The Surge Didn't Fade
Three years after Oct. 7, 38% of American Jews say they're more involved in Jewish life.
An 18-year-old allegedly planned to shoot up the Mall of America because he thought Jews owned it. Federal prosecutors charged Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud of Richfield, Minnesota, with receiving a firearm to commit terrorism. Per the FBI, he aimed to kill 30 to 60 people on Oct. 24 and had pledged allegiance to ISIS. The AK-47 he bought on Oct. 6 came from an undercover agent and didn't work. The mall's operator, Triple Five Group, is controlled by the Ghermezian family. 1
Israel moved to shut Britain's consulate in Jerusalem. Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar said the consul general and 19 diplomats are leaving a mission that ran for nearly 200 years, in retaliation for Britain's ban on imports from Jewish companies beyond the pre-1967 lines. Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband says the UK doesn't accept Israel's right to close it and is renaming the building "U.K. Mission, Jerusalem." 2
Thousands of Haredi protesters blocked highways in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem. The Jerusalem Faction called them over reported arrests of draft dodgers, two days after the IDF admitted it hasn't been enforcing enlistment orders against them "in the recent period." Police arrested at least three. Israel votes Oct. 27. 3 The backstory →
The surge didn't fade
Thirty-eight percent of American Jews say they've increased their Jewish engagement since Oct. 7, 2023, according to a Jewish Federations of North America survey released Thursday. Nine percent say they've pulled back. 4
The number dipped and came back. It was 43% in JFNA's 2024 survey and 31% in 2025. This year's poll covered a weighted sample of 2,836 Jewish Americans in May and June, with a margin of error of 1.84%. The bar for counting was behavior. Respondents who felt prouder or wanted more community but didn't change what they did were left out. 4
Where people went: a local synagogue (65%), Jewish friends (63%), social media (41%), and Chabad centers (32%). Socializing with other Jews was the biggest category of new engagement, and it keeps growing, from 6% in 2024 to 10% in 2025 to 14% now. Only 1% said they'd lost interest in a Jewish community. 4
Worry grew alongside it. Sixty-five percent say there is "a lot of antisemitism" in the US, up from 45% in 2020. Sixty percent say Jewish organizations are handling security effectively, up from 47% last year, at a cost the federations put at more than $1 billion a year. 4
Mimi Kravetz, JFNA's chief impact and growth officer, said the data shows "the surge sustaining and even building momentum." 4
Dirty Dancing is going to Broadway. The musical opens Feb. 12, 2027, at the Lena Horne Theater. Eleanor Bergstein, who based Kellerman's on her childhood trips to Grossinger's, wrote the script, and Lonny Price, the film's Neil Kellerman, directs. Loren Lester, who plays Max Kellerman, says his mother and grandmother worked at the Concord. 5
Also in production: Doom Scroll, a Passover horror comedy in which intruders crash a family seder. Jason Alexander and Josh Radnor star, with no release date yet. Somebody finally opened the door for Elijah and got the wrong guest. 6
About 100 Jewish early childhood educators from the US and Israel were booked for Oct. 11–16 in Reggio Emilia, Italy, home of the preschool method the Jewish Early Childhood Education Initiative builds on. Parents affiliated with Reggio Children objected to their arrival, and the teachers were asked to sign a statement that began, "I distance myself from the occupation of Gaza." The organizer, the Paradigm Project, canceled the trip. 7
Paradigm made the right call. Nobody should have to sign a political pledge to learn how to teach four-year-olds. The next move belongs to the American Jewish schools that put "Reggio-inspired" in their brochures: ask Reggio Children, in writing, whether Jewish teachers are welcome without a loyalty test. Jewish Insider reported no comment from it. Until there's an answer, the brochures can lose a word. 7
Arnie Draiman's JTA op-ed pulled base salaries from 2024 and 2025 tax filings. Jewish National Fund's CEO: $889,303. Hillel's: $698,875. Birthright Israel Foundation's: $659,123. Friends of the Israel Defense Forces: $658,065. The ADL's chief: $1,127,131. Boards approve these numbers, and Draiman says benchmarking against better-paid peers works like an upward ratchet. He says $250,000 to $300,000 rarely draws objection, and he points to executives running substantial organizations on $150,000 to $300,000. Pay good people well. We'd still like the next year-end appeal to come from someone who has read their own 990. 8
Hero: Dan Levene. On Tuesday evening in London, Levene, 52, saw two people stenciling graffiti that called Labour candidate Sagal Abdi-Wali a "puppet of genocidal Israel." He kicked the stencil away and, as he told the Times, said, "No, you're not doing that." One of them, "quite a lot larger than me," punched him, and he was kicked in the head and ribs until two bystanders stepped in. Police are treating it as an antisemitic hate crime. 9
Villain: Jonathan Keeperman. On Wednesday, the third anniversary of Oct. 7, the conservative publisher told NatCon's first Jerusalem conference that much of the American right is "exhausted" by efforts to use "the Holocaust or Jewish suffering" as a moral obligation to support Israel. He also went after the ADL. Eugene Kontorovich called it "gaslighting." NatCon's own X account later deleted a video of his remarks. 10
Send this to the one who'll argue about it at Shabbat dinner.
Shabbat shalom.