President Donald Trump met with several Hasidic rabbis at the White House on Thursday ahead of Rosh Hashanah, a gathering his office called the first of its kind in nearly 50 years.

The rabbis, many of whom were pictured in photos that circulated on social media ahead of the meeting flying to Washington on private jets, hailed from a range of leading Hasidic communities in New York — including the two rival Satmar sects in Brooklyn and Kiryas Joel; the Bobov sect in Brooklyn; the Vizhnitz sect in Monsey; and the Skver sect in New Square. 

The American Jewish community spent over $1 billion on security in 2025, according to a new Jewish Federations of North America study — a record high and a 33% increase over 2024.  The results, published today, showed that on average, Jewish communal organizations, including Jewish community centers, synagogues, schools, summer camps and nonprofits, spend roughly $225,000 on security per institution.

“Even the old number, $765 million [spent in 2024], was just a demonstration of the impossible situation that the Jewish community is being put in,” Eric Fingerhut, JFNA’s president and CEO said. “To have to raise extraordinary sums of money and dedicate extraordinary sums of money to security just to be able to fully live a flourishing Jewish life in this great and free country,”

A co-founder of “Jews for Abdul,” a loose coalition of Jewish activists backing Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic nominee for Senate, voiced reservations over the nominee’s approach to Israel in a recent organizing call, arguing he could “do a better job” toning down harsh rhetoric that has alienated many Jewish voters in the key battleground state.

Steve Gold, a “Jews for Abdul” member in a heavily Jewish Detroit suburb, said during the mid-August call that there were “three issues” about which El-Sayed has been “less than effective in communicating” his views, citing his refusal to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, his “insistence on using the word genocide” to describe Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza and his opposition to all U.S. funding for Israel, including defensive aid.

Vice President JD Vance defended his friendship with antisemitic podcaster Tucker Carlson at a White House press briefing on Thursday, saying that he would not “play the game where I throw friends under the bus because I have political disagreements with them.”

Vance made the comments after being asked to respond to the concerns raised by his continued association with the far-right commentator and accusations that he has been “avoiding addressing a lot of these issues,” as Carlson has increasingly used his show to promote antisemitic conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial. 

Many of the liberal Jewish and civil rights organizations and lawmakers who protested federal efforts to deport Columbia University anti-Israel protest leader Mohsen Mahdawi are so far silent on new revelations about Mahdawi’s lengthy history of antisemitic and pro-terrorist social media posts. 

Mahdawi, a graduate student at Columbia facing deportation for his role in campus protests, wrote posts over the span of 15 years that supported armed violence and called to “annihilate the Jews,” according to a 100-page investigation published Wednesday by journalists David Collier and Rachel Feldman — with Arabic-to-English translations confirmed by Jewish Insider. 

House Democrats overwhelmingly voted against a bill that would strip federal funding from colleges and universities engaged in boycotts of Israel, with just 33 Democrats supporting the measure.

The bill ultimately passed 237-169, with two Republicans voting against the measure along with the majority of House Democrats.

LAS VEGAS — Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, said that he’s hoping to take action in the committee on antisemitism in the remaining months of the congressional term, and also previewed plans for a hearing on the International Criminal Court.

Several major pending bills on combating antisemitism, including the Right to Worship Act, Jewish American Security Act and the Antisemitism Awareness Act, fall at least in part under the jurisdiction of Jordan’s committee, which could help move them forward to the full House.

Vice President JD Vance’s fireside chat with Republican Jewish Coalition Chairman Norm Coleman was met with a largely positive response in its immediate aftermath, with RJC board members largely agreeing that the event had helped Vance alleviate concerns among top Jewish Republicans, particularly about where he stands on Israel and antisemitism.

Several board members came out of the speech, which took place on Monday night at the RJC’s leadership summit in Las Vegas, saying they’d be prepared to support Vance if he runs in the 2028 presidential election.