On Friday night, Aug. 14, a man allegedly hit a 63-year-old woman and spat upon and heat-butted a 65-year-old security guard at Central Synagogue, a Reform congregation in Manhattan. Two days later, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani began a weeklong “planned vacation with his family in upstate New York,” according to City Hall.

JNS asked Jewish leaders in the city whether they thought that the mayor, who has been widely accused of fanning the flames of Jew-hatred, ought to have canceled his vacation to stand with Jewish New Yorkers after the attack at the synagogue and less than a month after a visibly Jewish man was stabbed near an Upper West Side synagogue by a man who, witnesses say, yelled “Allahu akbar.”

Rabbi Yaakov Menken, founding executive vice president of the Coalition for Jewish Values, told JNS that the question is not if Mamdani should be taking a weeklong vacation, but “how soon he will retire or be retired.”

“Hateful violence starts from hateful incitement, and he has been inciting violence against our community since long before he took office,” he said.

Read the full article at JNS

Photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office.

Rabbi Yaakov Menken, executive vice president of the Coalition for Jewish Values, warned that the growing influence of the Democratic Socialists of America within the Democratic Party endangers the American Dream and the nation’s future.

In a Fox News appearance on Monday, Menken described the DSA as a dangerous movement whose ideology and recent actions pose a serious threat to core American values and the country’s long-term stability.

Menken has previously labeled the DSA “objectively antisemitic.” He issued that characterization after DSA co-chair Megan Romer told The New Yorker that the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel were “largely inevitable,” remarks that drew widespread condemnation from pro-Israel organizations.

The Coalition for Jewish Values is the largest rabbinic public-policy organization in the United States. Menken’s comments come amid heightened concerns in Jewish communities about the DSA’s expanding political footprint and its positions on Israel and related issues.

Photo: Rabbi Yaakov Menken, courtesy of Coalition for Jewish Values

BALTIMORE (VINnews)— The Coalition for Jewish Values, which represents more than 2,500 traditional Orthodox rabbis in American public policy, announced Monday the appointment of former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and Irit Tratt to its Advisory Board, along with three new professional staff members.

Friedman, who served as ambassador during the Trump administration and worked to strengthen the U.S.-Israel alliance, said he was proud to join the board.

“CJV represents a unique voice in public policy, articulating Jewish values with clarity and authenticity,” Friedman said. “I believe what they are doing is critical for America’s future, and I am proud to join its Advisory Board.”

Also joining the Advisory Board is Irit Tratt, a national board member of the Republican Jewish Coalition and a board member of the Jerusalem News Syndicate and the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. She also serves on the steering committee of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.

“At this pivotal moment for Jews in America and around the world, principled leadership is essential,” Tratt said. “I am proud to join the CJV Board and to help advance an agenda rooted in traditional Jewish values, moral clarity and an unwavering commitment to Israel.”

The organization also named Isabella Brannon as director of legal affairs, Shaya Gedz as director of federal affairs and Rabbi Meir Levin as director of external relations.

“These appointments represent an important step forward for CJV as we expand our national presence and strengthen our ability to advocate for Jewish values and the Jewish community,” said Rabbi Yaakov Menken, CJV’s executive vice president. “Our new staff bring valuable experience, energy and commitment to our work, while Ambassador Friedman and others are now offering their extraordinary insight and leadership to our Advisory Board. At a time of rising antisemitism and growing hostility toward both Israel and Jewish values, their voices and counsel will be invaluable.”

Photo: U.S. Department of State, public domain.

“CJV represents a unique voice in public policy, articulating Jewish values with clarity and authenticity,” said Ambassador Friedman, who played a key role advancing human rights and the cause of peace during his time as U.S. Ambassador to Israel, as well as deepening the U.S.-Israel alliance. “I believe what they are doing is critical for America’s future, and I am proud to join its Advisory Board.”

By joining the CJV Advisory Board, Amb. Friedman recognized CJV’s advancement as one of the leading voices for authentic Jewish values in the public policy sphere. This growth was cemented over the summer with three new staff entering key positions: Isabella Brannon as Director of Legal Affairs, Shaya Gedz as Director of Federal Affairs, and Rabbi Meir Levin as Director of External Relations.

“These appointments represent an important step forward for CJV as we expand our national presence and strengthen our ability to advocate for Jewish values and the Jewish community,” said CJV Executive Vice President Rabbi Yaakov Menken. “Our new staff bring valuable experience, energy and commitment to our work, while Ambassador Friedman and others are now offering their extraordinary insight and leadership to our Advisory Board. At a time of rising antisemitism and growing hostility toward both Israel and Jewish values, their voices and counsel will be invaluable.”

Also joining the Advisory Board is Mrs. Irit Tratt, a National Board Member of the Republican Jewish Coalition, and a Board Member of Jerusalem News Syndicate and the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), who also serves on the Steering Committee of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs. “At this pivotal moment for Jews in America and around the world, principled leadership is essential,” said Mrs. Tratt. “I am proud to join the CJV Board and to help advance an agenda rooted in traditional Jewish values, moral clarity and an unwavering commitment to Israel.”

Photo: Amb. David Friedman, U.S. Department of State

American Jews are dealing with the reality of distressing Jew hatred, manifested by sporadic physical attacks and more prevalent verbal confrontations. Worse, it has become mainstreamed in the Democratic Party, with elected officials and prominent nominees unafraid to spew hatred against Jews poorly disguised as anti-Israel “activism.” Some of these Democrats are poor excuse for Jews, such as Bernie Sanders, while others, like Chuck Schumer, are so blinded by ambition that they pretend it doesn’t exist or rationalize its presence by blaming Israel.

Increasingly, this is becoming a viral strain in the Republican Party as well, engendering an insipid debate over who is or isn’t an anti-Semite, and ignoring its true causes. Why, indeed, has Jew hatred exploded in America and become commonplace across the world? Is it because of Gaza, as if Israel should have just accepted the October 7 massacre and the brutalization of its hostages, licked its wounds, and prepared for the promised, next massacre? Is it because the world has suddenly determined that Israel – alone among countries and Jews unique among nationalities – really has no right to exist? Burundi and Bhutan have an undisputed right to exist – but not the Jewish state of Israel?

That doesn’t seem credible, and for the apparently abrupt escalation in Jew hatred we must look elsewhere. As is often the case, history is quite instructive.

The United States was founded upon religious tolerance. Indeed, there were very few Jews living in colonial America (not many more than 1000 Jews lived there during the Revolutionary War), and Jews were treated well – better than well. In President George Washington’s famous letter to the Newport Hebrew Congregation in 1790, using language literally borrowed from Moses Seixas, Washington wrote:

“It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”

Tolerance? No. Jews are no different than any other group in America and are not “tolerated” but fully accepted.

As such, Jew hatred was largely unknown for almost the first century of the United States. Sure, there were some states that took time eliminating electoral provisions that barred any non-Christians (i.e., Jews) from holding public office, and General Ulysses Grant temporarily banned all Jews from entering the Tennessee territory during the Civil War, but there were few recorded attacks on Jews and Jews lived essentially unimpeded lives.

Could this be attributable to the dearth of Jews in America?

Possibly, but not necessarily. There are plenty of Jew-hating countries in the world today where no Jews live. Jew hatred can flourish without Jews, as long as there are a sufficient number of Gentiles reared with this spiritual and psychological malady.

Even the large influx of German Jews to the United States in the mid-19th century did not provoke any Jew hatred, perhaps because they were generally assimilated, their temples and services reminiscent of churches, their day of rest not Shabbat but Sunday, and their intense desire to blend into American life, which they did quite successfully. In fact, there was far more fear and hatred of Catholics in 19th century America than there was of Jews.

Of the 300,000 Jews who lived in the United States in 1880, more than 200,000 were German Jews. But in the next forty years, more than two million European Jews came to America, such that by 1920, the Jewish population of the United States had increased tenfold, to over 3,500,000 people.

By the early 20th century, Jew hatred had become more common in the United States. Leo Frank was falsely accused of murder, freed, and then lynched. A host of Jewish “defense” organizations arose (they all still exist). Jews were hassled on the teeming city streets. The 1920’s university quotas and job restrictions limiting Jewish opportunities became standard and even persisted into the 1950’s when civil rights laws cracked down on private conduct that had any public nexus.

What changed? Was it the mass influx of Jews that attracted Jew hatred?

No – it was the mass influx of European Gentiles. While two million Jewish immigrants came to America in that period, that number was dwarfed by the more than twenty million Gentiles who came – Poles, Germans, Russians, Italians, Irish, Slavs, and others. These immigrants, arriving from lands where they imbibed Jew hatred with their mother’s milk, brought their Jew hatred with them.

Jew hatred was never indigenous to the United States. It was imported, along with these millions of immigrants. Some of it was religious based – Polish, Irish, Italian Catholics reared on Jew hatred in their native lands – and some of it was sociologically based. Some of these newcomers, the lowest tier on society’s totem pole, simply sought out an ethnic group long despised in their native land, and disparaged them, persecuted them, and harassed them.

In a very short time, this imported Jew hatred spread to the establishment as well, and Jews (and blacks) became conventional targets for discrimination. For Jews it didn’t last or even sting as much because we were successful, skilled at adaptation, ambitious, educated, social climbers, and blessed. Law firms, hospitals, and country clubs didn’t want us? We just made our own, and better ones too. And built businesses. And Hollywood.

In time, and the Holocaust played a role in this as well, Jew hatred receded from American life (although you wouldn’t know it from the billions of dollars spent for many decades combating it) and became unfashionable.

Jew hatred is again fashionable, and not because the culture changed, or Israel became too bellicose, or Netanyahu is unlikeable, or Jews are too successful. The same dynamic that swept America over a century ago has repeated itself in the last thirty years – the large influx of Muslims, especially radical Muslims, who have brought with them the endemic Jew hatred that characterizes their native lands.

Millions of Arabs and Muslims have immigrated to the United States in the last fifty years, many claiming refugee status because of the depraved conditions in their countries of origin. To be sure, not every Arab or Muslim is a rabid Jew hater (any more than all of the twenty million European Christians who came to the US were), and many have become productive citizens, embodying the American ethos. But many have not.

Armed with literal fortunes in money – donated by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other Muslim countries – they have poisoned the American bloodstream with their radical ideas, even insisting in some locales on the implementation of Sharia law. They have infiltrated local school boards and endowed university chairs, not surprising then that most Jew hatred in America has emerged on college campuses. Their culture is one of hatred of Jews and Israel, if not America itself. And it did not take long for some of their most radical imports – immigrants or children of immigrants, like Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Zohran Mamdani, and others – to achieve important political positions.

They did it very slyly, cleverly, and surreptitiously. Who would have thought that a radical Muslim NYC mayor could preside next month over the 25th anniversary of the Arab terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001? It is because their PR teams and useful idiots in the media immediately identified the major crisis in US life after 9/11 as “Islamophobia,” statistically insignificant as a social phenomenon but dominant and pervasive as a deflection. What better evidence than the universal hesitation to characterize the attacks of 9/11 as “Arab” or “Muslim”? Instead, it is just a date, 9/11, no perpetrators need be identified, for propriety’s sake.

Not only is “Islamophobia” used as a shield against exposing odious behavior on the part of Muslims, but it also rests on a fundamental hypocrisy. “Islamophobia” is premised on the reasonable idea that all Muslims should not be blamed for the detestable acts of a violent few, or even many. Yet, that same deference is not showed to Jews, who must be held accountable, hounded, beaten, attacked, vilified, and persecuted for the (righteous) acts of the State of Israel.

It is not just that “Islamophobia” is a crock of drivel as a real phenomenon, but rather that it is employed as armor against any criticism of even the most radical Muslims, and in turn is used as a weapon that has intimidated many Americans into silence and acquiescence in the transformation of their country.

Similarly, the infiltration of billions of petrodollars into the university system in the US has changed curricula and radicalized students. When American campuses erupted in anti-Jewish fury on October 8 (!), with spirited defenses of the Hamas massacre and vile accusations of genocide in Gaza even before Israel had responded militarily (!), these campuses had literally been preparing for years for just such a moment. Tents, signs, fences, loudspeakers resolutions had all be readied in advance, and pressure points against vulnerable Jews had already been identified.

And, just like a century ago, the Jew hatred that emigrated to America along with the Arabs and Muslims, slowly spread to other classes as well – including some American blacks and Hispanics (who are disproportionately assaulting Jews in NYC for no discernible reasons) and the old WASP class that has long resented Jewish success.

Undoubtedly, the Jew hatred in Europe over the last several decades has a similar provenance – the large, and until recently, unstoppable incursion of Arabs and Muslims into the UK, France, Belgium, Spain, Germany, and elsewhere. It is no surprise that all those countries, like the USA, has been visited multiple times by Arab mass terror attacks, and no surprise that Jews are repeatedly victimized there. The Jew hatred in Australia and New Zealand follows the same pattern – Muslim immigration that is accompanied by Muslim Jew hatred. But go ahead and blame Israel for it.

Is there a solution to this problem? A century ago, time played the largest factor and Jew hatred receded within several decades because of our prosperity and societal integration, each a divine blessing of sorts. But time may not be our ally here. And the hoary staples of outreach and dialogue will be of limited value when dealing with an entrenched, religious-based hatred, which is not to say it won’t be tried, and when it fails, tried again.

America is changing. Its establishment is reproducing itself far below replacement rates and thus it is becoming ever more distant from the Enlightenment roots that spawned the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. Hence, the current demand of the Socialists to gut the Constitution, the product of dead, white, European males. Jews, who do have a homeland that will welcome them happily if they so choose, will mostly try to ride out the wave, making deals with the devil when necessary (including turning on Israel), and wondering why the US continues to elect more and more radical Jew haters rather than the pareve Protestants who made the US such a palatable home for so many for so long.

Is it possible that the children of radical Muslim immigrants will over time mainstream and Americanize, what once was the dream of every class of immigrants? It certainly is possible, but the early returns are not good. The children of radical Muslim immigrants are just as radical but they have sufficiently acclimated to American society to perceive how to attract votes, money, and support, how to camouflage the most despicable ideas behind the toothiest and oleaginous smiles.

Immigration changes every nation, and many for the better, the United States among them. But some types of immigration transform in ways that obscure the national purpose and obliterate the founding ethos. That is what has occurred in Europe and is occurring now in the United States.

This is one of the ways in which exiles come to an end.

Photo: Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, courtesy of the Coalition for Jewish Values

The co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) group is receiving sharp backlash for saying on Friday that the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre in Israel was mostly “inevitable.”

During an interview with The New Yorker’s David Remnick, DSA co-chair Megan Romer was questioned about democratic socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier, who attended an anti-Israel, pro-Hamas rally the day after the Oct. 7 terrorist attack in 2023, and was pressed on whether she would have attended if she were in her position.

“I think that Oct. 7 was largely inevitable,” she replied. “If you put people in an open-air concentration camp and you deprive them of rights, of dignity, of food, of the ability to live in safety, you have to expect that they are going to not take that for that long. And that is not defending any harm of civilians or of non-combatants —”

Pro-Israel groups condemned her comments.

Executive Vice President for Coalition for Jewish Values, Rabbi Yaakov Menken, called the DSA “objectively antisemitic.”

“She used a mythological inversion of reality to justify both a murderous pogrom and an ongoing plan of starvation, torture, rape, and murder,” Menken said.

Read the full article at Fox News

Also published in Yahoo News.

Photo: Screenshot of Megan Romer interview.

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed’s narrow victory in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary was a clarifying moment. By endorsing the winner, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) abandoned all pretense of serving as a shomer, or “guardian,” of the beleaguered Jewish community. It is not just that Schumer indicated that he would endorse even an antisemite for political gain; it is that he did.

El-Sayed has not hidden his attitude toward Jews, which wallpapers slogans about Israel and Zionism over classical antisemitism. No one of intelligence could fail to see the similarities between his beliefs and those that overtook Germany less than a century ago.

He regards the Jews as a collective threat, stating without evidence that the Israeli government is “just as evil as Hamas,” the genocidal terrorists responsible for the worst anti-Jewish massacre since the Holocaust. El-Sayed claimed that rescuing hostages from torture and rape, and neutralizing those genocidal terrorists, constitutes “genocide.” Jewish lives, in other words, have no value in his view.

In a modern spin on the old “Chosen People” myth, he accuses Jews of racism, calling the only Middle Eastern country that gives both Jews and Arabs civil rights an “apartheid” state. And like his ideological forebears, he considers a boycott of Jews an appropriate “response.” Perhaps worst of all, El-Sayed used these depraved lies about Israel to justify violence against Jews in his home state. This is no different than the Nazis blaming Jews for the violence of Kristallnacht in 1938.

No one who values Western civilization or basic human decency would consider El-Sayed remotely fit to be a U.S. senator.

This brings us back to Schumer, who is placing political gain ahead of moral principle. During the primary, he backed the more moderate, pro-Israel candidate Rep. Haley Stevens. But once El-Sayed prevailed, Schumer immediately pivoted and was quite forthright about why. He issued a statement with Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chair Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) that declared they were “united by a common purpose” with El-Sayed: “taking back the Senate.”

To Schumer, party cohesion and electoral math come first, while the character of the nominee takes a distant second. That is why he and Gillibrand both supported the now disgraced Senate candidate Graham Platner in Maine, despite his Nazi tattoo and a series of scandals, until a sexual assault accusation from a former Platner girlfriend sent them scurrying like rats abandoning a sinking ship.

For a lesson in moral courage, Schumer could learn from Boy George, who released a new song, “Od Nirkod” (“We Will Dance Again”), standing with the Jewish community at great professional and personal cost. In fact, he could study a political leader Schumer himself has accused of antisemitism in the past: U.S. President Donald Trump.

Trump has openly stated that El-Sayed hates Jews and Israel. Though entirely accurate, one could dismiss this as political posturing based upon party affiliation. This, however, would fail to recognize Trump’s penchant for repeatedly getting it right about hatred of Jews and Israel. He demonstrates this most clearly not when his targets are his political adversaries or adversarial college administrators, but his fellow Republicans.

Trump has distanced himself even from former allies over antisemitism, pushing back when they cross into anti-Jewish bias and conspiracy theories. He forcefully rejected former Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and actively campaigned against soon-to-be-former Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), both Republicans.

After podcaster Tucker Carlson’s interviews with a series of antisemitic bigots and his subsequent attacks on Trump’s policy on Israel and Iran, including claims that attacked Jewish organizations, Trump declared that Carlson “has lost his way,” is “not MAGA” and does not represent “America First.” Trump has said his movement has no room for antisemites.

This difference in attitude has an obvious practical impact upon the two parties. The most powerful Democratic leaders, including one who proudly trots out his personal Jewish identity whenever it suits him, treat fighting antisemitism and the demonization of the Jewish state as secondary to gaining power.

Leaders on the other side, including Trump, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), dismiss erstwhile allies and refuse to include them and their bigoted views for political profit.

This is what Jews in America need: not calculations of which candidate is electable in a purple state, but clarity on who will defend their security and legitimacy without apology.

El-Sayed’s primary victory, coupled with Schumer’s subsequent endorsement, demands a moral choice that transcends political inclinations. True friendship with the Jewish community is evaluated based on actions and adherence to principles, rather than on birth certificates or party affiliations. In this regard, the Democrats’ record is not even close to that of the Republicans.

Photo: Chuck Schumer official photo by U.S. Senate Photographic Studio/Jeff McEvoy, public domain (U.S. federal government work), via Wikimedia Commons

Missouri primary voters will travel back two years when they head to the polls on Tuesday. There they’ll confront a rematch of two candidates whose previous face-off was largely defined by an influx of AIPAC cash that helped oust one of Israel’s most ardent critics in Congress.

In 2024, AIPAC “demonstrated its clout,” with a massive contribution that knocked out incumbent U.S. Rep. Cori Bush in favor of challenger Wesley Bell. In her concession speech, she promised revenge. On Tuesday, Bush is seeking to make good on the pledge. But while she is competing against the same candidate, the political landscape around them has changed dramatically.

Jewish leaders and activists in the state have followed the race closely. Rabbi Ze’ev Smason, president of the Coalition for Jewish Values – Missouri, told JTA in an email that his organization also doesn’t endorse candidates. But the difference between Bell and Bush, he said, was obvious to his regional chapter of a national Orthodox rabbinic group.

While Bell “supports Israel’s right to self-determination” and to exist as a Jewish nation, Bush has “established an adversarial relationship with Israel abroad, as well as with the overwhelming majority of her Missouri constituents,” according to Smason.

“At home in her district, Cori Bush was a ‘no-show’ for her Jewish constituents,” Smason stated. “She regularly refused requests for interviews from the local Jewish press, and was shockingly absent from the dedication ceremony of the Holocaust Museum and Learning Center, with no explanation.”

Read the full article at Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Also published in Times of Israel.