Connect with us

Uncategorized

Translating ‘tzedakah’ for Marylanders: Sen. Ben Cardin’s long Jewish goodbye

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Ben Cardin’s love letter to Maryland, the state he has represented in the U.S. Senate since 2007, was also a love letter to his family’s Jewish values.

In a video that Cardin released this week to announce his retirement from the Senate, he reminisced about the 56 years he has spent representing Maryland voters in various capacities. In conversation with his wife Myrna, he also reflected on the ideals that animated his work and his family life.

“We use the expression ‘tikkun olam,’ repairing the world. We use it a lot. It’s in our DNA,” Myrna Cardin says in the video. “I love the way you’ve taken that from our family, to Annapolis, to Washington. It undergirds so much of what you do.”

“It also comes back to the tzedakah part of our tradition as Jews to help those that are less fortunate,” Ben Cardin later tells his wife, as a definition of the Hebrew word floats across the screen. Elsewhere, the video shows Cardin in a kippah at his wedding, then surrounded by children including one wearing a kippah himself.

Cardin, 79, this week announced his plans to retire in 2024 from the Senate seat he first won in 2006, with commanding majorities then and since. He wants people to know: He is as much a Jew as he is a Marylander. In fact, he sees the two identities as inextricable.

“It’s been an incredible opportunity,” Cardin told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “The people in Maryland are so understanding. It’s been a wonderful state where I’ve been able to talk about and acknowledge my Jewish faith easily.”

Cardin’s legacy is shaped as much by the still waters of the Chesapeake and the protections he has secured for it, as it is by his Jewish upbringing and the far-reaching human rights law it inspired him to author.

The mention in the five-minute video of tzedakah and its explanation is striking for how casual it is. Cardin told JTA that he wanted to convey, 56 years after he was first elected in 1968 to the Maryland House of Delegates, how much his Jewish identity shaped him.

“My Jewish values are what got me throughout my entire life,” he said. ”I grew up in a very strong Jewish family and a strong Jewish community.”

“Jewish values” can be amorphous when a Jewish politician cites them as fueling his or her actions, but Cardin is able to cite specifics.

He says the involvement of his wife and his cousin, the late Shoshana Cardin, in the Soviet Jewry movement shaped his work in government. “I would come home at night from Congress, and Myrna would ask me, what have I done to help Soviet Jews that day?” he recalled.

Cardin’s close personal ties to the movement propelled him to his years-long involvement with the Helsinki Commission, the network of parliamentary bodies that monitor compliance with the landmark 1975 human rights Helsinki Accords.

It also propelled, decades later, his most significant legislation, the 2012 Magnitsky Act, which sanctions individuals for human rights abuses. Sergei Magnitsky was an accountant who died in a Russian prison in 2009 after exposing massive corruption implicating Russian President Vladimir Putin and his circle.

“You can talk about human rights tragedies, but unless you put a face on it, it’s hard to get corrective action,” he said about why he made sure Magnitsky’s name was attached to the legislation. “So I was determined to put a face on it.”

Naming the act for an individual gave it a face, something he learned from the wristbands he once wore bearing the names of Jewish Prisoners of Zion.

“We put a face on every one of these individuals,” Cardin said of advocates for Soviet Jewry. “And that was the success of the Soviet Jewry movement. Putting a face on the refuseniks, on those that were in prison really helped us a good deal.”

The Magnitsky case underscored how Cardin’s human rights advocacy did not stop with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the freedom of its Jews. In the three years Cardin was the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, from 2015 to 2018, he invited reporters to the Capitol for periodic briefings.

The reporters would gather in the stately Foreign Relations Committee room, framed by daunting portraits of its past chairmen,and take seats around its conference table. At each place, they would find a one-page printout of a single person being persecuted by a repressive regime, usually activists unknown outside of their region.

Cardin made clear the blurry photo atop the printout exercised him more than the portraits on the walls. He would open the meeting with a minute or so of explanation about the persecuted person, and then take questions on whatever was on a reporter’s mind, an unusual gambit in the hyper-controlled Senate. He did not expect reporters to necessarily write about the human rights activist, but he wanted them on the media’s radar.

Cardin’s style, soft-spoken and self-effacing, stood out in a body crowded with self-promoters; he is able to attract bipartisan support and navigate far-reaching legislation through the Senate, cleaning up waterways, enhancing retirement plans and providing dental care to impoverished children.

Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., speaking at J Street’s conference in Washington D,C., April 16, 2018. (J Street)

There were occasions when his best efforts at finding accommodation stymied him, never more so when he was one of just four Democrats in the Senate in 2015 to oppose President Barack Obama’s signature foreign policy achievement, the Iran nuclear deal that traded sanctions relief for Iran’s rollback of its nuclear enrichment capabilities.

He was getting it from both sides: Obama and the organized Jewish community, which mostly opposed the deal. Obama kept him in a room for more than 90 minutes, seeking to attach to the deal the credibility of the lawmaker most identified with Jewish activism. Meanwhile, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee organized a rally at Cardin’s synagogue, Beth Tfiloh in Pikesville, Maryland.

“Call Senator [Barbara] Mikulski and call Senator Cardin and urge them to oppose the deal,” Howard Kohr, AIPAC’s CEO at the time, said in a rare public appearance outside of AIPAC’s policy conferences.

“It was a tough vote,” Cardin recalled. “I was lobbied very, very heavily by President Obama personally. It lasted probably about an hour and a half, two hours. President Obama was pretty insistent on getting my vote, so it was a tough vote.”

Wait, a reporter asks, 90 minutes alone with the U.S. president, for a single vote?

Cardin grins. “It felt like five hours.”

Cardin does not regret the vote; he said the Obama administration gave up too much too early by going into the talks conceding that Iran would walk away with some level of enrichment. But he made it clear that he thought President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the deal in 2018 was a disaster, giving Iran a pretext to break its commitments, leading it to near-weaponization levels of enrichment today.

“One of the most tragic foreign policy mistakes of our time was Donald Trump withdrawing from the nuclear agreement while Iran was in compliance, and today we’re in much worse shape than we would have been if we were still in the agreement,” he said.

AIPAC spokesman Marshall Wittman said the pro-Israel lobby would miss Cardin’s reliable support.

“For his entire tenure in Congress, Senator Cardin has been an extraordinary leader in advancing the US-Israel relationship,” Wittman told JTA. “Time after time, he could be counted on to take the initiative to support our alliance with the Jewish state. We will miss his stalwart leadership but his legacy of standing with our ally will long endure.”

Indeed, with Cardin’s departure, the organized Jewish community is losing go-to senator for Jewish and pro-Israel issues — most recently, Cardin joined Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in seeking to honor Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir with a gold coin.

Not to worry, Cardin said: Every generation of Jews frets as it ages that it will be the last to fully represent on the American stage.

“I love the Jewish community. You can find every flavor imaginable in the Jewish community, and that’s healthy,” he said. “It was that way when I was growing up, it’s that way today. There are a lot of Jews that have very little identification to the traditions of Judaism, and there are a lot of young people who are much more engaged than I was.”

He added, “We’ve lasted these thousands of years — we’re going to continue to have a healthy, young population that understands the values of our religion and are committed to making sure we carry it out.”

Cardin is concerned by the turmoil in Israel in the face of the government’s radical proposals to overhaul the courts, but even there he sees hope.

“What Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu is doing with the judiciary is wrong, I’m going to speak out against it. I think it weakens their democratic institutions and democracy is their bedrock,” he said. “The Israelis are speaking pretty strongly against what the Netanyahu government is trying to do.”

Cardin described the typical headache of a Jew explaining his faith to others: It doesn’t quite match other faiths’ concepts of identification.

“I keep kosher in my house and we observe the major holidays in the Orthodox traditions, but I’m not an observant Orthodox Jew,” he said. “It’s hard to explain that.”

He recalled the late Sen. Harry Reid calling him, apologetically, to come in on the second day of Rosh Hashanah for a critical vote to fund the government and avoid a shutdown. Reid’s assumption was that Cardin would abjure working for the holiday.

“I said, ‘Look, it’s perfectly OK if you do it in the afternoon, I go to synagogue in the morning — I’ll be there for the vote,” Cardin said.

That’s typical of Cardin’s most tender memories — his non-Jewish colleagues expressing sensitivity to his Jewishness. In 1971, members of the House of Delegates noticing him gathering a minyan to say Kaddish after his mother died, and offering to join in; in 2006 after his election to the Senate, Mikulski telling him that she would handle meet and greets on Friday nights, knowing that he and Myrna routinely have as many as 30 people over for the Shabbat meal.

Asked if he would encourage younger Jews to get into politics, he doesn’t hesitate.

“This is a great country,” he said. About being Jewish, he added, “It has certainly not interfered with my political career.”


The post Translating ‘tzedakah’ for Marylanders: Sen. Ben Cardin’s long Jewish goodbye appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Continue Reading

Uncategorized

Federal budget should include funds to combat hate, protect communities, groups argue

Three weeks after Ottawa unveiled new measures and legislation to combat hate, Jewish groups want Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government to put its money where its mouth is.

Leading up to the Nov. 4 federal budget, B’nai Brith Canada and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) are seeking action on community safety—but at opposite ends of the security pipeline.

B’nai Brith made recommendations to proactively combat antisemitism in its July submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance (FINA) while calling on the federal government to use the Budget Implementation Act (BIA) to eliminate a loophole that allowed listed terrorist entity Samidoun to continue operating as a non-profit corporation

The brief called for investments to counter violent extremism with more funding for national security agencies; requiring all federal grant recipients to comply with Canada’s Anti-Racism Strategy (which references the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance antisemitism definition); enhancing young Canadians’ understanding of contemporary antisemitism; and making existing antisemitism training for federal public servants mandatory. 

In its December 2024 report, FINA endorsed reviewing all grant programs to ensure only projects aligning with Canada’s Anti-Racism strategy receive federal funding. (That report also recommended continued financing and increasing contributions to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency [UNRWA].)

Tying grants to anti-racism

Conditioning grant eligibility isn’t new; the Canada Summer Jobs Program already excludes companies and activities that discriminate in any way, advocate intolerance or discrimination, or actively work to undermine access to sexual health services.

B’nai Brith Canada’s research and advocacy director, Richard Robertson, told The CJN that his organization worked with the government and others following the Laith Marouf scandal, which saw the Department of Canadian Heritage fund a known anti-Israel activist and antisemite to offer anti-racism training to media outlets in Canada. That led to a declaration/attestation for Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Program grants.

“We’d like to see that replicated across all government agencies involved in grant programs,” said Robertson, “so that all individuals and programs receiving federal funding commit to abiding by Canada’s anti-racism strategies.” 

Nor is the call for mandatory training reinventing the wheel, says Roberston, noting the Treasury Board already developed training. “It’s just about making sure that it’s undertaken by all of our public service, so public servants are able to properly identify and address instances of contemporary antisemitism that may arise through the course of their work.”

There was no ask involving physical security and infrastructure through the Canada Community Security Program (CCSP), Robertson insisting maintaining that the rise in extremism and radicalization is the greatest threat to the long-term vitality and well-being of Canadian Jews. “Our submission was strategically designed to implore the federal government to invest in resources that will combat the growth of extremism radicalization in this country,” he said, “for training for the public service, attestation forms—all of these designed to ensure that our government is investing in the fight against racism and hatred proactively.” 

In other words: first lines of defence, rather than last. “I hope to one day live in a Canada where security funding for institutions is no longer needed, because our government has proactively combatted rising levels of extremism, radicalization, incitement and division. That is where we believe the funding is most urgently needed.”

In the crosshairs

Meanwhile, CIJA CEO Noah Shack wrote to Prime Minister Carney, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree in the hours following the October 2 Yom Kippur terrorist attack at a synagogue in Manchester, England. 

He reminded them that “Jewish Canadians have been in the crosshairs” since October 7, 2023, with schools shot at, synagogues firebombed and desecrated, Jewish-owned businesses targeted, coordinated efforts to exclude Jews from public life, and violent assaults. “The numbers speak for themselves: a Jewish Canadian is 25 times more likely to experience a hate crime than any other Canadian.” (According to Statistics Canada, there were 920 police-reported hate crimes against Jews in 2024, exceeding all hate crimes targeting other religious groups that year combined.)

Following the announcement of new legislation to protect access to places of worship, schools, and community centres, he urged the government preparing its first budget “to consider the urgent need to invest in strengthening security for the Jewish community—to help safeguard lives within these institutions.”

The CCSP, which replaced the Security Infrastructure Program last year, has been a crucial resource to enhance security, disbursing more than $40 million to more than 940 projects helping all Canadian communities at risk of hate-motivated crimes to date. 

That’s a sum equal to the annual amount spent solely by Canada’s Jewish community, which comprises less than one percent of the country’s population. Security costs for Canadian Jewish communities total more than $40 million due to the spike in threats and attacks, Shack told The CJN, the cost extending beyond financial, but also affecting Canadian Jews’ ability to live Jewish lives and pass on traditions to their children.

The U.K. model

CIJA is suggesting significant budget increases, similar to the United Kingdom, whose Jewish population totals some 300,000, about two-thirds the size of Canada’s. The U.K. government this year announced a four-year funding package of approximately CAD$33.5 million annually to the Community Security Trust (CST), whose mandate begins with the physical protection and defence of the country’s Jews, and which gained charitable status in 1994. 

According to a statement from the Trust to The CJN, the CST relies almost entirely on direct community donations for core funding, as there is no centralized federation funding structure in the U.K. Those funds pay for CST’s operating costs and for contributions to the cost of security equipment and infrastructure at community buildings, including more than 500 synagogues and Jewish community sites across the country.

Separate from its operating costs, the Trust administers annual state funding on behalf of the U.K. Home Office to pay for Jewish schools, synagogues and other premises to hire security guards from private firms.  In 2024, CST, staffed by some 100 employees and 2,000 volunteers, managed government funding for commercial security guards to over 200 educational establishments, summer and winter camps for 28 youth movements, over 260 synagogues, nearly 50 high-profile communal buildings, and multisite operations that covered over 100 Jewish communal and commercial sites within close proximity to each other.

Public Safety Canada spokesperson Noémie Allard told The CJN that the 2025-26 CCSP core budget funding for all communities is $16.6 million but may be bolstered in response to emerging priorities or evolving community needs, “determined through broader government initiatives or budgetary decisions.”

Mount Royal MP Anthony Housefather notes that the program allocated some $81.5 million, beginning in 2023 until 2029, adding, “we had gotten many of the community’s requests for changes to the program accepted, but these are additional needs that still need to be met.” He told The CJN his budget priorities are “funding for 24 by 7 operations centers and permanent security guards as well as consideration of direct funding of a community trust type operation as exists in the U.K.”

The CCSP emphasizes proactive measures to enhance safety without isolating physical barriers, said Allard, based on principles of crime prevention through environmental design. That means rather than barricading or fortifying locations, eligible enhancements “focus on visibility, access control, natural surveillance and environmental design to deter threats.” 

The program supports expenditures such as modest security hardware; minor renovations; developing security assessments and emergency plans; training activities for security equipment; preparing for and responding to hate-motivated incidents; and time-limited hiring of security personnel.

Moving beyond individual institutions 

Shack says increased funds are required for more than simply hiring extra security for high holidays, installing gates or cement bollards. “It’s all of it, together, with new infrastructure for a coordinated approach to security in places like Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, taking our security posture as a community to the next level.” That means moving beyond individual institutions, but looking after the most vulnerable communities, like the Community Security Network in Montreal and the Jewish Security Network in Toronto. 

Earlier this year, Deputy Opposition Leader and Thornhill MP Melissa Lantsman wrote Anandasangaree about “continued concerns” with management of the CCSP and its SIP predecessor, which she says remain unaddressed. “Applications for items previously covered by the CCSP and the SIP, including internal security blinds, automated vehicular gates, emergency crash bars, and the ancillary fees for security cameras, continue to be denied by your government with little to no explanation.”

Consequently, she says, synagogues, community centres, and other places are often forced to go without needed security infrastructure while “crimes against Jews are skyrocketing across Canada by triple digits or more.” This budget round, Lantsman’s office is asking for increased funding for security infrastructure and for Ottawa to fully review its funding, “and end any arrangements where money could end up supporting terrorism, (ex. ceasing all funding to UNRWA).” 

Without specifying a dollar amount, Shack says the point is that the threat facing Jewish Canadians is no different than that facing Jews in Britain, France or Australia, “and it’s important that we’re doing everything we can to address that. We shouldn’t have to shoulder that all on our own.” 

Nor is there a single magic wand: “We need to make sure that police have the resources they need to be present and do their jobs, and we need to make sure that the right cops are available to do the right jobs to keep our community safe.” It’s not about shuffling resources around, but something sustainable until the threat level changes. That means money for prosecutors, money for cops, “not just for them to exist, but also to be properly trained. You can’t just throw a body at the problem.” 

Draw lessons from Manchester

The warning signs are here, says Shack, “and we should draw lessons from Manchester, and ensure that we are looking after these critical components.” While Manchester is an ocean and several time zones away, “it’s almost like it’s just next door… I wish it wasn’t so, but this is the reality and we need government to be our partner. We should absolutely not wait for the worst to take place before we prepare to deal with it.”

He insists there’s an important distinction between being prepared and resolved when facing challenges and being fearful: “Everybody is entitled to their feelings and how they’re going to respond to the moment, but we have to look at how we can keep ourselves safe and continue to thrive as a community. Not hiding, not fearing, but being prepared and having eyes wide open to the threats.”

The post Federal budget should include funds to combat hate, protect communities, groups argue appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.

Continue Reading

Uncategorized

‘Why do we have to waste a few weeks?’: Satmar rabbi congratulates Mamdani during Williamsburg sukkah hop

This piece first ran as part of The Countdown, our daily newsletter rounding up all the developments in the New York City mayor’s race. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. There are 25 days to the election.

🫂Mamdani on tour

  • Zohran Mamdani met with Orthodox Jewish leaders at their sukkahs in Williamsburg yesterday, an overture to a community that has leaned toward Andrew Cuomo in polls.

  • Mamdani had a warm welcome at the sukkah of Rabbi Moishe Indig, a leader of the Satmar Hasidic community. One rabbi announced that Indig had called Mamdani “a friend of the Jewish people” and said he would make “the best mayor.”

  • “Congratulations — why do we have to waste a few weeks? — on becoming the mayor of New York City. We hope you come back,” said the rabbi who greeted Mamdani. Indig also hosted Brad Lander, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez and several NYPD officers at his sukkah.

  • The seal of approval marks a shift in Mamdani’s fortunes with Orthodox leaders. In early June, before Mamdani beat Cuomo in the primary, the Satmar community endorsed Cuomo.

  • Mamdani also stopped at the sukkah of Rabbi Shulem Deutch, who represents another Satmar faction.

  • The Satmars prioritize keeping their religious ways of life free from regulation by local governments. When Cuomo was the governor of New York, he cultivated close ties with Satmar leaders and struck deals with them over yeshiva rules.

  • While the frontrunner’s staunch criticism of Israel has prompted skepticism among some Jewish New Yorkers, it’s a different matter for Satmar Jews. Traditionally, they are among the ultra-Orthodox who identify with religious anti-Zionism and do not recognize the state of Israel.

📊 Numbers to know

  • Mamdani leads the race with 46% of likely voters, according to the first poll released since Mayor Eric Adams dropped out of the race.

  • The Quinnipiac poll showed most of Adams’ support transferring to Cuomo, but Cuomo still trailing Mamdani with 33% support. Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa amassed 15% of likely voters.

  • While Mamdani continues to lead, the poll showed little new support for him as he failed to clear a majority of the vote.

  • Quinnipiac also reported that 41% of likely voters aligned with Mamdani’s views on the Israel-Hamas conflict, more than those who aligned with Cuomo (26%) and Sliwa (13%) combined. And their sympathies lie more with Palestinians (43%) than with Israelis (22%). These findings match up with those of a New York Times/Siena poll last month.

  • But Mamdani’s vow to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hasn’t gained the same traction, with 43% of likely voters opposing his pledge and 38% supporting it.

  • The poll was conducted from Oct. 3-7 and has an error margin of 3.9%.

🕺 Curtis Sliwa dances for Sukkot

💰 Following the money

  • Cuomo scored a big boost yesterday, with the NYC Campaign Finance Board awarding his campaign $2.3 million in public matching funds.
  • Mamdani, who halted fundraising in early September when he hit the $8 million spending cap, also received $1 million from the CFB. Sliwa got $1.1 million.


The post ‘Why do we have to waste a few weeks?’: Satmar rabbi congratulates Mamdani during Williamsburg sukkah hop appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Continue Reading

Uncategorized

Palestinian Authority Slams Trump as ‘Criminal’ and ‘Unstable’ as He Tries to Help Bring Peace

US President Donald Trump gestures during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, US, Aug. 26, 2025. Photo: Jonathan Ernst via Reuters Connect

President Donald Trump has gone to great lengths to improve the lives of Palestinians. He has invested tremendous political and financial capital to genuinely attempt to give Palestinians a future of opportunity instead of one of violence and terror.

Yet, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has responded not with appreciation, but with vicious demonization.

Jibril Rajoub, one of the PA’s most senior officials and among the closest to Mahmoud Abbas, has unleashed multiple hate-filled rants against Trump in recent weeks.

Rajoub mocked Trump as frivolous, childish, and unstable — “a puppet” of the “Nazis who control Israel”:

Click to play

Jibril Rajoub: “An [American] president is in power who speaks in a language of frivolity, childishness, and instability and lack of perspective, even at the minimum level …

This [pro-Israel] bias — in my opinion, it is even more than that. He has even become a toy, a puppet in the hands of the group of Nazis who control Israel.” [emphasis added]

[Jibril Rajoub, Facebook page, Sept. 11, 2025]

The previous week, Rajoub accused “criminal Trump” of being a partner to and supporting “neo-Nazi” Israel:

Click to play

Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub: “The American administration gave the green light to this fascist [Israeli] government, the neo-Nazi government, to treat the Palestinian issue as if it were an internal Israeli matter, including the continuation of ethnic cleansing, genocide, and the slow annexation of all Palestinian territories in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

This, of course, aligns with the belief of these neo-Nazis who control Israel … Those who are doing in Gaza what the Nazis did in the 1940s will undoubtedly have no problem taking any [further] step … They behave like the neighborhood bully… with the support of the criminal Trump, who is their partner.”

[Jibril Rajoub, Facebook page, Sept. 2, 2025]

Rajoub’s hate speech is not isolated. Earlier this year, Palestinian Media Watch reported on how Rajoub accused Trump of joining together with “neo-Nazi choir” Israel to “impose their will on the world.”

Rajoub’s statements are part of the PA’s policy of demonizing the US and its leaders, which has been going on for decades. The PA’s disdain for the US has been expressed during both Democratic and Republican administrations. This is in spite of the US being the country giving the greatest amount of funding to the PA since its establishment.

Itamar Marcus is Palestinian Media Watch (PMW)’s Founder and Director. Ephraim D. Tepler is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch. A version of this article originally appeared at PMW.

Continue Reading

Copyright © 2017 - 2023 Jewish Post & News