(JTA) — In 2010, I said something I thought was unremarkable — that the government of Israel’s actions directly affect me as a Jew living in London. “When they do good things it is good for me; when they do bad things, it’s bad for me,” I said, noting that Israel lies at the heart of my identity.

My comments ignited a firestorm. Some called me a self-hating Jew or said I was giving succor to Israel’s enemies. More maddening, both then and now, were those who told me, in private, that they agreed but that such things should not be said in public.

I have heard every variation of this refrain for over 15 years but have continued to speak out. If Israel were something only Israelis can comment on, it would not be the Nation-State of the Jewish People — but just a state like any other.

Two years ago, I co-founded The London Initiative with Mike Prashker to give structure to our feedback. Our goal was to strengthen partnerships between Israelis, both Jewish and Arab, and Diaspora Jews who share a commitment to what we call the Triangle — mature liberal democracy, societal fairness for all Israel’s citizens, and the pursuit of secure peace. These are neither fringe propositions nor partisan policies. They are the values of our Jewish state as laid out in its Declaration of Independence. They are Israel’s operating system.

When these foundational values come under threat, we believe that Diaspora Jews have a responsibility to speak out, in partnership with likeminded Israelis asking for our support.

In August last year, The London Initiative sent a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, signed by over 6,300 Jews from 20 countries.  We raised urgent concerns about humanitarian aid, the hostages, Jewish-extremist violence and incitement from within his own government. It was measured, principled and rooted in Zionist values. And it was ignored. The Diaspora, it seemed, was expected to keep its wallets open and its mouths shut.

Last week, in the face of unprecedented levels of violence by Jewish extremists in the West Bank, we wrote to President Isaac Herzog. We cited the IDF chief of staff’s condemnation of Jewish-extremist violence as a strategic threat and called on the President to demand an end to this terror and the impunity that enables it. Almost 4,000 have signed so far.

Then something remarkable happened.

The president neither ignored nor scorned us but replied, sharing the conviction that such violence “contradicts Jewish ethical tradition and the values upon which Israel was founded.” He confirmed he has demanded that all available means be used to bring perpetrators to justice. He acknowledged that this violence “plays directly into the hands of Israel’s detractors, fuelling hatred that weakens us as a nation and jeopardises Jews everywhere.” And he thanked the signatories for their concern and mutual responsibility.

Israel’s head of state publicly acknowledged the partnership between Israel and Diaspora Jewry, recognized that Jewish-extremist violence damages both Israel and Jews around the world, and thanked Diaspora Jews for engaging. He validated that Diaspora Jews not only have a right to speak, but a duty. President Herzog’s response — principled and courageous in the fractured political climate he navigates — is an outstanding act of leadership.

This seminal moment should encourage Diaspora Jews to engage constructively with Israel, with humility for the challenges Israelis face but clear-eyed too that Israel’s direction of travel affects Jews everywhere.

I have defended Israel against those who delegitimize it. We cannot be quiet when Israel’s enemies demonize it and our connection to it. But nor should we remain silent when the actions of some of Israel’s politicians run counter to our values and its own founding ideals. When we speak out, we are not using the language of our enemies, but voicing the call of an ancient people for justice and fairness. We should never flinch from doing so. It strengthens us.

In contrast, when violent Jewish extremists carry out attacks on Palestinians, when their protectors in the Knesset turn a blind eye, while passing outrageous legislation like the death penalty law, it weakens Israel and weakens all of us. And it does more damage to the reputation of Israel and the Jewish people than a thousand protest letters ever could.

Sadly, many communal leaders we approached to sign either ignored the request or explained why it was not convenient or why the timing was wrong.

We know all too well that there is an explosion of antisemitism facing our communities. But staying silent when we see our values violated, in this instance by thugs rampaging in the West Bank, does nothing to help the fight against antisemitism at home. We also understand that Israel is at war, Israelis are again under fire and our solidarity is with them. But here’s the thing: if our Israeli friends and colleagues can stand up for their democratic values even as they shelter from Iranian missiles, we should be able to muster the courage to sign a letter. When we stand up for our values, confident in who we are, we will be stronger in facing our myriad challenges.

Diaspora Jewry needs the confidence to work in partnership with Israelis for the Israel envisaged in the Declaration of Independence. That confidence must be underpinned by forthright leadership from our communal institutions. Staying silent when things are going wrong is not protecting the community — it is abandoning it.

Israel’s president showed moral courage — many of our own communal leaders need to find theirs. The “keep your wallets open and mouths shut” era is over. The stakes are too high, the values too precious, and the partnership too important to be surrendered to silence.

Our own leaders should realize that when faced with a moral crisis speaking up is not an inconvenience, but an obligation, and now is the time.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of J. or JTA, which distributed it.

This story was originally published in the Forward. Click here to get the Forward’s free email newsletters delivered to your inbox.

When the young women of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory sat down before their Singer sewing machines on Saturday, March 25, 1911, they could not know that their lives would soon be extinguished because of a lit cigarette.

At around 4:40 p.m., a worker flicked a still-smoldering cigarette butt into a bin filled with paper patterns and fabric scraps. The contents ignited instantly. Someone threw a bucket of water to douse the flames — to no avail. Eighteen minutes later, 148 people were dead: 123 women and 25 men, many of them teenagers, most of them immigrants.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which remains the deadliest workplace disaster in New York City and one of the worst in the country, not only shocked the nation, it transformed American labor law. Locked doors, unsafe conditions, and the exploitation of young workers came to symbolize an industrial system that all too often treated human beings as expendable. Public outrage led to sweeping workplace reforms and helped launch modern labor protections.

Now, 115 years later, those hard-won safeguards are eroding.

Across the country, child labor violations are rising. Teenagers are working longer hours and, in some cases, dangerous jobs like working in industrial freezers, on construction sites, and in meat-processing facilities. According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, the number of children employed illegally nearly quadrupled between 2015 and 2024; meanwhile, the companies that hire them often face minimal penalties.

The lesson of Triangle was clear — when economic pressure meets diminished regulations, minors become the most vulnerable workers. Today’s legislative rollbacks and declining enforcement risk recreating the very conditions reformers fought to eliminate.

Few understood those stakes better than Pauline Newman, one of the most influential labor organizers of the early U.S. labor movement. Born in Lithuania, Newman immigrated to the United States with her mother and sisters after her father’s death. By age nine, she was climbing dark factory stairs to work in a hairbrush factory. Later, she rolled cigars, and by 12, she found work at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, laboring 14 hours a day in what workers called the “kindergarten,” trimming loose threads from finished garments. Shirtwaists arrived piled in cases taller than some of the children themselves.

“We were too young to do anything else,” Newman later recalled.

In one of several pieces she wrote for The Forward, she chronicled her experience working at The Triangle and what she described as her “own drab existence,” wondering “dear God will it ever be different?”

Although Newman had left Triangle before the fire, the disaster changed her life. The deaths of former coworkers propelled her into a lifetime of labor organizing and fighting to protect workers, especially minors, from exploitation. Her activism helped reshape public understanding of workplace safety and child labor, showing that reform comes only when society decides certain risks are unacceptable.

Throughout the 19th century, reformers had pursued piecemeal protections. Religious leaders fretted over working children who couldn’t read scripture, while secular advocates argued democracy required an educated citizenry. Early laws limited hours or required factory owners to provide basic education, but enforcement was inconsistent and protections varied state-by-state. When Newman arrived in New York City in 1901, meaningful safeguards were largely absent.

The Triangle fire changed that calculus. By 1913, Newman and her fellow organizers, including Rose Schneiderman, Clara Lemlich and Frances Perkins, helped push legislation that moved thousands of children from factory floors into classrooms and introduced workplace safety standards. The culmination came in 1938 with the Fair Labor Standards Act, establishing nationwide rules governing wages, hours and child labor.

Now many of these protections are being undermined. Since 2021, at least 17 states have rolled back child labor protections, while others have introduced legislation to diminish existing safeguards.

In Florida, proposed legislation would remove limits on working hours for 16- and 17-year-olds, potentially allowing overnight shifts during the school year. In 2023, Iowa passed laws permitting minors to work in previously restricted environments, including meat coolers. Arkansas, Missouri, Ohio and other states have pursued similar measures.

Supporters argue the changes provide flexibility for families and help businesses facing labor shortages. Opponents warn they expose minors to injury and undermine education.

Many young workers entering hazardous jobs today come from immigrant families struggling with rising living costs. Some are recent arrivals, including unaccompanied minors particularly vulnerable to exploitation. For these families, work isn’t an extracurricular activity; it means economic survival. But hardship does not make dangerous labor safe, nor should it justify dismantling protections.

Families facing financial instability often feel they have little choice but to send children into the workforce. But no family, however, should face the choice Pauline Newman once did: education or survival.

Nostalgia often shapes today’s political arguments. Lawmakers recall babysitting, shoveling snow, or scooping ice cream as teenagers. But many modern violations occur not in safe, supervised settings but in industrial workplaces where injuries can be life-altering or fatal; as was the case when in 2023 a 16-year-old Wisconsin boy died in a cotton-packing machine.

Weakening protections risks reversing more than a century of progress, undermining not only individual futures but an economy and democracy that depend on an educated workforce.

Preventing a return to early industrial exploitation doesn’t require reinventing labor law. It requires enforcing and modernizing protections already proven to work.

States can strengthen work-permit systems, as Illinois did in 2024, improving oversight and reducing violations. Civil and criminal penalties must increase so illegal child labor is not treated as a routine business expense. For example, New York has expanded enforcement authority and centralized employment records for minors, enabling fines upwards of $50,000 for serious and repeat violations. Policymakers should eliminate subminimum wages for young workers and tighten prohibitions on hazardous work, particularly in agriculture and manufacturing. Colorado has taken steps allowing injured minors to pursue private legal action, strengthening employer accountability.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire compelled Americans to confront what happens when profit outweighs protection. Reformers like Pauline Newman spent decades ensuring children would no longer bear the cost of unsafe workplaces. Reform was hard-won, and progress is never inevitable. More than a century later we ought to remember why those protections exist.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward, where this story was originally published.

Jewish organizations and security experts in the Bay Area have reintensified their focus on community safety following the violent attack on a Detroit-area synagogue on Thursday. 

Across North America, Jewish security officials are warning of the “most elevated and complex threat environment the Jewish community and this country has seen in modern history,” according to the Secure Community Network, a nonprofit that monitors threats to Jewish organizations.

The FBI identified the armed attacker as Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Lebanon. 

Ghazali drove his pickup loaded with fireworks through the doors of Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, and into a hallway before he was confronted by armed security guards, according to the FBI. His pickup got stuck in the hallway, and Ghazali shot himself to death after a gunfight with guards, the FBI reported. One security guard was hit by the pickup. None of the 140 children at the synagogue’s preschool were injured.

Tensions have already been high in the Bay Area Jewish community. The attack came days after a daytime assault on two Israeli American men outside an upscale restaurant in San Jose. 

Bay Area Jewish community officials emphasized there is no immediate threat to the local Jewish community following the Michigan attack. The fact that the incident resulted in only the attacker’s death highlighted for many the importance of preparedness.

In an email to the community, Jewish Silicon Valley CEO Daniel Klein said Thursday that his organization was boosting security following the Michigan attack.

“While there have been no direct or active threats surrounding this incident to our building community,” Klein wrote, “out of an abundance of caution, we are elevating our security presence across our facility and increasing police presence across our Jewish ecosystem.”

Rabbi Jason Gwasdoff of Temple Israel in Stockton — a synagogue that shares a name with the one attacked in Michigan — told J. that his congregation doubled its security personnel after that incident. Gwasdoff also spoke to local police about increasing their presence around the synagogue, KCRA3 reported. 

Synagogues and Jewish organizations have made similar security adjustments following violent attacks, such as the Bondi Beach massacre in Australia on the first night of Hanukkah in December. The specific methods used in the West Bloomfield attack, however, raise additional concerns about the potential car rammings. 

“It’s really about — as security people say — expanding the perimeter,” said David Goldman, executive director of San Francisco’s Congregation Emanu-El. “Making sure that whatever threat level it is, you’re always constantly pushing it out, out, out.”

In the past five months, two other attacks on the Jewish community involved car rammings. In October, a man drove his car into a group of Yom Kippur worshippers outside an Orthodox synagogue in Manchester, England. In January, a man repeatedly drove his car into an entrance of the Chabad-Lubavitch world headquarters in Brooklyn.

Car rammings are a “very valid concern,” said San Francisco Police Department Commander Amy Hurwitz, the department’s liaison to the Jewish community. “These things are happening. They’re real. We are great as a community because we learn from what happens around us, and we take action.”

The best way for safety officials to determine how to fortify a building, Hurwitz said, is on a case-by-case basis. She encouraged organizations in San Francisco to take advantage of the free on-site surveys conducted by SFPD’s Neighborhood Safety Team. Surveys can be requested via email at neighborhoodsafety@sfgov.org. 

The Jewish Federation Bay Area also offers vulnerability assessments, trainings and consultations to Jewish organizations.  

“Vehicular attacks are one of the threats we consider when we conduct vulnerability assessments,” Rafi Brinner, Jewish Federation Bay Area’s senior director of community security, told J. via email. “Depending on the site, bollards, jersey barriers, planters, or decorative boulders can mitigate the threat from vehicular attacks.”

In 2024, California’s nonprofit security grant program awarded Congregation Kol Shofar in Tiburon a $250,000 grant, which the synagogue is using for projects such as additional lighting around its building’s exterior, according to executive director Gordon Gladstone. 

Chochmat HaLev in Berkeley also received a state grant, which it will use to replace doors and gates on its building and install features to reduce visibility into the interior, according to a Friday email announcement. The congregation also asked for donations after notifying its congregants that increased security measures will strain its budget. 

A shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security since mid-February has halted the review of millions of dollars in security funding for nonprofits, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The federal Nonprofit Security Grant Program, administered through DHS, helps nonprofits, including religious institutions, pay for security guards, cameras, reinforced doors and other protections.

Boichik Bagels’ College Avenue location in Berkeley is the setting for a new short film about Alzheimer’s. “Lox” takes place as bagel-lovers greet each other and schmooze in a slow-moving morning bagel line. What appears to be a chance encounter between two strangers in line is slowly revealed to be something more.

“Lox” will be shown on the opening night of the East Bay International Jewish Film Festival on March 7 at 7 p.m. at the Century 16 theater in Pleasant Hill. It will screen alongside the festival’s opening feature film, “The Ring.”

“Lox” has already shown at 30 film festivals and won several awards, including best short film at the Bay Area & Sacramento Short Films Festival. It was originally staged as a one-act play at the 2023 Young Playwrights Festival in Los Angeles and was written by Leo Eigen, then 15, a student at Ramaz, the Jewish day school in New York City. 

The director is Dan Pavlik of Fremont, who is not Jewish but has filmed enough bar mitzvahs to feel confident with Jewish material. “This is a quintessential Jewish story, mostly because it’s about family and tradition — and also bagels,” he said, according to a press release from the EBIJFF. “But the issue, Alzheimer’s, also makes this film universal.”

In the film, a man encounters an elderly woman, seemingly a stranger, while waiting in line and strikes up a conversation with her. The woman, Ruth, is played by Bettina Devin, 74, who also produced “Lox.” When she saw the 13-minute film at another festival, “it was the only one that got any laughs, as well as tears,” she is quoted in the press release.

As the line inches forward, it becomes clear that Ruth is having memory problems. Eventually, the other shoe drops. (No spoilers!)

This year’s East Bay International Jewish Film Festival will feature 22 feature-length films, running from March 7 to 12 at the Century 16 in Pleasant Hill and at Vine Cinema in Livermore on March 22. An online component will be available from March 15 to 25. 

(JTA) — When Mickey Gitzin arrived in New York last month with two young daughters and a few winter coats hastily packed in Israel, he was stepping into a role that once would have seemed improbable for the organization he now leads.

Gitzin, 44, was named interim president and CEO of the New Israel Fund in December, as its longtime CEO, Daniel Sokatch, begins a year-long sabbatical. Gitzin takes over at an organization that funds progressive Jewish and Arab organizations in Israel that are often at odds with the Israeli government. As a result, it has been vilified by Israel’s right and their allies in the United States as dangerously radical, even traitorous.

And yet today, as Israel is led by its most right-wing government ever and anti-Zionism is growing on the American left, NIF finds itself in a different, if no less precarious, position: defending a space in the Jewish mainstream that is fiercely critical of Israeli policy while affirming a version of Zionism that aligns with democratic equality. 

“NIF was always in the forefront when it came to the liberal progressive ideas that were later on absorbed by the mainstream,” said Gitzin, the first Israeli to lead the organization, in a Zoom interview. “We are not there to be the mainstream. We’re there to push the mainstream, but in order to push the mainstream, you need to be in touch with the mainstream and not give up on it, which is a very, very fine line.”

That position leaves NIF open to criticism from both sides. To some on the American left, Zionism of any stripe is incompatible with democracy and human rights for Palestinians and other minorities. In many parts of the Jewish center, NIF’s grantees reveal political and social ills in Israel they’d rather not see, and definitely do not want broadcast to the rest of an already hostile world. 

Yet Gitzin argues that NIF reflects where many American Jews actually are: horrified by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, devastated by the destruction in Gaza, and alienated by a discourse that demands total allegiance to one narrative or another.

“People want to act in ways that fit with their values,” he said. “I think that we have a very powerful story to tell, that the story of Israel is being able to care about the state of Israel and fight for it and care about the notion of equality for Jews and Palestinians.”

Born in Israel to immigrants from the former Soviet Union, Gitzin grew up in Azor, a working-class development town. His first rebellion, he said, was against the politics of his right-leaning parents. His political awakening came late, sharpened by his service as an intelligence officer in the Israel Defense Forces, where he worked on Palestinian affairs during the Camp David negotiations and the Second Intifada.

That “allowed me to understand the complexity of the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians, the role that Israel plays, and the missed opportunities all through the way,” he said.

Later, as a Jewish Agency emissary in South Bend, Indiana, Gitzin encountered an American Jewish world that unsettled his assumptions about liberal politics and Jewish observance, which among many secular Israelis are often seen as incompatible. “I was able to jump between the communities happily, something that I’ve never been able to do in Israel,” he said.

Returning to Israel, he founded an organization focused on religious freedom that later became an NIF grantee. Gitzin had found his institutional home. Eight years ago he became executive director of NIF’s Israel office — years that coincided with some of the fiercest attacks the organization had ever faced.

Though more intense, those attacks were not new. Since the 1980s, NIF has been accused by critics of undermining Israel by funding human rights groups that promoted anti-Israel positions. In 2010, the right-wing organization Im Tirtzu said NIF grantees were helping hostile groups abroad build their case against the Jewish state. Those grantees included B’Tselem, a human rights group, who said they merely reported human rights violations and left others to draw their own conclusions. 

NIF responded at the time that politically charged groups like B’Tselem represent only a fraction of their grantees. It pointed to other grantees, including the Association for Civil Rights, the pro-democracy group Mehazkim, the civil-society coalition Citizens HQ and the Israel Religious Action Center, a public policy arm of the Reform movement.

More recently, the criticism came not just from right-wing NGOs but from the prime minister’s office. In 2018, Netanyahu blamed NIF for thwarting his plan to deport African asylum seekers. That same year, he accused NIF of weakening Israel by opposing the nation-state law that prioritized Jewish national identity over equal citizenship for non-Jewish Israelis.

“I think it was very confusing for the organization,” said Gitzin. “We’re do-gooders, and all of a sudden we found ourselves in such an attack.”

The organization’s response, he said, was to retool and stop ducking each individual attack or trying to convince critics that NIF’s mission was as a non-ideological supporter of “civil society” or “social justice.”

Instead, NIF has clarified that it stands for democracy, peace, building Palestinian civil society, Jewish-Arab partnership and protecting human rights. Other issues, like economic justice and religious pluralism, are less of a priority now, said Gitzin, who described the process as “being pushed out of the closet.” 

“As someone who came out of the closet, personally, as a gay person, I know it’s really, really difficult to be pushed out of the closet,” he said. “And then when you’re out it’s the most powerful feeling that you can know.”

As a result of this clarity, he said, their support in Israel grew. Donations from within Israel also surged after Netanyahu’s attacks, Gitzin said, as liberal Israelis came to see NIF as part of a broader struggle to defend democratic institutions.

According to NIF, since 2023 — and especially in the aftermath of Oct. 7 — NIF’s donor base has increased by more than 7,000, from roughly 14,000 donors to more than 21,000 through 2024. Its annual budget in 2025 was $28.5 million, a figure that does not include additional funds it stewards through donor-advised gifts and family foundations. 

In 2025, NIF distributed more than $12.8 million in core grants to 97 grantees, and spent an additional $3.7 million on strategic capacity-building and issue advocacy in Israel.

NIF employs 112 staff members, with 42 based in the United States and 70 in Israel.

Gitzin boasts that NIF was one of the first organizations to respond to the Oct. 7 attacks, finding hotels for people who were evacuated from Ofakim and other villages. NIF also raised more than $3 million for a humanitarian campaign to aid Gazan civilians.

In Israel, NIF has expanded its work in the West Bank, funding not only legal advocacy but “protective presence,” supporting Israelis and Palestinians who show up as observers and demonstrators at Palestinian communities threatened  by settler violence. Gitzin describes the campaign to push Palestinians out of Area C, the fully Israeli-controlled territory in the West Bank, as systematic and state-enabled. 

“These are not mistakes,” he said. “It’s a policy.”

He worries about the tens of thousands of Israelis who have left the country since Oct. 7, suspecting many are the kind of liberal democrats who agree with NIF’s agenda. And he warns about the rise of what he and others call “Kahanism,” a hyper-nationalist Zionism associated with the late Meir Kahane, the American rabbi who at one time was shunned even by the Israeli right for being too radical. 

Such Kahane acolytes as the far-right senior ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, Gitzin said, make it increasingly obvious that “the attack against Israel and democracy comes from the settlement enterprise and ultra-nationalist settlers,” alongside “populist leadership like Netanyahu” and forces that “can’t live with the notion of equality.”

Asked whether liberal Zionism still has a future in Israel, Gitzin argued that the political landscape is shifting in ways that create new — if limited — opportunities. While the traditional left remains a small minority, he said, “the definition of what’s left or not left is changing,” especially since Oct. 7 and, before then, the government’s judicial overhaul proposal that triggered massive pro-democracy demonstrations.    

“There is a  space to influence, where more people are searching for answers. There’s definitely a growing camp of people who are not pleased with the current government and who identify as liberal democrats,” he said. “Our job is to reach out to them and try to bring them closer to where I sit.”

Liberal Zionists, he acknowledged, “will never be a majority.” But drawing a lesson from their ideological opponents, he noted that settlers were never a majority, yet learned how to exert their influence. That, he said, is a model for Jews and Arabs who believe Israel needs “a different vision than the one represented by this government.” 

Reinforcing that vision in the United States means building bridges and setting boundaries. Gitzin said NIF staff and grantees include Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel, Zionists and non-Zionists. In the Israeli context, “non-Zionist” means those who do not actively support or advocate for a Jewish state, but also do not actively seek the end of Israel. NIF has several red lines: It will not support groups that advocate violence, racism or affiliation with the movement to boycott, divest from or sanction Israel, or BDS. In addition, “we don’t support those who actively oppose the notion of a homeland of the Jewish people,” he said.

“We are a space in which Zionist and non-Zionists can live together and work together, as long as we share ideas like equality, partnership, peace-seeking and so on,” he said. Outside of that space are those, on both the right and the left, who offer “from the river to the sea” solutions of exclusive Jewish or exclusive Palestinian domination in Israel proper, Gaza and the West Bank.  

As interim CEO, Gitzin is still finding his footing in a new country and a new role. But he brings with him a sensibility shaped by Israel’s contradictions — and by the conviction that walking away, whether from Zionism or from liberal democracy, is not an option.

“Israel is giving me, personally, with my family story, an opportunity that no other country would have ever given me. I’m not throwing it away,” he said. “Despite my extreme criticism of current policies, I’m not willing to give it away. It’s too dear to my heart.”

In the Goz Amer Refugee Camp in Darfur, every day is marked by a single, haunting question for each person living there: Will I have enough food and water to survive? 

Two decades ago, the world was intensely focused on the humanitarian crisis in Sudan. And even though the situation there is even worse today, the world has turned its eyes to new crises — Ukraine, Gaza, Iran and beyond — and even these strain our attention.

In 2004, during my first visit to the refugee camps in eastern Chad, I met Adam Musa in the Kounongo camp. He had fled his village in West Darfur after the Sudanese government unleashed horrific violence aimed at erasing his people. Over several visits, I came to know this kind, soft-spoken man whose compassion and boundless energy lifted the spirits of everyone around him. Watching him help fellow camp residents and collaborate with humanitarian workers became an enduring lesson in human dignity.

What do Adam and I share? At our core, the same longings — to be safe, to protect our families, to have food and water, to receive medical care and to live in peace. I have all these things and more. Adam is fortunate, on any given day, to have even a small portion of them. As he once said, “We want to see our children healthy. We want to see that there’s a future that would be better than living in a refugee camp.”

Dostoevsky once wrote, “The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.” I’ve often wondered whether that insight is reserved for those who have the privilege of not worrying each day about survival. For Adam — and millions like him — life truly is about staying alive. Most of us cannot imagine the daily reality of the displaced, the persecuted, the forgotten. 

Since 2003, when the Sudanese Arab government turned its fury on non-Arab populations in the south — especially in Darfur — tens of millions have been displaced, hundreds of thousands killed, thousands of women raped and countless children left without parents.

Adam, orphaned as a boy in Darfur, somehow survived. He became a teacher in his village, convinced that learning is essential to human survival and the hope of ending the horror of armed conflict. After years in Kounongo, he returned to Darfur, only to be uprooted again by renewed violence. He now lives in the Goz Amer camp. Still, he teaches. Still, he believes.

Two decades ago, the Save Darfur Coalition captured the conscience of many in the United States. The coalition was an alliance of faith-based and human rights groups, founded and shaped by leaders of the Jewish community. Their rallies filled city squares. Activists demanded that the world pay attention. For a time, it did. But that movement faded — and with it much of the world’s concern. Today, the killing continues, and our silence is deafening.

Adam is still hoping for a different future.

He has simple, human dreams: He wants his children to live with hope and without the constant threat of starvation. He wants them to dream beyond survival.

Adam’s own challenge is to survive, protect his family and hold on to hope. Ours, in our comfort of safety, is to let his story unsettle us and find a way to respond amid the noise, distractions and moral fatigue of our age.

The great religious thinker Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once wrote, “There is immense silent agony in the world, and the task of a human being is to be a voice for the plundered and disenfranchised.”

Adam’s task is to survive and hold on to his dreams.

Our task is to listen, to care and to dream with him — and then to turn those dreams into compassionate action. As another new year has begun taking shape, maybe the world needs fewer resolutions and more dreams — dreams rooted in responsibility, summoned by conscience and sustained by the stubborn insistence that suffering must never be ignored.

Although the voices of Darfur’s activists have grown faint, perhaps 2026 will finally rouse a world long deaf to people’s cries, turning silence itself into a clarion call to save the millions enduring the ongoing tragedy in Sudan.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of J. 

(JTA) — Rabbi Rafi Ellenson was getting ready for a full day of rabbinic duties in September when he jokingly asked a colleague, “What do I wear that’s appropriate both for religious school and a shiva?”

After some light-hearted deliberation, Ellenson, who works as an assistant rabbi for Congregation Shir Hadash, a Reform synagogue in Los Gatos, said they realized his wardrobe dilemma might deserve a spotlight on social media.

“We were like, oh, this would be a really fun idea for an Instagram account,” said Ellenson. It would show what rabbis are wearing and “the absurd things they have to do every day, dressing for 20,000 occasions and for 50,000 people.”

For help turning his idea into reality, Ellenson called Rabbi Arielle Stein, an assistant rabbi at Congregation Rodeph Sholom, a Reform synagogue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, whom he had met in Jerusalem in 2019.

After some deliberation, the pair created Rabbinic Fit Check, an Instagram account billed as “a style diary for the rabbinate and beyond.”

“We’re trying to show diversity of rabbis, diversity of genders, diversity of expression,” said Ellenson. “There’s no one model, and there’s no one model in the real world, so we don’t want to feature only one model on the account.”

So far, Rabbinic Fit Check has featured 57 rabbis, clergy members and students from a range of denominations and garnered over 1,300 followers. The outfits range from cozy sweaters and “sensible” office wear to zebra-print skirts and a fashion-forward Delfina Balda pant suit.

“It’s nice to see that rabbis look like more than just that old oil painting of someone in a black coat,” said Rabbi Allison Poirier of the Conservative synagogue Temple Aliyah in Needham, Massachusetts. “It’s nice to see that we’re out here as new people, as colorful people of all ages and shapes and sizes, which I think in the world I work in, most people know, but it’s just nice to uplift that.”

Indeed, a new national study of the American rabbinate released last month by the Atra Center for Rabbinic Innovation found that 51% of the rabbinical students surveyed identified as LGBTQ+. According to the Atra report, 58% of rabbis surveyed identify as women, 30% as men, and 12% as nonbinary.

But the diversification of the rabbinate has also underscored a broader trend, with rabbis more often taking on an engaged, hands-on role rather than the old model of the “sage on the stage.”

Stein, who had already gone viral for her rabbinic style videos on social media and was featured in Vogue last month for her videos on clergy-friendly shoe choices, said the pair’s Instagram account has also come to serve another purpose: showing the rabbinate in a more intimate light.

“I think especially for our generation of rabbis, we’re real people, these are important ways that people can connect with us and build trust and understanding,” said Stein. “We’re not pretending that we’re somebody at work and somebody at home.”

Rabbinic Fit Check posted its inaugural outfits from Stein and Ellenson in mid-October. The pair then reached out to their colleagues for submissions, and users soon asked to be featured.

Poirier said that she had been drawn to post her style (J Crew blazer, Birdy Grey dress, her sister’s thrifted sweater) because of the account’s “diversity and also the light-heartedness,” which she said offered a contrast to reality.

“Everything is so, so heavy right now, and a lot of our day is rightly dealing with some of the heaviness, and it’s nice to just have something that also uplifts rabbis as fun, joyful people, kind of expressing ourselves in this cute, silly way,” said Poirier.

“Rabbis are kind of in the zeitgeist in a lot of different ways, and there’s a lot to say about that both positive and negative, and certainly we’re tapping into some of that,” said Ellenson. “But I think we’re approaching an angle of we’re humans who have these cool jobs, and we want to show parts of ourselves through our clothing and express ourselves more fully and completely, and not bifurcate these two segments of our lives.”

Einav Rabinovitch-Fox, a professor at Case Western Reserve University who wrote a history of women’s fashion, said that she viewed the Rabbinic Fit Check account as part of a “new phenomenon” in which the public image of the rabbinate was shifting. She pointed to “Nobody Wants This,” the Netflix show starring heartthrob Adam Brody as a young Los Angeles rabbi that first aired in September 2024. The Amazon series “Transparent,” “Extrapolations” on  Apple TV+ and the 2023 film “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah” all featured what Hey Alma, JTA’s sister site, called “hot rabbis.”

“It’s kind of like a sign of our times,” said Rabinovitch-Fox. “Not all of them are like Adam Brody, but I think it’s a depiction of a trend, and I think that Instagram account is part of it, like, ‘oh, look, Judaism is cool.’”

Rabbi Jamie Field, the director of education at Beth El Temple Center, a Reform synagogue in Belmont, Massachusetts, was featured on Rabbinic Fit Check shortly before her appearance on the Netflix show “Squid Game: The Challenge.” She said it was a “really beautiful that there is an increase in rabbinic visibility.”

“We have a really sacred responsibility to show that rabbis are real people, and that we are engaged and part of the world and being responsible for being part of that conversation, not just witnessing it through Netflix shows about rabbis,” said Field.

While Rabinovitch-Fox said religion does not always “celebrate the individual,” she added that “fashion is a really a great and simple way to make your own statement.”

“People want to find somehow to relate, and I think with this Instagram generation, fashion is something that is important to people, so it’s just another way to relate to that,” said Rabinovitch-Fox. “If you can talk with your rabbi about style, you have a cool rabbi.”

Rabbi Andrea London, the leader of Beth Emet The Free Synagogue, a Reform congregation in Evanston, Illinois, said she submitted a photo of herself and Cantor Natalie Young on Parashat Noah after Ellenson, who is a family friend, mentioned it to her in conversation. For her cameo, she wore a white button-down shirt with a gold necklace and slacks.

London, who was ordained in 1996, said that she had submitted the photo to offer the account “a little diversity of age.” She recalled that early in her career, “as a woman, you wouldn’t dare to be on the bimah without a skirt.”

“One of the things that was annoying in the rabbinate was that people would comment on my clothing a lot, and it was just tiresome and men didn’t get that,” said London. “And now, I think Rabbinic Fit Check is trying to turn it on its head, like let’s have fun with it as opposed to seeing this as somehow discriminatory or sexist in any way.”

So far, Ellenson and Stein said the response to the account from their congregants and colleagues had been positive. Looking ahead, Ellenson said they hoped to feature leaders from other faiths.

“I think it’s about joy, showcasing diversity, showcasing the personal, and showcasing that all of these pieces can be a part of cultivating rabbinic and cantorial and clerical work,” said Ellenson.  “We can bring ourselves into the work, and that makes the work better when we’re being ourselves with our communities.”

It is one of the joyful oddities of American Jewish life that we’ve turned the act of eating Chinese food and seeing a movie into a Christmas tradition, a magical confluence of family, capitalism and the idiosyncrasies of two immigrant ethnic minorities.

Whether it is your tradition to do so on Christmas Eve (as I do) or on Christmas Day, it can be a bit of a wrangle: Who’s coming? What movies are they willing to see? Which theaters are showing those movies? And is there a good Chinese joint nearby?

In an effort to help the Jews of the Bay, I’ve paired most of the movie theaters in San Francisco with a nearby Chinese joint, plus movie recommendations. I’ve also covered a few theaters in the North Bay, East Bay, Peninsula and South Bay. If your favorite theater (or your favorite Chinese joint near a theater) wasn’t mentioned, let me know at david@jweekly.com.

San Francisco

Landmark Opera Plaza

Chinese joint: Harbor View — This Cantonese place is especially good if you have a large group, as I did this last year. We saw “A Complete Unknown” and then the group Uber-ed toward the Embarcadero for a banquet-like dinner at an enormous round table with a view of the Bay.

Movie rec: “Marty Supreme” —Timothée Chalamet, a Jew, plays a tennis champion with an enormous ego in the new movie from Josh Safdie, also a Jew.

AMC Metreon

Chinese joint: Fang — Very close to the theater. Another good spot for a big group, Fang is known for modernized takes on classic Chinese dishes.

Movie rec: “No Other Choice” — The new dark comedy from Park Chan-wook. Don’t miss it. 

AMC Kabuki

Chinese joint: San Wang —I feel a little weird telling you to get Chinese food when you’re in Japantown. But how about Korean-style Chinese food nearby? This unique spot is worth a try. And it’s right across the street from the theater.

Movie rec: “Avatar: Fire & Ash” in 3D — The blue people are back, and they’re hotter than ever. Don’t see it in 2D. 

Roxie

Chinese joint: Bao — Roxie is one of my neighborhood theaters, and I often stop at Bao before or after a screening for… you guessed it, bao. It has every kind of dumpling and bun you can imagine.

Movie rec: “Children of Paradise” — This 1945 French classic, filmed during World War II, is a wild ride through the Parisian theater scene of the late 19th century. 

Regal Stonestown

Chinese joint: Supreme Dumplings — You’re already in the mall, but you don’t want Panda Express. Head for Supreme Dumplings, also in the mall, a nice sit-down spot that serves what its name promises.

Movie rec: “Anaconda” — A Jack Black and Paul Rudd comedy about doofuses attempting to remake the movie “Anaconda,” the (real) ’90s thriller.

Vogue Theater

Chinese joint: Hunan Empire — A long-ish uphill walk but a short drive from the theater, Hunan Empire has all the Chinese American classics you’re looking for, plus more “adventurous options,” according to its website.

Movie rec: “Hamnet” — “Nomadland” director Chloe Zhao is back from the MCU and ready for another proper film.

4 Star

Chinese joint: Literally anywhere — You’re on Clement Street in the Richmond District. Walk outside, turn left or right and wander into almost any storefront. You can’t go wrong.

Movie rec: “Die Hard” — God bless the 4 Star for showing this every Christmas. You’ve heard the claim that it’s a Christmas movie. The next time you see me, ask me why it’s actually a Hanukkah movie.

Balboa Theater

Chinese joint: Shanghai House —It’s literally across the street. And if it’s full, there are like eight other places within a block. 

Movie recs: They have “It’s a Wonderful Life” on Dec. 24 and “Marty Supreme” on Dec. 25. You can’t go wrong.

North Bay

Cinemark Century Rowland Plaza, Novato

Chinese joint: China Palace —With a name that generic, it must be good! Plus, it’s right across 101 from the theater.

Movie rec: “The Housemaid” — Proving that I’ll see anything on Christmas, I might check out this thriller with Sydney Sweeney playing house help in what seems like an idyllic situation… before things go very wrong.

Lark Theater, Larkspur

Chinese joint: DJ’s Chinese Cuisine — After the movie, you’re a five-minute walk from a local favorite with some outdoor seating and all the classics.

Movie recs: “Hundreds of Beavers,” an indescribable Tex Avery cartoon come to life, on Dec. 24; “It Was Just an Accident,” a comedic thriller by an Iranian dissident, on Dec. 25.

East Bay

Grand Lake Theatre, Oakland

Chinese joint: Yang Chow or Hunan Village — They’re both local stalwarts serving all the standard dishes, and they’re both right around the corner from the one of the most beautiful movie theaters in our area. 

Movie rec: “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery” — The third installment in the Daniel Craig murder mystery series. Absolutely delightful.

AMC Bay Street 16, Emeryville

Chinese joint: Hong Kong East Ocean Seafood Restaurant — It has Bay views to die for and a menu full of Hong-Kong-style specialties. There’s also the Mumu Hot Pot in the same shopping complex as the theater.

Movie rec: “The Secret Agent” — A languid, occasionally comic Brazilian thriller starring Wagner Moura, who you thought was really handsome in “Civil War” last year.

Rheem Theatre, Moraga

Chinese joint: Chef Chao — Come see the incredible neon marquee on this theater, then head across the street for the usual Mandarin dishes, plus Sichuan specialties.

Movie rec: “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for Squarepants” — If you’ve got kids (or you’re a nostalgic Millennial), I know which movie you’re seeing.

Peninsula/South Bay

Cinemark Century San Mateo 12

Chinese joint: Tai Er Sichuan Cuisine — This is actually the first U.S. outpost of a chain from China. I’ve been meaning to try it for a while. Let me know if it’s good if you go.

Movie rec: “Elf” — They’re showing “Elf”!

3Below Theaters, San Jose

Chinese joint: China Chen — Just a couple blocks away, no frills, all the classics you crave.

Movie rec: Their schedule for the week isn’t posted yet, but expect a mix of first-run films and classics.

(JTA) — As the last of the Israeli hostages were released from Gaza, President Donald Trump addressed the country’s parliament — and was given a hero’s welcome.

Trump’s speech to the Knesset on Monday offered effusive praise for the state of Israel, warm — but not unguarded — praise for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and an outline for a vision of a future in which Israel is a full partner of every other nation in the region. And in typical Trump fashion, it was delivered with a mixture of bravado and unpredictable asides, some of which cut at the heart of several tensions in the Middle East.

Here are the big takeaways from Trump’s speech to the Knesset.

‘You’ve won’

With the hostages released, Trump made clear that, in his view, the era of Israeli military action in Gaza is over.

“Israel, with our help, has won all that they can by force of arms,” he said. “You’ve won. I mean, you’ve won. Now it’s time to translate these victories against terrorists on the battlefield into the ultimate prize of peace and prosperity for the entire Middle East.”

Speaking of the hostages later, the president reflected on meeting with their families and the spirit he saw igniting them.

“Over the past two years, I’ve met many of the families of the Israelis taken hostage and those that were taken hostage, unbelievable. I’ve looked into their eyes. I’ve seen the worst nightmares of their suffering, but I’ve also seen something else, the beautiful love of the people,” he said. “It’s that love that’s defeated the enemies of civilization, built this incredible country and this unbelievable economy and forged one of the great democracies of the world.”

‘You could be a little bit nicer, Bibi’

Amid reports that Trump had been frustrated by Netanyahu’s pace in negotiations to end the war in Gaza, the president had broadcast total alignment with Jerusalem. He had Netanyahu by his side at the White House last week when he announced that Israel had agreed to a ceasefire proposal that would be presented to Hamas, which later signed on. He invited Netanyahu into his motorcade on his way from Ben Gurion airport to the parliament building on Monday.

And he began his speech by praising Netanyahu — but not as effusively as he might have.

“I want to express my gratitude to a man of exceptional courage and patriotism whose partnership did so much to make this momentous day possible. You know what I’m talking about. There’s only one prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu,” Trump said. “He is not easy. I want to tell you he’s not the easiest guy to deal with, but that’s what makes him great.”

Later, as he praised opposition leader Yair Lapid as a “very nice guy,” Trump reacted to the reaction he perceived in Netanyahu and offered a rebuke.

“Now you can be a little bit nicer, Bibi, because you’re not at war anymore, Bibi, you did it.”

Bibi’s trial

Even while alluding to his frustrations with Netanyahu, Trump still took a moment to stump for him in the prime minister’s still-ongoing trial for political corruption. Turning to Israeli President Isaac Herzog at one point, Trump made a highly unusual show of intervening in the case, calling on him to use his pardon powers to settle the matter.

“Hey, I have an idea. Mr. President, why don’t you give him a pardon?” Trump said, to hoots and applause. “Give him the pardon. Come on.”

As chants of “Bibi!” could be heard, Trump continued, “It’s not in the speech, as you probably know, but I happen to like this gentleman right over here. And it just seems to make so much sense. You know, whether we like it or not, this has been one of the greatest wartime presidents.”

Trump then made specific reference to some of the bribery charges against Netanyahu, one of the cases that a large movement of Israeli protesters — including many hostage families — had cited as a reason why the prime minister should cede power.

“And cigars and champagne, who the hell cares about that?”

The U.S.-Israel relationship

As the war dragged on, segments of both the left and right in American politics have begun to question U.S. support for Israel. Trump vocally reaffirmed the bond.

“Israel will always remain a vital ally of the United States of America,” he said. “Israelis share our values, field one of the world’s most powerful militaries. You really do.” He added, “I’m proud to be the best friend that Israel has ever had.”

He also referenced the U.S. citizens who were abducted in Gaza in what he noted was “the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust,” painting American and Israeli grief over Oct. 7 as one and the same.

“The United States of America grieved alongside you, and we mourn for our own citizens who were so viciously taken that day,” he said. “And to all the families whose lives were forever changed by the atrocities of that day, and all of the people of Israel, please know that America joins you in those two everlasting vows: Never forget, and never again.”

What’s next for the ‘Avraham Accords’

At various points during his speech, Trump turned to his first administration’s signature foreign-policy accomplishment: the normalization agreements between Israel and a handful of Arab states, known as the Abraham Accords. On Monday he pronounced it the Hebrew way, “Avraham.”

“I like calling it the Avraham Accords. Avraham. It’s so cool. It’s so much nicer, you know? The Abraham versus the Avraham,” he said.

In the wake of what he said would be a concentrated rebuilding effort in Gaza, Trump also urged Israel and several Arab and Muslim nations to add to these accords. “Now we’re going to forge a future that is worthy of our heritage. We’re going to build a legacy that all the people of this region can be proud of,” he said.

“So instead of building fortresses to keep enemies at bay, the nations of this region should be building infrastructure to weave your commerce closer together, because you’ve got to compete with a big world out there in commerce. Now it’s a different kind of competition. Instead of making weapons and missiles, the wealth of this region should flow to schools and medicine, industry. And frankly, the new hot thing, artificial intelligence.”

Toward the end of his speech, Trump provided a list of countries and their capitals he said he would like to see forge stronger relations with Israel and each other. Some of them already have diplomatic ties to the country.

“New bonds of friendship, cooperation and commerce will join Tel Aviv to Dubai, Haifa to Beirut, Jerusalem to Damascus, and from Israel to Egypt, from Saudi Arabia to Qatar, from India to Pakistan, from Indonesia to Iraq, from Syria to Bahrain, Turkey to Jordan, the United Arab Emirates to Oman and Armenia to Azerbaijan,” he said.

How such an ambitious realignment would play on the larger diplomatic stage, as many countries remain furious at Israel for its handling of the Gaza war, remains to be seen. The president of Indonesia, one Muslim-majority nation long in discussions to join the accords, scuttled a planned historic visit to Israel Monday over reported concerns of pushback at home, though he attended the day’s summit between Israel and Hamas held in Egypt.

‘Make a deal’ with Iran

Amid talks of normalization, Trump paid special attention to the elephant in the room by urging the Knesset to use their momentum to “make a deal” with Iran, which both the United States and Israel had bombed at various times during the Israel-Gaza war.

“And even to Iran, whose regime has inflicted so much death on the Middle East, the hand of friendship and cooperation is open,” he said. “I’m telling you, they want to make a deal.”

“Neither the United States nor Israel bear the people of Iran any hostility,” Trump continued. “We merely want to live in peace. We don’t want any looming threats over our heads.”

The moment stood out, as both the United States and Israel have had fraught relationships with Iran for nearly half a century. Netanyahu spoke to Congress in an effort to unravel a nuclear deal with Iran during the Obama administration; that deal wound up going through, only to be scuttled by Trump in his first term in office. Trump himself acknowledged this with some dark humor.

“As president I terminated the disastrous Iran nuclear deal, and ultimately I terminated Iran’s nuclear program with things called B-2 bombers,” he said. Yet, Trump pressed on, now a new deal should be reached, one predicated on Israel’s strengths.

He added, “A lot of Iranians in the United States are good people, smart, hardworking people. They don’t want to see what’s happened to their country. The story of fierce Israeli resolve and triumph since Oct. 7 should be proof to the entire world that those who seek to destroy this nation are doomed to bitter failure. The State of Israel is strong and it will live and thrive forever.”

Bibi’s demand for weapons

Trump was open about one aspect of U.S. support for Israel that had received particular scrutiny and protest during the war: the transfer of weapons for Israel to use in Gaza.

“We make the best weapons in the world, and we’ve got a lot of them, and we’ve given a lot to Israel, frankly,” he said. Deeming himself “all about stopping wars,” Trump said he “hated” some of the weapons the United States makes “because the level of power is so enormous, so dangerous, so bad.”

Yet, Trump said, the United States gave Israel all the weapons it needed. He even ribbed Netanyahu’s desire for military supplies.

“I mean, Bibi would call me so many times: ‘Can you get me this weapon, that weapon, that weapon?’ Some of them I never heard of, Bibi. And I made them,” Trump said. “But you used them well. It also takes people that know how to use them, and you obviously use them very well, but so many that Israel became strong and powerful, which ultimately led to peace. That’s what led to peace.”

Miriam Adelson

Trump gave a special shout-out to one of his wealthiest and most stalwart pro-Israel donors in the United States, Miriam Adelson — widow to casino magnate Sheldon. While praising her, he also suggested she “loves” Israel more than the United States — flirting with the kind of “dual loyalty” trope that mainstream Jewish organizations have tended to condemn in the past.

The Adelsons, he said with an unusual degree of candor for a president referencing a top financial backer, had been a large influence on his Israel policy.

“I kept my promise and officially recognized the capital of Israel and moved the American embassy to Jerusalem,” Trump said, to applause. “Isn’t that right, Miriam?” He then urged Adelson to “stand up” for recognition.

During his first term, Trump told the Knesset, “Miriam and Sheldon, they would come into the office… I think they had more trips to the White House than anybody else. Look at her sitting there so innocently. She’s got $60 billion in the bank… But she loves Israel. And they would come in, and her husband was a very aggressive man, but I loved them.”

Trump described his relationship with the Adelsons as one where they would needle him to drop by the White House. “He’d call up, ‘Can I come over and see you?’ I’d say, ‘Sheldon, I’m the president of the United States. It doesn’t work that way.’ He’d come in,” the president said. “But they were very responsible for so much.”

“I’m going to get in trouble for this,” Trump said. “But I actually asked her once, I said, ‘So, Miriam, I know you love Israel. What do you love more? The United States or Israel?’ She refused to answer. That means, that might mean Israel.”

The word on Gaza, and ‘the Board of Peace’ 

When Trump’s remarks touched on what should come next for Gaza, he painted his vision as one of international cooperation and prosperity, should the Palestinians want it.

The “day after” plan for Gaza was one of the major sticking points of the negotiations between Israel and Hamas, the latter of which has not committed to relinquishing control of the territory despite Trump and Israel’s demands. Some members of Israel’s far-right governing coalition, meanwhile, have urged for the expulsion of all Palestinians and for Israel to control or resettle the strip.

In the past, Trump has promoted the idea of the United States, or his personal business interests, taking Gaza for itself and turning it into a resort. His tone was more measured in the Knesset, saying his plan for rebuilding Gaza involved a “board of peace” that would be “unbelievably popular.”

“Is that a beautiful name? Like a board, of peace,” he said. “The only bad thing, from my standpoint: every single nation involved has asked me to be the chair. And I’ll tell you, I’m very busy. I didn’t count on that.”

Trump framed Gaza’s future as one up to Palestinians.

“The choice for Palestinians could not be more clear,” he said. “This is their chance to turn forever from the path of terror and violence, it’s been extreme, to exile the wicked forces of hate that are in their midst. And I think that’s going to happen.”

Jared and Ivanka

How much does Trump’s Jewish son-in-law, Jared Kushner, love Israel? “He loves it so much that my daughter converted,” the president said.

Trump continued to riff on Ivanka’s conversion for a while. “I didn’t know this was going to happen,” he said. “And she is so happy, and they are so happy, at least, I think they’re happy. If they’re not, we have a big story, right?”

The oldest description of breast cancer dates back to about 3000 BCE in Egypt, but the disease wasn’t mentioned in our pages until 1953.

Three local doctors performed a groundbreaking (but now severely outdated) experimental surgical procedure for the first time on a human patient that year. It involved removing the adrenal glands and placing a small portion of one of them near the spleen to slow (though not stop) the development of breast cancer.

The understanding and treatment of breast cancer has changed dramatically, from rudimentary surgeries in the early to mid 20th century to targeted therapies, genetic testing and personalized medicine today.

October is recognized globally as Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a time dedicated to supporting those affected by the disease and promoting early detection and more research. Once taboo and little understood, breast cancer is now symbolized by the iconic pink ribbon and supported by awareness campaigns, fundraising and advocacy.

In a matter of decades, the survival rates and quality of life for many patients have improved dramatically. One crucial breakthrough was the discovery of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations, which are strongly linked to hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. Ashkenazi Jewish women are disproportionately affected. They are about 10 times more likely than the general population to carry mutations in these genes, according to Sharsheret, a Jewish organization that supports people diagnosed with or at high risk of breast and ovarian cancer.

The breast cancer survival rate in the early 1950s is difficult to determine but at least one study from the MD Anderson Cancer Clinic estimates it was as low as 25%. That compares with today’s survival rate of more than 90%, according to the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

In 1955, a significant effort began at San Francisco’s Mount Zion Hospital (now a campus of the UCSF Medical Center) toward decreasing the fatality rate. That year, the same three doctors mentioned above — Donald E. Bernstein, Gerson R. Biskind and A. Lincoln Brown — made headlines again for their “discovery of a new surgery for cancer of the breast.” 

This time, we wrote, they successfully removed and transplanted the “ovaries to a position next to the bowel wall where their secretions, particularly estrogen, are forced to filter through the liver. It was already known that the female hormone estrogen stimulates the growth of some breast cancer, and that the liver somehow rids estrogen of its cancer stimulating power.” 

The surgery was performed on “a number” of unnamed women and was considered successful because “besides causing shrinkage or disappearance of some cancers, the operation has relieved patients of pain, restored their appetite, resulted in substantial gains in weight and sent some patients back to their normal useful routines.”

While on the cutting edge at the time, such transplantation procedures are now considered ineffective in treating breast cancer.

Over the next few decades in the U.S., radical mastectomies became standard practice. In this surgery, the entire breast, all of the lymph nodes under the arm, and sometimes the chest wall muscles were removed in a single procedure at the same time a biopsy was performed if cancer was found. Although radical mastectomies were a generally effective treatment, the procedure was intense, leaving patients disfigured and often traumatized.

By the 1970s, breast cancer became recognized as one of the leading causes of death for women in the U.S. and began to shed its taboo status.

In 1972, the first in a series of chilling advertisements by the Cancer Awareness Plan titled “Cancer Will Strike” were featured in our pages. The ads doubled as public service announcements that listed facts, symptoms and statistics about the disease from the National Cancer Institute. They warned that breast cancer “causes more deaths than any other form of cancer” and advised women to purchase separate cancer-specific insurance policies. In 1973, three years before the American Cancer Society began recommending routine breast cancer screenings, one of these ads urged readers to conduct monthly self-examinations to search for possible tumors.

The Bay Area Jewish community began organizing seminars, panels, classes and fundraisers that aimed to better understand, treat and prevent the disease. 

In the 1980s, research showed for the first time that Jewish women had a slightly higher incidence of breast cancer than other women. Experts at the time believed that this was due to diet and health habits, we wrote, such as “eating richer, fatty foods, consuming little fiber and exercising little or not at all.” 

Dr. Ernest H. Rosenbaum, a cancer specialist at Mount Zion Hospital, even theorized that “there is probably not a genetic predisposition for breast or colon cancer in Jewish women and they are probably at the same risk as other Caucasians.” (This is now known to be completely wrong.)

Although understanding and treating cancer had come a long way, the disease remained a mystery.

“After a hundred years of research we still don’t know the exact cause of cancer except for smoking-related diseases such as lung cancer,” Rosenbaum acknowledged in 1986.

“Jewish women should shop smartly and buy fiber and low-fat foods,” he advised. “They should learn to be clever cooks, using less butter and schmaltz, and to be conservative about their eating habits.”

With the beginning of third-wave feminism in the early 1990s, more women than ever were speaking out about breast cancer, advocating for more research and better treatments and addressing the trauma of disease for patients and their loved ones. Our publication featured stories about plays, poems and memoirs that tackled topics like grief, faith, identity and even post-mastectomy sex.

In 1991, our staff reporter Tamar Kaufman wrote intimately about her battle with breast cancer.

“Officially, it’s not a ‘Jewish disease,’ but it feels like one,” she reflected. “While I was undergoing chemotherapy, it seemed everyone in the Jewish community knew someone who either had breast cancer or had had it in the past. The American Cancer Society says that being a Jewish woman of European ancestry is a high risk factor as are the high-fat, low-fiber foods central to Ashkenazi cooking. How much damage did Grandma’s grivenes do? My cousins and I used to fight over the combination of fried chicken fat, skin and onions; I have to admit, the memory has my mouth watering again.”

The next year, Kaufman wrote about the ethical questions raised by the Human Genome Project, an international scientific research effort partially based at UCSF to map and sequence all human DNA. There was much speculation about DNA and genetics during this time. Then, a huge breakthrough occurred with the discovery of the BRCA1 gene in 1994 and the BRCA2 gene the following year. 

Tragically, also in 1994, Kaufman died at age 45 from her third bout of cancer, which had spread to her brain.

“Despite a new report warning that Ashkenazi Jews have a significantly higher genetic predisposition to breast cancer, researchers and activists say women should not panic,” reported then staff writer and now senior editor Natalie Weinstein on the matter in 1995.

“I don’t think all women should run out and get tested,” said Dr. Debu Tripathy, a medical oncologist in UCSF-Mount Zion Cancer Center’s breast care division. “We don’t quite know what to do with the information yet.”

The following years saw rapid advancements in breast cancer research and treatment as understanding grew about the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. Although Jewish women were not advised to receive genetic testing three decades ago, today it has become a common method of cancer prevention.

In 2000, a study of the BRCA genes found that while the mutation increased the chances of carriers developing breast and ovarian cancers, it also made them more responsive to chemotherapy. It was a long-awaited positive finding after years of bad news for Jewish women.

A 2008 cover story in our pages explored the plight of young Jewish women who carried BRCA gene mutations as they weighed their options for breast cancer prevention and treatment. While still an extremely difficult experience, women shared how they felt more empowered to choose the care plan that was best for them compared with breast cancer patients of the past.

Mara Langer, then 40, had faced cancer twice, the first time when she was 30. She had both her breasts removed after her first cancer diagnosis.

“You finally have a way of making a decision, of getting in front of the cancer and telling the cancer, ‘I’m taking care of this. I’m getting every last morsel of you out of me,’” she said.

Langer has now been cancer free for over a decade. She currently lives in Reno and is the director of community engagement for Jewish Nevada, and has continued to be an advocate for genetic testing and early cancer detection.

It has been two years since Hamas unleashed hell on Israel, and the fallout has been staggering. All at once, everything seems lost and horrible – and yet, by many measures, Israel is as secure as it has ever been. 

It was hard to imagine on that awful morning that two years after Oct. 7, Hezbollah would be emasculated, Iran would be cowed, and Syria would be under new management that speaks openly about some kind of accommodation with Israel. Meanwhile, Hamas has been decimated in Gaza. People quibble over exactly what it would mean to destroy the terrorist group, but what seems clear is that for the moment, at least, Hamas cannot pull off another Oct. 7. 

As I write, President Donald Trump has presented his 21-point plan for peace, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accepted it, and the world now awaits a response from Hamas. This is the Middle East, which means that by the time you read this, the plan could be a footnote in history. But right now, things feel almost hopeful. A friend in Tel Aviv who marches every week against the PM and the war told me she cried tears of joy watching the Trump-Netanyahu White House press conference.

But all of this has come at an extraordinary cost for Palestinians in Gaza, who are suffering terribly. Some 60,000 have been killed in the war sparked by the attacks of Oct. 7, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Israel’s international reputation is perhaps as poor as it has ever been. Allegations of starvation and genocide crowd the airwaves and the front pages of international newspapers. European nations are lining up to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state. A generation of college students wields “Zionist” as a dirty word.

In order to fly to Washington, Netanyahu — indicted by the international criminal court — reportedly had to take a circuitous route to avoid the airspace of countries he feared might arrest him. Internal divisions within Israel sometimes seem as insoluble as the conflict with the Palestinians. 

And, of course: the hostages. Nearly 50 of them (around 20 still living) remain entombed in airless Gaza tunnels. In August I visited Israel and asked a cousin there how folks even manage to go about their daily business. He gave me a one-word answer: “Pills.” One imagines the answer in Gaza would be the same if people there could reliably access medications to blunt their reality.

What to make of it all? How to feel about it all? I must admit that I’m often left scratching my head. 

In times like these, I turn to books to help sort it out. Whether fiction or nonfiction, there’s something about settling into a book and getting into the head of an author or a narrator that I find clarifying. Maybe it’s just getting out of my own head for a bit, seeing things from someone else’s point of view. For other people, visual media like film or TV do the same trick.

With the two-year anniversary of that dark Shabbat upon us, and during this contemplative holiday season, culture editor Maya Mirsky has compiled a roundup of just some of the books, films and TV shows that have emerged from Oct. 7. We hope it might help readers try to make sense of what’s going on. At least, it’s a start.

Film & TV

“We Will Dance Again” is a minute-by-minute retelling of the horrific events that transpired at the Nova music festival. The film is available on Paramount+, Hulu and Apple TV, and was screened at Temple Isaiah and B’nai Israel.

“Screams Before Silence” focuses on sexual violence during the attacks and includes shocking footage and testimony. Available on YouTube, the film has been presented at the Peninsula JCC and elsewhere. 

“October 8” (previously “October H8te”) depicts some of the most extreme anti-Zionist and antisemitic responses in the United States after Oct. 7. The film, which played at Bay Area theaters in March, has been described as “frightening,” “disturbing” and “timely.” It can be streamed later this month through the Silicon Valley Jewish Film Festival.

“There Is Another Way” is about Combatants for Peace, an Israeli-Palestinian group focused on coexistence and founded on a bedrock of nonviolence. Members of the group have visited the Bay Area multiple times in recent years, and the film screened in San Rafael and San Francisco. “It is always a challenge to make a film that holds the suffering of both people, but it also feels essential,” director Stephen Apkon told J.

“Torn: The Israel-Palestine Poster War on NYC Streets,” a documentary released on the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 massacre, was shown in Palo Alto and Aptos. It’s also available to screen online.

“Beyond October 7th” looks at three generations of the Gad family, beginning just two days after their rescue from the massacre, capturing the shock, trauma and grief that follow. It was made by 11-time Israeli Academy Award-nominated director Jasmine Kainy; it is not currently streaming.

“The Killing Roads,” from director Igal Hecht, documents the horrific acts of Oct. 7 on two Israeli highways where Hamas terrorists killed 250 people. It screened in Aptos at Temple Beth El.

“Bearing Witness to the October 7th Massacre” is an Israeli documentary that was compiled via body cam footage from Hamas attackers, security cameras, cellphone videos and dash cams to create a bloody montage of a day of horror. It has been shown privately to politicians and journalists as a way to combat misinformation about the Oct. 7 attacks, including in San Francisco.

“The Children of October 7” focuses on the youngest survivors of the Hamas attacks. Many lost their siblings, parents or homes, and have yet to process the trauma. The short film is currently streaming on Paramount+.

“Tattooed for Life” follows Liraz, a tattoo artist who survived the Nova massacre. To move forward, she designs a multipart fractal tattoo design, which she splits up among those who are also experiencing grief. It’s streaming on MUBI.

“After October 7: A Personal Journey to Kfar Aza” is a PBS documentary exploring what happened on a kibbutz after the attacks. It’s a personal story of both tragedy and rebuilding, and it’s currently streaming on the PBS website.

“The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue” tells the story of retired IDF Gen. Noam Tibon, who rushes south to rescue his son Amir and his family during the attacks. Amir Tibon has spoken in the Bay Area and written about the ordeal. “I do believe that we can create a better future,” he said in Palo Alto in May. “Hope is really important because otherwise it’s tough to survive.” The film is currently not available to stream.

“October 7th: Through Their Eyes” compiles footage from social media to tell a poignant story. As the attacks unfolded, a group of volunteers began to try to collect and preserve the social media documentation to make sure the events would never be forgotten. It’s currently streaming on PBS.

“Supernova: The Music Festival Massacre” weaves together survivor testimony and on-the-scene footage at the festival to reconstruct 24 hours around the tragic events of Oct. 7. It is streaming on Apple TV and YouTube, and played at the East Bay International Jewish Film Festival.

“The Road to Recovery” follows an Israeli volunteer who drives Palestinians to Israel for medical care as he revisits his commitment to the cause after Oct. 7. It played at the East Bay International Jewish Film Festival and is not currently streaming.

“The New Jew: Days of War” follows Israeli comedian Guri Alfi as he seeks to understand the divisions in America in the aftermath of Oct. 7. The documentary series had its U.S. premiere in March at the JCC in Palo Alto. “We immediately knew that we wanted to be part of the film as its primary goal was to make the stories of North American Jews accessible to the Israeli audience,” Rabbi Amitai Fraiman, director of the Z3 Project, told J. at the time. It will screen on Oct. 16 in San Jose and stream through the Silicon Valley Jewish Film Festival. 

“A Letter to David” was directed by Tom Shoval, who once worked on a film with a young David Cunio and his twin brother. Now Shoval has made a documentary about David, who has been held hostage by Hamas in Gaza since Oct. 7. The film will screen at the Silicon Valley Jewish Film Festival.

“Red Alert” is a four-part scripted Israeli series that will stream on Paramount+ on Oct. 7, 2025. Known as “First Light” in Hebrew, it was written and directed by Lior Chefetz and produced by U.S. producer and multiple Oscar-nominee Lawrence Bender. 

“One Day in October” will stream in four episodes on HBO Max starting on Oct. 7. It dramatizes survivor stories, including the shocking story of Sabine Taasa, who recently spoke in the Bay Area. “I lost my husband and eldest son,” an impassioned Taasa said. “I want to go to the Palestinian people, to the universities, to the schools and say, ‘I have proof.’”

Books

“10/7: 100 Human Stories.” Lee Yaron, a Haaretz journalist, has written intimate, personal portraits of the people directly affected by the terrorist attacks. She spoke about her latest book — which won book of the year from the Jewish Book Council in January — with J. editor-in-chief Chanan Tigay in October. (St. Martin’s Press)

“While Israel Slept: How Hamas Surprised the Most Powerful Military in the Middle East,” by Yaakov Katz and Amir Bohbot, is an analysis of the intelligence around the tragic day of Oct. 7. It’s a searing look at the failures and poor decisions that allowed Hamas terrorists to carry out their deadly attack in southern Israel. (St. Martin’s Press)

“Israel Alone” is by Bernard-Henri Lévy, most famous in his native France as a public intellectual. He flew to Israel the day after the Oct. 7 massacre, and the book is the result of his eyewitness accounts of the aftermath, as well as a philosophical look at Israel’s position in the world. (Wicked Son)

“The Gates of Gaza” is by Haaretz journalist Amir Tibon, who recounts the hours he spent in the safe room of his house with his wife and their two babies, listening to the sounds of warfare around him, not knowing what would happen. (His father’s dramatic rescue of the family is the subject of the film “The Road Between Us.”) (Little, Brown)

“Black Saturday,” by Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst, is a firsthand account of his coverage of the events of Oct. 7. He embedded with the IDF and reported from some of the earliest scenes of massacres in southern Israel. (Barnes & Noble)

“Hostage” is a memoir by Eli Sharabi, who was held by Hamas for 491 days. It became the fastest-selling book in Hebrew publishing history and now has an English translation. In it he recounts the harrowing experiences of Oct. 7, when his wife and daughters were killed and he was dragged away into captivity. (Harper Influence)

“The Rescue” is the story of Oct. 7 through a firsthand look through the eyes of a member of an IDF combat rescue unit. The author is known only as “Guy M.” (Wicked Son)

Art

There have been several art responses to the events of Oct. 7, including the Nova Exhibition, a traveling installation that uses items salvaged from the area of the music festival massacre to honor those who lost their lives. L.A.-based Israeli artist Tomer Peretz also was artist-in-residence at the city’s Museum of Tolerance with a show in response to Oct. 7 titled “Art Will Set You Free.”

Silhouetted in front of a massive chandelier that hovers above the stage, the bodies of dancers create elaborate shapes in one of the many dramatic scenes from the contemporary ballet “Red Carpet.”

Created by Israeli choreographer Hofesh Shechter, the dance will have its North American premiere at UC Berkeley’s Cal Performances Oct. 2-4.

The piece combines the beautiful precision of Paris Opera Ballet dancers and the high-fashion design concepts of Chanel, all shaped by Shechter’s uniquely emotive style.

“This company — one of the great ballet companies of the world — is making a special trip to Cal Performances, which represents their first engagement in the Bay Area in at least two decades and only one of two stops on their U.S. tour of Hofesh Shechter’s ‘Red Carpet,’” Jeremy Geffen, executive and artistic director of Cal Performances, told J. in an email.

Shechter is a highly respected choreographer who got his start with Batsheva Dance Company, Israel’s premiere modern dance ensemble.

Currently based in London, the 50-year-old Shechter has his own company and is a rising star in the modern dance world. “Red Carpet,” though, was choreographed for the Paris Opera Ballet, and marks the fourth time Shechter has collaborated with the organization.

As the dance corps of the Paris Opera theater company, the ballet is “the perfect match for this innovative creator,” Geffen said, adding that it is “renowned for both their tradition and their range.” Founded in 1669, Paris Opera Ballet is the oldest national ballet company in the world and one of the most prestigious — and traditional. Yet “Red Carpet” is far from a “Swan Lake” or a “Giselle,” and that’s due to Shechter’s modern approach.

“Red Carpet” illustrates the friction between glamour and art and the tension between the “outer and the inner,” and the title is intended to “trigger the imagination,” Shechter said in an interview posted by the Paris Opera on its site.

Chanel, the venerable French fashion house that has an existing relationship with the Paris Opera, provided the costumes, which Shechter called “elegant” but also “wild” and “exciting.” The show features live music on stage created in the studio with the dancers and Shechter’s repeat collaborator, Israeli musician Yaron Engler. The result is a mishmash that includes Israeli-inflected dance music and drumming, with the musicians bringing what Shechter called a “rock and roll” feeling.

“It is a music concert as well as a dance piece,” he said.

“Red Carpet” premiered in Paris this summer. Beyond that, it is being performed only in Berkeley and New York, giving ballet fans in Northern California a rare opportunity to see the work.

In an interview last year with the Guardian about his show “Theatre of Dreams,” Shechter said he wants audiences to experience dance and not think about it analytically.

“Dance and music are tools [to get to] something that matters much more, which is the human experience,” he said. “In the end we’re having a visceral experience for an hour and a half and feeling like we went through something.”

He also obliquely addressed the situation in Israel and Gaza in the interview, saying, “I really try not to speak about politics, but I will say the problem is the leaders.”

In February of this year, when Batsheva Dance Company performed at UC Berkeley, the event was disrupted by protesters. Dozens flanked police barricades set up outside Zellerbach Hall, while one protester held a sign calling the company “ambassadors of Israeli genocide.”

A representative of Cal Performances told J. the organization is not aware of protests related to any upcoming programming.

“Red Carpet,” Oct. 2-4 at Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley. $55 and up. calperformances.org

The most striking thing about Rabbi Shua Brick’s nearly five years at Oakland’s Beth Jacob Congregation may be how completely routine they’ve been.

That’s not at all a given. Brick, 31, is believed to be the first openly gay Orthodox rabbi to serve an Orthodox synagogue in the country, or perhaps the world.

He has been doing his job quietly all these years, ever since Senior Rabbi Gershon Albert hired Brick as director of family learning at the Modern Orthodox shul in August 2020 as his ordination approached. 

“Our synagogue is not an activist community,” Albert said. “We’re just trying to live our values, and accept every Jew for who they are.”

While that is true, the Bay Area Jewish community is also part of an open and LGBTQ-friendly culture. It’s how Brick ended up here in the first place and not in New York, where the large Orthodox community leans more conservative.

More than two years ago, Brick began the process of coming out more publicly, beyond his congregation, by speaking with Forward reporter Louis Keene. That article was published on Oct. 5, 2023, but it barely made a ripple, coming right before the devastating attack on Israel and the start of the ongoing war with Hamas. Whatever negative or positive reactions there might have been to the article were muted as the Jewish world was plunged into crisis. 

Now firmly established in the Bay Area, Brick sat down with J. to talk about how he sees his role — he splits his time between Beth Jacob and the Jewish Community High School of the Bay in San Francisco (JCHS), where he teaches Talmud and Jewish ethics — and what he hopes to achieve going forward.

On one hand, he made clear that his communal responsibilities are a higher priority than talking about himself. On the other hand, he is a trailblazer. Working to create an Orthodox world that is more welcoming to LGBTQ Jews like himself is part of his mission. 

“Many LGBTQ Jews who grow up Orthodox feel they would be better off if they left for the other, less restrictive movements, or Judaism altogether,” Brick said.

By not doing either and by taking a leadership role, Brick hopes he might help other Orthodox Jews to see themselves reflected in his journey and to believe that the observant world holds a place for them, too.

“It’s nice for me to be safe here,” he said. “But the idea would be for people like me to be safe everywhere.”

Brick always knew he wanted to become a rabbi. His journey toward self-acceptance was a long one.

It was during an internship at Beth Jacob in early 2020, before he was ordained, when Brick shared with Albert that he was gay.

“I had wanted to offer internships to young, future Orthodox clergy who would benefit from the kind of open-minded yet serious Judaism we try to cultivate here at Beth Jacob,” Albert said. “Rav Shua’s background, his intellectual, spiritual and academic pursuits, were all really impressive. When I interviewed him on the phone, he came off as compassionate, thoughtful and creative, and when I spoke to his references, I heard nothing but wonderful things.” 

When later that year Albert offered him a job, Brick accepted with the condition that he would be open about his identity.  Brick considers his sexual orientation and entire belief system to be fully and halachically within mainstream Orthodoxy.

Albert conferred with the synagogue’s board president and a few key members.

“Of course, I care about my reputation in the Orthodox world and want to make decisions that are halachically responsible,” Albert said, referring to Jewish law. “While I spoke to rabbinic advisers and peers about this, ultimately we all have to face HaShem.”

Albert emphasized that he was also motivated by the desire to reach observant Jews who might be feeling distanced from “Torah and mitzvot.”

“I have an opportunity to create a different path,” he said.

In addition, Albert has a personal reason. He had a gay friend growing up who kept the truth from him for years, and it has bothered Albert to know that his friend struggled alone and felt the need to hide his identity for so long.

Coming out in Oakland

Historically, Beth Jacob has always been a place where people of many different viewpoints and levels of observance congregate and coexist under one roof. Brick has fallen hard for its approach. 

“I met this beautiful community, and I’ve been in love with it ever since,” he said. 

Brick waited several months after his 2021 ordination from Yeshiva University to come out to Beth Jacob congregants. He and Albert discussed starting with some of the shul’s core members, and Brick began going down the list, emailing congregants and asking if he could stop by to talk about a synagogue project he was working on. Brick laughs about it now, as the language he used had most everyone thinking he was going to ask them for a donation.

Albert helped him craft a response should anyone have a negative reaction, but they needn’t have worried.

“When they learned that I was there to tell them I was gay, they were thrilled,” Brick said. “It was definitely big news to most people, and there were definitely a lot of emotional reactions. But without exception, every single one of them was incredibly excited and overwhelmingly supportive.”

That response continued as he came out more fully to the congregation and experienced only reassurance. Until those conversations, Brick had considered himself a burden or liability to any community that hired him.

“As a human being, to walk in the world and think of yourself as a huge liability is not great,” he said. “Having this community telling me how happy they were to have me was incredibly meaningful and made me see myself differently.”

Warren Mazer, a longtime congregant, expressed a view that he felt was held by many of his fellow Beth Jacob members: “It doesn’t affect my life in any direct way, except that I would like him to be happy and to be able to stay here,” Mazer said.

Single rabbis are quite common in all other movements, but not in the Orthodox world. Unmarried Orthodox rabbis have a harder time finding positions, Brick said, and a rabbi’s personal life is constantly open to remarks. He said he felt none of that intrusion when he arrived at Beth Jacob, both before and after he came out.

Brick’s presence at Beth Jacob also has sent a strong message to queer observant Jews in the area. One of them is Michelle Katznelson, who had ruled out Orthodox synagogues because of her queer family.

Katznelson grew up somewhere between Conservative and Orthodox, and her wife is a secular Israeli American. She had tried nearly every synagogue in the East Bay, she said, and none felt like home. It was after the couple had their son and put him in Beth Jacob’s daycare program that they gradually started to become a part of the community. Then Katznelson began attending services.

She already had been feeling very warmly toward Albert when, less than a year after her family joined, she learned the rabbi had hired Brick with the knowledge that he is gay.

“It meant a lot to me that Rabbi Albert hired Shua knowing that it would come out eventually, and he let him do it in his own time and in his own way,” Katznelson said. “Rather than being the kind of person who takes bold activist stances, Rabbi Albert finds a way to just quietly be a mensch about things and has a really solid sense of Jewish ethics.” 

Starting with Yeshiva U

It’s been 25 years since the groundbreaking film “Trembling Before G-d,” which testified to the existence of LGBTQ Orthodox Jews, and more than 25 years since Rabbi Steve Greenberg became the first Yeshiva University rabbi to come out as gay. Brick, however, is the first one known to be hired at an Orthodox synagogue.

YU is the flagship institution and seminary of the Orthodox movement. Brick’s father is a rabbi and attorney, his mother works at YU, and his family is well known in the community. (For years now, LGBTQ students at YU have sought greater acceptance, taking their fight to establish a campus club all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.) 

Brick waited until he had his ordination document in hand before he began coming out to some of his former rabbis and teachers. 

“Each one amazed me with how much better on the subject they were than I thought they might have been,” he said. “I don’t think there’s a single [Orthodox] rabbi that hasn’t gotten more progressive over the last 10 years on this subject. But for a variety of reasons, they have no clue how to say it publicly.”

Mazer said it’s only natural that whatever is happening among the movement’s leadership would trickle down to Orthodox congregations, too.

“While Modern Orthodoxy does drag its feet, there’s a realization that we all have family members or people close to us who are gay, and the interest in letting them live their full lives as human beings and keeping them in the community is taking priority over prejudices or strict interpretations over things that are really nobody else’s business,” Mazer said.

In an observant community in New York or New Jersey, if you don’t like the rabbi or his politics, you can just walk down the road to the next one. Here, there are no other Modern Orthodox synagogues within walking distance.

That Brick would end up serving a community where he couldn’t even get a slice of kosher pizza was unfathomable to him before he arrived in Oakland. Yet once he was here, he realized that he had landed at his dream job, splitting his time between his synagogue work and teaching at the high school. It was exactly how he envisioned his career years ago.

At JCHS, he said, “I cannot describe how much no one there cares.”

The high school is nondenominational and welcoming to all, but Brick said his presence on staff might help Orthodox families feel more comfortable sending their children there.

Rabbi Howard Jacoby Ruben, JCHS head of school, called Brick a “fan favorite” of both students and faculty.

“He honors students’ inquiry and invites it without judgment. He models curiosity and inspires both more curiosity and deeper digging on the part of the students. And he’s also a favorite among his colleagues, because without regard to the subjects they teach, he’s fascinated by the craft of teaching and learning from others about how to hone his craft,” Ruben told J.

Ending the silence

Brick’s decision to come out more publicly and participate in the Forward article was largely influenced by the suicide of Herschel Siegel, a classmate at YU who took his life in 2023.

“From that moment,” Brick said, “I felt that leading by quiet example is not sufficient.”

So many of his colleagues stay silent about the existence of LGBTQ people in the Orthodox world because they don’t know what to say, Brick said, and in doing so, they are abandoning religiously observant Jews who need them.

“The LGBTQ community is disappearing themselves from our community, whether they’re choosing to leave or physically killing themselves,” he said.

A spokesperson for New York-based Jewish Queer Youth, which serves the Orthodox community, said that 58 percent of its participants have thought about suicide and 24 percent of them have attempted suicide.

According to Brick, the Orthodox establishment speaks one way publicly and another way behind closed doors. He would like to see the rabbis he’s had frank conversations with say publicly what they’ve said to him privately. Despite their reticence to speak up, he said, “there’s been real growth in the Orthodox rabbinate that people are completely unaware of.” 

As for the Biblical passage that is responsible for so much of the way that gay Jews are treated in the Orthodox community — Leviticus 18:22, which states that a man lying with a man as he would lie with a woman is an “abomination” — most Orthodox rabbis interpret it to mean that gay Orthodox Jews must remain celibate to avoid violating halachah. But Brick said that it’s reductive to talk about this passage in too much detail. 

Nevertheless, “most serious rabbis I’ve spoken to know that reparative therapy, marrying against your orientation and celibacy are all horrible ideas,” he said. “So at some point, a vision of what’s left needs to be explored halachically.”

One of the projects he’s working on is a curriculum that he hopes can one day be shared with Orthodox schools around the country, spelling out how to approach that Biblical passage and how to respond when a student comes out.

“Rabbis often have the first 100 words, but they don’t have the next 100 words,” Brick said. “They don’t know what to say after that. I want to offer everyone what the next 100 words are. It’s a series of Torah shiurim [lessons] that is content that they’re all familiar with that isn’t at all controversial but deeply speaks to the queer experience.”

Sources abound already for educators, but none come from a Jewish and Torah-observant perspective, he said.

“What is the authentically Jewish way to find an integration between one’s Jewish and queer self?” Brick said. “It’s not just copying and pasting and repeating a bunch of platitudes that you’ve heard at some recent Pride march. There are authentically Jewish ways to do this, and we need to find it from within our Jewish sources and not from without.” 

This summer, Brick is transitioning to a different role at Beth Jacob, as resident scholar. He will also be devoting more time to an inclusivity initiative he founded. Called Queerkeit Incubators, its goal is to promote the visibility of queer Orthodox Jews, making it easier for them to find one another.

“There are so many people who know, like, a handful of other happy Jewish Orthodox queer people and don’t realize that there are hundreds of us across the country,” he said.

Brick organized a retreat last August that 40 people from around the U.S. attended in Baltimore. He has organized the Queerkeit participants around writing groups, but creating community is just as important as the writing itself. His intention is to “create the community and to create the kind of Jewish queer canon that I wish I had when I was growing up.”

Just as his self-perception has evolved over time, Brick hopes that the greater Orthodox community will continue to evolve as more of his contemporaries come out and find their own place in the observant world, too.

“These are people who have to decide to choose Orthodoxy against their best interest,” Brick said. “We keep treating them as if they’re liabilities instead of realizing that they are resplendent souls that are definitely closer to God in some way that we haven’t fully appreciated.”

I recently installed a metal security door and camera on my front porch, attempting to soothe the crushing fear and anxiety I feel as a queer person even here in the Bay Area. It helps a little, but not as much as I’d like.

It’s important to acknowledge my fear — our fears — even as queer communities around the world mark June as Pride Month. The first Pride was a 1969 demonstration against police oppression at a popular queer club, the Stonewall Inn, in New York City. Since then, events celebrating queer liberation, pride and civil rights have proliferated.

I first attended the San Francisco Pride Parade as a teen in 2014, feeling awed and inspired by the bold, loud demonstration of marchers and attendees. Since then, I’ve found a deeper, calmer pride in my own queer marriage. To me, the joy and compassion among members of the queer community exemplify the Jewish value of chesed (lovingkindness). Yet even writing this, I must keep in mind the privacy of multiple queer family members for fear of exposing them to potential violence.

Hate crimes against the queer community are on the rise, the FBI reported in 2024. This existential fear of physical or even deadly violence is a constant weight on my shoulders, making it hard to express my pride on city streets even now during Pride Month.

Pride events are known for their vibrant, party-like atmosphere. But this year feels different. The fight against systemic oppression of queer people has never been more urgent for my generation. Recent government policies — such as bans on gender-affirming care and trans athletes — are moving us backward, reversing rights won in recent decades and threatening the safety and dignity of queer people nationwide.

We might think ourselves immune here in the Bay Area bubble, but that’s far from the truth. Even here in progressive California, we see the effects of transphobic executive orders: One only needs to look at a cowardly hospital in Los Angeles, which preemptively capitulated to demands from the current administration by cutting off gender-affirming care for minors. The same is happening at hospitals nationwide, even in other progressive bastions such as New York City, where the Stonewall revolution took place.

But what do queer liberation and the protection of queer community have to do with Judaism? 

The cruel restriction of life-saving medical care for trans people is an affront to the Jewish concept of kavod (respect). Gender-affirming care outcomes include lower rates of depression and suicidality, making it a life-saving gold standard of medical care. A study conducted by The Trevor Project, a nonprofit supporting queer and transgender youth, found that suicide attempts by trans youth went up by 72% after their respective states passed anti-trans legislation.

Halachah, or Jewish law, requires us to do everything we can to save a life. How can we claim to respect the dignity of all people if we stay silent as young trans people die by suicide as a result of these archaic laws?

I know more than one trans person who is quietly stockpiling gender-affirming medication and researching how to flee the country if laws become more restrictive or widespread violence breaks out. I myself have a contingency plan of leaving the country to escape violence and oppression. This is another layer of existential fear and trauma. As the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, it feels all too familiar. 

Queer people are an integral part of our kehillah (community). Queer Jewish organizations abound, including in the Bay Area. The most prominent include Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, San Francisco’s LGBTQ+ synagogue; A Wider Bridge, which advances LGBTQ rights and inclusion in Israel; and Keshet, which works for LGBTQ+ equality in Jewish life.

It is easy to see that the Bay Area Jewish community is full of LGBTQ+ Jews and their families. Embracing our kehillah means embracing our queer community members. This is not the time for allies to stay quiet or oblivious. Your queer neighbors experience very real fear and trauma, and we need to know that you see us and our struggle. 

You can do so by making it a point to mention the attack on queer and trans people when kvetching about the federal government. You can tell your queer friends and relatives that you have their back. You can join Pride celebrations as an ally. Now is the time for allies to vocally and vociferously support the queer community.

The need for queer pride will not end on June 30. The attacks on queer people’s rights and safety certainly won’t cease at the end of the month. To my LGBTQ+ siblings, I hope you take pride in your queerness and Jewishness, knowing that you are treasured members of our kehillah. To those who identify as allies, I invite you to think deeply about the Jewish values of kavod and chesed to guide your beliefs and actions.

The stones are lonely in the Jackson Pioneer Jewish Cemetery, where the Jews underground outnumber those living above.

At least 32 Jews are buried there, with their deaths dating back to the California Gold Rush, which brought thousands of opportunity seekers to this undeveloped area in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada starting in the late 1840s. But you’d be hard-pressed to find that many Jewish residents of Jackson today, said Arnie Zeiderman, a retired doctor who maintains the historic cemetery in the absence of a local Jewish congregation in the town of 5,100.

On May 18, Zeiderman convened about two dozen people from neighboring areas on the cemetery’s grassy hilltop, shaded by native oaks and cypress trees, to share the history of the 19th-century Jewish community and its role in shaping Jackson, the seat of rural Amador County, an hour’s drive east of Sacramento. The cemetery was founded as Givoth Olam, or Hills of Eternity, in 1857. 

Joining the event was Fay Levinson, an Aptos resident and a board member of the Commission for the Preservation of Pioneer Jewish Cemeteries and Landmarks in the West, which formed in 1962 through the Judah L. Magnes Museum in Berkeley (now the Magnes). Her late husband, historian Robert E. Levinson, was a key figure in the commission. In 1965, he undertook extensive research into the pioneer Jewish communities that left as their legacy the seven historic burial sites dotting the central Sierra Nevada foothills, from Marysville to Sonora. 

His interest in the subject converged with that of the late Seymour Fromer, the Magnes co-founder, who funded the research and in 1976 published Levinson’s book, “The Jews in the California Gold Rush.” In 1996, the commission also published “A Traveler’s Guide to Pioneer Jewish Cemeteries” by Susan Morris, in an effort to supply biographies of the individuals buried in them.

For many years after his book’s publication, Levinson’s husband, who taught history and helped found the Jewish studies program at San Jose State University, would bring work parties of interested students up to Jackson and other cemeteries to weed, clean and explore, she said.

But since his death in 1980, “there has been no one to take up the reins,” Levinson said. “The board members make site visits, but it is a sporadic thing that groups go up there to work.”

That’s one reason why Zeiderman, who lives in nearby Sutter Creek, has stepped up to the task. The other is that he wants people 一 Jews and non-Jews alike — to understand the relationship of these Jewish communities to the counties where they lived.

There’s no point in maintaining a cemetery without fostering an appreciation of how these people contributed to the county and the state overall, Zeiderman said. “You’ve got to weave them into the history of the community.”

Prominent Jewish families with names like Zellerbach, Haas, Dinkelspiel and Strauss all got their start in Gold Rush towns like Jackson, he said. 

From its earliest history, “Jackson has been good to the Jews,” Zeiderman said. The nascent city, founded in 1848 as a mining and supply town for the many passing through, deeded a group of 35 Jews a plot of land for a synagogue. Those Jews dedicated their burial ground first, in 1854, signaling that the strenuous migration from Europe to California, by land or sea, had not erased their recognition of a sacred duty.

Three years later, the members of Jackson’s now-defunct Congregation B’nai Israel, who had to borrow a Torah from San Francisco to celebrate the High Holidays, dedicated the first synagogue in the Mother Lode, Zeiderman said, referencing the famed strip within the Sierra Nevada crowded with gold deposits.

The building was used for only a dozen years, as gold fever waned and Jews who gained an economic foothold moved on to larger towns or cities. But the commercial structures built by the prosperous Jewish miners and merchants still line the streets of downtown Jackson. 

Today, the former synagogue is now the site of Jackson Elementary School and is marked by a plaque, California Historical Landmark No. 865. On weekdays, students run right by it, most oblivious to the fact that a few hundred yards away, the Jewish cemetery holds the remains of children their own age — and younger — whose bodies did not withstand the rigors of pioneer life. 

“I’ve taken to visiting the grave of one particular child, Jacob Fabien, who died in 1862, less than 3 weeks old,” event attendee Jolie Chain told J. “I’ve grown strangely attached to him, maybe because his surname has French roots, like my own.”

The last burial in Givoth Olam took place in 1921, and it was rededicated as a historic site in 1976. When Zeiderman’s elder son Matt attended Amador High School in nearby Sutter Creek, he and his Eagle Scout troop chose to restore the cemetery as their community service project. They cleaned up decades of nature’s debris, scrubbed moss from the stones and mowed the tall wild grasses. 

Today, Matt Zeiderman is himself a doctor, with a practice in Napa, but the wild grass just keeps on growing. And as Levinson said, “the stones are getting older.”

Arnie Zeiderman said he envisions the site as a place for people of all ages to visit.

“The cemetery is very accessible,” he told J. “I want folks to know that they are welcome here.”

Chain, who is originally from Los Angeles, noted that when she first started visiting Amador County she would sometimes stay at the Foxes Inn, a Sutter Creek B&B that was originally the home of Nathan Brinn, a founding officer of the Jackson congregation.

“When you move to a place where you don’t have roots, it’s gratifying to learn that our people do have history here, that we were part of the development of this place, though it’s not generally talked about,” Chain said. “Learning this history represented a shift for me, as a newer resident of this county. Now I feel I have something to stand up with, should anyone challenge whether I belong.”

(JTA) — Rabbi Doug Alpert did not utter the name of the man accused of killing Sarah Milgrim as he presided over her funeral on Tuesday.

But before reciting El Maleh Rahamim, a prayer memorializing the dead, Alpert appeared to address the alleged gunman.

“What a horrible disservice to not see her for who she was and all she had done to further peace with courage and dignity,” said Alpert.

“Because if you really wanted to know how to give Palestinians a better life, a life of humanity and dignity, you could have asked Sarah,” he said, adding, “If you’re really interested in doing something for Gaza to end the blockade and get needed aid into Gaza, you could have asked Sarah. … And if you were really interested in creating solutions to the seemingly endless conflict that separates Jews and Muslims, Israelis and Palestinians, you could have asked Sarah.”

Standing before Milgrim’s coffin, which was draped in an Israeli flag, Alpert finished his litany with audible anger: “And if you really cared, if you’re about more than canceling voices that made you uncomfortable, about more than shouting slogans and waving a gun, then damn it, why didn’t you ask Sarah?”

The funeral at Congregation Beth Torah in Overland Park, Kansas, took place more than five days after Milgrim and her boyfriend, Yaron Lischinsky, were shot to death. The attack occurred late Wednesday night outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., where the victims had just attended an event hosted by the American Jewish Committee that focused in part on humanitarian aid in Gaza.

Both Milgrim and Lischinsky were employees of the Israeli embassy in Washington. Their alleged killer — a far-left activist from Chicago — shouted “Free Palestine” as he was arrested.

Milgrim had been shunned by some former friends for taking a role working for the Israeli government, multiple speakers said at the funeral. The speakers all said Milgrim’s commitment to Israel, and to acting on her beliefs, ran deep. They praised her family — mother Nancy, father Robert and brother Jacob — as beloved members of the local Jewish community.

“Jacob wishes that he could pick up the phone this very day and call her, just to remind her how very proud he is of everything that she has done,” said Rabbi Stephanie Kramer of Congregation B’nai Jehuda, which she said Milgrim’s parents joined in recent years. “Bob, too, has spoken of Sarah’s commitment with deep reverence. This is the only reason why, in the hours following her murder, he found the grit to do 10 interviews — because he knew how important it was for the world to see Sarah through her parents’ eyes, how proud he was for her unshakeable Zionism.”

Milgrim, 26 when she was killed, grew up in the Kansas City suburbs, where she participated in a range of activities. Alpert — who leads another nearby congregation, Kol Ami, where Milgrim’s parents have been active — recalled her joining sports teams and the children’s choir of the Lyric Opera, and advocating for animals and the environment. She marked her bat mitzvah in Jerusalem in 2012, a milestone also celebrated at Beth Torah.

When she was in ninth grade, a white supremacist targeted Jews in Kansas City, killing three people at two Jewish institutions just miles from her home. When she was a senior at Shawnee East Mission High School, someone painted swastikas at her school. Both events made a mark on her, as Jewish institutions she frequented adopted new security protocols and the specter of antisemitism crept into her life.

“You know, I worry about going to my synagogue and now I have to worry about safety at my school and that shouldn’t be a thing,” Milgrim told a local news station at the time, in a clip that has been widely shared in the days since she was killed.

No one mentioned those incidents during the funeral, but they have figured prominently in both the community’s response to Milgrim’s death and in news coverage about her life. In an online gathering on Thursday organized by the Jewish Federations of North America, the CEO of the Kansas City federation, Jay Lewis, said the killing felt like “trauma on top of trauma on top of trauma.”

Lewis said Milgrim had interned at the federation while a student at the University of Kansas, where she studied environmental studies and anthropology and was active in the university Hillel, the campus Jewish center.

After graduating, Milgrim spent time in Israel, working at a nonprofit that uses technology to build relations between Israelis and Palestinians, and moved to Washington, D.C., to earn two master’s degrees and pursue a career in peace and diplomacy.

She joined the embassy shortly after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that initiated the war in Gaza. Sawsan Hasson, Israel’s minister for public diplomacy stationed at the D.C. embassy, said Milgrim’s dedication to public service was exemplified for her even before Milgrim officially stepped into her role. She was waiting for her security clearance when she wrote to Hasson, her supervisor at the embassy, in the immediate aftermath of the attack to say that she stood by ready to assist in the response.

Once she joined the embassy officially, Hasson said, she jumped into action, not only embracing her role in public diplomacy but also arranging missions to Israel, initiating collaborations with NASA and environmental groups and engaging in women’s advocacy.

“Sarah transformed her deep concern about the rise of antisemitism and anti-Zionism into courageous action. And it is that very hatred that took her from us on her own homeland soil,” Hasson said. “But know this: Sarah, your life mattered. Sarah, it did matter deeply and eternally. … We will carry your torch, Sarah, we will continue your mission. We will speak for those who cannot, and we will defend the truths that you upheld.”

It was at the embassy where Milgrim met Lischinsky, whom Alpert said she had brought to Kansas City multiple times for extended visits, including once over Yom Kippur. “The deep sadness of what has happened is embedded in not just how far the relationship had come, but seeing the potential that the relationship would only continue to grow in the years to come,” he said.

Following his angry comments seemingly directed at Milgrim’s killer, Alpert, too, said he believed Milgrim’s legacy would be long-lasting.

“I’d like nothing more — we would like nothing more — right now than to ask Sarah, to talk to Sarah, to learn from such a beacon of light amidst a world of darkness,” he said. “We’ve been cheated out of that opportunity, and for the Milgrim family, cheated out of so much more.

“And yet, I believe Sarah’s voice is not lost. It is our opportunity, our blessing and our obligation to keep her voice alive, to place her voice in our hearts, to follow her courageous path toward building a better world.”

Dean Goldfein still remembers opening day of the Contra Costa Jewish Day School back in 2001, when he welcomed a small student body of 23 children into two rented classrooms. 

He’s been welcoming students to the K-8 school in Lafayette ever since. Now, after 25 years as head of school, Goldfein is set to step down from his full-time role. Principal Eden Allswang Bruner will assume the top post on July 1.

“It’s hard to leave because I still enjoy coming to work every day,” said Goldfein, who was hired in 2000. “But it felt like the time was right. We accomplished a lot.”

Goldfein, 58, noted that CCJDS’s initial enrollment of 23 has grown to 183 students, who come to the school from across the East Bay. What started in those two rooms is now an expansive 18,000-square-foot campus adjacent to and leased from Temple Isaiah, with a kosher kitchen, multi-sports facility, music and drama spaces, an art room and a state-of-the-art science lab. The roster now includes more than 40 faculty and administrative staffers. 

“I’ve been guided by the founders’ vision, to build a school based on academic excellence and a strong Jewish community,” he said.

To that end, under Goldfein’s leadership, CCJDS has sought to emphasize general studies alongside a Judaic studies curriculum probing Jewish texts, modern Hebrew, Jewish holidays and the centrality of Israel, culminating in an annual trip to the Jewish state for eighth graders.  

“We started with nothing,” recalls CCJDS board president Anat Yoder. “No building, no school. Dean had to convince the community, and he took us all the way to a mature school with an endowment campaign, leaving the school in a strong financial place.”

A San Francisco native, Goldfein earned a bachelor’s in history from UC Berkeley and a master’s from the University of Virginia. Prior to joining CCJDS, he served as dean of students and a history teacher at Sacred Heart Preparatory and taught English at the then-Brandeis Hillel Day School, both in San Francisco. 

For the 2025-2026 school year, Goldfein will work part time as head of school emeritus, supporting his successor, working on special projects related to fundraising and strategic planning, and helping to organize the school’s 25th anniversary celebrations.

Meanwhile Bruner, 56, becomes head of school after many years working alongside Goldfein.

She joined the CCJDS staff in 2011 following 10 years as director of development and marketing for the S.F.-based Jewish Family and Children’s Services. The Los Angeles native earned a bachelor’s from Harvard and a master’s from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. She went on to work as a diplomat with the U.S. State Department, including a stint in Moscow. Her own children attended CCJDS, which first attuned her to the school’s strengths. 

“What drew me [to the school] was the opportunity to use my skills,” Bruner said. “I’ve learned so much on the job here. I’ve seen from Dean how being a good leader means hiring great people, empowering them and giving them autonomy. He has modeled how to keep to the school’s mission, even in the midst of chaos.”

Chaos aptly describes the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Like other schools, CCJDS switched to remote learning, yet it was among the first private schools in the region to reopen for in-class instruction. 

“Covid revealed the strength of the community,” Goldfein said. “We were scared, but we were also compelled to come back quickly.”

Likewise, when Tehiyah Day School of El Cerrito abruptly closed its doors in 2018, CCJDS was one of the main East Bay schools that stepped up to accept displaced students and their families. 

As for the near future, Bruner said she and her colleagues have been “doing a lot of planning.”

“We want more people to check us out and discover what an incredible combination of school and Jewish experience we provide,” she said. “I have great admiration for the staff, so it’s a priority for me that the transition be smooth for them. I also have relationships with current and new students. I know all [our] students’ names.”

Pope Leo XIV, elected May 8 by the cardinals in Rome, is the first American to hold that title. It’s unclear so early in his role whether he’ll come to the U.S. any time soon.

Only once has a pope visited San Francisco.

It was a touchy visit for many local Jews. While tens of thousands of Californians flocked to see Pope John Paul II during his 1987 visit to the city, his tour also roused a tumult among the Jewish community.

Even before the pope got to the Bay Area on Sept. 17, 1987, Jews across America had been gearing up for protest. At the heart of the matter was the pope’s recent meeting in Rome with the president of Austria at the time, Kurt Waldheim.

“Two Jewish groups this week took the Pope to task for agreeing to meet Austrian President Kurt Waldheim at the Vatican on June 25,” we wrote that month. “It will be the first trip abroad for Waldheim, a practicing Catholic, since he was elected 11 months ago. He has been officially barred from entering the United States and is shunned by most Western governments because of evidence of his complicity in Nazi atrocities during World War II.”

Waldheim, who had served as United Nations secretary-general and was elected president of Austria in 1986, was known to have served in the German army. But lurking in his biography were other, more unsavory details about his ties to the Nazis, connections that he hid and denied until the truth was revealed.

So his meeting with the pope was controversial.

“We are at a crisis moment, at a crossroads as a result of this Waldheim situation,” Rev. John David Shanahan, a Catholic priest in Larkspur, wrote in our paper in August 1987. “On the one hand Jews and Catholics might go their separate ways. On the other hand, all of this might lead to deeper dialogue and closer ties.”

The meeting with Waldheim was only three months before the pope’s scheduled visit to San Francisco, which was part of a 10-day U.S. tour.

An unsigned editorial in our paper in July 1987 titled “Dianne and the Pope” called out Mayor (and rising Jewish politician) Dianne Feinstein for planning a fundraising dinner at her own home ahead of the pope’s visit to help financially support a planned public mass.

“We would have expected a more visible form of protest by Feinstein. In meeting Waldheim, the pope gave recognition to someone who is banned from entering the United States because of his Nazi past. That alone should have given Feinstein pause. But certainly as a Jew, she should feel the same anger and horror that most of us experienced when the pope praised Waldheim and failed to make mention of any of his World War II activities,” we wrote.

“Feinstein’s attitude on the Waldheim affair makes a mockery of the U.S. decision to bar the Austrian president, and, at the same time, insults the Bay Area’s Jewish community.”

In a news article that same month, staffer Peggy Isaak Gluck dove into the details.

Feinstein “explained that she did not cancel the event because the pope’s scheduled trip to San Francisco Sept. 17-18 ‘is a major visit to the city,’ and because ‘when I give my word, I keep my word,’” Gluck wrote.

“Nonetheless, at least one prominent Jew has declined to serve on the San Francisco papal welcoming committee because of the pope’s meeting with Waldheim. In addition, a number of Bay Area Jewish leaders who were invited to the event at Feinstein’s home have said they will not attend because of the Waldheim affair, although they declined to be named in print,” Gluck continued.

There was another issue at stake, too. The Jews of America wanted the pope to recognize the State of Israel and were frustrated by Catholic ambivalence over Christian minorities and the status of Jerusalem. (The Vatican formally recognized Israel in 1993.)

“We’ve learned to expect the worst from the pope,” we wrote in an unsigned editorial titled “A papal problem” in June 1987. “In a statement following the announcement of the Waldheim invitation, the World Jewish Congress said, ‘This is the pope who met with [PLO chief Yasir] Arafat; this is the pope who refuses to recognize Israel. This is not the first unsavory character whom the pope has received in audience.’”

Our letter writers took sides.

“I took a recent trip to Warsaw and Auschwitz, the concentration camp site where so many people, young and old, were killed by the Nazi regime. It was so powerful to see the clothes and other things that belonged to the victims of German cruelty. I don’t wish to meet the Polish pope at all,” wrote B.M. Branzburg of San Mateo.

Not every letter writer supported plans to protest, though.

“I think it’s terrible, the idea of protesting and picketing the pope’s visit to San Francisco,” wrote Harry Friedman of Yreka. “If we can’t embrace the pope, at least we can respect him and the office he represents. The pope is a charismatic person. Disrupting his visit can only put a bad taste in millions of mouths around the world. I don’t know what could be done that would help the cause of anti-Semitism more.”

But at least some Jews in the Bay Area wouldn’t back down.

Between 30 and 50 picketers showed up at Feinstein’s house, including, we reported, Holocaust survivors and Michael Lerner, who had founded Tikkun magazine a year earlier

The press also showed up, including this paper.

After a while, Feinstein “summoned Lerner and Dr. Michael Thaler, president of the Holocaust Center of Northern California, to the entrance of her home for a 10-minute conversation that they all acknowledged afterward was a frank exchange of views,” wrote Gluck and Adele Framer. “But Lerner further characterized the discussion with the mayor as ‘a conversation for the [benefit of the] press.’”

Feinstein told our publication that the dinner had been arranged before the pope met with Waldheim.

“‘I’ve talked to people — people who advise me from a Jewish point of view — and people understand my position,’ Feinstein stressed. She said she does not expect the flap to affect her relationships in the Jewish community. ‘I think the pope’s [audience with Waldheim] was a mistake,’ she stated.”

In the end, the pope came and the mass took place. About 70,000 people crammed into Candlestick Park. His visit was met with Jewish protests, vigils, a shiva and a petition — not huge ones, but determined ones, that refused to let the pope’s celebrity overshadow their condemnation of his actions.

“Lerner, who acknowledged the recent progress made between Catholics and Jews on a group-to-group level, nevertheless stressed the importance of organized protest, a strategy that other Jewish groups earlier had opposed,” staffer Winston Pickett wrote in our paper in September 1987. “‘We can’t suppress our anger,’ he said. ‘We have to say to this pope, ‘You can’t have a moral crusade in America when you have not dealt with the immorality of cozying up to Nazis.’”

The Torah column is supported by a generous donation from Eve Gordon-Ramek in memory of Kenneth Gordon.

Acharei Mot-Kedoshim
Leviticus 16:1-20:27

“Who is the person who truly desires life, loving each day, seeking out the good? Guard your tongue from evil and your lips from deceitful speech. Turn away from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it.” (Psalms 34:13-15) 

The classical commentators wonder why this verse suggests that the mitzvah of engaging in mindful speech is central to a life of fullness, love and goodness. So too, the Torah’s key verse on ethical speech is found in this week’s parashah: “Do not go about spreading gossip among your people” (Leviticus 19:16), which comes shortly before the central verse, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Leviticus 19:18)

Some say that both the prohibition on gossip and the practice of ethical speech reflect the reality that communication is essential to what it means to be human. As far as we know, humans are the only beings that use language to communicate. Verbal communication is foundational to how we connect with others and who we are in the world. Thus, we must use this gift well.

Others say that mindful speech is essential to the practice of all the mitzvot. They reason that anyone who is careful to speak words about other people only if they are true, kind and necessary (a very high bar!) will surely be conscientious about their deeds and the whole range of their spiritual practice.

And yet others say that mindful speech promotes peace among people, whereas hurtful speech produces conflict and enmity among people, and hence violates the command in the Psalms to seek peace and pursue it.

As is well known, the rabbis of the Talmud say, “One who embarrasses another in public is like a murderer.” (By this definition, think about how much murder is committed every hour of the day on social media — and how often we participate in it.)

Perhaps more surprising is the teaching on the sin of argumentativeness. Yes, you read that right. Surely, there are countless Jewish texts that extol the practice of “machloket l’shem shamayim,” argument for the sake of heaven — a righteous way to explore ideas, generate more Torah and increase understanding of multiple perspectives.

By contrast, some texts speak pejoratively about the “ba’al machloket,” (the master of argument), who may be a person addicted to poking holes in anything that others say in a derisive and gratuitous way. In so doing, say the sources, such people may generate senseless hatred, gossip, anger, deception, shaming, vengeance, grudge-bearing and mockery.

Finally, one Mussar master (in “Orchot Tzadikim,” or “Ways of the Righteous,” written in 15th century Germany) suggested that there are five categories of speech: 1) mitzvah speech, which is required, as in prayer and Torah study; 2) “beloved” speech; 3) permissible speech, which is necessary but meaningless speech about the mundane needs of life; 4) petty speech, or chatter about people and events; and 5) speech that is to be shunned, such as lies, slander and indecent speech.

These categories suggest what may be an impossibly high standard of purifying our use of language. We might not want to give up the simple pleasures of chatting with friends and those with whom we do business in the course of a day. These kinds of communications are necessary for relationships. Still, it would be a fascinating and fruitful exercise to somehow record everything we said (or wrote) during a day to see how much of our language belonged to each of these categories. I fear I might be unpleasantly surprised.

I am particularly intrigued by the category of “beloved speech.” In our lives, this could include words of love, kindness and compassion, words used to convey our desire to help and support others, and words of gratitude and appreciation. Ask yourself: How much of your day do you spend engaging in this kind of speech? How much beloved speech do you consume, as opposed to speech that is petty, disdainful, argumentative or downright hateful? How do you feel when you find yourself in a space (online or in person) that prioritizes gentle, loving language?

In a time in which harsh, coarse and contemptuous speech is everywhere, we can engage in a true act of resistance by committing to use and consume language in gentle and loving ways as often as possible.

A Biblical verse states that “death and life are in the power of the tongue.” (Proverbs 18:21)

This is perhaps hyperbolic, but our use of language has tremendous impact on our own lives and the life of our community and our nation. May more of us use our gift of speech for the good.

(JTA) — President Donald Trump said that the number of living hostages in Gaza has recently fallen from 24 to 21, meaning that three more hostages have been killed since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas ended in March.

Trump did not identify which hostages have been killed but appeared to say that three hostages had died in the last week, during a period when Israel is ramping up its offensive in Gaza. He made the remarks Tuesday at a swearing-in ceremony for his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who in January brokered the ceasefire during which Hamas released dozens of Israeli hostages.

Trump’s statement also aligns with comments by Sara Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister’s wife, who said in an exchange caught on video last week that “fewer” than 24 hostages were alive.

Her husband corrected her at the time, and on Tuesday, Israeli officials reiterated that the official number of living hostages remains 24. (Hamas is also holding the bodies of 35 hostages.)

At the time the ceasefire ended in mid-March, when Israel resumed airstrikes on Hamas, the terror group held 59 hostages in Gaza, 24 of whom were thought to be alive. New signs of life for many of them came from hostages released at the time.

Trump appeared to say that three of them had died in the past week. Here is what Trump said at the ceremony:

“They said, well, only 24 are living, but now it’s 21. That was a week ago. Now it’s 21 are living. And these are young people. Young people don’t die. Old people die. Young people don’t die under these conditions. So, of the 59 people — and they said 59, and I said really — but they said only 24 are living, and I now correct, I say 21. Because as of today, it’s 21, three have died. So this is a terrible situation. We’re trying to get the hostages out. We’ve gotten a lot of them out. As the expression goes, there’s 21 plus a lot of dead bodies.”

Israel recently adopted a plan to conquer and occupy Gaza, which the military chief of staff said would put the hostages’ lives at risk.