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Jewish teens balance pride and safety when navigating public spaces
This article was produced as part of JTA’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with teens across the world to report on issues that impact their lives.
(JTA) — After wearing his yarmulke all day at his Orthodox yeshiva on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Zac Jacobs takes it off before boarding the 6 train home.
“I think it helps mitigate any potential danger that I could be in,” Jacobs, 17, said. “You never know what could happen; the trains are mostly safe, but it takes one person to push you into the tracks.” Besides, he said, he knows that God is above him.
With the 2022 increase in transit crime and with a rise in antisemitic hate crimes, many young Jews in New York City are scared to display their heritage in public settings.
The violence hit close to home for Jacobs last November, when a man threw rocks at his school, Ramaz, damaging a window. It was the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the “night of broken glass” when, in 1938, the Nazis orchestrated attacks on synagogues and Jewish businesses.
For some teens, showing their Jewishness publicly can make them feel self-conscious.
Sima Epstein,16, is always wary of whether people can see the star of David necklace she wears.
“I probably wouldn’t hide it [my Judaism] in a situation or a conversation, but I wouldn’t let it come up” outside of school, said the junior at Yeshivat Frisch,an Orthodox day school in Paramus, New Jersey. “I would avoid discussing religious topics all together.”
Removing their yarmulke in public can be a tough call for a Jewish teen: Halachah, or Jewish law, requires that males wear a head-covering in public. And while the Torah permits Jews to protect themselves when there is a possibility of harm, not all rabbis would agree that riding the subway presents the kind of danger that would allow someone to hide their Jewishness.
“If we are so concerned about appearing Jewish on the subway, what does that say about our ability to live in New York?” says Rabbi Aviad Bodner, a spiritual advisor at Ramaz. As an Orthodox rabbi and mentor, he often deals with students who have concerns about showing their identity in public. “I’m very troubled by the recent uptick [in antisemitism], and it is something we should all be considering when we make decisions.”
Instead of a yarmulke, Bodner wears a fedora-style hat everywhere he goes, so being visibly Jewish is not a concern for him, but he understands and empathizes with students worried for their safety. However, this doesn’t stop him from studying Jewish texts on his morning commute.
He distinguishes between Jewish teens who are not wearing their kippot for safety reasons, and those who do not want to be viewed as “different” by the general public.
“All teens desire to fit in, and sometimes showing off their cultural heritage is not the way to be seen as popular, especially on college campuses, with antisemitism rising,” says Bodner. Day school students in particular are more likely to encounter antisemitic attitudes or anti-Israel hostility at college than they are in their parochial schools.
For Oren Leitner, 16, the issue is personal. A junior at the Torah Academy of Bergen County in Teaneck, New Jersey, Leitner was verbally attacked on the subway as an elementary school student. He was with his older brother and both wore kippot. “He started talking/screaming about how Christianity is the right religion and how we should not be Jewish,” Leitner said. “I was really young at the time, and I did not understand what was going on and was very scared.”
This and other antisemitic instances shaped his Jewish identity. Although in all other areas of his life, he wears his kippah proudly, on the subway he covers it up with a hood.
How Jewish he can look and act in public is a concern for Leitner as he considers applying to college. “It is a risk I would be willing to take if I end up going to one [that is not Jewishly affiliated]. But it is a factor my family and I will have to take into account,” he said.
Emy Khodorkovsky takes the opposite approach. He fights antisemitism by never hiding his Jewishness. “The only way we can combat Jew hatred is by being proud of our heritage,” the 16-year-old said. He understands why some of his friends decide not to display their Judaism openly. He also used to remove his yarmulke on the subway but not since the Ramaz junior became active in his school’s Israel advocacy club and recently attended the Anti-Defamation League’s “Never Is Now” summit on antisemitism.
“I was worried, like other people are, about getting attacked, but then I realized that we can not shy away from showing our beliefs just because others do not like it,” he said. He thinks about his parents who escaped antisemitism in the former Soviet Union for a better life for their children.
Khodorkovsky has never experienced aggression on the subway, and is unruffled by the curious looks he gets when he carries his lulav and etrog on Sukkot or his tefillin bag to school. “New York is a big place, and there are stranger things to look at than a kid carrying a palm tree,” says Khodorkovsky.
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Iran appoints AMIA bombing suspect to National Security Council
(JTA) —
For the second time this year, Iran has named a wanted suspect in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires to a top security role.
A spokesman for the Islamic Republic’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said Monday that Mohsen Rezaei had resigned as an adviser to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, and would assume the role of secretary of Iran’s powerful Supreme National Security Council. Rezaei is a former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Rezaei is wanted by Argentina and is subject to an Interpol Red Notice issued at Argentina’s request over his alleged role in the 1994 attack, which killed 85 people and remains the deadliest terrorist attack in Argentina’s history.
Earlier this year, Ahmad Vahidi, another suspect in the AMIA case and also the subject of an Interpol Red Notice, was appointed IRGC commander.
In a landmark ruling in 2024, an Argentine court held Iran and its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, responsible for the bombing, setting the stage for international legal action.
In June 2025, Argentina’s federal judiciary ordered that 10 Iranian and Lebanese suspects accused in connection with the deadly 1994 AMIA bombing be tried in absentia. Rezaei and Vahidi are among them.
The eight other suspects accused by the late AMIA special prosecutor, Alberto Nisman, are: former Iranian Intelligence Minister Ali Fallahijan, former Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, former Iranian ambassador Hadi Soleimanpour, former Iranian cultural attache in Buenos Aires Mohsen Rabbani and former Iranian diplomat Ahmad Reza Asghari, as well as suspected Hezbollah operatives Salman Raouf Salman, Abdallah Salman and Hussein Mounir Mouzannar.
The post Iran appoints AMIA bombing suspect to National Security Council appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel and AIPAC on the ballot in the Minnesota Senate and U.S. House races
(JTA) — A pair of Democratic primaries in Minnesota on Tuesday are among a string of high-profile battles between progressive and moderate candidates, where Israel and the pro-Israel lobby serve as key wedge issues.
The state’s highest-profile race is the U.S. Senate primary between Rep. Angie Craig, who has been endorsed by the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC, and Lieutenant Gov. Peggy Flanagan, who says she would reject AIPAC’s money and accuses Israel of committing a genocide.
The most recent data gathered in late July through early August has Craig with a 2-percentage point lead, within the 5.3% margin of error. Another poll, conducted in late July by a group supporting Flanagan, shows her with a 14-point lead. The Democratic nominee, whether it be Flanagan or Craig, is expected to win the general election in November.
The race, and the candidates’ sparring over AIPAC, comes as the lobby and Israel under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have become increasingly unpopular among Democratic voters. Israel is also an issue in the Democratic gubernatorial primary in neighboring Wisconsin taking place on Tuesday.
Flanagan has referred to Craig as “AIPAC’s candidate” in the Senate race, which prompted Craig to distance herself from the group’s spending during a TV debate in June.
“AIPAC has not contributed at all, the PAC, to my Senate campaign,” said Craig, whose wife, Cheryl Greene, is Jewish. “Not one penny.”
Flanagan countered that, while AIPAC itself has not donated to Craig’s campaign, it has held fundraisers for the four-term congresswoman. AIPAC did not respond to a request for comment.
Just last week in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, progressive Abdul El-Sayed defeated the moderate Rep. Haley Stevens, whose AIPAC endorsement was the frequent target of opposition attacks.
Flanagan has drawn the support of American Priorities, a pro-Palestinian super PAC that aims to counter AIPAC. The group spent about $54,000 on ads boosting her candidacy, according to FEC filings.
Flanagan’s platform includes blocking offensive weapons sales to Israel — a position that all but seven Senate Democrats voted for in April — and advancing a two-state solution that “allows for a secure Israel and Palestinian self-determination.”
Craig, who also backs a two-state outcome, voted against the recent amendment proposed by Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie that would have halted $3.3 billion in military aid to Israel.
In a statement explaining her vote, Craig panned Netanyahu and the war in Iran, but wrote that the amendment would endanger Israelis and American troops and allies in the region. After the vote, Flanagan wrote, “A vote to send $3.3 billion of taxpayer money to fund additional weapons of war to Benjamin Netanyahu is unconscionable. Enough.”
Craig has the endorsement of a number of Democrats in Congress and the Senate, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. She is also endorsed by lobbying group Democratic Majority for Israel, former Democratic presidential contender Pete Buttigieg, and Minneapolis’ Jewish mayor, Jacob Frey, who rose to national prominence for his response to the deadly results of the deployment of immigrant enforcement officials in his city.
Flanagan has drawn endorsements from a swath of major progressive figures including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and outspoken pro-Palestinian Reps. Ro Khanna of California and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. Flanagan is also endorsed by the state’s Democratic Party affiliate, the Democratic Farmer Labor Party.
On Sunday Sanders posted on X,”There is a reason why the super PACs and billionaires are flooding Minnesota with $20 million to defeat Peggy Flanagan. Same thing as Michigan. They do not want somebody in the Senate who will stand up for the working class.”
Spending by political action committees affiliated with AIPAC has also come to the fore in the Democratic primary race for the House seat that Craig is vacating.
The most moderate of the three leading candidates is State Sen. Matt Klein, who has expressed support for the U.S.-Israel relationship and is endorsed by DMFI. Last-minute spending by outside groups has sparked accusations that AIPAC is indirectly involved.
“AIPAC is coming after me,” said former Lakeville mayor Matt Little, one of Klein’s opponents, in a video.
Klein’s two opponents — Little and state Rep. Kaela Berg — both accuse Israel of committing a genocide, and have both speculated that AIPAC is behind some of the Klein spending.
Berg supports placing conditions on U.S. aid to Israel and halting weapons sales, and Little says the U.S. must end all military aid and weapons sales to the country. On the policy page of his campaign website, Little refers to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack as “an act of wanton slaughter against innocent civilians” and says that people should condemn “the anti-Semitism that followed.”
Berg is listed as “primary approved” by the liberal Jewish Middle East advocacy group J Street, while Little has been boosted by American Priorities, which has spent about $64,000 in his favor. He is also endorsed by the DFL and Congressional Progressive Caucus leader Rep. Pramila Jayapal.
The latest polling in the district — conducted at the end of May by a group that favors Klein — found Little leading Klein with a 7-percentage point lead, and Berg trailing by another 3 points. 39 percent of voters were undecided, and Little and Klein were about even after voters received more information about the three candidates.
Craig has declined to endorse any of the candidates to replace her.
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Sister of pro-Israel stalwart Lindsey Graham wins runoff slot
(JTA) — South Carolina Sen. Darline Graham and a second Republican candidate will advance to a special primary runoff in two weeks, when voters will decide which GOP candidate might take the vacant seat of her late brother Lindsey Graham.
Just over an hour after polls closed, at about 8:15 pm, the Associated Press declared that Darline Graham would advance to a runoff election, noting that “one additional candidate will also advance.” At that point Graham had secured 32.6% of the vote, with 39% of ballots counted.
Graham was up against nine fellow Republicans, with her biggest competition including U.S. House Reps. Ralph Norman and Russell Fry, who were closely vying for the second spot in the runoff at the time of the AP’s call. In South Carolina, the top contender would have needed to win a majority of votes in order to avoid the two-candidate runoff, scheduled for August 25.
In the November general election, the winner will face Democrat Annie Andrews, a pediatrician who is unlikely to prevail in this solidly Republican state.
Tuesday’s race marked the second time in two months that GOP voters came to the polls to select a Senate candidate, and now they will need to do so a third time. Longstanding Sen. Lindsey Graham, a top ally of Israel in the U.S. Senate and supporter of military action against Iran. won the original primary in June but died suddenly from an aortic dissection on July 11.
Graham, who was 71 years old, served 23 years in the Senate and eight in the U.S. House. He was a member of the Senate’s Armed Services and Budget committees and had traveled to Israel about a dozen times since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Heading into Tuesday’s primary, analysts expressed no doubt that the winner would be pro-Israel. They stressed, however, that matching Graham’s level of foreign policy experience and focus on Israel, a place he often visited, would be a formidable task.
“Whoever wins this is going to be an ally of Israel,” Christopher Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in the lead-up to the race. “The question is whether they will be the champion for Israel that Lindsey Graham was.”
A few days after Graham’s death, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, appointed Darline Graham to complete the late senator’s term. Despite having minimal policy experience, such as a past role on the South Carolina Commission for the Blind, she earned President Trump’s support and soon declared her candidacy in the full race.
While 10 candidates were running in the Tuesday primary, only about two others were considered serious competition for Graham, Norman and Fry: businessman Mark Lynch and Mark Sanford, whose governorship was plagued with scandals and who briefly ran against Trump in the 2020 presidential primaries.
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