American Jewish World

09/01/2026

Beth Gendler, director of Jewish Community Action, reflects on the fatal shooting of Renee Good by an agent on Wednesday in Minneapolis.

The Forward:
Like many American Jews, I was raised to believe in the American dream, and in a government that was here to represent me, care for me, and be a force for good in the world. And as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, I always knew how fragile principles of liberty and equality can be.

I have known for a long time that the U.S. government has never equally defended the lives and rights of all people — and that it has too often, as in the case of the Dakota and other Indigenous Americans, actively destroyed those lives. But amid the Trump administration’s campaign against immigrant communities, it’s the tragedy of Good’s death that has most completely shattered the vision of what my Holocaust survivor father had taught me to hope for in the U.S.

The fatal shooting of Renée Good in Minneapolis by an ICE agent has made the daughter of a Holocaust survivor see the U.S. differently.

08/01/2026

is in the news, again.

JTA News:
Minneapolis’ Jewish mayor Jacob Frey is once again in the spotlight after he delivered a heated message to federal immigration forces on Wednesday after an ICE officer shot and killed a 37-year-old woman: “Get the f–k out of Minneapolis.”

“There is little I can say again that will make this situation better, but I do have a message for our community, for our city, and I have a message for ICE,” said Frey. “To ICE, get the f–k out of Minneapolis. We do not want you here.”

Frey’s comments came shortly after an ICE agent fired into a car during a confrontation, killing a 37-year-old Renee Good, a U.S. citizen.

While President Donald Trump and other administration officials have claimed that the shooting was an act of self defense and that Good tried to had run over the ICE agent with her car, viral video of the incident does not show her car hitting the agent or driving toward him.

At a press conference Wednesday, Frey told ICE to “get the f**k out of Minneapolis.”

06/01/2026

NY Jewish Week:
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores pleaded not guilty to federal charges, including drug trafficking and other crimes, in a Lower Manhattan courthouse today.

They appeared before judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, a 92-year-old Orthodox Jew who has presided over decades of sensitive litigation, from civil lawsuits following the Sept. 11 attacks to President Donald Trump’s recent attempts to move his Manhattan criminal conviction into federal court.

Plus, Jewish New York politicians react to Mamdani's repeal of Adams' pro-Israel executive orders.

26/12/2025

The Trumpites, in this case, Kristi Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security, are violating the First Amendment, the separation of church and state. The United States does not have a state-sanctioned religion.

24/12/2025

The Forward:
While it’s not prescribed in Jewish texts that we do anything on Christmas, let alone eat our weight in baby corn and water chestnuts, American Jews have a long history of breaking out the chopsticks in late December while Christians are slicing into honey-glazed ham.

Jews either do takeout, filling their wreathless homes with white cardboard containers and smiley-faced plastic bags, or hit the town for some pre-movie chow fun. Plaut said the latter practice is known in Yiddish as oysessen — eating out — and was coined in this very publication in 1903, to describe the trend of Jews coming down from their tenement coops to enjoy the fine cooking of their Chinese neighbors on the Lower East Side. But the trend goes back even further than that, beginning at the tail end of the 19th century with an early wave of Eastern European immigrants.

American Jews have a long history of breaking out the chopsticks in late December while Christians are slicing into honey-glazed ham.

24/12/2025

The faction seems to be in the midst of a crack-up — over Jews. The neo-Nazi wing has turned on Ben Shapiro.

JTA News:
On the first day of AmericaFest, Turning Point USA’s convention in Phoenix, Ben Shapiro lit into a host of conservatives that he said were “frauds and grifters.”

He listed Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and Steve Bannon as “charlatans who claim to speak in the name of principle but actually traffic in conspiracism and dishonesty.” Together, he said on Thursday, they presented a danger to the conservative movement.

Shapiro was extending an assault that he began earlier in the week during a speech at the Heritage Foundation, a heart of conservatism that has been thrown into turmoil by its president’s backing of Carlson after Carlson hosted the Holocaust denier and avowed antisemite Nick Fuentes on his podcast.

Turning Point USA

Megyn Kelly said Shapiro, not Tucker Carlson, is inflaming antisemitism.

23/12/2025

This is the idea originally floated by Jared Kushner, the amoral son-in-law of the president. He and his ilk look at the devastation and carnage in Gaza and see a real estate play.

WASHINGTON (TNND) — The Trump administration is quietly circulating a sweeping and controversial proposal to rebuild Gaza into a futuristic international destination, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.

Dubbed “Project Sunrise,” the plan envisions transforming the war-ravaged enclave into a high-tech coastal metropolis featuring luxury beach resorts, high-speed rail, and AI-powered infrastructure. U.S. officials have reportedly presented the proposal to prospective donor nations, including Gulf kingdoms, Turkey, and Egypt, as Washington explores ways to finance Gaza’s long-term reconstruction once the war ends.

The Trump administration is quietly circulating a sweeping and controversial proposal to rebuild Gaza into a futuristic international destination.

22/12/2025

The president recently made some egregiously derogatory comments about Minnesota’s Somali community. Mordecai Specktor’s editorial in the Jewish World’s December issue discusses Trump’s outburst, which the New York Times called “shocking in its unapologetic bigotry.”

On Dec. 2, Pres. Donald Trump spewed a string of invectives against Somali Americans. He referred to our Somali neighbors as “garbage.”

21/12/2025

The Times of Israel:
Thousands of Australians, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, gathered at the famous Bondi Beach on Sunday to honor the victims of a terror attack a week earlier that targeted a seaside Jewish Hanukkah festival event.

The nation held a day of reflection on Sunday to honor the 15 people killed and the dozens wounded in the attack by two gunmen. With security tight and flags at half-staff on government buildings, a minute of silence was held at 6:47 p.m. (9:47 a.m. Israel time), the time the attack began.

Television and radio networks paused for a minute’s silence.

Jewish leader reads message of support from Ahmed al Ahmed, who disarmed gunman; state premier says authorities failed, Jewish community can't fight antisemitism alone

19/12/2025

Governor Tim Walz lights the hanukia.

18/12/2025

We hope that everyone is enjoying Hanuka, lighting candles and spreading some light in the world.

Happy Hanuka!

OK, so here is what is *really* the original version; it came out before the composer's own recording. From the Chassidic Song Festival 5735 (1974).