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She represents the ‘worst of the worst.’ Now Judy Clarke is leading the defense in Pittsburgh synagogue massacre trial.
PITTSBURGH (Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle via JTA) — When Judy Clarke delivered her opening statement to the jury that will determine the fate of the man charged with committing the massacre in the Tree of Life synagogue building, she did not deny that her client was responsible.
In fact, she sympathized with the victims and their families.
Clarke, 71, began her address by acknowledging the horror of Oct. 27, 2018, and its aftermath.
“The tragedy that brings us together today,” she said in a soft-spoken yet confident voice, is “almost incomprehensible. It’s inexcusable. … Eleven lives were taken, others shattered. The loss that occurred is immeasurable.”
She told the jury there was “no disagreement, no doubt” about the identity of the perpetrator. It was “the man seated at that table,” she said, indicating her client. “He shot every person he saw and, in the process, injured others in their sacred spaces.”
Clarke was appointed to Robert Bowers’ defense team in December 2018, after he requested the counsel of a federal public defender specializing in death penalty cases. He faces 63 criminal counts related to his attack on congregations Dor Hadash, New Light and Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha. Many of the charges carry the death penalty.
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As the trial proceeds, Clarke won’t try to convince the jury her client isn’t guilty. A “win” for her defense team will be for the defendant to avoid a death sentence and instead have him remain in prison for the rest of his life.
Clarke has vast experience defending those whom some call “the worst of the worst.” Her roster of past clients includes Susan Smith, who murdered her two young sons by drowning them in a lake in South Carolina; Theodore Kaczynski, otherwise known as the Unabomber; Buford Furrow, a white supremacist who opened fire in a Jewish community center outside of Los Angeles in 1999; Eric Rudolph, who planted a bomb in Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta during the 1996 Summer Olympics; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a perpetrator of the Boston Marathon bombing.
Except for Tsarnaev — whose case is under appeal — Clarke succeeded in avoiding a death sentence for all her clients, either by negotiating a plea deal or by convincing the jury that mitigating factors, such as a mental illness, precluded imposition of the ultimate punishment.
Clarke’s team tried to negotiate a deal for a life sentence for Bowers in exchange for a guilty plea but was unsuccessful. Four and a half years after the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history, the three-week jury selection process commenced on April 24 and testimony began on May 30.
“This is not a straightforward murder case,” Clarke told the jury in her opening statement. The federal charges — which include obstruction of free exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death — must be proved by showing the defendant had the requisite intent to commit those particular crimes, she said.
She acknowledged that her client’s actions on Oct. 27, 2018, were “reprehensible” and “misguided” and recounted his virulent social media postings and other rantings about Jews. But she also portrayed him as “quiet” and “socially awkward, a man with few friends.” He didn’t live on his own until he was 44, she said, and his family saw him as someone “more likely to commit suicide than kill others.”
It’s clear that Clarke is appalled by her client’s actions. It’s also clear that she is determined to see that his rights are protected and that the judge and the jury faithfully apply the rule of law.
“Judy is one of the best lawyers I’ve ever known,” said Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angles and a former federal prosecutor. “She works insanely hard. She spends the time with the clients that she needs to. She doesn’t believe in the death penalty, and she’s devoted herself to representing people who are, you know — ‘the Voyage of the Damned’ is what she would say.”
Levenson, who has known Clarke for three decades, described her as “honest” and “very humble.”
“She doesn’t stand against the victims,” Levenson stressed. “I think she actually feels very much for the tragedy that occurred. But she has a job to do, which is to try to save her client’s life. And she does it with integrity.”
The two met during the Unabomber case, when Clarke was representing Kaczynski and Levenson was a legal commentator for CBS. Kaczynski at first resisted a plea deal sentencing him to life in prison because he did not want to admit to mental health issues.
Defense attorney Judy Clarke, at right, responds to questions at a press conference after the trial of Unabomber suspect Theodore Kaczynski was delayed in Sacramento, California, Jan. 8, 1998.(Rich Pedroncelli/AFP via Getty Images)
“She had a very difficult client, one that I think a lot of people would just sort of throw up their hands and say, ‘What can I do?’” Levenson recalled. “And she was able to get him to agree to that plea, which probably saved his life.”
Ted Kaczynski’s brother, David Kaczynski, praised Clarke for her ability to see humanity, even in those who have committed unspeakable atrocities.
“She has a really good heart, a really good intention,” David Kaczynski said. “I think she really cares about her clients. I think she has a kind of unconditional commitment to their humanity. And, of course, that meant a lot to me, because as much as I deplore what my brother did in harming people, I love him. He’s my brother.”
“So it’s a very fine line to walk, representing the client who has clearly got some serious personal problem,” he continued. “Ted was quite a loner. He was very shy. He had a very difficult time connecting with anybody. And in this very difficult situation, Judy was able to be there for him, and I think that was really meaningful for Ted, that he had some support, some human connection at this time of crisis in his life.”
David Kaczynski has followed Clarke’s career and continues to be impressed with her “professionalism and sense of humility.”
“I think the legal profession is trained to be strictly analytical and adversarial,” he said. “And she somehow works within this environment in a way that preserves her humanity as she’s trying to make people aware of the humanity of someone whose very right to exist is in question.”
Some question whether a person who has committed a heinous crime deserves a zealous defense. Levenson insists they do.
Our judicial system is “best served” when capital defendants are provided with a high-caliber defense, Levenson said, because “it’s in these situations where people are so emotionally invested that we can get it wrong.”
In addition to being a former prosecutor, Levenson created the Loyola Project for the Innocent, which works to get those who are serving sentences for crimes they did not commit out of prison.
Defense attorney Judy Clarke, seen here in Pittsburgh in 2023, is representing the man accused of murdering 11 Jews during Shabbat services in Pittsburgh in 2018. (Screenshot from KDKA report)
“I’ve seen firsthand that there are far too many lawyers who just immediately assume that their client’s not only guilty but should get the most severe punishment — that there’s nothing to be said on their client’s behalf,” Levenson said. “And you and I both know there’s a lot more to any given case, and that even people who do terrible crimes have other aspects of their lives that the justice system should consider.”
“In our system, we are supposed to consider each case, each individual, the facts, and not only determine whether someone’s guilty but what should happen to them,” she continued. “And that works well. When you have a lawyer who’s just going through the motions — and the one thing you can say about Judy is she doesn’t just go through the motions — I think the public can have more confidence in the verdict. As long as that lawyer is acting honestly and with integrity, it’s so much better to have that zealous advocate.”
The massacre at the Tree of Life building “was just a terrible, terrible, terrible tragedy,” said Levenson, who is Jewish. Clarke “will do her best to keep the case in perspective. In other words, focus not on big messages, but on this individual and any mitigating factors for this individual.”
Jon B. Gould, dean of the School of Social Ecology at the University of California-Irvine, has researched attorneys who specialize in death penalty cases. In 2019, along with Maya Pagni Barak, he published “Capital Defense: Inside the Lives of America’s Death Penalty Lawyers,” a book based on extensive interviews, providing insight into the reasons someone would willingly represent a person who has committed an egregious crime.
“They are an unusual kind of lawyer,” Gould said. “They’re actually an unusual kind of person because for many of these cases, they are representing what is sometimes said to be ‘the worst of the worst.’”
There are a variety of motivating factors for capital defense work, Gould said. Some of these lawyers are strongly opposed to state-sanctioned killing. For others, he said, “it is the excitement of the most complicated kind of law.”
Other death penalty specialists take the cases for “professional prestige,” and some do it for the money because capital defense lawyers get paid more than regular defense lawyers, Gould said. Some take the cases for religious reasons.
“Now, that’s all in the larger context of none of these lawyers looks at the facts of the case and thinks it’s anything other than a horrific tragedy,” Gould stressed. “I also found that for many of them, they are entirely sympathetic to the family members of the victims. They don’t look at these cases and think, no big deal. They look at these cases and think that’s something horrible that happened to the victim’s family, but they also look at the defendant and think, as one of them said to me, ‘No one gets to this place of being the defendant without having something horrible having happened to them earlier in life.’”
Death penalty cases are “really, really, really hard on defense lawyers,” Gould added. “It’s really distressing work. The evidence that they have to pore through is horrific. Many of them have PTSD.”
While many people “look at defense lawyers and think there must be something wrong with them,” Gould said it’s essential to remember “that they are fulfilling a very important function in the criminal justice system that none of us would ever want to have to do.”
“That doesn’t mean that any of us is unsympathetic to the victims,” he emphasized. “No one deserves what’s happened in any of these cases. But if we do believe in the rule of law, then there needs to be capital defense lawyers. And we need to respect the work they’re doing because that’s what it means to live in a system of rule of law and not simply a system where we simply execute people in the town square without the opportunity to have a defense.”
This story is part of ongoing coverage of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial by the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle and the Pittsburgh Union Progress in a collaboration supported by funding from the Pittsburgh Media Partnership. It is reprinted with permission.
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In Michigan, a Black conservative group pushes Jewish and pro-Israel messaging
(JTA) — YPSILANTI, Michigan – A Black conservative group is distributing signs and paying for billboards in Michigan encouraging Black voters to support Jews and Israel, in the days before a contentious U.S. Senate race in which the Democratic candidate has struggled to shore up both voting groups.
The Center for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, has paid for a series of yard signs reading “Blacks and Jews Standing Together” throughout cities with high Black populations, including Detroit, Flint and Ypsilanti.
The nonprofit’s director, Star Parker, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in an email their goal is “to remind black Christian voters of unique and special reasons to stand with Israel.”
Parker said CURE is also paying for billboards in the area reading “Self Defense is Not Genocide” and “Many Black Evangelicals Agree that Israel Has a Right to Exist.”
The signs and billboards do not name any candidates. But Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee, Abdul El-Sayed, has alienated many Jewish voters with his rhetoric on Israel and comments on Jewish safety.
He has also had difficulty shoring up Black support, another traditional Democratic constituency, with many Black Detroiters voting for his primary rival, U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens. That phenomenon has shifted somewhat in the race’s final days, with one poll commissioned by the Detroit News suggesting that 87% of likely Black voters would support El-Sayed.
Still, there can be distrust between Black and Arab communities as with Jewish and Arab populations. Sam Robinson, a Detroit-based reporter for a historic Black newspaper who has interviewed scores of Black voters in viral interviews, recently told the Columbia Journalism Review, “There’s a scarcity mindset that there are only so many resources and Arabs are somehow taking Black people’s share.”
Republican Mike Rogers, meanwhile, has courted Black voters as well as Jewish ones, with pro-Rogers ads highlighting tensions between local Black and Arab communities. A new super PAC linked to Rogers has spent heavily on ads stating that El-Sayed “has been disrespectful and dishonest with Black voters.”
CURE’s signs targeting Black voters appeared in the final week of the campaign. They followed an Oct. 22 interfaith roundtable in Detroit hosted by the organization, in which a local rabbi appeared alongside Black pastors to discuss the history of Black-Jewish organizing — a longtime alliance that has been shaken in recent years for a number of reasons.
Rabbi Aaron Bergman of Adat Shalom, a Conservative synagogue in the Detroit suburb of Farmington Hills, participated in the CURE roundtable. Over email, he told JTA that politics was not meant to be the focus of the event.
“It was mostly about teaching about antisemitism, which I guess at this point in history is political,” Bergman wrote.
El-Sayed has focused much of his campaign’s homestretch on shoring up the Black vote, visiting Black churches and holding events with former President Barack Obama and senior U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, a Black congressional leader. Driving up turnout in Black communities, usually one of the Democrats’ strongest constituencies, is viewed as key to his chances of taking the seat.
Stevens’ last-minute decision to endorse Rogers instead is a wildcard. Star told JTA she believed many “black Christian voters” would follow her lead.
“Their support for Israel needed a boost,” she said. “I believe this endorsement has taken Mike Rogers over the finish line with black voters.”
Yet there are signs that Palestinian rights may be a more animating issue among Michigan’s Black voters this year than in the past. Pro-Palestinian state Rep. Donavan McKinney, a democratic socialist, won his primary challenge against a pro-Israel incumbent in a majority-Black, Detroit-area congressional district in August. And during one Stevens primary campaign stop in Detroit, a Black community organizer directly confronted her over her support for Israel.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post In Michigan, a Black conservative group pushes Jewish and pro-Israel messaging appeared first on The Forward.
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New York Jewish leaders defend Democratic AG Letitia James from GOP challenger’s attacks
(JTA) — New York state Attorney General Letitia James and her Republican opponent Saritha Komatireddy are clashing over how to combat antisemitism ahead of Tuesday’s election.
The GOP challenger has frequently attacked James during the campaign over her handling of antisemitic crimes, but prominent Jewish leaders are rallying to defend the Democratic incumbent.
Komatireddy accuses James of turning a “blind eye” to antisemitic hate crimes as they grow more common in the state with the largest Jewish population.
A number of Jewish leaders have lined up to defend James’ record.
Mark Treyger, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in a statement that he has seen James’ commitment to New York communities “firsthand.”
“When an Ethiopian-Israeli small business owner in Harlem faced hate, she rearranged her statewide schedule to stand with her, offered immediate support, and followed through personally,” Treyger said, referring to anti-Israel backlash that faced Tsion Cafe.
“From confronting antisemitism and discrimination to protecting public safety and celebrating Jewish life, she has remained accessible and responsive to community concerns,” he continued, praising “her unwavering leadership and partnership.”
As a City Council member, James’ district included parts of the heavily Orthodox Jewish Crown Heights neighborhood, and she has called herself an “honorary Lubavitch.” Crown Heights United PAC endorsed James for reelection last month.
As attorney general of New York state since 2019, James is the state’s chief legal officer, leading an office with more than 700 lawyers that conducts statewide criminal and civil investigations.
But as reported hate crimes against Jews across the state have increased in the past decade, Komatireddy, who was a federal prosecutor in New York for more than a decade, says the attorney general isn’t doing enough.
“The data shows that antisemitic hate crimes are surging in New York, and someone has to step in and do something about it, because our DAs are being ineffective in stopping that trend,” Komatireddy said in an interview with JTA, referring to district attorneys who generally oversee the prosecution of hate crimes.
James has rejected Komatireddy’s claims. A campaign spokesperson told JTA that she has “stood arm in arm with the Jewish community all throughout her career.”
“She’s gone after bad actors who preyed upon Jewish New Yorkers time and time again, and will continue to fight against antisemitism and hate in all its forms,” the spokesperson said.
Jewish Democratic politicians in New York are supporting James’ bid. Outgoing U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler, City Council Speaker Julie Menin and six other Jewish Democratic officials endorsed James at a press conference last week, where they commended her support for the Jewish community.
Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal praised her for combating housing discrimination against Hasidic families in Orange County and for stopping a Rockland County car wash from overcharging Orthodox Jews.
Menin thanked James for annually marching in the Israel Day Parade — an example, she said, of James “standing with the Jewish community when things are difficult.”
“I’m verklempt right now,” James said after Menin’s remarks.
But some Jewish figures and groups are backing Komatireddy as she attempts to become the state’s first Republican elected as attorney general in more than 30 years. Komatireddy has the endorsement of President Donald Trump, who called James “corrupt” after she brought a civil suit against him over inflated property values and called for her to be removed as special prosecutor in a Cornell University rape lawsuit.
Komatireddy told reporters that she would declare a “state of emergency on antisemitism” on Day One as attorney general — a plan that James told JTA can only be enacted by the governor, not an attorney general.
Asked how she would declare a state of emergency, Komatireddy said she meant that she would utilize a law that allows the attorney general “to step in and prosecute hate crimes when a district attorney has been ineffective in doing so.” Komatireddy’s promises to the Jewish community also include establishing buffer zones outside Jewish schools and synagogues using existing civil rights law.
Komatireddy’s tough-on-crime, tough-on-antisemitism campaign has resonated with some Jewish New Yorkers, and could be the catalyst for “a lot of defections from James to Saritha,” predicted Moshe Davis, who was executive director of the mayor’s office to combat antisemitism under Mayor Eric Adams.
“I think a lot of the Jewish community is taking to her message,” said Davis.
A poll conducted by Siena last month has James ahead 54% to 39%; James led by 6 percentage points in the New York City suburbs.
Rabbi Elie Weinstock, who leads Long Island’s Jewish Center of Atlantic Beach, told JTA that there is “a sense of unease” among Jewish voters regarding antisemitic incidents.
“I think the Jewish community wants to hear people who will say, ‘I’ve got your back,’ and I think whoever gives off that impression will do well in the Jewish community,” said Weinstock, who counts Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman among his congregants.
He added that people’s opposition to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a Democrat like James, “may guide Jews’ votes” to Komatireddy.
Komatireddy attended a service at Park Avenue Synagogue and posted a video in October of the congregation’s rabbi Elliot Cosgrove wishing her “every blessing on your campaign” from the bimah. In a text to JTA, Cosgrove clarified that, while the post was recent, her visit was in “winter/spring.”
“I don’t / didn’t endorse. I always warmly welcome visitors,” he wrote.
Jewish Insider reported in October that Komatireddy posted photos from a meeting on the street with members of a Black Hebrew Israelite church that has called Jews “imposters” and the “Synagogue of Satan.”
Komatireddy told JTA that this was “an impromptu meeting” on the street in Rochester, and that “once we found out who they were, we rejected the hateful views that the group espouses” and deleted the post.
In March, Komatireddy wrote a scathing piece for the New York Post accusing James of turning a “blind eye” to antisemitic incidents.
But Binyamin Krauss, principal of SAR Academy, a Jewish day school in the Bronx, said “That’s not my experience” of James. Krauss last week hosted the attorney general at SAR, where she spoke with students. He pointed to her “supporting the community” on Manhattan’s Upper West Side after two men were stabbed there over the summer.
“Obviously you can disagree with certain decisions, when to prosecute, what to prosecute, how to handle a certain situation — but I do not agree with that characterization,” said Krauss, who added that he is not endorsing any candidates.
Meanwhile, Davis said that “turning a blind eye” is “not necessarily how I would frame it,” but opined that “people want to see more.” He also said that James is “someone who’s always shown up, always been a friend” to Jewish New Yorkers.
Phylisa Wisdom, who leads Mamdani’s office to combat antisemitism and was executive director of the liberal advocacy group New York Jewish Agenda, told JTA that James “has been a committed advocate for New York’s Jewish communities for decades,” going back to her time on the New York City Council.
“Attorney General James has used the tools of her office to root out antisemitism and help ensure that everyone in the state, including Jewish communities across the five boroughs, can live safely and thrive,” Wisdom said.
The left-wing group Jews for Racial and Economic Justice did not endorse James but recommended her in its voter guide, which commended her for taking action against far-right Zionist group Betar over “an alarming and illegal pattern of bias-motivated harassment and violence designed to terrorize communities and shut down lawful protest.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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‘He made Black Jews not invisible anymore; he was the bridge’
Rabbi Capers C. Funnye, Jr. rabbi and spiritual leader of Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation in Chicago, and the Chief Rabbi of the International Israelite Board of Rabbis, died Nov. 2 at the age of 74.
A cousin of Michelle Obama and an important leader for Black Jews in America, Funnye was raised in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and converted to Conservative Judaism. He held leadership positions in Chicago’s Jewish community and was a consultant to many cultural institutions throughout the United States.
“I’ve known him my whole life,” said Rabbi Tamar Manasseh said. “There is nothing that prepares you for this. I think it’s really important for people to know that he made Black Jews not invisible anymore. He was the bridge.”
“At that time it was not the priority for other Black Jews, but for him it was the priority,” Manasseh continued. “There were a million times that he was uncomfortable to one day bring comfort to us all.”
Funnye was born in 1952, in Georgetown, South Carolina, and attended Howard University. He received a B.A. in Hebrew literature and a rabbinic ordination from the Israelite Board of Rabbis, Inc., in Queens, New York, and a B.A. in Jewish studies and an M.A. in human services administration from the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies, in Chicago.
In 1995, Funnye, Michelle Stein-Evers and Robin Washington (an editor-at-large at The Forward) founded the Alliance of Black Jews.
Funnye became the first African American member of the Chicago Board of Rabbis in 1997, and was named Chief Rabbi of the International Israelite Board of Rabbis, in New York in 2015.
He also served as a rabbi for congregations in Nigeria, Uganda, and other sub-Saharan African nations.
“Rabbi Capers Funnye was my ‘rebbe’ for connecting with the Black community and for understanding how important it is to bring the Black Jewish community to the very center of the Jewish community,” said Rabbi Asher Lopatin.
“I was inspired as he fought hard to gain acceptance as a full member of the Chicago Board of Rabbis and then succeeded in getting full membership in the New York Board of Rabbis and opening up the New York Board of Rabbis to graduates of the Israelite Rabbinical Academy,” Lopatin said. “I will never forget his passion, his brilliance, his insight and his love for Judaism, the Jewish community and Israel. May his memory be a blessing.”
“It was an honor to welcome Rabbi Funnye and members of the International Israelite Board of Rabbis to become part of our rabbinic family. His steadfast commitment to group relations helped us to better understand the dynamics of the Black Jewish community,” said Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis. “May we continue to perpetuate his legacy.”
“Rabbi Funnye has touched countless lives with his spiritual leadership, wisdom, and unwavering commitment to our congregation and the broader Hebrew Israelite community. His legacy of faith, service, and dedication will continue to inspire generations,” Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation wrote on its Facebook page.
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