Uncategorized
Soviet Jewry protest leaders in San Francisco secretly recruited help from Jews for Jesus, FBI file says
(JTA) – Organizers of protests on behalf of Soviet Jewry in San Francisco in the early 1970s might have bolstered crowds by secretly recruiting participants from Jews for Jesus.
The explosive revelation that Jewish leaders turned to a Christian missionary group for help appears in a 1973 FBI memo that the Jewish Telegraphic Agency recently obtained through a freedom of information request.
The FBI file details an apparent relationship between Martin Rosen, the founder of Jews for Jesus, and Joel Brooks and Harold Light, two prominent San Francisco Jewish leaders at the fore of local efforts in the movement to get Soviet authorities to end restrictions on the emigration of the country’s Jewish population. The relationship outlined in the declassified memo has not appeared in scholarship on the Soviet Jewry movement, nor is it known to activists of the movement who were interviewed by JTA. Light, Brooks and Rosen are deceased.
If the FBI’s intelligence is accurate, a successful and cherished social movement that unified much of the global Jewish community in common purpose for decades relied at least to some extent in San Francisco on the support of a group, rejected by nearly all of that community, whose mission is to proselytize to Jews.
“The first thing I thought of was, I’m reading something from ‘The Twilight Zone’ — in my many years in the Soviet Jewry movement, I don’t know if I’ve seen a document as strange as this,” said Morey Schapira, who served in leadership positions in the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, the Bay Area Council for Soviet Jews, and the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews. “The idea of working with a slimy group like Jews for Jesus, it’s beyond my comprehension.”
The public can request any FBI files that may exist pertaining to deceased individuals. An FBI memo relating Rosen arrived last November in response to one of about 50 freedom of information requests on prominent figures in recent Jewish history submitted by JTA almost two years ago. Most of JTA’s requests are still pending. TO DOWNLOAD THE FBI FILE, CLICK HERE.
Dated May 24, 1973, and written by an FBI informant whose name was redacted by staff at the U.S. National Archive, the memo focuses on Brooks, who was the Northern California director of the American Jewish Congress for about 30 years starting in 1967.
“[Brooks] has heavily utilized the services of the young Jews in the Jews for Jesus group,” the informant wrote. “[He] has used these services to turn out people in his Soviet Jewry demonstrations.”
The informant also cites Brooks as saying that Light, leader of the Bay Area Council for Soviet Jewry, used members of Jews for Jesus in a “hush-hush way” to distribute leaflets and participate in demonstrations.
The memo spells out why such an arrangement would be best kept out of the public eye.
“All of this, of course, is secret, because organized Jewish groups, and the various rabbinical councils have proclaimed that Jews for Jesus are no longer Jews but have become apostates, and should not be palled around with, nor buried in Jewish cemeteries,” the informant writes.
Martin “Moishe” Rosen, founder of Jews for Jesus in 1975. (Denver Post via Getty Images)
The upside for Rosen was obvious: His group would gain a foothold in a popular Jewish movement, offering a potential avenue toward legitimacy and a pool of possible recruits. In his 1974 memoir, titled “Jews for Jesus,” Rosen openly discussed being accepted into the movement by Jewish organizers, but he did so without naming Brooks, Light or any others.
He wrote that Jews for Jesus were invited because of their reputation as the “best qualified, best disciplined demonstrators in the San Francisco community. We’ve had more experience than other Jewish groups and are familiar with the applicable laws and regulations.”
Rosen’s group committed to not use the demonstrations as an opportunity to evangelize and didn’t bring any Christian literature or wear outfits that would identify them, according to the memoir.
“Many Jews for Jesus believe in the freedom of Soviet Jewry just as strongly as any other Jews, and we want to be as effective as possible when we demonstrate to support that cause,” Rosen wrote.
To Schapira, who led the Bay Area Council for Soviet Jews for years and knew both Brooks and Light, however, it’s unclear why the Soviet Jewry movement would have wanted or needed Jews for Jesus. Schapira didn’t recall it ever being especially difficult to turn out demonstrators organically. There didn’t seem to be a need to resort to secret deals.
“If you look at the picture of the rallies in those days, they even had people like [American folk music legend] Joan Baez,” Schapira said. “They developed a relationship with her and she would come to the rally and bring her guitar and sing songs for freedom.”
He added, “If we needed an instant rally, we were a grassroots organization and we could produce 10 or 12 people, which might be enough to send a message to the Russians and get some publicity in the local papers.”
At least a few people in the Bay Area’s Jewish community caught wind of the secret relationship between Brooks and Jews for Jesus at the time, according to the memo.
Stephanie Rodgers was a coordinator of the Jewish Defense League, an extremist right-wing Jewish group that was under heavy FBI surveillance. Founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane, the JDL applied its often violent tactics to resist Jews for Jesus’ public campaign to convert Jews. Rodgers visited Brooks’ office ahead of a planned demonstration in front of the Soviet consulate in San Francisco and asked about his connection to Rosen and Jews for Jesus, according to the memo.
After Brooks explained how they had been useful, Rodgers “smiled and was very pleasant on the surface,” the memo says. But at the demonstration, Rodgers and a group of other JDL activists showed up even though they said they would stay away, and they found Rosen in the crowd and proceeded to attack him and “kicked him in the groin.”
JDL regularly disrupted Jews for Jesus events; the organization would ultimately claim responsibility for firebombing a bus operated by Jews for Jesus in Brooklyn and abducting an adherent. In the Bay Area, where both groups were active, tensions were particularly high; the Jewish Defense League would sue the local Jews for Jesus chapter over what it charged was the group’s misuse of the JDL’s name and imagery.
Brooks, meanwhile, had more affable ties with Jews for Jesus. It’s unclear how or when Rosen and Brooks developed a relationship, but Brooks noted in a July 25, 1972, letter he wrote to the office of the American Jewish Congress in New York that their ties had started “some time ago.” The letter is found in the records of the Northern California branch of the American Jewish Congress, which are archived at the University of California Berkeley’s library.
A prominent advocacy group in its heyday, the American Jewish Congress — not to be confused with the American Jewish Committee — took a more liberal political stance than that of Jewish establishment groups on many issues.
Brooks had learned that his organization’s national headquarters wanted to undertake a study of Jews for Jesus and he wished to provide insight. He was under no illusion about the group’s objective: “The sole aim of these men is to enlist new converts to Christianity,” Brooks wrote in the letter.
“Through contact with Rosen I have developed a great deal of insight into how his organization operates, their source of funding, budget, etc. which I wish to share with you,” he added.
Then as now, members of Jews for Jesus and other Messianic groups felt unfairly rejected by the Jewish world, arguing that their Christian beliefs should have a place in the community.
In the early 1970s, when Jews for Jesus’ conversion drive was prominent and well funded, Brooks was perceived as more lenient, according to the foreword to the 2017 book “Converging Destinies: Jews, Christians, and the Mission of God.”
“Brooks tried to keep some of us connected to the Jewish community and Jewish life,” Calvin J. Smith wrote in the foreword. “I remember going with another Jew for Jesus to a Jewish consciousness raising session he held at a home in Marin County in the early 1970s.”
Glenn Richter was one of the founders of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry and operates as a walking encyclopedia of the movement.
Protestors dressed as prisoners behind bars, alongside a man holding a placard reading “Solidarity with Soviet Jews,” stand together with members of New York’s Jewish community as they take to the streets during the Solidarity Sunday for Soviet Jewry demonstration in protest at the Soviet Union’s treatment of Jewish people, in New York City, April 18, 1975. (Images Press/Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
He said the movement did collaborate with many Christians outside of Jews for Jesus. For example, he said there were Scandinavians, who, on weekend trips to Leningrad (today St. Petersburg), brought in Jewish material that was banned in the Soviet Union. Others set up safe houses in Finland in expectation of fleeing Soviet Jews. And the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews raised millions of dollars from evangelicals to help transport Soviet Jews to Israel.
“Of course, among these goodhearted souls are those who have conversion of Jews in mind, but I suspect most have wanted to fulfill their prophecy of ingathering Jews to Israel so that a Christian messiah could return,” Richter said.
In his eyes, Jews for Jesus represented a red line.
“Our Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry office on Manhattan’s West 72nd Street was down the block from a church with a Jewish Messianic constituency, and we would never, ever, try to work with them,” Richter said.
Andrew Esensten contributed research to this story.
—
The post Soviet Jewry protest leaders in San Francisco secretly recruited help from Jews for Jesus, FBI file says appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Credit Suisse had many more bank accounts with Nazi ties than previously known, investigation finds
(JTA) — The financial services company Credit Suisse had hundreds more bank accounts with Nazi ties than it had previously revealed, a new investigation reported this week.
The findings were discovered when independent investigators audited UBS, the Swiss bank that acquired Credit Suisse in 2023.
“What the investigation has found to date shows that Credit Suisse’s involvement was more extensive than was previously known, and it underscores the importance of continuing to engage in research efforts about this horrific era of modern history,” Neil Barofsky, a lawyer overseeing the inquiry, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday.
Barofsky’s report found 890 accounts potentially linked to Nazis: 628 individuals and 262 legal entities.
The investigation also found that Credit Suisse provided support to the “ratlines” that enabled Nazis to escape Europe and enter Argentina, opening and maintaining accounts for the Argentine Immigration Office.
Specifically, Barofsky said in his testimony, Credit Suisse provided funds “to finance bribes, obtain fraudulent travel documents, and pay for living expenses and transportation for fugitives, including perpetrators of the Holocaust.”
Barofsky’s investigation into UBS also found multiple previously unreported instances of the forced sale of property owned by Jews during the Holocaust. It also found that Credit Suisse held accounts for the German foreign office during the Holocaust, which dealt with the deportations of Jews.
Last May, Argentina declassified more than 1,800 documents related to the ratlines at the behest of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, named for the late Nazi hunter. Barofsky’s research into Credit Suisse’s involvement in the ratlines is ongoing, he said.
The findings represent a potentially explosive capstone to years of investigation into Credit Suisse’s Nazi ties.
Jewish organizations have long claimed that in addition to playing a key role in financially supporting Nazi Germany, Credit Suisse has held onto money looted from Jews long after the war. In 1999, the Swiss bank paid Jewish groups and Holocaust survivors a settlement of $1.25 billion in restitution for withholding money from Jews who had tried to withdraw their funds.
In 2020, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish advocacy group, alleged that the bank had also hidden information about its ties to Nazis who fled to Argentina.
The bank hired Barofsky the following year to investigate its record but fired him in 2022, angering U.S. lawmakers including Sen. Chuck Grassley, now chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In 2023, as the top Republican on the Budget Committee, Grassley charged that Credit Suisse was obfuscating its Nazi ties, saying, “When it comes to investigating Nazi matters, righteous justice demands that we must leave no stone unturned. Credit Suisse has thus far failed to meet that standard.” Barofsky was soon rehired.
Tuesday’s hearing grew heated when Barofsky said the bank was still interfering with his investigation. He argued that his investigation could not be completed without access to 150 documents related to a 1998 restitution settlement between UBS and Holocaust survivors, which Barofsky says may contain the names of specific account holders he is investigating.
Robert Karofsky, president of UBS Americas, alleged Tuesday that giving Barofsky access to those documents could violate attorney-client privilege.
“Materials from the 1990’s are not within the scope of the Ombudsperson’s oversight, which is meant to be focused on Credit Suisse’s history and World War II-era conduct,” Karofsky said.
Still, Barofsky said, his report will be incomplete without those documents.
“I will be unable to provide assurance in my final report that the investigation has truly left no stone unturned,” he said.
The post Credit Suisse had many more bank accounts with Nazi ties than previously known, investigation finds appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Former Moscow rabbi says he rebuffed proposal to convert a million Russians discussed in Epstein files recording
(JTA) — When newly released audio recordings revealed former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak discussing mass conversion and selective immigration with Jeffrey Epstein, disgraced financier and the convicted sex trafficker, the reaction in Israel was swift and deeply political.
Israel’s current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, accused Barak of seeking to “select” Jews for immigration and charged that Israel’s political left was trying to “replace the people” after failing at the ballot box — an echo of contemporary conspiracy theories about immigration that appear to have been treated as a serious idea at the time.
The recordings, released this week as part of the U.S. Justice Department’s latest disclosure under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, capture Barak in a wide-ranging conversation with Epstein, who died in federal custody in 2019. The audio appears to date to around 2013, when Barak — a longtime leader in the liberal Labor Party — was 71 years old and transitioning into the private sector.
In the recording, Barak argues that Israel should weaken the Orthodox rabbinate’s control over conversion and open the door to large-scale conversion as a demographic strategy.
“We have to break the monopoly of the Orthodox rabbinate — on marriage and funerals, the definition of a Jew,” Barak says. “Open the gates for massive conversion into Judaism. It’s a successful country. Many will apply.”
Over more than three hours, Barak speaks candidly about population trends in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, warning that without a two-state solution, Jews could lose their demographic majority.
“It will be an Arab majority,” Barak says of the territories. “It’s a collective blindness of our society.”
Barak also expresses concern about the growing proportion of Arab citizens within Israel, noting that Arabs made up about 16% of the population four decades ago and roughly 20% today. He contrasts that growth with the ultra-Orthodox Jewish population, which he says is expanding more rapidly.
As a counterweight, Barak proposes immigration, conversion and minority inclusion. He praises the Druze and Christian minorities as highly integrated and points to immigrants from the former Soviet Union as prime candidates for conversion.
“We can control the quality much more effectively, much more than the founding fathers of Israel did,” Barak says. Referring explicitly to immigration from North Africa, he adds: “They took whatever came just to save people. Now, we can be more selective.”
Barak lauds the post-Soviet aliyah of the 1990s, which brought more than 1 million Russian-speaking immigrants to Israel, and says the country could “easily absorb another million.” He recounts telling Russian President Vladimir Putin that Israel about this idea and joking about mixed Russian-Israeli names in the military as evidence of rapid integration.
The remarks drew sharp criticism from Pinchas Goldschmidt, who spent more than three decades leading Moscow’s Jewish community before leaving the country after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In an interview, Goldschmidt said the recording echoed conversations he encountered repeatedly during his years in Russia.
“I spent 33 years in Moscow, and there was talk like this,” Goldschmidt said. “Not necessarily among the heads of the agencies dealing with aliyah, but among employees and officials who felt this was their opportunity to stop Israel from becoming a Levantine country.”
Goldschmidt said those attitudes occasionally surfaced in direct encounters with Israeli political figures. He recalled a meeting with former Israeli minister Haim Ramon, who asked whether Orthodox rabbinical courts could convert large numbers of non-Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
“He came to me with a number,” Goldschmidt said. “He mentioned 100,000.”
Goldschmidt said his response was categorical. “Halacha doesn’t speak in numbers,” he said, referring to Jewish law. “There is no number on the top and no number on the bottom. Halacha speaks about standards and conditions. If 1 million people are ready to convert according to Jewish law, then we will convert 1 million people. And if they are not ready, we will not convert even one.”
Goldschmidt said the meeting took place after Ramon had left government following a sexual misconduct scandal but emphasized that it was not a casual exchange.
“It was more than a conversation,” he said. “It was not a conversation over tea. If he came to see me officially, with a question like that on the table, then it meant something.”
For Goldschmidt, Barak’s claim in the recording that he discussed such matters with Putin was particularly striking. “Why do you have to speak to Putin about converting a million Russians?” he asked. “People can leave Russia without permission. The person he needed to speak to was me.”
Goldschmidt said Barak’s framing of conversion and immigration would be widely perceived in Israel as offensive. “Anyone from Middle Eastern backgrounds would hear this whole conversation as extremely racist,” he said. “And anyone who is traditional or religious would also find it very offensive.”
In his comments, Netanyahu also said Barak’s close relationship with Epstein proved that Epstein did not work for Israel or its intelligence services, saying it would make no sense for an Israeli asset to be closely associated with one of the government’s most vocal opponents.
Barak’s ties to Epstein — including repeated meetings years after Epstein’s 2008 conviction — have been reported previously, and there is no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by Barak.
The post Former Moscow rabbi says he rebuffed proposal to convert a million Russians discussed in Epstein files recording appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Ex-Head of NYC Office to Combat Antisemitism Discusses Being Abruptly Fired by Mamdani, Replaced With Israel Critic
The Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism, led by Moshe Davis, held its first meeting on July 17, 2025, at City Hall in New York City. Photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office
Moshe Davis was replaced this week as the executive director of the New York City Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism and spoke with The Free Press about his firing, which came without notice, while also sharing a message for his replacement, liberal Zionist Phylisa Wisdom.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s office announced on Wednesday that Davis was being replaced by Wisdom, 39, who recently served as the executive director of the New York Jewish Agenda. NYJA is made up of “liberal and progressive Zionists,” according to its website. The group has criticized Israel’s military actions in the Gaza Strip and opposes the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. “NYC deserves a mayor who will stand up for Palestinians in the face of state-sanctioned violence,” Wisdom previously posted on X.
The Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism was established in May of last year by Mamdani’s predecessor, Eric Adams.
Davis, 28, told The Free Press he was not told in advance that he was being replaced, and found out only after it was publicized online and in the news.
“I was reporting to work like I do every day … at some point, I get a text and then a tweet and then see an article that they have named a replacement for my position. Not something that was told to me in advance,” he explained. “At some point they came to my desk and said, ‘Let’s talk,’ and they were sorry for the way it was done. But they said they were looking to go in a new direction.”
“I’m a loud, proud Jewish person who walks with a kippah on my head,” he added. “A proud Zionist. Someone who takes their Judaism to heart and it means a lot to me and my family … And I think this administration maybe felt that was too much for them.”
Anti-Jewish hate crimes in New York City increased by 182 percent in January during Mamdani’s first month in office compared to the same month last year, according to newly released statistics from the New York City Police Department (NYPD). There were 31 anti-Jewish hate crimes in the first month of 2026, which was more than half of all the hate crime incidents reported in January.
Davis told The Free Press this week that in the last month, he has been trying to push forward efforts to combat antisemitism in New York and protect Jewish New Yorkers but hasn’t “found much traction” from Mamdani’s office.
“You’re gonna put a new director in? Get to work. Jewish New Yorkers are on edge, are fearful of the rise of antisemitic incidents,” Davis said. “That’s what Jewish New Yorkers want to see: they want to see someone who cares about their concerns. If you can’t correctly understand where this hatred is coming, where this propaganda and [activism] is coming from, and how it effects Jewish New Yorkers, it’s gonna be a hard job.”
“I’m afraid if you’re giving too much leeway to propaganda and activism, Jewish New Yorkers are going to be targeted,” he added. “They’re going to be unsafe … that’s something that scares me.”
Wisdom said in a released statement that she was “honored and humbled” to be the new executive director of the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism.
“New York City has long been a beacon of hope for the Jewish community,” said the Jewish Brooklyn resident. “We will continue to ensure that Jewish safety and belonging remains at the core of this administration’s vision for a more livable city. In a time of rising hatred and fear, I look forward to embracing this solemn responsibility — both to represent the diverse array of Jewish voices to City Hall in this critical moment, and to demonstrate the power of pluralistic democracy in the greatest city in the world.”
Mamdani’s office said that as head of the New York Jewish Agenda, Wisdom “successfully advocated for legislation in Albany to combat antisemitism and other forms of hate and testified before the New York City Council in support of increased funding for hate crime prevention.” Wisdom also previously worked in advocacy through the Union for Reform Judaism’s Religious Action Center. She supports Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state but, like Mamdani, opposes the IHRA definition of antisemitism, a reference tool for identifying antisemitic hate crimes that has been widely accepted by Jewish groups and governing institutions around the world.
Some Jewish leaders have expressed concern about Wisdom’s past work for Yaffed, an organization that pushes for more oversight of secular education in New York’s ultra-Orthodox yeshivas. Wisdom was Yaffed’s director of development and government affairs before joining NYJA in 2023.
“The leader of the Office of Antisemitism cannot have a contentious relationship with the Hassidic yeshiva community,” Yaacov Behrman, who heads public relations for the Chabad Lubavitch Headquarters in Brooklyn, wrote on X in early January.
“When the office was created, I was part of the early conversations about its purpose: ensuring that Jewish New Yorkers feel protected and free to live openly and proudly,” he added. “And in New York, a large share of antisemitic hate crimes target Hassidic and Yeshivish Jews. It is difficult to understand how someone who has spent years publicly antagonizing yeshivas could build the relationships or provide the reassurance needed for the community most often targeted by antisemitic attacks. This is not politics. It is common sense.”
Those who support Wisdom’s appointment as the new executive director of the Office to Combat Antisemitism include US Rep. Jerry Nadler; New York City Comptroller Mark Levine; State Sen. Liz Krueger; former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism; and Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.