LOS ANGELES — Yossi Farro stepped onto the helipad, taking in the panoramic view of Los Angeles: the Hollywood sign in front of him, the skyscrapers of downtown L.A. behind him, all of it surrounded by mountains. But he was not there to take in the view, aside from assessing its value as a backdrop for an Instagram video. 

Farro was standing atop a Wilshire Boulevard office building on Tuesday afternoon to wrap tefillin with two budding Jewish entrepreneurs in their 20s, and to record all of it for social media.

“What’s your message to the world?” Farro asked the two men, in a video that was posted to his 43,000 Instagram followers moments after it was recorded. “Be proud,” one said. “Try your best,” said the other, whose father owns the building. 

“Amazing,” Farro said energetically to the camera. “Have an amazing day.”

Farro grew up in New York as a Hasidic Jew, part of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. His long, wispy beard and no-frills outfit — black jacket, loose-fitting white button down shirt, black pants — stood in contrast to the more fashion-forward looks of the men he was visiting that day. 

But while Farro might look more Crown Heights than Beverly Hills, he has the camera-ready comfort that only a 22-year-old who has grown up being influenced by, well, influencers could have. It’s also safe to say his confidence comes at least in part from the Chabad movement, where from the time he was a teenager he was tasked with approaching strangers with a simple question: “Are you Jewish?” 

The goal is to get them to do a mitzvah, which for men usually means wrapping tefillin, the practice of donning a pair of leather black boxes that contain passages from the Torah. It’s an act that Orthodox Jews perform daily.

“Join me as I Wrap the most Powerful Jews in the World,” Farro’s Instagram bio reads. Look through his stories, and you’ll see actors and startup founders and CEOs. When a major elite gathering is happening, expect to find Farro on the sidelines, such as this week’s Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills. 

He didn’t get into the actual event, where tickets run into the high five figures. Farro doesn’t currently have a full-time gig; he told Jewish Insider he is inspired by the entrepreneurs he meets. In between brief run-ins with high-powered members of the tribe, he is sleeping at a friend’s place. 

But Farro was spotted around L.A. all week long, spending time at nearby hotels and a Lag Ba’Omer party for Milken attendees. He wrapped tefillin with music executive and entrepreneur Scooter Braun, KIND Snacks founder Daniel Lubetzky and Mark Suster of Upfront Ventures, the largest venture capital firm in L.A. He posted a photo with Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian, whom he ran into outside a Beverly Hills hotel. Approaching some of the world’s most influential and successful people does not seem to scare Farro: After Oaktree Capital Management co-founder Howard Marks told Farro he is not Jewish during a run-in at a Beverly Hills Starbucks, Farro Googled him — and learned he was lying. They did not wrap tefillin together, but “we grabbed a picture and ended up bonding over both growing up in New York.”

“I get a little nervous, but never too nervous to ask,” Farro said in an elevator down from the helipad. He was on his way to meet some other people to wrap, before heading to the airport to catch a flight to San Francisco to try to wrap tefillin with Joe Lonsdale, founder of Palantir and founder and managing partner at 8VC. (Farro met Alex Karp, Palantir’s CEO, a couple weeks ago.)

Farro’s tefillin-influencer journey began three years ago, when he was walking in Los Angeles and asked the rapper Lil Dicky to wrap tefillin. (Farro did not know who he was.) Not long after, he ended up doing the same with the actors James Franco and Jeremy Piven. 

His tefillin big break came one year after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks. For months he had been sending DMs on X to Bill Ackman, the hedge fund manager and Harvard alum who became a vocal critic of his alma mater’s handling of antisemitism. Farro got his phone number, and three weeks after making a pitch to wrap tefillin together, Ackman agreed to do it, on the anniversary of the attacks. Farro’s post on X with pictures from their tefillin date has more than 2 million views. 

So how does a young Chabad guy who hasn’t even formally earned his “rabbi” title yet, let alone gotten a job, fly around the country to exclusive gatherings to get high-profile Jews to do a mitzvah that many non-Orthodox Jews know very little about? Persistence, confidence and a very high tolerance for awkwardness. Belief — in himself, and in God — helps too.

“What’s my message? Why am I doing it? Bring godliness to everywhere, spread light, spread faith,” Farro said. “Just remember, wherever you go, wherever you are, there’s always a higher power.”

Far-right podcaster Tucker Carlson’s latest extreme rhetoric took aim at the Chabad Lubavitch movement, with sweeping conspiratorial language accusing the Hasidic sect of seeking to start a “religious war” amid the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran. 

Carlson argued in an episode of his show that dropped late Wednesday night that Jews see the war against Iran as an opportunity to feud with Islam and to target Christians. He claimed that Jews seek to destroy al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and build the Third Temple on top of its ruins. 

Carlson specifically called out the Chabad movement, saying the group’s goal is the rebuilding of the Temple — and he argued that Jews who seek to see the Temple rebuilt are at odds with Christians.

“Christians have a way of dying disproportionately in these wars, which tells you something about their real motives,” Carlson said. Rebuilding the Temple, which was destroyed in the first century by the Romans on the site that is now home to the al-Aqsa Mosque, “is totally anathema to Christianity,” said Carlson. 

It is true that Orthodox Jews believe that the Temple will be rebuilt when the Messiah comes, a prophetic vision that has been a part of daily Jewish prayer for two millennia. But no mainstream Jewish denomination advocates for the destruction of the al-Aqsa Mosque, one of Islam’s holiest sites, in order to hasten the rebuilding of the Temple, and current Israeli policy forbids Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount. 

“​​It’s not so subtle that the building of the Third Temple and the Messianic era is central not just to Chabad, but to all of Judaism as one of the 13 Principles of Faith,” Rabbi Mordechai Lightstone, Chabad’s social media director, wrote on X on Thursday. “Acts of destruction or the subjugation of other nations are an anathema to a time when good will flow in abundance and the occupation of the entire world, Jew and non-Jew alike, will be to know the divine.”

Carlson’s remarks prompted outrage among Chabad’s backers, who pointed out that Chabad emissaries have for decades played a crucial role in connecting Jews to their faith and to each other.

“This is so absurd. So ridiculously absurd. If you know anything about Chabad, they have one mission: encouraging Jewish people to practice Judaism,” Punchbowl News founder Jake Sherman posted on X.

Karol Markowicz, a New York Post columnist, criticized Carlson for targeting “the warmest, kindest, most welcoming organization ever that does nonstop charity work.” 

The rhetoric also sparked concern about the physical safety of sites associated with Chabad, particularly after a man repeatedly drove his car into Chabad’s Brooklyn headquarters in January. The NYPD said it would increase patrols at Jewish locations amid fears of antisemitism after the Iran attacks began last weekend. 

A forthcoming book offers insights into the spiritual advice Chabad Rabbi Eli Schlanger — who was killed in the Bondi Beach Hanukkah terrorist attack in Sydney, Australia in December — imparted to a secular Jewish woman during her own near-death experience. 

In September 2022, Nikki Goldstein lay comatose, fighting for her life in a Sydney hospital. Her daughter spotted Schlanger, the Chabad emissary to Bondi, in the ICU halls and Goldstein’s husband desperately requested he pray for her. Schlanger blew the shofar beside her hospital bed and prayed for her recovery. One day later, Goldstein began recuperating from a life-threatening infection.

As Goldstein, a best-selling author of more than a dozen books, regained her health, her bond with Schlanger grew and the duo decided to co-author a book. In January 2025, they began recording their conversations. 

Conversations With My Rabbi: Timeless Teachings for a Fractured World will be published in May — allowing Schlanger’s legacy to live on after he and 14 others were killed in December in a targeted terror attack on Sydney’s Jewish community.

Goldstein said that as “devastated, shocked and grieving” as she was after Schlanger’s death, she knew he would want her to finish the book. “Eli saved my life those years ago, and it’s my honor and privilege to ensure that his voice, memory and mission are not silenced by terror and continue to work miracles,” she said in a statement. 

Conversations With My Rabbi, which includes an epilogue by Rabbi Yehoram Ulman, founder of Chabad of Bondi and Schlanger’s father-in-law, will be published by HarperCollins in the U.S., U.K. and Australia.

Zvi Hershcovich is from Canada, which means he loves hockey. He is also a Chabad rabbi, so helping Jews connect to their faith is his sacred mission. 

Helping a Jewish hockey player wrap tefillin? Life goal achieved.

Yet that wasn’t what Hershcovich expected to happen when he created the X account @JewishHockey, where he posts clips of Jewish hockey players at all levels — National Hockey League superstars, minor league up-and-comers, college athletes — scoring goals and generally looking cool on the ice, usually accompanied by a deeply Jewish caption.

“On the last night of Chanukah, Zach Hyman spins the Dreidel on a backhand and wins the chocolate coins,” one post from @JewishHockey stated on Monday, with a clip showing Edmonton Oilers left winger and Jewish day school graduate Zach Hyman scoring a goal against the Vegas Golden Knights. (The Oilers won 4-3.) 

A day earlier, @JewishHockey spotlighted a goal by Vancouver Canucks center Max Sasson against the Boston Bruins in a game Vancouver won in a shootout. “With seconds left to the period, Max Sasson shakes off his defenseman like powder sugar on a Sufganiya, and buries it like a defiled altar found by the Maccabees,” the post read. 

With 3,900 followers, the nearly two-year-old account doesn’t have a huge audience. But it does have a cult following. That’s where the story with the tefillin comes in. 

“People reach out all the time with different things, and I’ve made some connections with many hockey players,” Hershcovich told Jewish Insider in an interview on Tuesday. “Some of them have been very Chabad-centric, where I’ll connect with someone online or in person. Just last week, I helped a Jewish hockey player get a pair of tefillin.” 

After the antisemitic attack at a Hanukkah celebration in Australia earlier this month, a hockey player in British Columbia was motivated to wrap tefillin but did not know where or how to do so, so he reached out to @JewishHockey. The closest Chabad rabbi was still a significant drive away, but Hershcovich, who declined to name the athlete, made the shidduch anyway. The two men connected, and FaceTimed Hershcovich to prove it.

“Then I decided, I shot my shot. I said, ‘Hey, listen, would you be interested in wearing tefillin every day if you had your own pair?’” Hershcovich recalled. “He said sure. He gave his word. So I threw it out there on Twitter, and someone who asked to remain anonymous wrote back and said, ‘I’ll sponsor the pair.’”

The hockey account is a bright spot on X, where antisemitism and harassment have grown worse in recent years. 

“Twitter [X] has become a bit of a cesspool thanks to the propaganda of the enemies of the Jews,” Hershcovich said. “Even on posts that I post, you’ll get a lot of hate, but there definitely has been a community rising, and there’s a close knit Jewish hockey community. It’s very neat to be part of it.”

Serving as the unofficial Jewish ambassador to the world of hockey is not Hershcovich’s day job (though it did lead to some freelance work for a Jewish Hockey Hall of Fame being developed in Toronto). His career looks like many other Chabad rabbis. He spent a short stint as a Chabad emissary in Russia more than a decade ago. Now he teaches at a Chabad day school in Philadelphia, creates animated programming for religious children and works on programming for Jewish college students. 

The son of two ba’al teshuva Jews — people who were raised secular but chose in adulthood to become observant — Hershcovich, 43, first connected to hockey through his grandfather, with whom he often watched Montreal Canadiens games. 

“There was Mathieu Schneider on the Canadiens, and he was my grandfather’s pride and joy, that the Canadiens had a Jewish hockey player on the team. So that might be where it started,” Hershcovich said, referring to the hockey Hall of Famer who won a Stanley Cup in 1993. 

Basketball was Hershcovich’s main sport as a child, until he took up hockey at a Chabad camp. Later, his parents subscribed to the Jewish Press and he remembered an article about a Jewish hockey prospect. So he started keeping an eye on the hockey news for Jewish players after seeing how excited that story made his grandfather. 

“I thought I was the only weirdo doing this for many years, following specifically Jewish hockey players,” Hershcovich said. He still plays hockey every Saturday night after Shabbat, and participates in an annual Jewish hockey tournament in Pennsylvania that draws hundreds of athletes and benefits Rofeh Cholim Cancer Society, which supports cancer patients and their families. 

In 2022, as a passion project, Hershcovich drafted a pseudo “Team Israel” for hockey — a fantasy roster of Jewish players from around the world who might join an Israeli team, inspired by the fact that 20 of the 24 players on the Israeli baseball team at the 2020 summer Olympics were American Jews. 

“I had some fun with that, and that led to more fans, more Jewish hockey fans, discovering there was a larger group. So I opened up a Twitter account and started posting highlights of Jewish hockey players, and things kind of blew up from there,” said Hershcovich. “It’s become part of my daily routine. I wake up in the morning, I just breeze through a couple of Google Alerts, and I go through elite prospects, my bookmarked players. It gives you an update over who scored and some basic statistics from the previous night. I’ll look through it. If I see some highlights, I’ll share them. This has been going on as there’s been a huge explosion in the Jewish hockey world.”

Jewish hockey fans have been delighted to see more and more Jewish players on the ice in the NHL in recent years. Hershcovich thinks a “golden age” of Jewish hockey is on the horizon. He has watched with excitement the rise of Zeev Buium, the American son of Israeli immigrants, who was the 12th overall pick in the 2024 NHL draft, now playing for the Canucks. Among younger prospects, there are even more Jewish players.

“The rise of Jewish hockey is incredible. And following along with the youth, there’s incredible talent coming to the NHL. This might be just the start of the golden age of hockey,” said Hershcovich. 

There is perhaps no better time to witness the dawn of that golden age than the holidays, when team Jewish heritage nights take place across the month of December. 

“This Chanukah, Jewish players are no longer anomalies in the NHL … they’re central to the game,” Dan Brosgol, the executive director of Temple Shir Tikva in Wayland, Mass., wrote in a blog post this month after seeing Bruins goaltender Jeremy Swayman at TD Garden. 

Throughout Hanukkah, hockey teams throughout the league host Jewish heritage nights to bring more Jewish fans and families to the games. These programs often feature public menorah lightings and special giveaways. @JewishHockey, of course, posts about all of them.  

The Florida Panthers had Hebrew-language jerseys. The Pittsburgh Penguins gave out special jerseys showing the team’s mascot underneath Hanukkah candles, with Stars of David scattered across the design. People who purchased a special ticket for the Philadelphia Flyers’ Jewish heritage night received a Flyers-themed menorah, complete with a puck and a hockey stick. 

“Hanukkah seems to have that Christmas feel of the snow and all that, that winter vibe, and therefore to have it with ice hockey really makes sense,” said Hershcovich. “Recently, the teams have been trying to somewhat outdo each other with different shtick.” 

One of the most creative celebrations of Jewish heritage will come in March, when the minor league Tulsa Oilers will host the team’s first ever “Jewish Heritage Game” — and the athletes will take to the ice in specially designed blue-and-white jerseys that say “Jewish Heritage Game” and feature the Oilers’ logo on top of a star of David.

“That’s something that hopefully will get imitated as well. That would bring a tremendous surge of pride,” said Hershcovich.

He’ll be tweeting about it.

All three of the leading Democratic contenders hoping to replace retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) condemned two antisemitic incidents targeting Chabad at Michigan State University this week, during the first days of Hanukkah. 

The first incident took place on Tuesday night when an individual “intentionally threw a rock” through a window of the Chabad Jewish Student Center at MSU in Lansing, Rabbi Kasriel Shemtov, executive director of Chabad Lubavitch of Michigan, told Jewish Insider. 

The following night, swastikas and the words “he’s back” were spray painted on the door of the same building. No one was in the building at the time of either incident. Law enforcement officials have confirmed that both incidents are being investigated as hate crimes.

The incidents, which occurred days after a mass shooting at a Hanukkah celebration in Australia left 15 dead — including a Chabad rabbi — prompted quick statements of condemnation from Democratic Senate candidates looking to replace Peters: Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), state Sen. Mallory McMorrow and Abdul El-Sayed, a Bernie Sanders-endorsed progressive candidate. 

In a statement to JI, Stevens said, “Acts of blatant antisemitism, like what we just saw at Michigan State, are unacceptable in Michigan and everywhere else. Jewish students at MSU — and all our universities — deserve to feel safe on campus. We must ensure our campuses are free of harassment and violence targeting the Jewish community.”

McMorrow, whose husband is the former president of MSU Hillel, told JI that the “safety of Jewish students on our campuses and in our communities is something that hits home for us…  I know how much this matters to our family and to this community.”

El-Sayed wrote on X, “Antisemitic violence like this has no place in Michigan. We stand together with our Jewish sisters and brothers against antisemitism and hate in all forms.” 

Sens. Gary Peters (D-MI) and Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) also denounced the incidents, as did university officials.

“I condemn the vile antisemitic crime targeted at MSU’s Chabad Jewish Center. This hatred has no place in Michigan or anywhere else. My thoughts are with the Jewish community and the MSU campus during this time that should be filled with light not hate,” Peters wrote on X. 

Slotkin said, “As we see a rise in deadly acts of antisemitism around the world, this must be condemned left, right and center. Anti-semitism can start small and grow into something ever more dangerous.”

In a campus wide email, MSU President Kevin Guskiewicz wrote, “In the wake of unspeakable violence committed against the Jewish community in Australia, I was deeply troubled to learn of multiple incidents of antisemitism near our own campus in the form of vandalism against the university community’s Chabad Jewish Center. That this occurred during Hanukkah — a time centered on light, resilience and faith — only deepens the pain and concern felt by many.” 

U.S. officials and lawmakers across the political spectrum are condemning the terrorist attack at a Chabad Hanukkah celebration Sunday outside Sydney, Australia, tying the murder of 15 attendees to the rise of antisemitism across the world. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement that the United States “strongly condemns” the attack and that “antisemitism has no place in this world.”

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz said the “horrific and deadly terrorist attack” is a “sickening reminder that antisemitism remains a global threat. Under President Trump’s leadership, the United States will confront this hatred — at the U.N. and around the world — without apology or hesitation.”

FBI Director Kash Patel said he is “in touch with our counterparts in Australia” regarding the attack and is “providing the requested assistance,” while Attorney General Pam Bondi called it “heartbreaking news.”

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee noted, as did several others, that Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s original statement on the attack did not specify its antisemitic nature. “The disgraceful statement from Australia PM never mentioned it was jihadist attack on Jews on first day of Hanukkah. Hope he’s ashamed of antisemitic statements past year,” Huckabee wrote on X. 

On the Hill, lawmakers from both parties also expressed their shock and sadness. All 25 Jewish members of the House, on both the Republican and Democratic sides, issued a joint statement remembering the “Jewish families in Australia” who were “grotesquely targeted with hate and murderous intent.”

“Sadly, this attack does not come as a surprise to the Jewish community of Sydney who have been raising a clarion call for local and national authorities to take concrete steps against a rising tide of antisemitism,” the members, organized by Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL), wrote. “Antisemitism is a cancer that eats at the core of society, whether in Australia, the United States, or anywhere it is allowed to take root and grow. We join leaders around the globe in condemning this evil act and in calling for justice, peace, and unwavering support for those affected. We also call on all leaders to do better standing up to antisemitism, bigotry, and hate.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said the “tragic news” is “another wake-up call.”

“Jewish people must be free to practice their faith openly and without fear. Antisemitism must be confronted and defeated wherever it appears,” he wrote on X.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said in a statement he was “horrified by the attack” and that it is “our collective responsibility to aggressively eradicate the poison of antisemitism whenever and wherever it is found.” 

“Today, as the Jewish community throughout America gathers with their loved ones to celebrate Hanukkah, the New York Police Department and law enforcement resources across the country must be vigorously deployed to keep everyone safe. It is my sincere hope that the story of Hanukkah and the candles that will shine on windowsills in homes around the world will bring needed light and resolve that the powerful resilience of the Jewish people that has existed for millennia will continue to endure always and forever,” Jeffries wrote.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said the attack “is beyond appalling” and “a shocking reminder that antisemitism and hate is not only toxic and far too present and widespread around the world, it is deadly. It must be vigorously condemned, confronted and overcome.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) called it “an act of barbaric, antisemitic terrorism.”

“It was the outrageous, but all-too-predictable result of far too many leaders around the world tolerating and even fomenting hatred of Jews, instead of countering the evil of antisemitism with moral clarity and unrelenting condemnation.”

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) connected the attack to other antisemitic acts of violence: “Tree of Life to 10/07 to Bondi Beach: antisemitism is a rising and deadly global scourge,” he wrote. “I stand and grieve with Israel and the Jewish global community.”

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) said, “Terror and violence against Jews are part of a global surge in antisemitism fueled by an ever-escalating campaign of demonization and dehumanization. Yet the Australian Prime Minister’s initial statement expressed sympathy for ‘every affected person,’ conspicuously omitting any mention of Jews or Jew-hatred: a sin of omission that constitutes a fundamental failure of moral clarity at the very moment it is most urgently needed.”

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) called it “heinous” and said, “We must root out the rot of this most ancient hatred to bring safety and security for all humanity. Never Again is NOW.”

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) called the “targeted terrorist attack … appalling and sickening,” and Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) said she was “horrified by the news of yet another disgusting act of antisemitic violence … Antisemitism has no place in our world.”

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) wrote, “Allowing antisemitism in Australia created the environment for this despicable act. Globalize the antifada [sic] is not a slogan — it’s a promise. A promise we all have to stop.”

Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Mark Warner (D-VA), Tim Scott (R-FL), John Curtis (R-UT), Dave McCormick (R-PA), Katie Britt (R-AL), Ted Budd (R-NC), Jim Banks (R-IN) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY), Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), Rudy Yakym (R-IN), House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN), and Shontel Brown (D-OH) also offered their condemnation of the attack and prayers to the victims, among others.

Deborah Lipstadt, former special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism under the Biden administration, called out New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani for contributing to rhetoric that she said fueled the attack. “Mr. MayorElect, when you refuse to condemn & only ‘discourage’ use of the term ‘Globalize the Intifada, you help facilitate (not cause) the thinking that leads to Bondi Beach,” she wrote of Mamdani. 

In a subsequent post, she asked, “Some asked has Mamdani condemned this? Not yet but he will. Strongly. But the time 2speak is before tragedies. The ‘wink & nod’ to Jew-hatred by facilitating language that leads to murdering Jews is unacceptable — and need we say it — so is murdering Jews.”

Mamdani did issue a statement about the attack, which he called “a vile act of antisemitic terror.” 

“Another Jewish community plunged into mourning and loss, a holiday of light so painfully reduced to a day of darkness. This attack is merely the latest, most horrifying iteration in a growing pattern of violence targeted at Jewish people across the world. Too many no longer feel safe to be themselves, to express their faith publicly, to worship in their synagogues without armed security stationed outside. What happened at Bondi is what many Jewish people fear will happen in their communities too,” the mayor-elect wrote.

Jewish organizations also came out in force to share their condemnation and pain. 

Ted Deutch, CEO of the American Jewish Community, said he was “Horrified. But not surprised.”

“Bondi Beach is one of the most beautiful places in the world. And Jewish kids celebrating the joyous holiday of Hanukkah with their families is likewise one of the most beautiful images of our people. Both have now been ripped to pieces. … This week, we will be reaching out to leaders from around the world to unite around a shared commitment to eradicate the evil scourge of antisemitism. Take our call. Stand with the Jewish community.”  

“But don’t wait to speak out,” he continued. “Do it today. Wherever you live. If you are a leader, then lead. Stand with your Jewish community where you are. Yes, reach out privately to your friends in the community to express your support. But speak out as well for all the world to hear. Everyone who looks up to you needs to hear you condemn the antisemitic slaughter in Australia and the ongoing threats to our community everywhere. We are 16 million people in the world. We cannot do this on our own. Stand with us.” 

William Daroff and Betsy Berns Korn, respectively the CEO and chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, recalled their own recent trip to Australia in a statement, including meeting with a Chabad emissary who was killed in the attack: “Just last week, we joined a delegation of Jewish leaders from the seven largest Diaspora Jewish communities in Australia as they confronted a sharp rise in antisemitism. … This past Shabbat, we attended morning services at Chabad of Bondi Beach. We davened in their beautiful new building and saw a community full of warmth, faith, and energy. After services, we had the honor of sharing Shabbat lunch in the home of Rabbi Yehoram and Shternie Ulman with their family, including Rabbi Eli Schlanger and his wife, Chaya. We are devastated to learn that Rabbi Schlanger, z’l, was among those murdered today.”

“Our hearts are with the families of those killed and injured, and with our brothers and sisters in Sydney as they confront this brutal tragedy. The story of Chanukah speaks to Jewish survival and resilience in the face of persecution. This attack on the Bondi Beach community strikes at the heart of the entire Jewish people. We pray for the swift recovery of the injured and mourn those whose lives were taken in this senseless antisemitic act,” Daroff and Korn wrote.

Karen Paikin Barall, chief policy officer at The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, wrote in a post, “In 2008, as Deputy Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, I traveled to Australia amid rising antisemitic incidents and a troubling lack of response from law enforcement and government leaders. Australia is home to the largest population of Holocaust survivors outside Israel. The Bondi attack is not isolated. It reflects years of inaction and minimization. Antisemitism doesn’t fade when ignored, it grows more violent.”

The Orthodox Union called the attack “a direct assault on Jewish life.”

“Chanukah is the most public of Jewish holidays. We mark the defeat of ancient antisemitic persecution by lighting our menorahs openly and unapologetically. That is precisely why this attack matters. It was meant to intimidate, silence, and drive Jews out of the public square. It will fail. At a time when antisemitism is being normalized, excused, and even justified in public discourse, this attack is no longer shocking. It is the predictable result of unchecked incitement, extremist rhetoric, and repeated failures by leaders to draw red lines,” the organization wrote.

“Calls to ‘globalize the intifada’ are not slogans. They are threats, and they lead directly to violence. … Silence, moral equivocation, and inaction are no longer acceptable. Jews have the right to celebrate their faith openly and safely, without fear, anywhere in the world.”

Democratic Majority for Israel said the attack “makes painfully clear that antisemitic violence remains a grave and growing threat. Jews must be able to gather, pray, and celebrate their religion openly and safely. From the Tree of Life to Poway, from Boulder to Washington, D.C., and now Bondi Beach, the rise of violent antisemitism demands urgent and sustained action from our leaders and communities.”

“At this moment of darkness, as we prepare to begin Hanukkah, we draw strength from the story of the Maccabees, who faced hatred and persecution with courage and resilience. That spirit endures today.”

The Jewish Council for Public Affairs wrote, “Our hearts are shattered for those murdered and injured, all those impacted, and the entire Australian Jewish community. And we are angry: That Jews around the world are now beginning Hanukkah fearful of showing up and celebrating. That after years of us sounding the alarm about the crisis of antisemitism, our leaders and our society have still failed to truly recognize and effectively address this threat. That too many loud voices seek to politicize and exploit our real, legitimate fears — rather than taking the comprehensive, whole-of-society action necessary to keep us safe.”

The Jewish Federations of North America, Anti-Defamation League, Secure Community Network, Community Security Service and Community Security Initiative issued a joint statement with increased security recommendations for “all Jewish organizations that are hosting events in the coming days to undertake.”

Palantir CEO Alex Karp called for the Jewish community to step outside its “comfort zone” and look for new strategies to defend itself amid rising antisemitism, during a speech on Tuesday at the American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad) annual Lamplighter Awards in Washington.

Karp, who was honored at the Chabad gala, also framed the battle against antisemitism as part of a broader fight for Western civilization and societies.

“Lessons that we’ve learned at Palantir … might be valuable for defending the West, in this particular case a particular tribe of people that are equally associated with the West, the Jewish people,” Karp said. “Palantir is a metaphor for working when there’s no playbook, and currently there is no playbook because institutions that have historically effectively defended people who’ve been discriminated against, especially Jewish people, are kind of not working.”

“If we’re going to have a meaningful chance of fighting, everybody’s going to have to leave their comfort zone a couple times a year,” Karp said. “It’s our job and my job to remind people [of] that, especially younger people here.”

He said that he’s “deeply, deeply grateful” for the Chabad award, “but I think we need a world where I don’t win this award, and there’s huge competition for it. … Why are so few people speaking up? There are very, very few people speaking up.”

“I should not be winning this award,” Karp continued. “I’m the least likely person to win this award, and any award in the Jewish community, ever.”

He said that he sees some who oppose the Jewish community as suffering from “Jewish derangement syndrome” and attacking Jews who are “a metaphor for agency and meritocracy” as part of a broader effort at “annihilating our societies.”

“We have to fight for a rule of law, meritocratic, high-agency society, and everybody’s going to have to help out, and that includes people who don’t like to ever speak out — finance, Hollywood, all sorts of other people,” the Palantir CEO continued.

He said that the Jewish community should focus on building alliances with people “who may not  [already like you]” and that building alliances with non-Jews is crucial — ”this is about higher values in our society.”

Karp also suggested that some Jewish nonprofits are failing to work effectively.

“One of the things we have in corporate America, is when institutions fail, they disappear,” Karp said. “We don’t have that in nonprofits. We’ve got to recognize that what’s [happening] now is not working.”

Karp was introduced onstage by Rachel Goldberg-Polin, mother of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American citizen taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, and killed by the terrorist group in Gaza.

Goldberg-Polin said that she and her husband Jon had connected with Karp during their efforts to free their son, and that he had worked with the couple to strategize on ways to free the hostages. She said Karp and the Palantir team had offered “access, ideas, contacts, advice [and] connections,” as well as their support on a personal level.

“There were concepts that we had not heard anyone else suggest in the previous 95 days,” Goldberg-Polin said, recounting their first meeting. “This was the beginning of my glimpse into the creative, fearless and independent workings of the exquisitely complex mind of Alex Karp.”

Since Oct. 7, she continued, Karp had “showed up for Israel,” and Goldberg-Polin offered her gratitude on behalf of all of the hostage families.

“You spoke and continue to speak an unpopular truth and to chase justice. You are a righteous man. You are not afraid to jump,” she continued. “To all the people in this room with access to our decision-makers, history will remember all of us, and we will all be judged not based on equities, nor interests, nor politics, but on having the courage and integrity to do the right thing. To jump, even when it feels like there is no way forward.”

Karp, who has a doctorate in philosophy, was presented with a menorah and a signed first-edition copy of Man’s Search for Meaning, a book by philosopher Viktor Frankl about his experience in Nazi concentration camps. Frankl inscribed the book to a fellow survivor of Dachau.

One of the freed hostages who was held with Hersch Goldberg-Polin recounted that Goldberg-Polin had quoted Frankl while urging him to keep fighting to stay alive, speakers said.

Karp and other honorees were also honored with letters inscribed in a Torah scroll that the Chabad movement has been writing in significant locations throughout Washington, D.C.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) was honored at a pre-ceremony reception, and delivered remarks. White House Jewish liaison Martin Marks delivered a message on behalf of President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump.

Attendees from Capitol Hill included Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-WY), House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), Sens. Jack Reed (D-RI), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Michael Bennet (D-CO) and John Cornyn (R-TX) and Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY), Maggie Goodlander (D-NH), Rob Menendez (D-NJ), Glenn Ivey (D-MD) and Greg Landsman (D-OH).

Antisemitism envoy-designate Yehuda Kaploun, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, undersecretary of state-designate Jacob Helberg, former Sen. Kirsten Sinema (I-AZ), former Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), who is now head of defense at Palantir, former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and diplomats from close to 20 countries were also in the crowd.

John Fish, the chairman and CEO of Suffolk, served as the event chairman, and Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck founder and chairman Norm Brownstein, Real Estate Roundtable president and CEO Jeff DeBoer and Palantir Executive Vice President Josh Harris served as co-chairs.

Rocky Zislin, the president of Chabad at George Washington University, and Conference of Presidents CEO William Daroff also delivered remarks at the event.

An American couple who were en route to Israel to celebrate their wedding but had their flight diverted. Two Israeli single mothers on holiday looking for a quick refresh, now stranded. A group of injured Israel Defense Forces soldiers on a healing retreat. 

These are some of the nearly 2,500 Jewish people that Rabbi Arie Zeev Raskin, the chief rabbi of Cyprus, and his wife, Shaindel, unexpectedly found themselves hosting for Shabbat last Friday after at least 32 flights from the United States and Europe were diverted to the island in the Mediterranean amid Israel’s preemptive military campaign against Iran, which was launched early Friday morning. 

“Everybody in the community gave a hand with cooking and preparing,” Raskin, who has run the local Chabad center in the port city of Larnaca since 2003, told Jewish Insider. 

Shabbat at Chabad “was amazing, a crazy experience,” said Tzvi Berg, a Jerusalem resident who was flying home from a wedding in New York on Thursday night when — just moments away from landing in Tel Aviv — his flight was rerouted to Larnaca.

“When the pilot made the announcement, everyone went online and saw Israel was attacking Iran and instead of being upset, everybody was clapping,” Berg said. 

But as Shabbat ended — with Israeli airspace still shuttered as Iranian missiles continued to strike in Tel Aviv and elsewhere — “the challenge began again,” Raskin said. Hotels on the island are overwhelmed. Tourists have exhausted their vacation funds. People with chronic illness can’t access medications. 

And they are knocking on Chabad’s door looking for food and accommodations, as many Jews do in moments of crisis around the world. 

“We have a few challenges at the moment,” Raskin said. 

“People have started to lose patience. Parents want to get back to their kids,” said Berg, who on Tuesday traveled some 30 miles to the island’s other Chabad, located in the resort town of Ayia Napa, where he barbecued for the injured IDF soldiers.

The couple whose wedding is scheduled for Thursday remains hopeful they can still get to Israel via boat. 

One of the single mothers who came to Cyprus on vacation has two children with special needs in southern Israel facing constant missile fire. “There’s a lot of tears and crying that she can’t get back to her kids,” Raskin said.  

Still, Raskin said that most of those stranded are making “lemonade out of lemons” during their time on the picturesque island — which is a popular tourist destination for Israelis due to its proximity. 

“The majority of the people here trust in God, so you see happy faces,” Raskin said. “They’re saying, ‘OK, we’re here on holiday, we have a place to stay and food, we’re happy.’” 

Cypriot police said on Sunday that security measures would be increased for Israeli tourists following concerns that Iran or its proxies could attempt to target them abroad. 

Israel’s Transportation Ministry announced on Monday it would launch Operation Safe Return to bring close to 150,000 Israelis stuck abroad back home. According to the Israeli airline El Al, 60,000 Israelis registered for rescue flights to return them to Israel within the first 90 minutes of the registration site going live on Monday. 

Israeli carriers El Al, Arkia and Israir announced on Tuesday that they received permission from the Israeli government to organize repatriation flights to bring back Israelis stranded abroad. The first two flights from Larnaca, Cyprus, landed at Ben Gurion Airport on Wednesday morning. 

“People are doing crazy stuff to get back,” Berg said, adding that while he looks forward to reuniting with his wife and children, who have been hunkered down in Jerusalem, the people in Cyprus “have been very hospitable and accommodating. They love Israelis.” 

“I was here [on holiday] in the summer once, but this is a different experience,” said Berg.

Some Israelis, including Aliyah and Integration Minister Ofir Sofer, who was stuck in Azerbaijan, which borders Iran, were able to return home over the weekend by flying to Greece and then to Cyprus, from which they took a boat to Israel. Others, including civilians, have charted private flights from Larnaca to Israel through Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. 

But Raskin advises displaced Israelis who are safe in Europe to “stay where you are if you have good accommodations.”

“Don’t rush to Cyprus because it won’t get you to Israel any faster.” 

It’s Friday evening in Manhattan’s fashionable West Village. A couple dozen of New York’s elite — business executives, a television producer, a fashion designer, a journalist and a few politicos — pack a charming brownstone, a spot that’s been frequented by a range of influential people, from former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides to reality TV personality Andy Cohen. Wine flows around a long candlelit table. A three-course meal and deep discussion follow late into the night. 

This isn’t dinner in one of the neighborhood’s Michelin-starred restaurants — although some weeks the waitlist here can be just as long. It’s Shabbat at Chabad West Village. 

There are more than 3,000 Chabad Houses around the world aimed at Jewish outreach, inspired by the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson. New York City alone is home to some 40 Chabad centers. Each Chabad caters to the characteristics of the community it serves.

But in the West Village — one of Manhattan’s most unlikely neighborhoods for the spread of Torah — synagogue-goers, a diverse group of mostly secular Jews, say something unique is happening at this Chabad in particular. The growing, vibrant community is a stark contrast with the shul just across the street, the Charles Street Synagogue that sits defunct. 

“When we moved here, we did not know one person,” Rabbi Berel Gurevitch, who launched Chabad West Village six years ago with his wife, Chana, told Jewish Insider. “Now our list consists of around 5,000 Jewish people,” said Gurevitch, who is in his early 30s but declines to disclose his exact age so as not to inhibit older members from connecting.  

The Gurevitches decamped from the comfort of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, where they both grew up, for the West Village, a neighborhood known for its trendy arts and nightlife scene. The synagogue initially ran out of a small apartment on Grove Street — with New Yorker staff writer Calvin Trillin, who still attends frequently — as its landlord. 

Now in a townhouse on Charles Street, where such real estate can run into the tens of millions of dollars, the center, which is also the personal home of the Gurevitches and their three children, has become synonymous with several innovative programs: letting attendees be “Rabbi for a Day”; a “TGIF” program where participants learn how to host Friday night dinners with their friends; explanatory “Shabbat Matinée” services for people who would otherwise be at brunch and are giving prayer a chance; and a speaker series called “Hineni: Here I Am,” which has featured Trillin, Nides, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt and comedian Alex Edelman. 

“[Rabbi Gurevitch’s] energy and drive was infectious instantaneously,” Marc Calcano, the West Village Chabad’s security director, told JI. “You can easily tell how everyone in the congregation lives based on this energy. It’s not just the synagogue where you go to worship, but it’s where you meet great people and there’s incredible conversation. After services no one ever wants to leave. This place is incredibly special. The lingering continues for hours.” 

Unlike some Chabad centers, which cater specifically to young professionals, families or senior citizens, the West Village Chabad has drawn a diverse crowd that spans different age groups and income levels. The community has recently celebrated several simchas and full-circle moments, where children and their parents pray together.

“It started for my kids. [The rabbi] brought in a real beehive to teach about [honey for] Rosh Hashanah and I just thought ‘what an amazing thing to encounter in the middle of the West Village,’” said Steeven Mallet, 42, who stumbled upon the Chabad four years ago while walking his dog and has sent his children to its preschool since. “Then we started going for Shabbos and events.” 

“My wife is Conservative, I’m Orthodox and there’s just a crowd of everyone,” said Mallet, who was born and raised in France and works in finance. “It’s a very tolerant community.” 

Marc Calcano, the West Village Chabad’s security director, was hired in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks on Israel — as antisemitism skyrocketed around the U.S. and Jewish institutions remained on high alert. “[Rabbi Gurevitch’s] energy and drive was infectious instantaneously,” Calcano, a former NYPD officer, reflected. “You can easily tell how everyone in the congregation lives based on this energy. It’s not just the synagogue where you go to worship, but it’s where you meet great people and there’s incredible conversation. After services no one ever wants to leave. This place is incredibly special. The lingering continues for hours,” he told JI.   

In January, Calcano celebrated the bar mitzvah of his son, Carter, at the synagogue. Calcano — who is not Jewish but whose children have a Jewish mother — never expected that Carter, who has Down syndrome, would be able to lead a bar mitzvah service. But with the help of Gurevitch, he did it. “Every minute that I spend thinking about it is an emotional minute for me,” Calcano said.   

In April, a Grammy-nominated musician and a Trump White House staffer, who got married in 2022 after meeting at Chabad West Village, celebrated their second child’s bris at the synagogue.

Among the qualities that set the synagogue apart is its fast-growing demographic of singles and young professionals — at a time when polls from recent years show that synagogue attendance is declining for the majority of American Jewish young adults — especially those unmarried and without children. According to Gurevitch, every young professional event he’s held since Oct. 7 has sold out. Last month, the center hosted its first wine tasting Shabbat dinner geared towards those in their 20s and 30s. 

“I was extremely lonely when I first moved to New York,” Scarlett Tucker, a 30-year-old CPA who lives in the neighborhood, told JI. Tucker, who met her best friend after first attending a Shabbat dinner at the center in 2022, describes her Jewish upbringing in California as “eating lobster at the Passover Seder.” 

“I feel very close to Chana [Gurevitch] and I don’t have any family here so it’s been a warm place,” Tucker said. “For a long time, I didn’t really understand being Jewish.”

“I have not gotten more religious at all, I’ve just gotten more comfortable with it,” she continued. “The one thing that has changed for me, most significantly, is that it’s now very important to me that I marry someone Jewish.” 

“They have created, and allowed me to help build with them, a vibrant Jewish base for me and so many others in downtown New York City, where Jews from all walks of life can find an entry point into our tradition,” Neil Goldman, segment producer at the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, told JI. “They have established a beautiful Jewish community where none existed, have brought so many Jews in touch with their Jewish heritage for the first time, and are fulfilling the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s call to make our world a brighter, more spiritual place.” 

Ezra Feig, the 33-year-old founder of Nice Jewish Runners, a running club started in the aftermath of Oct. 7, told JI that his attendance at Chabad West Village for the past three years has felt “unique” due to “how they have managed to attract so many amazing people which has created a feeling where everyone is welcome and feels included.” 

Feig reflected that as he was going through El Al security on the way to Israel for Passover, he was asked what community he belonged to. When he said “Chabad West Village,” the security agent responded, “Oh I’ve heard what a great community that is. I’m going to come check it out.” 

Neil Goldman, segment producer at the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, told JI that he was drawn to Chabad West Village five years ago by the Gurevitches’ “soulfulness, their elegance, and of course their food.” 

“They have created, and allowed me to help build with them, a vibrant Jewish base for me and so many others in downtown New York City, where Jews from all walks of life can find an entry point into our tradition,” said Goldman, who is 39. “They have established a beautiful Jewish community where none existed, have brought so many Jews in touch with their Jewish heritage for the first time, and are fulfilling the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s call to make our world a brighter, more spiritual place.” 

Jonathan Harounoff, Israel’s international spokesperson to the United Nations, described a similar setting where “regulars are highly impressive and the food is incredible.”  

“What makes the place even more appealing, though, is its total lack of pretension,” Harounoff, 29, told JI. 

While congregants echo that the people — and food — are what make the synagogue special, the 5,000- square-foot, multistory West Village townhome is distinctive in itself — and holds a metaphor, according to Gurevitch. 

Etched into the walls of the sanctuary is a line from the Book of Genesis, “Behold, God was in this place and I didn’t know it.” 

“Our dreams are big,” Gurevitch said. “On a fundamental level, I would like to see a thriving Jewish community here. Until every Jewish person in this area has that connection and access, our job isn’t finished and we’re far from there. We’ve only scratched the surface.”

“I like people to have their own interpretations of it,” Gurevitch told JI. “But I think the most obvious one is that this Chabad, like an expression of life itself, is a place where you can find God in the most unexpected way. You’re walking down the street in the West Village and suddenly you walk inside and there’s 140 people praying. Wake up and realize that God is in here, you don’t have to travel the world or climb mountains or turn your life upside down to find God. I think this Chabad physically and spiritually represents that.” 

Amid hosting events and meals for a variety of movers and shakers, Chana stressed the importance of “striking a balance.”

“We hold on to that homey, warm, intimate feeling even though there are thousands of members and very well-attended events,” she said.

The Gurevitches’ vision for Jewish life in the West Village is only just beginning. “Our dreams are big,” the rabbi said. “On a fundamental level, I would like to see a thriving Jewish community here. Until every Jewish person in this area has that connection and access, our job isn’t finished and we’re far from there. We’ve only scratched the surface.”

“Five, 10 years from now,” he continued, “I would love to walk down the street on Shabbat and see kippahs, people walking with their tallits, moms pushing strollers, Jewish people living publicly and proudly and us being able to provide the support base and epicenter for all of them.” 

When Arie Dana walked up to a Capitol Hill coffee shop on a recent spring morning, I called him over to my table. “How’d you know it was me?” he asked. “Because I look like the Jewish guy?” 

In a fitted blue suit, a navy sweater and light brown oxfords, Dana looked the part of a young, ambitious congressional staffer. He wore round tortoiseshell glasses; his combed-back graying hair appeared perfectly in place. 

What gave Dana away as “the Jewish guy” — even more than the yarmulke on the back of his head — was his beard. In some places it extended more than a foot, the dark brown hair interspersed with gray. Dana has an identical twin brother, but “I’m the only bearded one of the family,” he told me, smiling. During our conversation, a young man with unkempt curly hair walked by and shouted “Nice beard, dude!” Dana thanked him.  

Nine days after his December 2020 wedding to a woman he met at the University of Southern California Chabad house on Rosh Hashanah, Dana moved to Washington D.C. to serve as the chief of staff for newly elected freshman Rep. Michelle Steel (R-CA), for whom he has worked since graduating college more than a decade ago.

***

Dana’s journey to this moment began during his freshman year at USC. “I was a College Republican, and one of my fellow College Republican friends was Michelle [Steel]’s daughter,” Dana said. 

After graduating, he took an internship with a California state assemblyman, until he received a call from his College Republicans friend. “Michelle’s daughter said to me, ‘Hey, I think my mom is looking for a communications director, are you interested in applying?’” Dana had previously volunteered on her 2006 campaign for the State Board of Equalization, the only elected tax commission in the country. He took the job. 

Last November, Steel, then a member of the Orange County Board of Supervisors, beat incumbent first-term Democrat Harley Rouda (D-CA) to become one of the first three Korean-born members of Congress. (Young Kim (R-CA) also represents parts of Orange County, while Marilyn Strickland (D-WA) represents the area around Tacoma, Wash.)

“I was actually in Crown Heights” — the Brooklyn neighborhood home to the global headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement — “doing some pre-wedding shopping with my fiancée, and I got an email: ‘Arie, book your flight to D.C. for orientation,’” he recounted. He got on a plane to Washington, and “by the end of the orientation, she asked me to be her chief of staff,” Dana recalled. 

“Arie has been a dedicated member of my team for more than 10 years in three different elected positions,” Steel told JI. “Arie is the one who introduced me to Orange County’s Jewish community, and I’m grateful for his leadership, which is needed here in Washington.” 

Dana is far from the first Orthodox Jew to work on the Hill. There was Peter Deutsch, a former member of Congress who now lives in Israel, and of course Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), who went on to serve as Al Gore’s running mate on the 2000 Democratic ticket. Before Jack Lew served as Treasury secretary under Barack Obama, he was a staffer for House Speaker Tip O’Neill. 

But according to Rabbi Levi Shemtov, executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad) and Washington’s most prominent Chabad rabbi, “there has never before been a chief of staff to a member — which is the most senior position you get — who was Hasidic in appearance and in observance.” Put more bluntly: “You’ve had many people who were shomer Shabbas, but they were not as outwardly recognizable as observant as Arie Dana,” Shemtov explained. “This speaks volumes about what it is possible to achieve in America without compromising religious principles.”

***

When Dana was a freshman at USC, he met Rabbi Dov Wagner, the school’s Chabad rabbi. “We always do, on Sukkot, a sukkah in the middle of campus, and offer students the opportunity to make a blessing over the lulav and etrog,” Wagner told JI. “He stopped by the sukkah at that time and made a little connection.” Dana would not reconnect with Wagner in a serious way until after he graduated.

Raised by Mexican parents in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, Dana did not grow up Orthodox. “In Mexico, some of the different Jewish denominations that you see in [the U.S.] don’t really exist,” he explained. “There’s less religious and there’s more religious, but it’s a very traditional environment.”

Dana had his bar mitzvah at a Reform congregation. “We were the first people, I think, who put on tefillin, ever, in this temple for our bar mitzvah, and it was something that I kept up doing,” Dana said. In college, “I was looking for ways to be more religiously involved. But I also had my parents at home, and we had Shabbat dinner every Friday night,” which did not leave much time for him to get involved with Jewish groups on campus. 

Both Dana and his twin brother started at USC as architecture majors, though Arie later changed his major to religion. (His brother and his sister-in-law, who is also an architect, are now working on an expansion for the USC Chabad house.) 

Dana’s family was not politically active when he was growing up. He was a teenager on Sept. 11, 2001, “which was a very transformative thing to happen your freshman year of high school,” Dana noted. He started reading up on the Middle East, terrorism and foreign affairs, before expanding into other topics. 

“I started reading a lot of libertarian thinkers and philosophers and got into the idea of the free market [as] a great way to help individuals from all backgrounds earn their own success,” Dana explained. “Freedom — in that sense of letting people on their own choose how they want to create their own communities without external force — made me really interested in the political world.”

Apparently, it’s a value espoused by Steel as well: Years later, when she was elected to Congress, she joined the “Freedom Force,” a group of Republican members formed to counter Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s progressive “Squad.” 

But first, at the State Board of Equalization, Dana received an education in big government. There’s “this big state agency,” Dana explained, that, in his view, could get in the way of “allow[ing] people to have the most freedom possible to live their lives the way they want to.” 

At the same time, he was also receiving a new religious education. “I had this great idea that I was going to be an Orthodox Sephardic Jew,” Dana said. But there was no Sephardic community near where he was living, so he began learning again with Rabbi Wagner from USC. They had reconnected when Dana came to Chabad alumni events with a woman he was dating at the time. 

“He had this incredible journey of really engaging in his Judaism very seriously and making it an important part of his life,” said Wagner, the USC rabbi. Dana and Wagner would study the  teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, together. “Learning those things drew me into starting to study chassidus more. And then over time, I was just like, ‘Oh, I think I think this is where I’m supposed to be,” he noted. 

He began to observe Shabbat and keep kosher, which is when people close to him noticed his new observance. “With friends, it was a little bit harder than it was at work,” Dana recounted. “The standard thing is to go out to dinner, or [hang out on] Friday nights, and you can’t do any of those things anymore.” 

At work, “it started out with me just turning off my phone on Friday evenings. I didn’t really say so much about it,” he recalled. “Then [Steel] asked me, ‘Hey, why do you wait and not answer your phone until Saturday night?’” [I responded] ‘Oh, because I’m starting to keep the Sabbath.’” 

Last winter, Dana and Steel “already had a general understanding of many years,” he said. So when Orange County officials had to have an emergency press conference about the coronavirus, Steel knew not to call Dana. “It ended up being a Saturday morning press conference in Orange County, where they ended up announcing that there was going to be a state of emergency,” Dana explained. “I found out about it Saturday night. I was like, okay, it’s gonna be a busy week,” he said. 

It ended up being not just a busy week but a busy year, as the virus spread and Steel’s campaign for Congress heated up. “It was a lot of work in those days. I was leaving barely enough time to get home, and I would just rush home and change quickly and go to synagogue — or not go to synagogue; I stayed at home because everything closed, which in a way makes it easier,” he said. 

“Arie has been a dedicated member of my team for more than 10 years in three different elected positions,” Steel told JI. “Arie is the one who introduced me to Orange County’s Jewish community, and I’m grateful for his leadership, which is needed here in Washington.” 

One silver lining of the pandemic was the Rosh Hashanah dinner where Dana met his soon-to-be wife. “Even during COVID,” said Wagner, “the right people come together.” Dana had been spending a lot of time with Wagner, with most other Jewish organizations not holding events. On Rosh Hashanah, his future wife Chana “just showed up at our door, looking for a place” to celebrate the holiday, Wagner recalled. “Of the very few guests there, two of them met and, thankfully, hit it off.” 

They got married in December, and nine days later moved across the country to the first place Dana had ever lived outside of Los Angeles. About a week later, rioters stormed the Capitol. 

Dana and his team were in Steel’s office, trying to get the congresswoman out of the Capitol complex — she had tested positive for the coronavirus that morning and did not want to infect her staffers. “We had doctor’s orders, of course, to get her out of the Capitol as fast as we could so that she could go isolate,” Dana said. But when he called the sergeant-at-arms’ office to ask for the best way out, the response was: “There is no safe way out at this time.” So Dana and the other staffers stayed in one wing of the office while Steel isolated in her personal office, keeping the door closed for the next 10 hours that they were trapped together. Her case ended up being mild, and no one else in the office got sick. 

Insurrection aside, Dana has also missed the celebrations and events that typically mark the beginning of a new congressional session. He had to a hire an entirely new team, looking for people who “have experience on what the Hill is like” and understand things like ”what the schedule for a day is like, what do the votes mean, the procedural rules.” Back in Orange County, “there aren’t 2 a.m. votes on Friday night,” Dana explained. “Official business was a lot more regimented and scheduled.” Amid all the new things to learn, he at least knew that his boss understood why he could not be present during those rare Friday night votes. 

The new job brings new policy areas for Dana to learn about, but “we’re trying to be focused on local issues anway,” he said. “The foreign policy side is probably the biggest single change,” he added, but “with the congresswoman being very involved in the Asian-American community,” she already had some experience in foreign affairs. Since coming to Washington, Steel has joined with other Asian American members of Congress to call out violence against the Asian American Pacific Islander community, including after the mass shooting at a series of Asian-owned massage parlors in Atlanta this week. “What happened in Atlanta last night was senseless and tragic, and unfortunately only adds to a long list of recent violent crimes against our Asian American and Pacific Islander community,” Steel said in a statement, before testifying yesterday at a congressional hearing on anti-Asian American discrimination.

According to Dana, Steel also sees collaboration with Israel as a priority. “Water issues are something that’s a huge deal in California, and we have hi-tech and biomedical innovation,” said Dana. “She’s talked a lot about trying to find priorities of places to work together with Israel and the United States to advance that type of innovative spirit and find solutions to those types of issues.”

Dana is excited to explore Washington’s Jewish community more as the weather improves and the pandemic subsides. “I’m really eager to see what the Jewish community is like,” Dana said. Capitol Hill is not known for having a large Orthodox community, but “we’ve had a very warm welcome from the community that there is.” On a typical Saturday, Dana normally walks across town to Chabad in Dupont Circle. 

The lack of kosher restaurants in the District is also an adjustment, with the presence of just a single kosher meat restaurant, CharBar. But in some ways, that reminds Dana of home: “Orange County also had only one kosher restaurant.”