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Judaism doesn’t want you to wander and live just anywhere — or does it?
(JTA) — I was a remote worker long before the pandemic made it a thing, but it was only last month that I really took advantage of it. Early on the morning of New Year’s Day, I boarded a plane from Connecticut bound for Mexico, where I spent a full month sleeping in thatch-roofed palapas, eating more tacos than was probably wise and bathing every day in the Pacific. I’ll spare you the glorious details, but suffice it to say, it wasn’t a bad way to spend a January.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, I found myself again and again coming into contact with expats who had traded in their urban lives in northern climes for a more laid-back life in the tropics. There was the recently divorced motorcycle enthusiast slowly wending his way southward by bike as he continued to work a design job for a major American bank. There was the yoga instructor born not far from where I live in Massachusetts who owned an open-air rooftop studio just steps from the waves. There were the countless couples who had chosen to spend their days running beachfront bars or small hotels on the sand. And then there were the seemingly endless number and variety of middle-aged northerners rebooting their lives in perpetual sunshine.
Such people have long mystified me. It’s not hard to understand the lure of beachside living, and part of me envies the freedom to design your own life from the ground up. But there’s also something scary about it. Arriving in middle age in a country where you know nobody, whose language is not your own, whose laws and cultural mores, seasons and flora, are all unfamiliar — it feels like the essence of shallow-rootedness, like a life devoid of all the things that give one (or at least me) a sense of comfort and security and place. The thought of exercising the right to live literally anywhere and any way I choose opens up a space so vast and limitless it provokes an almost vertiginous fear of disconnection and a life adrift.
Clearly, this feeling isn’t universally shared. And the fact that I have it probably owes a lot to my upbringing. I grew up in an Orthodox family, which by necessity meant life was lived in a fairly small bubble. Our house was within walking distance of our synagogue, as it had to be since walking was the only way to get there on Shabbat and holidays. I attended a small Jewish day school, where virtually all of my friends came from families with similar religious commitments. Keeping kosher and the other constraints of a religious life had a similarly narrowing effect on the horizons of my world and thus my sense of life’s possibilities. Or at least that’s how it often felt.
What must it be like — pardon the non-kosher expression — to feel as if the world is your oyster? That you could live anywhere, love anyone, eat anything and make your life whatever you want it to be? Thrilling, yes — but also frightening. The sense of boundless possibility I could feel emanating from those sun-baked Mexicans-by-choice was seductive, but tempered by aversion to a life so unmoored.
The tension between freedom and obligation is baked into Jewish life. The twin poles of our national narrative are the Exodus from Egypt and the revelation at Sinai, each commemorated by festivals separated by exactly seven weeks in the calendar, starting with Passover. The conventional understanding is that this juxtaposition isn’t accidental. God didn’t liberate the Israelites from slavery so they could live free of encumbrances on the Mayan Riviera. Freedom had a purpose, expressed in the giving of the Torah at Sinai, with all its attendant rules and restrictions and obligations. Freedom is a central value of Jewish life — Jews are commanded to remember the Exodus every day. But Jewish freedom doesn’t mean the right to live however you want.
Except it might mean the right to live any place you want. In the 25th chapter of Leviticus, God gives the Israelites the commandment of the Jubilee year, known as yovel in Hebrew. Observed every 50 years in biblical times, the Jubilee has many similarities to the shmita (sabbatical) year, but with some additional rituals. The text instructs: “And you shall hallow the 50th year. You shall proclaim liberty throughout the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: each of you shall return to your holding and each of you shall return to your family.”
Among the requirements of the Jubilee was that ancestral lands be returned to their original owners. Yet the word for liberty is a curious one: “d’ror.” The Talmud explains its etymology this way: “It is like a man who dwells [medayer] in any dwelling and moves merchandise around the entire country” (Rosh Hashanah 9b).
The liberty of the Jubilee year could thus be said to have two contrary meanings — individuals had the right to return to their ancestral lands, but they were also free not to. They could live in any dwelling they chose. The sense of liberty connoted by the biblical text is a specifically residential one: the freedom to live where one chooses. Which pretty well describes the world we live in today. Jewish ancestral lands are freely available to any Jew who wants to live there. And roughly half the Jews of the world choose not to.
Clearly, I’m among them. And while I technically could live anywhere, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to. I like where I live — not because of any particular qualities of this place, though I do love its seasons and its smells and its proximity to the people I care about and the few weeks every fall when the trees become a riotous kaleidoscope. But mostly because it’s mine.
A version of this essay appeared in My Jewish Learning’s Recharge Shabbat newsletter. Subscribe here.
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The post Judaism doesn’t want you to wander and live just anywhere — or does it? appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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He sold a house to Justin Bieber. Now this LA investor has given Chabad $100M to build one of the world’s largest Jewish centers.
(JTA) — A Los Angeles real estate investor known for selling homes to celebrities has donated a $100 million office tower to Chabad, the global Orthodox Jewish outreach movement, to create what is slated to become one the world’s largest Jewish centers.
Alon Abady and his wife, Monique, transferred the 16-story, 300,000-square-foot complex at 9911 W. Pico Blvd. to Chabad of California, which plans to transform it into the Chabad Campus for Jewish Life.
The property sits in the Pico-Robertson neighborhood, the heart of Jewish Los Angeles, down the street from the Museum of Tolerance and near the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Fox Studios and, since 2023, the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, a Conservative movement seminary.
Chabad officials say the building was appraised last fall at $103 million, making it one of the largest single gifts ever to a Jewish organization. The new campus is expected to serve as a regional hub for Jewish religious life, social services and education, as well as a global center for the Lubavitch movement’s worldwide network of emissaries.
The campus will include a synagogue, life-cycle venues, youth and senior programs, mental-health and social services, museums and support for Jewish students on college campuses, along with facilities for large communal and international gatherings.
“It will be an epicenter of Jewish life,” said Rabbi Chaim Nochum Cunin, one of the leaders of West Coast Chabad. “It will transform the landscape of Jewish life in Los Angeles and throughout the world.”
Abady, who works as a managing partner of Waterfall Bridge Capital, paid $35 million for the property in 2023 with plans to redevelop it. The current market value of $103 million reflects an appraisal by Partner Valuation Advisors conducted in September, according to Rabbi Motti Seligson, director of public relations for Chabad’s headquarters in Brooklyn.
Abady is best known for high-profile real estate deals in Los Angeles, including the $96 million purchase of the Sofitel Beverly Hills hotel in 2021. He has also been involved in a series of widely noted residential transactions, including buying and later selling Simon Cowell’s former Beverly Hills home and selling a property to Justin and Hailey Bieber.
The campus will rank among the largest Jewish institutions in the world. It will be smaller than Chabad’s 538,000-square-foot Menorah Center in Dnipro, Ukraine, but larger than most Jewish community centers in North America and comparable in scale to New York’s 92nd Street Y, which also includes residential and non-Jewish cultural facilities.
Abady said his gift reflects a long-standing relationship with Chabad that dates back to his family’s arrival in Los Angeles in the 1970s, when they were assisted by Rabbi Baruch Shlomo Cunin, Chabad’s West Coast director.
“This is a lifelong dream that also allows me to honor my parents and my children,” Abady said in a statement. “When my family immigrated to Los Angeles in the 1970s, Chabad was there for us. That was never forgotten.”
The announcement comes at a moment when many Jewish institutions are under financial strain. In Los Angeles, it follows the recent sale of the American Jewish University’s historic Bel Air campus. The 22-acre hilltop property was transferred in 2024 to Milken Community School, its neighboring Jewish middle and high school, and AJU’s rabbinical school, Ziegler, moved to Pico-Robertson.
While the final purchase price was not publicly disclosed, the sale was widely reported to be in the roughly $60 million range, allowing Milken to expand its campus as AJU consolidated its operations.
The post He sold a house to Justin Bieber. Now this LA investor has given Chabad $100M to build one of the world’s largest Jewish centers. appeared first on The Forward.
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Houston Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair wears ‘stop the genocide’ eye black
(JTA) — In his postgame interview on Monday night, Houston Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair said the things you’d expect to hear, like crediting his teammates for a dominant playoff win and praising his coach.
But on the Pro Bowler’s eye black was a message that you don’t see every day on ESPN: “STOP THE GENOCIDE.”
Al-Shaair, who is Muslim, has long been a vocal pro-Palestinian advocate.
In December 2023, as a member of the Tennessee Titans, Al-Shaair chose to support the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund through the NFL’s “My Cause, My Cleats” program.
“Given the recent events in Israel and Gaza, this nonprofit provides medical aid and essential supplies to children injured and left homeless by the bombings in Gaza,” he said in his entry about the charity.
Al-Shaair supported the same charity in 2024 and 2025 as a member of the Texans, and has worn cleats that read “FREE” on one side, referring to the “Free Palestine” movement, and “Surely to Allah we belong and to him we will all return” on the other. The cleats also featured the text, “AT LEAST 41,788 Palestinians killed, 10,000+ estimated to be under the rubble, 96,974 wounded.”
Al-Shaair has also signaled criticism for Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza, about which he’s become an outspoken advocate on and off the field.
“I feel like it’s something that’s trying to be silenced,” Al-Shaair told the Houston news site Chron in 2024. “On either side, people losing their life is not right. In no way, shape or form am I validating anything that happened, but to consistently say that because of [Oct. 7] innocent people [in Gaza] should now die, it’s crazy.”
Al-Shaair was one of two active NFL players who signed onto the “Athletes for Ceasefire” letter, which called on President Joe Biden to call for a ceasefire in February 2024.
The Texans named Al-Shaair as their club winner for the 2025 Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, which recognizes “players who excel on the field and show exceptional dedication to uplifting their communities with consistent, positive impact.”
A post on the Texans’ website details Al-Shaair’s charitable work including support for homeless youth and adults, hosting a movie night at NRG Stadium for HYPE Freedom School students, and providing free tickets and food for students from the Muslim Organization of Sports, Socials and Education. His pro-Palestinian advocacy is not mentioned in the post.
While the linebacker has been vocal about his pro-Palestine views, Monday night’s postgame interview with Scott van Pelt — during which he said nothing about Israel or Gaza, but had an eye black message big enough to read during his close-ups — may have been his loudest form of advocacy yet, as it came shortly after a nationally televised playoff game on ESPN. Video of the interview has circulated on social media and drawn praise from pro-Palestinian activists.
“This is how you use your platform. Proud of you brother,” wrote Omar Suleiman, an imam and activist with over 1 million followers.
According to the NFL rulebook, players are “prohibited from wearing, displaying, or otherwise conveying personal messages either in writing or illustration, unless such message has been approved in advance by the League office.” The rule also states that the league “will not grant permission” to players displaying a message “to political activities or causes, other non-football events, causes or campaigns, or charitable causes or campaigns.”
The most notable case of political activism in the NFL in the last decade came when Colin Kaepernick, protesting police brutality, refused to stand for the national anthem. Kaepernick was not issued a fine or suspension by the NFL, though no teams signed him as a 29-year-old free agent, leading to debate over whether he was blackballed by the league for his stance.
Players have previously been fined for wearing eye black with personal messages, though they had not gotten league approval before their games. Al-Shaair has not been issued a fine.
The post Houston Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair wears ‘stop the genocide’ eye black appeared first on The Forward.
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What the ‘synagogue of Satan’ slur tells us about Christian antisemitism
The man charged with arson in the burning of Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson, Miss., called the institution a “synagogue of Satan” in an interview with authorities, according to an FBI affidavit.
The phrase, originating in the New Testament book of Revelation, has been used in recent years to attack Jews, making its way into graffiti on Jewish institutions, antisemitic conspiracy theories and in far-right commentator Candace Owens’ criticism of Jewish figures.
But its meaning is not necessarily consistent: “Synagogue of Satan” has been used to refer to a supposed Jewish conspiracy to control the U.S. government, as a broad indictment of Jewish people as Satanic and as a narrow critique against Jewish people perceived as behaving badly. It has been used by Christian nationalists and by Nation of Islam leaders.
It remains unclear how the term made its way into the vocabulary of Stephen Spencer Pittman, who was arrested the day of the attack. Pittman, 19, followed dozens of Instagram accounts that share motivational Bible quotes and created a website promoting “scripture-backed fitness.” But his public social media activity apparently only turned antisemitic on Jan. 10, when he shared an antisemitic cartoon and confessed to setting fire to Beth Israel.
Origin of a slur
The book of Revelations, the last book of the New Testament, uses the phrase twice in a message of comfort to Jesus’ followers facing persecution, castigating “the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not.” The implication is that the early Christians’ persecutors are perverting the meaning of Judaism to further their ends.
Christian scholars note that the author of Revelations was likely Jewish. Nevertheless, the phrase has come to serve as a catch-all to justify antisemitism by claiming that Jews are inherently Satanic, or out of favor with God’s plans for the world.
Its popularization as an antisemitic term may originate in the Christian Identity movement, a group of white evangelical extremists who believe that the true descendants of Adam are the white race, and the Jews are descendants of Cain — who in their view, is the offspring of Eve and Satan. The Christian Identity movement, which dates back to the early 20th century, peaked in the 1980s and 1990s, but it left a lasting impression on far-right theology.
The influential Evangelical leader Rev. Billy Graham — known as “America’s pastor” for his ubiquitous TV presence — infamously used the phrase in a 1973 conversation with then-President Richard Nixon, who at the time was complaining about Jews purportedly controlling the US media. (Graham apologized for his comments nearly 30 years later, after a recording of the conversation became public.)
Graham’s use of the term underscored a key connection between Christian Zionism and antisemitism. He told Nixon in that recorded conversation that while he supported Israel, Jewish people didn’t understand his real feelings about them, which is that there were two types of Jews: conservative ones who supported Graham and his ministry, and the “synagogue of Satan” — liberal-minded ones and especially Jews who worked in media.
Fuel on the fire
In recent years, the term has come to be applied more creatively. Controversial rapper Jay Electronica used it in a song in 2014. Nation of Islam leader Abdul Haleem Muhammad blamed the synagogue of Satan in 2016 for a supposed plot to de-masculinize American black men through marijuana. A group of neo-Nazi agitators that has flyered neighborhoods around the country with propaganda draped a banner over a Los Angeles freeway with the phrase in Oct. 2022.
If the term can be said to have a “power user” today, it would be Owens, the far-right commentator who has promoted a range of antisemitic conspiracy theories, including Frankism and the notion that Israel was behind Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
Owens has accused Jewish conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, and “radical Zionists” of being members of the synagogue of Satan.
But Owens is merely one of a slew of right-wing agitators who have accelerated use of the term in recent months.
Andrew Torba, the chief executive officer of the far-right social media hotbed Gab, posted an entire essay last fall — titled “Naming the Synagogue of Satan” — saying Christendom was under threat because the US had been captured “with AIPAC donations” and “Hollywood propaganda.”
As recently as Dec. 2025, a far-right podcaster in Colorado called for the execution of Gov. Jared Polis and other Jewish state democrats, referring to them as “Synagogue of Satan Jews.”
Just a few weeks later, Beth Israel Congregation, the oldest synagogue in Mississippi, was slapped with the moniker the day it went up in flames.
The post What the ‘synagogue of Satan’ slur tells us about Christian antisemitism appeared first on The Forward.