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This Brooklyn family’s Hanukkah celebration is all over New York’s subway
(New York Jewish Week) — For photographer and Instagram blogger Mordechai Rubinstein, seeing his face plastered all over the subway this holiday season has been an unexpected delight.
Rubinstein is decidedly not a dermatologist (a la subway-famous Dr. Zizmor), nor is he hawking subscription meds or beauty products. Rather, Rubinstein is featured in Nordstrom’s prominent “Make Merry” holiday campaign, where he’s seen celebrating Hanukkah alongside his wife Sara Brown-Rubinstein and their 5-year-old daughter, Isabella.
The ads have been prominently displayed in subway and bus lines across the city. “We first saw it in the wild — we didn’t even know until people started sending us pictures,” said Rubinstein, who assumed the family photo shoot, which happened over the summer in their Greenpoint, Brooklyn home, would be used exclusively on social media. “It was a huge surprise, I don’t know how else to say it.”
The ads spotlight the family of three eating latkes and lighting the menorah together. Rubinstein — who’s known to his 127,000 Instagram followers as @mistermort and describes himself in his bio as “SHMUCK AT LARGE, GARMENTOLOGIST, ANTHROPOLOGIST, photographer, photojournalist and author” — wears a bright pink sweater over a floral shirt and mustard pants, completing the look with a green knit kippah. Meanwhile, Sara and Isabella keep it more simple, wearing a black sweater and white maxi skirt, and a blue and white dress, respectively.
Each member of the family lights their own menorah on Hanukkah, the couple said. (Courtesy of Nordstrom)
The campaign features other notable New Yorkers celebrating the holidays, including actress Christina Ricci and her hairdresser husband, Mark Hampton, and actor and singer Leslie Odom, Jr., his wife Nicolette Robinson and their two kids. (Actress Robinson is Jewish, and though the Nordstrom ads mostly focus on their family’s Christmas situation, there is also a menorah in the photos.)
“When they came to us for the project, we actually didn’t realize how public facing it was going to be,” Brown-Rubinstein, an interior designer for Ralph Lauren stores, told the New York Jewish Week. “But we love Nordstrom and everything they stand for, and we feel like we’re just a great team of people. They are always featuring such great people from different communities and we love working with them.”
For the shoot, the couple said they had nearly complete creative control — they picked out the decor, food, prayer books and outfits they would be wearing for their pretend Hanukkah party.
“Everything was kosher, obviously. It’s pretty sick to have our yarmulkes and latkes in a Hanukkah ad and not some wack pajamas,” said Rubinstein. “They [Nordstrom] let it be authentic to us.”
Even the latkes — which one observer likened to a hockey puck — are legit: they brought them in from Russ and Daughters, Brown-Rubinstein said.
“Inclusivity is important to us as a company, and we know it is something our customers value too,” Red Godfrey, vice president of creative at Nordstrom, told the New York Jewish Week via email. “Our campaign spreads cheer by showing the real human connection through warm and intimate moments shared amongst loved ones in their most personal settings.
“We aimed to capture the authenticity of real families making merry together and giving us a glimpse of what the holidays look like in their homes,” Godfrey added.
Rubinstein is part of the Lubavitch community and was raised in Rhode Island, Maryland and Brooklyn — his parents now live in Crown Heights. Brown-Rubinstein, who grew up in Connecticut, attended Modern Orthodox synagogues as a child, but now considers herself more culturally Jewish. The couple is dedicated to raising their daughter with a strong Jewish identity.
“I’m Lubavitch — I live for mivtzoim,” Rubinstein said, referring to Chabad’s outreach to less observant Jews, such as the practice of Chabad emissaries asking New Yorkers on the street if they are Jewish during Sukkot and inviting them to shake the lulav.
Rubinstein said the experience of representing and reaching out to other Jewish New Yorkers via the Nordstrom campaign felt very similar. “It’s an honor,” he said.
Alongside the ads, Rubinstein collaborated with Nordstrom to design two handmade, luxury menorahs in the shape of a car and a truck that can be purchased on Nordstrom’s website for a cool $585 and $800 each.
Mordechai Rubinstein and Sara Brown-Rubinstein live in Greenpoint with their daughter Isabella and are committed to creating a Jewish life for her. (Courtesy of Nordstrom)
The couple also curated their ideal holiday entertaining items on Nordstrom’s website, including menorahs, cutlery, dishes, and other gifts and shared their Hanukkah traditions with Nordstrom, which include making a latke recipe courtesy of Rubinstein’s sister, Chani.
Now that the eight-day holiday is officially here, the family, just like in year’s past, will light their own menorahs; eat latkes, sufganiyot and gelt; and spend time with family and friends at Hanukkah parties.
Though they have worked with Nordstrom before on a Father’s Day campaign, this is the first time the Rubinsteins have showcased their Jewish identity in such a public, outward-facing way.
“I’m like, very Jewy — I’m the most Jewish,” Rubinstein said. “I love sharing when I’m in Crown Heights with my family, or on Jewish holidays and stuff, I try to share as much as I can. But it’s not often that I get to incorporate it into work — like, never.”
“A big part of my work is documenting and capturing how people wear their clothes, so I’ll put up pictures [on Instagram] if I’m in Crown Heights or Hasidic Brooklyn. I’ll definitely photograph and post from there. But as far as modeling in a campaign like this, it’s something I’ve never really done. To be able to wear a yarmulke [in a campaign] is brand new,” he added.
Interestingly, unlike many American department stores — Macy’s, Neiman-Marcus, Bloomingdales and Bergdorf Goodman, to name a few — Nordstrom does not have Jewish roots. Founded in Seattle 1901 by Swedish immigrants who made their first fortune during the Alaskan gold rush, Nordstrom has been expanding ever since. They opened a seven-story flagship store on 57th and Broadway at the end of 2019.
“We’re proud to be a part of the community,” Godfrey said. “We’re particularly excited about the way this campaign is showing up in New York City and have received positive feedback from customers and local New Yorkers who are seeing the images on billboards, in the subway and on buses.”
For the couple, who met at a concert at now-closed Hiro Ballroom in 2007, the reactions to the ad from friends, family and strangers have also been their favorite part of the experience — a teacher at Isabella’s school called with excitement after seeing the family’s photos on the subway. Even strangers have taken to posting and tagging Rubinstein on Instagram when they see spot the ad.
“It’s really been very heartwarming, so many we haven’t spoken to in a long time have reached out,” Brown-Rubinstein said.
The family hasn’t seen the ad all together yet — Brown-Rubinstein and Isabella rarely take the subway — but Rubinstein said he travels on the train specifically so he can see it. “All I want is to get my family in front of the picture of ourselves on a city bus framed,” he said.
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Unarmed man who tackled Bondi Beach Hanukkah attacker identified as Ahmed al-Ahmed
(JTA) — Viral video circulating after the Bondi Beach Hanukkah attack showed an unarmed man racing toward one of the shooters and tackling him from behind before wrestling the gun from his hands.
The man has been identified as Ahmed al-Ahmed, the operator of a fruit stand in a Sydney suburb who happened to be in the area. He was shot twice but expected to survive.
“He is a hero, 100%,” a relative who identified himself as Mustafa told 7News Australia.
Chris Minns, the premier of New South Wales, the Australian state that includes Sydney, called the footage “the most unbelievable scene I’ve ever seen.”
He added, “That man is a genuine hero, and I’ve got no doubt that there are many, many people alive tonight as a result of his bravery.”
At least 11 people were killed during the attack on a Hanukkah celebration on Sunday night, with dozens of others injured.
The video shows al-Ahmed crouching behind a car before running up behind the shooter. After taking hold of the gun, al-Ahmed aims the attacker’s gun at him but not firing, as a second attacker fired on him from a nearby footbridge. No other first responders are visible in the video.
Moments after al-Ahmed takes hold of the long gun, a second person joins him. Then a man wearing a kippah and tzitzit, the fringes worn by religiously observant Jewish men, runs into the picture and toward the attacker, who is wearing a backpack. The Jewish man throws something at the attacker. The video does not make clear what was thrown or whether it hit its intended target.
After taking hold of the gun, al-Ahmed puts it down against a tree and raises his hand, apparently signaling that he is not a participant in the attack.
In his response to the attack, which killed a prominent Chabad rabbi among others, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese praised “everyday Australians who, without hesitating, put themselves in danger in order to keep their fellow Australians safe.” He added, “These Australians are heroes and their bravery has saved lives.”
The post Unarmed man who tackled Bondi Beach Hanukkah attacker identified as Ahmed al-Ahmed appeared first on The Forward.
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Bondi Beach witnesses, including antisemitism activist, describe grim scene after Hanukkah attack
(JTA) — Arsen Ostrovsky moved back to Australia from Israel two weeks ago to helm the Sydney office of AIJAC, the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council.
On Sunday, he was one of scores of people shot during an attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach. At least 11 people were killed, as well as one of the attackers.
Ostrovsky, who grew up in Sydney after leaving the Soviet Union as a child, was injured in the head and treated at the scene.
“It was actually chaos. We didn’t know what was happening, where the gunfire was coming from. I saw blood gushing from me. I saw people hit, saw people fall to the ground,” he told a local news station, his head bandaged with blood visible on his face and clothing. “My only concern was, where are my kids? Where are my kids? Where’s my wife, where’s my family?”
He said he had been briefly separated from his family before finding them safe. But he had seen
“I saw children falling to the floor, I saw elderly, I saw invalids,” he said. “It was an absolute bloodbath, blood gushing everywhere.”
The attack struck at a centerpiece of Jewish community in Sydney, home to an estimated 40,000 Jews, nearly half of Australia’s total Jewish population. At least 1,000 people had turned up for the beachside celebration on the first night of Hanukkah.
“There were people dead everywhere, young, old, rabbi — they’re all dead,” Vlad, a Jewish chaplain with the State Emergency Service, told a local TV station. “And then two people died while we’re trying to save them, because the ambulance didn’t arrive on time.”
He said the people who died were an elderly woman who had been shot in the leg and an “older gentleman” who was shot in the head.
“It’s not just people, it’s people that I know, people from our community, people that we know well, people that we see often,” said Vlad, who had covered his 8-year-old son with his body during the attack. “My rabbi is dead.”
The rabbi who was killed, Eli Schlanger, moved to Bondi Beach as an emissary of the Chabad movement 18 years ago. He was the father of five children, including a son born two months ago.
“He wasn’t some distant figure. He was the guy staying up late planning the logistics for a Menorah lighting that most people will take for granted. The one stressing about the weather. The one making sure there were enough latkes and the kids weren’t bored,” wrote Eli Tewel, another Chabad emissary, on X.
“He was just doing his job. Showing up. Being the constant, reliable presence for his community,” Tewel added. “And that’s where the gut punch lands: He was killed while doing the most basic, kindest, most normal part of our lives. It wasn’t a battlefield. It was a Chanukah party.”
The post Bondi Beach witnesses, including antisemitism activist, describe grim scene after Hanukkah attack appeared first on The Forward.
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I grew up believing Australia was the best place to be Jewish. This Hanukkah shooting forces a reckoning I do not want.
I grew up believing that Australia was one of the best places on earth to be Jewish. This country always felt like a gift: Extraordinary beaches, glorious wildlife, and a cultural temperament that values fairness and ease over hierarchy. For most of my life, my Jewishness in Australia was unremarkable. My parents and grandparents chose this place because it promised normality, and for a long time, it delivered.
So when I heard that there had been a mass shooting at Bondi Beach, at a Hanukkah event, my body reacted before my mind could catch up.
Gun violence is almost unthinkable in Australia. The country limited gun ownership after the Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania in 1996, when we made collective choices about who we wanted to be as a nation. That a shooting could happen here, and that Jews were the target, feels like a rupture in something we believed was settled.
At the time I write this, at least 11 people are dead, including a rabbi. Dozens more are injured. I recognise some of the names being circulated in prayer groups.
Rising antisemitism in Australia
Historically, being Jewish in Australia was not something that required vigilance, it was something you simply were.
Since October 7, that certainty has begun to fray. I have had the persistent feeling that something fundamental has shifted, and that the country I love is becoming less recognisable to me.
Many in Australia’s Jewish community mark Oct. 9, 2023 as the moment the ground moved beneath our feet. The protest outside the Sydney Opera House, where there were open chants of “Where’s the Jews” and “F–k the Jews,” at one of our country’s most iconic sites, with no arrests and no charges, felt like a breaking point.
The months since have been relentless with Jewish Australians assaulted, hateful graffiti, doxxing, Jewish businesses targeted, and a steady drip of hostility that causes us to question whether something is irreversibly changing for Jews in this country.
We have repeatedly reached out to our government, telling them that we do not feel safe. And yet, it has often felt as though these concerns are met with procedural gestures like more security funding, that never quite reach the level of protection and reassurance we are seeking.
When Australia wants to take a zero-tolerance approach to anything, it does so with gusto, ask anyone who lived here during the COVID-19 pandemic. Australian Jews do not feel that the Australian government is taking its approach to antisemitism as seriously as it should.
And so, here we are.
Bondi Beach now symbolizes death and disaster
Images of bodies on Bondi Beach are now seared into my mind. Bondi, the shorthand for Australian ease and sunlight and openness, has become a shrine to death and disaster for Australian Jews.
For most of my life, being a Jewish Australian has felt like a profound blessing. Today I feel something colder. I find myself asking questions that feel both irrational and unavoidable.
Is it foolish to stay in a country where Jews can be killed in public for lighting Hanukkah candles? Am I clinging to a story about Australia that no longer matches reality? Is it naive to assume that Jewish life here will stabilise, rather than continue to narrow?
These thoughts are frightening, but what frightens me more is how practical they suddenly feel. I am a parent, and I take my children to community events. The idea that attending a Hanukkah celebration could be a life-threatening decision is not something I ever imagined I would have to consider in Australia.
This moment forces a reckoning I do not want. It asks whether Jewish belonging in Australia is conditional. Whether safety is fragile. Whether the country my ancestors chose, and that I still love deeply, is willing and able to protect Jewish life.
As I type these words I feel grief not just for the dead tonight, but for a version of Australia that felt solid and reliable, alongside a growing fear that something essential about the way Jews have always lived in this country has already been lost.
The post I grew up believing Australia was the best place to be Jewish. This Hanukkah shooting forces a reckoning I do not want. appeared first on The Forward.