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This Jewish non-profit in Brooklyn helps refugees furnish their new homes
(New York Jewish Week) – When S., a Pakistani refugee, finally moved to a stable living situation in New York City, there was still one thing missing: furniture.
S. had left Pakistan for New York hoping to provide a better, healthier life for her younger brother R., who has Down syndrome. After a year of moving around the city, applying for asylum and trying to get on her feet, S. — who asked that her name not be used while the rest of her family waits for their asylum cases to be approved — found a room in a semi-basement apartment in Jamaica, Queens in March 2022.
But even though they had a roof over their heads, S., 44, and R. hardly had any household items to their names. Instead of beds, for example, they slept on a shared rug on the floor.
Enter Ruth’s Refuge. The Brooklyn-based Jewish non-profit aims to provide New York’s refugee community with items needed to help jumpstart their new lives and fill their homes. The organization helped S. and R. secure many household essentials both large and small, from mugs to furniture.
“It’s one thing if you’re going to drop something on a doorstep; it’s another to bring every single thing into my house and help me set it up,” S. told the New York Jewish Week about the assistance she got from Ruth’s Refuge. “We cannot do much because it’s only me and R. But they did everything — every single thing. To be very honest, I’m really blessed.”
Ruth’s Refuge emerged from a task force at Congregation Beth Elohim in Park Slope that started in 2016 as a response to an influx of refugees fleeing Syria. Since then, they’ve expanded to a team of 120 volunteers and three full-time staff dedicated to meeting the needs of the thousands of refugees arriving in New York — first from Syria, then from Afghanistan, South and Central America and Ukraine. Last year, Ruth’s Refuge furnished over 100 households, providing more than $150,000 worth of furnishings and home goods, mostly accumulated from individual donations.
“I grew up embedded in the Jewish community and very much raised with the concept of ‘never again,’” said Leah Cover, the organization’s founder and executive director. “I always viewed that in a very universal way, that ‘never again’ meant for anybody, not just the Jewish people.”
“The idea that you would have this kind of thing repeating itself when we built the refugee system in response to the Holocaust, primarily, and then to have it just completely break down when it was most needed again was just really horrifying to watch,” she added.
Ruth’s Refuge joins a cadre of other Jewish-aligned organizations that endeavor to create softer landings for refugees in New York. Among them are Masbia, which has been meeting arriving migrants at Port Authority Bus Terminal with shoes, clothing and food, and New Neighbors Partnership, which matches incoming refugee families with small children with a New York-based family to receive clothing, toys and advice. HIAS, one of the largest refugee resettlement agencies in the country, was founded in New York City in 1902 to aid incoming Jewish refugees fleeing persecution and pogroms in Eastern Europe.
Cover said watching the worldwide response to the Syrian refugee crisis animated her to start the refugee task force at the Reform synagogue and eventually found Ruth’s Refuge — named for the biblical figure Ruth, who was welcomed as a stranger and integrated into the community. “One of the very heartening things in starting the refugee task force was just seeing how much the Jewish community wanted to be involved in a response to this and making sure that we lived our values,” she said.
At first, Cover and other volunteers fielded a lot of “ad hoc requests,” she said. Over time, resettlement agencies began to rely upon her team more and more, especially to help with apartment setups — including managing donations of homegoods, renting U-Hauls to transport them and assisting with building furniture.
Ruth’s Refuge became its own independent 501(c)(3) organization in the spring of 2019. These days, they work with a number of resettlement agencies, primarily HIAS, Catholic Charities, International Rescue Committee and Queer Detainee Empowerment Project.
Once asylum seekers have secured permanent housing, Ruth’s Refuge will assign each family a volunteer who acts as a personal shopper. Generally there is no limit to the amount of furniture a family can pick out — as long as it fits in their home, although for certain items like dish sets and TVs, Ruth’s Refuge can usually only provide one per family, Cover said.
The items, housed in storage units in Gowanus, are then packed up and delivered all over the city by teams of volunteers.
Kathy Fenelly, a retired professor of public policy and immigration policy, is one such volunteer. “I’ve worked on advising immigrants on immigration policy for a number of years,” she said. “But this is the first [organization] I’ve ever seen that has such a focused and specific mission to work with immigrants and refugees in order to be sure that they have the basics that they need in their apartments.”
Fenelly has been a part of the organization since it was founded at CBE, and said its mission strongly reflects the Jewish value of welcoming the stranger. “Everyday, I get to say, ‘Welcome to New York. I’m really happy that you’re here,’” she said.
As for S., Ruth’s Refuge helped her and R. secure a hair dryer, soap, towels and a table. Their modest room wasn’t big enough for two beds, so a bunk bed was ordered on Amazon and volunteers helped build the furniture when it arrived.
A group of volunteers from Ruth’s Refuge smile in front of a U-Haul van hired to bring furniture and household goods to a refugee family. (Courtesy Ruth’s Refuge)
S. had left Pakistan in February 2021 with R. with the intent to visit Chicago, where her father had relatives, and then New York, which she had visited before. She had planned to stay a few weeks; traveling with her brother, she assumed it would be a harrowing journey — in Pakistan, she said, her brother’s Down syndrome was often met with contempt, anger and confusion.
Here in the United States, however, S. was surprised by the degree of acceptance, warmth and respect shown to her brother. That’s why she came to believe immigration was necessary: As S. told the New York Jewish Week, she felt her and her brother’s lives were at stake, so she applied for asylum in April 2021.
S. learned their asylum applications were approved at the end of October 2022. Catholic Charities then helped S. and R. get IDs, Social Security numbers and health care, and also provided a few hundred dollars a month to help them get on her feet.
These days, S. works as a home health aide. “It’s becoming home,” she said. “It’s surprising because I was raised in Pakistan, but I never felt like this in my country.”
Left behind in Pakistan are her husband, two other brothers and her 21-year-old son. But her son’s asylum application was approved last month, she said, and she thinks her husband’s will be soon as well, so she’s optimistic they’ll be able to join her in New York later this year.
“I buy things [now] because I can save the money for it,” S. said. “But the first step was Catholic Charities and the second step was Ruth’s Refuge.”
“I’m very, very satisfied in the United States,” she added. “I’m very blessed.”
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The post This Jewish non-profit in Brooklyn helps refugees furnish their new homes appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Purim gets creative in Israel, with festivities driven underground
TEL AVIV, Israel — On the corner of a sun-bleached side street in Tel Aviv’s Shuk Levinsky, costumed mannequins stand guard over a half-dark shop, their painted eyes fixed on a street gone strangely still. Cardboard boxes of sequined capes and feathered wings spill onto the sidewalk, untouched. The neighboring businesses are shuttered, heavy padlocks fastened across their metal doors.
On any weekday, the quiet would feel unusual in this bustling pocket of south Tel Aviv. But this is Purim week — normally the market’s most frenetic stretch of the year. In ordinary times, the sidewalks would be clogged with parents and teenagers clamoring for last-minute costume details, with vendors shouting prices over the din.
That was precisely the scene just 48 hours earlier, on the Friday before the Purim madness was set to begin. Despite weeks of speculation about a looming confrontation with Iran, most Israelis pressed ahead with their plans. Hamentaschen were baked, school carnivals assembled, parties confirmed. A meme circulated in school group chats: “Can someone let us know if we are supposed to be buying costumes or canned goods?”
Early Saturday morning, an answer came via the piercing trill of the emergency alert system. The United States and Israel had begun what officials described as “preemptive strikes” against Iran. Within hours, thousands of reservists were called up. Citizens scrambled for shelter plans. WhatsApp groups filled with instructions and anxieties. And as Iran launched retaliatory rockets, Israelis absorbed a different blow: Purim was officially canceled.
Hence, the shuk’s current ghost town atmosphere. Inside the darkened shop, Rotem Avidan sat at the register, scrolling on his phone.
“There’s no real reason to be open,” he said. “Mostly I was just bored at home. I’ll probably close up in a couple of hours.”
Avidan has been selling costumes in the shuk for more than 15 years and relies heavily on Purim sales. The day before the holiday is typically his busiest of the year. Instead, he estimates he’ll make about 80% of his usual income.
“It’s not terrible,” he said with a shrug. “But it’s just one more irregular year. We had corona. We had two years of war. This was supposed to be the year things finally went back to normal.”
The past two Purims were indeed subdued, shadowed by the war in Gaza and the fight to bring hostages home. Even celebrations that went ahead felt muted. With the last living hostages returned in October, many had hoped this would finally be an uncomplicated holiday.
To fully grasp why the cancellation hit so hard, one must understand Purim in Israel. This is not a single-event celebration. It is a multi-day spectacle that spills from nursery school classrooms into city streets. Municipal adloyadas — elaborate parades with floats and marching bands — draw families by the thousands. Teenagers roam in coordinated group costumes. It is not uncommon to find yourself seated on a bus beside an elderly woman in full clown makeup, or handed paperwork at the bank by a teller wearing butterfly wings.
None of which would be happening this year.
Children feel the loss most acutely. For many, Purim is the highlight of the school calendar: themed dress-up days, costume parades, parent-run carnivals, and the exchange of mishloach manot before a three-day vacation. On Sunday morning, children across the country woke to the bad news.
Teachers scrambled to salvage what they could. Virtual parades were arranged over Zoom. Students were asked to send photos in costume. Mishloach manot became neighborhood drop-offs.
In some cases, the children made their own Purim joy. In one Tel Aviv apartment building, the kids organized a costume party, complete with printed invitations for guests. Playgrounds around the country — at least those equipped with shelters — were filled with rambunctious children dressed as superheroes and princesses, their bleary-eyed parents dragging slightly behind them.
If children are Purim’s most visible protagonists, they are hardly its only devotees. For young adults, the holiday is the high point of Israel’s nightlife calendar — a sanctioned blur of themed raves and packed bars. This year, the bomb shelter became a stand-in for the nightclub.
Within hours of the first rocket fire, twentysomethings in Tel Aviv’s Florentin neighborhood had organized an impromptu party in a public shelter, complete with makeshift costumes and an amateur DJ. When video of the event went viral, social media flooded with young people asking about the nearest mesibat miklat — a “shelter party.”
Not everyone approved.
“Wow. How disconnected can you be?” one commenter wrote. “People have been killed and you can’t give up your Purim party for one year?”
By nightfall, hundreds had gathered — some in small, shared building shelters for private parties, others in larger municipal bunkers — determined to carve out a pocket of joy, even as Iranian missiles soared overhead.
Shahar Rubin, 24, hadn’t planned on going to a party when he and his friends noticed a stream of people heading into the Dizengoff Center parking garage. “We figured, why not?” he said.
Four stories underground, in one of the city’s largest public shelters, a DJ blasted music as costumed revelers danced beneath the fluorescent lights and exposed concrete.
“This is exactly why we come to Tel Aviv,” said Rubin, who is originally from the north. “There’s nothing like the Purim atmosphere here.”
After more than 400 days of wartime reserve duty in the Israel Defense Forces, the celebration felt like a rare exhale — and perhaps a brief one, before he is called up again. “It was a last hurrah of sorts,” he added, as he and his friends headed off in search of their next mesibat miklat.
Beyond the costumes and parties, Purim is anchored in four religious obligations: a festive meal, the exchange of food gifts, donations to the poor and — most famously — the public reading of Megillat Esther.
“According to Jewish law, men and women are required to hear the reading of the entire Megillah from a kosher scroll,” said Rabbi Nadav Berger, head of Hadar’s Beit Midrash in Jerusalem. “Because the obligation is about publicizing the miracle of Purim, there is a strong preference to do it in public, in a group of at least ten people.”
That preference became complicated as soon as Home Front Command restricted public gatherings.
By the time Shabbat ended, observant Jews were organizing small readings in private homes and shelters. Hadar put out a call for community members who owned kosher megillot.
“Owning a personal megillah isn’t as rare as owning a Torah scroll,” Berger explained. “Many people inherit one or receive one for a bar mitzvah or wedding. Hearing the Megillah in person is still our first recommendation, so we wanted to help facilitate that safely.”
For those unable to attend, Hadar is also offering Zoom options, drawing on halachic guidance developed during the pandemic. “The rulings get into the technical question of how to understand electronically transmitted sound,” Berger said. “But it goes without saying: no one is required to risk their life to hear the Megillah — or to fulfill any other Torah commandment. Safety overrides everything.”
He added: “Typically, one would perform a mitzvah all in one sequence, from beginning to end. But if a siren goes off while you are reading the megillah, it is perfectly acceptable to pause the reading, even for a few hours, until it is safe to return.”
For Berger, the tension between caution and celebration may be truer to Purim than one might expect for a holiday typically associated with pure, unadulterated joy. When he sent out Hadar’s revised Purim plans, he opened with Mordechai’s words to Esther: “Who knows. Perhaps it was for just such a moment that you attained royalty?”
“Meaning, you have to be responsible right now,” Berger explained. “You have to think about your situation and respond accordingly. That’s what we’re trying to do in light of all that’s happening.”
He went on, “If you read the Megillah, most of it is actually anxiety-provoking. It is a very tense story. The joy comes only at the end.”
“The hope,” he said, “is that this, too, is only the middle — and that Israel will once again return to celebrating Purim happily, joyously, as we do every year.”
The post Purim gets creative in Israel, with festivities driven underground appeared first on The Forward.
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Fears of Iranian Sleeper Cell Retaliation Grow in the West as Middle East War Escalates
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei listens to the national anthem as Air Force officers salute during their meeting in Tehran, Iran, Feb. 7, 2025. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Fears of Iranian-backed terrorism are intensifying across Western countries, with officials warning Iran could mobilize terrorist sleeper cells and proxy networks in revenge for the unprecedented US-Israeli strikes on Saturday that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — prompting governments to raise threat levels and bolster security for Jewish and Israeli communities abroad.
Sleeper cells are covert operatives or terrorists embedded in rival countries who remain dormant until they receive orders to act and carry out attacks.
As the war in the Middle East continues to spread and escalate, officials in Germany have warned of potential Iranian retaliation targeting Jewish and Israeli institutions nationwide, prompting several federal states to step up protections and issue alerts as threat concerns mount.
“Retaliatory measures — including the possible activation of Iranian sleeper cells in Europe — cannot be ruled out,” Marc Henrichmann, who chairs the parliamentary oversight committee of the intelligence services in Germany, told the local newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.
“The Iranian regime has repeatedly shown that it extends its use of terror beyond its own borders,” Henrichmann said. “Federal and state security authorities remain on the highest alert level and will adjust protective measures whenever necessary.”
Roman Poseck, the interior minister of the German state of Hesse, added to German outlet Die Welt that it should “be assumed that there will be an increase in the abstract threat situation, especially for Jewish, Israeli, and American institutions.”
Meanwhile, Felix Klein, the German government’s commissioner for combating antisemitism, warned to the Funke media group that, following the outbreak of conflict with Iran, “we must assume an increased threat to Jewish life in Germany.”
In France, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez also issued a heightened alert, warning of potential threats and urging regional authorities to reinforce security around Jewish places of worship.
“In light of the current international situation in the Middle East, I reiterate my instructions to remain vigilant and ask you to immediately implement enhanced security measures for Jewish places of worship and religious gatherings,” Nuñez told French newspaper Le Figaro.
The United States and Israel carried out a series of strikes on military and leadership targets across Iran — including senior officials and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders — after negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear and missile programs failed to yield results.
Shortly after reports emerged that the US–Israeli joint operation may have killed Khamenei, US President Donald Trump released a message urging Iranians to consider a future beyond the current regime and expressing guarded hope that the moment could lead to meaningful change.
The escalation came weeks after the Iranian regime killed tens of thousands of civilians in a sweeping crackdown on last month’s anti-government protests. The outbreak of fighting also followed last June’s 12-day war between Iran and Israel, which concluded after the US joined and bombed Iranian nuclear sites.
Beyond Europe, fears of Iranian retaliation are rising in the US, as counterterrorism agencies warn that additional resources are being rushed into efforts to detect and disrupt potential revenge attacks on American soil.
Although no specific credible threats have been publicly disclosed, FBI Director Kash Patel said Saturday that US counterterrorism and intelligence agencies were operating under heightened alert, with personnel “working 24/7 … to address and disrupt any potential threats” on US soil.
“While the military handles force protection overseas, the FBI remains at the forefront of deterring attacks here at home – and will continue to have our team work around the clock to protect Americans,” Patel wrote in a post on X.
Amid growing fears of possible retaliation, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem also said authorities are “in direct coordination with our federal intelligence and law enforcement partners as we continue to closely monitor and thwart any potential threats to the homeland.”
Concerns over the activation of Iran’s sleeper cells have surged even further after a deadly mass shooting in Austin, Texas involving a suspect with alleged support for the Islamist regime and a separate gun attack on the gym of an Iranian dissident in Richmond Hill, Ontario. Both incidents stoked fears of politically motivated violence linked to the broader regional crisis in the Middle East.
On Sunday, a gunman opened fire at a bar in Austin’s West Sixth Street district, killing two people and injuring 14 others before being shot and killed by police.
Authorities later reported finding a flag of the Islamic Republic and photographs of Iranian leaders inside the suspect’s apartment, deepening concerns about potential links between the attack and broader political or ideological influences.
According to the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force, there were indicators that could suggest a possible terrorism link.
In Canada, hours after the announced death of Khamenei, a boxing gym run by Iranian-Canadian dissident activist Salar Gholami was struck by gunfire overnight.
Tehran’s ability to coordinate or inspire attacks on American soil has long been a concern for US law enforcement and intelligence officials — a fear that only deepened after Trump ordered the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in 2020.
Amid the 12-day war in June, NBC News reported that Iran had privately warned the United States that it could activate sleeper cells on American soil in response to military action. While no specific plots were publicly disclosed, US authorities increased domestic security measures and intelligence monitoring in anticipation of possible attacks. Vice President JD Vance said the Trump administration was examining the possibility of an Iran-backed homeland attack “very closely.”
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‘Death to America’: Campus Student Groups Express Solidarity With Iran, Call for Uprising Against US
A pro-Hamas activist wears a keffiyeh while marching from the City University of New York to Columbia University. Photo: Eduardo Munoz via Reuters Connect
Anti-Zionist student groups across the US proclaimed solidarity with the aims of Islamism and jihad following a joint military operation between the US and Israel which killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and dozens of other high-level regime officials on Saturday.
“Death to America,” posted a group which calls itself Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) spinoff which serves as an umbrella group for a consortium of revolutionary organizations, some of which are formally recognized by the university. “We yearn for the end of the US settler colonial project. This should not be a controversial position.”
In other posts, the group shared an April 24 tweet in which Khamenei told pro-Hamas college students, who were in the middle of convulsing higher education institutions with illegal building occupations and antisemitic hate crimes, that they are “on the right side of history” and another which said “Iran has every right to defend itself against zionist [sic] warfare.”
A torrent of criticism followed the comments, leading Columbia University to denounce CUAD for falsely claiming to be a university entity.
“The group that calls itself ‘CUAD’ is not a recognized student group, or affiliated in any way with the university,” the institution said on the X social media platform, pointing to a July 2025 statement by former interim president Claire Shipman which formally proscribed any official correspondence or communication with CUAD. “There is no evidence that anyone currently in control of their account is a current Columbia student, staff, or faculty member. They are illegally using the Columbia name.”
Dr. Asaf Romirowsky, executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, said American officials should take CUAD’s rhetoric seriously.
“Cheering on Hamas and supporting Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism that has scores of American blood on their hands, surely warrants consequences,” he said. “We already have a great and sensible law on the books which says that while we welcome anyone who wishes to come here, attend university, and get an education, we do not permit people who openly support and advocate for terrorism. Actively supporting terrorism while calling for death to America and chanting ditties that advocate the annihilation of the world’s sole Jewish state should be a red line that warrants expulsion and deportation for those on student visas.”
CUAD is not the only group which denounced what the US dubbed “Operation Epic Fury.” On Sunday, New York University’s SJP chapter announced an anti-US demonstration to “demand an end to this criminal war that benefits no one other than US corporate interests.”
Meanwhile, DMVSJP, a network of SJP groups operating in Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia, implored socialists and other revolutionary groups to attend a demonstration outside the White House on Monday, charging that “another US-backed war would mean death and displacement abroad and repression at home.”
The University of Chicago’s SJP chapter cheered Iran’s retaliatory strikes against US assets in Bahrain.
Some protests have kicked off already, according to social media reports, and have seen members of Yale’s SJP chapter brandishing “Death to America” signs. Prior to the demonstration, the group parroted propaganda confected by what remained of Iran’s political leadership following this weekend’s strikes, accusing the US of “killing children, including civilians.”
In the United Kingdom, the Ahlul-Bayt Islamic Society of University College London said, “This is not the end to resistance. The Shia in the west [sic] must remain aware and ready.”
Writing to The Algemeiner on Sunday, Sabrina Soffer, research fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, said SJP’s statements are indicative of an ideology which contradicts itself.
“Even after the death of one of the Middle East’s most brutal butchers, they cannot offer even a scintilla of credit to Israel or the United States for confronting a regime that has terrorized its own people for decades,” Soffer said. “They brand themselves ‘anti-war’ yet refuse to recognize that the only genuinely anti-war force in this equation is the one dismantling the infrastructure of terror and repression. Israeli and American actions aimed at weakening a violent theocracy are not acts of aggression against the Iranian people — they are part of a rescue operation on behalf of a population held hostage by its rulers.”
She added, “What is truly un-progressive is the arrogance of presuming to speak for Iranians while ignoring those who have risked imprisonment and death resisting the regime from within. It is entitlement masquerading as solidarity.”
Students for Justice in Palestine’s national office has previously discussed its strategy of using the anti-Zionist student movement as a weapon for destroying the US in a now-deleted tweet that was posted to X in September 2024.
“Divestment is not an incrementalist goal. True divestment necessitates nothing short of the total collapse of the university structure and American empire itself,” the organization said. “It is not possible for imperial spoils to remain so heavily concentrated in the metropole and its high-cultural repositories without the continuous suppression of populations that resist the empire’s expansion; to divest from this is to undermine and eradicate America as we know it.”
The tweet was at the time the latest in a series of progressive revelations of SJP’s revolutionary goals and its apparent plans to amass armies of students and young people for a long campaign of subversion against US institutions, including the economy, military, and higher education. Like past anti-American movements, SJP has also been fixated on the presence and prominence of Jews in American life and the US’s alliance with Israel, the world’s only Jewish state.
On the same day the tweet was posted, CUAD distributed literature calling on students to enlist in a holy war against Israel and the US.
“This booklet is part of a coordinated and intentional effort to uphold the principles of the thawabit and the Palestinian resistance movement overall by transmitting the words of the resistance directly,” it said. “This material aims to build popular support for the Palestinian war of national liberation, a war which is waged through armed struggle.”
Other sections of the literature were explicitly Islamist, invoking the name of “Allah, the most gracious” and referring to Hamas as the “Islamic Resistance Movement.” Proclaiming, “Glory to Gaza that gave hope to the oppressed, that humiliated the ‘invincible’ Zionist army,” it said its purpose was to build an army of Muslims worldwide.
“We call upon the masses of our Arab and Islamic nations, its scholars, men, institutions, and active forces to come out in roaring crowds tomorrow,” it added, referring to an event which took place in December. “We also renew our invitation to the free people and those with living consciences around the world to continue and escalate their global public movement, rejecting the occupation’s crimes, in solidarity with our people and their just cause and legitimate struggle.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.