Category: Local

Rabbi Matt Cutler was wrapping up a local TV interview last Thursday when a text from State Police came through: The man who had been posting antisemitic threats against him online was about to be arrested. The notice was timely for Cutler, the leader of the Reform synagogue Congregation Gates of Heaven in Schenectady, New […]

Jake Lang has burned a copy of the Talmud, performed a Nazi salute outside AIPAC’s headquarters and repeatedly declared that “Christ is King.” But those antisemitic displays have not earned him an in with his fellow far-right personalities. Instead, after Lang’s anti-Muslim rally in New York City earlier this month was derailed by bomb-throwing counterprotesters, […]

American voters now view Israel more negatively than positively, according to a new poll by NBC News that adds to a growing body of surveys demonstrating eroding support for the country in recent years. The poll, published on Monday by NBC News, found that among registered American voters today, 39% view Israel negatively while 32% […]

A Maryland man who sent more than 40 threatening letters to Jewish institutions, including the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, was sentenced to three years in prison Monday. Clift Seferlis, 55, of Garrett Park, Maryland, was sentenced to 37 months in prison and three years of supervised release as well as […]

Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman and the last person still detained in the Trump administration’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus protests last spring, was released from ICE custody on Monday. Kordia’s release came weeks after New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani petitioned President Donald Trump in person on her behalf. Mamdani celebrated the development in a […]

A string of recent synagogue attacks across North America and Europe has left security officials sounding the alarm bells. “We are in the midst of the most elevated and complex threat environment the Jewish community and this country has seen in modern history,” said Kerry Sleeper, chief of threat management and information sharing for the […]

The Trump administration’s Religious Liberties Commission was wracked again this week over anti-Israel sentiment, as a second affiliated individual has exited while claiming it had been hijacked by a “Zionist political agenda.” Sameerah Munshi, a Muslim member of a board that advises the commission, announced late Thursday that she would be stepping down. Her reason, […]

Oklahoma’s attorney general is accusing a state board of trying to rig the legal fight over a proposed Jewish charter school — a dispute that could open the door for publicly funded religious charter schools across the United States. Attorney General Gentner Drummond filed a motion this week asking an Oklahoma County district judge to […]