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Teen people of color are finding, and building, their own spaces in Jewish life
This article was produced as part of JTA’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with Jewish teens around the world to report on issues that affect their lives.
(JTA) — As a young Black Jewish adoptee, Lindsey Newman felt close to the Jewish community on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where she grew up. Then adolescence hit and she started to feel like an outsider, struggling to find acceptance and independence at her synagogue.
It wasn’t until the end of high school that she began connecting on social media to organizations like the Jewish Multiracial Network and Be’chol Lashon to build her own connection to other Jews of color and find a sense of belonging.
Now, as the director of community engagement at Be’chol Lashon, an organization that supports Jewish diversity, Newman works to make sure other Jews of color like her feel welcomed and included in Judaism.
“Diversity is one of Judaism’s greatest assets,” said Newman. “When we even unintentionally leave out or marginalize parts of our community, we all lose.”
Around 17% of American Jews identify as nonwhite, according to a 2021 Pew Research Center report. But, as the Jews of Color Initiative found, only 18% out of the 1,118 surveyed belong to a synagogue — compared, according to another Pew study, to the 35% of all U.S. Jews who are synagogue members or have someone in their household who is a member. To address this gap, organizations and synagogues are developing programs to help Jewish teens of color feel at home.
For BBYO member Micah Pierandri, 17, the experience of being part of her local chapter in Tulsa, Oklahoma has been great. For example, she loved meeting Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas at the youth group’s International Convention. However, Pierandri, who is African American, wanted to connect more with JOCs, so she started the Members of Color Alliance through BBYO late last fall.
The club came about after she was called slurs at a BBYO summer camp in Pennsylvania by, according to Pierandri, participants who were “a mix of people of color and not.” BBYO did not respond to requests about the incident. Pierandri said the staff handled it well enough, but that she wanted to build on her experience. “I knew that if someone wasn’t going to stand up for other MOCs within BBYO I knew I could make that change,” she said. “I fought and fought until I did and here we are.”
The 12-member group provides a space specifically for teens of color to come together and connect with others similar to them, something Pierandri didn’t see existing before. MOCA members usually meet online through Zoom to discuss racial justice, learn from speakers, play games and provide cultural exchanges. Sometimes, members just get to chill with each other. “While the club is more racial justice-based I try my best to make sure it’s still fun and everyone has an amazing time,” said Pierandri.
Pierandri was able to form MOCA through On Demand, a virtual platform of BBYO. Late last year, the youth group released a new form for BBYO members to create any type of club that they desired. “Almost within less than 24 hours I had texts from all sorts of BBYO staff telling me they have my back for MOCA and want to help me make it a reality,” Pierandri said.
One MOCA member, Morgan Rodriguez, 16, felt turned off by other organizations’ JOC groups until she found the club within BBYO. As a Latino Jew, she felt she didn’t fit the stereotype of what a JOC should look like. “It was almost disheartening to find out that an organization wouldn’t want somebody because they’re mixed [race],” said Rodriguez, who lives in Delray Beach, Florida and is a mix of Ashkenazi and Ethiopian Jewish, Liberian, Cuban, Irish and Dutch ancestry.
Fortunately, Rodriguez sees the conversation changing, something she credits to social media. As a bonus, being able to see Jews who looked like her online made her feel more comfortable in her Jewishness.
The LUNAR Collective is trying to create this same space for teen Asian American Jews. The Bay Area-based group, which started as a film project, holds events to encourage pride in Asian Americans’ identities.
Rabbi Mira Rivera, rabbi-in-residence for LUNAR and the first Philipina rabbi to be ordained at the Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary, said that when she joined synagogues after she was married, she struggled to find others to unite with. “The people I saw who looked like me were the ones I wasn’t supposed to talk to because they didn’t want to be outed [as converts] or they were the caregivers of members,” she said.
Other institutions have introduced initiatives over the past few years to engage Jewish teens of color in their community.
Be’chol Lashon, founded in San Francisco, started a Teen Tzedek fellowship during COVID. It provides mentorship for teens who are ethnically diverse, a multicultural summer camp and an online publication, Jewish&, that allows people of all ages to express their beliefs and stories through personal articles.
“Many young JOCS not only wanted and needed a peer network of other JOCs that looked like them, that had similar experiences, but also wanted and needed role models that reflected their experience,” said Be’chol Lashon’s Newman about Camp Be’chol Lashon.
The North American Federation of Temple Youth plans to create a fellowship for Reform Jewish teens of color, according to Kelly Whitehead, a rabbinic intern there.
This would be a welcome step for NFTY member Ben Smulewitz, 15, a Jewish teen of color living in San Rafael, California. “I’ve found a whole new Jewish community, and I’ve really enjoyed finding those people because there’s not that many of us out here,” said Smulewitz. “It’s nice to have Jewish friends because then you can relate on different levels about things.”
Rabbi Mira Rivera, center, said that when she joined synagogues after she was married, she struggled to find other Jews of color to unite with. (Courtesy of Ammud)
Last summer, Camp Newman in Virginia Beach organized a mediation after a few white teens made a game out of trying to stick pencils in a Black camper’s hair without her noticing, according to Smulewitz. JOCs shared their personal stories, which included programming that he helped lead.
When asked about the incident, URJ’s Executive Director of Strategic Innovation and Program, Michelle Shapiro Abraham, declined to disclose any specific information. In an email she wrote that: “We understand and embrace the diversity of our Jewish community and are very focused on making sure everyone feels like they belong.”
Another thing that helped Smulewitz feel more comfortable at NFTY was the affinity groups he joined at L’Taken, a social justice seminar held in Washington DC. It was, however, to acknowledge that you are a “minority within the minority.”
“It makes me sad to know that there are people that are scared to come out and say that they are a Jew of color instead of just blending in with everyone else.”
Synagogues are also striving to include teen JOCs in their programming Although Romemu and Central Synagogue, both in New York, don’t currently have programming specifically tailored for teens, they are making efforts to expand and include more teens of color.
Romemu is working with IKAR, a synagogue in Los Angeles that helps organizations and synagogues introduce more strategies to enhance their inclusivity.
According to Susan Brooks, human resources and operations manager at IKAR, “a lot of Jews of color are not affiliated with synagogues or Jewish organizations because in the past, they have not necessarily felt welcome,” making it difficult to get a good turnout. Being welcoming is the first step, Brooks said, to attracting a diverse group.
Gulienne Rollins-Rishon, racial justice specialist at the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, said that within programming, JOCs sometimes “end up feeling like collectors’ items,” because they are often treated as tokens by organizations that want to demonstrate their diversity: “Like, how many Jews of color [do] we have here?” Rollins-Rishon said that people, especially teens, need to be able to define and own their identities.
“We need to create not only the space for Jewish teens of color to come and see that they’re being represented and reflected, but also [for them to think], I’m so glad that’s there because it means that I know I’m welcome here and I’m included here,” she said.
As a Black Jew, Rollins-Rishon has dealt with jarring experiences, such as when she was refused access to a Hanukkah party during her freshman year of college because the Hillel liaisons told her the room was reserved. They “literally tried to turn me away,” she said.
Now as an adult, her mission is for this not to happen to others. She said, “Now it’s my torch to carry to make sure that kids don’t have to run up against that wall as much.”
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The post Teen people of color are finding, and building, their own spaces in Jewish life appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Piers Morgan is what’s wrong with media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — and I can’t stop watching him
Piers Morgan’s online debate about Nicholas Kristof’s New York Times op-ed containing allegations of Israeli dog rape was loud, chaotic and unenlightening — and I couldn’t stop watching it.
That’s a problem. Morgan’s format is a trap. On his YouTube talk show, Piers Morgan Uncensored, he pits people holding intransigent, often extreme positions against each other, goads them to yell at one another across Zoom, and positions himself as the voice of reason in the middle. It’s hateporn — addictive, and not reflective of reality.
And yet Piers Morgan Uncensored and many similar YouTube- and social-media based news programs are where people increasingly get their information and engage with controversial issues like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
These programs rack up views by persuading viewers there is no middle ground, no moderate position, no alternative to conflict. And their strategy is working.
The Kristof episode, which racked up 340,000 views in a day, is titled, “Torture Does NOT Work!” — all Morgan show names have one word in all caps and end in an exclamation point.
It begins with people shouting. “You are not a journalist!” Ana Kasparian, a commentator on another YouTube show, shouts at podcaster and online anchor Emily Schrader — before Morgan comes on to introduce the segment.
He quickly recaps the lurid details from Kristof’s New York Times oped, “The Silence That meets the Rape of Palestinians,” and a newly issued nearly-300 page Israeli report on Hamas sexual violence.
“As far as I’m concerned, the only cause is basic human decency,” Morgan says in his cool British accent, “If your first instinct about either report is to look for ways to smear them, you might have run out of that yourself.”
Yet the six deeply partisan guests spend the next 45 minutes smearing the reports, and each other.
Morgan’s introductory call for human decency is not a plea, it’s a ploy. He plays the mature voice of reason standing between the extremist pro-Israelis and the pro-Palestinians — not to persuade them to come to a moderate position, but rather to exploit the most virulent voices in order to generate clicks, while still claiming the cover of journalism. This approach causes real harm by giving extremists a megaphone, and a degree of exposure that all but guarantees that people actually trying to build a better future go unheard.
A recipe for drama
Morgan repeats this formula over and again. In an episode entitled, “Netanyahu CONNED Trump!” Dave Smith, a sidekick to Joe Rogan, accuses Israel of dragging the United States into the Iran war. In “I’m SICK of it!” commentator Megyn Kelly launches into a similar attack on Israel.
Morgan has had long interviews with white supremacist and proud antisemite Nick Fuentes (“What a crock of S***!”). In “STAND for Dead Soldiers!” Morgan hosted four Israelis at the extreme ends of the political spectrum and watched them fight when one refused to stand as a siren sounded to honor Israel’s fallen soldiers.
Not extreme or dramatic enough? How about the time Morgan hosted Crackhead Barney, a Black pro-Palestinian street activist, to explain why she harasses celebrities to get them to say, “Free Palestine.”
“I’m truly shocked/disgusted that @piersmorgan would have this nutjob & clearly unwell person to go on his show and even remotely try to talk about Palestine or the war,” wrote the Gazan-born activist Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib.
Alkhatib is a moderate Palestinian who works for a peaceful solution to the conflict. He has, unsurprisingly, not been on Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Instead, Morgan’s choice of guests is calculated for maximum friction, a function of an attention economy that monetizes the time people like me spend watching the fights.
From ‘Animal House’ to Piers Morgan
Luring viewers this way isn’t exactly new. President Ronald Reagan called The McLaughlin Group, a current affairs program that ran on public television for 34 years beginning in 1982, “the political equivalent of Animal House”— more drunken frat house than graduate seminar. McLaughlin begat Crossfire, a CNN political debate program hosted by a younger Tucker Carlson that Jon Stewart once compared to pro-wrestling.
In 2025, Morgan, who came up in British tabloids before a long stint at CNN, moved away from traditional broadcast TV and went all in on social media and his YouTube channel.
His success on that platform is part of a larger shift in media from major institutions to independent personalities, and from actual news — the dutiful and expensive process of finding out and relaying what’s actually happening in the world — to opinion that spins itself as reporting, which is far cheaper and more entertaining.
That shift has come as audiences have moved from loyalty to long established institutions to following enterprising, independent personalities. The podcaster Joe Rogan has 20.9 million subscribers; Carlson has 5.6 million; Morgan’s show has 4.42 million subscribers and over 1.36 billion total views.
In other words, Morgan is not some guy some people watch now. He is what people will be watching in the future.
A bias toward extremes
That prospect should alarm us. Morgan’s shows rarely feature people working toward compromise or reconciliation. A Piers Morgan Uncensored discussion spotlighting the many civil society groups in Israel working toward coexistence? A show where he sits down with Arab and Jewish Israelis who share a vision for a common future? A segment that highlights the actual, albeit rare, instances of cooperation?
Pipe dreams. All that is also happening in Israel and the West Bank — but Piers Morgan Uncensored effectively censors it.
Compare that to Jon Stewart, who on The Daily Show last month conducted a long interview with the Palestinian and Israeli co-authors of The Future Is Peace, a book that calls for moving beyond violence and stalemate to a shared future. Same approach — a streaming interview on a hot-button topic, with an eye toward entertainment — but radically different editorial choices.
That episode garnered a mere 400,000 views. Morgan’s comparative millions of eyeballs may, in his mind, justify his guttersweeping approach to international conflict. And in his defense — and mine, for watching — it’s never boring. He can be a thoughtful and provocative interviewer, and his not-ready-for-primetime, self-created show allows him, when he so chooses, to platform voices that more mainstream venues overlook, like former Israeli Speaker of the Knesset and longtime peace activist Avrum Burg.
Alas, he stuck the erudite former statesman with a diehard evangelical and a firebreathing American Jewish conservative pundit. That episode is called, “A SHAME on Judaism!”
Whatever this is, it’s not journalism. But it is the future.
The post Piers Morgan is what’s wrong with media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — and I can’t stop watching him appeared first on The Forward.
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Rashida Tlaib Introduces Resolution ‘Recognizing Ongoing Nakba’
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) addresses attendees as she takes part in a protest calling for a ceasefire in Gaza outside the US Capitol, in Washington, DC, US, Oct. 18, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) on Thursday reintroduced a congressional resolution recognizing the 78th anniversary of what she described as the “ongoing nakba,” using the Arabic term for “catastrophe” deployed by Palestinians and anti-Israel activists to refer to the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948.
The resolution, introduced on the anniversary of Israel’s independence, accuses the Jewish state of carrying out “ethnic cleansing,” “apartheid,” and “genocide” against Palestinians, language that many pro-Israel lawmakers in Congress and advocacy groups strongly reject as inflammatory and inaccurate. The measure also calls for renewed US support for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), an agency that has faced mounting scrutiny from Israel and several Western governments over allegations that employees participated in or supported Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
In a statement announcing the resolution, Tlaib argued that the so-called nakba “did not end” with the Arab-Israeli war in 1948 and continues today through Israeli military operations and settlement expansion.
“War criminal Netanyahu and his cabinet have repeatedly threatened to ethnically cleanse the entire Palestinian population in Gaza, annex the land, and permanently occupy it. Today, they are extending these same threats towards southern Lebanon,” she said, referring to Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and military operations against US-designated terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah. “As we mark the 78th anniversary of the Nakba, we honor all of those killed since the ethnic cleansing of Palestine began and all those who have been forced from their homes and violently displaced from their land.”
Activists often invoke the term “nakba” when discussing the displacement of some 750,000 Palestinian Arabs following Israel’s War of Independence, many of whom left the nascent state for varied reasons, including that they were encouraged by Arab leaders to flee their homes to make way for the invading Arab armies. At the same time, about 850,000 Jews were forced to flee or expelled from Middle Eastern and North African countries in the 20th century, primarily in the aftermath of Israel’s declaring independence.
Tlaib’s resolution is co-sponsored by several prominent progressive Democrats, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Ilhan Omar (MN), Ayanna Pressley (MA), and Summer Lee (PA).
The move is likely to draw fierce criticism from pro-Israel lawmakers and Jewish organizations, many of whom argue the resolution ignores the historical context surrounding Israel’s founding and the 1948 war. Israel accepted the United Nations partition plan in 1947 to create two states, one Jewish and one Arab, while neighboring Arab states rejected it and launched a military invasion after Israel declared independence.
The resolution also calls for a so-called Palestinian “right of return,” a demand insisting that potentially millions of descendants of Palestinian refugees should be able to return to the land of Israel, a step that, according to proponents, would result in the abolition of the world’s only Jewish state.
“This immense trauma, including the loss of their loved ones and connections to the communities they grew up in, needs to be repaired. True peace must be built on justice and the inalienable right of return for Palestinian refugees,” Tlaib said in her statement.
While refugees are generally defined as those who flee a country out of credible fear of persecution, UNRWA uniquely defines Palestinian refugees to include all descendants of those who left the land, regardless of where they were born.
Tlaib, the only Palestinian American member of the US Congress, has emerged as one of Israel’s loudest critics on Capitol Hill, repeatedly accusing the Jewish state of genocide and drawing rebuke from fellow lawmakers.
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Toronto Sees 50% Drop in 2025 Hate Crimes, Yet 82% of Religiously Motivated Attacks Target Jews
A member of law enforcement personnel works at the scene outside the US Consulate after shots were fired, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, March 10, 2026. Picture taken with a mobile phone. Photo: REUTERS/Kyaw Soe Oo
Even as Toronto recorded an overall decline in reported hate crimes last year, newly released data shows the city’s Jewish community continued to face disproportionately high levels of targeted antisemitism and violence amid an increasingly concerning social climate.
On Thursday, Toronto Police released its annual hate crime statistical report, showing that Jews accounted for 82 percent of all religiously motivated hate crimes in 2025, compared to 14 percent targeting Muslims.
Even though the Jewish community makes up less than 3 percent of Toronto’s population, officials now warn that Jewish residents are 14 times more likely than other residents to be targeted in a hate incident.
With 81 anti-Jewish hate crimes recorded, Jews and Israelis were the targets of 35 percent of all reported hate incidents in the city.
Despite a 50 percent overall decline in reported hate crimes, from 443 in 2024 to 231 in 2025, Toronto has seen a 40 percent increase in such incidents so far this year compared with the same period last year.
Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw noted that, even with the overall decline, the Jewish community continued to be the primary target of hate-motivated offenses.
“We are steadfast in our commitment to confronting hate in all its forms and making it easier for people to come forward and report incidents of hate,” Demkiw said in a press release.
Because police-reported hate crime data only includes incidents that come to the attention of authorities and are later confirmed or suspected to be hate-driven, official figures likely underestimate the true scale of such incidents.
Over the past two years, Toronto authorities have expanded law enforcement capacity and resources to investigate hate crimes by establishing a Counter-Terrorism Security Unit and increasing specialized training for officers, while also strengthening Holocaust education initiatives and introducing digital literacy programs for youth aimed at countering online radicalization.
Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs Vice President Michelle Stock called the latest statistics “deeply alarming,” warning of a broader reality of hostility that Jewish families across the city are confronting on a daily basis.
“Toronto prides itself on being a city where people of all backgrounds can live openly, safely and without fear. Those values are undermined when any community no longer feels secure expressing its identity in public,” Stock said in a statement.
“From synagogues to schools to public displays of Jewish identity, blatant attacks against the Jewish community are becoming more frequent and more brazen,” she continued. “Jewish Canadians are being targeted simply for who they are. No one should have to think twice about wearing a kippah, attending synagogue, sending their children to Jewish schools or participating openly in Jewish life.”
The city’s figures reflect a broader nationwide rise in antisemitism and anti-Israel hostility, with the Jewish advocacy group B’nai Brith Canada reporting a record high in anti-Jewish hate crimes in 2025 for the second consecutive year, documenting 6,800 such cases across the country.
According to the latest report, antisemitic incidents nationwide increased by 9.3 percent last year, surpassing the previous record total of 6,219 set in 2024.
With an average of 18.6 incidents per day, this figure represents a 145.6 percent increase from 2022, before the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Early 2026 data already indicate the country is now on track to see its most violent year against the Jewish community in recent memory, with more violent antisemitic attacks recorded so far this year than during all of 2025, B’nai Brith Canada reported.
In total, 11 violent antisemitic incidents have already been recorded across the country since January, surpassing the 10 violent cases documented during all of last year
“These brazen attacks on Jewish Canadians are a sign of a crisis of antisemitism that has spiraled out of control,” Simon Wolle, chief executive officer of B’nai Brith Canada, said in a statement.
“Violence such as this, which has escalated from targeting synagogues to targeting Jewish people directly, does not occur in a vacuum. It is what happens when governments fail to act despite mounting evidence that antisemitism is becoming more normalized and dangerous,” Wolle continued.
Last week, a group of Jewish worshippers standing outside the Congregation Chasidei Bobov synagogue in Montreal was targeted in a drive-by shooting, leaving one person with minor injuries.
A week earlier, three visibly Jewish residents were targeted in a separate antisemitic attack when suspects opened fire with a gel-pellet gun, causing minor injuries.