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Leading Jewish security organizations form super group called the ‘Jewish Security Alliance’
(New York Jewish Week) — After police officers arrested two armed men at Penn Station last November and accused them of planning to attack Jews, it soon emerged that a local Jewish security agency had provided the tip that thwarted the attack.
In fact, the tipoff and arrest were due to the work of multiple Jewish security groups all active in the New York City area, leaders of those groups say. Evan Bernstein, the CEO of the New York-based Community Security Service, said it received intelligence about the men from a Jewish watchdog in the United Kingdom. It then passed that information on to the Community Security Initiative, which shared it with law enforcement agencies.
The Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, meanwhile, found that one of the men had tweeted a stream of antisemitic and misogynistic messages, according to Gothamist.
Now that partnership between the organizations, which have similar missions and similar names, is being formalized, leaders of the groups announced at a press conference on Tuesday. A new umbrella coalition called the Jewish Security Alliance will aim to act as the central point of contact for New York City-area and New Jersey law enforcement on issues affecting the Jewish community. The organizations all signed a “memorandum of understanding” formalizing the partnership, which they said has existed informally for the past six months.
“Coordination and intelligence in moments of crisis is critical,” Bernstein said at the press conference. “It is something that needs to be replicated across the United States. We cannot afford to be operating in silos. This type of working partnership makes our Jewish community safer.”
The new alliance is a partnership between the ADL, a national antisemitism and anti-extremism watchdog; the Community Security Initiative, which coordinates security for local Jewish institutions; and the local branch of the Community Security Service, whose main mission is to train volunteer security patrols at synagogues. The partnership also includes a number of Jewish federations in metro New York City and New Jersey.
Tuesday’s press conference was held at the ADL’s investigative research lab, in front of a wall of computer screens highlighting incidents of hate across America that resembled the headquarters of a surveillance agency in a James Bond film.
“There may be an incident that happened in Rockland, Nassau County and New Jersey, and because of the different geographies and different jurisdictions, no one law enforcement agency would necessarily know about it,” said Mitch Silber, executive director of the CSI, who previously served as director of intelligence analysis at the NYPD. “Because we’re that connective tissue between the communities among the different agencies, we can connect those dots.”
In addition to liaising with law enforcement agencies, the partnership will provide security training and recommendations to Jewish institutions and their members, according to a press release. It will also aim to be a “reliable and inclusive source of information on threats or other security issues” and will collect incident reports from Jewish institutions and community members. The ADL has established several other partnerships with Jewish organizations, such as Hillel International and leading organizations of the Conservative and Reform movements, to facilitate reporting of antisemitic incidents.
The announcement of the partnership comes days after the ADL released its annual national audit of antisemitism for 2022, which reported a 36% rise in incidents relative to the previous year. More than a quarter of the 3,697 incidents included in the report took place in New York state and New Jersey. The audit also found that the majority of the 111 antisemitic assaults in 2022 targeted Orthodox Jews, and that nearly half of the assaults, 52, took place in Brooklyn, which the report called the “epicenter of assaults.” An additional 14 took place elsewhere in New York City.
At the press conference, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt also highlighted another recent report by his organization that found that there are more people in the U.S. harboring antisemitic beliefs than anytime in the past 30 years.
“This is personal to me,” Greenblatt said. “I live here. This is my community. I go to synagogue every Saturday. My kids are at Hebrew school every week. I get angry. I’m outraged. We’re seeing those [antisemitic] beliefs create real harm.”
Scott Richman, the regional director of ADL’s New York-New Jersey office, called the partnership, “a formal declaration of a reality that has existed for some time.”
Bernstein said that before this partnership was formed, Jewish community organizations were “not really communicating” with one another.
“Everybody was repeating themselves and being off message a little bit,” Bernstein said. “As we react to something, if we have a unified force, for law enforcement to see that unification, and for the community to see that unification, and for it to have collectively the same voice across the board, is very important.”
After the press conference, Bernstein told the New York Jewish Week that this is “a pilot program” that he would like to see expand nationwide. According to a map of antisemitic incidents displayed at the press conference, Southern California and Miami were also hotspots of antisemitic activity. Bernstein said that CSS has branches in both those areas.
“This will be a case study,” Bernstein said. “If it does well, everybody is excited about this not becoming a one-off program. It’s gotta have some serious legs here to show that this really works long-term before we can think about other communities.”
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The post Leading Jewish security organizations form super group called the ‘Jewish Security Alliance’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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What I discovered during my visit to the Swedish paradise
נאָך אַ רעפֿעראַט וועגן דעם מצבֿ פֿון ייִדיש אין שוועדן, האָט פּראָפֿ׳ אַנאַ שטערנשיס אַ מאָל געזאָגט: „שוועדן איז אַ מין גן־עדן פֿאַר ייִדיש“.
איך בין לעצטנס געפֿאָרן קיין שטאָקהאָלם, כּדי צו האַלטן אַ לעקציע פֿאַר די אָרטיקע ייִדישיסטן — האָב איך געהאַט אַ געלעגנהייט צו זען דעם דאָזיקן גן־עדן מיט די אייגענע אויגן. פֿריִער האָט ער עקסיסטירט נאָר אין די לעגענדעס, וואָס אַנדערע ייִדישיסטן האָבן דערציילט: אַ לאַנד, וווּ ייִדיש איז אַן אָפֿיציעלע מינדערהייט־שפּראַך; אַ לאַנד וואָס שטיצט ייִדיש נישט בלויז מיט ווערטער, נאָר מיט אמתע געלטער; וווּ די מלוכה העלפֿט אַרויסצוגעבן ייִדישע ביכער, רעקאָרדירונגען, טעלעוויזיע און ראַדיאָ־פּראָגראַמען; וווּ עטלעכע פּראָפֿעסאָרן לערנען די שפּראַך אין אוניוועריסיטעט; וווּ יעדעס קינד האָט אַ רעכט צו פֿאָדערן דעם ייִדיש־לימוד און יעדע ביבליאָטעק דאַרף קויפֿן ייִדישע ביכער, אויב אַ בירגער וויל זיי לייענען.
פֿאַר מײַן נסיעה האָב איך געכאַפּט אַ שמועס מיט אַ רבֿ פֿון דער וואַרשעווער קהילה, וואָס איז געבוירן געוואָרן אין שטאָקהאָלם: הרבֿ יצחק ראַפּאָפּאָרט. שפּעטער האָב איך אויך געטראָפֿן הרבֿ ראַפּאָפּאָרטס מאַמע, וואָס וווינט אין שטאָקהאָלם, כאָטש זי שטאַמט פֿון פּוילן. זייער קוק אויף שוועדן איז ווייניקער גן־עדנדיק. למשל, אין שוועדן גייט הרבֿ ראַפּאָפּאָרט נישט אויף דער גאַס טראָגנדיק אַ יאַרמקלע, אַזוי ווי אין וואַרשע. אין שוועדן קען עס זײַן אַ סכּנה. טראָגט ער דאָרט אַ היטל איבער דער יאַרמלקע.
אָבער בשעת מײַן וויזיט האָב איך נישט געזען וואָס מורא צו האָבן, נישט קיין אַנטי־ישׂראל־פּראָטעסטן אָדער קיין גראַפֿיטי, ווי מע זעט אין אַ סך אייראָפּעיִשע שטעט. איך האָב יאָ געזען אַ סך יונגע משפּחות מיט קליינע קינדער, וואָס לויפֿן אַרום פֿראַנק און פֿרײַ אין אַלע עפֿנטלעכע ערטער. דאָס איז אַ סימן פֿון אַ לאַנד, וווּ מענטשן פֿילן זיך זיכער און פֿאַרזיכערט. אָבער, צוריק גערעדט, האָב איך זיך געדרייט בלויז אין צענטער שטאָט, אין די רײַכע, טוריסטישע געגנטן. דאָרט זענען מסתּמא נישט פֿאַראַן קיין סך אַנטיסעמיטן און טעראָריסטן.
אָבער פּלוצלינג האָט מיר פּאַסירט אַן אומגליק. איך בין אַרויס פֿון טראַמווײַ און זיך געכאַפּט, אַז איך האָב נישט מײַן טעלעפֿאָן. איך בין נאָכגעלאָפֿן דעם טראַמווײַ, אָבער — פֿאַרפֿאַלן. ער איז אַוועק מיט מײַן טעלעפֿאָן אָן אַ זײַ געזונט. די איבעריקע טעג פֿון מײַן וויזיט האָב איך פֿאַרבראַכט ווי אַ טוריסט פֿון די 1990ער יאָרן: נישט וויסנדיק וווּ איך פֿאָר און נישט וויסנדיק וואָס איך זע.
פֿון דעסט וועגן, האָב איך געזען, אַז שוועדן איז אַ געבענטשט לאַנד: שיין און ריין און אָן קיין אמתע פּראָבלעמען, אַחוץ אפֿשר דעם קאַלטן ווינטער. שוועדן האָט נישט געהאַט קיין מלחמה זײַט איבער צוויי הונדערט יאָר. קומענדיק פֿון פּוילן, וווּ מלחמות האָבן כּסדר חרובֿ געמאַכט דאָס לאַנד אין משך פֿון דער גאַנצער געשיכטע, איז געווען אינטערעסאַנט צו זען אַן אָרט, וווּ גאָרנישט איז נישט חרובֿ געוואָרן.
די הײַנטיקע שוועדן זענען אָבער גאָר נישט ענלעך צו די אַמאָליקע. הײַנט איז שוועדן אַ לאַנד פֿון ליבעראַליזם, פֿעמיניזם, און טאָלעראַנץ. מיט הונדערטער יאָרן פֿריִער האָבן די שוועדישע אַרמייען געוואָרפֿן אַ פּחד אויף גאַנץ אייראָפּע. אין פּוילן געדענקט מען נאָך די „שוועדישע פֿאַרפֿלייצונג“ פֿון 17טן י״ה, ווען די שוועדישע סאָלדאַטן האָבן פֿאַרוויסט און באַראַבעוועט דאָס לאַנד. אין משך פֿון די מלחמות דעמאָלטס איז אומגעקומען אַ דריטל פֿון דער פּוילישער באַפֿעלקערונג. אין די שוועדישע מוזייען קען מען נאָך הײַנט זען שיינע קונסטווערק און סקולפּטורן, און פֿון די אויפֿשריפֿטן לעבן די חפֿצים דערוויסט מען זיך, אַז דאָס האָבן די שוועדן אין יענע יאָרן געגנבֿעט פֿון די פּוילישע פּאַלאַצן.
סוף־כּל־סוף זענען די שוועדן געוואָרן מיד פֿון די אַלע מלחמות. די געווינערס זענען סײַ ווי געווען נישט די שוועדן און נישט די פּאָליאַקן, נאָר די רוסן. רוסלאַנד האָט פֿאַרכאַפּט די שוועדישע אימפּעריע בײַם באַלטישן ים, אַרײַנגערעכנט פֿינלאַנד. זײַט דעמאָלטס איז שוועדן געוואָרן אַ לאַנד פֿון שלום און ראַציאָנאַליזם.
בשעת דער צווייטער וועלט־מלחמה האָט די שוועדישע רעגירונג געהאָלפֿן צו ראַטעווען טויזנטער ייִדן. אין 1943 האָבן די שוועדן מיטגעאַרבעט מיט די דענער, וואָס זענען געווען אונטער דער דײַטשער אָקופּאַציע, כּדי אַריבערצושמוגלען די דענישע ייִדן קיין שוועדן. דענישע פֿישערס האָבן אין זייערע שיפֿלעך אַריבערגעבראַכט קיין שוועדן איבער 7,000 ייִדן. אין 1944, בעת די דעפּאָרטאַציעס פֿון אונגערישע ייִדן קיין אוישוויץ, האָט די שוועדישע רעגירונג געשיקט דעם דיפּלאָמאַט ראַוּל וואַלענבערג קיין בודאַפּעשט, כּדי צו ראַטעווען וואָס מער ייִדן. וואַלענבערג האָט צעטיילט „שוצפּאַסן“, וואָס האָבן געמאַכט די ייִדן פֿאַר פּאָטענציעלע שוועדישע בירגער. ער האָט באַהויזט עטלעכע טויזנט אונגערישע ייִדן אין געוויסע בנינים, וואָס מע האָט גערופֿן די „שוועדישע הײַזער“. אַזוי זענען איבער פֿיר טויזנט ייִדן געראַטעוועט געוואָרן.
נאָך דער מלחמה זענען טויזנטער ייִדישע פּליטים געקומען קיין שוועדן. אַ סך זענען ווײַטער געפֿאָרן קיין ישׂראל אָדער אַמעריקע, אָבער אַ טייל זענען געבליבן. אַ סך פּליטים זענען געקומען דווקא פֿון פּוילן און דערפֿאַר רעדן די שוועדישע ייִדן — אויב זיי קענען ייִדיש — געוויינלעך פּויליש ייִדיש. איך האָב געהאַלטן אַ לעקציע מיטן טיטל „פּויליש ייִדיש איז דאָס בעסטע ייִדיש“ און דאָס איז אַלעמען געפֿעלן — אַחוץ איין ליטוואַטשקע (הרבֿ ראַפּאָפּאָרטס מאַמע).
איך האָב גערעדט מיט עטלעכע ייִדן פֿונעם „דור פֿון 1968“. אין יענעם יאָר האָט די פּוילישע רעגירונג דורכגעפֿירט אַן אַנטיסעמיטישע קאַמפּאַניע און פֿאַרטריבן די מערסטע ייִדן פֿון לאַנד. איין פֿרוי האָט מיר געזאָגט, אַז זי וויל אַפֿילו נישט באַזוכן פּוילן. זי איז נאָך אַלץ אין כּעס איבער דעם אופֿן, ווי אַזוי די פּאָליאַקן — די פּשוטע מענטשן, נישט די רעגירונג — האָבן זי באַהאַנדלט מיט 60 יאָר צוריק. זיי האָבן אויסגעכאַפּט די געלעגנהייט אויסצודריקן זייער אַנטיסעמיטיזם. איך האָב איר געזאָגט, אַז די הײַנטיקע פּאָליאַקן זענען גאַנץ אַנדערש, אָבער עס איז שווער איבערצורעדן אַן עלטערן מענטשן.
ייִדן זאָגן: אַ גאַסט אויף אַ ווײַל זעט אויף אַ מײַל. אַ באַזוכער זעט זאַכן, וואָס די אײַנוווינערס זעען נישט, ווײַל זיי זענען אַזוי צוגעוווינט צום אָרט, אויך צו זײַנע חסרונות. אָבער אין מײַן פֿאַל איז דאָס ווערטל פֿאַלש, ווײַל איך האָב נישט באַוויזן זיי צו זען.
The post What I discovered during my visit to the Swedish paradise appeared first on The Forward.
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An Israeli dissident filmmaker finds tainted love amid the Gaza rubble
Nadav Lapid started writing his Oct. 7 movie in summer 2021 — before the events that shaped it took place. He says it hasn’t changed much, and that it’s not really about Oct. 7.
“It’s the same bitter reflection about the place of the artist,” Lapid told me on a Zoom call, a day after arriving in New York for the American debut of Yes, his withering satire of Israeli complacency.
“In a way, in the first version, you could notice the shadow of a catastrophe, the shadow of a disaster and a society on the edge of the abyss,” he said. “With the second version, this society made another few steps and went and fell down from the hill to the valley of hell”
As the title might suggest, Yes — which is sometimes styled with an exclamation mark — is about a kind of maximalist version of affirmative consent that ends in complicity. It follows Y (Ariel Bronz), a jazz pianist, who with his wife, Yasmin (Efrat Dor), serves as a willing entertainer and sex slave for the Israeli elite. The couple submit to almost anything, no questions asked. But when a Russian oligarch commissions Y to write an “anthem for the victory generation,” with bloodthirsty lyrics about annihilating Gaza, it’s (almost) too big of an ask.
What follows is a kind of Israeli Mephisto, alternating from orgiastic spectacle (fellated baguettes, geysers of cherry tomatoes, drugs) to biblical indictment (Y is pelted with stones from heaven for cravenly taking his hasbara assignment).
The film is well within Lapid’s oeuvre, which has skewered Israeli masculinity (Synonyms) and Israeli restrictions on free expression (Ahed’s Knee, which also featured a protagonist named Y, who contra our present hero is characterized by defiance). But the film has ratcheted up its critique along with its experimentation, seeming to say yes to its every outlandish idea.
Lapid was living in Paris on Oct. 7, 2023. He returned to Tel Aviv a couple of weeks later to see the aftermath with his own eyes, and later to begin filming.
“Almost immediately, when the airplane landed, I was taken by two, I think, contradictory feelings,” Lapid said the first was an “unfamiliar empathy” (he is famously conflicted about his home country) and a sense that the nation was partaking in a “collective shiva.”
At first there was a rare tenderness.
“It didn’t last long,” he said. “It was quickly replaced by what you see in the movie, by the kind of morbid vivacity, this ecstatic, dark party by a nation which, in a way, deeply knows that it’s giving up all its limits.”
Lapid saw his fellow artists throwing their weight behind the war and lending their talents to the government. He started production on Yes while drones were still bombarding Gaza. He filmed the smoke plumes from the border, guerilla style. It was an active military zone and he was only allowed to stay on thanks to the intercession of an interested officer, who peppered them with questions about the cameras. (When crew members learned the film was critical of the war, some walked off set — a career first for Lapid.)
In a film with extravagant, overstimulating set pieces, the sequence that takes place at the border stands out for its stillness.
During a road trip to find inspiration for his chest-thumping anthem, Y’s ex-girlfriend Leah (Naama Preis) explains to him the Hamas crimes she translates for the government on social media. It’s a gutting list of real-life murders and maimings. She interrupts the litany with the dismissive comments she sees daily, a signal of the world’s limited empathy.
Lapid chose to film this sequence simply in a static shot, emphasizing what he calls the “destabilizing power of the accumulation of facts.” Facts, he says, that many who he agrees with politically have difficulty acknowledging over a “childish lack of complexity, in the incapacity of looking at reality as it is.”
He sees the scene as a complement to the film’s main subject: the Israeli blindness to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
The director lets the weight of Leah’s words sink in, but doesn’t offer them as an excuse. Even these horrors are commoditized by our opportunistic hero. The next shot shows Y trudging up a hill overlooking Gaza, muttering the Hamas atrocities Leah recited. He’s using them to find the melody for a song that lauds how Israel will “exterminate our enemies.” (The camera then pans to Gaza, and we hear Leah and Y, unbothered, making out.)
The lyrics Y is tasked with working off are from an actual altered version of Haim Gouri’s poem “The Brotherhood” that emerged during the Gaza war. Asked if the song, in its original form from 1949, represented a purer vision of Israel, Lapid offered a kind of yes and.
“On one hand, of course, there’s a huge gap between a genocidal anthem and the song talking about, you know, brotherhood in battlefield,” Lapid said. At the same time, both versions refer in their chorus to a “love sanctified by blood,” what he thinks may be the “most important collective myth in Israel.”
“In the heart of Yes there is also this question whether it’s possible in such a society, in such a place, to love,” Lapid said of Israel, which he deems a failed experiment. “And the answer is ‘no.’ The answer is that at the very end, everything will be stained, will be polluted, will be contaminated.”
With a new war in Iran only a month old, Lapid thinks the film is only growing more relevant, reflecting a society mixing vulgarity and nationalism, communicating only in slogans.
But he’s a more even-handed critic of slogans than some seem to think. He was surprised that most reviews of the film overlook a moment critiquing performative activism in the west. The film isn’t just taking aim at the Israeli institutions and hardliners that have ended up condemning it.
“I haven’t done this movie in order to flatter or to polish the ego, or to give a kind of audiovisual demonstration of the theory of anyone,” he said. “I think the artist, filmmaker shouldn’t and doesn’t belong to any camp. His only real place and true place is in the contradiction.”
The post An Israeli dissident filmmaker finds tainted love amid the Gaza rubble appeared first on The Forward.
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Iran Sees US Peace Plan as ‘One-Sided’ as Trump Presses for Deal
A view of a residential building damaged by a strike, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Tehran, Iran, March 23, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
A US proposal for ending nearly four weeks of fighting is “one-sided and unfair,” a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Thursday, while US President Donald Trump said Iran must make a deal or face a continued onslaught.
The Iranian official said the proposal, conveyed to Tehran by Pakistan, “was reviewed in detail on Wednesday night by senior Iranian officials and the representative of Iran‘s Supreme Leader.”
It lacked the minimum requirements for success and served only US and Israeli interests, the official said, while stressing that diplomacy had not ended despite the lack for now of a realistic plan for peace talks.
Trump described the Iranians as “great negotiators” but added that he was not sure he was “willing to make a deal with them to end the war.”
Iran has launched strikes against Israel as well as US bases and civilian sites in the Gulf states. The Iranian regime has also effectively blocked Middle East fuel exports via the Strait of Hormuz since the US and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28.
“They now have the chance, that is Iran, to permanently abandon their nuclear ambitions and to join a new path forward,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.
“We’ll see if they want to do it. If they don’t, we’re their worst nightmare. In the meantime, we’ll just keep blowing them away.”
Oil jumped to $105 a barrel on Thursday and stock markets fell on renewed pessimism over ceasefire prospects as global plastics, technology, retail, and tourism struggled with the impact.
STRAIT OF HORMUZ A CRUCIAL ISSUE
Trump suggested on Thursday that Iran let 10 oil tankers transit the Strait of Hormuz as a goodwill gesture in negotiations, including some Pakistan-flagged vessels, elaborating on what he had described as a “present” from Iran.
The president, who is expected to send thousands of troops to the Middle East, driving expectations of a ground invasion, also said taking control of Iran‘s oil was an option but gave no further details.
A note seen by Reuters on Tuesday to the United Nations from Iran said “non-hostile vessels” could transit the strait if they coordinated with Iranian authorities.
A Thai oil tanker has passed through the strait following diplomatic coordination with Iran, and Malaysia said its vessels were also being allowed to transit in a sign that restrictions were loosening for some countries. Iran would be receptive to any request from Spain related to the strait, its embassy in Madrid said, in the first such offer to an EU state.
US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff confirmed that the US had sent a “15-point action list” as a basis for negotiations to end the war.
Pakistan’s foreign minister said “indirect talks” between the US and Iran were taking place through messages relayed by Islamabad, with other states including Turkey and Egypt also supporting mediation efforts.
Any talks, were they to happen, would likely prove very difficult given the positions laid out by both sides.
According to sources and reports, the 15-point proposal includes demands ranging from dismantling Iran‘s nuclear program and curbing its missiles to effectively handing over control of the strait.
Iran has hardened its stance since the war began, demanding guarantees against future military action, compensation for losses, and formal control of the strait, Iranian sources say.
It also told intermediaries that Lebanon must be included in any ceasefire deal, regional sources said.
Trump has not identified who the US is negotiating with in Iran, with many high-ranking officials among the thousands of people killed in the war across the Middle East.
Israel removed Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf from its hit list after Pakistan urged Washington to press Israel not to target them, a Pakistani source with knowledge of the discussions told Reuters. An Israeli military spokesperson declined to comment.
A Western diplomat said the US had taken a “maximalist” position and it was not clear if Washington was seeking to end the war or to calm markets before a potential ground operation.
WAVES OF MISSILES
On Thursday, Iran launched multiple waves of missiles at Israel, striking Tel Aviv, Haifa and other areas, including a Palestinian town in central Israel.
At least one ballistic missile hit Tel Aviv, according to the military, while others carried cluster munitions that dispersed smaller explosives, damaging homes and cars. Israel’s ambulance service said a man was killed in Nahariya after Hezbollah fired a rocket barrage at the northern city.
In Iran, strikes hit a residential zone in the southern city of Bandar Abbas and a village on the outskirts of the southern city of Shiraz, where two teenage brothers were killed, Iran‘s Tasnim news agency said. A university building in Isfahan was reported to have been hit.
US and Israeli officials said Israel had killed the naval commander of Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards, and that it had many more targets left as it degraded Iranian capabilities.