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This organization hired asylum seekers to pack Passover goods for Jews in need
(New York Jewish Week) — At a warehouse in Borough Park, thousands of apples were waiting to be taken off two 18-wheelers, as dozens of volunteers were hard at work putting groceries into bags.
The scene was one part of a massive $1.5 million operation undertaken every year by Masbia, an Orthodox organization that helps provide kosher food for low-income people, to distribute food for Passover to 10,000 families.
But this week, the Passover initiative differed from those of previous years. That’s because most of the people in the warehouse were migrants, the majority of whom were bused to New York from Texas during the past year. Because they are undocumented, they lack work permits, and for many of them, working in Masbia’s warehouse is their first job in the city.
Masbia was one of many organizations to welcome migrants who came from Texas when they arrived at the Port Authority last year, providing them with new shoes to replace pairs that may have broken down during long treks through jungles and other dangerous areas. The group’s executive director, Alex Rappaport, sees employing a group of migrants as another way to help them find their footing in the city.
“Sometimes, you need to turn over every stone to find a way to help people,” Rappaport told the New York Jewish Week.
Passover is the busiest time for Masbia, with hundreds of pallets of food coming in daily to the organization’s three warehouses in Brooklyn and Queens. At Masbia’s Borough Park location, boxes of potatoes and onions lined the sidewalk and stretched down the block. Inside the garage were piles of other Passover goods, stacked two stories high. Volunteers were busy picking produce off the shelves and putting it into bags for delivery drivers who were waiting near the entrance. The operation starts in December, and food distribution begins two weeks before Passover, which starts next Wednesday night.
“These people should have been given work permits,” Rappaport said. “They’re here, ready, willing and able to do beautiful work.”
Masbia CEO Alex Rappaport in front of a truck full of apples in Borough Park, Brooklyn on March 29, 2023. (Jacob Henry)
Rappaport combined the work with a touch of advocacy: Some of the volunteers working alongside the migrants were Jewish high school students, and Rappaport overheard one of them say that “illegal immigrants” were working there. He gathered high schoolers together and began to hold court.
“These people who are working are asylum seekers,” Rappaport told the teens. “They are fully designated as an asylum seeker, meaning to say, they are fully legal, because they have a day in court.”
Rappaport went on to discuss how if a person jaywalks, they are technically breaking the law, but are not referred to as “an illegal.”
“There’s never a person that turns into ‘an illegal,’” Rappaport said. “The term is just a very bad term. A person might not have documents, but these are people coming from the border who are looking for a new future. It’s an opportunity. They asked for asylum.”
The opportunity Masbia is providing comes via a partnership with La Colmena, a nonprofit that helps find jobs for day laborers, domestic workers and low-wage immigrant workers in from Staten Island.
Kimberly Vega, the workforce manager of La Colmena, told the New York Jewish Week that the group saw “an influx of asylum seekers” that began in August and is still ongoing. Vega has a list of 190 workers looking for jobs. Masbia provided work for 15.
“We’re facing this crisis at the moment,” Vega said. “We have the amount of workers, but we don’t have the jobs. They face all these challenges because they don’t have a permit or any documentation, so we’re very thankful for this opportunity that came up through Masbia.”
Vega added that many of the workers are staying in homeless shelters provided by the city in Staten Island. Many of the workers drop their kids off at school in the morning, then come to Brooklyn to work throughout the day. “They got shipped on a bus, arrived here and were transported to a shelter,” Vega said.
According to NPR, it’s estimated that up to 50,000 migrants were moved to New York over the past year by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican. New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, called Abbott’s actions “inhumane.”
In a New York Post op-ed published last August, Abbott wrote that Adams was hypocritical for calling New York a sanctuary city, then complained about the new arrivals.
On Twitter, Adams’ press secretary Fabian Levy wrote that the mayor is “welcoming asylum seekers with open arms.”
Vega said the migrants working at the Masbia warehouse were being paid based on a law that has been used to help undocumented workers earn income. According to the State Department of Labor, nonprofits may give volunteers stipends or reimbursements. Therefore, Vega said, even though a migrant worker is only a volunteer, they can still be paid by a nonprofit organization. Masbia and La Colmena would not disclose how much the workers were being paid.
Asylum seekers working at a Masbia warehouse in Brooklyn on March 29, 2023. (Jacob Henry)
Gledys, 30, a migrant working at the warehouse, told the New York Jewish Week that she came to New York from Venezuela after being bussed here from Texas last October.
Gledys, who did not give her full name for fear of her family being harmed, said through a translator that when she was living in Venezuela, “There’s a certain political view that everyone has to have.”
“If you even think differently, you can’t even speak amongst your community, because then they will turn on you,” Gledys said. “My husband was a police officer there, and because of that reason, we had to leave.”
When she arrived in New York, Gledys said she was “hit with the reality that it’s hard to find a job because you need certain permits.”
“I’m working really hard [at Masbia] and hoping this will open my doors,” Gledys said. “They’ll be able to see that I’m a hard worker and [I will] gain experience for more opportunities to open up.”
She added that she was thankful that her children were able to begin attending public school only a few days after she arrived. The city also helped provide daycare for her.
“No other country has done that,” Gledys said. “It’s more than enough. I’m not suffering, and I’m grateful. I’m definitely very hopeful because now I can see a different future for my children, a different future for myself.”
Another worker named Moises, 39, who likewise did not provide his full name due to fear for his family’s safety, said he came to New York from Venezuela via Texas in January after entering immigration custody.
“During those days, we were still cuffed and I was separated from my family,” Moises said. His wife and children eventually made it to New York, and they were reunited.
He said that in Venezuela, inflation was so rampant that he was only making $7 to $10 a week.
“People are really struggling,” Moises said. “There are also a lot of political issues as well. If the community tries to step up and do a protest, you have the military stepping in and shooting directly at civilians. We’re really running away, because we were so scared.”
He said he was worried about how he was going to feed his family, but was also thankful for the help they received when they first arrived, including finding a place to stay in a shelter, and now the job at Masbia.
“I want to feel independent,” Moises said. “With a job like this, I can be more independent. I understand it’s a temporary job, but hopefully in the next couple of months, I can find something that is no longer temporary.”
Rappaport feels that there’s a connection between the migrants’ stories and the holiday they’re helping prepare for because the Jewish people were also strangers in Egypt. “The Bible says, ‘You should love the stranger, the newcomer,’” Rappaport said. “There is that idea of people making a long journey to a promised land. These people went through the jungle.”
He added, “It’s beautiful to connect the Jewish story of Exodus to this story of the challenge of the asylum seekers.
“People take their whole family and go for thousands of miles through very dangerous terrain,” Rapport said. “They must be running from something. It’s not utopia yet, but we’re celebrating some freedom. And they’re still in the middle of their story.”
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The post This organization hired asylum seekers to pack Passover goods for Jews in need appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Denied arrest power, Mamdani encourages New Yorkers to protest Netanyahu
After conceding that he cannot arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a war criminal, Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday doubled down on assailing the Israeli leader and encouraged New Yorkers to protest his expected visit to the United Nations in September.
“I think one of the bedrocks of our city is protest,” Mamdani said at a press conference in City Hall Wednesday morning. “If anyone feels a level of frustration or opposition, protest is something that we will always respect. I leave it to New Yorkers themselves to make that decision.”
The mayor also faced renewed questions about why it took months to acknowledge that the pledge he made last year to arrest Netanyahu could not legally be carried out, and about his choice to post a formal mayoral address on his official social media accounts to announce the city’s legal conclusion that it has no authority to execute the International Criminal Court arrest warrant against Netanyahu.
“What brings me to my conclusions about Israel and Palestine is a belief in the universality of humanity,” Mamdani said.
Mamdani pointed to a roundtable with faith leaders on Staten Island on Tuesday where he met a young Gaza refugee who had lost an arm, and he recounted stories from Palestinian New Yorkers who shared that their families have been affected by the war.
“I view that as a very serious issue,” Mamdani said. “I think that it is incredibly important that we ensure that we have done all of our due diligence when conducting a review.”
The ICC, based in The Hague, issued arrest warrants in November 2024 for Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif. Hamas confirmed in January 2025 that Deif was killed during an airstrike.
The United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court and the Trump administration imposed sanctions on the ICC months after it issued the warrants.
In his video posted Tuesday night, Mamdani accused Netanyahu of orchestrating a “horrific genocide against the Palestinian people” in the Gaza Strip. He cited reported Palestinian death tolls, wounded children, the destruction of hospitals and clinics and the killing of aid workers and journalists. He did not mention the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, which sparked the war. He instead called on the federal government to join the ICC and execute the warrant.
Jewish organizations sharply condemned the mayor’s Tuesday remarks, accusing him of presenting a one-sided narrative of the war.
“Shame on you,” the UJA-Federation of New York said in a statement. “Your video is rife with distortions and disinformation. At a time of rising antisemitism, repeatedly singling out and vilifying the world’s only Jewish state for perceived political benefit is repugnant and puts Jews at greater risk.”
The Orthodox Union said the video “endangers Jewish New Yorkers” and “is a betrayal of his oath of office and his own commitment to protect all New Yorkers.”
Mamdani rejected the criticism.
“We cannot pick and choose which crimes against humanity we oppose,” he said. “We must be in opposition to all of them.” Asked whether he considers the Hamas massacre a genocide, he stopped short of using that term, instead calling the Oct. 7 attacks “a horrific war crime” that should be opposed “with every single fiber of our being.”
Mamdani used the moment to bring his long-held pro-Palestinian advocacy into City Hall, framing Netanyahu’s expected visit as both a moral and political issue. While acknowledging the city lacks legal authority to arrest the Israeli leader, Mamdani shifted the conversation toward the role of the federal government.
In a Truth Social post, President Donald Trump reassured Netanyahu that he “will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America.”
Mamdani also encouraged New Yorkers to take it to the streets to protest Netanyahu during his visit. “That welcome ends with me,” he said. “I will not be welcoming Benjamin Netanyahu or any other war criminals when they come to this city.”
Mamdani’s remarks could resonate well beyond New York as rejection of Israel is increasingly part of national Democratic Party politics. By arguing that Washington should join the International Criminal Court and enforce its warrants, Mamdani is helping define the expectations that progressive activists may place on the 2028 presidential candidates as the party continues to debate its approach to Israel and Gaza.
Despite the backlash, Mamdani insisted his position would not affect how he governs for Jewish New Yorkers.
“I know that there are Jewish New Yorkers who agree with my analysis; there are those who disagree with my analysis,” Mamdani told the Forward. “ And my responsibility to them is to ensure that they are cherished, they are celebrated, and they are safe in their city.”
The post Denied arrest power, Mamdani encourages New Yorkers to protest Netanyahu appeared first on The Forward.
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Innovative Yiddish actor-director Raphael Goldwasser has died
פֿון שׂרה־רחל שעכטער
דער ייִדישער אַקטיאָר, רעזשיסאָר, פּאַנטאָמימיקער און לערער פֿון ייִדישן טעאַטער, רפֿאל גאָלדוואַסער, איז דינסטיק געשטאָרבן אין נאַרבאָן, פֿראַנקרײַך, צוליב קאָמפּליקאַציעס פֿון אַ האַרץ־פֿעלער. ער איז געווען 79 יאָר אַלט.
די לוויה וועט פֿאָרקומען פֿרײַטיק דעם 24סטן יולי, 15.00 אַ זייגער, אויפן ייִדישן חלק פון בית-עולם אין מערבֿ-נאַרבאָן.
גאָלדוואַסער האָט נישט סתּם אינסצענירט פּיעסעס, נאָר זיך באַמיט איבערצוצײַגן דעם צוקוקער זיך אַרײַנצוטראַכטן אינעם אינהאַלט. מע זעט דאָס קלאָר אין זײַן ייִדישער איבערזעצונג פֿון דני האָראָוויצעס העברעיִשער פּיעסע „פֿעטער אַרטור“ (2020ֶ), וואָס מע קען זען אויף יוטוב. דאָ רעדט זיך וועגן אַ דראַמאַטורג, פּיטער סטאָון — אַ לעבן געבליבענער פֿון חורבן — וואָס שרײַבט אַ פּיעסע ווי אַ נקמה זײַן פֿעטער אַרטור, וואָס פֿלעג זאָגן, זיצנדיק אין ניו־יאָרק: „ווי קענען מענטשן זיך לאָזן פֿירן אין קרעמעטאָריע ווי שאָף צו דער שחיטה?“ סטאָון באַמיט זיך שטאַרק צו געפֿינען אַ ישׂראלדיקן טעאַטער וואָס זאָל פּראָדוצירן די פּיעסע, אָבער קיין איין טעאַטער וויל זיך דאָס נישט אונטערנעמען. אין סטאָונס פֿרוסטרירונג קען מען דערפֿילן אויך גאָלדוואַסערס עגמת־נפֿש.
„רפֿי האָט ניט געקאָנט פֿאַרטראָגן מלחמה, ער האָט געמוזט אַנטרינען פֿון איר,“ האָט גלאַי געזאָגט. אַ פּנים דערפֿאַר האָט ער זיך טאַקע אַריבערגעצויגן פֿון ישׂראל קיין פֿראַנקרײַך. „דער מצבֿ אין ישׂראל, אַפֿילו פֿון דער ווײַטנס, האָט אים זיכער אָפּגעשוואַכט.“
אין 2013 האָט גאָלדוואַסער געמאַכט אַ טיפֿן אײַנדרוק שפּילנדיק די ראָלע פֿון לאָקי אין סעמיועל בעקעטס „וואַרטן אויף גאָדאָ“. דער ייִדישער קולטור־טוער דזשאָרדין קוציק זאָגט אַז גאָלדוואַסער האָט אַרײַנגעבראַכט אין דער פּראָדוקציע אַ „סטאַבילן פּסיכאָז“: „דער ריטעם פֿון זײַן מאָנאָלאָג בײַט זיך אין גאַנצן נישט און די עמאָציאָנעלע קוואַליטעט פֿון זײַן פּסעוודאָ־וויסנשאַפֿטלעכע פּלאַפּלערײַ בלײַבט אויך די זעלבע.“
שיין בייקער, דער אַקטיאָר און דירעקטאָר פֿונעם ייִדישן קולטור קאָנגרעס, האָט געזאָגט אַז נאָך גאָלדוואַסערס פּטירה האָט משה יאַסור, דער רעזשיסאָר פֿונעם ייִדיש־שפּראַכיקן „וואַרטן אויף גאָדאָ“, אים געזאָגט פֿאַר וואָס ער האָט אויסגעקליבן גאָלדוואַסערן פֿאַר דער ראָלע. „רפֿי איז געווען דער בעסטער אויסטײַטשער פֿון לאָקי ווײַך ער האָט ממש פֿאַרקערפּערט די ראָלע. זײַן פֿעיִקייט בײַם אויסדריקן זיך איז געווען פֿאַרוואָרצלט אין דער פֿיזישער קונסט פֿון מאַנטאָמימע — סובטיל אָבער בולט.“
קוציק האָט געזאָגט אַז גאָלדוואַסער האָט זיך אַנטקעגנגעשטעלט ווען עמעצער האָט, נאָכן זען די פּיעסע, באַמערקט אַז „לאָקי איז געווען אַ מין קאָמישע אָפּשפּאַנונג (comic relief בלע״ז) אין דער פּיעסע“: „מײַן ראָלע איז נישט געווען קיין קאָמישע אָפּשפּאַנונג, נאָר פֿאַרקערט: איך בין דווקא געווען די טראַגעדיע, און די אַנדערע פּערסאָנאַזשן האָבן געשילדערט די אַבסורדיסטישע קאָמעדיע,“ האָט גאָלדוואַסער געזאָגט.
רפֿאל גאָלדוואַסער איז געבוירן געוואָרן אין אַרגענטינע אין 1947. זײַן טאַטע איז געווען דער אָנגעזעענער אַקטיאָר זישע גאָלדוואַסער, אַ מיטגליד פֿונעם ייִדישן פֿאָלקס־טעאַטער אין בוענאָס־אײַרעס. די מאַמע, לאה (לאָלאַ אויף שפּאַניש), האָט געגעבן אירע דרײַ זין עכטע ייִדישע נעמען — ראובֿן, דניאל און רפֿאל, האָט געזאָגט רפֿאלס עלטערער ברודער דניאל גלאַי — דער פֿאָרזיצער פֿון „בית לייוויק“ אין תּל־אָבֿיבֿ. „די מאַמע איז געווען באַצויבערט פֿון איר מאַנס טאַלאַנט, און איך געדענק נישט אַז מײַנע עלטערן האָבן זיך אַ מאָל געקריגט צווישן זיך.“
ווען רפֿי איז געווען פֿינף יאָר אַלט האָט מען אים שוין געזען אויף דער בינע אין בוענאָס־אײַרעס — אין שלום־עליכמס איינאַקטער, „אַגענטן“. ווען די אַקטיאָרן האָבן געזען ווי שטאַרק דאָס קינד וויל שפּילן טעאַטער האָט מען אים געגעבן אַן איין־שורהדיקע ראָלע: „טאַטע, כ׳וויל עסן!“ כּדי ער זאָל זיך פֿילן גלײַך מיט די אַנדערע אַקטיאָרן.
„כ’בין זיכער אַז שלום עליכם האָט הנאה געהאַט דערפֿון,“ האָט גלאַי געזאָגט.
נאָך דעם ווי די משפּחה האָט עולה געווען קיין ישׂראל האָט רפֿאל שטודירט טעאַטער און געשיכטע בײַם תּל־אָבֿיבֿער אוניווערסיטעט, און שפּעטער באַקומען אַ מאַגיסטער פֿון טעאַטער־געשיכטע בײַם פּאַריזער אוניווערסיטעט.
במשך פֿון זײַן קאַריערע האָט ער זיך קונה־שם געווען ווי אַ נאָוואַטאָרישער אַרטיסט, וואָס האָט צונויפֿגעפֿלאָכטן די טראַדיציעס פֿון ייִדישן טעאַטער, פֿראַנצייזישער פּאַנטאָמימע און דער נײַער אוידיאָ־וויזועלע מעדיאַ, האָט געזאָגט דער פֿאָרזיצער פֿונעם אַרגענטינער ייִוואָ, אַבֿרהם ליכטענבוים. ער האָט אויפֿגעטראָטן איבער דער וועלט, געשאַפֿן טעאַטראַלישע אונטערנעמונגען, אַנסאַמבלען, אינטערנאַציאָנאַלע פֿעסטיוואַלן און, דער עיקר, פֿאַרלייגט און אָנגעפֿירט מיטן „לופֿט־טעאַטער“ אין סטראַסבורג, פֿראַנקרײַך.
ער איז אויך געווען אַן אָנגעזעענער פּעדאַגאָג, געלערנט אין דער ייִדישער טעאַטער־אַקאַדעמיע און געפֿירט אינטערנאַציאָנאַלע סעמינאַרן איבער אייראָפּע. במשך פֿון די לעצטע יאָרן האָט ער, בשותּפֿות מיטן בוענאָס־אײַרעסער ייִוואָ, געהאַלטן בײַם אַנטוויקלען אַ „נײַע פּעדאַגאָגיע פֿאַרן ייִדישן טעאַטער“.
רפֿאל גאָלדוואַסער האָט פֿאַראָבֿלט זײַן ברודער, דניאל גלאַי; זײַן לעבנס־באַגלייטערין דזשוטיט בוכהאַלטער; זײַנע קינדער יאָרדאַן, מאַרין און מאַעל, און דרײַ אייניקלעך.
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What a West Bank visit taught me about the past and present tragedies of Tisha B’Av
As we chant Lamentations on the floor, in the dark, on Wednesday night for Tisha B’Av, we will open with the word “eikha” — “how.”
That same word became the refrain of a recent eight day visit I made to Israel and the West Bank.
I traveled to Jerusalem for a week of immersive learning with 150 rabbis and cantors at the Shalom Hartman Institute’s annual Rabbinic Torah Seminar. But my learning wasn’t restricted to the beit midrash. I spent time with cousins finishing combat service; friends working late into the night in the Knesset before its dissolution; people working to build shared society in Haifa; and families grieving the loss of loved ones. And at every turn, I found myself asking “eikha.”
“Eikha” is more than a question. It is the sound made when the distance between what should be and what is becomes almost impossible to bear. Naming that distance is at the heart of Tisha B’Av — and, for me, at the heart of thinking honestly about Israel today. How will Israel move from this moment of profound moral and political fracture toward the future our prophets imagined?
On a visit to the West Bank with Rabbis for Human Rights, I connected with Israelis from across the country who had come to be a protective presence for Palestinians in Jenata, near the settler outpost of Havat Eitam. The Palestinians there face violence and intimidation in an area formally under Palestinian civil authority. We heard from a man whose brother had recently been killed by settlers, and we learned that their imam was jailed just that morning to prevent Friday prayers from moving forward as planned.
Then we were told to leave. The corner of the village we were visiting was declared a 24-hour closed military zone.
Next we traveled to Umm al-Khair, a Palestinian herding community where the Hathaleen family buried their son Awdah almost a year ago, after he was shot and killed by an Israeli settler who still walks free. Since his death, settlers have built caravans encroaching into the village, with some only a few meters from homes. This encroachment has triggered the declaration of another “closed military zone,” cutting the family off from their own bathroom and animals. They must use a neighbor’s bathroom and can only feed their animals when a soldier comes to allow it.
I asked a soldier standing guard that day whether any of it troubled him.
“Doesn’t Oct. 7 trouble you?” he replied.
I don’t know what that soldier has seen, or what he has lost. But I know his response took two griefs and set them against each other, as though one atrocity could justify another. “Eikha”: How do we nurse our deepest wounds without allowing them to justify our wounding others? How do we stay safe and moral?
This past Shabbat was Shabbat Hazon — the “Sabbath of Vision” — so named for the opening word of the Haftara, which describes Isaiah’s vision of a devastated but ultimately redeemed Jerusalem. That reading, in our current context, must push us — and, God willing, Israel’s next political leaders — to articulate compelling responses to the questions bearing down on Israeli society and on Judaism itself. To ask how we came to a point of such dire trouble, and realize a vision for redemption from it.
I keep thinking about the way slain hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin would remind his fellow captives, citing Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl’s words, that if they could hold onto a “why,” they could endure any “how.”
Israel and the Jewish people have profound whys. We are meant to be, in the words of “Hatikvah,” “a free people in our own land.” And to be, in the words of the Torah, “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”
This Tisha B’Av, as we mourn the destruction that shattered Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel 2,000 years ago, we must also reckon honestly with the forms of inhumanity that threaten its moral future and physical safety today.
We must understand that our freedom, our holiness and our humanity are bound up in that of the Hathaleen family, and the besieged villagers of Jenata. During my visit, an Israeli cousin of mine acknowledged that everything I had seen in the West Bank was real and terrible — and that he didn’t want Palestinians living so close to Israel, out of fear of an Oct. 7 attack from the West Bank. What I wish all of us could better understand: If Jewish freedom depends upon denying Palestinian freedom, then it is neither the freedom of “Hatikvah” nor the holiness the Torah demands. I also don’t think it will make us safe.
This is, I think, the particular question facing rabbis and Jewish communal leaders like me right now: how do we hold onto our right — our obligation — to name Israel’s failures honestly, as people bound to this place and this story, without having our words weaponized to delegitimize and demonize the entire project? My criticism of what I saw in Jenata and Umm al-Khair comes from love — the same love that makes looking away impossible. Learning how to hold both at once, unflinching criticism and unwavering commitment, may be the most urgent “eikha” of this particular moment.
After Tisha B’Av comes the Shivah d’Nehemta — the Seven Weeks of Consolation that carry us into Rosh Hashanah.
In those weeks, the questions of “eikha” don’t disappear. They deepen. These weeks lead us into Elul, a time of intense heshbon hanefesh — accounting of the soul. The pairing of consolation with accounting suggests that renewal comes not through answering our questions, but through finding the courage to keep asking them.
How do we protect ourselves without surrendering our humanity? How do we acknowledge our own suffering without turning it into permission to inflict suffering on others?
Those are Israel’s questions as they move toward their October elections. They are ours as well, as we navigate being Jews in this moment.
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