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These Jews are defending Drag Story Hour against far-right protestors. Here’s why.
(New York Jewish Week) — As right-wing protestors descend upon Drag Story Hour events across New York, they have frequently been met by a loosely connected movement of counter protestors that includes many progressive Jewish groups.
Since September, right-wing activists have routinely protested Drag Story Hour events, where a person dressed in drag reads to children. The aim of these story times, according to the founder of the Drag Story Hour New York chapter, is to promote literacy while giving children positive queer role models.
At the Queens Public Library in Jackson Heights on Dec. 29, at least five members of the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group, showed up to harass people attending a story session. Those protestors were met by hundreds of activists from the other side, many of whom are Jewish. They included members of Jews For Racial and Economic Justice, Outlive Them, United Against Racism and Fascism and other other organizations.
“We’re out here,” said Sharona Farber, 32, who is a member of the Jewish anti-fascist group Outlive Them, which formed in response to the 2018 Pittsburgh Tree of Life shooting and has since become involved with other forms of activism across New York such as fighting for the homeless and against U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) raids.
Those protesting Drag Story Hours claim the events are harmful to children, calling parents who are bringing their kids to the event “groomers” and “pedophiles” to their face. Demonstrators have breached library doors in the city on three separate occasions. They have also vandalized the homes and offices, using anti-LGBTQ slurs, of three New York City Council members who have shown support for Drag Story Hour.
Hundreds of people defended the Queens Public Library at Jackson Heights against right-wing protestors, including members of the Proud Boys and neo-Nazis, last Thursday. (Gili Getz/Courtesy)
Protestors have targeted 10 Drag Story Hour events in New York, according to independent reporter Talia Jane, who has been documenting the group on Twitter since September.
This group of protestors, which calls itself the Guardians of Divinity, started as an anti-vaccine movement in the pandemic. “We have lost our jobs and been arrested for protesting this madness,” a statement on the group’s Twitter said. “Now they are coming for your kids with programs like Drag Queen Story Hour, where they steal your tax money to pay grown men in dresses to read gender questioning books.”
Farber told the New York Jewish Week that last Thursday there were at least 300 people defending Drag Story Hour at the Queens library branch, from all ages and backgrounds. Farber added that “there are a lot of Jews” doing the behind-the-scenes work, the organizing and the outreach that goes into “pulling these defenses off.”
“Jews are so heavily represented in the left,” Farber said. “There’s been a reinfusion of energy on what people call the Jewish Left. There are people getting self organized into small groups that do take political action into what they believe is needed to create a better world.”
Sophie Ellman-Golan, communications director for Jews for Racial & Economic Justice, another prominent activist group that’s defending Drag Story Hour, told the New York Jewish Week that it’s important “to drown out fascists and neo-Nazis” by showing up in solidarity.
“When there’s a threat of neo-Nazi violence against synagogues, the idea is not that we should stop going to synagogue,” Ellman-Golan said. “We actually deserve to be able to gather and pray or engage in whatever culture and ritual we want to. We believe that a community of diverse New Yorkers coming together to ensure that can happen, that’s the best way to do that, with community defense.”
She described the scene as “two sides”: one that included colorful rainbow signs, glitter and Disney songs, while the other side included a neo-Nazi giving a “Heil Hitler” salute while talking about “a future for white children.”
A man seen throwing a ‘Nazi Salute’ outside of NYC Drag Queen Story Hour event was confronted by both sides “If you are doing a Roman Salute get the fuck out of here, you are worse than them”
4/10 pic.twitter.com/8TgAQbz1Ft
— Oliya Scootercaster (@ScooterCasterNY) December 30, 2022
“It’s a violent attempt to stamp out trans people,” Ellman-Golan said, adding that there is “a very clear link between antisemitism and transphobia that is increasing at a terrifying rate.”
Ariela Rothstein, a queer Jewish parent who took her 6-month-old child to the Jackson Heights Drag Story Hour last Thursday, told the New York Jewish Week that these shouldn’t be controversial events. “It’s people sharing stories with kids,” Rothstein said. “There were people shouting all kinds of names. Things that are really disgusting, that I don’t really want to repeat or put in print. All we wanted to do was go into the library and hear some stories for our child.”
Rothstein’s partner, Lauraberth Lima, told the New York Jewish Week that the right-wing protestors are “embarrassing themselves.”
“It’s actually sad,” she said. “What we’re actually doing is talking about love and spreading representation of different types of people.”
After last Thursday’s event, a video circulated online showing members of the Proud Boys being led by members of the New York Police Department into the 74th Street-Broadway subway station in Jackson Heights without paying.
“We don’t feel like the NYPD is there to actually protect or defend or anything like that,” Ellman-Golan said. “If their goal is to make sure that Drag Story Hours can continue in peace, they are failing.”
NYPD help Proud Boys commit fare evasion & then tell journalists to go back and pay for the fare. Everyone should see this video. pic.twitter.com/wrkPjFhQoq
— Brenna Lip (@LipBrenna) January 2, 2023
The NYPD said in a statement on Monday that it was trying to “to deescalate the situation and prevent further violence a decision was made to escort one group to the Jackson Heights subway station to remove the group from the area.”
According to Lima, however, the video of the police letting the Proud Boys into the subway showed them getting “a literal free pass for what they were doing.”
“The police never protected families like ours,” Lima said. “That’s not who we turn to for safety. We are protecting ourselves. The queer community understands very well what it means to be ostracized or hated, and knows how to show up for people.”
Miriam, a queer Jewish activist who regularly shows up to defend Drag Story Hour, told the New York Jewish Week that she was only comfortable giving out her first name out of fear of being doxxed — having her private information made public — by the right-wing protestors. “This can result in significant stress, but also loss of unemployment, housing and in some cases physical attacks,” Miriam said. “If your employers get 50 calls a day from people telling them that you are a pedophile, that may make your life hard. It’s a significant concern.”
Miriam said that these protests are a personal attack on her queer identity, but “it doesn’t mean I’m there as a queer person rather than a Jew.”
“I’m there as both things,” Miriam said. “Jews have to be opposed to fascism because fascism is opposed to Jews. Jewish history and Jewish culture gives us ample reasons to oppose fascism. We should never be letting fascists in the streets unopposed, no matter what they are doing.”
Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg of Malkhut, a progressive congregation in Jackson Heights, showed up at a Drag Story Hour defense on Oct. 28 at the library. She told the New York Jewish Week that “it was a pretty unnerving experience, to be facing such right-wing vitriol.”
“The hatred feels like it’s coming from the same place of white supremacist activism, which holds hands with antisemitism,” Goldenberg said. “It was really painful and shocking to hear the language that was being used.”
She recalled how a large man burst into her group while they were singing in front of the library. “He was very loud, hostile and violent,” Goldenberg said. “Not by throwing punches, but he had a violent vibe. You get the sense that they have been riled up by lies and conspiracy theories. They have no qualms about getting in our faces and accusing us of wanting to groom children.”
Goldenberg surmised that so many Jews are showing up to protect Drag Story Hour because they’re inspired by the emphasis Judaism places on education. “We value learning,” Goldenberg said. “We value being open to multiple opinions, we value open discussion — that’s what Torah is about. Drag Story Hours and public libraries are then all very much tied into Jewish values.”
“These are our family members,” she added. “These are our friends. These are our neighbors. This is us as Jews.”
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When Hate Hides Behind Nuance, Babka and Protest Cannot Rise Half‑Baked
A Breads Bakery location in New York City. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
This weekend, a crowd wrapped around the corner of 63rd and Broadway in New York City, lining up for babka and bread at Breads Bakery. But this wasn’t the usual pre-Shabbat rush. It was a quiet show of solidarity with the Israeli-owned bakery, after union activists urged it to sever ties with Israel.
A line for pastries became a reminder that antisemitism doesn’t always announce itself with slurs or slogans. Sometimes it appears in smaller, more familiar spaces — through pressures and demands that seem benign on the surface.
When New York City’s new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, revoked a series of executive orders aimed at combating antisemitism, the justification was familiar: overly broad, insufficiently nuanced, potentially chilling to free speech. For many Jews in this city — especially those who are visibly Jewish or openly supportive of Israel — this reversal did not feel like balance restored. It felt like protection withdrawn.
New York is home to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, and Mamdani’s decision came at a moment when antisemitic threats are rising nationally and globally, when synagogues and schools require armed guards, and when fear is not theoretical but lived.
One word — nuance — has stayed with me.
Not long before the mayor’s announcement, a friend objected to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism: Too broad, too political, not nuanced enough. I had heard the argument before — but hearing it again, now, felt revealing.
Can we fight hate in the language of nuance?
For decades, we have treated language as a tool of moral repair. We revised terminology to be more inclusive, more precise, and more humane. We expanded our understanding of gender and identity. Language evolved to widen the circle of belonging.
Names matter. If language shapes how people are seen — and how they see themselves — then these changes matter.
But somewhere along the way, the project of inclusion began to drift.
Refining language stopped functioning as a starting point for justice and became a substitute for it. Linguistic correction began to stand in for moral and institutional accountability. We treated vocabulary changes as progress, even when the underlying structures remained unchanged.
We changed the words without changing the world.
As we focused on more delicate modifiers and culturally sensitive phrasing, we also became cautious in how we described injustice — so cautious that we often avoided confronting it at all. Language became a tool to minimize, camouflage, or justify inaction.
Nowhere is this clearer than in how we talk about antisemitism.
At a time when antisemitic incidents are rising, the insistence on narrower definitions and softer language feels less like rigor and more like retreat. Definitions tighten just as hostility becomes more explicit, more public, and more emboldened.
And the question lingers: Are we blurring the reality of antisemitism out of fear that naming it clearly will constrain legitimate criticism of Israel? Are we reinforcing old tropes equating Zionism with racism, legitimizing a wave of boycotts and, increasingly, outright acts of violence against Jews?
Would we ask other marginalized communities to soften the words used to describe the hatred aimed at them?
If we would not ask it of others, why do we ask it of Jews?
Outside of Breads Bakery, the protest didn’t sound like a protest. No bullhorns, no chants — just a line of New Yorkers waiting for pastries to push back against a union’s demand that the bakery cut ties with Israel. It turns out that you can fight antisemitism with babka.
But the gesture can be quiet only if the definition is not. We cannot fight what we don’t hear, and we cannot hear what we refuse to name. When antisemitism hides behind nuance, policy, or the polite language of activism, clarity stops being optional. Even a line for babka can become a battleground against hate — but only if the hate is named plainly. Buying bread may seem like a Beijing form of activism, but when the message it sends is clear, hate can no longer hide in the shadow of nuance.
Gillian Granoff is a New York–based writer focused on Jewish identity, the Israel–diaspora relationship, and the challenges of navigating antisemitism after October 7. Her work draws on personal experience and time spent in Israel, bringing cultural insight and emotional clarity to her essays. She holds a degree in Comparative Literature from Brown University and spent more than a decade as a senior reporter for Education Update, an award-winning New York education newspaper.
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Somali Regions Reject Mogadishu’s Move to Cut Ties With UAE
People hold the flag of Somaliland during the parade in Hargeisa, Somaliland, May 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Tiksa Negeri
Three self-governing regions in Somalia that have close relations with the United Arab Emirates have dismissed a decision this week by the central government to sever ties with the UAE, a long-term sponsor.
On Monday Somalia annulled all agreements with the UAE, including in the field of security, accusing the Gulf country, which has trained and funded Somalia’s army and invested in its ports, of undermining Somalia’s national sovereignty.
Somalia did not provide further explanation of its reasons for the move. Mogadishu is investigating allegations that the UAE whisked a separatist leader out of Yemen via Somalia. Separately, the UAE has been linked to Israel’s recognition last month of Somaliland, a breakaway region of northern Somalia, as an independent state.
The UAE‘s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Somalia’s decision. The UAE has longstanding interests in the Horn of Africa and Red Sea regions, where it has frequently vied with other wealthy Gulf states for influence.
Somaliland and two semi-autonomous states, Puntland in the north and Jubbaland in the south, said they would not recognize the decision by Mogadishu to cut ties with the UAE.
“Somalia’s daydreaming changes nothing … The UAE is here to stay, no matter what a weak administration in Mogadishu says,” Khadar Hussein Abdi, Minister of the Presidency of the Republic of Somaliland, said late on Monday.
The Jubbaland regional government said Mogadishu’s decision was “null and void” and existing “security and development agreements will continue to exist.”
Puntland said the decision would have no impact on relations between it and the UAE, including over the coastal city of Bosaso where a subsidiary of the UAE‘s DP World has a 30-year concession to run the port.
EXPANDING INFLUENCE
The UAE has long leveraged its wealth to expand its influence across the Horn of Africa, using a mix of economic, military and diplomatic clout to exert regional power.
For decades Somalia’s federal government has possessed only limited authority across the country, and has failed to defeat Islamist militants, despite years of international support, including African peacekeepers and US air strikes.
The UAE trained hundreds of Somali troops from 2014-2018, and still covers salaries and provides logistics for around 3,400 Somali military police and special forces troops in and around the capital, according to senior Somali sources.
It has also forged bonds directly with regional governments, committing hundreds of millions of dollars to ports and military infrastructure on the coast along global shipping routes.
Two Somali officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy, told Reuters that in place of UAE military funding the country could turn to the UAE‘s wealthy Gulf rivals Qatar or Saudi Arabia for help.
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Syria’s Kurds Protest Aleppo Violence as Fears of Wider Conflict Grow
Syrian Kurds attend a protest in solidarity with the people in the neighborhood of Sheikh Maksoud and Ashrafiya, as the last Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters left the Syrian city of Aleppo on Sunday, state-run Ekhbariya TV said, following a ceasefire deal that allowed evacuations after days of deadly clashes, in Qamishli, Syria, Jan. 13, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Orhan Qereman
Several thousand people marched under the rain in northeast Syria on Tuesday to protest the expulsion of Kurdish fighters from the city of Aleppo the previous week after days of deadly clashes.
The violence in Aleppo has deepened one of the main faultlines in Syria, where President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s promise to unify the country under one leadership after 14 years of war has faced resistance from Kurdish forces wary of his Islamist-led government.
Five days of fighting left at least 23 people dead, according to Syria’s health ministry, and saw more than 150,000 flee the two Kurdish-run pockets of the city. The last Kurdish fighters left Aleppo in the early hours of Jan. 11.
On Tuesday, several thousand Syrian Kurds protested in the northeastern city of Qamishli. They carried banners bearing the logos of Kurdish forces and faces of Kurdish fighters who died in the battles – some of whom had detonated explosive-laden belts as government forces closed in.
FEARS OF WIDER CONFLICT
Other posters featured the faces of Sharaa and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, crossed out with red “X”s and carrying the caption “Killers of the Kurdish people.”
Turkey accuses the Syrian Democratic Forces – the main Kurdish fighting force which runs a semi-autonomous zone in northeast Syria – of links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which Ankara considers a terrorist organization.
Many Kurds say last week’s bloodshed has deepened their skepticism about Sharaa’s promises to govern for all Syrians.
“If they truly love the Kurds, and if they sincerely say that the Kurds are an official and fundamental component of Syria, then the rights of the Kurdish people must be recognized in the constitution,” said Hassan Muhammad, head of the Council of Religions and Beliefs in Northeast Syria, who attended Tuesday’s protest.
Others worry that the bloodshed will worsen. Syria’s defense ministry on Tuesday declared eastern parts of Aleppo still under SDF control to be a “closed military zone,” and ordered all armed forces in the area to withdraw further east.
Idris al-Khalil, a Qamishli resident who protested on Tuesday, said the Aleppo violence reminded him of the sectarian killings last year of the Alawite minority on Syria’s coast and the Druze minority in the country’s south.
“Regarding the fears of a full-scale war – if they want a full-scale war, the people will suffer even more, and it will lead to division among the peoples of the region, preventing them from living together in peace,” Khalil said.