Myron Gaines, co-host of the popular podcast “Fresh and Fit” which is known for frequently airing antisemitic content, defended a leaked group chat where Young Republicans operatives praised Adolf Hitler.

“Yeah we like Hitler. No one gives a f–k what you woke jews think anymore,” wrote Gaines, whose real name is Amrou Fudl, in a post on X Wednesday replying to another post decrying Vice President J.D. Vance’s defense of the group chat.

“Bro was a revolutionary leader and saved germany,” Gaines’ post continued. “The jews declared war on Germany first. If can israel deny a genocide with 4k video proof, I’m questjoning everything you guys have said about the painter during WW2.”

While condemnation for Gaines resounded in the replies to his post, later that night, Gaines posted a photo of himself superimposed on an image of Adolf Hitler, responding to Politico’s post of its exposé by writing, “Hitler was a real n—a and no one gives a f–k what stupid outlets you fruit loops say.”

Like many products of the conservative “manosphere,” Gaines’ podcast, which he co-hosts with Walter Weekes and has over 1.5 million subscribers on YouTube, centers on misogynistic views about dating and gender roles. It has also increasingly embraced antisemitic conspiracy theories since the summer of 2023, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

In July 2023, Gaines, who authored a book titled “Why Women Deserve Less,” hosted antisemitic influencer Sneako and far-right commentator Nick Fuentes for an episode that centered on Holocaust denial.

The following month, “Fresh and Fit” was demonetized by YouTube for “repeated violations” of its policies, and last July, a podcast episode on Rumble where guests blamed Jews for the Holocaust was taken down by the platform.

During a speaking engagement last April at Pennsylvania State University, where Gaines was met with student protests, he claimed to his audience that there were “Zionist fingerprints all over” the 9/11 terror attacks and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

On his X account, he frequently refers to Jews as “kikes” and espouses conspiracy theories that Jews control the “media and the narrative.”

“Do you not see that jews engineer or pioneer every destructive industry into western civilization? Feminism, marxism, communism, transgenderism. pornography, usury. All of these things are completely antithetical to Christ,” wrote Gaines in a post on X in August. “Also, they killed Jesus, reject his divinity, and are currently trying to bring their messiah who is your antichrist and you’re allowing it to happen…”

As he often does these days, Wesleyan University president Michael Roth recently delivered a lecture on another campus outlining all the reasons why academia should be more forcefully standing up to President Trump’s policies.

He peppered the lecture with Yiddish words. He laid thick on what he called his “Jewish accent.” A colleague came up to him afterwards. 

“You’re doing Jew-speak,” they told him.

Roth laughed recalling his response: “No s–t, Sherlock. That’s part of what I’m doing.”

What he’s doing, Roth told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in a recent interview, is constantly reminding his potential critics who he is. For one, he’s the only university president in the country who openly, repeatedly rejects Trump’s claims that the administration’s campus crackdowns — rescinding grants, limiting international student visas, dismantling “DEI” — are a means of fighting antisemitism after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel. 

For another, when his own school dealt with pro-Palestinian encampments last year, he made no secret of handling the matter diplomatically instead of through discipline — an approach that landed other university presidents in hot water, but not him.

And above all that, he’s proudly Jewish.

“If you’re going to accuse Wesleyan’s administration of being antisemitic, start with me. But don’t call me on Saturday,” Roth quipped. “Because I’m going to be in Torah study.”

Roth isn’t quite sure how he, the leader of a small-town Connecticut liberal arts school with a mere 3,000 students, became so unusual among his profession by defending what he sees as the central principles of academic freedom. 

“It’s a bit of a puzzle,” he told JTA. “I don’t think my view is very original. Any of the presidents I know at different schools probably have similar views.” His views also seem to align with most American Jews, at least according to polls, which show that nearly three-quarters of them also believe Trump is using antisemitism as an excuse to attack higher education.

In recent days, two other Jewish presidents, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brown University, have publicly rejected a Trump administration offer of “priority” funding that would have required them to bar some forms of speech, making them the only university leaders to do so. But Roth still stands out in the lengths he is going to rebuff Trump’s higher education policies — and to center his Jewish identity in doing so.

There he is, accepting a “courage award” from the literary free-speech group PEN America “for standing up to government assaults on higher education.” There he is, giving interviews in which he lambasts “prominent Jewish figures around the country who get comfortable with Trump, it seems to me, because they can say he’s fighting antisemitism: ‘He’s good for the Jews.’ It’s pathetic. It’s a travesty of Jewish values, in my view.”

There he is, signing an open letter declaring that antisemitism “is being used as a pretext to abrogate students’ rights to free speech, and to deport non-citizen students.” The leaders of Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist group that has been suspended from multiple college campuses for disruptive protests, were on that letter. So was the leader of Wesleyan University. 

And there he is, telling JTA that so-called institutional neutrality positions, adopted by a range of universities amid the Israel-Gaza war (and supported by the Jewish campus group Hillel International), are “bogus.” 

A representative for the American Association of University Professors, a faculty union that has dropped its former opposition to boycotting Israel, praised Roth’s presence on the national stage.

“Michael Roth is criticizing the misuse of Title VI to define anti-semitism as criticism of Israel and its weaponization in the campaign to attack higher education. There is nothing startling about that position,” Joan W. Scott, a Jewish researcher at the Institute for Advanced Study who sits on the union’s academic freedom committee, told JTA.

Scott added, “I’d say Roth’s reasons for his courageous stance have to do with his integrity and perhaps his knowledge of history. He doesn’t want to be among those who, like Heidegger, thought that appeasing the regime in power was a safe position to take.” (A spokesperson for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a campus free-speech advocacy group that supports institutional neutrality, declined to comment on Roth.)

Roth’s profile has caught the attention of some Jewish families, including that of Mason Weisz of White Plains, New York, who said Roth was one reason that his son is a first-year at Wesleyan now. Weisz recalled hearing an NPR interview with Roth in April, after admissions decisions were out but before seniors had to pick their schools, as particularly pivotal.

The interview “in which he argues that Trump’s use of antisemitism to justify his strong-arming of universities actually is bad for the Jews, encapsulates everything I appreciated about Roth.” Weisz told JTA. “Here is a university president who is willing to risk going on record against the administration, again and again, to fight for academic integrity. He has a nuanced view of world events, an appreciation for true debate, and a fearlessness that I hope are an inspiration for Wesleyan’s faculty and students.”

Roth also earns good marks from some Jewish students on campus.

“He does care about Jewish students. He’s someone who does take their concerns seriously. And compared to other university presidents, he’s been better,” said Blake Fox, a Jewish senior at Wesleyan who identifies as pro-Israel and serves on the campus Chabad board. “He wants to be the ‘cool’ president.”

Fox says he had a good experience as a Jew at Wesleyan, in part because the encampments there never felt threatening (he noted the protest movement was much smaller at Wesleyan than it was at other schools). That was due, at least in part, to Roth’s efforts to peacefully negotiate an end to the encampments. 

Yet, Fox said, the president — whom he’s met several times — was also deeply concerned for the well-being of Jewish students. In meetings with Fox and other Jews on campus, Roth vowed to take action if any protesters ever threatened a Jewish student by name.

He also appreciated Roth standing up to Trump, particularly on issues of campus speech. “I’m pro-Israel, but I also support the First Amendment,” Fox said. “Even if there are individuals whose speech is bad, targeting them for deportation is a dangerous precedent, I think.”

Though a historically Methodist school, Wesleyan today has no religious affiliation and enrolls around 600 Jewish students — nearly 20% of the student body. There’s no Hillel, but the school’s Jewish community includes a full-time rabbi, student leadership, dedicated Jewish residential housing, and a unique, modern sukkah that has won architecture awards. The Wesleyan Jewish Community rabbi declined to comment for this story.

There’s also a Chabad outpost, which opened in 2011. Its director, Rabbi Levi Schectman, told JTA he was “grateful for the open door to the President’s office and for the strides that have been made so far,” adding, “There is still more work to be done so that all students feel heard and safe.” 

Schectman also said the Wesleyan Jewish community he interacts with is “living and thriving”: A recent “Mega Shabbat” gathering drew what he said was a center record attendance of 175 students.

And then, of course, there’s Roth, the school’s first Jewish president, who has held the post since 2007. A free-speech scholar, he’s published books about the campus environment, including one called “Safe Enough Spaces.” He grew up in a Reform household on Long Island and has written essays on Jewish identity, but considered himself “only modestly observant” until his father died 25 years ago. After that point, he said, he “began saying Kaddish and subsequently attending Torah study.”

Nowadays Roth makes a point of involving himself in Jewish campus life — all forms of it. He spent Rosh Hashanah with the affiliated Jewish community, and, last year, caught a Shabbat service held at the pro-Palestinian student encampments. 

The latter group wasn’t too thrilled to see him there, he recalled; they’d been targeting him by name, often in insulting language. But he wanted to learn more about the Jews who were participating in the protests right outside his office. When one of them, an Israeli, personally apologized to Roth for the aggressive behavior of other encampment participants, he invited the student to his office and they had a long chat. “There were so many interesting conversations,” he said.

Of course, many Jews in academia know that merely being Jewish cannot protect oneself from charges of enabling antisemitism. It didn’t save Northwestern University president Michael Schill, who — like Roth — is a free-speech scholar who tried to deal with his school’s encampments through negotiation instead of by force. 

In so doing, Schill was hauled before Congress and lost the confidence of many of his Jewish faculty, staff and alums. The heads of the Anti-Defamation League and Jewish Federations of North America, both Northwestern alums, publicly aligned against him. Last month, Schill announced he was stepping down.

Roth doesn’t know Schill personally, but said he thought it was “just terrible” he had resigned. “I found it very sad that the board didn’t come to his defense in a way that allowed him to continue,” Roth said.

He acknowledges he’s in a better position to speak out than the heads of other universities, where hospitals and major research centers are more reliant on federal funding, and where instances of antisemitism had been more prevalent pre-Trump. 

Schools like Columbia have made significant concessions to Trump, including on antisemitism issues, in exchange for having their funding restored. Harvard, after initially putting up resistance to Trump’s demands, has now reportedly entered a negotiation phase; the University of California system has also been targeted for a $1 billion payout to the government. Last week, the Trump administration unveiled what it said was a new “compact” that schools would be required to sign to secure their federal funding; the demands include one to protect conservative viewpoints on campus.

Is Roth worried that Trump could turn on Wesleyan next? 

“Didn’t I say I was Jewish?” he responded, laughing. “Am I worried? Of course I’m worried. I’m a worrier… I would hate to put Wesleyan at risk.” But, he said, that wouldn’t stop him. “I have three grandchildren. I want them to grow up in a country where they don’t have to be brave to speak up.”

As Jews marked the recent two-year anniversary of Oct. 7, Roth’s name was also on some things other Jewish leaders wouldn’t touch. 

He spoke to JTA while on the road to a literary festival in Lenox, Massachusetts, co-sponsored by the left-wing magazine Jewish Currents, which has emerged as one of the loudest voices in Judaism to oppose both Israel and communal American Jewish support for it. He would be appearing onstage with the journalist M. Gessen, who has compared Israel’s actions in Gaza to Nazi Germany. 

Roth told JTA he hadn’t known that Jewish Currents was a co-sponsor when he agreed to take part in the festival. But, he added, it wouldn’t have changed anything about his appearance. He’ll talk to anybody Jewish. He’s appeared on their editor Peter Beinart’s podcast, and a while back he submitted a piece to the magazine that was rejected (“I guess it was insufficiently anti-Israel,” he mused) and wound up running in the Forward instead. 

He sees his own views on Israel as moderate. While he called for a ceasefire in March 2024, far earlier than many others in the Jewish world, he still refuses to call the Gaza war a genocide and remains adamant he supports “Israel’s right to exist.” He only blames Israel for what he said were the security failures that led to the Oct. 7 attack, which he had condemned immediately as “sickening.”

He takes Israel’s wartime behavior to task for “paving a path for egregious war crimes and a level of brutality and inhumanity that I never would have associated with the country.” Yet he remains “stunned,” even today, by what he called “the lack of basic sympathy, empathy, for the victims of those horrific murders” of Oct. 7. 

“I pride myself on being realistic about the persistence of antisemitism,” he said. “Still, the callousness with which some people greeted those horrors was very disturbing.” 

Yet when the encampments came for Wesleyan last spring, and some of their participants accused him directly of being complicit in genocide, Roth — unlike nearly every other university president — opted to negotiate with them. He wrote a piece in the New Republic declaring that he would not call the police, even though he knew the protesters to be in violation of some campus policies. 

Even in that piece, he offered an ominous prediction: “My fear is that such protests (especially when they turn violent) in the end will help the reactionary forces of populist authoritarianism.” 

Roth didn’t like many of the phrases his own campus protesters used, including “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Yet he forcefully defended their right to say it, angering some Jews on campus as a result.

“I try to have it both ways,” he said — weighing his principled views on both Israel and protest. This can sometimes lead to very intricate needle-threading. He recalled how, when an address he gave to prospective students was disrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters unfolding a banner, he let them continue and even acknowledged the banner before pressing ahead.

Fox does take issue with some of Roth’s stances, including his opposition to institutional neutrality.

“I think he fundamentally misunderstands what institutional neutrality is,” Fox said. “We don’t need to hear your views on Ukraine. We don’t need to hear your views on Israel.” Having the school president call for a ceasefire, he thought, is “alienating both sides of campus.”

More significantly for his job, Roth has long opposed the movement to boycott and divest from Israel. This has angered activists at Wesleyan, who, like those at other schools, have made divestment a central demand. 

Last spring, in order to peacefully break up his school’s encampment movement, Roth had promised protest leaders they could make a case to the board for divestment that fall. When the board opted not to divest, a small number of protesters became angry and attempted to take over a university building. 

“They were not very civil to my staff members,” Roth recalled, describing the protesters as basically daring him to take action. 

That time, he did call the cops. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson on Thursday said Republicans “roundly condemn” a leaked group chat in which Young Republican officials joked about gas chambers, praised Adolf Hitler and used racist, antisemitic and homophobic slurs, as well as an American flag with a swastika that was found in a Republican congressman’s office.

When asked whether he feared extremist or pro-Hitler views among young Republicans, Johnson replied, “No.”

“Obviously, that is not the principles of the Republican Party. We stand for the founding principles of America,” Johnson said in a press conference. “We have stood against that. We fought the Nazis. We roundly condemn it, and anybody in any party who espouses it, we’re opposing that.”

Johnson’s remarks capped two days of intensifying fallout from a Politico exposé that published thousands of messages exchanged over months by rising Republican operatives around the country.

In the cache reviewed by Politico, participants joked “Everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber,” celebrated “Great. I love Hitler,” and traded demeaning references to Black people, Jews and LGBTQ people.

State and local leaders appeared in the chat, including one Vermont state senator. The revelations have already cost several participants their jobs and prompted the deactivation of the Kansas Young Republicans chapter, with the Young Republican National Federation itself calling for implicated officials to “immediately resign from all positions” within the organization.

Civil rights attorney Leo Terrell, who heads the Trump administration’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, reacted saying, “Antisemitism on the right is just as dangerous as antisemitism on the left.”

Meanwhile, Vice President J.D. Vance has sought to downplay the severity of the situation.

Vance posted on X with a screenshot of texts in which Jay Jones, a former Democratic nominee for Virginia attorney general, suggested a prominent Republican deserved “two bullets to the head.”

“This is far worse than anything said in a college group chat, and the guy who said it could become the AG of Virginia,” Vance wrote. “I refuse to join the pearl clutching when powerful people call for political violence.”

Vance later said in an interview on “The Charlie Kirk Show,” “The reality is that kids do stupid things. Especially young boys, they tell edgy, offensive jokes. Like, that’s what kids do. And I really don’t want us to grow up in a country where a kid telling a stupid joke — telling a very offensive, stupid joke — is the cause of ruining their lives.”

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, praised Republican leaders who condemned the messages, which he called “offensive and very concerning.”

“I’m also glad that many leaders, including @EliseStefanik and @RepMikeLawler, spoke out strongly and swiftly against these hateful statements,” Greenblatt wrote on X.

Gov. Gavin Newsom urged Congress to investigate the scope of extremist sentiment within Republican-aligned youth networks, arguing that the chat logs were “neither fringe nor humorous.” In a letter to the House Oversight Committee chair, Newsom contrasted GOP scrutiny of campus antisemitism with what he characterized as muted responses to hate inside party infrastructure.

Reactions to the messages were building up as a separate controversy ricocheted through the Capitol: a photograph circulating online showed a swastika integrated into the stripes of an American flag displayed in a Republican lawmaker’s office. Capitol Police opened an investigation after Rep. Dave Taylor called the image “vile and deeply inappropriate” and suggested it was the result of vandalism.

On the left side of the ground-floor gallery at the Upper East Side’s Grolier Club — an institution that bills itself as “America’s oldest and largest society for bibliophiles” — you’ll find elaborately decorated, centuries-old Jewish manuscripts from the likes of Italy, France and the Iberian Peninsula.

On the right, there’s a similar assortment of manuscripts, also organized geographically. These manuscripts are remnants of dynamic Jewish communities that once existed in Muslim lands such as Yemen, North African and Iran/Iraq.

Collectively, these works form “Jewish Worlds Illuminated: A Treasury of Hebrew Manuscripts from The JTS Library,” the first-ever exhibition dedicated to Jewish books and manuscripts at the storied club, which was founded in New York City in 1884. 

On view through Dec. 27, the free exhibit is also the largest exhibition to date curated by the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, which is home to one of the world’s largest collections of Hebrew manuscripts and printed materials. Among the 100 objects on view are documents that date as far back as the 12th century.  

The elaborately decorated works on display comprise a wide assortment of texts, such as prayer books, Passover haggadahs and ketubahs or Jewish marriage contracts. Most of them are written in Hebrew. But there are some stark differences between the two sides of the gallery: Human forms are plentiful in the manuscripts from Europe, for example, while works created by Jews in Muslim lands typically reflect the Islamic art style, with elaborate patterns, floral motifs and very few depictions of people. 

“Jews adopted and adapted the art of the country in which they lived,” Sharon Lieberman Mintz, curator of Jewish art at the JTS library, explained during a private tour. “When Jews were living in Islamic lands, they eschewed figural arts. There may have been a bird or two here and there, but not humans, with rare exception.”

Examples like these spotlight the ways Jews lived their lives throughout years of diaspora, and how they integrated themselves within their culture of residence. 

“If you look at the outstanding works in our collection — manuscripts in particular, but not just manuscripts — [they] reflect the geographical distribution that you see here,” said David Kraemer, the Joseph J. and Dora Abbell librarian and professor of Talmud and Rabbinics at the JTS. “It is notable, but not intentional, that we don’t have material here from the land of Israel.”

Kraemer continued: “What that means is that during the ages that these works were being produced, and from which they survive, this is where Jews lived,” he said. “Very, very few Jews lived in the land of Israel, and there was very little production of this kind of material in the land of Israel.”

Instead, the exhibit is filled with treasures from across the centuries and around the globe, including handwritten letters from the physician, rabbi, philosopher and author Moses ben Maimon — aka Maimonides. One such letter, penned in 1170 by Maimonides’ personal secretary, Mevorakh ben Nathan, is signed by the sage himself. It pleads for funds to ransom the Jews who were taken prisoner in November 1168 when the crusader king Amalric I of Jerusalem conquered the Egyptian city of Bilbeis, some 50 miles north of Cairo, which was home to a sizable Jewish community in the Middle Ages. 

“So much of what happens, Jewishly, in North America is Ashkenazi-centric, which misrepresents Jewish life and history around the world,” Kraemer said. “When Ashkenaz was barely a blip, the vast majority of the world’s Jews lived in Muslim lands.”

The exhibit makes it plain just how embedded Jews were into the countries in which they lived. In the Italy section, there’s a page displayed from the Rothschild Machzor, a prayer book written by master scribe Abraham Judah ben Yehiel in Florence in 1490. An illustration depicts the children of Israel receiving the Ten Commandments as they’re decked out in the Florentine fashions of the time — with the receding hairline that was all the rage in during the Renaissance.  

“When you look at these materials, you can’t just think of Jews as separated and isolated and ghettos and oppressed and all that kind of stuff,” Kraemer said. “That’s not what the story here is.”

Instead, the exhibit spotlights how Jewish communities reflected broader cultural trends, including fashion and art. 

Just don’t ask the curators to select their favorites. Kraemer and Liberman Mintz both blanched when asked to choose three or four standout items in the gallery. Instead, we settled on finding particularly unusual works on display.

“The answer changes every five minutes,” Kraemer explained.

As an example, Kraemer points to a 17th-century manuscript from Salonica, Greece that he describes as “absolutely wonderful in its outrageous combination.” The page, from a collection of sermons and teachings, is a scholarly theological discussion — specifically, about how Moses, who was flesh and blood, was able to ascend to the realm of God, who is pure spirit. By contrast, the illustrations on the page — animals, birds and flowers — seem like something from a children’s book. 

“Don’t we all somehow have those sensibilities built into us?” Kraemer mused. “We can be very, very sophisticated and very, very simple and childlike at the same time.” 

All told, the exhibit, said Kraemer, is meant to challenge misconceptions about how Jews lived their lives during centuries of diaspora life.  

“We have a lot of conceptions of what Jewish life was through the ages,” Kraemer said. “When one witnesses these materials — their splendor, their creativity, their embeddedness within the local culture, their languages, the visual language, all of that — it tells us that Jews and their neighbors were part of the same world.”

“In a world which has a very black and white vision of Jewish life and the relationship of Jewish life to the host cultures, this brings color to it,” Kraemer continued. “It wasn’t black and white. I mean both literally and figuratively — this brings color to the fullness of Jewish experience.”

“Jewish Worlds Illuminated: A Treasury of Hebrew Manuscripts from The JTS Library” is on view at The Grolier Club (47 East 60th St.) through Dec. 27. For more information, click here; to book a tour (highly recommended!) click here. 

American Jewry is reeling following the sudden death of Rabbi Moshe Hauer, the executive vice president of the Orthodox Union who was widely known and admired across denominations.

Hauer, the O.U.’s public face since 2020, died of a heart attack at his Baltimore home on Tuesday, the holiday of Shemini Atzeret. He was 60. His death was not announced until Wednesday night, the end of the Simchat Torah holiday.

“Rabbi Hauer was a true talmid chacham, a master teacher and communicator, the voice of Torah to the Orthodox community and the voice of Orthodoxy to the world,” the Orthodox Union said in a statement announcing his death. “He personified what it means to be a Torah Jew and took nothing more seriously than his role of sharing the joy of Jewish life with our community and beyond.”

A levaya, or funeral service, took place Thursday morning at Baltimore’s Bnai Jacob Shaarei Zion Congregation, the Orthodox congregation Hauer led for 26 years before taking the O.U. position five years ago.

“You taught us with such clarity, you taught us with such force, with such conviction, you taught us who you want us to be,” said Rabbi Daniel Rose, Hauer’s successor at the synagogue, in a speech he said was short because Hauer’s body and family were due on a flight to Israel for his burial. Pausing to cry, he went on, “I can’t ask you anymore. I think you taught us well enough that we don’t need to ask you.”

Hauer was an exemplar of Modern Orthodoxy’s historical blend of religious and secular expertise. After being ordained at Ner Israel, an Orthodox yeshiva in Baltimore, he earned a master’s degree in engineering from Johns Hopkins University. He was the founding editor of Klal Perspectives, an online journal elevating Orthodox perspectives on contemporary issues.

In 2023, Hauer testified about antisemitism on American college campuses at a hearing of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. The hearing prompted investigations of several universities for allegedly failing to protect students from antisemitic harassment.

Sen. Josh Hawley, the Missouri Republican who in 2023 worked with the O.U. to pass a Senate resolution condemning Hamas and campus antisemitism, issued a statement saying he was “deeply grieved by the death of my friend.”

Hawley said: “His sudden death is a tremendous loss to America and to friends of Israel everywhere. Rabbi Moshe was a man of remarkable integrity and kindness, and also foresighted leadership. He was a true and dear friend to me.”

Hauer also sometimes was required to speak hard truths to his community. In 2020, he met with Anthony Fauci, then director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in forming the O.U.’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Hauer then urged congregations to exceed the government’s reopening guidelines. In 2023, he denounced a rampage by Jewish settlers in the West Bank, saying, “We cannot understand or accept this.”

A wide array of Jewish voices mourned Hauer and expressed shock at his sudden death.

“We just spoke this past Friday and texted on Monday, when he was overflowing with joy at the miracle of the hostages’ freedom and the unmistakable hand of Hashem in it,” tweeted William Daroff, president of the Council of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. “Rabbi Hauer was a trusted advisor, cherished colleague, and wise counselor to me, a bridge-builder whose faith, humility, and moral clarity inspired all who knew him. His loss leaves a deep void for all who loved and learned from him.”

Rabbi Shlomo Peles of the Jewish Relief Network Ukraine, a Chabad organization, praised Hauer’s willingness to work with his movement.

“Rabbi Hauer constantly mobilized on behalf of the Rebbe’s Shluchim [emissaries], and especially for those in Ukraine,” Peles said in a statement. “Rabbi Hauer acted with genuine care, a broad heart, and a shining countenance.”

“Klal Yisroel has lost a leader who was universally respected as a talmid chochom of stature, a man of integrity, humility, vision, wisdom and depth,” Agudath Israel, an advocacy group representing haredi, or ultra-Orthodox, Jews, said in a statement. “Rabbi Hauer created Kiddush Hashem in all of his encounters with the outside world, and he leaves behind an impressive list of significant accomplishments. The loss to our community is incalculable.”

“The Jewish people has lost a sage,” said Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, in a Facebook post that included a photograph of himself sitting with Hauer in the official residence of Israeli President Isaac Herzog during a communal mission in July.

Jacobs recalled that Herzog had noted with some surprise that the president of the Reform movement was sitting next to a leader of the Orthodox Union. “I told President Herzog that it was completely natural for me to sit next to my friend and cherished colleague,” he wrote. “Yes, we disagreed on so many issues but shared a profound respect and love for one another. …. Rabbi Hauer’s humble leadership helped point the way for a more respectful and mutually responsible future for the Jewish people grounded in Torah.”

When he was tapped as its new executive vice president in 2020, succeeding Allen Fagin, Hauer pledged to address the rising costs of the Orthodox lifestyle — the O.U. supports federal “school choice” policies in order to offset the high costs of day school tuition — and expressed his commitment to Modern Orthodoxy, which in contrast to haredi Judaism seeks to balance a strict adherence to Jewish law, or halacha, with a deeper engagement with modernity. 

“Our community expresses this commitment by engaging with the world around us, as well as with all members of Klal Yisrael and by addressing every modern issue and contemporary challenge from within the value system of Torah,” he told the New York Jewish Week at the time. “We undertake all of these responsibilities while also completely dedicating ourselves to a growing engagement in Torah study, prayer and halachic observance.” 

To that point, he added, the O.U. “is completely committed to maximizing — within the framework of halacha — the engagement of Jewish women in every aspect of Jewish life. This is an organizational and communal priority.” 

Sheila Katz, CEO of the National Council of Jewish Women, wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday night that she had been so shocked to hear of her friend’s death that she texted him hoping that it was not true. She said she had just spoken to him last week, in the latest installment of an ongoing conversation that transcended their differences.

“Our very different realities came up over and over again. I loved learning how he lived his life, and he seemed to love learning how I lived mine. Difference, but mutual respect, was at the core of our deep friendship,” Katz wrote.

In the Jewish Week interview, Hauer pledged to improve “relationships beyond the confines of our community.”

That was also the message of one of his last public statements, shared on Oct. 3. In it he described the upcoming Sukkot holiday as an opportunity for connection among Jews from “ideologically diverse places.”

“Even those who usually live separately must seize opportunities for contact and connection,” he said.

Hauer’s survivors include his mother, Miriam Hauer; his wife, Mindi Hauer; their sons Yissachar, Yehuda Leib and Shalom; daughters Devorah Walfish, Batsheva Neuberger, Chana Schneiweiss and Rachel Hauer, and their spouses and numerous grandchildren.

This piece first ran as part of The Countdown, our daily newsletter rounding up all the developments in the New York City mayor’s race. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. There are 19 days to the election.

📺 Mamdani on Fox

• Zohran Mamdani deflected questions about Hamas and Israel in a Fox News interview on Wednesday, pivoting to his campaign pledge of making New York more affordable.

• Anchor Martha MacCallum repeatedly raised the Middle East, asking Mamdani, “Do you believe that Hamas should lay down their weapons and leave the leadership in Gaza?”

• “I believe that any future here in New York City is one that we have to make sure that’s affordable for all,” Mamdani replied. “And as it pertains to Israel and Palestine, that we have to ensure that there is peace.”

• When MacCallum repeated the question, Mamdani said, “I don’t really have opinions about the future of Hamas and Israel beyond the question of justice and safety, and the fact that anything has to abide by international law. And that applies to Hamas, that applies to the Israeli military.”

• Mamdani said it was “too early” to give President Trump credit for the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, but that he would give credit if a lasting peace was established.

• He also spoke directly to Trump, an avid viewer of the network, with a message that blasted his rival Andrew Cuomo and offered to partner with the president on his campaign promise of affordability.

• “I will not be a mayor like Mayor Adams, who will call you to figure out how to stay out of jail. I won’t be a disgraced governor like Andrew Cuomo, who will call you to ask how to win this election. I can do those things on my own,” said Mamdani. “I will, however, be a mayor who is ready to speak at any time to lower the cost of living.”

• Asked about his 2020 comments on defunding the police, Mamdani issued his first broad public apology to NYPD officers during the interview. He has been privately meeting with the rank and file to apologize in recent months.

🕍 Rabbis grapple with Mamdani

• Several rabbis have acknowledged that their institutions would benefit from a strong relationship with the next mayor, who appears increasingly likely to be Mamdani, reported The New York Times. And a smattering of liberal rabbis have praised his platform.

• But many rabbis will not publicly admit to any meetings with Mamdani or even address his candidacy, fearing backlash from congregants who are skeptical about his positions on Israel.

• Mamdani’s appearances at Jewish institutions have met mixed responses. During his visit to Congregation Beth Elohim on Sunday, we met a congregant “leading towards” him along with dozens of others protesting his appearance.

💰 Following the money

• Bill Ackman, a prominent Jewish billionaire and Trump supporter, has donated $1 million to the anti-Mamdani super PAC Defend NYC, according to Politico.

• Ackman is a vocal supporter of Israel who regularly comments on the mayoral race and criticizes Mamdani on X. Mamdani reacted to the donation on his own X account, posting, “tfw your 1,000-word tweets aren’t working.”

• Before the Democratic primary in June, Ackman gave $500,000 to Fix the City, a pro-Cuomo PAC. He switched his support to Adams after Cuomo’s primary loss, then went back to Cuomo’s camp and encouraged Adams to quit when the mayor’s polling numbers dwindled.

• Jewish hedge funder Daniel Loeb also gave $100,000 to Defend NYC.

🕌 Spotted: ‘Muslims Against Mamdani’

• Our reporter Grace Gilson was in Washington Square Park yesterday when she spotted a table with a sign in the Mamdani campaign’s signature font, but displaying an unexpected message: “Muslims Against Mamdani — Ask Us Why.”

• Seated at the table was Adam Azam, a Pakistani American who is mounting a campaign for state Senate. He told Grace that he opposes Mamdani for many reasons, including Mamdani’s support for gender-affirming care and his past support for legalizing prostitution.

• Azam also derided Mamdani’s pro-Palestinian advocacy. “What Mamdani is doing is trying to make people a fake promise,” he said. “A New York City mayor cannot do anything outside New York City, it’s absolutely impossible, and Gaza and Israel is a very complex issue.”

• A camera crew offered passersby $10 each to speak with the group, and the table drew a smattering of curious New Yorkers on the sunny fall afternoon.

📺 Tune in

• Tune in to the first of two general election debates tonight at 7 p.m. New York time, hosted at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. You can watch it live on WNBC and WNJU or online through NBC 4 New York and Telemundo’s streaming platforms.

Hamas returned the bodies of two more hostages late Wednesday and said it had released all of the remains it is able to access, leaving 19 people unaccounted for.

The two hostages returned Wednesday, DNA analysis showed, were Muhammad Al-Atarash and Inbar Hayman.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum announced in December 2023 that Hayman, 27, had been killed in Gaza after being abducted from the Nova festival. And the Israeli army announced in July 2024 that Al-Atarash, 39, a Bedouin father of 13, had been killed in combat while responding to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.

Their return leaves 19 hostages unaccounted for and deepening tensions over their return. The ceasefire deal struck last week required Hamas to release all hostages, living and dead, within 72 hours. It met the deadline for the 20 living hostages, who were freed on Monday, but has not for the deceased ones.

Israel reportedly believes that Hamas knows where additional hostages’ remains are located, following reports from freed hostages that they were sometimes held alongside bodies. President Donald Trump, who brokered the deal between Israel and Hamas, said on Wednesday that he believed further efforts were being made to locate the hostages, who were killed on and after Oct. 7.

“It’s a gruesome process,” he said. “But they’re digging. They’re actually digging. There are areas where they’re digging, and they’re finding a lot of bodies. Then they have to separate the bodies. You wouldn’t believe this. And some of those bodies have been in there a long time, and some of them are under rubble. They have to remove rubble.”

Turkey has reportedly offered to send teams of searchers who have expertise developed through responding to earthquakes in their country. The country’s relations with Israel deteriorated sharply during the Gaza war as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan openly supported Hamas.

The status of the remaining hostages has left Jews around the world torn over how deeply to celebrate the living hostages’ release and the end of fighting. Some say it is inappropriate to celebrate when there are still 19 people abducted from Israel who have not been returned for a proper burial.

Rabba Anat Sharbat, the unofficial “rabbi of Hostages Square,” wept as she recited the Shehechiyanu blessing after lighting the candles to mark the beginning of Simchat Torah holiday on Monday evening, hours after all 20 living hostages returned to Israel.

Two years before, the same holiday had been marked by silence and fear after the Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel ended celebrations across the country.

Before the plaza even became known as Hostages Square, Sharbat had established what became a ritual — Kabbalat Shabbat services and Havdalah every week, in her words, “out of a deep belief that there needed to be a space here for prayer,” not only for protest.

Faith, she said, had played a role in the hostages’ return.

“The prayers in the square were an integral part of the effort to return them,” Sharbat said. “We heard from hostages who came back that they heard and felt the prayers, and that it gave them strength.”

Last Simchat Torah, she faced uncertainty about whether to hold prayers at all. There was barely a minyan — the quorum of 10 needed for Jewish prayer — and dancing felt impossible. Still, she insisted on continuing “out of a deep belief in the need to maintain hope, together with the families, that their loved ones will return home.” That conviction was validated when Dvora Leshem, the nonagenarian grandmother of the hostage Romi Gonen, approached the small group that night and said she was glad the prayers were taking place. Romi Gonen would be released about three months later.

On this year’s Hebrew anniversary, a very different scene unfolded in the square. As evening fell, a few dozen men and women gathered for prayers followed by hakafot, the traditional Simchat Torah dances encircling the Torah scrolls. The crowd of dancers quickly swelled to more than 200, while onlookers filmed and applauded from the sidelines. Among them was a woman in a Bring Them Home T-shirt who recalled that less than two weeks before Oct. 7, the sight of public, gender-separated prayer during Yom Kippur services had filled her with “extreme anguish.”

“But today, let them dance,” she said. “We are all dancing, finally.”

But the joy was marred by the knowledge that not all the deceased hostages had returned. For some, that reality was impossible to reconcile with the scenes of jubilation. One man, wearing a T-shirt that read in Hebrew, English, and Arabic “We are all created equal,” shouted at the dancers while filming on his phone. “These religious zealots can’t just stand respectfully, they have to dance like animals,” he said.

By Wednesday morning, eight bodies had been brought to Israel for burial. Seven were identified as hostages, while the eighth did not match any of the 28 confirmed dead. Two more, both Israelis, were returned on Wednesday.

The tension carried into Tuesday night, when tens of thousands filled Hostages Square again for a second round of Torah dancing traditionally held after the holiday. The seven dances alternated between grief and gratitude, each dedicated to a different group, including the fallen hostages still in Gaza, those who had returned, reservists, and their families.

Tel Aviv Deputy Mayor Chaim Goren said the event, organized annually by the municipality with Ma’ale Eliyahu Yeshiva and other national-religious groups, was originally meant to take place at a nearby plaza. “It felt detached to hold it there,” he said. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum agreed to move it to the square, though the decision wasn’t final until the last minute.

“There was back-and-forth until the holiday started about whether and how to do it,” Goren said. “With all the joy, there’s still a kvetch in the heart” — using the Yiddish word for ache — “but there’s also a deep need to give thanks to God for what we’ve witnessed.”

For Tel Aviv resident Sapir Barak, the night offered a release she hadn’t allowed herself since Oct. 7, 2023.

“When they announced the release yesterday, I basically had a nervous breakdown,” she said. “I was crying so much. There are so many emotions. It’s like a dream come true, but you don’t know what to do with it.”

Nearby, Henri Rosenberg cut an unusual figure in Hasidic garb with a fur shtreimel and a “Bring Them Home” dog tag around his neck, standing beside his grandson who wore a red MAGA baseball cap. But despite appearances, Rosenberg said he no longer identified as haredi Orthodox, having grown disillusioned by what he called indifference within some haredi circles to the pain felt by other Israelis during the war. Health problems had led him to attend a nearby national-religious synagogue over the High Holidays, where, he recalled, “the cantor wept for the hostages and the soldiers.”

“They are our flesh and blood, and that’s why I’m here tonight,” he said.

From the stage, Genia Erlich Zohar, aunt of American-Israeli hostage Omer Neutra — whose body remains in Gaza and who would have turned 24 on Tuesday — called on the crowd to respect the duality of the moment.

“We hold both joy for those who came home and hope and pain for those who haven’t,” she said. “We are one people, one heart.”

Miri Polachek, a friend of the Neutra family who has volunteered with relatives of the hostages, said she came to the event to support the Neutras and the other families. Recalling her own son’s playdates with Omer when they were children, she said, “It’s a never-ending reminder that it could have been any of our children.”

Among those on stage was Elkana Levy, a Golani Brigade officer who lost both legs in an explosion in Khan Younis. One of three brothers wounded in the Gaza war, he led a silent hakafa from his wheelchair and vowed that those “fighting day and night for the return of our brothers … would never break.”

At the edge of the square, a few dozen demonstrators held posters of those still in Gaza, chanting “Everyone, now!” — the familiar rallying cry for the hostages’ return.

Hagit Chen, holding “Gucci,” the small white dog that had belonged to her son, slain hostage and dual American-Israeli citizen Itay Chen, whose body has not yet been returned, called Monday’s release “a huge miracle,” even as she admitted her faith had been shaken.

“I was convinced Itay would be returning home yesterday with the others,” she said. Still, she added, the elation around her was not an affront. “I don’t look at joy that way. I embrace what’s happening here. We all need the strength it gives us.”

“But we cannot take our foot off the gas,” she said. “The deal is not a good one for the fallen hostages.” She pointed to what she described as the vague language of the Trump.-brokered agreement, which requires Hamas to make “all necessary efforts” to secure their release. “If we don’t see their return, it will be an open wound for all of us.”

Dani Miran, whose son Omri was among those freed on Monday, said Israel should halt the next stage of the deal until every hostage is accounted for.

“We should have resumed fighting at 1 p.m. yesterday, the moment we understood the 28 bodies weren’t coming home,” he said at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, where his son is receiving treatment. “[Hamas] will not understand anything else.”

Miran said he would remain in Tel Aviv, where he has lived since his son’s abduction, until the last hostage returns. He declined to say whether he would shave his long white beard, a vow he made to keep until Omri came home.

Activist and artist Hila Galilee, posed with Miran’s longtime partner, Galia Korel, while holding a mock yellow Torah scroll with images of the hostages. “The entire Torah is the hostages,” she said.

The question of what to do with the hostages’ symbols no longer has a single answer. Romi Gonen was filmed with friends tearing off the tape marking the number of days the hostages have been held, cheering as they did. Rachel Goldberg-Polin, who began the tape tradition for her son, slain hostage Hersh, said on Wednesday that she would continue to wear hers.

Hagit and her husband, Ruby Chen, criticized Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana for removing his hostage pin during President Trump’s visit to the Knesset. “It isn’t over,” Chen addressed Ohana in a video posted to social media. “Put the pin back on until the last hostage is back.”

After Trump announced that the living hostages would be returning home, Miran urged Tel Aviv mayor Ron Huldai to rename the site Returnees’ Square. But Hagit Chen said in an interview on Tuesday night that the name Hostages Square should remain until all are home.

In the square, posters of freed hostages have been taken down, some replaced by new banners, including one with Trump’s words, “Now is the time for peace.” Other features remain unchanged, including the mock tunnel evoking the underground passages where many hostages were held in Gaza and the digital clock counting the days and seconds since the attacks.

Miran, who had walked the one block from the hospital to the square, led the crowd in a psalm of thanksgiving. “Secular, religious — I hate these distinctions. All I see from up here is Jews,” he said from the stage. “Let’s stay like this. The nation of Israel lives.”

A second university — like the first helmed by a Jewish woman — has rejected the Trump administration’s offer of special funding in exchange for an array of concessions.

Brown University’s president, Christina Paxson, announced the decision on Wednesday, releasing the letter she sent to Education Secretary Linda McMahon and her staff. In the letter, she explained that while Brown remains committed to the agreement it struck in June to restore $50 million in federal funding that had been frozen over allegations of antisemitism, she could not abide by the terms of the new deal, which the Trump administration is calling the “Compact.”

“While a number of provisions in the Compact reflect similar principles as the July agreement — as well as our own commitments to affordability and the free exchange of ideas — I am concerned that the Compact by its nature and by various provisions would restrict academic freedom and undermine the autonomy of Brown’s governance, critically compromising our ability to fulfill our mission,” Paxson wrote in the letter.

Brown follows the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in rejecting the deal, which would have required limits on employees’ political speech and “transforming or abolishing institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.” The proposal reflects the Trump administration’s strategy of wielding federal funding as both a carrot and stick to pursue its ideological agenda.

Like MIT’s president, Sally Kornbluth, Paxson is Jewish and has cultivated the support of her campus’ Jewish community even amid concerns about the handling of pro-Palestinian student protests last year.

Paxson had not immediately rejected the deal the Trump administration had offered to nine schools that it said were “good actors,” instead saying that the decision would incorporate feedback from the Brown community. She said in an email to the community that thousands of people had responded.

Paxson drew criticism from some quarters last year after she announced that student advocates of divestment from Israel would be permitted to make their case before a vote by Brown’s board of trustees. The board then rejected divestment.

Seven universities, including both private colleges and public systems, have not yet responded to the Trump administration’s latest offer.

This piece first ran as part of The Countdown, our daily newsletter rounding up all the developments in the New York City mayor’s race. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. There are 20 days to the election.

🔥Trump turns up the heat on Mamdani and NYC

• President Donald Trump renewed his attacks on Mamdani on Tuesday, calling him “down and dirty,” a “communist” and anti-Jewish.

• “He hates Jewish people and yet he’s got Jewish people supporting him,” Trump said during a press conference with Argentinian President Javier Milei. A recent Marist poll showed Jewish voters evenly divided between Mamdani and Cuomo.

• Trump has regularly expressed disbelief that Jews would vote for Democrats or against him, given what he has argued is a clear track record of antisemitism on the left and his own support for Israel.

• Trump didn’t have kind words for Mamdani’s opponents, either. He said the frontrunner’s victory would be “a fluke” because he was running against “failed people.”

• Trump also reiterated his threats to cut New York’s federal funding and deploy federal troops to the city, as he did in Chicago and Washington, D.C., if Mamdani is elected.

• Mamdani responded to the comments at an event in Brooklyn where he was endorsed by Black clergy leaders. “We will continue to receive funding from the federal government, and it’s not because of President Trump’s generosity. It’s because it is the law,” he said. Congress has the role of appropriating federal money that is distributed to states and cities.

🤝 Hochul teams up with Mamdani

• Gov. Kathy Hochul also snapped back at Trump’s threat to withhold funding. “I’ll fight like hell to make sure that doesn’t happen,” she said in her first appearance with Mamdani since she endorsed him last month.

• Hochul and Mamdani weren’t together for a campaign event. They linked up at a Boys and Girls Club in Queens, where they announced funding for youth programs and affordable housing, and Mamdani appeared in his role as an Assembly member.

• Hochul praised Mamdani’s focus on affordability and highlighted one area where she planned to cooperate with him. “I’ve had conversations with Assemblymember Mamdani about how we can get to universal child care. I believe we can,” she said.

📺 Sarah Sherman spoofs Mamdani critics on ‘SNL’

• Actress Sarah Sherman, who once called herself a “f—ing freaky Jewish woman,” spoofed Mamdani critics in an appearance as the Long Island character Rhonda LaCenzo on “Saturday Night Live.”

• Sherman parodied Islamophobic rhetoric surrounding the race, with her character calling Mamdani a “hipster jihadist.”

• “Mamdani is an ISIS-trained millennial nepo baby from Uganda,” the character said, warning that he would “enact Sharia law in the city.”

🎙Debate prep

• Thursday night’s debate is one of Cuomo’s last chances to make up his distance behind Mamdani. Despite a boost after incumbent Mayor Eric Adams quit the race, Cuomo still trails Mamdani by double digits in recent polling.

• Cuomo has to rally moderate and conservative New Yorkers who would otherwise vote for Sliwa or stay home on Election Day.

• Mamdani has to make sure he doesn’t mess up his lead. It’s rare for a debate to significantly change a race at this late stage — but it’s certainly possible.