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Some Black Jews feel more ostracized from Jewish communities post-Oct. 7, survey finds
Growing up as a Black woman in the South with a Jewish father, Autumn Leonard often felt like “an outsider looking in” on Jewish communities. She wasn’t raised particularly Jewish, and her Black and Jewish identities felt disconnected from each other — as if she had to choose one.
But after she married a Jewish man and wanted to raise Jewish children, she sought out ways to engage more deeply with her Jewishness. She found groups that affirmed both of her identities, chairing the “Race Working Group” at the progressive Brooklyn synagogue Kolot Chayeinu and becoming a lead organizer with the Black Jewish Liberation Collective.
“That made me feel like, Oh, Jewish is something I can be — as opposed to something over there that comes from my ancestors,” Leonard said.
After the attacks of Oct. 7, however, Leonard said she began to notice a shift. Jewish communities seemed more inward-looking, she said, with a heightened focus on combating antisemitism and a retreat from commitments to racial justice. She began hearing stories from Black Jews who felt increasingly sidelined or isolated.
So she set out to gather empirical evidence to test her hunch.
The result was a survey conducted through the Black Jewish Liberation Collective, a progressive group that connects Black Jews for political organizing and cultural events. The group circulated the survey beyond its own membership and received 104 responses from a geographically diverse group — most from New York state, but also with respondents in Canada, Portugal and the United Kingdom. Participants were between 21 and 75 years old and reported a range of religious observance levels, from just ethnically Jewish to Orthodox. Responses were collected between October 2024 and January 2025.
The survey — which represents a tiny subset of the estimated 1% of U.S. Jews who identify as Black — found that 62% of respondents reported “increased marginalization” in a Jewish community or space after Oct. 7, 2023.
Those feelings of ostracization largely had to do with disagreements around Israel and Gaza, according to the survey. While survey participants generally identified as more left-leaning on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, respondents on both sides of the political spectrum said they felt alienated.
In Jewish spaces, some respondents felt they were assumed to be more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause because of their race. Meanwhile, in progressive spaces, some Black Jews felt they were assumed to be Zionist because of their Jewishness.
“I do feel some kind of internalizing shame where I am more careful around the ways that I share my Jewishness in non-Jewish spaces,” one survey respondent wrote. “I resent the ways that Zionism is conflated with Jewishness, and the ways I have to extricate [or] preface that.”
According to Leo Ferguson, a member of the Black Jewish Liberation Collective’s steering committee, another troubling post–Oct. 7 trend is that people who voice criticism of Israel are increasingly labeled “fake Jews.” Black Jews often already face that accusation because of their race — and adding political litmus tests, he said, only intensifies the problem.
“What I have witnessed is more scrutiny of Black Jews. There is an ongoing question as to whether or not we will stand up and be ‘real Jews’ which means aligning with whoever’s politics is judging us,” one survey participant wrote.
Compounding these trends, some Jewish institutions have shifted away from the idea that advocating for a broad range of minority groups also benefits Jews, focusing instead on antisemitism linked to Israel. Just last month, the Anti-Defamation League entirely removed from the “What We Do” page of its website a section called “Protect Civil Rights” amid threats from the Trump administration. Although that change occurred after the survey was conducted, some respondents already saw the trend emerging.
“The way in which much of [the] Jewish community has turned from barely doing antiracism work wholly toward Israel and self-protection is so discouraging, especially as the racism within Jewish community is so severe,” one survey respondent wrote.
The survey offers recommendations based on the survey’s findings, including welcoming ideological diversity in Jewish spaces; having a time and place for Israel discourse, rather than letting it “bleed into all aspects of Jewish life”; and maintaining connections between Black and Jewish advocacy groups even if they disagree on issues surrounding conflict in Gaza.
“The discussion around Israel Palestine has taken up so much of the oxygen that it has made it impossible to then also talk about things like racial justice,” Ferguson said.
The post Some Black Jews feel more ostracized from Jewish communities post-Oct. 7, survey finds appeared first on The Forward.
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Iran’s Guards Will View Military Vessels Approaching Strait as Ceasefire Breach
FILE PHOTO: A map showing the Strait of Hormuz is seen in this illustration taken March 23, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Sunday that any military vessels attempting to approach the Strait of Hormuz will be considered a violation of the two-week US ceasefire and be dealt with harshly and decisively.
The strait is under the control and “smart management” of Iran’s Navy, the Guards said in a statement reported by Iranian state media, adding it is “open for the safe passage of non-military vessels in accordance with specific regulations.”
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Iran Rejected US Demand to Stop Funding Proxies, and Halt Uranium Enrichment During Talks
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iran has rejected core US demands in recent negotiations, including an end to uranium enrichment, the dismantling of major nuclear facilities, and a halt to support for regional terrorist groups, according to a senior US official speaking to Reuters.
The official also said that Tehran refused to end backing for Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, as well as calls to fully open the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, underscoring deep divisions that continue to stall diplomacy.
The failed talks come as assessments from officials and experts suggest that Iran’s nuclear program has remained largely resilient despite five weeks of intense US and Israeli strikes.
According to reporting from The Wall Street Journal, that while the campaign did cause significant damage to research facilities and parts of Iran’s enrichment infrastructure, the strikes appear to have stopped short of eliminating Iran’s most sensitive capabilities.
Iran likely retains operational centrifuges and access to a heavily fortified underground enrichment site, preserving the technical foundation of its program.
A critical concern for Western officials is Iran’s continued possession of an estimated 1,000 pounds of near-weapons-grade uranium. The International Atomic Energy Agency has reported that roughly half of this stockpile is stored in reinforced containers within tunnels beneath the Isfahan nuclear complex.
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Trump Vows to Blockade Strait of Hormuz After Iran Peace Talks Fail to Yield Agreement
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif meets with Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, as delegations from the United States and Iran are expected to hold peace talks, in Islamabad, Pakistan, April 11, 2026. Office of the Iranian Parliament Speaker/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
President Donald Trump said on Sunday the US Navy would start blockading the Strait of Hormuz, raising the stakes after marathon talks with Iran failed to reach a deal to end the war, jeopardizing a fragile two-week ceasefire.
Trump also said in a post on Truth Social that the US would take action against every vessel in international waters that had paid a toll to Iran, and begin destroying mines that he said the Iranians had dropped in the strait, a choke point for about 20% of global energy supplies that Iran has blocked.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards responded with a statement warning that military vessels approaching the strait will be considered a ceasefire breach and dealt with harshly and decisively, underlining the risk of a dangerous escalation.
“Effective immediately, the United States Navy, the Finest in the World, will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump said in his Truth Social post.
“I have also instructed our Navy to seek and interdict every vessel in International Waters that has paid a toll to Iran. No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas,” Trump added.
“Any Iranian who fires at us, or at peaceful vessels, will be BLOWN TO HELL!” he added.
Six weeks of fighting has killed thousands, roiled the global economy and sent oil prices soaring as Iran prevented traffic through the strait.
MORE NEGOTIATIONS?
In an interview with Fox News after his post about the strait, Trump said that he believed Iran would continue to negotiate and called the weekend discussions “very friendly.”
“I do believe they’re going to come to the table on this, because nobody can be so stupid as to say, ‘We want nuclear weapons,’ and they have no cards,” Trump told Fox News from his golf course near Miami, Florida.
Trump also said that NATO allies, whom he has criticized for failing to back the war he launched along with Israel on February 28, wanted to help with the operation in the strait.
There was no immediate comment from Washington’s allies.
The weekend talks in Islamabad, which followed the announcement of a ceasefire last Tuesday, were the first direct US-Iranian meeting in more than a decade and the highest-level discussions since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
“The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement, and I think that’s bad news for Iran much more than it’s bad news for the United States of America,” said Vice President JD Vance, who headed the US delegation.
A US official said Iran had rejected Washington’s call for an end to all uranium enrichment, the dismantling of all major enrichment facilities and the transfer of highly enriched uranium. The two sides also failed to reach agreement on the US demand that Iran cease funding for Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis as well as fully open the strait, the official added.
Iran’s Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, who led his country’s delegation along with Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, blamed the US for not winning Tehran’s trust, despite his team offering “forward-looking initiatives.”
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, who discussed the talks in a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Tehran wanted “a balanced and fair agreement.”
“If the United States returns to the framework of international law, reaching an agreement is not far off,” he told Putin, Iranian state media reported.
ISRAEL CONTINUES BOMBING LEBANON
Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said “excessive” US demands had hindered reaching a deal. Other Iranian media said there was agreement on a number of issues, but the strait and Iran’s nuclear program were the main sticking points.
Despite the stalemate, three supertankers fully laden with oil passed through the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, shipping data showed, in what appeared to be the first vessels to exit the Gulf since the ceasefire deal.
Israel has continued bombing Tehran-backed Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon, insisting – along with Washington – that that conflict was not part of the Iran-US ceasefire. Iran says the fighting in Lebanon must stop.
The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah rocket launchers overnight into Sunday and black smoke could be seen rising in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital Beirut.
And in Israeli villages near the border, air raid sirens sounded, warning of incoming rocket fire from Lebanon.