Several Democratic candidates for New York City mayor are slamming the ICE arrest on their turf of Mahmoud Khalil, the recent Columbia University graduate and Palestinian protest leader.

One, Comptroller Brad Lander, who is Jewish, referenced a famous poem about the Holocaust in his statement.

But the most prominent candidates in the Democratic primary’s centrist lane, including Mayor Eric Adams and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, have yet to comment on the arrest.

Khalil is a leader of Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a pro-Palestinian protest movement that has endorsed violence, and was arrested early Sunday morning by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and threatened with deportation.

The Department of Homeland Security and Secretary of State Marco Rubio both claimed in statements that Khalil, a legal resident of the United States with a green card, was linked with Hamas. Neither has publicly detailed any formal charges against him.

While several pro-Israel groups praised the arrest, saying that Khalil broke the law, progressive groups and others have expressed alarm, saying that the detention of a legal resident for protest activity is a sign of authoritarianism.

The arrest also comes a few months before the city’s June Democratic mayoral primary, which is almost certain to decide the city’s next mayor. The arrest plays into several issues under debate in the race, including concerns about hate crimes and immigration in the city; whether ICE will have free rein in New York; and how much influence Trump and his policies will have on the solidly Democratic metropolis.

Of the 10 candidates running, half have condemned the arrest, while others have yet to comment. As of Monday early afternoon, none of the candidates has defended the arrest.

Here’s where they stand. This story will be updated as new statements come in.

NYC Comptroller Brad Lander: Lander, a candidate on the party’s progressive wing from Brooklyn, posted on social media:

ICE’s arrest of Mahmoud Khalil is an unconstitutional and egregious violation of the First Amendment, and a frightening weaponization of immigration law. I disagree strongly with things that were said in the protests he reportedly led. But it will not make Jews — or any of us — safer for the federal government to deport people for saying things we may find hateful, as Martin Niemoller reminds us:

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.”

State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani: “The arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil—a green card holder whose wife is eight months pregnant—is a blatant assault on the First Amendment and a sign of advancing authoritarianism under Trump. He must be released now,” Mamdani, a democratic socialist from Queens, posted on social media above a statement condemning the arrest from Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, a progressive group.

State Sen. Zellnor Myrie: “This chilling action by the Trump administration crosses another line towards authoritarianism. ICE has no right to detain a green card holder who has not been convicted of, or even charged with, any crime. This is profoundly unAmerican, and Khalil must be released,” Myrie, a progressive from Brooklyn who previously condemned pro-Palestinian vandalism in his borough, posted on social media.

State Sen. Jessica Ramos: Ramos, a progressive from Queens, said in a statement:

As the daughter of formerly undocumented immigrants, my family knows the fear of having a loved one snatched without warning first-hand. My father was taken by ICE in the 1980s when I was just a baby. My mother spent days terrified for his well-being. Mahmoud Khalil is a green card holder whose wife is a U.S. citizen and 8 months pregnant. The Trump administration offered no serious legal justification for Khalil’s detention, instead citing a Trump executive order. We know from history that abuse of detention powers are a hallmark of authoritarian regimes. Contrary to his own belief, Trump is not a king. His actions are a threat to all of us, even those who disagree with Khalil’s speech. I demand the immediate release of Mahmoud Khalil.

Adrienne Adams, New York City Council Speaker: “Federal authorities’ detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent resident with a green card, is blatant authoritarianism. This is a civil rights issue and an astounding overreach that disregards the U.S. Constitution. It should concern every American and cannot be allowed to stand,” Adams, a moderate, posted on social media.

Mayor Eric Adams: Adams’ press office declined to comment on the arrest. Asked about the arrest at a press conference focused on gun violence Monday, Adams said only, “If he has a gun, he needs to go.” (There is no evidence or suggestion that Khalil had a gun.)

Former NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer: Stringer, who is Jewish, declined to comment on the arrest.

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo: A representative for Cuomo has not responded to a request for comment.

Former Barack Obama aide Michael Blake: Blake’s office has not responded to a request for comment.

Philanthropist Whitney Tilson: Tilson’s office has not responded to a request for comment. The former hedge fund manager and charter school advocate was an early critic of Harvard University, his alma mater, over its handling of antisemitism after Oct. 7.

Israeli celebrity chef Eyal Shani lives in Tel Aviv and operates more than 40 restaurants around the world, from Dubai to Melbourne to Singapore.

But last Thursday, Shani landed in New York City for a two-week visit. His mission? To spend some time at his nine restaurants here, which include Malka, his kosher spots on the Upper West Side and in Dumbo; Shmoné, the Greenwich Village restaurant that earned a Michelin star in November 2023 and, now, as of last month, Shmoné Wine Bar, which is located adjacent to Shmoné and is Shani’s first foray into the beverage space.

“I have to purify and extract the food of Shmoné into wine bar food,” Shani said about the purpose of his trip to New York. “For that, I came.”

Located at 65 West 8th St., Shmoné Wine Bar, which opened Feb. 24, boasts a tight menu of creative small bites. According to a sample menu online, items include a cheese plate, a Jerusalem bagel — which is lighter and airier than its New York cousin — and something called “Jewish deviled eggs.”

Now that Shani, 66, is able to visit his wine bar in person, customers can expect some changes to the menu, he said. “Today is my first day; I’m going to create it,” said Shani, who was headed to his newest establishment following a Zoom call with the New York Jewish Week.

Shani’s New York empire has grown rapidly since he opened his first restaurant, the fast casual pita-based eatery, Miznon, in Chelsea Market in 2018. While Shani said there have been some unpleasant moments in New York tied to his restaurants’ celebration of modern Israeli cuisine since the Israel-Hamas war  — he recounted one post-Oct. 7 evening where he witnessed a husband pulling his wife from the window of Shmoné because, he told her, “there are Jewish people there” — given the situation in Israel and the rise in antisemitism around the world, Shani is more determined than ever to share his food.

“The situation that is happening now is making me very passionate to execute our culture and the beauty of the culture in food and to show it more and more to the world,” he said.

Shani decided on a wine bar as his latest venture because he is a lover of wine; “liquid poetry” is how he describes it.

“I think it’s a transcendental liquid that leads your spirit into the universe,” Shani said.

“There’s a big difference between eating a good dinner without wine and with wine,” he said. “If you are eating a good dinner without wine, it will remain a good dinner, but you will forget it. If you are eating it with wine, you will never forget it because it’s got its own way to extend the experience of your soul.”

Shmoné Wine Bar features a carefully curated wine list by its wine director, Yonatan Chaitchik. It includes selections from Germany, Italy and France, starting at $16 a glass and $60 per bottle.

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At the moment, there are only a few Israeli wines on offer — but Shani plans to restructure that, too. “There is no way that there will be no Israeli wines because it’s the place that we came from,” said Shani.

While the wine bar may still be in its infancy, Shani and his team have no plans to rest. The chef is aiming to open a tenth New York City restaurant later this year — a fourth branch of Miznon, which will be located in the food court beneath Rockefeller Center.

On the more distant horizon, Shani and his restaurant group, The Good People Group, have set their sights on opening a restaurant within a forthcoming 55-room boutique hotel in Israel, on the Gaza border at Kibbutz Nir Am, one of the communities targeted by Hamas on Oct. 7.

“The place that was most hurt, the second holocaust, was in the Otef Aza, the Gaza Envelope, so it is the place to build a new society and a new country in Israel,” Shani said. “I don’t have a precise view in my eyes of what it is going to be because many things will change. I want to create a system of locality that we should grow all our food there and that the people who are growing this food are not people from Thailand but they are the local people.”

As Ynet News reported last month, the “luxury rural-style hotel” is “seen as a significant economic and tourism opportunity” in the region. It will be established in partnership with an impact investment group led by Israeli-American investor Adir Waldman; Jack Eisenstadt, an American-Jewish businessman and investor Simon Greenbaum Gross.

Shani estimates that the hotel will break ground in six months and will open in two years. “Even though there are so many sad things that happened there, it should be a place of happiness and looking to the future,” he said of Israel’s border with Gaza.

For the moment, however, Shani is focused on his New York City eateries. He said he’s delighted by his success here, as well as the warm reception he’s received. He thinks New Yorkers appreciate his “wideness,” what may be understood as his creative spirit.

“New York is living under a grid,” he said of Manhattan’s streets. “But there is a big chance in New York, and the thing that symbolizes that chance is Broadway. It goes against the lines of the grid. I think in some ways I am like Broadway. In my mind and in my spirit, I succeed to reflect it on our creations, on our energy [and] in our restaurants.”

Voting opens Monday in an election that gives American Jews a rare chance to directly shape Israel’s future.

The U.S. election for seats in the 39th World Zionist Congress will help determine the balance of power in the legislative authority of a Zionist organization founded by Theodore Herzl 128 years ago.

Influence over $5 billion in funding for Jewish causes is at stake, as is authority over quasi-governmental institutions such as the Jewish Agency, which plays a central role in immigration to Israel, and the Jewish National Fund, which owns 13% of Israeli land.

Any Jewish adult living in the United States can vote between now and May 4 as long as they accept a set of Zionist principles and pay a $5 registration fee.

At the heart of this year’s election is a fierce ideological battle between liberal and right-wing Orthodox factions, each seeking to shape the future of Zionist institutions and their financial priorities at a pivotal time in Israel’s history. The results will impact key issues such as religious pluralism, funding for Jewish education, settlement expansion and Israel-Diaspora relations.

“This election is about nothing less than the soul of the State of Israel and the Jewish people,” said Rabbi Josh Weinberg, who heads the campaign for the Reform movement’s liberal slate of candidates. “There are multiple competing visions over what it means to have a Jewish state and essentially to be Jewish. We can help decide some of those things through a democratic process.”

These are the 21 slates U.S. Jews can vote for in the 2025 World Zionist Congress election

Weinberg’s Vote Reform slate is one of 21 lists vying to capture the 152 seats allocated to American Jewry in the incoming congress, a significant increase over the 15 slates that participated in the last election, five years ago. Whoever wins will serve alongside 173 representatives selected by Jewish communities across the rest of the Diaspora as well as 200 representatives from Israel, who are chosen by Israeli political parties, according to their share of seats in parliament.

Representing the largest denomination of American Jewry, the Reform slate won a plurality of American votes last time, but it was the surge of Orthodox lists that defined the 2020 election.

The success of Mizrachi, a longstanding slate backed by the institutions of Modern Orthodoxy, and Eretz Hakodesh, a brand new haredi Orthodox list, helped tip the balance at the congress, giving a slight majority for the first time to the right-wing bloc.

Campaigning again this time, Eretz Hakodesh hopes to build on its record.

“We invite all who share our values and beliefs to join us and witness the remarkable impact we have made in recent years,” the slate said in a statement after declining an interview request.

Many of the nine new slates in this election are running on platforms similar to that of Eretz Hakodesh, whether by espousing Orthodox religious values or pro-settlement politics — or both. One of the factors distinguishing these slates is their demographic focus. Am Yisrael Chai, for example, seeks to represent college students and young professionals. The Israeli American Council slate, which is affiliated with the eponymous advocacy group, caters to Israeli expats, and Beyachad is for Russian-speaking Jews.

The left has its own slate of Israeli ex-pats, AID Coalition, which is made up of people who support the Israeli protest movement that’s been challenging the government of Benjamin Netanyahu with massive weekly street demonstrations in recent years. ANU: A New Union, meanwhile, is a new left-wing slate focused on the youth vote.

Jews in the United States lean left as a whole, but that’s no guarantee of representation in the congress because only a small fraction of them vote. Of nearly 6 million American Jewish adults, only 125,000 voted in the 2020 election, which was a massive increase over the 56,000 votes cast in 2015. The highest rate of participation ever came in 1987, when about 211,000 voters cast their ballots.

Yizhar Hess, vice chairman of the World Zionist Organization, casts the issue of low turnout as a “shande,” or shame, that threatens the pluralism that Zionism was founded on. He’s hoping he can raise awareness about the election over the next few months by speaking to congregations and other types of gatherings.

“If the congress is called ‘the parliament of the Jewish people’ it should reflect the makeup of world Jewry,” he said. “That’s why I am investing many hours every day in order to convince the Jews of the diaspora to make their voice heard.”

The World Zionist Congress election, which runs from March 10 to May 4, determines how $5 billion will be spent in Israel — and is seen as a referendum on the future of the country.

Jews in the United States can choose among 21 lists of candidates, or slates, each with a specific agenda and profile. There are options by denomination, demographics and outlook on Israel.

What is the World Zionist Congress and why does it matter? Here’s a primer.

Here are the slates on the ballot for U.S. voters and what they stand for.

Achdut Israel — Founded in response to the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, Achdut Israel is focused on supporting Israeli troops and land settlement, and “empowering Jewish communities worldwide through self-defense training and connection to their homeland.” Achdut is a Hebrew word that means “unity.”

AID Coalition (America-Israel Democracy) — One of two slates of Israeli immigrants to the United States, AID Coalition is aligned with the mass protest movement that’s been challenging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government for the past several years and portraying his plan to overhaul the country’s judiciary as a power grab. The platform talks about supporting the recovery of communities attacked on Oct. 7 and safeguarding Israeli democracy.

Aish Ha’am — The Aish Ha’am slate is an initiative of Aish HaTorah, an outreach movement dedicated to promoting Orthodox Judaism. The slate’s platform focuses on pro-Israel advocacy, fostering Jewish unity, and promoting “timeless Jewish wisdom.” The list of candidates includes Shabbos Kestenbaum, a Harvard grad who sued his alma mater for its handling of antisemitism on campus and went on to endorse Donald Trump; and Lizzy Savetsky, a prominent right-wing pro-Israel social media influencer who recently ignited controversy by endorsing a speech by the late extremist rabbi Meir Kahane.

American Forum for Israel — A pro-settlement slate “guided by the enduring principles of the Torah,” American Forum for Israel is affiliated with Israel Beiteinu, the Israeli right-wing party that caters to Jews from the former Soviet Union led by Avigdor Liberman. Ideologically aligned with Netanyahu’s Likud in the past, Liberman broke with the prime minister years ago over conscription for Haredi Jews and the role of religion in public life.

Am Yisrael Chai — Aiming to represent Jewish college students and young professionals, Am Yisrael Chai is a new slate that focuses on pro-Israel advocacy, spreading Jewish pride, and promoting the “love of Torah and Judaism.”

ANU: A New Union — Primarily made up of millennial and Gen Z Jews, ANU, which means “We” in Hebrew, is a new left-wing slate. It supports the two-state solution; the independence of the Israeli judiciary amid a proposed overhaul of the system by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu; and a “pluralistic vision” for Israel and the Jewish community.

Beyachad — Hoping to amplify the voice of Russian-speaking Jews who live in the United States, Beyachad, or “together,” is a new slate led by Orthodox Jews. It emphasizes Jewish unity and traditional Jewish values, and seeks to “inspire the next generation to deepen their connection to Israel and Jewish heritage.

Dorshei Torah V’Tzion — A slate representing liberal Orthodox Jews and billing itself as “proven bridgebuilders,” Dorshei Torah V’Tzion supports a wide array of policies in areas like religious pluralism, female religious leadership and LGBTQ inclusion. It’s headed by Rabbi Avi Weiss and Rabba Sara Hurwitz, the founders of liberal Orthodox seminaries in New York City.

Eretz Hakodesh — This Orthodox slate debuted in the last election and stunned everyone with its strong showing by winning about 16% of the vote, enough for third place. Focused on “traditional religious values and Jewish rights in the entire Land of Israel,” the slate ran a negative campaign against Reform Judaism. The slate’s success helped the religious and right-wing bloc secure a majority of seats in the World Zionist Congress for the first time. Eretz Hakodesh means “the Holy Land.”

Hatikvah: The Progressive Slate — Endorsed by the umbrella organizations for Renewal and Reconstructionist Judaism, the National Council of Jewish Women and the liberal Israel lobby J Street, Hatikvah, or “the Hope” focuses on religious pluralism, protecting Israeli democratic norms, promoting human rights and opposition to Israeli settlements.

Herut North America — Promising “unapologetic Zionism,” Herut is the historic voice of Ze’ev Jabotinsky and revisionist Zionism at the World Zionist Congress, the same political movement that produced Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud Party in Israel. Herut’s platform promises support for Jewish indigenous rights to the Land of Israel.

Israel365 Action — Affiliated with Israeli365, an advocacy group that aims to foster support for Israel among Christians and recently honored the far-right U.S. activist Steve Bannon, Israel365 Action is a new slate supporting exclusive Israeli control “throughout greater Israel” and opposing Palestinian statehood. Originally known as “One Jewish State,” the slate changed its name to clarify that former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, who recently published a book called “One Jewish State,” is not part of the slate, though he has endorsed its platform. Some former members have accused the slate of a bait-and-switch because of the name change, and of soliciting Christian support in an election meant only for Jews — charges the slate denies.

Israeli American Council — One of the two new slates for Israeli immigrants to the United States, the Israeli American Council is affiliated with the eponymous right-wing advocacy group. Heading the list is Elan Carr, who served as special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism during Trump’s first presidency.

The Jewish Future  — Advocating “centrist liberal Zionism,” the Jewish Future’s list includes Rabbi David Gedzelman, who is the president and CEO of the Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life, and therefore close to billionaire philanthropist and Birthright co-founder Michael Steinhardt; and U.S. Rep. Esther Panitch, a Democratic lawmaker representing parts of Georgia.

Kol Israel — Affiliated with the pro-Israel advocacy group StandWithUs and the Zionist youth movement Young Judea, Kol Israel, or “Voice of Israel,” is focused on Israel-Diaspora relations, combating antisemitism, and advancing moonshot ideas like bringing the Olympic games to Israel in 2048, Israel’s centennial. The slate includes a number of Jews who have risen to prominence as pro-Israel advocates since Oct. 7, including Columbia University lecturer Shai Davidai and influencer Montana Tucker.

Mercaz USA — The Zionist arm of Conservative Judaism, known internationally as Masorti Judaism, Mercaz, or “center” was the fourth largest vote-getter in the last election. It believes in an Israel that “celebrates democratic principles, embraces diverse Jewish traditions, and safeguards the rights, dignity and inclusion of all its citizens.”

Orthodox Israel Coalition – Mizrachi — Backed by the institutions of Modern Orthodox Judaism including Yeshiva University and the Orthodox Union, Mizrachi bills itself as a religious Zionist slate, which suggests right-wing politics. It promises to promote “timeless values of the Torah and the centrality of the Land and State of Israel in Jewish life.” It came in second place in the last election with almost 18% of the total vote.

Shas Olami — Affiliated with Israel’s Shas party, Shas Olami, or “Global Shas,” seeks to represent Sephardic Orthodox Jews in support of “traditional Jewish education and identity.”

Vision — Billing itself as a voice for young Jews, Vision is a right-wing slate that’s opposed to the two-state solution and is focused on “Jewish liberation, identity, and Israel’s legitimacy on campus.”

Vote Reform — The slate that won the largest share of votes in the last election, gaining 25% of available seats, Vote Reform represents the largest denomination of American Judaism. Representing left-wing views, the slate seeks “a ​​democratic, pluralistic, and vibrant Israeli society.”

ZOA Coalition — This staunchly right-wing slate is led by the Zionist Organization of America, which has been part of the World Zionist Congress since the beginning, 128 years ago. Standing in opposition to Palestinian statehood, the list is dedicated to “defending Jews, Jewish students, and the Jewish people’s rights to Israel-Judea-Samaria.”

Immigration officers arrested a recent Columbia University graduate over his role in pro-Palestinian activism, a dramatic escalation of the Trump administration’s offensive against students protesting Israel at the school.

The detention this weekend of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian who is in the country legally and holds a green card, has elicited sharp reactions from politicians and activists. Pro-Israel groups and figures largely praised the arrest as a signal that the White House is taking campus antisemitism and support for terrorism seriously. Progressive and pro-Palestinian groups, meanwhile, are decrying the arrest as a dangerous precedent and an assault on freedom of speech and assembly.

Khalil, according to a Department of Homeland Security statement issued Sunday night, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers earlier in the day. News reports said he was taken into custody at his apartment in a Columbia-owned building, and that his wife, who is eight months pregnant, was also threatened with arrest. His lawyer said in a statement that she did not know his whereabouts.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio tweeted that the U.S. government intends to deport Khalil.

“We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported,” he wrote on Sunday. He did not specify what law, if any, Khalil is accused of violating.

The arrest is the highest-profile instance, so far, of the Trump administration following through on its vow to deport student activists whom it accuses of supporting terrorism — a pledge Trump made on the campaign trail and included in a January executive order.

Khalil, who recently graduated from Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, is a leader of Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the vociferously anti-Israel group leading campus pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

He has acted as a spokesperson for the group, which has previously called for “armed resistance,” and was a leader of last year’s encampment protest. He has remained involved following his graduation, taking part in a pro-Palestinian demonstration last week at Barnard College, the women’s school affiliated with Columbia.

The DHS statement said Khalil’s arrest occurred “in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism” and accused Khalil of supporting terrorism.

“Khalil led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization,” the statement said. “ICE and the Department of State are committed to enforcing President Trump’s executive orders and to protecting U.S. national security.”

Jewish groups were among the many voices to swiftly weigh in on Khalil’s arrest.

Bend the Arc, a progressive Jewish group that spoke out in defense of the encampment movement, tweeted that President Donald Trump was playing on fears of antisemitism in order to pursue an anti-democratic agenda.

“The White House’s authoritarian actions are being falsely done in our name as Jews, by a President and politicians who actively use antisemitism and do not speak for Jews,” the group tweeted. “We’ve been afraid this day would come since campus protests began. Free speech and education are pillars of our democracy, and a healthy democracy is what keeps Jews safest.”

The Anti-Defamation League, an antisemitism watchdog that has criticized Columbia’s response to pro-Palestinian activism, praised the arrest while calling for immigration law to be followed.

“We appreciate the Trump Administration’s broad, bold set of efforts to counter campus antisemitism — and this action further illustrates that resolve by holding alleged perpetrators responsible for their actions,” the group’s statement said. “Obviously, any deportation action or revocation of a Green Card or visa must be undertaken in alignment with required due process protections. We also hope that this action serves as a deterrent to others who might consider breaking the law on college campuses or anywhere.”

The statement immediately elicited criticism from progressive Jews who said the ADL was abandoning its values.

“BRB, checking the history books to find out whether ‘tyrant starts redefining peoples’ citizenship status’ usually ends well for the Jews,” tweeted Leah Goldberg, a co-founder of Indivisible, in an allusion to Hitler’s decision to strip citizenship from Jewish Germans in the 1930s.

More than 700,000 people signed a petition opposing Khalil’s arrest in the hours after it took place. The Council on American-Islamic Relations called the arrest “a blatant attack on the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech, immigration laws, and the very humanity of Palestinians.” Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a prominent progressive, tweeted, “Deporting legal residents solely for expressing their political opinions is a violation of free speech rights.”

Khalil’s arrest comes days after the Trump administration froze $400 million of grants to Columbia as a response to how it has handled campus antisemitism. And it comes weeks after Barnard expelled two students for disrupting an Israeli history class and handed out fliers showing a boot stomping on a Star of David.

The arrest comes shortly after reports that the Trump administration was using artificial intelligence to find and deport students who support Hamas, and that ICE had already revoked one activist’s visa. On Friday, an account on X dedicated to identifying anti-Israel and antisemitic activists at the school posted about Khalil and called for Rubio to take action against him.

“Mahmoud Khalil, the foreign student who is one of the leading agitators on campus, is still causing trouble,” read the post by
an account called Documenting Jew Hatred on Campus at Columbia U. “He seems to be present at every encampment and every sit-in or building takeover.”

Other pro-Israel activists praised the arrest. Shai Davidai, an Israeli Columbia professor who has outspokenly opposed the school’s response to anti-Israel activism, tweeted, “To be clear: Mahmoud Khalil was detained because he broke the law and his green card conditions.”

The Columbia Jewish Alumni Association, created during the Israel-Hamas war, tweeted that it was pleased that Khalil was reportedly losing his green card. “A green card is a privilege that millions wait years for. So is studying a @Columbia,” the group wrote. “Khalil threw them away. His actions prove he neither respects nor deserves the shot he was given. No one should feel sorry for him.”

Betar US, a militant right-wing pro-Israel group that has recommended names of people to deport to the Trump administration, praised the arrest and called for more like it.

“We commend ⁦@realDonaldTrump⁩ for grabbing jihadi Mohammad Khalil!” the group tweeted. “Many many more to go Mr President. We will keep bringing evidence and will continue to assist ⁦@ICEgov⁩ nationwide.”

Israel has released the video for “New Day Will Rise,” its entry to the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest that focuses on the theme of emerging from darkness.

In the video, Yuval Raphael, selected as the country’s representative for the annual contest, sings in a field of red anemones, Israel’s national flower, after connecting with a crowd of young people who are reminiscent of the attendees of the Nova music festival where Hamas killed more than 380 people on Oct. 7, 2023. Raphael survived the massacre.

“New day will rise, life will go on / Everyone cries, don’t cry alone / Darkness will fade, all the pain will go by / But we will stay,” belts Raphael, with lyrics that could reflect both personal and national determination.

The song is mostly in English, with a verse in French and a line in Hebrew, quoting from Jewish scripture: “Vast floods cannot quench love, nor rivers drown it.”

The song has passed muster with Eurovision, which last year sent back Israel’s entry for revision after it was deemed overly political. The contest takes place in May in Basel, Switzerland, and will feature at least one Jewish entrant other than Raphael — Asaf Mishiyev, a member of the Azerbaijani band Mamagama.

There’s an ignoble tradition of falsified memoirs. “The Hitler Diaries,” a forgery published in 1983, fooled even a Hitler expert. “Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years,” published in 1997, was sold as a survivor’s testimony but turned out to be a hoax (the part where the author was raised by wolves might have been a yellow flag).

When the truth is revealed, the writers are publicly shamed, and critics and readers debate what is acceptable when shaping the facts for literary or commercial purposes.

But while most readers might agree that a book labeled “nonfiction” should strive to get its facts right, what if the fabrications serve a higher purpose — say, rallying Americans to the anti-Nazi cause?

Matthew Goodman didn’t set out to explore that question when he began research for his new book, “Paris Undercover: A Wartime Story of Courage, Friendship, and Betrayal.” He meant to tell the story of Etta Shiber and Kate Bonnefous, middle-aged women in Nazi-occupied Paris who sheltered dozens of British and French soldiers trapped behind enemy lines and smuggled them to safety. 

His source text was “Paris-Underground,” an enormously popular account of their exploits first published in 1943 and credited to Shiber and two co-authors. It told how the two women helped establish an “escape line” for soldiers in the first months of the occupation, how both were arrested by the Gestapo, and how Shiber was released after 18 months while Bonnefous (called “Kitty” in the book) continued to suffer in Nazi-run prisons.

The book spent 18 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list on the way to selling half a million copies, with a boost by the influential Book-of-the-Month Club. Constance Bennett, a highly paid star of the 1930s, produced and starred in a Hollywood movie adaptation released in 1945.

“It checked a lot of the boxes that I look for when I write a book: It’s got a dramatic arc. It has interesting characters, it has larger significance,” Goodman recalled in an interview. “My only worry was that I was going to be too dependent on the memoir for my book.” 

Not to worry: The more Goodman dug, the more he found much of the book didn’t match the historical record. While Shiber and Bonnefous did run an escape line, the book was largely fictionalized, and Shiber didn’t write it. What’s more, an inspiring story of wartime courage took on a darker tone when Goodman found evidence that the book’s publication actually endangered Kate, at the time still a prisoner of the Nazis.

“Ultimately it becomes a larger, more complicated story and, to me, a more interesting story, because it does get into this sort of moral calculus,” said Goodman. “Kate is obviously betrayed by this publication of the book; Etta is betrayed by the publishers,” who assured her that its publication would not make things worse for her friend. “At the same time, you can understand why they might have said that, because it did help the war effort. It’s a complicated affair.”

Etta Kahn Shiber, a Jewish New Yorker, sailed to Paris after her husband died in 1936. She moved in with Bonnefous, a divorced friend nine years younger. Goodman describes Shiber, while highly cultured, as shy and “terminally anxious”; the British-born Bonnefous was adventurous and independent, owning a business and a sleek car at a time when French women were not allowed to have their own bank accounts.

When the Nazis marched into Paris in June 1940, the two fled south, but soon returned to Kate’s Paris apartment. Kate, a volunteer with the Red Cross, proposed helping a British officer being held by the Germans in a requisitioned hospital; Etta reluctantly agreed to be her accomplice. After smuggling him out of the hospital in the trunk of their car, the women eventually handed the airman off to an improvised network of shopkeepers, priests, dissident bureaucrats and homemakers who were helping soldiers escape over the border.

“I quote one historian in the book who describes this as the artisanal phase of the escape lines,” said Goodman, adding that the organized French resistance emerged only many months later. 

Before the Gestapo came knocking in November 1940, the two women had helped perhaps 40 soldiers — half of them British, the other half French — escape. Many returned to the battlefield, and earned medals for their service. 

Etta became the first American woman to be held by the Nazis in France; in her early 60s and already in ill health, she suffered three heart attacks in prison and barely survived. She returned to the United States under a swap in 1942, while Kate, who the Nazis considered a ringleader, languished in solitary confinement.

A book based on their adventures was the idea of a Hungarian Jewish émigré named Aladar Anton Farkas, who had arrived in New York from France in 1941. He read a newspaper account of Etta’s travails and thought the story would make an inspiring novel about the French underground. He took the idea to Paul Winkler, another Hungarian Jew who had fled Paris and reestablished his publishing and literary agency in New York.

Winkler arranged for assistants to interview Etta (Farkas spoke English poorly) over a period of months. With assurances from Winkler and strapped for cash, Shiber agreed to put her name to the book “in collaboration with Anne and Paul Dupre” — the pen names of Winkler and his wife Betty. Farkas went uncredited, and the suit he eventually filed against the publisher, Charles Scribner’s Sons, would provide Goodman with a record of just how much of the book came from the real author’s imagination: Names were changed, characters were invented, and the women were credited with an improbable 250 rescues. 

Despite the artifice — and perhaps because of that inflated number — Kate did suffer as a result of the book’s publication. Goodman recounts in detail her torture under the Nazis, and their decision to reinstate her death sentence based on the testimony, however distorted, provided in Shiber’s book. She wouldn’t be freed until the Allied liberation in 1945, and even then she and other prisoners suffered at the hands of drunken Red Army soldiers. She weighed 73 pounds when she arrived back in France. 

Lawyers talked her out of filing a lawsuit against Shiber and her publisher, and there’s no indication that two women spoke again after the war. Etta died in 1948; she was 70. Bonnefous died in 1965 at age 79, recognized by the British and French government for her valor but otherwise mostly forgotten.  

Goodman — who I knew as the food columnist for the Forward before he began writing deeply researched histories of 19th-century American journalism and the college basketball point-shaving scandal of the 1950s — said his book is about how citizens can fight back when the institutions of government fail them. 

Goodman said he began researching the story of the nascent French resistance in 2019, and was “struck by the question of how individuals react in the face of growing authoritarianism, deepening social injustice and a deepening strain of xenophobia. 

“These two women, who were very unlikely heroines, especially Etta, managed to find resources in themselves and do things that perhaps they did not think they would be able to do,” he added. “They really did risk their own safety and security, even their lives. I think that there’s something quite admirable about that.”

He also notes another way in which Shiber’s purported memoir distorts the record: It doesn’t mention that Shiber was Jewish. Highly assimilated, she was married at the secular Ethical Culture Society by its founder, Rabbi Felix Adler. Her book contains only a few references to the anti-Jewish measures the Nazis were inflicting on France and the rest of Europe. 

Goodman thinks the publishers did that intentionally. 

“There was such a high level of antisemitism in the United States at that time, and there was definitely a feeling even among the Roosevelt administration that they did not want to too closely equate the Jewish problem” with the war, he said. “There was always this undercurrent fostered by people like [Charles] Lindbergh that American boys were dying to save Jews. Even the Jewish organizations at that time tended to keep a lower profile, because they didn’t want to have the war effort be seen as somehow ‘tainted.’”

And whatever she thought about her own Jewishness or vulnerability, and the risks for Kate, Shiber and her publishers justified the book’s embellishments and omissions in the name of aiding France and liberating Europe.

“It did boost morale. It did,” Goodman said. “It did lead Americans to understand the nobility of the French cause and the resistance.”

Adidas announced Wednesday that it had sold the last of its Yeezy sneakers, the lucrative footwear line created with rapper and designer Ye. The German sportswear giant framed the milestone as the closing chapter in the controversy sparked by Ye’s antisemitic comments in 2022.

After massive public outcry, Adidas cut ties with Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, in 2022 over a stream of antisemitic remarks he posted on social media. Ending the nearly decade-long partnership cost Adidas nearly 250 million euros that year, the company said. 

Adidas initially paused the sale of Yeezy sneakers and considered destroying the remaining inventory. But under Bjorn Gulden, who took over as CEO in 2023, the company ultimately decided to sell the stock and donate part of the profit to groups fighting discrimination and hate. 

So how much money did the sale of the remaining Yeezy pairs bring in and what did Adidas do with the money? Claudia Lange, head of media relations at Adidas, broke down the numbers for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 

Revenue was about 750 million euros in 2023, and 650 million euros in 2024, for a total of 1.3 billion euros, or about $1.4 billion.  

Adidas calculated that its profits were about 300 million euros in 2023 and about 200 million euros in 2024, for a total of 500 million euros. But Lange said this total accounts only for costs that are “directly product-related,” meaning that the company spent additional money on shipping, warehousing, IT and personnel costs.

A portion of the proceeds were then designated for charity. By the end of last year, Adidas had either donated or set aside for future donations more than 250 million euros, Lange said. 

Of that total, 200 million euros were committed to the adidas Foundation, a charity the company established in 2023 at about the same time it announced its plan to sell the Yeezy inventory and donate a portion of the earnings.  The foundation is dedicated to “fighting discrimination” with a mission to “unite communities through sport, driving social change for people and the planet,” according to its website. Lange said the foundation allocates the money “independently and autonomously.”

The foundation’s website lists a three-year, 700,000-euro grant to Peres Center for Peace and Innovation in Israel to fund anti-discrimination and leadership training for athletics coaches and to develop “peace education activities for Jewish and Arab children.”

Adidas donated the remaining 50 million euros to organizations “combating discrimination and hate, including racism and antisemitism.” Among them is the Anti-Defamation League, which criticized the company when it initially failed to distance itself from Ye but later entered into partnership with Adidas. Other Adidas recipients include the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, which is backed by Robert Kraft, and the Philonise & Keeta Floyd Institute for Social Change, a charity founded by George Floyd’s family.

In a summary of the company’s financial position on Wednesday, Gulden conveyed optimism, indicating the company’s desire to move past the Yeezy scandal. 

“With all the challenges out there, let’s not forget that there are so many fun things to look forward to in 2025,” the Adidas CEO said.

Ye, meanwhile, has not found another apparel partner. The rapper and producer apologized to the Jewish community in the aftermath of his rant, but in February he revoked the apology, barraging Jews, praising Adolf Hitler, and calling himself a Nazi in a new social media tirade. He also bought advertising slots during the recent Super Bowl to promote sales of a white T-shirt emblazoned with a swastika on his website. The online retail processor Shopify blocked sales through the site after an outcry.

A version of this story originally appeared on CincyJewfolk, an independent journalism and engagement site for Cincinnati’s Jewish community.

When Rabbi Ari Jun learned that faith leaders were invited to speak at a rally in Cincinnati against neo-Nazis and white supremacy, he quickly responded that he would be there.

As the former director of the local Jewish community relations council who recently took the helm of a progressive Reform synagogue, Jun has experience responding to antisemitism and a passion for social justice.

But a week later, he was told he was off the docket. The reason: He is a Zionist.

“Some of your values do not truly align with the values this protest is trying to represent,” Laini Smith, an organizer of the rally being held Sunday in the city’s Washington Park, told him via text message.

Billie Pittman, another organizer with Queen City United, a progressive group, spelling things out even more clearly: “Rabbi Ari Jun is a well-known Zionist, and while this event is intended to oppose Nazis and white supremacy, allowing Zionists to participate undermines the original goal of the demonstration.”

Pittman also posted on the event’s Facebook page: “We are in the works of having another speaker from the Jewish community.”

The about-face by Queen City United comes as progressive Jews around the United States and beyond continue to struggle with how they fit into the political communities they called home prior to the onset of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7, 2023. Many progressive Jews have reported feeling excluded by litmus tests — often implicit, but sometimes explicit — that require them to denounce Israel’s very existence in order to be welcomed in political spaces.

Jun offers a case study in these dynamics. A graduate of the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College, he said as he assumed the role of senior rabbi at Temple Sholom in January that he was eager to rebuild interfaith relations and continue the synagogue’s longstanding tradition of social justice.

He has also been a vocal critic of the Israeli government and its right-wing U.S. supporters, even challenging some centrist orthodoxies in the immediate wake of Hamas’ attack on Israel. “If our empathy extends only to Israelis and Jews … we play into Hamas’s hands,” he wrote on his own blog in November 2023, in advance of the Jewish community rally in Washington, D.C. that drew an estimated 300,000 people. Last month, he wrote in an op-ed in the Cincinnati Enquirer last month that President Donald Trump’s Gaza plan is “nothing short of the dictionary definition of ethnic cleansing.”

He has also drawn scorn from some non-Jewish progressives, for example from the Cincinnati Socialists last year, for his attitudes about Israel and Zionism.

Those attitudes put him in the American Jewish mainstream. According to a 2021 Pew Research study, 80% of U.S. Jews say caring about Israel is an essential or important part of what being Jewish means to them. Nearly 60% said they personally feel an emotional attachment to Israel. Last year, the American Jewish Committee Survey of American Jewish Opinion found that 85% of U.S. Jews think it’s important for the United States to support Israel in the aftermath of Oct. 7.

“I would call myself a liberal Zionist,” said Jun. “I am attacked by people to the right of me in the Jewish community for being insufficiently allegiant to Israel, and I am attacked by progressives for having any association with Israel. I don’t consider all anti-Zionism to be antisemitism, but I do know there is a dramatic overlap between the two.”

The rally’s organizers did not publicly announce that they had disinvited Jun. As the news emerged on Thursday, both critics and supporters of his exclusion posted a flood of comments on the event’s Facebook page.

“This is a shameful march that’s a complete lie. I am a progressive, but progressives can’t stand for equality when you exclude Jews,” wrote Rabbi Sammy Kanter, director of Jewish learning at the local JCC. “Excluding a minority group is not a rally against hate, but rather breeds more!”

Mohammad Ahmad, who leads a pro-Palestinian group in Northern Kentucky, just across the Ohio river from Cincinnati, praised the decision to disinvite Jun.

“As a Palestinian, I want to thank the brave organizers of this event for taking a clear stance against Zionism and all forms of white supremacy in the Tri-State area. Bravo and well done,” he wrote. “Zionism is unequivocally racism and Zionism is, without a shadow of doubt, an ultranationalist, fascist, and far-right ethno-supremacist ideology that has inflicted so much harm not just on Palestinians in Palestine, but on so many other marginalized groups, including right here in Cincinnati.”

The organizers, too, weighed in on the Facebook page. Smith wrote they believe that “standing up against white supremacy, neo-Nazism, and other forms of oppression requires us to critically engage with the full scope of ideologies and actions that perpetuate harm,” and that they believe hate has no place in Cincinnati.

“The decision to not invite Rabbi Jun-Ballaban was not based on his Jewish identity, but rather on a fundamental divergence in values,” Smith wrote. “Our event is rooted in a commitment to challenging white supremacy, ethnic cleansing, and the ongoing harm against marginalized communities.”

Previously, according to private messages between Jun and Smith that Jun shared, his plan was to speak about the threat of white supremacy, which Smith said “would be perfect.”

Jun had even told his congregants that to “counter Nazism,” they would need to show up in spaces where they may feel uncomfortable. Since his dismissal by organizers, he said he feels differently.

“It’s one thing to go to a rally expecting different people with disagreeing viewpoints to show up as their full selves, and for that to create discomfort and to live with that discomfort,” Jun said. “It’s another thing for us as a Jewish community to be told, ‘You cannot show up as your full selves.’”

If I found myself sitting across the table from one of the top leaders of Hamas, I don’t know if I would have been able to control my emotions and not try to kill him.

On Oct. 7, when I drove from Tel Aviv to the Gaza border area in order to save my family and their neighbors, I saw with my own eyes the cruelty, sadism and hatred of this evil terror organization.

But if someone had told me that by sitting across the table from these monsters, and negotiating with them instead of trying to kill them, I’d increase the likelihood of releasing our hostages from the dark tunnels of Gaza – I would absolutely do it, without any hesitation.

Not because I have any bit of sympathy for Hamas, but because after 17 months of war, it is time to put an end to the hostage crisis, and bring home all our people.

That’s why I felt hopeful when I read that senior members of the Trump administration were holding secret talks directly with Hamas in order to prolong the ceasefire and hostage release deal signed in January. This effort is under a politically motivated attack by certain members of the Netanyahu government. But if it succeeds in bringing back our hostages, all Israelis will be very grateful.

The United States has a long history of talking to the kind of people it usually tries to kill, when there’s a chance to save the lives of Americans caught in harm’s way. There’s no reason not to try this method with regards to the hostages held in Gaza.

During Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, our last prisoners of war came back home after eight months. Back then, Israel was a much smaller country, with a significantly weaker military. The fact that today, we still have hostages held by dangerous terrorists, after more than double that amount of time, is unacceptable. That’s why most Israelis believe we must prioritize the return of the hostages over all other goals at this point in time.

With President Trump in the White House, Israel will have four years to defeat our enemies, guarantee our security needs and reach historic peace agreements with friendly Middle Eastern countries. But our hostages don’t have all this time left. They can’t wait. We must save them now, first of all, and then move on to other missions.

On Oct. 7, I rushed to the Gaza border area, but had to stop again and again on my way to my son’s kibbutz – in order to fight terrorists, save people I met along the way, and evacuate wounded soldiers to safety. Only at the end of that very long day, I found out that two of my son’s neighbors were kidnapped by Hamas 10 minutes before I entered the gate of the kibbutz.

Those 10 minutes have haunted me every day since Oct. 7. I ask myself, could I have arrived sooner?

To President Trump’s negotiators, I say – don’t waste even a single minute. Make sure you talk to anyone, anywhere, if you believe it can save the hostages. The people of Israel support you.