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The quest to replace Park East Synagogue’s 92-year-old rabbi is not going smoothly
(New York Jewish Week) — More than a year after it attracted attention for the abrupt termination of its popular assistant rabbi, Manhattan’s Park East Synagogue was again the scene of a heated squabble on Sunday.
And like last time, the spat centered on who will succeed the Orthodox congregation’s 92-year-old spiritual leader, Rabbi Arthur Schneier.
In the time since the former assistant rabbi, Benjamin Goldschmidt, was ousted, no one has been appointed to take Schneier’s place after his tenure ends. The synagogue announced a search for a “worthy successor” to Schneier 11 months ago, and a public event on Sunday night was supposed to herald the next stage in that process. A candidate for the position, Rabbi Yitzchok Schochet, delivered an hour-long lecture to a crowd of 100 people, including members of the search committee.
But following the talk, the event held in the synagogue’s Charles Brooks Ballroom devolved into a verbal sparring match between Schochet, the rabbi of London’s Mill Hill Synagogue, and Kalman Sporn, a political consultant who describes himself as a “human rights activist.” Sporn questioned Schochet’s past outspoken opposition to same-sex relationships. Schochet claimed that Sporn was engaging in “cancel culture.”
“Park East’s bimah is New York’s hallowed ground for human dignity,” Sporn told the New York Jewish Week. “It must not become a pulpit for prejudice.”
Michael Scharf, who serves on the rabbinic search committee, told the Jewish Week in an emailed statement that Sporn’s comments were “disrespectful” to Schochet.
“Rabbi Schochet is a most distinguished Rabbi with a demonstrable record of great accomplishment, an incredible speaker, a true man of faith, and certainly not one who should be the subject of a smear and libelous campaign emanating from a group of nasty malcontents who obviously did not listen to Rabbi Schochet’s eloquent rejoinders to their issues,” Scharf wrote.
Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet spoke at Park East Synagogue on Sunday about the pursuit of happiness, when some synagogue members began to question him about his record on LGBTQ and Palestinian issues. (Zoom Screenshot)
The incident has prompted congregants to consider whether Schochet has the right temperament to lead a congregation that has hosted a succession of dignitaries, including Pope Benedict XVI. Critics say Schochet’s history of controversy, in addition to his response to being criticized on Sunday, do not accord with the synagogue’s self-image as a distinguished public forum.
And the drama Sunday night has raised the same question that has nagged at the synagogue for more than a year: Who is a fitting replacement for Schneier, a longtime religious freedom activist and former U.S. alternate representative at the United Nations?
Goldschmidt, who was popular among young congregants and was once seen by some as Schneier’s heir apparent, was fired in October 2021. He was subsequently derided by Schneier’s allies as lacking the education and gravitas needed to lead the synagogue. That dispute ended with Goldschmidt founding a breakaway congregation, the Altneu, which also meets on the Upper East Side and has attracted a growing membership.
“Park East has a problem where they really haven’t had a rabbi for many years,” said one member who, like several who discussed the synagogue’s internal debates, wished to remain anonymous. “We’re down on people coming on Saturday. The schools are a problem. Covid hurt us. [Rabbi Schnier] is 92, so on a day-to-day basis, he hasn’t really been involved.”
Schochet, 58, is a Chabad-affiliated rabbi who has held a number of prominent positions in British Jewish communal organizations. For three decades, he has been the rabbi of London’s Mill Hill United Synagogue, an 1,800-member Orthodox congregation in northwest London. According to a biography on the synagogue website, he has also served as the chairman of the Rabbinical Council of the United Kingdom’s United Synagogue, and as a member of the British Chief Rabbi’s cabinet.
But Schochet has also faced backlash for his comments about Palestinians and their supporters. In 2018, the British Holocaust Memorial Day Trust condemned Schochet for referring to Jews who said Kaddish for Palestinians as “kapos,” or Jews who served in positions of authority in Nazi concentration camps.
In 2015, Middle East Monitor, a pro-Palestinian media outlet, criticized Schochet for two tweets he had written four years earlier in response to a user called “Jew4Palestine.” In one, he wrote, “I have a spare Israeli flag if you want to hang yourself on it.” In the second, commenting on unemployment statistics in Gaza, he wrote, “Then again if you include terrorism as work, it’s 100% employed.” Soon afterward, Schochet was removed as a patron of a charity called Faith Matters.
At the meeting on Sunday, however, much of the criticism of Schochet revolved around his past public opposition to same-sex marriage. Jewish law has traditionally prohibited same-sex relationships, and refusing to conduct same-sex weddings remains normative practice among nearly all Orthodox rabbis.
In 2011, Schochet said that “the time-hallowed sacredness of marriage should always be preserved.” In 2012, the rabbi called gay marriage “an assault on religious values.” That same year, he penned an essay for PinkNews, an LGBTQ-focused publication, called “Homosexuality is prohibited in Orthodox Judaism but so is eating bacon, everyone is welcome.”
In 2014, England, Scotland and Wales legalized same-sex marriage. The following year, Schochet wrote that the Torah prohibits homosexual acts, but does not condemn a person for having homosexual feelings.
Schochet did not respond to a New York Jewish Week request for comment.
Sporn has posted tweets criticizing Schochet’s positions, and at the meeting on Sunday, brought up Schochet’s record of controversial statements during the question-and-answer portion of the event.
“I personally have been troubled by some of the positions you have taken in the past,” Sporn said. “You have openly fought efforts for marriage equality, while you want gay people to in your words feel reassured that they are always welcome into synagogues.”
Sporn was eventually cut off from using the microphone. Schochet responded, saying he had seen Sporn’s tweets. He said he had been invited to write an essay for PinkNews in 2012 “precisely because I was deemed as being the more moderate amongst all the Orthodox rabbis on gay issues.”
He added that the previous year, in a segment that aired on the BBC, he defended a gay couple who were denied access to a hotel room by a Christian owner. Schochet also said that a high-ranking member at his synagogue was gay.
“To everyone’s surprise, other than my own and those who know me to be a liberal conservative, I argued that everyone has a right to uphold their religious convictions without compromise,” Schochet wrote in a blog post about the BBC broadcast. “However, what you cannot do is look to impose those on others. That’s religious fundamentalism.”
In that same blog post, Schochet doubled down on his opposition to gay marriage. “If you choose to reject religion and lead a gay lifestyle, or conduct extra marital affairs, then frankly that is your business,” Schochet said. “That I choose to frown upon what you do because my G-d says it is wrong is very much my entitlement.”
Schochet then began to criticize Sporn, mentioning Sporn’s involvement in a scheme to apportion Catholic papal knighthoods for cash.
“You and I can go on canceling each other all night long,” Schochet said. “Cancel culture, which is the scourge and the malaise of our 21st century is, in the words of Barack Obama, scorched earth, partisan politics, where people we disagree with are maligned.”
(In 2019, regarding condemnations of people on social media, Obama said, “That’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change, if all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far. That’s easy to do.” A column on the Jewish website Aish.com about Obama’s comments does criticize “this scorched-earth partisan politics – where people with whom we disagree are denied a fair hearing and a voice in public life.”)
Schochet continued, “it divides families, it divides society, it tears apart relationships, it polarizes and pits people against one another. We may always be two Jews as indeed we are with three opinions, but we should always maintain one heart. I invite you to join me in that mission statement.”
When he finished, the crowd erupted into applause. The room became calm, until later, another member of the congregation, who did not use a microphone, stood up and confronted the rabbi about his exchange between him and Sporn — leading Schochet to apologize to Sporn.
“If I did embarrass you, I do genuinely apologize to you profusely and I hope you forgive me, and I mean that sincerely,” he said.
Addressing the crowd following the incident, Schneier — who has led Park East for more than 60 years — said, “When it comes to the selection of a rabbi, it is entirely up to the membership.”
“The purpose of Rabbi Schochet coming here with us, some of you did not have a chance to to hear him, to meet with him, and now I hope you get to know him a bit better,” Schneier said. “All kinds of rumors, forget about them.”
Schochet’s reaction to Sporn was “a personal attack,” the member who wished to remain anonymous said. He added that Schochet’s conduct did not reflect the decorum the synagogue strives to maintain.
“He ganged [the crowd] up in a mob mentality where they cheered for him,” the member told the Jewish Week. “Instead of answering the question, he attacked him. [Schochet] had such a great opportunity to be diplomatic. This guy is not diplomatic on an interview. Could you imagine if he had a contract? This is almost beyond belief.”
This member also said that Schochet is the only rabbi who has been brought to the synagogue by the search committee.
Another synagogue member told the Jewish Week that Sporn’s tweets attacking Schochet provided critical context for their exchange.
“It did not come across to me as embarrassing to Kalman,” the member said. “It came across to me as Rabbi Schochet saying that what you’re doing is being unfair.”
He added that what is getting lost amidst the squabble is that Park East “is looking for a rabbi.”
“Every member should have the opportunity to come and ask questions,” the member said. “The sense I had from people is that they got a really good understanding of where Rabbi Schochet stands on the issues. Yes, Kalman brought up an issue, and Rabbi Schochet apologized.”
That member said no decisions have been made thus far as to who will be hired.
Meanwhile, Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt, the wife of Benjamin Goldschmidt, told the New York Jewish Week that the new synagogue they started is “only growing” and that she hasn’t followed developments at her husband’s old congregation.
“I really don’t have anything to do with that place,” Goldschmidt said of Park East Synagogue. “We have moved on.”
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The post The quest to replace Park East Synagogue’s 92-year-old rabbi is not going smoothly appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Settlers torched a West Bank mosque — and the milquetoast Israeli mainstream response won’t suffice
For more than two years, masked settler mobs in the West Bank have torched mosques, burned Qurans, uprooted olive trees, attacked olive harvesters, and rampaged through villages — all with almost no consequences.
Just this week, masked settlers torched a mosque in Deir Istiya, burned Qurans and scrawled hateful graffiti on its walls — only two days after dozens of settlers attacked a village near Nablus, injuring several Palestinians and burning a warehouse. “All state authorities must act decisively to eradicate this phenomenon,” said President Isaac Herzog, calling the strikes “shocking and serious.”
But Herzog would be naïve to expect Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to heed his call. And the West Bank is rapidly turning into an emergency of explosive proportions.
The sharp rise in attacks on Palestinians and their property began in late 2022, when Netanyahu’s calamitous coalition took over, and ramped up with the onset of the Israel-Hamas war. The United Nations counted more than 1,400 incidents between October 2023 and October 2024.
But while the war in Gaza has reached a ceasefire, the violence in the West Bank shows no sign of abating: Independent trackers reported a record 264 settler attacks in October 2025 alone.
Add to that the Israeli military’s own violent record in the West Bank, and the picture is grim. In 2025 alone, the U.N. has documented at least 178 Palestinian deaths linked to settler and military violence.
If you look for the state’s corrective force you will find a yawning gap. In the most chilling scenes — in Huwara in February 2023, and in coordinated attacks on several villages this month — groups of masked young men have attacked Palestinian civilians, while soldiers and police have either arrived late or failed to stop the violence. Israel’s own watchdogs and human-rights organizations document a pattern of non-prosecution that even predates the current government. Yesh Din, which systematically tracks police investigations into Israeli civilians’ violence against Palestinians, shows that roughly 94% of files from 2005–2024 were closed without indictment, and that only about 3–6% of investigation files lead to conviction.
Which raises the obvious question: When attacks are so frequent and prosecutions so rare, who benefits?
Since late 2022, the survival of Netanyahu’s governing coalition has depended on hard-right parties whose leaders and bases overlap with the radical settler movement. Two ministers who matter — Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir — are both unapologetic advocates for settlement expansion and the vision of Jewish sovereignty over the West Bank, which they refer to by the biblical name of Judea and Samaria. Ministries and offices that oversee law enforcement in the West Bank — including the Civil Administration and Ministry of National Security — are effectively controlled by figures sympathetic to settlement expansion and skeptical of aggressive policing of their own supporters.
This political reality filters down into operational choices. When enforcement agencies are staffed and supervised by officials who owe their political fortunes to the settlement movement, enforcement will not be robust. Arrests — where they occur — rarely lead to charges that stick. In the first half of 2025, for example, there were hundreds of complaints, but only a fraction were opened as criminal files, leading to scant dozens of arrests.
Why would a democratic government tolerate this?
The answer isn’t just about coalition management. It’s about the government’s fundamental ideological sympathy with settlers, and the absence of a credible alternative plan for the land and people under Israeli control.
For decades, the West Bank settlement project could be dismissed as reversible, or up for bargaining in a final-status negotiation. But every new outpost has served to make a contiguous Palestinian state less viable, bringing Israel closer to incorporating millions of Palestinians — without giving them full citizenship or political rights.
The mainstream right lacks a plan for this demographic reality. But the far right has one: apocalyptic warfare and the eventual removal of Palestinians from the land, an outcome that extremists see as inevitable. That is why people like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir appear indifferent to the destabilizing violence, if not actively encouraging of it: instability is a feature, not a bug, for those prepared to use it to remake reality.
Now, the mainstream right has put itself in a position in which it cannot govern without the far right — so it has ceded moral and policy ground to radicals. The true spirit of Zionism — which is humanistic and humane — is suffering.
Which brings us back to Herzog. President Donald Trump, during his Knesset speech last month, urged him to pardon Netanyahu of all charges that he is currently facing in court. This week he did it again, in a letter claiming that Netanyahu is facing “a political, unjustified prosecution.” Herzog’s office said he held Trump “in the highest regard,” but that anyone seeking a pardon had to submit a formal request — something Trump lacks the ability to do.
I have a better idea. Pardon Netanyahu on the explicit condition that he leave politics altogether, forever. And have a new coalition, free of his corrupting influence and the morally destructive politics of the far-right, set to work to clean up his mess.
The post Settlers torched a West Bank mosque — and the milquetoast Israeli mainstream response won’t suffice appeared first on The Forward.
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This Jesus horror movie could have used more heresy
Historically, Christianity has carefully controlled its interpretations and texts; texts that portrayed Jesus in anything other than a glowing light or complicated the narrative the early Church hoped to spread — anything that made him look too human or too flawed — got taken out of the canon and declared heretical.
Which means most people are not familiar with the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, an apocryphal and perhaps Gnostic text about Jesus’ early years, from toddlerhood to his tweens. In it, Jesus is depicted as a wise but petulant child who, like any kid, has occasional temper tantrums. But, as the son of God, his are a bit more impactful; he curses and smites everyone who annoys him. (He does resurrect some of them once he’s calmed down.) He also uses his powers for deeply mundane and childish tasks, like animating his toys or making his work easier. It is, in short, not a particularly virtuous or divine depiction.
This is why The Carpenter’s Son, a new movie written and directed by Lotfy Nathan that takes its inspiration from the apocryphal gospel, has upset Christians. It’s also because the film is a horror flick full of roaring demons and horned snakes pulled from the throats of the possessed.
Pop artist FKA Twigs stars as Mary, and Nicolas Cage as Joseph — the movie doesn’t name any of its characters, so technically they’re playing The Mother and The Carpenter, respectively, but we all know who they really are — who are struggling to parent their powerful child (a constantly glowering Noah Jupe). After a bloody, screaming birth, they flee Herod’s soldiers’ attempts to throw their infant into a giant bonfire; years later, when they finally settle down, Jesus has some weird run-ins with the villagers, including a beautiful but demonically possessed young woman named Lilith and a leering, scar-covered child who lives among lepers and is as evil as she seems to be. Snarling demons ensue.
Before the movie came out, many Christians passed around petitions and wrote blogs about the film’s blasphemy. But The Carpenter’s Son is not, in fact, subversive at all. First of all, Jesus is not a petulant toddler; he looks to be around 20. All the notable anecdotes from the apocrypha are missing: He hardly smites anyone, doesn’t animate his toys and never even blinds the neighbors. In fact, he repeatedly rejects temptation, death and evil. There’s even a cheesy CGI halo, the appearance of which made the audience snicker the night I saw the film.
Despite the various demons, this makes for a plodding, moralistic movie that adds little to the basic Christian story other than a few jump scares. (It is not aided by the acting, which amounts to Jesus scowling, Mary looking stricken and Joseph yelling in the blustering way only Cage can.)
But there are hints of something more interesting, if only Lotfy Nathan, who both wrote and directed the film, had been bold enough to embrace the text that inspired him. The scarred child tells Jesus that Joseph, who is constantly exhorting his son to pray harder and more often, is an “oppressor,” and questions whether the difference between good and evil is so clearcut; despite being demonic, she is also the one who encourages Jesus to help the possessed. She and Joseph worry that the world is too unclean to truly be a creation of God, and wonder if Jesus is truly “righteous.” Moments like these nod to Christian gnosticism, which posited that the earth was created by a false God and is evil.
These kinds of questions are heretical in mainstream Christianity. But Judaism preserved many similarly extratextual ideas in the form of the Midrash, a set of interpretations that I often describe as “rabbinical fan fiction” because of their tendency to write in entire characters and plotlines that didn’t exist in the original biblical text. For example, in one midrash about the Binding of Isaac, in which God orders Abraham to sacrifice his son but stays his hand at the last moment, Abraham actually succeeded but Isaac’s soul returned and he was resurrected; in another, Satan appears on the pair’s journey to the sacrifice to tempt Abraham to disobey.
For Jews, these stories — however outré they may be — are not heretical. It’s kosher to discuss and consider the questions they raise about the nature of the patriarchs and other lauded figures, making for a rich discourse over the centuries. This openmindedness and cultivation of unorthodox stories has also, not incidentally, made for better entries into the horror genre; the past decade has seen Jewish horror movies drawing from myths of golems, dybbuks, the practice of guarding the dead before burial and even the horror of an overbearing Jewish mother. The open canon provides a rich text from which to mine.
Had Nathan felt free to do the same with the apocrypha, perhaps The Carpenter’s Son could have been an interesting and affecting movie full of mysterious questions about the nature of evil and God. After all, the idea that God could be a demon, or even that God might be too capricious and chaotic to be trustworthy, is far scarier than demons being demonic.
The post This Jesus horror movie could have used more heresy appeared first on The Forward.
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Ritchie Torres Faces New Socialist Opponent in Democratic Primary Race Amid DSA Victory Lap Over Mamdani Win
US Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) speaks during the House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington, DC, Sept. 30, 2021. Photo: Al Drago/Pool via REUTERS
Public defender and Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) organizer Dalourny Nemorin has launched a primary challenge against US Rep. Ritchie Torres in New York’s 15th Congressional District, setting up a competitive intra-party contest in one of the nation’s poorest districts.
Nemorin announced her campaign on Wednesday at the Andrew Freedman Home in the Bronx, where she emphasized housing affordability, public housing conditions, immigrant services, and economic hardship as central issues facing the district. She said many residents feel underserved and argued that the district requires “a new type of leadership.” The area has a median household income of about $44,000, with more than 30 percent of residents living below the poverty line.
Torres, first elected in 2020, is a high-profile Democrat known for his work on housing oversight and for being the first openly LGBTQ Afro-Latino member of Congress. He currently serves on the House Committee on Financial Services and has been a vocal supporter of Israel, a position that has drawn national attention and, in some cases, criticism from the Democratic Party’s left wing.
Nemorin, a member of the far-left DSA, is directly targeting Torres on campaign financing and foreign-policy stances, criticizing his acceptance of contributions from real-estate developers and from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). She argued these ties reflect a misalignment between the congressman’s priorities and the needs of the district. Torres’s campaign has previously defended its donor base as consistent with his longstanding policy positions and record.
“I think the country is talking about a new type of representation, a new type of Democrat, a new type of leadership, which is what Zohran’s race represents,” she said, referring to Zohran Mamdani, who was elected mayor of New York City last week.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist and anti-Israel activist, is also a member of the DSA, which appears to see his victory as a sign of momentum. The organization has reportedly created a list of far-left demands for Mamdani when he assumes office. Most of the demands concern boycotts targeting Israeli-linked entities.
Nemorin’s challenge highlights ongoing divisions between establishment Democrats and progressive organizers in New York City. Her campaign launch drew a largely young audience, signaling an effort to mobilize voters who have historically had low turnout in the district. Her campaign has said it will focus on door-to-door organizing and outreach in public-housing complexes.
Since entering Congress, Torres has positioned himself as an outspoken ally of Israel. As the Democratic Party has continued to grow increasingly critical of Israel over the past two years, amid the Gaza war, Torres has staunchly defended the Jewish state’s right to defend itself from existential threats such as the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist groups. He has also spoken against rising antisemitism in New York City, even calling on local universities to adopt more vigorous policies protecting Jewish students. However, his strident support for Israel has sparked ire among the left flank of his own party.
Torres enters his reelection bid with significant advantages, including incumbency, name recognition, fundraising capacity, and a political network built over multiple election cycles. Primary defeats of sitting members of Congress remain rare, but progressive groups have succeeded in previous New York races when able to drive high turnout among younger voters and renters. Torres is expected to receive huge levels of support from the Jewish community within his district.
Moreover, Torres represents the poorest district for young people in the country, which is majority black and Latino, demographics with which far-left candidates have historically struggled. Observers have also pointed out that former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo won Torres’s district during this year’s Democratic mayoral primary in New York City over the more progressive Mamdani, suggesting that the district possesses a deep reservoir of moderate voters.
The Democratic primary is scheduled for June 2026. Both campaigns are expected to center their messaging on housing, affordability, and constituent services. However, Torres’s opponents, including former New York assemblyman Michael Blake, have taken repeated swipes against his record on Israel, indicating that they will attempt to center the war in Gaza as a main point of attack during the primary. In his launch video, Blake attacked Torres for supposedly supporting a “genocide” in Gaza.
“I am ready to fight for you and lower your cost of living while Ritchie fights for a genocide,” Blake said in an announcement video.