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Jersey City’s outgoing Jewish mayor Steven Fulop signs antisemitism orders as ‘guardrails’ for his successor
(JTA) — As he leaves office after nearly 13 years, Jersey City’s Jewish mayor Steven Fulop is leaving his successor “guardrails” he hopes will help protect the city’s Jewish community.
Fulop, who has served as Jersey City’s mayor since 2013, signed two executive orders on Dec. 22: one banning the city from participating in efforts to “boycott, divest from, and sanction the State of Israel,” and the other to protect houses of worship and congregants from protest.
Fulop said in an interview that he assigned the orders to ensure that the “next administration doesn’t go in a direction that I think is adverse to some of the communities in Jersey City.”
James Solomon, who is being sworn in on Wednesday after being elected in November, has not publicly commented about Israel or the war in Gaza. But Fulop said he expected Solomon to soon face “pressures from a lot of different people, including the city council.”
New members elected to Jersey City’s city council last month include Jake Ephros and Joel Brooks, who are both members of the Democratic Socialists of America, a leading critic of Israel. Ephros, who is Jewish, has been a vocal pro-Palestinian advocate and co-organized a October 2023 letter titled “Not in Our Name! Jewish Socialists Say No to Apartheid and Genocide,” which compared Israel to Nazi Germany.
“For me, it was important to set Jersey City in a place that, even with a new council coming in, that it was set on a path to protect a large and growing Jewish community in Jersey City so that they do not feel that there’s any discrimination,” Fulop told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Fulop’s executive orders echoed those of former New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who also signed executive orders shortly before leaving office banning BDS and regulating protests outside of synagogues, knowing that his successor, Zohran Mamdani, is a staunch critic of Israel.
Mamdani swiftly repealed Adams’ orders within his first hours in office this month.
Fulop said he doesn’t know where Solomon leans. “There isn’t a lot that he said on it, so how he views this, and if he views it as something that he’s going to engage in in Jersey City, is unclear,” he said. “But it doesn’t change the fact that you see a trend nationally that definitely is leaning more into antisemitic rhetoric, and I think we need to be conscious of that.”
Solomon did not respond to requests for comment. Solomon is not Jewish.
Fulop chose not to run for reelection as mayor last year after serving for three terms. In June, he lost his bid for the Democratic nomination in the New Jersey gubernatorial election to Mikie Sherrill, who won the race in November.
With a total population of about 300,000 just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, Jersey City is home to approximately 6,000 Jews, according to a 2018 population study by the Berman Jewish DataBank, and hosts roughly seven synagogues and a handful of kosher eateries. The city’s Jewish population has grown over the past decade, driven in part by Orthodox families seeking more affordability than in neighboring New York City.
Fulop garnered national attention in 2019 after he was one of the first New Jersey officials to describe a deadly shooting at a kosher market as antisemitic.
“The governor and attorney general were reluctant to call it an antisemitic attack, and I pushed publicly,” Fulop recalled. “I got criticized for it, but I thought it was important at the time to recognize what it was while the world and the country was watching how we respond to make sure that it is clear that it was an antisemitic attack because we can’t be dismissive of these sort of things.”
At the time, an influx of Jewish residents in the city had stoked tensions over concerns about gentrification, but Fulop said that he had worked to “build bridges” between the city’s diverse communities.
“There was a lot of strain between the African American community and the Jewish community, a lot of misunderstanding between the two communities,” said Fulop. “We did our best to facilitate conversations between leadership in both those communities in order to build bridges. I think we did a good job.”
Fulop’s efforts to contend with antisemitism have not always placed him in lockstep with Jewish leaders in New Jersey. Last year, for example, he announced that he opposed the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, saying that he believed New Jersey “already has strong hate crime legislation” and that it was important to “protect free speech.” The definition has drawn criticism for identifying some forms of Israel criticism as antisemitic.
“I think that specific definition is counter productive,” he said in his announcement, which came amid a push for the state to adopt the definition. He added, “I say this in the context of someone who is Jewish, as someone who has a Jewish education, as someone who is a descendent of Holocaust survivors. as someone who is continued supporter of the NJ-Israel Commission and someone that opposes BDS legislation.”
Last week, the New Jersey Legislature failed to advance on a bill to adopt the IHRA definition, eliciting criticism from the state’s five Jewish federations, including the one serving Jersey City.
Fulop said that, so far, protests outside of synagogues and BDS efforts had not been as prevalent in Jersey City as they have been in New York in recent months. Still, he said, he hoped the executive orders could serve as “guardrails.”
“Historically, antisemitism kind of creeps up in a lot of different places when it’s unexpected, and from my standpoint, even when you’ve seen it in other cities across the country, even though it hasn’t been in Jersey City, putting those guardrails in place and those protections were important,” said Fulop.
Looking ahead to Jersey City’s new leadership, Fulop, who will soon serve as the president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, said he viewed his executive orders as “helpful” to his successor.
“I view this as helpful for him, ultimately, that it sets up principles that protect everybody, and you’re not going to discriminate against anybody,” he said. “That was how we looked at it.”
The post Jersey City’s outgoing Jewish mayor Steven Fulop signs antisemitism orders as ‘guardrails’ for his successor appeared first on The Forward.
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High-Stakes US Special Forces Mission Rescues Airman From Iran After F-15 Crash
FILE PHOTO: A U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft takes off for a mission supporting Operation Epic Fury during the Iran war at an undisclosed location, March 9, 2026. U.S. Air Force/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
US forces staged the audacious rescue of an airman behind enemy lines after Iran downed his fighter jet, officials said on Sunday, resolving a crisis for President Donald Trump as he weighs escalating the war, now in its sixth week.
The airman rescued by special operations forces, who Trump said was a colonel, was the weapons-systems officer on the downed F-15, a US official told Reuters.
“Over the past several hours, the United States Military pulled off one of the most daring Search and Rescue Operations in US History,” Trump said in a statement, adding that the airman was injured but “he will be just fine.”
The officer was the second of two crew members on the warplane that Iran said on Friday had been brought down by its air defenses. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said several aircraft were destroyed during the US rescue mission, Tasnim news agency reported.
Reuters reported on Friday that the first crew member had been retrieved, triggering a high-profile search by both Iran and the United States for the remaining airman.
Iranian officials had urged citizens to help find him, hoping to gain leverage against Washington in the war Trump and Israel launched on February 28.
Trump has threatened to escalate the conflict in the coming days with attacks on Iran’s energy infrastructure.
Had Iran captured the airman, the ensuing hostage crisis could have shifted American public perception of a conflict that opinion polls show was already unpopular.
Trump said the airman was rescued “in the treacherous mountains of Iran” in what he said was the first time in military memory that two US pilots had been rescued, separately, deep in enemy territory.
The official told Reuters that as the weapons-systems officer was moved from near a mountain to a transport aircraft parked within Iran, US forces had to destroy at least one of the aircraft because it had malfunctioned.
U.S. AIRCRAFT HIT
The rescue effort, involving dozens of military aircraft, encountered fierce resistance from Iran.
Reuters reported on Friday that two Black Hawk helicopters involved in the search were hit by Iranian fire but escaped from Iranian airspace.
Separately, a pilot ejected from an A-10 Warthog fighter aircraft after it was hit over Kuwait and crashed, the officials said, though the extent of crew injuries was unclear.
Still, Trump was triumphant.
“The fact that we were able to pull off both of these operations, without a SINGLE American killed, or even wounded, just proves once again, that we have achieved overwhelming Air Dominance and Superiority over the Iranian skies,” he said in his statement.
US air crews are trained in what to do if they go down behind enemy lines, measures known as Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, but few are fluent in Persian and face a challenge in staying undetected while seeking rescue.
The conflict has killed 13 US military service members, with more than 300 wounded, US Central Command says. No US troops have been taken prisoner by Iran.
While Trump has repeatedly sought to portray the Iranian military as being in tatters, they have repeatedly been able to hit US aircraft.
Reuters reported on US intelligence showing that Iran retains large amounts of missile and drone capability. Until just over a week ago, the US could only determine with certainty that it had destroyed about one-third of Iran’s missile arsenal.
The status of about another third was less clear, but bombings probably damaged, destroyed or buried those missiles in underground tunnels and bunkers, Reuters sources said.
The US and Israeli war on Iran has spread across the Middle East, killing thousands and hitting the global economy with soaring energy prices that are fueling fears of inflation.
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On Easter, Pope Leo Urges World Leaders to End Wars, Renounce Conquest
Pope Leo XIV waves from the main balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica after delivering his “Urbi et Orbi” (To the city and the world) message, on Easter Sunday at the Vatican, April 5, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Remo Casilli
Pope Leo urged global leaders in his Easter message on Sunday to end the conflicts raging across the world and abandon any schemes for power, conquest or domination.
The pope, who has emerged as an outspoken critic of the Iran war, lamented in a special message to the thousands gathered in St. Peter’s Square that people “are growing accustomed to violence, resigning ourselves to it, and becoming indifferent.”
“Let those who have weapons lay them down!” the first US pope exhorted. “Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace!”
Leo did not mention any specific conflicts in the message, known as the “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and the world) blessing. It was unusually brief and direct.
The pope said that the story of Easter, when the Bible says Jesus rose from the dead three days after not resisting his execution by crucifixion, shows that Christ was “entirely nonviolent.”
“On this day of celebration, let us abandon every desire for conflict, domination, and power, and implore the Lord to grant his peace to a world ravaged by wars,” Leo urged.
Leo, who is known for choosing his words carefully, has been forcefully decrying the world’s violent conflicts in recent weeks and ramping up his criticism of the Iran war.
In a sermon for the Easter vigil on Saturday night, he urged people not to feel numbed by the scope of the conflicts raging across the world but to work for peace.
The pope made a rare direct appeal to US President Donald Trump on Tuesday, urging him to find an “off-ramp” to end the Iran war.
In his address from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica on Sunday to the Square below, decorated with thousands of brightly colored flowers for the holiday, Leo offered brief Easter greetings in ten languages, including Latin, Arabic and Chinese.
The pope also announced he would return to the Basilica on April 11 to host a prayer vigil for peace.
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Temple Mount Set for Limited Reopening to Jews and Muslims
Israeli National Security Minister and head of Jewish Power party Itamar Ben-Gvir gives a statement to members of the press, ahead of a possible ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Jan. 16, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon
i24 News – Israeli authorities are preparing to partially reopen the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to both Jewish and Muslim worshipers for the first time since the start of the war with Iran, under a tightly controlled and highly restricted security arrangement, i24NEWS has learned.
According to details obtained by i24NEWS, the Israeli police, backed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, are also expected to permit limited access for Jewish worshipers to the Western Wall as part of the same phased plan.
Under the framework, access to the Temple Mount and surrounding holy sites would be restricted to small groups of up to 150 people at a time. In the event of a missile alert, all visitors would be immediately evacuated in accordance with emergency protocols.
The decision follows a recent Supreme Court ruling allowing demonstrations in a limited format. Police argue that a consistent standard must apply across both civic gatherings and religious sites, with Ben-Gvir insisting that “there cannot be one rule for demonstrations and another for the Temple Mount.”
However, the reopening contradicts recommendations from the Home Front Command, which has advised keeping sensitive sites closed due to the ongoing risk of missile attacks.
Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin has proposed transferring authority over such security-related decisions exclusively to defense officials, an initiative that could reshape the balance between the judiciary and security establishment regarding restrictions on public access.