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There wasn’t a Jewish grief group in Boston for young adults, so this rabbi started one
In Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel Everything is Illuminated, a little girl named Brod is so familiar with grief and loss that Foer gives her a title: “Genius of sadness.” Brod sees melancholy everywhere, in the usual places — “the sadness of physical pain” — and in unlikely ones (“The sadness of domesticated birds”).
There is something of Brod in the Worst Club Ever, the group Rabbi Jackson Mercer founded this summer in Cambridge, Massachusetts, dedicated to helping young Jewish adults process the many — and often unexpected — ways that grief interrupts everyday life.
Mercer, 31, established the club because he believed young Jewish adults needed better — or any — bereavement services. It’s an absence he first noticed six years ago, when two close family friends lost loved ones on the eve of his wedding. One was due to give a Sheva Bracha, a wedding blessing, but she was also “like, actively in Shiva,” as Mercer put it. She didn’t know whether she could even attend a celebration, let alone participate.
“It was clear people needed guidance in the practical pieces,” said Mercer, who, when we met for coffee on a cold and bright morning, had on a flat-brimmed baseball cap and a hiking jacket — which in Cambridge/Somerville, a hub for both young adult Jews and progressive politics, is kind of the rabbinical uniform du jour.
Mercer realized that bereavement was more common among young adults than he’d thought. In his community alone — he’s a rabbi at BASE Boston, a nonprofit that puts on events for Jews in their 20s and 30s — “every person knew somebody” grieving, he said. And Boston’s existing support groups plainly could not meet the needs of younger, grieving Jews. If they wanted a Jewish experience, “it was mostly with people in their 60s mourning the loss of their life partners,” he said. But the younger crowd was little better: “Usually very Christian-focused — above all, on eschatology.”
Mercer talked with at least ten people in his Cambridge community who had felt misunderstood in other grief groups on account of their Jewishness or their age. An idea crystallized in his mind: a space to grieve that was both young and Jewish.
He was hesitant, however, to lead the group himself. For one thing, he was more comfortable discussing very recent loss than longer-term bereavement. “There’s rituals for it at first,” he said. But his initiative appealed to a different constituency. It was “people one to three years after a loss,” he told me. “So I needed to pivot.”
A therapist family friend joined the project. She and Mercer decided to lead the group together. “We met for a really long time,” Mercer said, “going back and forth about what would be helpful through a therapeutic lens — of how grief shows up for some people — and then taking those experiences and looking for those in Jewish texts.” In short, a group that blended Jewish textual analysis with clinical expertise.
The Worst Club Ever’s inaugural cohort, 12 members in all, met this summer for six weeks. Participants shared a culture and perhaps a generation, but often little else. One of them, Mercer said, knocking on the coffee table between us for emphasis,“really was not interested in studying Talmud.” Two others, meanwhile, were the children of Orthodox rabbis and had only recently returned from studying at yeshivas in the occupied West Bank. Yet such differences, insurmountable in other Jewish contexts, hardly mattered.
Meetings typically went like this: an opening ritual; a group analysis of a Jewish text — almost always a rabbi riffing on grief or death or mourning; and, last, a guided discussion about a non-scriptural topic. Secular and religious concerns mingled freely. One week, the group tackled how to approach Jewish holidays; the next, a participant’s recent wedding. Mercer was careful not to overdo the exegesis, and avoided prescribing specific mourning rituals.
“They were coming from such different backgrounds, different timelines and relationships,” he said. “None of that stuff would make sense to talk about all the time.” Occasionally discussions were little more than a collective lament. “All we could say, sometimes, was, ‘Man, this fucking sucks,” Mercer said.
The Jewish texts he did use helped participants make sense of their discomfort in other young adult bereavement groups — especially in ones dominated by Christians, for whom death is sometimes seen as a prelude to more permanent bliss. Mercer recalled introducing one text about a grieving rabbi who carried in his pocket his dead son’s tooth. When Mercer explained that this rendered the rabbi “ritually impure,” one of the group suggested this was, surely, an act of willful defiance — that for the rabbi anguish was his chosen companion. “I didn’t think of that,” Mercer replied.
Insights like this happened from time to time: moments when the distance between Mercer — yet to be seriously bereaved, mercifully — and his participants seemed impassable. He embraced the feeling. “I didn’t always know how I fit into this,” he said. “And it was okay for them not to be clear about how I fit into it, too.”
Mercer hopes to bring together another cohort within the next year while offering monthly drop-in spaces in the meantime. As far as he knows, there’s no other resource like it in Boston for Jews in their 20s and 30s. He suspects this is in large part because institutional American Jewish life is built on metrics: on bums-in-seats and kippot-on-heads. By comparison, the Worst Club Ever “is not a sexy program,” said Mercer. In fact, it’s the club you never want to belong to. But Mercer believes this summer’s program gives the lie to the “perception that people in their 20s and 30s don’t experience grief,” he said. “They just don’t know what to do.”
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Far-right UK activist Tommy Robinson visits Israel on invite of Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli
Far-right British agitator Tommy Robinson, known for his anti-Muslim rhetoric and leadership of the now-defunct extremist British Defense League, is in Israel this week on the invitation of Israeli Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli.
Together, Robinson and Chikli toured the site of the Nova music festival massacre, explored Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market on Friday morning and met with a prominent anti-immigration activist, Sheffi Paz, in Tel Aviv.
Robinson has been at the forefront of Britain’s anti-immigration movement and has also been imprisoned five times in the last 20 years for fraud, drug offenses and libeling a 15-year-old Syrian refugee. In 2023, he was arrested for attending a march against antisemitism against the wishes of the march’s Jewish organizers.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews, the largest Jewish organization in the United Kingdom, decried Chikli’s invitation in a post on X last week.
“Tommy Robinson is a thug who represents the very worst of Britain. His presence undermines those genuinely working to tackle Islamist extremism and foster community cohesion,” the group said. “Minister Chikli has proven himself to be a Diaspora Minister in name only. In our darkest hour, he has ignored the views of the vast majority of British Jews, who utterly and consistently reject Robinson and everything he stands for.”
Chikli pushed back on the Board of Deputies’ assessment, and accused them of becoming “openly aligned with left-wing, woke, pro-Palestinian parties.” (In August, the group called for a rapid increase in Gaza aid months after previously disciplining its members for signing an open letter condemning the war in Gaza.)
Now, after arriving in Israel Wednesday, Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, used the opportunity to take aim at U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
“I’ve arrived in the beautiful nation of Israel 
,” wrote Robinson, who is not Jewish, in a post on X. “A country with strong, patriotic leadership in @netanyahu and his party. Unlike the weak and cowardly @Keir_Starmer and his party of wrong’uns in the UK.”
Chikli has long associated himself with far-right activists and politicians in Europe, with whom he shares an interest in opposing Muslim immigration. Earlier this year, he stirred controversy by inviting far-right leaders from Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands and France to speak at Israel’s International Conference on Combating Antisemitism.
On Thursday, Robinson posted an interview clip with Chikli where he asked the minister whether he believed Britain will “have to experience its own Oct. 7” in order to “realize that these terror organizations must be stopped.”
“I really hope you shouldn’t, but in order to make sure it will never happen, you need all other set of tools to address this challenge, and you need to be far, far more decisive, far, far more aggressive, and to understand that it most likely, it won’t go smooth and it won’t go quietly,” Chikli answered. “But if you won’t do it, I’m not sure there’s going to be Britain.”
Robinson posted videos showing shoppers approaching him and Chikli in Mahane Yehuda to express their support, and their opposition to U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who recently recognized an independent Palestinian state over the objections of the organized Jewish community in Britain and the Israeli government.
“Despite @BoardofDeputies saying I wasn’t welcome, the residents of Jerusalem welcomed me with open arms,” Robinson wrote.
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The post Far-right UK activist Tommy Robinson visits Israel on invite of Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Course on Yiddish in Ukraine in the 20th century
ווי בײַ יעדן לערן־זמן פֿון דער ווירטועלער ייִדיש־פּראָגראַם בײַם אַרבעטער רינג, וועט מען במשך פֿונעם האַרבסט־זמן 2025 לערנען אַ צאָל אינטערעסאַנטע ווײַטהאַלטער־קורסן אויף ייִדיש.
דער פֿאָרשער גענאַדי עסטרײַך וועט לערנען אַ קורס וועגן דער ייִדישער ליטעראַטור אין אוקראַיִנע במשך פֿונעם 20סטן יאָרהונדערט, אַרײַנגערעכנט די שרײַבער פֿון דער „קיִעווער גרופּע“— דוד בערגעלסאָן און דער ניסתּר. מע וועט אויך דיסקוטירן די ייִדישע טאָגשולן אין די 1920ער און 1930ער; די השפּעה פֿונעם „קיִעווער אינסטיטוט פֿון דער ייִדישער קולטור“ און די ווערק פֿון די שרײַבער אַבֿרהם אַבטשוק, איציק קיפּניס, ריווע באַליאַסנע, חיים גילדין און הירש בלאָשטיין.
דער לינגוויסט לייזער בורקאָ וועט לערנען וועגן די ייִדישע דיאַלעקטן בײַ די הײַנטיקע חרדים, אַרײַנגערעכנט דעם אונגעריש־סאַטמערער דיאַלעקט פֿון וויליאַמסבורג, דעם ליובאַוויטשער דיאַלעקט פֿון קראַון־הײַטס און דעם ליטווישן פֿון לייקוווּד.
אָט זענען די אַנדערע קורסן וואָס מע קען אויסקלײַבן:
- אַן אינטענסיווער שפּראַכקורס צו פֿאַרבעסערן דאָס פֿאַרשטיין, לייענען, רעדן און שרײַבן ייִדיש (איוו יאַכנאָוויץ)
- מעשׂיות פֿון יצחק באַשעוויס זינגערס זכרונות, „אין מײַן טאַטנס בית־דין שטוב“ (שבֿע צוקער)
- די לידער פֿונעם אַוואַנגאַרדיסטישן פּאָעט יעקבֿ גלאַטשטיין (אַבֿרהם ליכטענבוים)
- מגילת־אסתּר אין דער מאָדערנער ייִדישער ליטעראַטור (נאַטאַליע קריניצע)
- שלום אַשעס ראָמאַן „קידוש השם“ (קאָליע באָראָדולין)
- ווי אַזוי אַרויסצורעדן און ניצן לשון־קודשדיקע טערמינען פֿון דער ייִדישער ליטעראַטור (יצחק ניבאָרסקי)
- וואָס וועט זײַן מיט דער צוקונפֿט פֿון ייִדישן הומאָר? (דניאל גלאַי)
- שלום עליכמס ראָמאַן „אין שטורעם“ (אַבֿרהם ליכטענבוים)
- אַ שמועסקרײַז מיטן ייִדישן נאָוועליסט און פּאָעט באָריס סאַנדלער
- דאָס קול פֿונעם ייִדישן שרײַבער (שבֿע צוקער)
נאָך מער פּרטים אָדער זיך צו פֿאַרשרײַבן אויף אַ קורס, גיט אַ קוועטש דאָ.
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UK Court to Hear Challenge to Pro-Hamas Group Ban After Government Loses Appeal
Police officers block a street as pro-Palestinian demonstrators gather in protest against Britain’s Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s plans to proscribe the “Palestine Action” group in the coming weeks, in London, Britain, June 23, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jaimi Joy
The British government on Friday lost its bid to block the co-founder of the anti-Israel group Palestine Action bringing a legal challenge over the banning of the group under anti-terrorism laws.
Huda Ammori, who helped found Palestine Action in 2020, was given permission to challenge the group‘s proscription on the grounds that the ban is a disproportionate interference with free speech rights, with her case due to be heard next month.
Britain’s Home Office (interior ministry) then asked the Court of Appeal to overturn that decision and rule that any challenge to the ban should be heard by a specialist tribunal.
Judge Sue Carr rejected the Home Office’s appeal, saying challenging the proscription in the High Court was quicker, particularly where people have been charged and are facing trial for expressing support for Palestine Action.
The court also ruled that Ammori could challenge the ban in the High Court on additional grounds, which Ammori said was a significant victory.
“It’s time for the government to listen to the overwhelming and mounting backlash … and lift this widely condemned, utterly Orwellian ban,” she said in a statement.
The Home Office did not immediately comment.
DIRECT ACTION GROUP BANNED IN JULY
Palestine Action was proscribed as a terrorist organization by the government in July, making it a crime to be a member, which carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
More than 2,000 people have since been arrested for holding signs in support of the group, with over 100 charged.
Before the ban, Palestine Action had increasingly targeted Israel-linked companies in Britain, often spraying red paint, blocking entrances, or damaging equipment.
It accused Britain’s government of complicity in what it said were Israeli war crimes in Gaza. Israel has repeatedly denied committing war crimes in its two-year military campaign, which began after Palestinian Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel and Hamas agreed a ceasefire last week.
Palestine Action particularly focused on Israeli defense firm Elbit Systems, and Britain’s government cited a raid by activists at an Elbit site last year when it decided to outlaw the group.
The group was banned a month after some of its members broke into the RAF Brize Norton air base and damaged two planes, for which four members have been charged.
Critics of the ban – including United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk and civil liberties groups – argue that damaging property does not amount to terrorism.
However, Britain’s former interior minister Yvette Cooper, who is now foreign minister, previously said violence and criminal damage have no place in legitimate protest.