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Rabbi Alvin Kass, longest-serving NYPD chaplain famed for 9/11 response, dies at 89
(JTA) — Less than a week after rushing to Ground Zero as a police chaplain on 9/11, Rabbi Alvin Kass led Rosh Hashanah services — not only for his Brooklyn congregation but at a makeshift synagogue at LaGuardia Airport for emergency responders who had flooded into New York City after the terrorist attacks.
“It was,” he would later say, “the most meaningful religious service in my career.”
Kass died Tuesday at 89 as the longest-serving chaplain in the New York Police Department, with a career that included responses to global terrorism, local violence and the intimate needs of police officers — as well as a hostage crisis that he famously resolved with a non-kosher pastrami sandwich.
Born and raised in New Jersey, Kass attended Camp Ramah before enrolling at Columbia University in 1953. His freshman-year roommates there were Robert Alter, who would become a preeminent translator of the Bible, and Shalom Schwartz, later a leading psychologist in Israel.
After graduating from college, he earned both a doctorate from New York University and ordination as a Conservative rabbi from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America before joining the U.S. Air Force as a chaplain. Returning stateside, he took a pulpit in Queens before being urged to join the city’s police department as a chaplain.
At the time, he was only the third Jewish chaplain to work for the NYPD. He would become its longest-serving and the first three-star chaplain, working under eight mayors and 21 police chiefs, while also helming the East Midwood Jewish Center, a Conservative synagogue in Brooklyn, for 36 years until 2014.
The NYC Benevolent Association called Kass “a true pillar of the NYPD” in a Facebook post mourning him. “Every time we bowed our heads for one of his prayers, we appreciated his deep faith, his old-school wit and his unshakable devotion to the men and women who protect NYC,” the group said. “He was a champion of all that is good and noble about our profession. May his memory be a blessing.”
NYPD Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who is Jewish, mourned Kass in a statement following his death. She noted that he was the youngest chaplain in the department’s history when he came on at age 30.
“Nearly six decades later, he remained its spiritual heart — a source of strength, guidance, and faith for generations of police officers and their families,” Tisch said, adding, “His loss is immeasurable. His example is everlasting.”
Within the NYPD, Kass was responsible for the spiritual care of all officers but especially the thousands who are Jewish. Kass successfully advocated for the right of Jewish police officers not to work on Shabbat and major Jewish holidays while also serving as the primary Jewish figure for Jewish officers who were otherwise unaffiliated with Jewish communities. He also served as spiritual director of the Shomrim Society, a fraternal organization for Jewish police officers.
“The main responsibility for a spiritual leader is to bring all people closer together, including those of your own faith,” he told the New York Jewish Week when he was honored as one of “36 to Watch” in 2024. “I feel particularly proud that the Shomrim Society embraces Jews of all backgrounds and points of view. The organization is a paragon of the unity that ought to bind all Jews together.”
After the terrorist attacks in Lower Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001, Kass reported to Ground Zero, where he encountered a police officer he described as “crying like a baby” as well as the families of officers who were unaccounted for. Later, he attended the funerals of ever police officer who was killed that day, including two who were Jewish.
“I told their families that you’re supposed to say ‘Baruch atah Adonai, eloheinu melech ha’olam, dayan ha emet’: Blessed is the Lord our God, ruler of the universe, who is a judge of truth, or truthful judge. This means, essentially, that He knows what He’s doing. We don’t,” Kass wrote in an essay for The Forward on the 20th anniversary of the attack.
“We can’t comprehend what He’s doing very often, but presumably He knows what he is doing, and we submit. We bow our head to what is often inscrutable and incomprehensible, and we accept it with a measure of faith and hope,” he continued. “That really is the essential message of Judaism, in the face of evil.”
Kass would later say that 9/11 marked a transition in the role of the chaplain within the NYPD, peeling back some of the stigma that had been associated with seeking spiritual care in a department where machismo was long the currency.
Kass’ own encounters on the job ranged from lofty to the low-brow. He was pulled away from his son’s bar mitzvah celebration to tend to an officer who had been shot, according to a 2006 profile in the Columbia alumni magazine. On another occasion he flew upstate between Friday night services and Shabbat morning services to inform a family that their officer son had been murdered.
One of Kass’s more famous escapades came in 1981 when he was called in to negotiate with a Jewish man who had taken a woman hostage.
“I talked to him all night to give up his gun,” Kass recalled in a 2012 interview with the Wall Street Journal, neither the first nor last time he would recount the incident. “I was an utter failure. But by morning he was hungry.”
The hostage team ordered pastrami sandwiches from the (nonkosher) Carnegie Deli for the hostage-taker and for Kass. Kass traded one overstuffed sandwich for the man’s gun — but it turned out he had another. Kass, who ate only kosher meat, had not touched his sandwich and persuaded the man to accept it in exchange for the other gun. The police swooped in and ended the crisis.
The NYPD commissioner noted the incident when promoting Kass to three-star chief in 2016, saying, “In a feat that has become legendary, you were able to trade two pastrami sandwiches for the man’s two guns.”
But for Kass, whose small stature added to a widespread impression of modesty, the real feat came not in his ability to disarm the hostage-taker but in the man’s appetite. “Have you seen the sandwiches from the Carnegie Deli?” he recalled. “They’re huge.”
Kass is survived by his three children and three grandchildren. He was married for 54 years to Miryom Kass, an educator, until her death in 2017. Speaking at the 2016 ceremony marking 50 years with the NYPD, Kass said about Miryom, “She has been by confidant, my partner, my co-worker, she’s been my inspiration, she’s been my chaplain.”
The post Rabbi Alvin Kass, longest-serving NYPD chaplain famed for 9/11 response, dies at 89 appeared first on The Forward.
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Rights Groups Say at Least 16 Dead in Iran During Week of Protests
People walk past closed shops following protests over a plunge in the currency’s value, in the Tehran Grand Bazaar in Tehran, Iran, December 30, 2025. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
At least 16 people have been killed during a week of unrest in Iran, rights groups said on Sunday, as protests over soaring inflation spread across the country, sparking violent clashes between demonstrators and security forces.
Deaths and arrests have been reported through the week both by state media and rights groups, though the figures differ. Reuters has not been able to independently verify the numbers.
The protests are the biggest in three years. Senior figures have struck a softer tone than in some previous bouts of unrest, at a moment of vulnerability for the Islamic Republic with the economy in tatters and international pressure building.
SUPREME LEADER SAYS IRAN WILL NOT YIELD TO ENEMY
President Masoud Pezeshkian told the Interior Ministry to take a “kind and responsible” approach toward protesters, according to remarks published by state media, saying “society cannot be convinced or calmed by forceful approaches.”
That language is the most conciliatory yet adopted by Iranian authorities, who have this week acknowledged economic pain and promised dialogue even as security forces cracked down on public dissent in the streets.
US President Donald Trump has threatened to come to the protesters’ aid if they face violence, saying on Friday “we are locked and loaded and ready to go,” without specifying what actions he was considering.
That warning prompted threats of retaliation against US forces in the region from senior Iranian officials. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran “will not yield to the enemy.”
Kurdish rights group Hengaw reported that at least 17 people had been killed since the start of the protests. HRANA, a network of rights activists, said at least 16 people had been killed and 582 arrested.
Iran’s police chief Ahmad-Reza Radan told state media that security forces had been targeting protest leaders for arrest over the previous two days, saying “a big number of leaders on the virtual space have been detained.”
Police said 40 people had been arrested in the capital Tehran alone over what they called “fake posts” on protests aimed at disturbing public opinion.
The most intense clashes have been reported in western parts of Iran but there have also been protests and clashes between demonstrators and police in Tehran, in central areas, and in the southern Baluchistan province.
Late on Saturday, the governor of Qom, the conservative centre of Iran’s Shi’ite Muslim clerical establishment, said two people had been killed there in unrest, adding that one of them had died when an explosive device he made blew up prematurely.
HRANA and the state-affiliated Tasnim news agency reported that authorities had detained the administrator of online accounts urging protests.
CURRENCY LOST AROUND HALF ITS VALUE
Protests began a week ago among bazaar traders and shopkeepers before spreading to university students and then provincial cities, where some protesters have been chanting against Iran’s clerical rulers.
Iran has faced inflation above 36 percent since the start of its year in March and the rial currency has lost around half its value against the dollar, causing hardship for many people.
International sanctions over Iran’s nuclear program have been reimposed, the government has struggled to provide water and electricity across the country through the year, and global financial bodies predict a recession in 2026.
Khamenei said on Saturday that although authorities would talk to protesters, “rioters should be put in their place.”
Speaking on Sunday, Vice President Mohammadreza Aref said the government acknowledged the country faced shortcomings while warning that some people were seeking to exploit the protests.
“We expect the youth not to fall into the trap of the enemies,” Aref said in comments carried by state media.
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Antisemitic Graffiti Painted on the Facade of Canada Synagogue
Antisemitic graffiti on a synagogue in Winnipeg, Canada. Photo: CIJA, via i24.
i24 News – The Winnipeg police in central Canada have opened a hate crime investigation after the discovery of swastikas and antisemitic messages spray-painted on the exterior of the Shaarey Zedek synagogue, one of the city’s main Jewish congregations. The graffiti is believed to have been done during the night from Saturday to Sunday.
The acts of vandalism were discovered early in the morning. Several hateful symbols were visible on exterior parts of the building. No injuries were reported. Officers went to the scene to assess the damage and secure the premises. The police are currently reviewing surveillance footage from the area and are asking anyone with information to come forward.
The incident has drawn strong condemnation from national and local Jewish organizations. The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) denounced these acts, stressing that the desecration of Jewish institutions with Nazi symbols requires a firm response from municipal and police authorities.
The Jewish Federation of Winnipeg has also condemned what it calls “pure hatred,” warning that the repeated targeting of Jewish institutions poses a serious threat to the community’s safety. It has once again encouraged citizens to promptly report any hate-related incident to enable investigators to gather the necessary evidence.
These graffiti have appeared in a context of rising antisemitic incidents across the country. Community organizations note that synagogues, schools, and Jewish centers are increasingly being targeted, particularly during times of international tension, even when they have no direct connection to those events.
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Oil Prices Likely to Move Higher on Venezuelan Turmoil, Ample Supply to Cap Gains
FILE PHOTO: The Guinea-flagged oil tanker MT Bandra, which is under sanctions, is partially seen alongside another vessel at El Palito terminal, near Puerto Cabello, Venezuela December 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Juan Carlos Hernandez/File Photo
Oil prices are likely to move higher when benchmark futures resume trading later on Sunday on concern that supply may be disrupted after the United States snatched Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from Caracas at the weekend and President Donald Trump said Washington would take control of the oil-producing nation.
There is plentiful oil supply in global markets, meaning any further disruption to Venezuela’s exports would have little immediate impact on prices, analysts said.
The US strike on Venezuela to extract the country’s president inflicted no damage on the country’s oil production and refining industry, two sources with knowledge of operations at state oil company PDVSA said at the weekend.
Since Trump imposed a blockade of sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuelan waters and seized two cargoes last month, exports have fallen and have been completely paralysed since January 1.
That has left millions of barrels stuck on loaded tankers in Venezuelan waters and led to millions more barrels going into Venezuelan oil storage.
The OPEC member’s exports fell to around 500,000 barrels per day in December, around half of what they were in November. Most of the December exports took place before the embargo. Since then, only exports from Chevron of around 100,000 bpd have continued to leave Venezuela. The global oil major has US authorization to produce and export from Venezuela despite sanctions.
The embargo prompted PDVSA to begin cutting oil output, three sources close to the decision said on Sunday, because Venezuela is running out of storage capacity for the oil that it cannot export. PDVSA has asked some of the joint ventures that are operating in the country to cut back production, the sources said. They would need to shut down oilfields or well clusters.
Trump said on Saturday that the oil embargo on Venezuelan exports remained in full effect. If the US government loosens the embargo and allows more Venezuelan crude exports to the US Gulf, there are refiners there that previously processed the country’s oil.
The weekend’s events were unlikely to materially alter global oil markets or the global economy given the US strikes avoided Venezuela’s oil infrastructure, said Neil Shearing, group chief economist at Capital Economics.
“In any case, any short-term disruption to Venezuelan output can easily be offset by increased production elsewhere. And any medium-term recovery in Venezuelan supply would be dwarfed by shifts among the major producers,” he said in a note.
Trump also threatened on Friday to intervene in a crackdown on protests in Iran, another OPEC producer, ratcheting up geopolitical tensions. Trump on Friday said “we are locked and loaded and ready to go,” without specifying what actions he was considering against Tehran, which has seen a week of unrest as protests over soaring inflation spread across the country.
“Prices may see modest upside on heightened geopolitical tensions and disruption risks linked to Venezuela and Iran, but ample global supply should continue to cap those risks for now,” said Ole Hansen, head of commodities research at Saxo Bank.
On Sunday, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and their allies agreed to maintain steady oil output in the first quarter, OPEC+ said in a statement. Both Venezuela and Iran are members of OPEC. Several other members of OPEC+ are also embroiled in conflict and political crises.
The producer group has put increases in production on pause for the first quarter after raising output targets by around 2.9 million barrels per day from April to December 2025, equal to almost 3% of world oil demand.
Brent and US crude futures settled lower on Friday, the first day of trading of 2026, as investors weighed oversupply concerns against geopolitical risks. Both contracts closed 2025 with their biggest annual loss since 2020 marked by wars, higher tariffs, increased OPEC+ output and sanctions on Russia, Iran and Venezuela.
VENEZUELA
“The political transition in Venezuela adds another major layer of uncertainty, with elevated risks of civil unrest and near-term supply disruptions,” said Jorge Leon, head of geopolitical analysis at consultancy Rystad Energy and a former OPEC official.
“In an environment this fragile, OPEC+ is choosing caution, preserving flexibility rather than introducing new uncertainty into an already volatile market.”
Trump said on Saturday that the US would control the country until it could make an orderly transition, but an interim government led by vice president and oil minister Delcy Rodriguez remains in control of the country’s institutions, including state energy company PDVSA, with the blessing of Venezuela’s top court.
A top Venezuelan official said on Sunday that the country’s government would stay unified behind Maduro amid deep uncertainty about what is next for the Latin American country.
Trump said that American oil companies were prepared to reenter Venezuela and invest billions of dollars to restore production there.
Venezuela is unlikely to see any meaningful boost to crude output for years even if US oil majors do invest the billions of dollars in the country that Trump has promised, analysts said.
“We continue to caution market observers that it will be a long road back for the country, given its decades-long decline under the Chávez and Maduro regimes, as well as the fact that the US regime change track record is not one of unambiguous success,” Helima Croft, RBC Capital’s head of commodities research, said in a note.