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Rabbi Mayer Moskowitz z”l, on Hasidic life in pre-war Czernowitz
[The following is an English version of the original Yiddish article, which you can read here.]
Rabbi Mayer Moskowitz, a beloved longtime educator at the Ramaz School in New York and the Hebrew-immersive Camp Massad, and author of the book A Memoir of Sanctity, has passed away.
In 2010, I interviewed Rabbi Moskowitz to learn what the Hasidic community was like in the city where he was born and raised — Czernowitz (Chernivtsi), then part of Romania, and today Ukraine.
Most contemporary scholars of East European Jewish history focus on prewar Czernowitz as a hub of intellectual and cultural Jewish life; as the location of the first Yiddish conference in 1908; as the milieu where the poet Itsik Manger and fabulist Eliezer Shteynbarg produced their greatest work.
But as the oldest child of the Shotzer Rebbe — Avrohom Chaim Moskowitz, Mayer Moskowitz had a very different perspective of the city, describing it as a center of five Hasidic dynasties and a vibrant Orthodox Jewish community.
I met Rabbi Moskowitz through my son, Gedaliah Ejdelman, who was a student in his class on halacha (Jewish law) at Ramaz Upper School. The following anecdote gives you an idea of the kind of person Rabbi Moskowitz was:
On the day before the final exam, one student asked if he could write his answers in English rather than Hebrew. Half-jokingly, the rabbi told the students that they could respond in any language they wished.
Gedaliah raised his hand and asked if he could write in Yiddish. “Sure,” Rabbi Moskowitz said. So Gedaliah did, citing Rashi and other commentators in mame-loshen. Moskowitz was so delighted by the Yiddish responses that he shared them with his colleagues.
When I met with Rabbi Moskowitz in his Upper East Side apartment in Manhattan, I asked him what life was like in Czernowitz. He told me he was born in 1927, a son — in fact, the only son — of the Shotzer Rebbe, Avrohom Chaim Moskowitz. He explained that Czernowitz had no less than five Hasidic dynasties. Besides his father, there was the Boyaner Rebbe; the Nadvorner Rebbe; the Zalischiker Rebbe and the Kitover Rebbe.
“All the Rebbes were related because the marriages of their children were arranged solely with other rabbinical families in Czernowitz,” he said.
Every Rebbe had his own court of Hasidim but there were marked differences between the Rebbe and his worshippers. The former wore beards and peyes (Yiddish for sidelocks) and donned a shtreimel for the Sabbath and holidays, while their worshippers, seeing themselves as “modern Jews,” were clean-shaven and came to services wearing a tsilinder (top hat) and tailcoat.
“I myself had little peyes,” Rabbi Moskowitz said.
His family lived in the same building as his father’s shul. His mother, Alte Sheyndl, was a daughter of the Pidayetser Rebbe, so she wore a sheitel. But, like the other rebishe kinder (Rebbe’s children), she was apparently influenced by the cosmopolitan character of the city. In contrast to her husband who spoke Yiddish with their children, the Rebbetzin spoke German. She went to the theater, read secular Yiddish poetry and shook men’s hands. On Mother’s Day, little Mayer would bring her a bouquet of flowers and on New Year’s Eve the Rebbetzin and the other daughters of rabbinical families threw a party.
“On New Year’s Eve they came to our apartment on the second floor, elegantly dressed, ate and spent many hours together,” Rabbi Moskowitz said. “Although they didn’t drink any alcohol, the daughters-in-law of the Bayoner Rebbe smoked thin cigarettes.”
Rabbi Moskowitz recalled his first day in cheder at the age of three: “My parents never walked together in public but on that day they dressed me in completely new shorts, shoes and a talis-kotn.” The latter is the traditional four-cornered fringed garment that Orthodox men and boys wear under their shirt.
His parents walked him, hand-in-hand, to the cheder. When they arrived, his father wrapped him in a tallis and carried him inside. On the table, little Mayer saw the diminutive of his name, ‘Mayerl,’ written with large golden letters.
The teacher asked him to repeat each Hebrew letter and its corresponding sound. Every time little Mayer correctly repeated it — “Komets alef ‘o’ … komets beyz ‘bo’ — a honey cookie dropped onto the table in front of him.
“I really thought it was falling from the heavens,” Rabbi Moskowitz said. “As it says in Proverbs: ‘Pleasant words are as a honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones.’”
When he was five, Mayer began learning khumesh, the Bible. “It was shabbos afternoon. My relatives, family friends and all five Rebbes came. They lifted me onto the table. I was wearing a brown velvet suit. Each grandfather gave me a golden watch with a little chain and attached it to my suit. Then they asked me: ‘What are you learning in khumesh now?’”
After the quiz was over, the guests began dancing and singing, eating cake and fruit. All the Rebbes wore shtreimels as they sat at tables surrounded by their Hasidim and handed out shirayim — remnants of the blessed food that a Rebbe would give his followers, who believed they would receive a spiritual blessing by eating it. Mayer sat between his grandfathers.
Every morning Mayer went to cheder and three afternoons a week he attended a Zionist Hebrew-language school. In 1936, at the age of ten, he was sent to the city of Vizhnitz (today — Vyzhnytsia, Ukraine) to learn in the yeshiva of the Vizhnitzer Rebbe. He came home only four times a year: on the shabbos of Hanukkah, Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot.
Rabbi Moskowitz remembers Sukkot in Czernowitz: “All year, men and women ate together but not on Sukkot. My mother blessed the holiday candles, came into the sukkah for kiddush and hamotzi but then went back into the house where she ate in the company of the other women in the family.”
The sukkah was large. His father’s Hasidim would gather around their Rebbe’s tish (table) on the second night of Sukkot for the all-night celebration called simkhas-beis-hashoeivah. About 150 men would squeeze into the sukkah. But contrary to tradition, no one slept in it. “It was cold and a bit dangerous,” Rabbi Moskowitz said.
The Shotzer Rebbe’s house also served as an inn for rebbes from surrounding towns, when they needed to come to Chernovitz to see a doctor. Simple Jews, who leased land from non-Jewish noblemen would also come to the inn to see their rebbes. “They were common people, wore workboots and would bring fruit from their fields as a gift for the Rebbe,” he explained.
Many times, impoverished Jews would come to his father’s door asking for money. “One of them, called Fishele, used to say ‘I love you’ to my mother. She was indeed a beautiful woman. So my family would invite him in and feed him the same food we were eating.”
In describing these simple everyday events of his childhood in Czernowitz, Rabbi Moskowitz did a true mitzvah: He enabled us to see the city not only as a magnet for Yiddish writers and cultural activists, but also as a large, thriving Hasidic community.
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Georgia voters decide the future of Jon Ossoff, a Jewish Democrat who increasingly criticizes Israel
(JTA) — Jewish voters in Georgia went to the polls on Tuesday to choose between Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, who has increasingly criticized Israel, and Republican Rep. Mike Collins, his pro-Israel challenger with ties to white nationalists.
Ossoff, who is Jewish, called Collins a “notorious bigot, antisemite, and extremist” during the bitterly fought election. Collins said that Ossoff “caved to the radicals” by voting to halt certain arms shipments to Israel.
Ossoff’s voting record on Israel has captured a shift in the Democratic party. While he has supported measures to boost Israeli defense systems, he also became one of the first Senate Democrats to vote for blocking offensive weapons sales to Israel in 2024, as the country’s military conduct in Gaza drove mounting opposition.
In contrast, Collins has pledged continued military support for Israel and described the country as “a frontline partner against Iran and their partners in terror” in the Atlanta Jewish Times. A self-described “born again Christian,” Collins added that he supports Israel because “my faith tells me to and because it is the right policy for America.”
Collins’ campaign was mired in controversies surrounding his associates. One of his former staffers posted images of a swastika and a Ku Klux Klan robe online, while another partook in a group chat with prominent white nationalists that aimed to help an accused Holocaust denier. Collins’ son-in-law is a social media influencer who has promoted conspiracy theories that “Jews control our government” and called to deport all Muslims.
Ossoff took aim at those associations during the candidates’ two debates, saying that Collins “hired half the Third Reich to staff your congressional office” and was “unable to stop someone under your own roof from disseminating neo-Nazi propaganda while you run for the Senate.” Collins has said that he condemns antisemitism and does not support his son-in-law’s views.
Meanwhile, Ossoff’s vote against offensive weapons for Israel in November 2024 divided Georgia’s Jews. In an open letter, a coalition including Georgia synagogues, the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta, the local Anti-Defamation League chapter and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee told Ossoff they were “deeply disappointed” and the vote demonstrated that his “commitment to Israel’s security is not ironclad.”
An opposing letter from over 100 Atlanta Jewish leaders, including rabbis and heads of liberal organizations, thanked Ossoff for his vote. They said his position represented “a growing portion of the American Jewish community that believes that the US-Israel relationship should be grounded in our laws, national security interests and shared values.”
AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, attacked Ossoff and other senators who supported the bill in an advertising blitz. But Ossoff was backed by J Street, a liberal Jewish Middle East advocacy group, which spent $3 million on ads attacking Collins and other AIPAC-supported Republicans.
Ossoff subsequently voted for further measures in 2025 and 2026 to block sales of rifles, bulldozers and 1,000-pound bombs to Israel. Collins repeatedly attacked Ossoff for those votes, accusing the senator of giving in to “radicals” in the Democratic party who were “pushing the anti-Israel agenda.”
Ossoff has walked a tightrope between criticizing Israel and distancing himself from his party’s staunchest left flank. In his Oct. 8 debate with Collins, he was asked whether Israel committed genocide in Gaza, a charge made by a growing chorus of progressives. Ossoff cited Israeli war crimes while deferring to international courts.
“The question of genocide is a question of whether a government has the specific intent to destroy a national or ethnic group, and that is a question for the International Criminal Court,” Ossoff said. “There is no doubt in my mind that Israeli forces prosecuting the war in Gaza violated the law of armed conflict and international humanitarian law.”
Ossoff has also excoriated Trump’s decision to join Israel in a war with Iran. Like other Democratic candidates across the country, Ossoff accuses Trump of “lying a nation into war” and sending “prices soaring with his warmongering in the Middle East.”
Ossoff’s rising popularity has spurred speculation about his potential future as a 2028 presidential contender, though he said he has “zero interest in running for president.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Why Nick Fuentes endorsed Democrats in the midterms
Nick Fuentes is a devoted conservative, open antisemite and far-right agitator. On his Rumble show, one of the most viewed on the streaming platform, he regularly calls for mass deportations, labels women the biggest threat to America, praises Hitler, slanders Black people as illiterate and blames Jews for a host of societal ills.
So why, on the morning of the 2026 midterm elections, did he post, “Get out and vote Democrat today?”
It sounds like a joke, which wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for the shockjock humor the far-right influencer employs. Fuentes paraded with MAGA flags on Boston University’s liberal campus when he was briefly enrolled there. He went to the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. He had dinner with the then-former president Trump alongside Kanye West. He celebrated the president’s win in 2024.
But Fuentes was not kidding. In his streams on Rumble, where he runs his podcast, America First with Nicholas J. Fuentes, he has been telling his followers, often called Groypers, to vote blue no matter who. He has done the same on X, where his once-banned account was reinstated when Musk bought the platform.
What changed his mind? Well, in large part, Israel.
Fuentes has been complaining for nearly a year now about Trump, for myriad reasons. On X, Fuentes harshly criticized Trump’s refusal to release the Epstein files and his failure to deport millions. He slammed the war with Iran. And, as ever, the streamer known for his antisemitism has speculated about Jewish influence on rightwing politicians and causes.
On a stream urging his followers once again to vote for Democratic politicians in congressional races, he said that Trump had failed to end the “genocide in Gaza” and had instead broken his promises not to start any new wars — and done so at Netanyahu’s bidding no less. Angrily, he pointed out that Trump had come into office with control of both the House and the Senate, and with the support of some of the most-desired demographics of American voters: young men.
“For the first time in like a quarter of a century, it was hip to be Republican. It was cool,” Fuentes said, recalling Trump’s win in 2024. But then, he argued, the Republican leadership blew it: “You lost the comedians, you lost the podcast bros, you lost the normies! Normies don’t like war with Iran. Normies don’t like 3.7% inflation!”
But don’t take Fuentes’ endorsement of Democrats as proof that the worst antisemitism now lies with the left; the influencer has been clear that he reviles the Democratic party and is still a right-winger. Not only is he an avowed white nationalist and antisemite, he is a devout traditionalist Catholic who does not believe women should be allowed to vote. However much he dislikes anything to do with Jews, he is not truly interested in uniting with anti-Zionist progressive candidates just because they criticize Israel. (He is, however, happy to endorse Amy Action, a blonde white Democrat, over the Indian Vivek Ramaswamy, who Fuentes called an “anchor baby.”)
Instead, he has said his Democratic endorsement is a tactical one, a way to steer and influence the Republican party to come closer to his Christian nationalist, antisemitic, closed borders ideology.
“James Talarico is a Satanic wicked disgusting figure. Abdul Rahman El-Sayed in Michigan is a lying scumbag. He’s trying to maintain this facade that he’s Woke 2.0, patriotic, just wants healthcare — he’s a Muslim socialist. Pure contempt for America and whites,” Fuentes said on a stream about the midterms. “These are some of the worst Democrats ever! But maybe that is the wake up call we are going to need as the anti-left opposition to put up some legitimately good candidates.”
If there is a blue wave on Tuesday night, as Fuentes predicts, he believes the Republican party will blame him for it — and he’s ready to accept responsibility. He did, after all, urge his followers to vote Democratic. But don’t be fooled; he won’t be pushing the Democrats to become groypers. Most likely, he’ll present himself and his followers as the natural successors to lead the Republican party in 2028.
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Capers Funnye wasn’t a ‘Black Jew’ — he was a good Jew
This morning, when I woke up, it was the first time in my entire life that my spiritual leader, my rabbi and my friend, was gone. People are born and die every day, and we live totally oblivious to that fact, but I feel the absence of this one human being almost on a cellular level. And the very person I would call to help me make sense of a time like this is the one who is gone.
Rabbi Capers Funnye wasn’t your typical rabbi. How could he be, though? After all, his congregation was full of Black folks and people of color. There were also some white congregants, but for the most part, his temple was a place created for people like me to have somewhere to go and practice Judaism freely without suspicion or judgment. Beth Shalom was established over one hundred years ago by Black Jews who knew at that time that they could actually be arrested here in America, in Chicago, for daring to say out loud that they were Jewish. I know that sounds unthinkable, but it’s a historical fact: It used to be illegal in Chicago for Blacks to claim that they were Jewish.
Rabbi Funnye dedicated his life to ensuring that Black Jews wouldn’t have their Jewishness questioned.
White Jews love to reminisce about the Civil Rights Movement and their close relationship to the Black community, and this coalition brought about monumental changes to American society. But those same white Jews who marched in Selma and rode buses to Mississippi had little to no interaction with Black Jews. We were nonexistent. A myth, if you will. Some people had heard that there were Black people who called themselves Jews, but no one had actually ever seen one or met one.
We were there, but just as other Jews had hidden before, we were hiding too. We worshipped in basements, living rooms, and the backs of storefronts. We were in the shadows until Rabbi Funnye came along. He was born to leave the world a better place than he found it, and that’s exactly what he did.
Rabbi Funnye was supposed to be an AME pastor, but the church didn’t need him. The synagogue, the Jewish people, did.
I used to joke with him that I’d known him so long I could remember when he had a full head of black hair. And I did. I can remember going to services and seeing him on the bimah on Shabbat. Even as a little kid, I recognized he was different. He had a voice that could command the attention even of a pew full of antsy five-year-olds. But he also had a smile so warm that we never felt scolded. When he spoke, people couldn’t help but listen, and eventually he started saying what people wanted and needed to hear.
I watched him rise from assistant rabbi to leader.He could teach Torah in a way that held the congregation’s interest, imparting important lessons while adding levity with razor-sharp wit and perfectly timed humor.
If I’d been born male, I probably would’ve wanted to be a rabbi my whole life. I wanted to be like him. But I was a girl, and that was unthinkable.
But he made me believe I could do things.
I can remember when he started to integrate the Chicago Jewish community. When we’d go to events like Shabbat dinners or Black and Jewish seders, he was unfazed by the whispers and stares when he’d ask where the tables were for those who were both Black and Jewish. While this made the rest of us uncomfortable and, for some, unwilling to ever go back into any room where we were treated as oddities, he was undeterred.
He went back, over and over again. He would not allow the existence of Black Jews to go unacknowledged any longer. And many of us went with him. I was one. I saw how he was treated at times by white rabbis and even just by people who were white and Jewish and still felt that somehow they were better than him. It would infuriate me, but not him. He’d smile, tell a joke or one of his signature stories that would completely disarm them.
And while the behavior of some of my white co-religionists would thoroughly anger me, Rabbi Funnye understood how to deal with bigotry and hate in other ways. He grew up in it. He knew how to rise above it. Another lesson learned. He never met hate with hate or derision with derision. He met it with love.
He knew that was the only way he could move us from the shadows and out of the margins, into the mainstream. And it was also the only way that he could show white Jews we were nothing to fear or exclude.
At times, his message wasn’t popular with Black Jews who wanted nothing to do with white Jews or with white Jews who weren’t ready to accept the fact that G-d made Black Jews too.
None of that changed the fact that it was the right one.
Chief Rabbi Funnye wasn’t a Black Jew. He was a good Jew. And that is the lesson that I, and hopefully all who knew him, will learn from his life.
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