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Meet the woman who built a home for Latin Jewish youth in Miami
This article was produced as part of JTA’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with Jewish teens around the world to report on issues that affect their lives.
MIAMI (JTA) —After spending her early childhood in Venezuela, it was not always easy for Gabriella Koenig to feel connected to the Jewish community she grew up around in Miami.
“When I moved from Venezuela, I had to leave behind the whole community and my friends. Living in a new place, it was difficult to meet and connect with other Latin Jewish friends. That is until I found La Casa,” said Koenig, 14. “La Casa has allowed me to connect with other Latin Jewish teenagers and has inspired me to learn Torah and grow to a higher spiritual level.”
La Casa is the first Latino chapter of the Orthodox youth group National Conference of Synagogue Youth in the United States. The person responsible for building this community for Koeing and other Latino Jews in Miami is Lea Bekhar.
When Bekhar moved to Miami from Panama at the age of 29 to start working for NCSY, she had one goal in mind: to make a home for the large population of Latin American Jewish teenagers in the Miami-Dade area through La Casa.
“There were no classes for teens, everything available in the area was for young professionals — 20 and up,” Bekhar said. She noticed that the few programs that were available for teens were often tailored for those who did not keep Shabbat, having meetings every Saturday. With this in mind she began running her own events for all teens.
Each Thursday after school, La Casa hosts events mean to be both community-building and educational. The meetings include a meal, religious education and an activity — which ranges from movies to discussions to games — to end the night. There isn’t a physical building; instead, each week a teenager from the group opens their home for the gathering.
Although aimed towards the Latino audience, La Casa is open for all teenagers seeking religious studies, guidance and community. And while the staff and institution is Orthodox, the organization serves Jewish kids from many backgrounds. About 40% of individuals in attendance don’t observe Shabbat or keep kosher and about 1% are not Latino, according to La Casa membership data.
“The slogan is ‘a home for your soul.’ It’s a place where they know there is no judgment, they could ask all the questions and they could find a community of like-minded people that they’re going to feel safe to open up,” Bekhar, 31, said.
Her goals for La Casa stem from her own teenage experience in Panama.
“When I was a teenager, I found that the one thing that kept me grounded was that aspect of faith,” Bekhar said. “And that’s what I want [here]. I want them to thrive for meaning in their life and to find a Jewish family, outside of their nuclear family.”
After teaching Judaic studies at the high school level in Panama for two years and through her previous work in NCSY, Bekhar learned to recognize an engaged community in which members are eager to attend and participate in events and programs. Yet, upon her arrival to the Miami-Dade area she saw first-hand the lack of opportunities for engagement, specifically for Latino teens. The Jewish Latino teens she met that were part of other religious groups didn’t seem to actually enjoy the youth community. La Casa marked a shift in engagement and provided an opportunity which teenagers were excited to participate in, she said.
“I never thought I would see so many kids go to an optional, after-school shiur [Torah lesson] on a Thursday night. Bringing all of us together, from both religious and non-religious backgrounds, La Casa provided us an opportunity to bond and still enjoy some words of Torah,” one teen participant, Jaime Mizrahi, said. “I look forward to the La Casa events throughout the week to be able to enjoy myself with my friends while still learning. In fact, even when I have already studied Torah throughout the day, I still go to La Casa because it is a nice environment to be in.”
Creating an engaged community did not come easy, and Bekhar had to do much research before beginning her mission.
“Every community is different. This is a community of Latin Jews, so it was important to recognize the community in Miami as Latino and treat it as such,” Bekhar said. In one of her first updates to her bosses prior to the September kickoff event, Bekhar recognized that the Latino population mostly lives in the Aventura and Bal Harbor area, and “they are divided into communities according to where they came from.” Some differences she noticed were that “Argentinians are less open about religion” while “Mexicans and Colombians are more open but aren’t part of the same community.”
Bekhar was able to use this knowledge to better target her audience.
“I have had to really mold the program to my audience. Many of the kids who regularly attend are second generation Latinos, so although their parents relate to their Latin origin, many of the kids not so much,” said Bekhar. “The Latin group is very different to their American counterparts culturally. Parents want them to connect not only to their religion, but to their Latin roots.”
Bekhar also incorporated program ideas from the Latin communities in Chile and Argentina.
“Programming made for American teens tends to have a very educational base, ours is more rooted in community,” Bekhar said. “The content is always very morally oriented and is centered on character development.”
One of the biggest hurdles for her was distrust from parents in the community. New and unknown, she had to create “an open relationship with all [the] mothers” in order for them to “feel comfortable voicing any concern.” Her approach worked.
“Since meeting Lea and becoming familiar with La Casa I’ve been impressed with her incredible personality and her ability to connect not only with young people, but with people of all ages. She’s a kind and empathetic young woman who will change the future of many Jewish souls,” said Anat Garzo, a mother to a La Casa teen and former board member of the Jewish Community Services Latin Committee.
Despite troubles she faced at first, Bekhar persevered and in the six months she’s been building La Casa, she grew participation to 120 teens.
One of those teens is Sofia Wengrowsky, a second-generation Mexican teenager. She recognizes the influence La Casa has on all aspects of her life.
“La Casa has allowed me to grow as an individual and has given me the opportunity to open a door to other young teenagers who are looking to grow in Judaism,” Wengrowsky, 17, said. “I leave every activity being able to learn something of impact.”
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British Gov’t Replaces Hatzalah Ambulances Destroyed in Arson Attack as Millions in Donations Pour In
Charred remains of ambulances belonging to Hatzola, a Jewish community organization, which were set on fire in an incident that the police say is being treated as an antisemitic hate crime, in northwest London, Britain, March 23, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Hannah McKay
The British government has loaned four ambulances to the Jewish volunteer emergency service Hatzalah to replace its four vehicles that were destroyed in an arson attack in the north London area of Golders Green early Monday morning.
The Department of Health and Social Care said on Tuesday it supplied Hatzalah with four substitute ambulances from the London Ambulance Service following the incident, which is being investigated as an antisemitic hate crime. The department will also cover the cost of permanent replacements for the vehicles destroyed in the attack because “the Jewish community should not bear the cost of this hatred,” Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting said in a released statement. He further called the attack a “shocking, cowardly, and despicable act of evil,” and said he has “no doubt” that the fire was carried out to “strike fear” in the Jewish community in Golders Green and across the UK.
“The aim of these attackers is clear – they want Jewish people in this country to live smaller lives, to live less Jewish lives, to be less visible as Jewish people, and to fear going about Jewish life – whether that’s attending school or providing the services and support that makes the Jewish community one of the most resilient, strong, and proud communities in the country,” he added. “Hatzola’s volunteers represent the very best of public service, providing rapid, life-saving care to anyone in need, and it is appalling that such a service has been targeted in this way.”
Streeting continued, “The Jewish community will not stand alone – the government and this entire country stand with them … The answer cannot simply be higher walls, thicker doors, more CCTV. We also have to deal with this hatred at its source. We have to confront and beat the evil ideas that are permeating in our society.”
Hatzalah provides free medical transportation and emergency response to all, not just the Jewish community. As of Thursday morning, £1.8 million ($2.4 million) has been donated to the Jewish charity through a Charity Extra fundraising page, while a separate GoFundMe campaign has raised a little over £134,000 (close to $179,000) to help Hatzalah replace destroyed vehicles and life-saving medical equipment.
The four Hatzalah ambulances were parked in a lot belonging to the Machzikei Hadath synagogue when they were set on fire. Two British nationals, ages 47 and 45, were arrested on Wednesday in connection to the attack but have since been released on bail, according to the Metropolitan Police.
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UC Berkeley Students for Justice in Palestine Shares Reel Calling for Terrorism Against Israel, Allies
University of California, Berkeley students on March 11, 2025. Photo: Reuters via Reuters Connect
The Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter at the University of California, Berkeley promoted Islamist terrorism on Tuesday, sharing a social media reel in which deceased Palestinian Islamic Jihad senior fighter Farouk Salameh argued for “the armed option” against the “Zionist enemy.”
Terrorism “is the only way,” Salameh said in video shared by the Berkeley SJP group, adding, “What was taken by force should be returned by force. This land was taken by force, and it will be taken back by force. This is a Zionist enemy. It builds settlements and expands. There is no place for negotiations.”
The Jewish advocacy group SAFE Campus first publicized SJP’s sharing the reel.
Salameh was the commander of the Jenin branch of the al-Quds Brigade, the armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an internationally designated terrorist group backed by Iran and allied with Hamas. In May 2022, he was involved in the killing of Sgt. Maj. Noam Raz, a veteran of Israel’s elite Yamam counterterrorism police unit, in Jenin in the northern West Bank. The terrorist operative was also suspected of orchestrating other killings of Israeli soldiers, working with the “Lion’s Den” terrorist group, based in the West Bank city of Nablus.
Salameh was planning more attacks when he was shot dead by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Jenin in November 2022. Palestinian health officials said he arrived at a nearby medical facility with gunshot wounds to the chest, head, and abdomen.
UC Berkeley SJP’s commemoration of Salameh continues a pattern of extreme anti-Zionist at the campus. Just this month, the Washington Free Beacon reported that the group has incorporated the inverted red triangle symbol, Hamas’s indicator of Israeli military targets, into its logo.
In February 2024, the group led a mob of hundreds of pro-Palestinian students and non-students in shutting down an event featuring an Israeli soldier, forcing Jewish students to flee to a secret safe room as the protesters overwhelmed campus police. Footage of the incident showed a frenzied mass of anti-Zionist agitators banging on the doors of Zellerbach Hall while an event featuring Israeli reservist Ran Bar-Yoshafat — who visited the university to discuss his military service during Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 — took place inside. The mob then deluged the building, shattering windows and destroying other property.
During the incident, one member of the mob spit on a Jewish student and called him a “Jew,” pejoratively.
In 2021, 23 Berkeley Law groups adopted a bylaw banning Zionists speakers. Supported by campus groups such as Women of Berkeley Law and the Queer Caucus, it called for observing the tenets of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel while requiring the Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law, and Justice to ban Zionists from submitting articles and speaking at its events.
As for SJP, its campus chapters, spread across the US, have a history of amplifying the voices of Islamic jihadists.
In 2024, an SJP spinoff group, which calls itself “Columbia University Apartheid Divest” (CUAD) despite not being formally recognized by Columbia University, distributed literature calling on students to join Hamas.
“This booklet is part of a coordinated and intentional effort to uphold the principles of the thawabit and the Palestinian resistance movement overall by transmitting the words of the resistance directly,” it said. “This material aims to build popular support for the Palestinian war of national liberation, a war which is waged through armed struggle.”
Other sections of it were explicitly Islamist, invoking the name of “Allah, the most gracious” and referring to Hamas as the “Islamic Resistance Movement.” Proclaiming, “Glory to Gaza that gave hope to the oppressed, that humiliated the ‘invincible’ Zionist army,” it said its purpose was to build an army of Muslims worldwide.
“We call upon the masses of our Arab and Islamic nations, its scholars, men, institutions, and active forces to come out in roaring crowds tomorrow,” it added, referring to an event which took place in December 2023. “We also renew our invitation to the free people and those with living consciences around the world to continue and escalate their global public movement, rejecting the occupation’s crimes, in solidarity with our people and their just cause and legitimate struggle.”
In the same week, Wesleyan University’s SJP chapter also endorsed Hamas and its Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel as its first act of the 2024-2025 academic year.
“On that day, fighters broke through the occupation walls, initiating a new chapter in the struggle against the US-Israeli war machine, and demanding the release of thousands of Palestinians unfairly imprisoned across their historic homeland,” the group said in a manifesto outlining its views.
Earlier this month, SJP groups and its affiliates proclaimed solidarity with the Islamic Republic of Iran following the US-Israeli killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and dozens of other high-level regime officials in military operations..
“Death to America,” CUAD said. “We yearn for the end of the US settler colonial project.”
CUAD was not the only group which denounced what the US has named “Operation Epic Fury.” New York University’s SJP chapter announced an anti-US demonstration to “demand an end to this criminal war that benefits no one other than US corporate interests” while the University of Chicago’s SJP chapter cheered Iran’s retaliatory strikes against US assets in Bahrain.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Reese’s Pieces are now kosher pareve. Carnivores rejoice.
Antisemitism is on the rise. There’s a war raging in the Middle East. Passover is bearing down on us and gas prices are higher than ever.
And yet one morsel of good news came to Jewish faithful this month: Reese’s Pieces are now certified kosher pareve.
OU Kosher, the largest kosher certifier in the U.S., announced March 12 that the candy-coated peanut butter candies are no longer considered dairy despite packaging that labels them as such.
The implications for kosher consumers are as momentous as they are simple: Reese’s Pieces can be eaten immediately after meat — or for the deeply adventurous stomach, alongside it — without the hourslong period Orthodox Jews wait before eating dairy again.
The status change unfolded over the last year, when Reese’s parent corporation, the Hershey Company, informed OU Kosher that it was changing the candy’s ingredients.
“Reese’s decided on their own that there are a lot of consumers that don’t like the fact that it’s dairy,” explained Rabbi Moshe Elefant, OU Kosher’s chief operating officer. “Once they decided that they’re removing the dairy from Reese’s, it became a great possibility for them to be OU-Pareve.”
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and other Reese’s brands remain dairy, and Elefant said the Reese’s Pieces packaging, which currently shows OU-D, will be updated later in 2026. For those concerned about any old bags lying around, the OU said to check the ingredient list or allergen statement — if it doesn’t include milk, you’re good.
The change occurs amid wider changes in Hershey, Pennsylvania, where the company that makes Reese’s is headquartered. Some Reese’s products, like the Reese’s Mini Hearts and Peanut Butter Eggs, are no longer being made with milk chocolate due to the rising cost of cocoa, inciting controversy and drawing criticism from the Reese’s family. (Those candies remain certified dairy because they contain other milk ingredients, the OU said.)
Reese’s Pieces, on the other hand, never had chocolate in them to begin with.
Meanwhile, the OU Kosher hotline had fielded countless phone calls in recent weeks from home chefs about the change — some to verify the update, and some just to say thanks. The last time there was this much excitement over a status change, Elefant said, was when Oreos became kosher. (The cookies contained animal fat until the late 1990s.)
The Forward reached out to the Hershey Company for comment.
Elefant said there had been some debate within OU Kosher — which is a branch of the Orthodox Union, a leading umbrella organization for Orthodox Judaism — about whether to announce the candy’s pareve kosher status before the candy’s packaging itself could be updated. The organization’s advisory essentially instructs consumers to temporarily ignore the “D” on the packaging.
His team considered whether it would undermine the OU’s authority or confuse people to practice disregarding the certification printed on the product. But on some level, the decision was made for them.
“This is one of the situations where we had to think about the welfare of the Jewish people,” Elefant said. “And the welfare of the Jewish people was that they need Reese’s to be pareve.”
Kosher consumers typically wait between three and six hours after eating meat to have dairy; now one could get a hamburger on the way to the movies and then house fistfuls of the classic peanut-butter candy in the theater. Watching E.T.: The Extraterrestrial, perhaps. (I’m not saying this is healthy. Just that it’s kosher.)
But the impact will likely be received most gratefully on Shabbat, when meat-based meals force dessert makers to get creative. And while the bite-sized brown, orange and yellow rounds have always been kosher, Reese’s Pieces becoming pareve means Jews who observe cholov yisroel restrictions — only consuming milk that was milked by a Jewish person — can enjoy them now, too.
Time will tell whether the update truly transforms kosher baking — or turns Reese’s Pieces into a de facto pareve chocolate chip — but a new, easy-to-find garnish for any confection was sweet on the ears of OU Kosher’s Instagram followers.
“YESSSSS! This is a win for the non-dairy queens like me!!!” wrote one.
Said another, using a Jewish name for God: “This is how I know Hashem loves me.”
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