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This Jewish couple ended their three-country wedding tour with a colorful Oaxacan ceremony

(JTA) — For the third of their three weddings, Hallie Applebaum and Elan Raffel set up a chuppah in Oaxaca, the Mexican city where they first confessed their love for each other.

Oaxaca is a vibrant hub of Mexican folk art and incredible food, but Jewish life? Not so much. Nonetheless the couple chose there to wed in an egalitarian Jewish ceremony led by the groom’s sister, Libby Smoler, on Feb 26. And when seven family members and friends gave their own interpretations of the seven traditional blessings, one of Applebaum’s sisters wished them a lifetime of adventures and delicious meals.

The wedding came just over three years after the pair met — online, from their parents’ houses early in the pandemic.

Applebaum’s parents weren’t subtle about wading into her dating life after she moved home to Portland, Maine, in early 2020, the only one of their four children to do so. Her father showed her a video about dating apps and her mother asked her for a demonstration.

Applebaum, 35, downloaded Hinge. The next thing she knew, her mother was hooked. “She’s swiping and swiping, and saying, ‘This is fabulous,’” Applebaum recalled, adding with a joke, “I told her, ‘You have to have some standards.’”

In Los Angeles, where Applebaum had been living, she had been focused first on her job as a producer of external communications for the educational technology division of the World Bank, and her all-consuming side project as the founder of Future of Women, which hosts breakfast events around the world and hosts a podcast for women leaders.

But in her childhood home, with no timeline for when life would resume, she decided to dive into dating, drawing on her extensive experiences living and traveling abroad to experiment with what would generate the most promising results.

“I put my location as different places, like Mexico City or London, for the fun of it,” she said. “When we were so isolated, to have contact with people in these places was nice. But, then, I put myself in a more realistic location.”

That location was New York City, where she soon encountered Raffel, an attorney in the tech industry.

Elan Raffel breaks the glass during his wedding ceremony with Hallie Applebaum, in Oaxaca, Mexico, Feb. 26, 2023. (Mónica Godefroy)

The pair matched and soon learned that they had a lot in common. Like Applebaum, Raffel had moved back in with his parents at the start of the pandemic — in his case Pikesville, a heavily Jewish suburb of Baltimore. Both had attended Jewish day schools growing up; both had spent time living abroad (Applebaum in Guatemala, Ecuador and while pursuing a master’s degree at the London School of Economics and Raffel in his mother’s native Israel); and both enjoyed fine food and off-the-beaten-path adventures.

After months of phone calls and probing conversations — some fueled by “The 36 Questions that Lead to Love” as appeared in The New York Times — they decided that Raffel would join Applebaum for a camping trip in Maine’s Acadia National Park.

“We had an out,” Raffel recalled. “If either of us had a terrible experience, we could back out.”

That wasn’t needed. Instead, they extended their time together — after kicking it off with an unplanned first meeting for Raffel with Applebaum’s parents when she forgot a cooler of food at their house.

“We joke that our first date was two weeks long,” said Raffel.

Soon after, Applebaum met Raffel’s family for Rosh Hashanah dinner. Then, Raffel rented a home in Los Angeles after Applebaum returned there.

With remote work the norm, and a few months dating now behind them, they began considering living and working elsewhere. They decided on Mexico, spending one month in Merida and one month in Oaxaca.

With its vibrant food scene and colorful arts and culture, the couple both fell in love with Oaxaca, and with each other. It was there that they first said, “I love you.”

Hallie Applebaum and Elan Raffel pose with dancers who joined their public wedding procession in Oaxaca. (Mónica Godefroy)

They returned to Mexico in the summer of 2022 while their new condo in Santa Monica was undergoing renovations; it was there that they became engaged. They now regularly host Shabbat dinners in their L.A. home through the nonprofit OneTable.

The first of their three wedding ceremonies took place on Sept. 30, 2022, when they were legally married at the Los Angeles County Courthouse.

The next event took place in Israel, where Raffel’s mother had long hoped that one of her three children would marry. He was her last hope, so the couple said yes to what they thought would be a small wedding there planned by her.

But Shuli Raffel’s plans grew larger and larger, until finally, Applebaum’s parents decided to come and her London-based sister, too. Rabbi Shira Levine of Kibbutz Hanaton, rooted in the Conservative movement of Judaism, officiated a religious ceremony on Oct. 14 at Bistro de Carmel in Zichron Ya’akov with 90 guests present.

Hallie Applebaum and Elan Raffel held one wedding ceremony in Israel, where Raffel’s mother is from. (Taylor Applebaum)

Levine had guided the couple via video calls in writing their own text for the Jewish wedding contract, the ketubah.

“We spoke to the rabbi about ​our relationship, our household, and how do we make this concrete and what traditional things do we want to modify and make more egalitarian,” Applebaum said, adding, “Since I do a lot of work in women’s empowerment, it was important to me to have a woman rabbi.”

Then, over Thanksgiving weekend, the couple held an Israeli brunch in Philadelphia, attended by their grandmothers — Applebaum’s is 102 — who would not be traveling to Mexico. From there, they flew directly to Oaxaca for a menu tasting, where, because Applebaum is vegetarian, it fell to Raffel to try all the fish and meat options they might offer their guests.

The couple returned to Oaxaca for the main affair — a multi-day event that included a day-long tour to a facility where mezcal, a Oaxacan spirit, is made; visits to craftspeople; and two nights of dinners.

On Feb. 26, they had their third and final wedding in front of 72 guests at Cardenal Oaxaca, an events venue. Spicy pineapple mezcal cocktails kicked off the celebration, and a festive meal that won accolades even from foodie guests followed the ceremony.

At their Oaxaca wedding, Hallie Applebaum and Elan Raffel served guests a native corn milk epazote sponge cake with lime cream. (Hallie Applebaum)

“It was amazing,” said Ori Zohar, a guest who is also the co-founder of spice company Burlap & Barrel. “The wedding meal was a procession of Mexican and Oaxacan specialties with an international twist. Beets were grilled and paired with pumpkin seeds and pickled mustard seeds. Duck enchiladas came slathered in a black mole sauce and aged cheese. The main dishes were shared plates, so each guest got to try a little of everything before going back and polishing off the rest of their favorite.”

In one highlight of the day, the couple partook in a local custom where tall likenesses of the couple are made out of paper maché and carried, and people toast the bride and groom. It was, Applebaum said, a perfect way to show off a beloved place to their friends and family.

“Our guests went from this beautiful ceremony that his sister put together,” she said, “to being immersed in this celebration in the streets.”

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The post This Jewish couple ended their three-country wedding tour with a colorful Oaxacan ceremony appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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Amnesty International Finally Acknowledged Israeli Victims, and the Media Looked Away

Partygoers at the Supernova Psy-Trance Festival who filmed the events that unfolded on Oct. 7, 2023. Photo: Yes Studios

Two years. That is how long it took Amnesty International, one of the world’s supposedly leading human rights organizations, to formally acknowledge in a report that on October 7, 2023, Hamas committed horrific crimes against the Jewish people and the State of Israel.

These are facts Jews did not need Amnesty to discover. The mass murder, sexual violence, hostage-taking, and brutality were documented in real time. The evidence existed. The testimonies existed. The crimes were undeniable and should have been reported immediately by any organization claiming to defend human rights.

Instead, Amnesty chose a different path. From the outset, it framed Israel as the primary aggressor while sidelining, minimizing, or delaying acknowledgment of the atrocities committed against Israelis.

Worse still, just one year after the massacre, Amnesty released a report accusing Israel of committing genocide. To reach that conclusion, the organization stretched and distorted the definition of genocide, while conspicuously avoiding any serious accounting of how many Hamas terrorists were killed in the fighting. The result was not rigorous human rights reporting, but a document shaped to fit a predetermined narrative.

For Amnesty International, evidence mattered less than preserving a false genocide narrative. When irrefutable proof of crimes against humanity committed on October 7 surfaced, the organization chose silence. The reason is obvious: acknowledging those crimes would have disrupted the carefully constructed narrative designed to strip Israel of international sympathy.

A report detailing Hamas’ crimes was originally scheduled for release in September 2025. Its publication was delayed after internal opposition within Amnesty International, with critics reportedly arguing that even a belated acknowledgment of Hamas’ atrocities might benefit Israel in the court of public opinion, particularly given its proximity to ongoing ceasefire negotiations.

Amnesty International presents itself as an impartial humanitarian organization committed to defending all victims of human rights abuses. Yet this episode reveals how internal politics were allowed to override that mandate. Israeli victims were acknowledged only when doing so could be carefully timed and controlled to avoid disrupting a preferred narrative. That selective moral calculus further erodes the organization’s already questionable credibility and claims of impartiality.

Even with the delay, the mere fact that a major human rights organization had finally documented the crimes committed against Israelis should have been newsworthy in its own right.

Instead, many of the same media outlets that rushed to amplify Amnesty’s deeply flawed genocide accusation against Israel have remained conspicuously silent about its report detailing the crimes against humanity Israelis suffered on October 7.

The contrast is difficult to ignore — and speaks volumes about which victims are deemed worthy of attention, and which are not.

Major outlets, including CNN, the BBC, The Washington Post, and the Associated Press, remained silent on Amnesty International’s new report, despite immediately amplifying its genocide accusation just one year earlier.

Had the media outlets that so eagerly promoted Amnesty’s deeply flawed genocide report been committed to basic journalistic standards, they would have rigorously examined its distortions and misuse of the term genocide. At the very least, they would have also reported on Amnesty’s documentation of Israeli victims. Their refusal to do so tells a disturbing story: one in which editorial judgment determines not only which stories are told, but which victims are allowed to exist at all.

When human rights organizations and newsrooms decide whose suffering deserves recognition — and when that recognition is granted only if it is politically convenient — they do more than mishandle a single report. They corrode public trust, hollow out the principles they claim to defend, and turn the language of human rights into a tool of selective erasure.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.

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The Missing Context: Media Distort the West Bank Terror Threat

Illustrative: Palestinians run during clashes with Israeli forces amid an Israeli military operation in Jenin, in the West Bank July 3, 2023. REUTERS/Raneen Sawafta

Compared to the terror threats emanating from numerous fronts, including Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran, the international media often downplays or dismisses the dangers Israel faces from the West Bank.

After the October 7 massacre, Hamas made no effort to hide its intentions to open a front in the West Bank, calling on Palestinians to take up arms against Israel.

In 2024, Israel faced over 18,000 incidents of terrorism, according to the National Public Diplomacy Directorate. The Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, thwarted 1,040 incidents in the West Bank and Jerusalem in 2024, with an additional 231 significant terror incidents reported.

In 2025, the threat persisted. In February 2025, a terrorist from the Nablus area of the West Bank triggered a series of explosions on buses in the Tel Aviv area. Fortunately, the explosives detonated when the buses were empty, causing no injuries.

In September, a deadly terror attack at the Ramot Junction in Jerusalem killed six innocent people and injured 21 others. The terrorists came from the West Bank.

On November 29, a terrorist hurled an iron rod at the windshield of a car on Route 5, a highway in the northern West Bank. Miraculously, no one was physically injured, but the incident underscores the threat targeting Israelis.

The security challenge is real and ongoing. It targets Israelis, no matter where in the country they are.

After the ceasefire went into effect in the Gaza Strip in October, analysts found that Hamas and other terrorist organizations began reorganizing their operations in the West Bank as a way to continue their so-called “resistance.”

For these reasons, on November 26, the IDF launched Operation Five Stones, a counterterrorism operation specifically aimed at countering threats in the northern West Bank.

Naturally, terrorist groups condemned the operation. That didn’t stop the AFP from reiterating the press releases from Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Counter-terrorism efforts by the IDF have proven successful.

In the first nine months of 2025, 22 terrorism incidents were carried out by Palestinian terrorists from the West Bank, in comparison to 90 in 2024. With the launch of the new operation, the IDF is strategically operating in specific locations in the West Bank that have become hotspots tied to previous terror attacks, including Jenin, Tulkarm, Nur Shams, Tubas, and Tammun.

These cities and villages have become operational hubs for Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other Iranian-backed groups, producing everything from roadside bombs to shooting cells to coordinated plots targeting Israeli civilians across the country.

Me’ata, a Palestinian media center, claimed that in October 2025, there were 356 “popular resistance actions” in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, including 16 incidents of planting and detonating explosive devices, mainly in the Jenin and Tubas areas. One of those explosions in Tubas left two IDF soldiers injured.

Jenin is perhaps the media’s favorite West Bank location to cover, consistently referring to it as the “martyrs’ capital.” What most outlets leave out, however, is that the name reflects the city’s role as the origin for more than one-third of terrorist attacks during the Second Intifada. The next time you read “martyrs’ capital,” know that the journalist is really referring to terrorism.

The IDF began intensively operating in Jenin in January 2025, following a terrorist attack carried out by terrorists from the Jenin area that left three Israelis dead.

During the current operation in Jenin, the IDF eliminated two terrorists claimed by Islamic Jihad. The shooting was documented on film, and an investigation into whether the officers took the correct action to mitigate harm to themselves has been launched, as is proper in a case where there are questions over whether individuals violated the IDF’s rules of engagement and code of conduct.

Several major outlets, including CNN, The Guardian, and The Washington Post, however, reported the incident without stating in the headline that the two individuals killed were not ordinary Palestinian civilians. but terrorists. This omission leaves readers with a distorted impression of the event and obscures the context of ongoing terrorist activity in Jenin.

Sky News went so far as to suggest the two were not terrorists at all.

The terrorist threat Israel faces from the West Bank is not theoretical or isolated, nor did it disappear after the October 7 terrorist attacks. Had the IDF not continuously acted to prevent further attacks, Israelis would be facing a far deadlier and more coordinated terrorism campaign today.

After October 7, Israel vowed never again to let the country or the Jewish people face such devastation and insecurity. A secure Israel after that massacre means dismantling terror networks before they can carry out mass-casualty attacks, not after. It means denying Hamas and Islamic Jihad the ability to embed in civilian areas, build explosives factories, or dispatch terrorists into Israeli cities. In a post-October 7 reality, counterterrorism is not optional. It is the prerequisite for any genuine stability, security, or peace.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.

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Will Mamdani and His Support for Israel Boycotts Make New York Less Affordable?

New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani holds a press conference at the Unisphere in the Queens borough of New York City, US, Nov. 5, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kylie Cooper

Mayor-elect Zohran Mandani’s vocal support of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement is an announcement to the world that New York City is no longer a place that values entrepreneurship, innovation, art, and research carried out and supported by Israeli companies, companies that engage with Israel, and people who study and teach at Israeli universities. 

A case in point is Mamdani’s early targeting of Cornell Tech in 2020 as a State Assemblyman. Mamdani apparently believes that he has been given a dual mandate by New Yorkers: to make New York City more affordable and to engage in economic warfare against the state of Israel.

These two objectives are fundamentally inconsistent. Israeli commerce, research, science, and art are deeply cemented into New York City. If Mamdani decides to take a wrecking ball to this ecosystem, he will make New York City less affordable, not more affordable. Entrepreneurs and venture capitalists count on a government that will respect and defend property rights against bias and bigotry. They will factor the costs of the BDS movement into their business decisions.

In 2025, the Calcalist “Mind the Tech NY” conference was held for the ninth time in New York City. The conference focused on the “challenges facing the Israeli high-tech industry and the global tech sector.” Experts discussed the “potential synergy between artificial intelligence and human ingenuity.” Dr. Maya Sapir-Mir, the CEO and co-Founder of PoloPo, gave a session on “Revolutionizing Protein Production for the Food Industry.” PoloPo grows protein-rich potatoes at scale. It would be harmful to New York City in both the short and long term if Mamdani decided to discourage these events, which offer economic and social benefits that extend far beyond New York City.

On May 19, 2025, Mayor Eric Adams and the Israeli Minister of Economy and Industry Nir Barkat, signed a declaration of intent to establish the New York City-Israel Economic Council. The objective of the council is to: “facilitate business partnerships between New York City and Israeli companies; support Israeli businesses looking to establish a presence in New York City; promote collaboration in key technological sectors, including environmental innovation, life sciences, and artificial intelligence; and coordinate participation in major business and technology conferences.” If there was ever an anti-BDS move, this was it. Mamdani will likely disband the council. 

Another target of Mamdani in his BDS campaign is likely to be the overturning of Executive Order 52 (EO) signed by Mayor Adams in 2025. This EO requires all city agencies to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. Abandoning the IHRA definition of antisemitism is an attempt by Mamdani to drive a wedge between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. He is committed to redefine antisemitism so that he is free to advocate for the elimination of Israel as the Jewish state without being called antisemitic. 

Another target of Mamdani in his quest to promote the cause of BDS could be Executive Order number 60 — “Procurement and Investment Decisions Relating to Israel and Israeli Citizens,” signed by Mayor Adams on December 2, 2025. This executive order prevents city agencies from discriminating against Israeli companies in their procurement decisions. If Mamdani seeks to revoke Executive Order 60 or defund the New York City-Israel Economic Council, it may activate New York State Executive Order 157, which prohibits New York State from investing in any institution or company involved in BDS activities or encouraging such actions. This would require the State of New York to cease financing any New York City agencies which are complicit in the BDS campaign. But given that Governor Kathy Hochul is a Mamdani ally, this seems unlikely. 

The newly elected comptroller of New York City, Mark Levine, may be another barricade to Mamdani’s BDS aspirations. He has stated that he will not pursue the divestment of NYC pension funds from assets linked to the Israeli government and Israeli companies, and will reinvest NYC pension fund assets in Israeli Bonds. 

Mamdani knows quite well that the intent of the BDS movement is not a two-state solution, but rather a one state solution premised on the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state. Mamdani himself has stated he doesn’t think Israel should be a Jewish state. And he might use his new position to try to bring about that reality. 

Charles A. Stone is a Business Professor at Brooklyn College, CUNY.

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