liberties, and our city remains committed to doing exactly that by upholding the right to peaceful protest while keeping every New Yorker safe.”
The post Mamdani supersizes NYC hate crimes office, as tensions simmer over synagogue protests appeared first on The Forward.