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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.
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From UK to the Balkans, Europe Faces Wave of Antisemitic Attacks at Jewish Sites
A person holds a sign near the scene where four ambulances belonging to Hatzola, a Jewish community organization, were set on fire in an incident that the police say is being treated as an antisemitic hate crime, in northwest London, Britain, March 23, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Isabel Infantes
A growing wave of antisemitic attacks has swept across Europe in recent weeks, with a string of incidents targeting Jewish sites in multiple countries underscoring an increasingly hostile climate and a rise in targeted violence against Jewish communities.
On Wednesday, London police arrested two suspects following an attempted arson attack on a synagogue in the north of the British capital, in the latest in a series of antisemitic incidents that have deepened alarm and unease among Jews across the country.
According to British authorities, two individuals wearing dark clothing and balaclavas approached Finchley Reform Synagogue in north London late Tuesday night and threw a brick and two bottles suspected of containing petrol at the building.
Authorities confirmed no damage or injuries were reported after neither of the bottles ignited. Working in coordination with Counter Terrorism Policing London, local police have launched an investigation, treating the incident as an antisemitic hate crime.
Cantor Zöe Jacobs, a leader at the synagogue, strongly condemned the attack, calling it a deeply troubling attempt to target the Jewish community and a stark reminder of the growing climate of hostility and fear across the United Kingdom.
“This is clearly an attempt to intimidate the British Jewish community, but we will not be deterred by these cowardly acts. Instead, we will continue to prioritize building bridges across the wider Barnet community,” Jacobs said in a statement.
This latest incident followed an arson attack on ambulances run by a Jewish charity in London last month, amid a broader upsurge in antisemitism over the last two years, in the wake of the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Detective Chief Superintendent Luke Williams, who leads policing in the area, assured the community that increased patrols in the Finchley area will continue, alongside ongoing monitoring and preventative measures.
“I hope the swift action by officers today to identify and arrest two people provides some reassurance and demonstrates how seriously we take attacks of this nature,” Williams said in a statement.
Meanwhile, more than a thousand miles away, North Macedonia’s only synagogue was targeted in a separate attempted arson attack in Skopje, the country’s capital, on Sunday night. The attack is believed to be the country’s first antisemitic incident since World War II.
According to local media reports, the Beth Yaakov Synagogue — the country’s only functioning Jewish house of worship, consecrated in 2000 — was targeted by two unknown individuals who threw firebombs at the building, leaving the synagogue’s door and courtyard scorched by fire.
Police reported that surveillance footage showed two suspects climbing a fence, pouring fuel, and throwing a firebomb before fleeing, with investigators later recovering a fuel canister at the scene but so far failing to identify those responsible.
Pepo Levi, the president of the local Jewish community, strongly condemned the attack, calling it a disturbing act of violence and an alarming escalation in targeted hostility.
“This act represents a serious attack not only on our community’s safety, but also on the principles of religious freedom, dignity, and peaceful coexistence that we have upheld for generations,” Levi said in a statement.
With a total population of around 1.8 million people, North Macedonia is home to approximately 200 Jews, nearly all based in Skopje. Before the Holocaust, the country was home to nearly 8,000 Jews — with around 3,000 in Skopje — and five synagogues in Bitola.
Synagogues have increasingly been targeted in acts of vandalism and violence amid a broader surge in antisemitism worldwide, with a mounting wave of incidents reported from Belgium, the Netherlands, the United States, and Australia.
In northern Romania, a Jewish cemetery and final resting place of Rabbi Hillel Pollak, a disciple of the Chatam Sofer and author of Kodesh Hillulim, was vandalized by unknown perpetrators this week.
According to local media reports, 14 gravestones were toppled at the cemetery in the city of Reghin in the Transylvania region, with no suspects identified or arrested so far.
The European Jewish Congress strongly condemned the incident, calling it a disturbing act of vandalism and part of a worrying pattern of attacks on Jewish heritage sites across Europe.
“This desecration is part of a broader pattern of antisemitic incidents targeting Jewish heritage sites across Europe. Attacks on cemeteries not only damage property but also show a profound disrespect for memory, history and the dignity of the deceased,” the statement read.
A Jewish cemetery in Reghin, northern Romania, has been vandalised, with 14 gravestones toppled by unknown perpetrators.
The site includes the grave of Rabbi Hillel Pollak, a prominent historical figure. Romanian authorities have opened an investigation and no suspects have been… pic.twitter.com/oc5k2pmR3R
— European Jewish Congress (@eurojewcong) April 15, 2026
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Israeli Legal Group Files ICC Complaint Against Spain’s Sánchez Over Alleged Dual-Use Weapons Exports to Iran
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez speaks during a press conference after attending a special summit of European Union leaders to discuss transatlantic relations, in Brussels, Belgium, Jan. 23, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
An Israeli legal advocacy group has filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court seeking an investigation into Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez over allegations that Spain supplied weapons-related materials to Iran’s Islamist regime, potentially implicating him in alleged war crimes.
Filed by Shurat HaDin, an Israel-based non-governmental organization that pursues terrorism-related cases, the lawsuit claims Spain supplied “equipment and components used by Iran’s regime and its proxy forces for military purposes” amid widening regional escalation across the Middle East.
According to data from Spain’s Ministry of Trade, the Spanish government exported more than €1.3 million worth of dual-use materials to Iran in 2024 and the first half of 2025, including explosive components, laboratory reagents, and specialized control software.
Since Sánchez took office in 2018, official data indicates Spain has authorized roughly $7 million in dual-use exports to Iran with potential military and nuclear applications, and machinery shipments alone reached about $80 million in 2024.
Shurat HaDin argues such exports occurred despite a “well-documented” pattern of Iranian support for terrorist groups across the region, including Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis.
Under international law, states or entities that supply essential components enabling the operation of weapons systems may be held liable for aiding and abetting war crimes, even when those items are formally classified as dual-use goods.
“These materials are not innocent industrial products, but critical components that enable explosive devices to function, and they were transferred in circumstances where their use for attacks against civilians was foreseeable and reasonable,” Shurat HaDin said in a statement.
Spain’s Prime Minister is now facing a complaint at the International Criminal Court.
Shurat HaDin has filed an ICC complaint against Pedro Sánchez, alleging Spain enabled the transfer of dual-use components to Iran worth €1.3 million.
These dual-use components are not… pic.twitter.com/dJVilxR6Y6
— Shurat HaDin – שורת הדין (@ShuratHaDin) April 15, 2026
The Israeli organization also pointed to a recent Iranian propaganda campaign depicting a missile aimed at “US-Israeli assets” alongside a message thanking the Spanish leader, citing it as further evidence of what it describes as growing political alignment between the two countries.
With regional tensions continuing to escalate, Shurat HaDin is calling on the ICC to open a formal investigation and issue an arrest warrant against Sánchez, as well as to examine the involvement of other officials in export decisions.
This lawsuit comes amid already strained relations between Israel and Spain that began with the war in Gaza and have deepened through the conflict with Iran and wider regional escalation.
From unilaterally recognizing a Palestinian state to repeatedly branding the war in Gaza a “genocide,” Madrid has been pursuing a fierce anti-Israel campaign aimed at undermining and isolating the Jewish state on the international stage.
In one of its most controversial recent moves, the Spanish government announced last week the reopening of its embassy in Tehran, just a few weeks after it permanently withdrew its ambassador from Israel.
Sánchez has publicly condemned Israeli strikes in Lebanon and the widening regional escalation tied to the Iran conflict, renewing calls for the European Union to suspend its association agreement with Israel and urging an end to “impunity for [Israel’s] criminal actions.”
The Spanish leader also accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of breaching basic humanitarian norms, saying his “contempt for life and international law is intolerable.”
Last week, Israel expelled Spain from the United States’ Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) in Kiryat Gat, a hub established to coordinate humanitarian operations in the Gaza Strip, in response to Madrid’s increasingly anti-Israel stance and continued hostility toward the Jewish state.
Despite being a NATO ally, Spain had also recently closed its airspace to US aircraft involved in what officials described as a “reckless and illegal confrontation,” and barred Washington from using its bases for military operations against the Iranian regime.
As the local Jewish community continues to face an increasingly hostile climate and targeted violence, Sánchez has drawn mounting criticism from political opponents and Jewish leaders who accuse his rhetoric of fueling antisemitic hostility across the country.
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JD Vance Argues Against the Pope’s Calls for Peace As Iran’s LEGO AI Videos Stoke America’s Religious Divisions
An Iranian propaganda video attacks President Donald Trump in response to social media postings critical of the Pope and regarded as insensitive to Christians. Photo: Screenshot.
Vice President JD Vance, who converted to Catholicism in August 2019 at age 35 criticzed Pope Leo’s call for peace between the United States and Iran, another example of growing religious disagreements among Christians which Iranian propagandists have sought to exacerbate in new propaganda videos.
On Thursday at an event organized in Georgia by conservative activist group Turning Point USA, Vance said when asked about the head of his church disagreeing with President Donald Trump’s policies, “I do think we have to remember that each of us has our own role. I’m the Vice President of the United States. The fundamental way I understand my role is I’m trying to take the lessons, the moral truths that are rooted in Christianity and I’m trying to apply to a whole host of complicated real world scenarios.” Tepid applause broke out in response with Vance then thanking the crowd.
The Vice President’s comments came in the days following social media postings from Trump which included a broadside against Pope Leo and an AI-generated image depicting the Commander-in-Chief wearing white and red flowing robes as he placed one of his glowing hands on the head of a sick man. Trump later removed the image following the criticism of longtime Christian members of his Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement.
Iran took advantage of the social media kerfuffle, on Wednesday the Iranian embassy in Tajikistan posted an AI animation which took the original image and modified it to mock Trump.
Another propaganda video released by a pro-Iran group this week also responded to Trump’s social media postings about the Pope and the Jesus image, again deploying the AI-generated animation style depicting the president and other American officials as LEGO characters while a soundtrack delivers rhyming insults.
The Occupy Democrats Facebook group which has 11 million followers celebrated another pro-Iran propaganda video that has started circulating online.
While the president’s opponents on the progressive left may enjoy Iran’s jabs at Trump, the video’s themes casting him as an enemy of Christianity seek to exacerbate pre-existing intra-theological conflicts among the MAGA base.
This year, other recent Catholic converts — notably far-right podcaster Candace Owens and her supporter Carrie Prejean Boller, the former beauty queen contestant ejected from a White House Religious Liberty Panel on antisemitism following her questioning about Christian Zionism — have also advanced positions counter to Catholic teachings.
Prejean Boller claims that Zionism and Catholicism are incompatible, writing on X after her dismissal from the panel that “I will continue to stand against Zionist supremacy in America. I’m a proud Catholic. I, in no way will be forced to embrace Zionism as a fulfillment of biblical prophesy [sic]. I am a free American. Not a slave to a foreign nation.”
In response to her actions, the group Catholics for Catholics awarded Prejean Boller a “Catholic Champion” award at its gala, an event also featuring Owens and Joe Kent, the recently-resigned director of the National Counterterrorism Center who has suggested that Israel controls America’s foreign policy and may have have had a hand in the Sept. 10, 2025 assassination of Turning Point USA chief Charlie Kirk.