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‘Stop Cop City’ activists infuse Jewish rituals into their protest against Atlanta’s planned police training center
(JTA) — As the sun set on Feb. 5, signaling the start of Tu Bishvat, a group of Jews carried shovels into the South River Forest southeast of downtown Atlanta.
In the day’s declining light, they planted saplings — seven paw paws, three fig and two peach — to honor the holiday, Judaism’s “new year of the trees.” They recited the Shehechiyanu prayer, and a rabbi led them in singing “Tzadik Katamar”: “The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon,” from Psalm 92.
The traditional holiday observance doubled as a protest against “Cop City,” the name that self-described “forest defenders” have given the city of Atlanta’s plan to build a $90 million, 85-acre police and fire training center on 300-plus acres that it owns just over the city line in DeKalb County, Georgia.
Two years into protests against the plans, a “week of action” that began over the weekend swelled the protesters’ ranks and brought an even greater police presence to the site of the planned training center. On Sunday night, a group of activists broke from a nonviolent protest, burning police vehicles and, police said, throwing rocks at officers. Dozens of people were arrested.
The violent turn throws into question other plans for the week, which include a Purim celebration on Monday night and a Shabbat service on Friday, the latest Jewish milestones in nearly two years of controversy and confrontation.
“They’re living Jewish values more legitimately, more sincerely than some of the biggest institutions,” said Rabbi Mike Rothbaum of Atlanta’s Reconstructionist Congregation Bet Haverim, of the Jewish protesters. Rothbaum attended the Tu Bishvat event and is scheduled to lead this week’s Shabbat service; he was speaking before the weekend’s events.
Comparing their worship to a mishkan, the portable sanctuary that the Israelites carried in the desert, Rothbaum said of the protesters, “They go to shul at ‘Cop City.’”
A sukkah constructed in October 2023 at the “Cop City” protest site in the Atlanta forest was destroyed in a police raid in December. (Courtesy of Jewish Bird Watcher Union)
Until about 200 years ago, South River Forest was home to the Muscogee (Creek) tribe, who called it Weelaunee — “brown water,” the name painted on protest banners strung between trees. White settlers drove out the Muscogee, and the land later became a slave plantation, a Civil War battlefield and a city prison farm. Portions have been a police firing range and used for explosives disposal, and it has also been the site of illegal dumping.
In April 2021, Atlanta announced plans to build a police training facility in the forest. Opponents immediately launched a protest. They oppose the redirection of natural resources to the police and want the forest maintained as a natural sanctuary.
After two years as a primarily local issue, national and international attention spiked on Jan. 18, when a protester camped in the woods was killed during what police called a “clearing operation.” The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said Manuel Paez Teran fired a handgun, wounding a Georgia State Police trooper, then was killed by return fire. An independent autopsy reported that the 26-year-old known as “Tortuguita” was struck by at least 13 rounds. An Atlanta police vehicle was torched in a subsequent protest downtown. Charges against more than a dozen of those arrested include violating the state’s domestic terrorism statute.
Across Intrenchment Creek from the city property is a DeKalb County park that bears the waterway’s name and is the subject of an associated protest. Much of the “Stop Cop City” activity has taken place in the 136-acre Intrenchment Creek Park. Legal challenges are pending against a land swap in which the county gave 40 acres to the now-former owner of a film studio, whose crews leveled trees and tore up a paved path until a judge issued a stop work order.
Conservation groups and community organizations in the surrounding majority Black neighborhoods fear that any development will degrade the tree canopy in Atlanta — which calls itself the “city in the forest” — and exacerbate flooding in low-lying areas.
The larger, decentralized protest movement includes a number of Jews, most in their 20s and 30s, who have made their stand by holding Jewish rituals in the forest, some under the banner of the “Jewish Bird Watcher Union.” They have held Shabbat services, performed the Tashlich ritual on Rosh Hashanah, slept in a sukkah during Sukkot, lit Hanukkah candles, and planted trees on Tu Bishvat. Prayer books were adapted for Shabbat and the High Holidays, with illustrations by the Jewish artist Ezra Rose.
Digital fliers advertising Jewish activities during a “week of action” by protesters opposing Atlanta’s planned police training facility. (Shared on social media)
Most of the Jewish events have been held in Intrenchment Creek Park. At the entrance, signs attached to a crumpled gazebo denounce the “film site” property owner. Improvised memorials and slabs of stone bearing spray-painted slogans dot the parking lot. To frustrate machinery drivers, some trails were blocked by barricades formed from downed trees, discarded tires and anything else handy.
The day before Tu Bishvat, three of the young Jewish activists met with a reporter, in an unheated community center a short drive from the forest. Expressing concern about their personal security, given the heated atmosphere around the issue, they spoke on condition that they be identified only by their first names and that their photographs not appear.
Cam, 24, is a labor union activist who grew up in Atlanta, attending Conservative and Reform congregations. Ray, 24, is a software engineer and Georgia Tech graduate, who grew up attending a Reform synagogue in Maryland. Ruth, in her late 20s, works in “regenerative landscaping” and moved to Atlanta with her Israeli family as a child. All said they feel disconnected from the mainstream Jewish community in Atlanta, religiously, politically and ideologically.
“Mainstream Judaism has completely lost touch with the radical history and radical tradition of the Jews,” Ruth said. “The things I like about Judaism, I want to live them in real life.”
She added, “When Sukkot came around and we built a sukkah in the forest, this is the closest I’ve been to relating to the story of traveling, of being in the desert and sleeping under the canopy.”
A makeshift memorial for environmental activist Manuel Paez Teran, who was allegedly killed by law enforcement during a raid to clear the construction site of a police training facility that activists have nicknamed “Cop City” near Atlanta, Georgia, as seen Feb. 6, 2023. (Cheney Orr/AFP via Getty Images)
Upwards of 50 to 60 Jews have participated in the forest-based worship, and hundreds of people have streamed into the “living room” section of the woods. “I don’t know if they’re all gathering for Shabbat or not but they all gathered around with us and listened to us sing prayers and light candles,” Ray said.
Rothbaum said he admired what he saw the Jewish protesters doing. “Whatever your opinion of the activists at ‘Cop City,’ you have to admire their commitment,” he said, adding, “These kids are reacting to the assimilation of a great heritage of meaning and justice.”
The sukkah survived for two months past the end of Sukkot, until a Dec. 13 police raid against encampments on both sides of Intrenchment Creek. A photo posted on Twitter showed the dismantled poles and torn sheets. The disappearance of the large menorah from the Intrenchment Creek parking lot after Hanukkah was blamed on crews working for the film site owner.
May the candle lights of Khanukah ignite the flames of rebellion. @defendATLforest pic.twitter.com/kdh6mqhMHY
— Fayer – פֿײַער (@FayerAtlanta) December 22, 2022
The morning after Tu Bishvat, city and county SWAT teams, along with state police, were deployed as construction equipment was brought into the police training center site. Two weeks later, at a Shabbat dinner in the forest following the Jan. 18 raid, attendees recited a Mourner’s Kaddish for Manuel Paez Teran and sang the traditional prayer “Oseh Shalom Bimromav” — “They who make peace in their high places.”
The Jewish activists see parallels between their activism on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and what’s happening in their local forest.
“Anti-Zionism was a major part of what brought us together in the first place, even before the forest movement,” said Cam, who said he saw the two issues as “related struggles.” Opposing Israel is “a big part of what leads us to feel alienated from most mainstream Jewish communities and the inability to be accepted there, and the necessity of forming our own.”
Ruth participated in activism on behalf of Palestinians while visiting family in Israel last summer. “I was hearing and seeing old ancient olive orchards that were destroyed, burned or cut by settlers in order to disempower Palestinians from living there,” she said. “It made me really feel, like, defend the forest everywhere.”
Atlanta officials say they do not plan to defile the forest and argue that the city’s police training facilities are inadequate. The planned complex would serve the police and fire departments, the 911 call center and K-9 units. It would include a shooting range, a “mock city” (with a gas station, motel, home and nightclub) and a “burn building.” The remainder of the land will be developed for recreational use, officials say.
“This is Atlanta and we know forests. This facility will not be built over a forest,” Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said at a January news conference. “The training center will sit on land that has long been cleared of hardwood trees through previous uses of this site decades ago.”
Activists accuse the city and county of a lack of transparency throughout the process. In a February interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Dickens conceded that the city could have done a better job selling the project. “We didn’t do that. And because we didn’t do that it started getting painted by anybody that had a brush,” he told the newspaper.
The mayor’s words have not deterred activists, whose goal is nothing less than cancellation of the project.
“They have destroyed a lot of the beauty already,” Cam said. “They have created this place of desolation and death and destruction, and that is in opposition to our task as Jews to create a world of beauty and joy and holiness. By coming to this place and planting trees, we are reclaiming it, making a place of peace and joy.”
Rabbi Mike Rothbaum, seen here in Massachusetts in 2017, is an Atlanta rabbi who has participated in “Cop City” protests. (Jonathan Wiggs/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
The local Jewish protesters have lately gotten a boost from a progressive Jewish organization based in Philadelphia. The Shalom Center launched in the 1980s to oppose nuclear proliferation and now focused largely on climate justice.
“Our sacred text is called ‘The Tree of Life,’” wrote the center’s founder, Rabbi Arthur Waskow, and national organizer Rabbi Nate DeGroot in a Feb. 28 letter to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp that noted Jewish law’s prohibition on uprooting trees. “We pray that the trees of the Weelaunee Forest remain trees that support the flourishing of sacred life for generations to come.”
Rothbaum said he was inspired by the young Jewish activists. “They are reminding us of the Jewish values that come to us through Torah, through the rabbinic writings, that are timeless,” he said. “They are reminding us of what we’re supposed to be. And we owe them a debt of gratitude.”
Ruth had a message for Atlanta’s Jewish congregations and communal organizations, most of which have not engaged publicly on the issue: “I would invite them to join us, to put their Jewish values into action,” she said. “Everything we’re doing here is really Jewish.”
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Most Europeans Consider Antisemitism an ‘Important’ Problem, Say Gaza War Influences Views of Jews: EU Survey
Anti-Israel protesters march in Germany, March 26, 2025. Photo: Sebastian Willnow/dpa via Reuters Connect
Over half of Europeans view antisemitism as a serious problem in their countries, with almost seven in ten saying the war in Gaza influences how Jewish people are perceived, according to a new European Union survey published this week as hostility toward Jews and Israelis across the continent shows no sign of easing.
Released on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the European Commission’s Eurobarometer, which surveyed some 25,000 respondents, found that 69 percent of Europeans now believe that “conflicts in the Middle East” influence how Jewish people are perceived — up from 54 percent in a previous survey before the conflict.
The data also revealed that 55 percent of respondents consider antisemitism an “important” problem in their home country, with nearly half saying it has grown over the past five years and a large majority warning that hostility toward Jews in public places remains a serious concern.
Western countries, especially those with large Muslim-majority immigrant populations, expressed the greatest concern about rising antisemitism and were most likely to link it to Israel, revealing sharp differences across European Union member states.
For example, only 9 percent of respondents in Estonia said antisemitism was a problem, followed by Finland, Latvia, Malta, and Slovakia ranging from 16 to 21 percent.
However, 70 to 74 percent of respondents in countries such as France, Italy, Sweden, Germany, and the Netherlands saw antisemitism as a serious threat.
“Jewish culture is woven into the fabric of European history. We must protect and nurture this today and well into the future,” EU Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration Magnus Brunner said in a statement.
Today, Europe is home to nearly 30 percent of all Israelis living outside the country — roughly 190,000 to 200,000 people — with their population steadily increasing across the continent, according to a report from the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR).
Yet governments and Jewish security organizations across the continent have documented a dramatic rise in anti-Jewish hate crimes since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Germany recorded more than 2,000 antisemitic incidents in 2024 — nearly double pre-Oct. 7, 2023, levels.
In the UK, the Community Security Trust (CST) — a nonprofit charity that advises Britain’s Jewish community on security matters — recorded 1,521 antisemitic incidents from January to June last year. This was the second-highest number of antisemitic crimes ever recorded by CST in the first six months of any year, following 2,019 incidents in the first half of 2024.
France presents a similar pattern. According to the French Interior Ministry, the first six months of 2025 saw more than 640 antisemitic incidents, a 27.5 percent decline from the same period in 2024, but a 112.5 percent increase compared to the first half of 2023, before the Oct.7 atrocities.
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‘You’re Disgusting’: University of Miami Sophomore Harasses ‘Students Supporting Israel’ Campus Group
Kaylee Mahoney, a University of Miami student and conservative influencer who verbally attacked Jewish students on campus on Jan. 27, 2026. Photo: Screenshot.
A sophomore and right-wing social media influencer at the University of Miami on Tuesday verbally attacked a Jewish student group, leading the school to defend free speech while saying that “lines can be crossed” in response.
“Christianity, which says love everyone, meanwhile your Bible says eating someone who is a non-Jew is like eating with an animal. That’s what the Talmud says,” Kaylee Mahony yelled at members of Students Supporting Israel (SSI) who had a table at a campus fair. “That’s what these people follow.”
She continued, “They think that if you are not a Jew you are an animal. That’s the Talmud. That’s the Talmud.”
Mahony can also be heard in video of the incident responding to one of the SSI members, saying, “Because you’re disgusting. It’s disgusting.”
Later, Mahony, whose statements were first reported by The Miami Hurricane student newspaper, took to social media, where she has more than 125,000 followers on TikTok, and posted, “Of course the most evil (((country))) in the world is filled with (((people))) who hate Jesus [sic].”
The “((()))” is used by neo-Nazis as a substitute for calling out Jews by name, which, given the context in which they discuss the Jewish people, could draw the intervention of a content moderator.
Mahony is the head of public relations for the university’s College Republicans and the head of social media for Turning Point Miami, according to her LinkedIn.
The Miami Hurricane reported that, until Tuesday evening, Mahony’s Instagram and Tiktok bios included “Proud Goy” — a term referring to non-Jews.
Students told The Miami Hurricane that Mahony also charged that “rabbis eat babies” while harassing SSI. Nonetheless, Mahony reportedly defended her conduct, saying, “Referencing the disgusting verses of the Talmud is not being antisemitic. Asking someone about the book that they use as their moral compass isn’t antisemitic.”
The Talmud, a key source of Jewish law, tradition, and theology, is often misrepresented by antisemitic agitators in an effort to malign the Jewish people and their religion.
However, the University of Miami did not mention antisemitism in its statement on the incident.
“The University of Miami is aware of the exchange that occurred between students Tuesday afternoon,” the school said in a statement. “We strongly support our students’ rights to freedom of expression. However, we understand lines can be crossed. As such, the university has proactive policies in place to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all students.”
The statement went on to say that the university “remains committed to maintaining a campus environment where every student feels safe, welcome, and supported.”
According to The Miami Hurricane, the College Republicans terminated Mahony’s membership in the club.
Tuesday’s incident comes as right-wing antisemitism is surging in popularity among conservative youth, seemingly in part due to the influence of online influencers such as Nick Fuentes, Candace Owens, and Tucker Carlson.
In September, a conservative magazine at Harvard University published an opinion piece which bore likeness to key tenets of Nazi doctrine, as first articulated in 1925 in Hitler’s autobiographical manifesto Mein Kampf, or My Struggle, and later in a blitzkrieg of speeches he delivered throughout the Nazi era to justify his genocide of European Jews.
Written by David F.X. Army, the article chillingly echoed a January 1939 Reichstag speech in which Hitler portended mass killings of Jews as the outcome of Germany’s inexorable march toward war with France and Great Britain. Whereas Hitler said, “France to the French, England to the English, America to the Americans, and Germany to the Germans,” Army wrote, “Germany belongs to the Germans, France to the French, Britain to the British, America to the Americans.”
Army also called for the adoption of notions of “blood, soil, language, and love of one’s own” in response to concerns over large-scale migration of Muslims into Europe.
In Nazi ideology, “blood and soil,” or Blut und Boden, encapsulated the party’s belief in eugenics and racial purity; the German “Aryans’” right to expand into Eastern Europe to amass new Lebensraum, or “living space”; and the transformation of the German peasantry into an agricultural class which stood in contrasts to Jews, many of whom lived in cities.
Meanwhile, antisemitic hate crimes have spiked to record levels across the US.
Earlier this month, Stephen Pittman, 19, allegedly ignited a catastrophic fire which decimated the Beth Israel Congregation synagogue in Jackson, Mississippi. After being arrested, Pittman confessed and told US federal investigators that he targeted the institution over its “Jewish ties,” according to court filings.
As he allegedly carried out the act, Pittman notified his father of it via text message, saying “I did my research.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Anti-Israel Candidates for US Senate Boast Strong Polling Numbers in Michigan Democratic Primary
Mallory McMorrow, a Democrat running for US Senate in Michigan. Photo: Screenshot
Mallory McMorrow, a vocal critic of Israel’s war in Gaza and a candidate for the US Senate in Michigan, holds a narrow lead over the rest of the Democratic primary field, according to a new poll.
The Emerson College Polling/Nexstar Media survey shows McMorrow, a member of the Michigan state Senate, ahead of the pack with 22 percent of the vote. US Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) sits in second place with 17 percent of the vote. Abdul El-Sayed, a physician with an anti-Israel policy platform, holds a respectable 16 percent of the primary vote.
McMorrow’s lead over the field may spark consternation among supporters of Israel, whose defensive military campaign in Gaza has been characterized by McMorrow as tantamount to “genocide.”
Just days before the anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, McMorrow called Israel’s response in Gaza a “moral abomination,” saying it was “just as horrendous” as the attack carried out by Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists, who perpetrated the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
However, in a recent interview, McMorrow indicated tentativeness over her previous condemnation of Israel, admitting that the word “genocide” has become a “purity test” among progressive activists in Democratic primaries.
“I am somebody who looks at the videos, the photos, the amount of pain that has been caused in the Middle East, and you can’t not be heartbroken,” McMorrow said during an interview earlier this month. “But I also feel like we are getting lost in this conversation, and it feels like a political purity test on a word — a word that, by the way, to people who lost family members in the Holocaust, does mean something very different and very visceral — and we’re losing sight of what I believe is a broadly shared goal among most Michiganders, that this violence needs to stop, that a temporary ceasefire needs to become a permanent ceasefire, that Palestinians deserve long term peace and security, that Israelis deserve long term peace and security, and that should be the role of the next US senator.”
Conversely, Stevens has established herself as the favorite among pro-Israel Michiganders. Stevens scored an endorsement from the Democratic Majority for Israel in November 2025. In a statement, DMFI praised Stevens as someone who has “stood firm against extremism, antisemitism, and efforts to undermine America’s alliances.”
Stevens has routinely touted her pro-Israel bona fides, vowing to stand beside the closest US ally in the Middle East despite mounting pressure by party activists to cut ties with the Jewish state. The lawmaker promised that if elected she would continue to support legislation which bolsters Israel’s security.
“As a proud pro-Israel Democrat, I believe America is stronger when we stand with our democratic allies, confront antisemitism and extremism, and keep our promises to our friends abroad and our working families here at home,” Stevens said in a statement. “In the Senate, I’ll keep fighting to protect our democracy, support Israel’s security, ensure the ceasefire holds in Gaza, and deliver for Michiganders in every corner of our state.”
El-Sayed, the most far-left candidate in the race, has been especially critical of Israel’s war in Gaza. On Oct. 21, 2023, two weeks after the Hamas-led slaughter of 1,200 people and kidnapping of 251 hostages in southern Israel, the progressive politician accused Israel of “genocide.” The comment came before the Israeli military launched its ground campaign in Gaza.
He also compared Israel’s defensive military operations to the Hamas terrorist group’s conduct on Oct. 7, writing, “You can both condemn Hamas terrorism AND Israel’s murder since.”
In comments to Politico, El-Sayed criticized Democrats’ handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, arguing that they should become the “party of peace and justice” and said that they “ought not to be the party sending bombs and money to foreign militaries to drop bombs on other people’s kids in their schools and their hospitals.” He called on Democrats to stop supporting military aid for Israel, saying, “We should be spending that money here at home.”
Earlier this month, The Algemeiner reported that El-Sayed is facing scrutiny over his past fundraising and public support for a political advocacy group whose affiliates organized anti-Israel protests at Holocaust memorial sites in Washington, DC, and the Detroit metro area.