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Their anti-Mamdani letter makes it clear: Rabbis face pressure that fractures us all
In recent days, nearly 1,000 rabbis have signed “A Rabbinic Call to Action: Defending the Jewish Future.” The letter, written in response to rising anti-Zionism and the rhetoric of political figures like New York City mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani, affirms Israel’s right to exist and warns against the normalization of anti-Zionist language in public life.
It’s a passionate, well-intentioned statement — and it has ignited a painful public reckoning. Jewish communities are circulating spreadsheets of who signed and who didn’t. Some rabbis are being lauded for courage; others are being shamed or questioned for their silence. Congregants are searching the list to find their rabbi’s name, drawing conclusions about loyalty and belonging.
The very leaders tasked with holding the Jewish people together are, yet again, being torn apart.
Being a rabbi or cantor right now feels nearly impossible. We are expected to comfort the grieving, officiate under the chuppah, teach Torah, write and deliver sermons, model moral clarity, serve simultaneously as chief executives and moral guides, and hold divided communities together.
I have come to understand the challenges rabbis face as executive director of Atra, the national center I lead for rabbinic innovation and professional learning. Our forthcoming comprehensive study on the American rabbinate and rabbinic pipeline will show that while 97% of rabbis find their work deeply meaningful, many — especially those leading congregations — face unsustainable expectations.
And so, when a letter like this appears, rabbis can face a no-win choice: risk alienating some of the people they serve, or risk being seen as abandoning our people altogether.
There are many reasons a rabbi might choose not to sign a public political statement. Some lead communities that are split down the middle and fragile. Some worry about the erosion of trust that comes when clergy are seen as partisan. Some are thinking carefully about the changing enforcement of the Johnson Amendment and what “political activity” means for faith leaders and institutions today.
And yes, some rabbis may disagree with the letter’s framing or focus — but remain fully devoted to the safety and flourishing of the Jewish people.
Absence of a signature does not mean absence of love for Israel or for the Jewish people. It may reflect a different kind of leadership, one that prioritizes the relationships within a community over public declaration.
At Atra, we see this complexity every day — and we’re trying to help rabbis work through it. Together with Cara Raich, an expert facilitator and partner in this work, we’ve developed and led a national series of workshops on “Facilitating Difficult Conversations Across Lines of Difference.”
In one of our text studies, we reflect on two models of leadership drawn from Torah: Moses, who speaks prophetic truth and demands justice, and Aaron, who pursues peace and reconciliation. Both are holy roles.
Sometimes a rabbi must lead like Moses — speaking with moral clarity and drawing clear boundaries. In those moments, we act as advocates externally and create internal spaces where shared commitments can be affirmed. That work matters: naming what belongs in our spiritual homes helps people understand a specific community’s values and decide how they wish to engage. This is especially effective in larger communities with many places to belong.
Sometimes a rabbi must lead like Aaron — listening deeply, staying present with people in their pain, and working to keep the community from shattering. In smaller or less-resourced communities, where affinity is simply being Jewish together, a rabbi may see this as the only way forward.
The rabbinate, at its best, holds both instincts at once: the courage to stand firm and the compassion to keep everyone in the room. Increasingly, rabbis are learning from the fields of dialogue, mediation, and facilitation how to create communities where disagreement can coexist with dignity, and conflict can become connection.
Speaking with clarity matters; so does holding together and avoiding public litmus tests. In a time when few know how, we clergy are called to try. Our tradition, and good leadership practice, tells us how.
Humility reminds us that no one holds the whole truth. Empathy seeks understanding without demanding agreement. Curiosity keeps us open when it would be easier to armor up and fight.
These practices don’t erase difference; they make relationship possible within it.
The letter that so many rabbis signed is, at heart, a call to defend the Jewish future. But the Jewish future will not be defended by uniformity. It will be defended by the strength of our relationships.
By rabbis and communities who can stay in dialogue even when we disagree. By the courage to speak and the humility to listen. By the ability to say: I love Israel. I oppose antisemitism. And I also see this moment differently.
To the rabbis who signed the letter: your conviction matters.
To the rabbis who didn’t: your restraint and care for your communities matter too.
To the Jewish public watching: know that every one of these leaders is trying, in their own way, to serve the Jewish people with integrity and heart.
Let’s support rabbis — all rabbis — who are carrying impossible burdens on behalf of us all.
If we truly want to defend the Jewish future, we must resist dividing ourselves into pieces. The real work — the holy work — is learning how to stay in community, even when we don’t agree on the same sentence to sign.
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Ilhan Omar Poses for Photo With Swedish MP Wearing Garment Depicting Erasure of Israel
US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) speaks at a press conference with activists calling for a ceasefire in Gaza in front of the Capitol in Washington, DC, Dec. 14, 2023. Photo: Annabelle Gordon / CNP/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MI) has come under fire after being spotted posing for a photo with Malcolm Jallow, a virulently anti-Israel member of the Swedish parliament.
The picture, which was posted on Jallow’s Instagram page on Sunday, showed the controversial Swedish politician posing alongside Omar and anti-Israel political pundit Medhi Hasan. Jallow draped a stole around his shoulders depicting the complete erasure of the state of Israel and its replacement by a Palestinian state.
“Spending these days with so many inspiring leaders from around the world — including two of the most inspiring and courageous voices of our time, Congresswoman @ilhanmn Omar and international journalist @mehdirhasan — has been like reigniting an inner flame. I feel recharged with energy, hope, and determination,” Jallow wrote on Instagram.
Jallow has an extensive history of attacking Israel and promoting antisemitic conspiracy tropes. For example, he has “liked” a comment on social media that accused Jewish organizations of participating in freemasonry, fueling a false conspiracy theory that claims a secret coalition of Jews and Freemasons is working to control the world.
The Gambian-born lawmaker also lambasted Sweden for its supposed complicitly in a “genocide” in Gaza and stated in another social media post that Europe “betrayed” the Palestinian enclave by “financing the bombs” and “legitimizing the apartheid & the occupation.” He further appeared to threaten Swedish civilians who support Israel, writing, “To every ordinary citizen who waved the flag of the oppressor & laughed while Gaza burned, We will not forget you. We know your names. We save your statements. We screenshot your posts.”
He also seemed to threaten legal action against Swedish citizens who publicly demonstrate support for Israel’s defensive military operations against Hanas.
“And one day, whether in courtrooms of law or the court of history, In this life or the hereafter, you will be held to account,” Jallow posted. “That is not a threat. That is a promise to the people of Gaza.”
“Why is the Swedish government complicit in Israel’s acts of genocide against the Palestinian people?” he added on Instagram.
Jallow has also criticized Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson for taking certain measures to combat antisemitism, arguing that such actions endanger the country’s Muslim population.
“The Swedish Prime Minister’s statement that antisemitism holds a ‘special status’ and is worse than anti-Muslim propaganda is deeply problematic and dangerous. It not only diminishes the severity of hatred against Muslims but also normalizes the growing Islamophobia in Sweden,” Jallow wrote in an official statement last year.
“Ranking hate and prioritizing one group’s suffering over another is not only ignorant and offensive — it undermines our collective struggle against all forms of intolerance and discrimination,” he continued.
Sweden has reported a notable increase in antisemitic incidents since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, prompting alarm within both the Jewish community and governmental bodies.
According to a report released by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (BRA) last year, hate crimes motivated by antisemitism in the country surged in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 atrocities, amid the ensuing war in Gaza. The BRA found that police registered 110 complaints between the Hamas invasion and Dec. 31 in 2023, compared to just 24 incidents the prior year.
While Jews constitute a small fraction of Sweden’s population, they have represented a disproportionately high share of religious-hate-crime victims. In 2020, for example, antisemitic incidents made up about 27 percent of all religion-based hate crimes documented by police despite Jews making up only 0.1 percent of the population, according to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention.
Omar for years has been one of the most vocal critics of Israel in the US Congress, calling on Washington to impose an arms embargo on the Jewish state.
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Groundbreaking analysis of Hitler’s DNA shows no Jewish ancestry — but finds a genetic disorder
Adolf Hitler had a sexual disorder that made it more likely for him to have a micro-penis, according to the first-ever analysis of his DNA. He also did not have the Jewish ancestors that some have claimed he had.
The analysis is being revealed in detail in “Hitler’s DNA: Blueprint of a Dictator,” a new documentary premiering Saturday night in the United Kingdom. The documentary looks at the researchers who decided to tackle the genetic makeup of one of history’s greatest villains, as well as what they learned — and cannot learn — from his DNA.
They found that he had Kallman syndrome, a genetic disorder characterized by incomplete puberty, according to an exclusive report published Wednesday in the Times of London. They also found that he had genes making him more likely to have autism, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, though they cautioned that the DNA alone is not sufficient to deliver a diagnosis.
Among those quoted in the documentary is the prominent British Jewish psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen (father of actor Sacha). “Behavior is never 100% genetic,” he said in the Times report. “Associating Hitler’s extreme cruelty with people with these diagnoses risks stigmatizing them, especially when the vast majority of people with these diagnoses are neither violent nor cruel, and many are the opposite.”
The analysis, conducted by a team led by a prominent British geneticist, is more definitive on the subject of Hitler’s possible Jewish ancestry. Rumors about such a background were prevalent during Hitler’s rise: In one notable example, a newspaper aligned with the Austrian chancellor who the following year would be assassinated by Nazis in 1933 challenged German authorities to disprove his Jewish ties.
And the rumors have endured: In 2022, Russia’s foreign minister repeated the claim that Hitler had Jewish ancestry to rebuff criticism that Russia’s justification for invading Ukraine, that it needed to be “denazified,” was undermined by the fact that Ukraine’s president is Jewish.
But while previous analyses of the DNA of Hitler’s relatives suggested that he may have had some genetic links to groups that he sought to destroy, including Jews, the new analysis, on Hitler’s own DNA, shows only Austrian German ancestry.
The analysis is based on a swatch of fabric stained with blood that a U.S. soldier cut from the couch upon which Hitler shot himself. The researchers were able to confirm without a doubt that the blood came from Hitler by comparing the DNA found in it to DNA previously confirmed to have come from one of his relatives.
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German Authorities Arrest Another Suspected Hamas Operative Amid Growing Terror Threat to Jews in Europe
Supporters of Hamas gather in Berlin. Photo: Reuters/M. Golejewski
As concern mounts over a potential surge in Hamas-linked attacks in Europe, German authorities have arrested another suspected member of the Palestinian terrorist group accused of acquiring firearms and ammunition to target Jewish communities.
On Tuesday, local police arrested Lebanese-born Borhan El-K, a suspected Hamas operative, after he crossed into Germany from the Czech Republic — part of an ongoing probe into the Islamist group’s network and operations across the continent.
The German federal prosecutor’s office confirmed the suspect obtained an automatic rifle, eight Glock pistols, and more than 600 rounds of ammunition in the country before handing the weapons to Wael FM, another suspected member of the terrorist group, in Berlin.
Local law enforcement arrested Lebanese-born Wael FM last month, along with two other German citizens, Adeb Al G and Ahmad I.
Prosecutors believe the three men acted as foreign operatives for Hamas and procured firearms and ammunition intended for attacks on Israeli and Jewish institutions in Germany.
Hamas, long supported by the Iranian regime as well as Qatar and Turkey, is designated as a terrorist organization by the European Union and several other Western countries, including the United States.
Earlier this month, Mohammed A, another alleged member of the Palestinian terrorist group, was arrested in London at the request of German police. He is accused of taking five handguns and ammunition from Abed Al G before moving them to Vienna for storage.
Last week, Vienna authorities uncovered a hidden arsenal linked to Hamas, reportedly intended for “potential terrorist attacks in Europe” targeting Jewish communities.
The Austrian government confirmed that the Directorate for State Security and Intelligence Service (DSN) has been conducting an internationally coordinated investigation into a global terrorist network with ties to the Islamist group.
During the investigation, Austrian authorities uncovered evidence suggesting that this group had brought weapons into the country for potential terrorist attacks in Europe.
For its part, Hamas issued a statement denying any connection to the criminal network, calling the allegations of its involvement “baseless.”
However, experts have warned that Hamas has expanded its terrorist operations beyond the Middle East, exploiting a well-established network of weapons caches, criminal alliances, and covert infrastructure quietly built across Europe over the years.
Last month, West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center released a study detailing how Hamas leaders in Lebanon have been directing operatives to establish “foreign operator” cells across Europe, collaborating with organized crime networks to acquire weapons and target Jewish communities abroad.
In February, four Hamas members suspected of plotting attacks on Jewish institutions in Europe went on trial in Berlin, in what prosecutors described as the first court case against terrorists of the Islamist group in Germany.