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‘Married to the Mob,’ but under a chuppah: A new memoir details a Jewish family’s crime ties
(New York Jewish Week) — The Geiks weren’t your typical Bronx working-class Jewish family.
One brother ran a mob-protected trucking company in Manhattan’s Garment District. Another brother, an NYPD detective, chauffeured organized crime couriers around the city with illicit cash. Their kid sister visited a Las Vegas casino where the tween was set up with a couple of slot machines in a private room.
And a close family friend was sent up the river for killing a notorious Jewish gangster.
Meet the family whose close ties to Jewish gangsters are chronicled in “Uncle Charlie Killed Dutch Schultz,” a memoir just published by Alan Geik.
Dutch Schultz was the mob name of Arthur Flegenheimer, the Jewish bootlegger and numbers racket kingpin who left this mortal coil in October 1935 at the Palace Chop House in Newark. The triggermen were two Jews, members of the organized crime group Murder Inc. Mendy Weiss and Charles “Bug” Workman, the Uncle Charlie of the memoir’s title, did the hit.
Workman, who reportedly killed more than 20 people before pleading guilty to the murder of Dutch Schultz, was not a blood relative of author Alan Geik. But Workman grew up with Geik’s father on the Lower East Side and was so close to the Geik family he was considered an uncle. The author was in his 20s when he first met Workman, after the hitman was released from a New Jersey prison in 1964.
“I would never think of calling him anything but Uncle Charlie,” said Geik, 80, a retired TV producer and radio host who lives in Las Vegas.
In addition to diving deep into Workman’s story, the book also explores how Jewish mobsters and their hangers-on fought antisemitism, beat up Nazis and helped a fledgling Israel acquire arms for its War of Independence.
“These were people, from the first generation of Jews in America, who fought back against antisemitism in the streets,” Geik said. “Their parents fled the pogroms of Eastern Europe. They were not going to let it happen again and they didn’t.”
Geik’s book joins a crowded shelf of histories and memoirs of the Jewish mob, including “But He Was Good to His Mother: The Lives and Crimes of Jewish Gangsters,” by Robert A. Rockaway, and “Tough Jews: Fathers, Sons, and Gangster Dreams,” by Rich Cohen. Like those books, Geik’s family history provides a sort of reverse image of typical Jewish immigrant stories: Instead of scrapping their way up from New York’s Jewish enclaves into retail and the professions, Geik’s family joined a criminal counterculture.
Alan Geik’s family’s close ties to Jewish gangsters are chronicled in a just-published memoir, “Uncle Charlie Killed Dutch Schultz.” (Sonador Publishing)
Books such as Geik’s “really put a personal experience to this whole world that we all know about, the world of New York mobsters,” said Larry Henry, author of a monthly column for the Mob Museum in Las Vegas. “The public’s appetite for mob stories is insatiable.”
“Uncle Charlie Killed Dutch Schultz” describes a tangled family tree ripe with, well, rotten apples. Geik’s father, Lou, was not actually in the mob but did reap benefits from his ties with organized crime, Alan concedes. Lou Geik was one of several individuals who delivered mob cash to Workman’s family over 23 years.
“Uncle Charlie felt indebted to my father,” said Geik.
The author’s father is cited as a source for many of the anecdotes included in the memoir. Geik said that while his father’s business relied on mob protection, Lou Geik didn’t have “that extra whatever-it-took to be a really hardened criminal” — a trait, he said, his own older brother Bernard also lacked.
“My brother always wanted to be a gangland figure,” said Alan Geik. “So, instead my brother became a policeman.”
An ultimately very corrupt policeman. Bernard Geik joined the force in 1962 and resigned in 1971 after serving in the notorious Special Investigative Unit, which, as depicted in the book and the motion picture “Prince of the City,” devolved into an extortion ring. After resigning from the NYPD, Bernard Geik was arrested for bribery and bribe-taking in 1974. He reportedly pleaded guilty but served no time.
The disgraced detective went to work at his father’s trucking company. According to the author, his brother was one of the detectives provided by a supervisor to drive their Uncle George and other mobsters around town when they were transporting mob money in New York.
Uncle George Gordon was a real uncle. Gordon is allegedly one of the gangsters the actor George Raft modeled himself after for his roles in 1930s and ’40s crime melodramas. For decades, beginning at a casino and speakeasy near the Hudson River in midtown Manhattan, Gordon had a big hand in organized crime’s gambling operations, supervising enterprises in Florida, the Midwest, Las Vegas and Havana.
Alan Geik isn’t the only keeper of his family’s convoluted story. His sister Iris has her own memories of growing up mob-adjacent, such as when she and her parents were Gordon’s guests at the Stardust Hotel in Vegas when the mob was running its casino and skimming cash from the profits. Gordon wanted Lou Geik to work there.
According to Iris, Gordon posted a guard outside a private room in which she had been ensconced with a couple of slot machines. The 13-year-old was “mesmerized” by the slot machines. Her mother was initially unaware of what was going on.
“Uncle Charlie” Workman, seen in 1941, pled guilty to the 1935 murder of mobster Dutch Schultz and was given a life sentence. (NYPD)
“I was having a blast,” Iris Geik said. “I’ll never forget when the door flung open and my itty-bitty mother came in with a big guard behind her. She immediately made me stop [playing with the slot machine] and give back the money I had won.”
Iris Geik, now a privacy lawyer in the Boston area, has written hundreds of pages of her own memoir about the wives and girlfriends of the Jewish gangsters, tentatively titled, “The View From the Women’s Table.”
“Their lives were complex but they were also heimische Jewish women,” she said, using the Yiddish word for cozy and familiar. She and her father eloped because they were a mixed couple: Her mother Reba was a Sephardic Jew and her father was Ashkenazi.
Geik remembered that as a child she noticed a newspaper article about a family friend being arrested. She said, “Mom! Mom! Look, we’re famous.” To which her mother replied, “That’s infamous, dear.”
Geik said that on several occasions her mother observed: “There are no second-generation Jewish mobsters. Jews don’t make gangsters out of their children.”
Reba Geik had been involved in caring for two of Iris’ aunts who lived in Brooklyn while they were dying. Those acts of kindness had a profound impact on Uncle George, the casino supervisor.
After the aunts passed away, Gordon always stood when Reba entered a room, Iris said. “My mother was very honored by that because he was such a big shot.”
Throughout her life, Reba Geik remained close to Sylvia Lorber, a friend from her teenage years. Lorber was the only mob mistress her mother would spend time with, said Iris. Lorber was the paramour of two Jewish gangsters: Benny Kassop, the brother of Murder, Inc. gunman Sammy Kassop, and Sam “Red” Levine, an observant Jew who wore a kippah under his fedora. Levine won the affection of Lorber while the Kassop brothers were in Sing Sing, the maximum-security prison in Ossining, New York.
“Sylvia was a hell of a lot of fun but my mother worried about her,” Iris said. “Sylvia told me her stories, which were kind of glamorous when she was young but sad when she was older.” After spending 20 years with Levine, Lorber couldn’t attend his funeral. Sylvia Lorber stopped talking to Reba Geik in her last years.
Jewish gangsters do, on occasion, display some altruism in Alan Geik’s memoir. Take Moe Dalitz, the head of the Cleveland Syndicate. He was a major bootlegger during Prohibition whose flotillas of illegal liquor on the Great Lakes came to be known as The Little Jewish Navy. His family ran legitimate laundry businesses in Boston and Detroit. Too old to be drafted during World War II, he enlisted at the age of 42 and was commissioned as a lieutenant. Dalitz ran the military laundry service on New York’s Governor’s Island — but declined to bunk in the island’s barracks, opting instead to stay at a swanky hotel overlooking Central Park.
Then there was Johnny Eder, a major source for Geik’s narrative. Eder was part of the Lower East Side teenage crime crew that included Uncle Charlie and Uncle George. As an adult he was a major fence for stolen jewelry and always had a bag of stolen rings on him. Eder also had many connections at City Hall and in the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office.
According to Geik’s account, Eder was the mob’s representative to the Haganah, the Jewish paramilitary force in Palestine. Eder arranged meetings in the noisy kitchen of the Copacabana, a mob hangout, between Haganah agents and mobsters and others described as “former wartime U.S. intelligence agents” working to secure weapons for Israel’s War of Independence. (The late Teddy Kollek, Jerusalem’s longtime mayor, would tell a story about passing cash to an intermediary at the Copacabana, who brought the money to an Irish sea caption with a ship full of munitions bound for the Holy Land. The bagman, according to Kollek, was Frank Sinatra.)
Author Alan Geik’s father-in-law, Lou Lenart, left, and other fighter pilots in front of Avia-S-199 plane. Lenart was part of the group of men transporting surplus fighter planes and other weapons to the Holy Land for use in the War of Independence. (Courtesy of Boaz Dvir)
Alan Geik has a very personal connection to the creation of the Jewish state. His late wife Nina was the daughter of Lou Lenart, a World War II fighter pilot who served in the U.S. Marines. Geik’s memoir details how the elder Lenart was part of the group of men transporting surplus fighter planes and other weapons to Palestine for use in Israel’s War of Independence. Lenart’s story was featured in Nancy Spielberg’s 2014 documentary “Above and Beyond,” about the creation of the Israeli air force.
The story of how Jewish gangsters used some violent muscle against Nazi sympathizers in New York has been told before in historical accounts, but one episode in Geik’s memoir is particularly dramatic. A pair of Jews attended a Bund rally at Camp Siegfried on Long Island, a summer camp that taught Nazi ideology, and were offered a ride back to the city by a Nazi sympathizer who they ended up beating senseless in Brooklyn.
Alan Geik was not really hungry when he met Meyer Lansky at a Central Park hotel in the late 1950s. The gangster asked the 15-year-old nephew of George Gordon if he wanted a pastrami sandwich. Geik declined. Then Lansky, who struck Geik as an “older Jewish man who I knew was really powerful,” suggested that they split one. It was an offer that Geik did not refuse.
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The post ‘Married to the Mob,’ but under a chuppah: A new memoir details a Jewish family’s crime ties appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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How to face life’s difficulties with total confidence
ווי אַזוי קען מען זיך באַוואָרענען פֿון ווערן פּאַראַליזירט ווען מען שטייט פֿאַר אַ סיטואַציע וואָס זעט אויס ווי אַ געפֿאַר?
דער ענטפֿער איז זייער פּשוט: מען דאַרף באַטראַכטן די סיטואַציע ווי אַ פֿאַרמעסט, אַנשטאָט ווי אַ באַדראָונג.
אָבער ווי אַזוי קען מען דערגרייכן אַזאַ ענדערונג פֿונעם קוקווינקל, אַז אַנשטאָט זיך צו פֿילן דערדריקט און אַנטמוטיקט, זאָל מען זיך פֿילן געשטאַרקט און מאָטיווירט?
צו דעם דאַרף מען צוויי זאַכן: ערשטנס, זיך פֿאָרשטעלן דעם רעזולטאַט וואָס מען וועט האָבן ווען מען וועט איבערקומען די שוועריקייט, און צווייטנס, זיך געהעריק צוגרייטן, כּדי צו קענען מצליח זײַן אין איבערקומען די אַרויספֿאָדערונגען.
אין דער פּרשה די וואָך, ויצא, לייענען מיר ווי יעקבֿ אָבינו איז אַרויס פֿון זײַן טאַטנס הויז אין באר־שבֿע, און זיך געלאָזט אין וועג קיין חרן, צום הויז פֿון זײַן זיידן פֿון דער מאַמעס צד, בתואל. ער האָט דאָס געמוזט טאָן ווײַל ער האָט געוווּסט אַז זײַן ברודער עשׂו וויל אים הרגענען. יעקבֿ, נישט עשׂו, האָט דאָך באַקומען די ברכות פֿון זייער טאַטן יצחק.
ס׳איז אָבער דאָ אַ צווייטע סיבה פֿאַר יעקבֿס נסיעה. ער האָט געדאַרפֿט זוכן אַ שידוך, ווײַל זײַנע עלטערן זענען נישט געווען צופֿרידן מיטן אויפֿפֿיר פֿון די פֿרויען און מיידלעך אין כּנען.
לאָמיר זיך אַרײַנשטעלן אין זײַן מצבֿ. דאָס לעבן אין באר־שבֿע איז פֿאַר יעקבֿן געווען רויִק און באַקוועם. ער האָט געוווינט בײַ זײַנע עלטערן; זײַענדיק אַ בחור האָט ער ניט געהאַט קיין באַזונדערע דאגות, און האָט געקענט זיך אָפּגעבן מיט לימוד התּורה און פּערזענלעכער אַנטוויקלונג. און פּלוצלינג, האָט ער געמוזט אַנטלויפֿן פֿון דעם באַקוועמען און באַשיצטן מצבֿ, און זיך אַרויסלאָזן אויף אַ וועג צו אַן אָרט וואָס איז געווען פֿול מיט שוועריקייטן און סכּנות.
חז״ל דערקלערן אַז דער נאָמען פֿון דעם שטאָט חרן, וווּהין ער איז געגאַנגען, איז פֿאַרבונדן מיטן וואָרט „חרון אף“, וואָס מיינט כּעס, ווײַל דער אויפֿפֿיר פֿון די אײַנוווינער האָט אַרויסגערופֿן דעם כּעס פֿונעם אויבערשטן.
דערצו איז זײַן פֿעטער לבֿן, וואָס האָט געוווינט מיט בתואל, געווען באַרימט מיט זײַן אומערלעכקייט.
קענען מיר זיך פֿאָרשטעלן אַ גרעסערן קאָנטראַסט צווישן דער רויִקייט פֿון זײַן היימישער סבֿיבֿה און דעם שווערן מצבֿ וואָס האָט אים דערוואַרט אין זײַן נײַעם אָרט?
אָן קיין ספֿק האָט ער מסתּמא געפֿילט אַנגסטן, אומזיכערקייט און הילפֿלאָזיקייט.
די תּורה באַשרײַבט ווי יעקבֿ האָט אויפֿן וועג זיך אָפּגעשטעלט דאַווענען, און ווי ער האָט גענומען שטיינער כּדי זיך צו באַשיצן פֿון ווילדע חיות בשעת ער האָט זיך געלייגט שלאָפֿן אויפֿן וועג.
אין זײַן חלום האָט יעקבֿ געזען אַ לייטער וואָס איז געשטאַנען אויף דער ערד, און זײַן שפּיץ האָט דערגרייכט ביזן הימל. ער האָט געזען מלאכים אַרויפֿגיין און אַראָפּגיין אויפֿן לייטער.
דער אייבערשטער האָט צו אים גערעדט און צוגעזאָגט אים צו באַשיצן. ער האָט איבערגעחזרט זײַן הבֿטחה צו געבן זײַנע קינדער דאָס לאַנד אויף וועלכן ער איז געלעגן. דערצו האָט ער אים געבענטשט מיט אַ גרויסער און חשובֿער נאָכקומערשאַפֿט, סײַ אין כּמות און סײַ אין איכות.
ווען יעקבֿ האָט זיך אויפֿגעוועקט פֿון זײַן חלום, האָט ער געמאַכט אַ נדר: אויב דער אויבערשטער וועט אים באַגלייטן, אים געבן ברויט צו עסן און קליידער אָנצוטאָן, און ער וועט קענען צוריקקומען צום הויז פֿון זײַן טאַטן מיט זײַן רוחניותדיקער און מאָראַלישער שלימות, וועט ער אויפֿשטעלן אַ הייליקן אָרט לכּבֿוד דעם אויבערשטן און אָפּגעבן מעשר פֿון אַלץ וואָס ער פֿאַרמאָגט. אָפּגעבן מעשׂר — אַוועקגעבן אַ צענטל פֿון דײַן פֿאַרמעגן אויף צדקה — איז אַ גרויסע מיצווה.
גלײַך דערנאָך דערציילט אונדז די תּורה: וַיִּשָּׂא יַעֲקֹב רַגְלָיו וַיֵּלֶךְ אַרְצָה בְנֵי קֶדֶם. „יעקבֿ האָט אויפֿגעהויבן זײַנע פֿיס און איז געגאַנגען צום לאַנד פֿון די מענטשן אין מזרח.“
רש״י דערקלערט אַז דער אויסערגעוויינטלעכער אויסדרוק, „וישא יעקב רגליו“, ווײַזט אָן אַז יעקבֿס פֿיס זענען געוואָרן אַ סך לײַכטער, ווײַל זײַן האַרץ איז געוואָרן פֿריילעך נאָך דער הבֿטחה פֿון דער געטלעכער שמירה. יעקבֿ האָט נישט געמיינט אַז דאָס וואָס דערוואַרט אים וועט זײַן גרינג. ער האָט אָבער געהאַט בטחון אַז ער וועט מצליח זײַן. מיט אָט דער זיכערקייט האָט ער געפֿילט אַז ער האָט די כּוחות צו קענען בײַשטיין און איבערקומען יעדע שוועריקייט וואָס האָט אים דערוואַרט.
די הבֿטחה פֿונעם אויבערשטן אַליין איז אָבער נישט געווען גענוג. ער האָט זיך אויך געדאַרפֿט געהעריק צוגרייטן צו דעם וואָס האָט אים דערוואַרט.
דרײַ יסודות פֿון אָט דער צוגרייטונג ווערן אָנגעדײַט אין די דרײַ באַדינגונגען וואָס יעקבֿ האָט דערמאָנט אין זײַן נדר: עסן; קליידער, און צוריקקומען צום טאַטנס הויז אין דעם זעלבן רוחניותדיקן און מאָראַלישן מצבֿ.
אין צוגאָב צו דעם פּשוטן זין, ליגט אין די ווערטער אויך אַ גײַסטישן באַדײַט:
עסן גיט דעם מענטש חיות און גיט אים אַרײַן כּוח. אויף אַ רוחניותדיקן אופֿן ווערט די תּורה פֿאַרגליכן צו עסן, ווײַל דורך לימוד התּורה דערנערט מען זיך אינטעלעקטועל און רוחניותדיק צום אייבערשטן. פּונקט ווי דאָס גשמיותדיקע עסן ווערט פֿאַרדייט און ווערט אַ טייל פֿון דעם מענטש אַליין, און גיט אים חיות און כּוח, אַזוי אויך ווערט די תּורה וואָס מען לערנט אַ טייל פֿון אונדזער אינערלעכן לעבן און גיט אונדז רוחניותדיקע חיות.
קליידער נעמען אַרום דעם מענטש און באַשיצן אים פֿון דרויסנדיקע השפּעות. אַזוי אויך ווען אַ ייִד איז מקיים די מיצוות שאַפֿן זיי, די מיצוות, אַ רוחניותדיקע באַשיצונג פֿונעם מענטשן.
דער לערנונג איז גילטיק אויך פֿאַר אונדז הײַנט.
כּדי צו קענען זיך שטעלן אַנטקעגן די שוועריקייטן פֿון לעבן מיט בטחון און שׂימחה, דאַרף מען זיך צוגרייטן דורך דרײַ זאַכן: ערשטנס, לימוד התּורה — דאָס שטאַרקט אונדז פֿון אינעווייניק און גיט אונדז רוחניותדיקע חיות און כּוחות. צווייטנס, מקיים זײַן די מצוות: דאָס באַשיצט אונדז פֿון דרויסן און גיט אונדז די נויטיקע רוחניותדיקע שמירה, און דריטנס, נישט פֿאַרלירן פֿון די אויגן דעם ענדגילטיקן ציל: דורך אונדזער באַגעגעניש מיט דער גשמיותדיקער וועלט פֿאַרוואַנדלען מיר די וועלט אין אַ „וווינאָרט“ פֿאַרן אויבערשטן, אַ „דירה בתּחתונים“.
דאָס איז דער טיפֿערער באַדײַט פֿון „צוריק קומען צום טאַטנס הויז“: צו ברענגען די גאַנצע וועלט צו אַ מצבֿ וווּ עס ווערט דערקענט אַז זי איז דעם טאַטנס – דעם אויבערשטנס — וווינאָרט. אַז יעדער באַגעגעניש און יעדע פֿאַרבינדונג מיט דער וועלט זאָל אויסדריקן דעם געטלעכן מקור, דעם געטלעכן בײַזײַן און דעם געטלעכן ציל פֿון זיין וועזן.
אַז מען פֿאַרשטייט קלאָר וואָס דער ציל איז, און מען גרייט זיך צו ווי געהעריק, איז מען אין אַ בעסערן צושטאַנד צו קענען אַנטקעגנגיין יעדע שוועריקייט מיט מוט און זיכערקייט.
ווי דער באַרימטער פּסיכיאַטער וויקטאָר פֿראַנקל האָט עס אַזוי שיין און טיפֿזיניק אויסגעדריקט:
„ווער עס האָט אַ ׳פֿאַרוואָס׳ אינעם לעבן, קען איבערקומען כּמעט יעדן ׳ווי אַזוי׳.“
The post How to face life’s difficulties with total confidence appeared first on The Forward.
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Boston suburb votes to divest from Israel
(JTA) — SOMERVILLE, Mass. — The City Council in this city north of Boston voted 10-1 Thursday night to ban the municipality from doing business with companies complicit in humanitarian violations, specifically naming those operating in “Israel and Palestine.”
Councilor Kristen Strezo cast the only opposing vote on the 11-member board.
Opponents of the ordinance fear that in execution it would be akin to a boycott of Israel, and as such would create a negative environment for the city’s Jewish and Israeli residents. The ban only involves companies that work with the municipality and does not impact companies that operate privately in Somerville. It also excludes sole proprietors (individuals operating as companies).
Somerville Mayor Jake Wilson’s office said given that the ordinance passed with a veto-proof majority, the measure is now considered final.
The ordinance was originally introduced in June by Councilors Ben Ewen-Campen and Ben Wheeler, after the City Council voted in November 2025 to implement ballot Question 3 on Israel divestment, which had been approved by 55.7% of voters earlier that month. Question 3 spoke of banning businesses that sustain “Israel’s apartheid, genocide, and illegal occupation of Palestine.”
During his campaign in 2025, Wilson did not endorse Question 3.
Nine councilors on Thursday night offered comments in advance of the vote.
Ewen-Campen, who wrote and revised the ordinance along with Wheeler, spoke about the importance of a Massachusetts city passing an ordinance about a country across the world, especially at a time when the federal government has clamped down on pro-Palestinian student protesters, noting two incidents of protesters being detained by ICE allegedly for speaking against Israel.
“I think the reason that people want us to be quiet about it is because when you do talk about it, there is just no way to justify it,” Ewen-Campen said.
“I am not under any illusion that Somerville is going to have some enormous impact on the world [by passing this ordinance], but I do think that all of us collectively deciding to be silent about this does have an impact on the world,” he said. “That is why I think it is worth it to have taken this action, and that is why I have asked for all of your support tonight.”
Strezo invoked the Holocaust to explain why she considered the ban antisemitic, referring to Kristallnacht, the Nov. 9-10, 1938, pogrom against Jews in Germany and Austria.
“A few years before Kristallnacht, the Nazis worked to deter the public from shopping at Jewish businesses,” she said. “Their efforts started in moments like tonight.” On behalf of her Jewish community, Strezo emphasized that the ordinance “makes us feel targeted. It makes us feel unsafe. It makes us feel unwelcome.”
As she spoke, members of the group Somerville for Palestine (S4P), who had gathered outside City Hall for a rally in advance of and throughout the meeting, could be heard through the window, the chanting getting increasingly louder until the words were clearly audible over Strezo’s speech: “Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest.”
“This ordinance will do nothing to solve the real conflict in the Middle East,” Strezo said. “What it will do and has been doing is make Jewish people and Israelis feel less welcome in our city spaces.”
One councilor pointed out that the ordinance, while worth passing, was not what she’d hoped. Councilor Emily Hardt said, “Supporting Palestinian human rights and standing firmly against antisemitism are not contradictory positions. I believe that both are essential to our commitment to human dignity.” She went on to say that she would have preferred an ordinance that was focused on the actions of the U.S. government, “our government,” but given that this was the ordinance up for the vote, she would support it. “I appreciate the attempts to align use of our resources with our commitments to the rights and dignity of all people, in Israel and Palestine and around the world,” she said.
When the vote was finalized, members of the group Somerville for Palestine and other supporters of the ordinance, many wearing keffiyehs, stood up and cheered as they left the chamber. Shalom Somerville members and others opposing the ordinance, many of whom wore white shirts with blue square pins and had stickers with “I’m not welcome here” on their chests, stood silently as most of the room emptied.
“It’s disappointing seeing councilors knowingly abdicating their responsibility,” said Sam Gechter, president of Shalom Somerville, the local community group that has been active in opposing both the 2025 ballot question and the ordinance. “[Mayor Wilson] made several promises that he would veto it during the campaign. He said he would veto anything that named a country, so we would love to see him do that.”
“It feels so clear that this is what the majority want given that ten of our councilors voted yes,” said Mo Katz-Christy, a member of S4P’s leadership and Jewish Caucus. S4P was a major advocate for the original ballot Question 3 and worked with Councilor Ewen-Campen on the ordinance.
“They passed a strong ordinance that named Israel and Palestine, that named the genocide,” Katz-Christy said, as the S4P group played music in celebration behind them. “It’s targeting companies that are really bad actors.”
Under the ordinance, any vendor who is submitting a bid for the city’s business would have to certify it meets the criteria outlined in the ordinance. If their certification is contested, the city will consult the findings of a number of international organizations and lists, including the database of business enterprises maintained by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the divestment short-list database maintained by the American Friends Service Committee’s Investigate Project. The ordinance specifies that a company could be excluded from this prohibition should the director of finance deem that their services “are essential to the operation of the city, including by avoiding a significant financial burden.”
In the final Legislative Matters Committee meeting discussing the ordinance on Oct. 27, chief procurement officer Angela Allen, echoing the earlier sentiments of City Solicitor Cindy Amara, expressed concerns that the ordinance “would likely not sustain a legal challenge.” She noted that the city does not have the legal authority to debar bidders (prospective vendors) and that she was unsure who would be responsible for making the final call on whether or not a company met the criteria in the ordinance.
“This adds another layer of complexity that I am concerned, from a practical standpoint, could cause confusion and delay that would not be in the best interest of the city,” she said.
The vote came after several rounds of negotiations in the city’s Legislative Matters Committee, during which councilors debated the ethical and financial merits of the ordinance. The final ordinance that was voted on included updates in language that specified the companies that would be included in the ban must be “directly, knowingly and consistently” enabling or facilitating violations of humanitarian law, including in “Israel and Palestine.”
Longtime Somerville resident and Shalom Somerville member Kate Auspitz, who was present at the meeting, said, “I will never vote for any of them [city councilors] again except for Kristen Strezo… I do think it’s antisemitic, whatever they say. I think it’s denying Jews self-determination.”
Outside, in line to enter the City Council chambers, Willie Burnley Jr., a member of Boston Democratic Socialists of America who ran for mayor against Wilson last year and supported ballot Question 3, said: “I’m here to support my neighbors who are fighting for a better world, who are trying to get their city councilors to fight for the will of the people.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Boston suburb votes to divest from Israel appeared first on The Forward.
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House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries calls for ‘dramatic change’ in Israel policy
(JTA) — U.S. House of Representatives Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat poised to become the chamber’s speaker in January, called for a significant shift in the U.S.-Israel relationship but stopped short of opposing defense partnerships.
“The status quo is unacceptable, and we need dramatic change,” Jeffries told reporters at a Thursday press conference.
Jeffries expressed a need for such change with respect to the West Bank, to Gaza and to a memorandum of understanding with Israel over military aid set to expire in 2028. That agreement, signed by the Obama administration in 2016, pledged $38 billion in military aid for Israel from fiscal years 2019 through 2028.
President Donald Trump has said he will wind the aid down before it is set to lapse, citing Israel’s unpopularity, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also backs ending military aid and replacing it by strengthening U.S.-Israel military cooperation.
But when asked about recent demands from Sen. Chris Van Hollen to remove provisions on defense collaborations with Israel from the National Defense Authorization Act – the model of what Netanyahu hopes to sustain – Jeffries responded that he hadn’t spoken with the senator. Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, plans to challenge Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer leadership of the Senate Democratic caucus when Democrats take over the chamber in January.
Instead, Jeffries said that “things have to dramatically change over in the Middle East,” without elaborating on the details of such changes. He stressed the importance of ensuring “a safe and secure Israel living side by side as a Jewish and democratic state with an independent Palestinian state that provides dignity and self-determination for the Palestinian people.” Netanyahu and much of the Israeli public oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state.
While Jeffries noted that he wasn’t saying anything he hasn’t “previously said publicly,” his decision to reiterate this need for change following the election as Democrats are set to seize control of Congress demonstrates how the party is adopting a more critical posture on Israel.
This past summer, Jeffries wrote to colleagues urging them to reject an amendment proposed by Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, that would have cut military aid to Israel. While a slight majority of Democrats voted in favor of the measure, it was defeated after getting no Republican support aside from its sponsor.
Jeffries had argued at the time that “there are more decisive ways to achieve the urgent change necessary when it comes to the far-right Netanyahu government,” warning that Massie’s amendment would have restricted Israel’s ability to confront Hamas, Hezbollah and other terror groups.
Nonetheless, Jeffries also noted in the letter that the Obama-era memorandum of understanding “expires imminently,” and that “a meaningful change in direction is needed.” Writing that Israel has a robust economy and is capable of paying for its own weapons, he said that future security arrangements “should be structured consistently with defense agreements that exist with our other Western allies.”
Since writing that letter in July in the lead-up to the midterm elections, Jeffries focused primarily on domestic issues and didn’t often address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On Thursday, however, the topic was back on the table.
“We’ll work as a caucus to make sure that we can bring about the just and lasting peace that Israelis and Palestinians deserve,” Jeffries said.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries calls for ‘dramatic change’ in Israel policy appeared first on The Forward.
