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Rabbis Angela Buchdahl and Elliot Cosgrove show the split in the pulpit over political endorsements
(JTA) — Go figure: A non-Jewish, non-Zionist politician has sparked a national Jewish conversation about the role of the rabbi.
If elected next week, the 34-year-old progressive Zohran Mamdani would be the first mayor of New York City who came up through the trenches of pro-Palestinian activism, and the first to reject the idea that being mayor to a city with 1 million Jews means being a supporter of Israel.
The prospect has shaken a Jewish mainstream that has long taken that support for granted, considers Zionism a pillar of its Jewish identity and sees Mamdani as an enabler of the kind of strident anti-Israel protests that make them feel unsafe.
In turn, that has put pressure on rabbis throughout the five boroughs and beyond to take a stand — not just by defending Zionism and Jewish security but by denouncing Mamdani and endorsing his rivals. With the IRS in July having lifted the 60+-year-old ban that prevented houses of worship from endorsing or opposing candidates, rabbis who would prefer to stay above the fray have lost their cover.
Also gone are the days when the decision to use the bimah as a bully pulpit was between a rabbi and his or her congregation. Non-Orthodox synagogues regularly post their rabbis’ Shabbat sermons to YouTube. A petition signed by over 1,100 rabbis calling on voters to reject anti-Zionist candidates like Mamdani has become a very public roll call of rabbis who are willing to engage directly in electoral politics.
The inescapably public profile of being a rabbi amid a high-stakes election was seen in the contrasting positions taken by leaders of two influential and prosperous Manhattan congregations. In a sermon shared on YouTube and the synagogue’s web site, Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove of Park Avenue Synagogue made his position clear from his very first sentence: “I believe Zohran Mamdani poses a danger to the security of New York’s Jewish community.” He not only urged members of his Conservative shul to vote for Mamdani’s leading rival, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, but laid out a specific strategy for convincing undecided and Mamdani-curious Jewish voters to do the same.
About 30 blocks south, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl of Central Synagogue, whose recent sermon on the Gaza war drew over 120,000 views on YouTube, wrote a letter to her Reform congregation about the mayoral race. Without naming Mamdani, she insisted that elected leaders “must reject the idea that Jewish self-determination is up for negotiation,” while reaffirming her synagogue’s policy “of not endorsing or publicly opposing political candidates.”
Some might find that coy — a rabbinic version of the New York Times’ controversial “non-endorsement” endorsement of Cuomo. But Buchdahl has become one of the country’s best-known rabbis in part on her ability to articulate Jewish concerns in a way that embraces and respects those who might disagree with her. Her Gaza sermon deftly conveyed Jewish dismay over the scale of the killings and hunger in Gaza while sympathizing with the fears and dilemmas of average Israelis.
The letter makes clear where she and her team stand on Zionism and fighting antisemitism: “We have spoken from the pulpit in multiple past sermons and will continue to take a clear, unambiguous position on antisemitism, on anti-Zionist rhetoric, and on sharing our deep support for Israel.” Mamdani was unmistakably the subject when she added, “I hope and expect anyone who becomes mayor of our amazing city — home to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel — will take very seriously the expressed concerns (made directly and publicly) of so many of us in the Jewish community.”
She also explains why the synagogue considers nonpartisanship a practical and spiritual value. “It remains our conviction that political endorsements of candidates are not in the best interest of our congregation, community, or country,” she writes, adding, “Our role is not to enter political campaigns or to endorse or speak out against candidates, but to provide moral and spiritual clarity on important public issues.”
Cosgrove doesn’t explicitly address the debate over whether a rabbi should endorse a political candidate, but writes that the stakes of the mayoral race are too high for him not to weigh in on the candidates.
“I wish it were otherwise,” he said. “I wish we had two candidates with equal interest, or better yet, equal disinterest in the Jewish community…. But this election cycle, that is simply not the case. We can only play the cards we are dealt. And in this hand, I choose to play the one that safeguards the Jewish people, protects our community, and ensures that our seat at the table remains secure.”
He also defends his public political stand in spiritual terms.
“Self-preservation and self-interest are not only legitimate, but essential to sustaining an ethical life,” he said, citing the Talmudic sage Hillel.
While both rabbis have ranged widely in their sermons and activism, their messages on the mayor’s race offer two different models for leadership. Cosgrove spoke in the voice of a political strategist and community organizer; Buchdahl’s letter was about protecting the integrity of her institution and the diverse individuals it serves.
By dint of their influential congregations, media savvy and charisma, Cosgrove and Buchdahl are rabbis with citywide and, especially in Buchdahl’s case, national stature. The rabbis’ petition quoted Cosgrove, although he did not sign it; Buchdahl recently promoted her memoir about growing up Korean-American, and her unasked for role as a hostage negotiator, on CBS Mornings. Their positions have weight in a debate that has dogged rabbis ever since the pulpit became a place not just for parsing fine points of Jewish law or offering homilies, but commenting on current events.
A frequently cited role model for activist rabbis is Joachim Prinz, the German refugee who led congregations in Newark, New Jersey and its suburbs in the last century. Even before leaving Germany he would rail against the Nazis. In America, he bucked the clear isolationist trend — and fear among many Jews of a backlash — by insisting that Europe’s fight was America’s fight.
Prinz rejected the traditional model of the drash, or homily, finding it “too solemn and lacking in concrete meaning. I was always out to find something relevant to the life of the people sitting in front of me.” He wondered how seriously people would take a faith tradition whose clergy couldn’t offer guidance on, say, waging war, addressing poverty or resisting authoritarianism.
Throw in Jewish security, and the stakes get higher yet.
Prinz’s jeremiads against Nazism and later in support of civil rights would assure his place in American-Jewish history. Whether it would assure him a place in a modern American pulpit is another story. Support for “social justice” — in the form of volunteerism and charitable giving — is fine. Also tolerated is a certain amount of activism on consensus issues, which have lately become elusive.
As for urging specific stands on candidates or pieces of legislation — rabbis quickly learn that neither smooths their path to contract renewal.
For many congregants, this is as it should be. They feel that the great knotty corpus of Jewish text shouldn’t be reduced to a policy prescription, or that they shouldn’t be forced to hear a political speech in a house of worship.
Cosgrove especially anticipated the kinds of objections — mostly tactical — he thought he might get from congregants: Opposing a popular candidate like Mamdani would invite an antisemitic backlash, or centering Zionism in the mayor’s race would confirm the slander of dual loyalty.
Buchdahl faced the opposite pressure: congregants insisting she endorse Cuomo. There have been some nasty Instagram posts calling her timid, with comments suggesting that some congregants may have resigned over the saga.
Buchdahl’s letter insists that declining to endorse does not mean she and the synagogue are abdicating their responsibility to Jewish safety. Rather, she wrote, the synagogue does its job by instilling the values that shape the political decisions of its congregants.
“Our role,” she wrote, “is not to enter political campaigns or to endorse or speak out against candidates, but to provide moral and spiritual clarity on important public issues.”
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A Chabad Jew was stabbed in NYC. He returned the next day to continue wrapping tefillin.
(JTA) — Less than 24 hours after he was stabbed in midtown Manhattan, Yosef, a Chabad-Lubavitch man from Crown Heights, was back on the same street where he’d been assaulted, popping into Diamond District businesses as usual to help employees wrap tefillin.
Yosef, 26, who did not share his last name to maintain his privacy, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he was back on 47th Street on Thursday afternoon, the day after the stabbing, without missing a beat in his Monday-through-Thursday rounds even as police investigate the incident as a possible hate crime.
A number of the people he visited pieced together that the widely circulated footage of a man being stabbed the previous night was of him.
“They were in shock. They were obviously scared for me,” said Yosef, who has been wrapping tefillin and distributing Shabbat candles to Jewish Diamond District employees for about three years. He started that routine when his father, a Chabad Jew who works in the jewelry business, realized he needed his son’s help to handle the demand for those acts. Yosef told Chabad.org that he was “still shaken” by the attack a day later.
Still, he told JTA, “We can’t allow some hate to stop us.”
Yosef said he felt it was important to communicate that message because “we need more mitzvahs in the world, we need more light in the world.”
Yosef was taken to Bellevue Hospital on Wednesday evening around 6 p.m., where medical staff assessed that he had no internal bleeding and would not need stitches. No arrests have been made, but the assailant has been described as a woman in her 40s.
The attack has renewed concerns about security that have faced Chabad adherents and institutions, which often host public events and maintain a visible street presence. But the threat didn’t diminish their presence in midtown Manhattan on Friday.
Multiple Chabad men stood under a bright yellow tent on the sidewalk wrapping tefillin for a steady stream of workers in the heavily Jewish Diamond District.
“The Rebbe says that the way to defeat darkness is only through the addition of light,” said Shmuel Cohen, who was handing out small photographs of the movement’s late leader, the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson.
Cohen told JTA that he had not heard about the attack that took place just down the block two days earlier, though his partner under the sidewalk tent had. Cohen said that the best way to respond is through “the observance of Torah and mitzvot without being ashamed of our Judaism but presenting it to everyone.”
Also on Friday, Chabad officials met with New York Police Department representatives for their annual meeting about security ahead of Chabad’s international conference in Crown Heights, the Brooklyn neighborhood where the movement is headquartered. The conference begins on Nov. 5.
Chabad has been targeted in multiple high-profile attacks in the past year, including the deadly Bondi Beach shooting in Australia in December. The following month, a man rammed a car into the doors of the Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters in Brooklyn, raising further questions over how the movement should balance its commitment to making its events accessible with security.
Meanwhile, Jews have been targeted in more than half of hate crimes committed in New York City in 2026, despite making up about 12% of the city’s population.
“Security is our top priority. Our goal is to provide an environment where every participant feels safe and can fully experience the purpose and spirit of the gathering,” said Rabbi Mendy Kotlarsky, a top organizer of the upcoming conference.
In the wake of the attack, Yosef said he is not concerned about going out in public as a visibly Jewish person and doesn’t plan to change how he approaches the world.
“I was wearing the same clothes on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday,” he said. “I didn’t change my routine.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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They met on a Birthright trip then married. Now this American Israeli couple’s internet fame has turned to infamy.
Ethan and Hila Klein first met at Yad Vashem — Israel’s Holocaust museum — in 2007, a meet-cute they recounted, giggling, years later for their millions of YouTube followers.
“I think I went up to her and said something like, ‘They had it coming, don’t you think?’” said Ethan, known for his edgy humor and infamous internet trends, including Vape Nation and Papa Bless. “No I didn’t say that. I wonder if you would have laughed though.”
They were on a Birthright trip, Ethan an American and Hila an Israeli soldier on leave to join the group. Soon after the trip ended, Ethan moved to Israel to be with Hila, and the two began making videos under the name H3H3 Productions (the H for Hila and the 3 standing in as an E for Ethan). They married, moved to America, and started a popular podcast.
A Jewish love story, until Thursday, when Hila, now mother to their three children, accused Ethan publicly of having a months-long affair.
“The betrayal I feel is immeasurable,” Hila said in an Instagram post. “My only family on this side of the world. How do I even begin to make sense of this?”
Ethan reposted her statement.
Their podcast is run by a handful of crew members who often chime in and participate in various skits and bits. The crew also shared a statement saying they stand with Hila and refuse to work with Ethan, though they added they don’t know what this will mean for the future of the show.
A couple roiled by Oct. 7
The left-leaning, secular couple’s videos and podcasts focused primarily on pop culture, internet drama and general politics, not Jewish or Israeli issues.
Both Ethan and Hila would make statements sometimes when tensions in Israel flared, and they would occasionally speak out against IDF actions that upset them.
In 2021, Ethan started a podcast with political commenter Hasan Piker, a controversial left-wing influencer, called Leftovers, a nod to their leftist politics.
Then came Oct. 7.
Ethan, an American Israeli dual citizen like Hila, was horrified by the attacks but quick to call the IDF genocidal in the aftermath. In their first episode together after Oct. 7, Ethan and Piker said the show would continue through their disagreements. The episode was tense, and it was their last.
As Piker’s rhetoric on Israel intensified and became at times antisemitic, the two began a nasty internet feud, culminating in a nearly five-hour livestreamed debate.
Piker posted about the news of the affair on X, sharing a video of Ethan and expressing disgust for men who cheat.
“Now this is a high caliber man [with] good morals,” Piker said sarcastically. He also posted “Judge me by my enemies” after sharing Hila’s statement.
Hila, who owns a makeup and clothing company, increasingly came under scrutiny by Piker and others after Oct. 7 for her service in the IDF. Artists refused to work with her. One model she hired publicly disavowed her after finding out she was Israeli.
The couple was harassed, sometimes online, sometimes in-person, as they attempted to take what they viewed as a nuanced stance in the aftermath of Hamas’ attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza. The united front seemed to fortify their relationship, as Ethan, ever outspoken, routinely came to his wife’s defense.
Their show lost thousands of subscribers, but loyal fans stuck with them — fans who now say they are gutted and confused by the news of the affair. Many in disbelief noted that Ethan had Hila’s face tattooed on his arm less than two years ago as a surprise for her.
“The greatest thing a man can do for his children is to love their mother,” says the quote surrounding the tattoo.
The Forward attempted to contact the Kleins through their work emails and did not immediately hear back.
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These Jewish college students have some ‘nonnegotiables’ for El-Sayed
At the University of Michigan, first-year student Robert Kashan, 18, and sophomore Jacob Reich, 19, sat behind a large blue sign. “Some things are nonnegotiable,” it declared in all caps.
The sign laid out their requirements for any candidate seeking their support: a commitment to Jewish safety, “including for Zionist Jews,” and supporting Jewish statehood in Israel, among other positions.
“Zionism is a legitimate part of the Democratic coalition, and a lot of us are feeling less represented by the Democratic Party,” Kashan told the Forward.
The students are part of a broader “Nonnegotiable” movement in Michigan, a coalition of Jewish Democrats who are spelling out their dealbreakers for candidates ahead of the Senate election between Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed and Republican nominee Mike Rogers.
The movement has attracted national attention, with hundreds of rabbis across 34 states signing on to the “Nonnegotiable” demands. Meanwhile, about 20 students at the University of Michigan have publicly signed, while hundreds more offered support anonymously, according to Reich.
The “Nonnegotiable” supporters aren’t saying whom they’ll vote for if their concerns aren’t addressed — or whether they’ll vote at all. But they are pushing back against the assumption that Jewish voters will, as the saying goes, “vote blue no matter who,” urging El-Sayed to engage with their demands if he hopes to earn their support.
That’s in contrast with two other Jewish political camps, including a group called Michigan Jews for Democracy that endorsed El-Sayed. Their petition, which has garnered almost 1,000 signatures, notes that some signatories hold reservations about El-Sayed but are voting for him nonetheless as a check on President Trump.
“We understand that a vote is not a valentine; it’s a strategic chess move,” the petition reads.
A competing petition, dubbed “Michigan Jews Against Extremism,” has drawn hundreds of signatures from Michigan Jews who plan to vote for Rogers. That petition similarly emphasizes that Rogers voters may still have reservations about the candidate: “Our vote for Mike Rogers does not require that we agree with him on every issue or that we support President Trump,” it reads.
“Nonnegotiable,” meanwhile, rejects the idea that Jewish voters would have to choose between Zionist and Democratic values. Some have criticized the nonnegotiable movement for ignoring the reality of the electoral choice at hand. Others have called it “a veiled attempt to excuse the actions of Jewish Democrats who want to feel validated about voting for Mike Rogers.”
But Kashan and Reich, who met at Hillel and plan to major in political science, said the “Nonnegotiable” movement was the only way they could see themselves engaging in the election, as they felt increasingly pulled between their identities as Democrats and as Jews.
Some Michigan Jews have expressed alarm at El-Sayed’s questioning of whether Israel should exist as a Jewish state and his decision to campaign alongside controversial Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who has been accused of antisemitic rhetoric. Rogers, who Trump has endorsed, earlier this week called El-Sayed “anti-Jew.”
In a letter to Michigan Jews, El-Sayed has vowed to “stand up against antisemitism and take the threat of violence against our Jewish community incredibly seriously.” He has also hired a Jewish liaison in the final weeks leading up to the election.
This will be the first election when Kashan, who just turned 18, is eligible to vote, and Reich’s first national election after voting in a local primary in his hometown of Palo Alto, California. For both, voting Democratic in their first major election had once seemed like a given.
“I’m a Jewish Democrat, and I want Democrats to take the Senate,” Reich said. “I want to vote for a Democrat in my own state.”
They’re still holding out hope that will happen — and that, with less than two weeks until the Nov. 3 election, El-Sayed will sign on to their petition.
And if he doesn’t? Neither student is ready to say.
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