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This Pennsylvania rabbi fuses liberal Judaism with Hasidic Yiddish
When Americans want to learn Yiddish, they usually sign up for classes at YIVO, the Yiddish Book Center or the Workers Circle. But when someone asks Rabbi Cody Bahir, the newly installed head of a Conservative congregation in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where he learned Yiddish, he lists a different set of classrooms: a half-dozen Hasidic communities, from Sanz to Satmar.
So how did a Kentucky-born Christian end up with a black homburg and a Southeast European accent in Yiddish?
Born to a Christian mother and a Jewish father who had converted and become a church deacon, Bahir had trouble with the Trinity from an early age. As a child, he would replace the wording “in Jesus’ name we pray” with “in God’s name we pray,” because he reasoned that “we should pray to the boss.”
One day, Bahir’s father received a letter from his grandmother. She explained that she came from rabbinic stock, but because the family had fallen on hard times, she’d married his secular, well-to-do great-grandfather. She wrote that she felt guilty and heartbroken over her grandson’s lost Jewish heritage.
Moved by the letter, Bahir’s father began exploring Judaism and going to shul — bringing young Cody along. The rabbi there lent Cody a copy of Elie Wiesel’s Souls on Fire. Its Hasidic tales ignited a fascination that would change Bahir’s life.
A Kentucky boy at yeshiva
In the years that followed, Bahir pursued a Jewish education. At the age of nine, he underwent a Conservative conversion. He learned to read basic Hebrew at the Louisville JCC, and attended a traditional community Jewish day school for middle school. But he was soon searching for something more intense.
After an Orthodox conversion at age 14, Bahir left for Skokie, Illinois, to study Talmud and learn rabbinic Hebrew and Aramaic at a Modern Orthodox yeshiva. But the environment proved too modern for him. “They had color TVs, they wore T-shirts — I was looking for something ekht khsidish, authentically Hasidic,” Bahir recalls. To really join the Hasidic world, however, Bahir would need not only the Talmudic skills he was swiftly acquiring, but also something else: fluent, spoken Yiddish.
Bahir spent the next few years studying rabbinic texts and Hasidic Yiddish simultaneously. He joined a Hasidic yeshiva in Monsey, NY and found a pair of Yiddish tutors from two different sects.
His textbook was a copy of Torah Berura — the Biblical text with a translation in modern Hasidic Yiddish (or “plain Yiddish, as it’s known in the community,” he remarked), rather than the older translations in so-called “bubbe Yiddish”, written in a more formal, literary style.
When even that immersion wasn’t enough for him, he crossed the Atlantic to study in Tsfat, Israel. Learning with two different tutors again, Bahir was able to get his Yiddish to the point where he could join a “fully Hasidic yeshiva where English wasn’t even allowed.”
Reflecting on his learning, Bahir said it was a “figure it out and absorb it” kind of experience. Given little formal grammar instruction, he was expected to read the Yiddish aloud, using the Hebrew for translation. On top of formal study, there was also the school of what Bahir called “full inculturation,” as he was encouraged by his tutors to visit specific shuls in Me’a She’arim, Jerusalem, where people spoke only Yiddish.
At the end of his two years of immersion, however, Bahir had doubts about his faith and lifestyle. The aspirational view he’d formed of Hasidism, as he’d understood it from books, didn’t align with his everyday reality as an adolescent in a yeshiva. He couldn’t reconcile his expectations with his perception of his peers: “They were Hasidish, but they were still typical teenagers.” A few months shy of 17, he cut off his sidelocks, changed into jeans and a T-shirt, threw his beaver hat over the Verazzano Bridge and returned to Kentucky.
A winding Jewish journey
Bahir’s path back to Yiddish and Yiddishkeit in the years that followed would take many curious twists. After yeshiva, he began a BA at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, but the culture shock after his yeshiva years was “extreme.” A year in, he “became a hippie” and tried to “find himself,” but ultimately decided he would need to do something with his life.
He set his sights on the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, which seemed like “the perfect place for a wandering Jew to land, where you had the opportunity to be as Jewish as you wanted to be, and were encouraged to figure that out.” And, he added, AJU “was culturally a lot closer to Boro Park than Kentucky.”
Bahir finished his BA at the AJU and then started an MA in Judaic Studies at Hebrew Union College. While still a student in the program, he joined the faculty. Tasked with creating a beit midrash program, Bahir used a Hasidic model he described in these words: “We pop open a sefer, a religious book, we bang our heads against it, we don’t use the dictionaries, we try to make it work.” He felt it was important to teach the students to “chant” the Gemara the same way he’d learned in yeshiva, rather than only to “learn about it.” His students seemed to appreciate this new kind of experience, and the program continued after he left.
When he finished his MA, Bahir felt his old restlessness kick in. He wanted to learn “something different, something newer, to broaden my horizons.” The result: He learned Chinese, did a doctorate involving six years of fieldwork in Taiwan (where he also met his wife, Sonia), and completed a post-doc on Chinese Buddhism at UC Berkeley. Bahir later returned to Jewish education, teaching Jewish studies at The Kehillah School, a high school in Palo Alto and K-8 students at the Tucson Hebrew Academy in Tucson, Arizona.
A new place for Yiddish
Yiddish, which had been such a major element of Bahir’s Jewish journey years before, would also propel him to the next stage in his Yiddishkeit: becoming a rabbi. At the height of the COVID-19 lockdown, Bahir took up Yiddish as his pandemic project. He downloaded some tkhines, Yiddish folk prayers, along with “a dreadful scan” of a Yiddish translation of the Zohar.
When he finally took a YIVO class — the intensive program had gone online for the summer — his own Yiddish was in for a surprise. “In YIVO Yiddish there’s correct, there’s incorrect. But in Hasidic Yiddish,” he noted, “you can make almost anything Yiddish.”
As he returned to the language of his yeshiva days, Bahir also reconnected with his religious side. “The deepest, most transformative spiritual experiences that I’d had in my life — all those happened in Yiddish. Once I started bringing Yiddish back into life, it was like a memory unlocked.”
By 2021, he’d received rabbinic ordination from Mesifta Adath Wolkowisk, an off-campus ordination program for mid-career Jewish professionals. When he saw a job ad for a rabbi in the Taiwan Jewish community, Bahir didn’t hesitate: it was a perfect fit.
In Taiwan, Bahir was eager to introduce “the joy and inclusivity that is the spirit of Hasidus” to his new congregation: “Clapping, singing, banging on the table, a bunch of kavannah,” or intention. The younger crowd at the shul was taken by everything from Rabbi Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev’s Kaddish tune to the music of modern Hasidic stars like Avrom Fried and Beri Weber. One of Bahir’s great successes was acquainting Taiwanese audiences with “Silent Tears,” a Canadian musical project based on the Yiddish testimonies and writings of female Holocaust survivors.
Still, by 2025, Bahir and Sonia were ready for their next adventure. Last summer, Bahir became the new rabbi at the Congregation Brothers of Israel in Newtown, Pennsylvania, and has continued to share his style of “progressive Hasid-ish” Judaism there.
Bahir’s vision of Yiddish remains dynamic: “Yiddish as a language is very emblematic of the Jewish people. It’s gone to so many different places. It collects different words, different phrases, different grammar from all sorts of places, just like we do.” He likes to paraphrase Yiddish sources, such as teachings from the Maggid of Zlotchov, in his sermons.
And these days he’s gearing up to teach Yiddish himself: his prospective class on Hasidic Yiddish will include Rav Nachman stories in the original.
Looking forward, Bahir has high hopes for this Newtown synagogue. Energized by the language’s potential, he believes the shul could very well become a “home for Yiddish in Bucks County.”
The post This Pennsylvania rabbi fuses liberal Judaism with Hasidic Yiddish appeared first on The Forward.
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Iran Opposes Grossi’s UN Secretary-General Candidacy, Accuses Him of Failing to Uphold International Law
UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi holds a press conference on the opening day of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) quarterly Board of Governors meeting in Vienna, Austria, Sept. 8, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Elisabeth Mandl
Iran has publicly opposed International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Grossi’s potential appointment as UN Secretary-General next year, accusing him of failing to uphold international law by not condemning US and Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites during the 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June.
During a UN Security Council meeting on Monday, Iran’s Ambassador to the UN, Amir Saeid Iravani, sharply criticized Grossi, calling him unfit” to serve as UN Secretary-General next year, Iranian media reported.
“A candidate who has deliberately failed to uphold the UN Charter — or to condemn unlawful military attacks against safeguarded, peaceful nuclear facilities … undermines confidence in his ability to serve as a faithful guardian of the charter and to discharge his duties independently, impartially, and without political bias or fear of powerful states,” the Iranian diplomat said.
With UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ term ending in December next year, member states have already begun nominating candidates to take over the role ahead of the expected 2026 election.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, Israel’s relationship with Guterres has spiraled downward, reaching a low point last year when then-Foreign Minister Israel Katz labeled the UN “antisemitic and anti-Israeli” and declared Guterres persona non grata after the top UN official failed to condemn Tehran for its ballistic missile attack against the Jewish state.
Last week, Argentina officially nominated Grossi to succeed Guterres as the next UN Secretary-General.
To be elected, a nominee must first secure the support of at least nine members of the UN Security Council and avoid a veto from any of its five permanent members — the United States, China, Russia, the United Kingdom, and France.
Afterward, the UN General Assembly votes, with a simple majority needed to confirm the organization’s next leader.
As head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog since 2019, Grossi has consistently urged Iran to provide transparency on its nuclear program and cooperate with the agency, efforts the Islamist regime has repeatedly rejected and obstructed.
Despite Iran’s claims that its nuclear program is solely for civilian purposes rather than weapons development, Western powers have said there is no “credible civilian justification” for the country’s nuclear activity, arguing it “gives Iran the capability to rapidly produce sufficient fissile material for multiple nuclear weapons.”
With prospects for renewed negotiations or nuclear cooperation dwindling, Iran has been intensifying efforts to rebuild its air and defense capabilities decimated during the 12-day war with Israel.
On Monday, Mohammad Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), declared that the IAEA has no authority to inspect sites targeted during the June war, following Grossi’s renewed calls for Tehran to allow inspections of its nuclear sites and expand cooperation with the agency.
Iran has also announced plans to expand its nuclear cooperation with Russia and advance the construction of new nuclear power plants, as both countries continue to deepen their bilateral relations.
According to AEOI spokesperson Behrouz Kamalvandi, one nuclear power plant is currently operational, while other two are under construction, with new contracts signed during a recent high-level meeting in Moscow.
Kamalvandi also said Iran plans to build four nuclear power plants in the country’s southern region as part of its long-term partnership with Russia.
During a joint press conference in Moscow on Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reiterated Iran’s commitment to defending the country’s “legal nuclear rights” under the now-defunct 2015 nuclear deal, noting that Tehran’s nuclear policies have remained within the international legal framework.
Iran’s growing ties with Russia, particularly in nuclear cooperation, have deepened in recent years as both countries face mounting Western sanctions and seek to expand their influence in opposition to Western powers.
Russia has not only helped Iran build its nuclear program but also consistently defended the country’s “nuclear rights” on the global stage, while opposing the imposition of renewed economic sanctions.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has described the reinstatement of UN sanctions against Iran as a “disgrace to diplomacy.”
In an interview with the Islamic Republic of Iran News Network (IRINN), Lavrov accused European powers of attempting to blame Tehran for the collapse of the 2015 nuclear deal, despite what he described as Iran’s compliance with the agreement.
Prior to the 12-day war, the IAEA flagged a series of Iranian violations of the deal.
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Eurovision Host Says It Will Not Drown Out Any Boos During Israel’s Performance
ORF executive producer Michael Kroen attends a press conference about the Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna, Austria, Dec. 16, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Lisa Leutner
The host broadcaster of the next Eurovision Song Contest, Austria’s ORF, will not ban the Palestinian flag from the audience or drown out booing during Israel’s performance as has happened at previous shows, organizers said on Tuesday.
The 70th edition of the contest in May will have just 35 entries, the smallest number of participants since 2003, after five national broadcasters including those of Spain, Ireland, and the Netherlands said they would boycott the show in protest at Israel’s participation.
What is usually a celebration of national diversity, pop music, and high camp has become embroiled in diplomatic strife, with those boycotting saying it would be unconscionable to take part given the number of civilians killed in Gaza during Israel’s military campaign following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
“We will allow all official flags that exist in the world, if they comply with the law and are in a certain form – size, security risks, etc.,” the show’s executive producer, Michael Kroen, told a news conference organized by ORF.
“We will not sugarcoat anything or avoid showing what is happening, because our task is to show things as they are,” Kroen said.
AUSTRIA SUPPORTED ISRAEL PARTICIPATING
The broadcaster will not drown out the sound of any booing from the crowd, as happened this year during Israel’s performance, ORF’s director of programming Stefanie Groiss-Horowitz said.
“We won’t play artificial applause over it at any point,” she said.
Israel’s 2025 entrant, Yuval Raphael, was at the Nova music festival that was a target of the Hamas-led attack. The CEO of Israeli broadcaster KAN had likened the efforts to exclude Israel in 2026 to a form of “cultural boycott.”
ORF and the Austrian government were among the biggest supporters of Israel participating over the objections of countries including Iceland and Slovenia, which will also boycott the next contest in protest. ORF Director General Roland Weissmann visited Israel in November to show his support.
This year’s show drew around 166 million viewers, according to the European Broadcasting Union, more than the roughly 128 million who Nielsen estimates watched the Super Bowl.
The war in Gaza began after Hamas-led terrorists killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and seized 251 hostages in an attack on southern Israel.
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Antisemitism Allowed to Fester in Australia, Says Daughter of Wounded Holocaust Survivor
Victoria Teplitsky, daughter of a Holocaust survivor who was wounded at the Bondi shootings, stands at a floral memorial in honor of the victims of the mass shooting targeting a Hanukkah celebration on Sunday, at Bondi Beach, in Sydney, Australia, Dec. 16, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jeremy Piper
Government authorities have not done enough to stamp out hatred of Jews in Australia, which has allowed it to fester in the aftermath of Oct. 7, said the daughter of a Holocaust survivor who was wounded at the Bondi shootings on Sunday.
Victoria Teplitsky, 53, a retired childcare center owner, said that the father and son who allegedly went on a 10-minute shooting spree that killed 15 people had been “taught to hate,” which was a bigger factor in the attack than access to guns.
“It’s not the fact that those two people had a gun. It’s the fact that hatred has been allowed to fester against the Jewish minority in Australia,” she told Reuters in an interview.
“We are angry at our government because it comes from the top, and they should have stood up for our community with strength. And they should have squashed the hatred rather than kind of letting it slide,” she said.
“We’ve been ignored. We feel like, are we not Australian enough? Do we not matter to our government?”
The attackers fired upon hundreds of people at a Jewish festival during a roughly 10-minute killing spree, forcing people to flee and take shelter before both were shot by police.
RISING ANTISEMITIC ATTACKS
Antisemitic incidents have been rising in Australia since the war in Gaza erupted after Palestinian terrorist group Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis in an attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
A rise in such incidents in the past sixteen months prompted the head of the nation’s main intelligence agency to declare that antisemitism was his top priority in terms of threat.
“This was not a surprise to the Jewish community. We warned the government of this many, many times over,” Teplitsky said.
“We’ve had synagogues that have been graffitied, graffiti everywhere, and we’ve had synagogues that have been bombed,” she added, referring to a 2024 arson attack in Melbourne in which no one was killed.
Teplitsky’s father Semyon, 86, bled heavily after being shot in the leg, and now is facing several operations as doctors piece bone back together with cement, then remove the cement from the leg, which he still may lose, she said.
“He’s in good spirits, but he’s also very angry. Angry that this happened, that this was allowed to happen in Australia, the country that he took his children to, to be safe, to be away from antisemitism, to be away from Jew hatred.”
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese “did nothing” to curb antisemitism.
Albanese repeated on Tuesday Australia‘s support for a two-state solution. Anti-Israel, pro-Hamas protests have been common in Australia since Israel launched its offensive in Gaza.
At a press briefing on Monday, Albanese read through a list of actions his government had taken, including criminalizing hate speech and incitement to violence and a ban on the Nazi salute. He also pledged to extend funding for physical security for Jewish community groups.