Uncategorized
South African Jewish journalist Jeremy Gordin murdered in home burglary at 70
(JTA) — Jeremy Gordin, one of South Africa’s most prominent journalists, wrote repeatedly in recent months about burglaries at his family’s Johannesburg home.
In a weekly column, he expressed dismay at the rampant levels of crime, growing urban decay and regular power outages endured by South Africans as a result of mismanagement and corruption. In one — titled “It is getting dark, too dark to see” after the Bob Dylan lyric — he addressed his two children, both in their twenties.
“I’m not suggesting that you’re going to find yourselves in desperate flight across your own border, that your graveyard may be ploughed up and strewn with garbage. But there comes a time when things are clearly falling apart,” he concluded.
He added, with the allusion to his Jewish identity clear to anyone familiar with Jewish history, “And you, who have your whole lives before you (as they say), need to consider seriously going to live elsewhere. We’ve been doing it for centuries, after all.”
On March 31, Gordin’s worst fears came to pass: He was murdered during a night robbery at his home. He was 70.
South African police described the incident as “a robbery gone wrong” but did not describe the exact cause of death. Seven people were arrested in Johannesburg two weeks later; one was driving a car that had been stolen from Gordin’s residence.
It was a tragic end for Gordin’s 70-year South African story, which, as with so many of his country’s Jews, intersected sharply with both the story of Israel and with the struggle of Black South Africans. As a lifelong journalist, he had at times headed both South Africa’s version of Playboy and its storied working-class Black tabloid, and also ran an initiative that used reporting to prove the innocence of people who were wrongfully imprisoned. He won the country’s annual top journalism prize multiple times.
Gordin was also a friend to many, frequently opening his home in Johannesburg’s Parkview neighborhood to guests. (This reporter was one of them during a stint in Johannesburg for Efe, the Spanish newspaper.)
Gordin was born in Pretoria in 1952, in a Jewish family with Lithuanian and Latvian origins. After a spell in South Vietnam, where his pharmacist father worked for the United States, the family returned to South Africa. Gordin went to high school in Brakpan, a town in the industrial east of the Great Johannesburg emblematic of the country’s white Afrikaner working class to which he often referred in his articles.
Gordin obtained a scholarship to study in Israel and completed a bachelor’s degree while playing rugby at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Back in his country, he did his military service volunteering for the South African Defence Force’s elite 1 Parachute Battalion, then started a prolific career in journalism.
In a breakout moment, he published a book in 1998 based on his conversations with the apartheid government’s death squad leader Eugen de Kock. Then incarcerated, de Kock candidly told Gordin about his deeds, but most importantly about those who had ordered his crimes, for which they were hardly questioned and never tried.
Gordin authored another canonical book of recent South Africa history, his biography of South Africa’s former president Jacob Zuma. Published in 2010, a year after Zuma took power, Gordin’s went beyond the usual assumptions about the Zulu former freedom fighter who learned how to read and write as an adult and was often underestimated by South Africa’s intellectual class.
Zuma left office in 2018 after a tenure marked by charges of corruption, cronyism and incompetence. Gordin’s biography has been criticized for being excessively indulgent with its subject, but it remains essential for understanding Zuma’s psychology and the motivations behind his actions.
In the early 1990s, after a period living in San Francisco, Gordin became the launch editor of Playboy South Africa. (He posed nude, with only a magazine as cover, to promote Playboy’s South Africa launch.) In a recent essay, Gordin recounted trying to land a then-unknown Charlize Theron for the magazine’s first cover. Invoking Yiddish terms, Gordin recalled journalists who had passed away, described the actress’s unembarrassed audition, and also managed to explore changing race and class dynamics in South Africa.
(Around this time, his friend Roy Isacowitz wrote in a remembrance published shortly after his death, the pair had successfully gotten a media executive censured for calling them “pushy little Jewboys” — though he said they accepted the description.)
Jeremy Gordin, at right, stands in front of covers of the Sun, the South African tabloid he oversaw for many years. (Courtesy Gordin family)
In 2012 he was named caretaker editor of the Daily Sun, a South African tabloid wildly popular among the Black working class. The paper lost much of its appeal after the death of its founder, larger-than-life Afrikaner media executive Deon du Plessis. Gordin brought back the pride, the punch and many of the readers to the paper. Or, as a headline made for him by his colleagues when he retired said, he “brought rock’n roll back to the Sun.”
The tabloid’s news largely relied on cases of violence, gossip and sex often featuring “tokoloshes,” fantastic creatures of popular African mythology whose encounters with the Sun’s readers were reported nationwide in the first person to its many correspondents. The readership and the paper’s foot soldiers were 100% Black. They collected the stories and sent them to the Johannesburg newsroom, where a group of experienced white male journalists including Gordin translated their texts in the characteristic Daily Sun language.
Gordin’s world couldn’t be further away from the one his newspaper reflected. But as his colleague at the paper Vincent Pienaar wrote after his death, “Not only did he understand the ethos of the publication, he embraced it.”
The tabloid took on serious stories, too. During his tenure as the paper’s editor the Daily Sun broke the story of the death at the hands of police officers of Mozambican immigrant taxi driver Mido Macias. A reader had filmed his gratuitously brutal arrest and sent it to the newspaper. Eight police officers involved in the victim’s death in custody were ultimately sentenced to 15 years in prison.
After leaving the Daily Sun, Gordin took on a role coordinating the Wits Justice Project, a journalism program focused on the plight of innocent or unfairly treated prisoners. In 2011 he helped secure the release of Fusi Mofokeng and Tshokolo Joseph Mokoena, who had served 19 years in prison for a crime they didn’t commit.
Gordin’s many friends say that his sympathy for the underdog was inextricable from the Jewish traditions and attitudes he inherited.
Although not religiously observant, Gordin peppered his articles with Jewish stories and jokes and Yiddish words and expressions. His sense of humor was strongly influenced by his Jewishness, as it was the combination of principle and humorous compassion that defined his personality. He was extremely well-read and voraciously curious, loved to share what he discovered with friends and indulged in sassy but harmless gossip both in private and in his articles.
Sometimes, his Jewish identity and his journalism entwined as when, in 2016, he reported from Johannesburg about the extradition hearing of a Hasidic rabbi, Eliezer Berland, wanted in Israel on rape charges. His final column, published the day before his death, explained, and condemned, the proposed right-wing judicial reforms in Israel.
Rabbi Sa’ar Shaked of the Beit Emanuel Progressive Synagogue in Johannesburg said Gordin as a friend and “wild spirit” who didd’t regularly attend services but was a repeat guest speaker at the synagogue to discuss weekly Torah portions and a variety of aspects of Jewish history and law.
Despite not attending services regularly, Gordin’s role in the community is described as “very active” by Wendy Ovens, a South African health professional in the NGO sector who served with him on the management committee of Beit Emanuel in 2011.
“His knowledge on Judaism and Jewish history was incredible,” Ovens said. She said his Jewish identity fueled his core mission: “He was community-minded and believed in justice and in what was right.”
Gordin is survived by his wife, Deborah Blake, and his children, Jake and Nina.
—
The post South African Jewish journalist Jeremy Gordin murdered in home burglary at 70 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Iran Faces Economic Disaster as US Blockade Suffocates Regime’s Oil Lifeline
Ships and boats in the Strait of Hormuz, Musandam, Oman, April 22, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
As intensifying US pressure squeezes the Iranian energy sector, Iran’s oil lifeline is fraying — exports are sliding, storage is nearing capacity, and mounting economic strain is fueling the risk of renewed internal unrest that could further test the regime’s grip on power.
According to a newly released report from commodity analytics firm Kpler, Iran’s oil exports fell sharply after a US naval blockade on Iranian ports took hold in mid-April, dropping from an average of just over 2 million barrels per day earlier this month and 1.85 million in March to only five tracked cargoes and roughly 567,000 barrels per day in the past two weeks.
Even with Iran’s national oil company already cutting output to avoid dangerous bottlenecks as storage approaches capacity limits, the country is running out of space quickly, with Kpler estimating remaining storage could be exhausted within 12 to 22 days.
Despite Iranian officials claiming that 31 tankers have escaped the blockade zone, there is no evidence of any successful transits, with vessels reportedly passing through the Strait of Hormuz only to be stopped short of the US blockade further south between the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea.
The US blockade has prevented the regime from exporting energy through the Strait of Hormuz — a critical global energy chokepoint through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil supply passes.
Amid a collapse in exports of more than 70 percent, the Iranian government has been forced to start cutting production, signaling a deepening economic crisis. Now the regime faces a critical choice between shutting wells and risking long-term damage to critical fields.
Sudden and prolonged shutdowns at oil production plants can cause lasting damage to reservoirs by disrupting pressure systems and flow dynamics, making it increasingly difficult — and in some cases impossible — to restart operations and restore production levels to their previous capacity, often costing millions to reverse.
According to Homayoun Falakshahi, head of Kpler’s crude oil analysis team, Iran’s oil sector has long suffered from underinvestment and poor reservoir management, resulting in an average recovery rate of just 25 percent. This means only about a quarter of the oil in a field can typically be extracted before production must be halted, and once wells are shut, restarting them makes it harder and less efficient to recover what remains.
Even though Kpler’s report estimates Tehran may not feel the full revenue hit for another three to four months due to payment delays and pre-existing sales flows, the regime is expected to face a heavy blow, with losses potentially reaching $200–250 million per day.
In an effort to prevent a wider infrastructure breakdown and avoid sharper production slowdowns, Iran is turning to improvised oil storage and alternative export routes.
Specifically, the regime is reportedly turning to disused “junk storage” sites, makeshift containers, floating storage on vessels, and even rail shipments of crude to China as export bottlenecks continue to build.
After repeated efforts to bring Iran back to the negotiating table to discuss its nuclear and missile programs and support for terrorism, the Trump administration escalated pressure on the Islamist regime earlier this month by imposing a naval blockade against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas, aiming to reach a deal that would bring an end to the conflict.
Trump told aides this week to prepare for an extended blockade of Iran until the regime agrees to a favorable deal, according to multiple reports.
Since the start of the war with joint US-Israeli strikes earlier this year, Iran has used control over the Strait of Hormuz as a major source of leverage, militarizing the waterway and sharply restricting maritime traffic through one of the world’s most critical shipping corridors. However, the US blockade as taken away much of that leverage, with the calculus that the regime can only hold out for so long as Iran faces total economic collapse.
Adding to an already crippling economy, Iran’s national rial currency hit a record low Wednesday of 1.8 million to the dollar. The fall is expected to trigger further fuel inflation.
Meanwhile, Iran’s foreign trade has also collapsed sharply during the first month of the conflict, deepening the country’s isolation from global markets.
Official customs data shows non-oil trade dropped to just $6.4 billion last month, a 30 percent decline from the previous month and 50 percent lower than a year earlier, before the war, Iran International reported.
As the country’s industrial base — a target of US-Israeli strikes before the ceasefire took effect earlier this month — comes under strain, the Iranian government has been forced to halt petrochemical and steel exports, sectors that account for more than a third of its non-oil revenue.
On Monday, the Iran Trade Promotion Organization ordered a suspension of steel slab and sheet exports until May 30, putting at risk industries that generate up to $20 billion annually.
With domestic tensions rising and the internal economic crisis worsening, Iranian officials are increasingly wary that renewed protests could erupt in the coming days, further destabilizing an already volatile situation.
Iran International reported that, this week, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council held an emergency meeting amid growing concern over a possible resurgence of protests, warning of renewed unrest following the nationwide anti-government demonstrations earlier this year, which security forces violently crushed, leaving tens of thousands of demonstrators tortured, imprisoned, or killed.
Officials now reportedly warn that worsening economic hardship, driven by inflation, rising unemployment, and damage to key industries such as petrochemicals and steel, could ignite the next wave of unrest.
According to Israeli intelligence assessments, widespread damage to Iran’s petrochemical and defense sectors has already wiped out an estimated 100,000 jobs.
Iranian security officials estimate that nationwide internet shutdowns have also left around 20 percent of online-dependent workers unemployed, warning that up to two million more private-sector jobs could be lost by the end of spring.
Uncategorized
Lebanon Must Reform its Army or Lose American Aid
Lebanese army members stand on a military vehicle during a Lebanese army media tour, to review the army’s operations in the southern Litani sector, in Alma Al-Shaab, near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, Nov. 28, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Aziz Taher
Washington is working on establishing a system “where vetted units within the Lebanese Armed Forces [LAF] have the training, the equipment, and the capability to go after elements of Hezbollah and dismantle them,” according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose statement echoed growing frustration in Congress that Beirut should reform its military, or lose American aid.
On Capitol Hill, frustrated Senate powerhouses Roger Wicker (R-MS), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and Jim Risch (R-ID), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, seem to have lost all patience with the LAF. After funneling more than $3 billion in US taxpayer dollars into the force since 2004, the returns have been virtually zero.
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who once threw the LAF commander out of his office for refusing to call Hezbollah a terrorist organization, is now issuing a blunt ultimatum: not one more American cent unless the LAF undergoes genuine, verifiable, and immediate reform.
That reform must begin right now with the LAF enforcing the Lebanese cabinet’s March 2 resolution ordering the military to disband Hezbollah and prohibit all its military activities.
Five days after that vote, however, LAF Commander Rudolph Haykal met with his top generals and declared that “preventing civil war” was their priority, code for refusing to disarm Hezbollah. The LAF has gone rogue, openly defying the elected civilian government it is sworn to obey.
Under Haykal, the LAF is not worth another dollar of American money. Graham is correct: real reform starts with firing Haykal and purging the senior ranks. Most top officers are compromised by or aligned with Hezbollah. They must be replaced by patriotic ones who put Lebanon first.
But leadership change is only the start. Washington must demand two non-negotiable structural reforms before releasing another dime: a complete reorientation of the LAF’s military doctrine and a rigorous, fully independent audit of its finances and operations.
The Lebanese Army was founded in 1946, with a doctrine that matched the vision of the country’s founders: a sovereign, predominantly Christian nation in a hostile Sunni Arab Levant.
Lebanon’s Christians deliberately carved out a distinct identity, distancing the country from the Arab-Islamic narrative and even emphasizing its European cultural roots.
For decades, the LAF performed its core mission with honor, defending Lebanon’s independence and neutrality against neighbors determined to absorb it into Greater Syria or a pan-Arab or Islamic superstate. Until 1991, every battle it fought served Lebanese sovereignty.
That mission was betrayed in 1991. Eager to reshape the post-Cold War Middle East, the United States rewarded Syrian dictator Hafez al-Assad for joining the Gulf War coalition by handing him control of Lebanon.
Assad wasted no time. He purged patriotic officers and gutted the army’s doctrine. The LAF was no longer a defender of Lebanese independence. It became a tool for radical Arab “causes” — above all, an obsessive, unrelenting hostility toward Israel, which was recast from a peaceful neighbor into an existential enemy.
Worse, the new doctrine cynically embraced Hezbollah as a legitimate “popular resistance” group supposedly sanctioned by international law — a grotesque lie, especially after Israel’s unilateral, UN-certified withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000.
This situation lasted far too long. Hezbollah’s decision on October 8, 2023, to attack Israel “in support of Gaza” finally changed the equation. Israel’s devastating 2024 campaign weakened the militia’s leadership, including the elimination of Hassan Nasrallah.
With Hezbollah gravely weakened, Lebanon’s parliament elected President Joseph Aoun in December 2024 and quickly approved Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s cabinet, both openly committed to disarming the Iranian proxy. Yet cabinet resolutions are meaningless if the LAF refuses to obey the government it is supposed to serve.
The army’s excuses for inaction are unconvincing.
It claims Shia soldiers would mutiny and defect. That’s false. Hezbollah’s fighters are almost exclusively Shia, and the militia offers far better pay and benefits than the cash-strapped LAF. Many military-age Shia men have already joined the proxy, leaving the regular army disproportionately Sunni and Christian. There simply aren’t enough Shia left in the ranks to cause a serious split.
Surveys repeatedly show that at least one in four Lebanese Shia oppose Hezbollah’s armament. Those who choose the national army over the militia’s lavish incentives are among the most patriotic, and the least likely to follow Hezbollah’s orders.
Hezbollah’s real grip on the LAF comes through corruption, not numbers. The militia has co-opted dozens of non-Shia senior officers by securing their promotions and protecting their graft. Corruption is rampant. Lebanon ranks 153rd on Transparency International’s corruption index. Applicants to the military academy routinely pay bribes of at least $30,000 just to get in, according to word on the street.
Before any more US money flows, the LAF must submit to a thorough, independent international audit.
The path is clear and uncompromising. Replace Haykal and his compromised lieutenants. Restore a doctrine centered solely on defending Lebanese sovereignty and neutrality. Conduct a full independent audit.
Only then should America resume, and dramatically increase, its aid to build a professional, sovereign, and accountable Lebanese national army. A reformed LAF would finally be worth supporting. The current version is not.
Hussain Abdul-Hussain is a research fellow at The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD).
Uncategorized
Mamdani fails first political test in Manhattan race. Here’s why it matters to Jews
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani was dealt a political blow Tuesday in a closely watched special election, a result that could reshape a high-stakes fight over protest protections that has galvanized the city’s Jewish community.
The race for an open Manhattan Council seat pitted Carl Wilson, an establishment candidate with deep ties to the district and backing from Council Speaker Julie Menin and City Comptroller Mark Levine, against Lindsey Boylan, a former aide to Andrew Cuomo and the first of multiple women to accuse Cuomo of sexual harassment. Boylan joined the Democratic Socialists of America last year — inspired by Mamdani — and has since emerged as a vocal critic of Israel.
The race took on outsized significance, with allies of Menin and establishment Democrats coalescing behind Wilson, a former chief of staff to ex-Councilmember Erik Bottcher, who vacated the seat after winning a special election to the state legislature in February. Meanwhile, activists aligned with Mamdani rallied behind Boylan. The district, in Chelsea and Greenwich Village, is a hub of the city’s LGBTQ+ community that includes the iconic Stonewall Inn.
Mamdani issued a late endorsement after early voting began last week, and quickly leaned in, campaigning with Boylan repeatedly and framing the race as a proving ground for his political operation. Mamdani is also seeking to extend that influence beyond City Hall, deploying top campaign aides and aggressively backing allies including Brad Lander and Claire Valdez in competitive June primaries for Congress.
Tuesday’s outcome — Wilson beating Boylan 43-25 in the ranked-choice contest, according to unofficial results — is being interpreted as a setback for Mamdani’s endorsement power and a sign that his electoral reach may be more limited than his rapid rise suggested.
Next NYC, a newly created super PAC tied to Cuomo, former city comptroller Scott Stringer and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, invested heavily in the contest to counter Mamdani’s influence. Stringer, who ran in last year’s mayoral race and has emerged as a prominent Jewish critic of Mamdani, framed the broader political goal as defeating candidates aligned with the mayor. “One down,” Stringer posted on X earlier this week ahead of the election, predicting Boylan’s defeat.
Mamdani’s setback boosts override push
Symbolism aside, the election could have some immediate legislative consequences for New York City, home to the largest concentration of Jewish voters in the U.S. At issue is a Council bill requiring safety plans for protests near schools. The legislation, referred to as a “buffer zone” measure, was strongly supported by many Jewish groups amid concerns about demonstrations targeting Jewish institutions.
The schools bill ran into opposition from progressive groups that raised objections connected to restricting free speech, especially on college campuses. It passed the City Council 30-19, which is not a veto-proof majority. Mamdani vetoed the measure on Friday, his first veto since taking office.
A similar bill concerning protests at houses of worship passed with a 44–5 veto-proof majority in the 51-member chamber, and can now become law.
Wilson backs the schools bill. Boylan sided with Mamdani.
With Wilson’s victory, Menin’s allies are now within striking distance of overriding the schools bill veto. The Council currently stands at 31 votes of the 34 needed. Manhattan Councilmember Gale Brewer, who abstained, is viewed as a potential swing vote. Leadership could now flip just two “no” votes to secure an override, an easier task in the wake of Mamdani’s political setback in Boylan’s loss.
If successful, it would mark a significant legislative defeat for the mayor and strengthen Menin’s hand in the Council. It will also embolden critics within the Jewish community, already uneasy over Mamdani’s responses to antisemitism and pro-Palestinian protests.
The post Mamdani fails first political test in Manhattan race. Here’s why it matters to Jews appeared first on The Forward.