In his latest novel, former Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) takes readers through a tense spy thriller, with famed physicist Albert Einstein at its center, set against the backdrop of the pro-Nazi movement in America in 1939.

Israel retired from Congress in 2017 and later opened a bookstore on Long Island. His latest novel, The Einstein Conspiracy, is his third. The former congressman spoke to Jewish Insider about the book in a phone conversation last week from his shop, in between offering recommendations to customers.

Published last week, The Einstein Conspiracy is a fictionalized account of true events, in which the Nazis targeted Albert Einstein to prevent him from helping the United States build an atomic bomb.

“The backdrop is the chilling and widespread pro-Nazi movement across America in 1939,” Israel explained to JI. “There was a [Nazi] rally at Madison Square Garden in February 1939 that attracted 20,000 people. On Long Island is a community that used to be known as Camp Siegfried, where the streets were named after Adolf Hitler, Goebbels and Goering. So I’m trying in the book to remind Americans of how close we could have come to staying out of World War II.”

With today’s rising antisemitism — from pro-Nazi sentiment on the far right and support for Hamas on the far left — Israel said he sees “reflections” of that historical moment.

“I’m not trying to preach and I’m not intending to teach lessons. I want readers to be entertained,” Israel continued. “I want to take them on an intriguing adventure where they’re going to learn a little bit about history and also reflect on some of the darker moments in American history, where Nazism was not only espoused in the U.S. but championed by many.”

The plot of Israel’s novel focuses on a fictionalized race between a Nazi agent to kidnap Einstein and the efforts of two FBI agents to prevent an attack.

“We have a Nazi spy — an ingenious, diabolical Nazi spy — posing undercover to get close to Einstein, to abduct him, and we have two FBI agents who always seem just a few too many steps behind the agent,” Israel said.

He said the novel was inspired by his long-standing interest in history, particularly “these kind of hidden moments in history that only a few people pay attention to, that have fundamentally changed the course of history.”

Israel told JI that, driving around Long Island, he came across a cottage where Einstein lived after coming to the United States, where the famous physicist wrote a letter — in collaboration with other physicists — to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt warning him about the Nazis’ atomic bomb research.

“I’d known a little bit about a letter, called the Einstein-Szilard letter, that was written to FDR in the summer of 1939,” he continued. “I didn’t know much more about it, and as I began researching it, I learned that it profoundly changed history, because it was the first time that FDR realized that Hitler could have an atom bomb and that America was paying no attention to the research.”

That letter, he continued, was the spark that ultimately led to the Manhattan Project.

The Nazi spy plot in the novel is also based on real efforts by the Nazis, on several occasions, to hunt down Einstein.

Israel, the former chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, is now embarking on a national book tour to promote the new novel.

“I used to go around the country begging donors for money. Now I go around the country hustling my book,” Israel quipped. “I like selling books more than I like asking for money.”

In recent months, Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) has stood apart from many of his Democratic colleagues in offering staunch support for Israel, openly praising President Donald Trump for finalizing a deal to free the hostages in Gaza and maintaining a hard line against New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani.

Suozzi, a moderate Democrat who hails from a swing district on Long Island with a significant Jewish population, is a longtime stalwart supporter of Israel, and argued in a recent interview with Jewish Insider that maintaining bipartisanship on the issue is critical.

Suozzi has been among the minority of Democrats who have openly credited Trump for the ceasefire that secured the release of the remaining living hostages in Gaza last week.

“We thank God and congratulate President Trump and all those who helped make the return of the hostages a reality. As we celebrate this moment, let us also pause to pray for all those who have endured so much suffering, death and destruction along the way,” Suozzi told JI last Monday, after the hostages were freed.

“It’s plain on its face that the president orchestrated this and put a tremendous amount of effort into this,” he continued. “I disagree with the president on certain things, but when it comes to this issue, I’m fully aligned with him.”

Suozzi said that the Torah and Old Testament teach that it’s critical to stick to one’s values and keep moving forward in hard times.

“One of the values that we need to stick by right now is to stand with the State of Israel, who’s our great ally and shares our values during what has been difficult times,” Suozzi said. “The president is the one who’s accomplished — along with a lot of help from other people — this very important thing, we have to praise him for that, even though I disagree with him on a whole host of other things. On this, he’s really done something remarkable.”

Suozzi noted that he had also supported Trump’s signing of the Abraham Accords and decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem during his first term.

“We have to get back to a place in our American governing and politics where people can disagree, where they disagree respectfully, but also give credit where credit is due in trying to work together to to solve problems,” Suozzi explained. “I want to work with the president. … If he could do Ukraine and an immigration deal — which would require some bipartisan cooperation — he would truly have cemented his place in history. I want to be helpful in that respect.”

Asked about those in the Democratic Party — including some of the most vocal critics of Israel — who have refused to credit Trump or acknowledge the ceasefire that went into effect earlier this week, Suozzi said he sees them as hypocritical.

“It’s the pot calling the kettle black. They criticize Trump for being partisan, or they criticize Republicans for being partisan — which they are, I’m not saying they’re not,” Suozzi said. “When you have something like this that happens, you can’t just base it on your party. It has to be based on what’s right and what’s wrong. This is clearly right. This is clearly a good thing.”

He also said that people, on both sides of the aisle, who understand the damage wrought by antisemitism, “have to join league with each other, regardless of our political party, and work together to do everything we can to stamp it out. In the short term: hold people accountable and prosecute them. In the long term: educate our society about where antisemitism comes from and why it’s so destructive.”

Suozzi said that both in the Democratic Party and the country as a whole, “we have to do a better job” of rooting out and calling out antisemitism. 

“It’s not always easy to take on people that are on your team, so to speak,” he continued. “But I think there’s a lot of people on the wrong side of history here. This is an important moment with the enabling of the haters, with social media, with the algorithms on the different platforms — especially TikTok — that are inciting this hateful behavior and the foothold that some malign actors have been working — not just recently but over decades — to build this hate machine. We have to really stand strong against this, even when we have to disagree with people that are on our team, so to speak.”

“At a time when most have hidden beneath the parapet, the Jewish community is very lucky to have fearless leaders like Tom, who willingly stands up to the antisemitic haters and unflinchingly protects the U.S.-Israel relationship,” Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), another outspoken pro-Israel moderate, told JI.

Suozzi, along with Rep. Laura Gillen (D-NY), has been among the most vocal opponents within New York Democratic politics of Mamdani’s candidacy — publicly condemning the democratic socialist and explicitly rejecting the prospect of endorsing him, when other Democrats have fallen in line or remained silent. Among other issues, Suozzi has called out Mamdani for his refusal to condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada.”

Suozzi has also pushed back more broadly on the left wing of his party.

“If [Mamdani] wants to be a socialist, he should form his own party and not be part of the Democratic Party,” he said, a sentiment he has directed at the Democratic Socialists of America as a whole.

Asked how he thinks supporters of Israel and opponents of antisemitism can go about rebuilding the eroding bipartisan consensus on these issues, Suozzi said that it’s critical for supporters of Israel to vote for Democrats like himself who are aligned with them on that issue.

He recounted a conversation he had with longtime friends who are Orthodox Jews and who said they had voted against Suozzi in the last election, opting instead to vote down the Republican Party line.

“The person I was speaking with said, ‘We need to get your party back to what it was,’” Suozzi recounted. “I said, ‘Well then you have to support Democrats like me that are working on that. Because you don’t know what things are going to be like in five years, or 10 years, or 15 years or 20 years. The key to the future is to ensure that this continues to be a bipartisan effort, this relationship between the United States and Israel.’”

Suozzi said that his commitment to standing with Israel and the Jewish people is deep-rooted, tracing back in part to his father, his own history and the values and democratic principles shared by the U.S. and Israel.

His father — “the best man I ever knew” — was an Italian immigrant who fought in World War II and faced discrimination at home after the war. “He would not tolerate any sort of discrimination [against] anybody. … If anybody said something that was anti-Jewish or anti-Black or anti-anything, he’d either confront you or get up and walk out of the room.”

Suozzi said that he found an Israeli war bond in his father’s files after he passed away. “He never talked about anything like that, it was just who he was.”

Suozzi said that reading Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, about the psychologist’s experience in the Holocaust, was deeply impactful on him as a high school student. He first traveled to Israel as Nassau County executive in October 2002, meeting with key leaders during the Second Intifada.

He said that his hotel was largely empty due to terrorism concerns, that heavy security was necessary for his group and that the trip organizers attempted to prohibit him from going to mass at the Church of The Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem for security reasons. 

Undeterred, Suozzi snuck out of his hotel to go and initially felt “so courageous” but, walking out of the church, “I see these little girls getting on the bus to go to school that morning. … It was like, ‘Wow, I’m not courageous. People have been living like this … 60 years, living their lives, making this place successful, despite the fact that everybody in the area is trying to kill them. And they’ve held onto their values, and they’ve held onto the things that I believe in.’ So I decided right then and there that I would always stand strong with Israel, no matter what.”

Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) announced on Monday that he would not endorse Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City.

Suozzi, who represents a Long Island-based swing district on the outskirts of New York City that takes in a slice of Queens, said in an interview with ABC7 that, while he believes Mamdani is “very talented” and “very smart,” he feels the Democratic mayoral candidate’s policies would lead to increased costs for New Yorkers.

“Let me say very clearly: Mamdani is a very talented guy. He’s very smart, he’s very charismatic. … I have nothing against him personally, and I’m sure he’s a good person, but I completely disagree with his ideas. I disagree that we should raise taxes in New York City because people are leaving New York State and New York City as it is,” Suozzi said. “I’m all for making sure wealthy people pay their fair share at the federal level, so that wherever you go in the country you’re still going to have to pay, but not to encourage people to escape New York and go to Florida and go to Texas.”

“He wants to raise the minimum wage in New York. Well, I’m all for giving people higher wages. I like raising the minimum wage, but we need to do it at the national level, not just at the local level, and chase people out,” he added, noting that lawmakers “don’t want to chase people out of New York.” 

Suozzi’s announcement comes one day after New York Gov. Kathy Hochul endorsedMamdani’s candidacy, emerging as one of his highest-profile backers. 

In a subsequent post on X, Suozzi wrote that, “I will not be endorsing Mamdani. While I share his concern about the issue of affordability, I fundamentally disagree with his proposed solutions. Like the voters I represent, I believe socialism has consistently failed to deliver real, sustainable progress.”

He added that, “People have asked me about the Governor’s decision. I have not discussed this with the Governor and I am not in a position to give the Governor political advice considering the fact that when I ran against her she beat me soundly.”

Congregants of a Hindu temple on Long Island that was vandalized last year and worshippers of a Methodist Church in Oklahoma City, who last year put on a musical production of “Fiddler on the Roof” to learn about Jewish culture, may not appear to have much in common. 

But this Sunday, both houses of worship — together with an expected crowd of nearly 1 million congregants around the country — will join forces for the inaugural “Stand Up Sunday,” a show of force in the fight against antisemitism and all faith-based violence. 

As part of the effort, spearheaded by Robert Kraft’s Foundation to Combat Antisemitism and the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, founded by Rabbi Arthur Schneier, organizers said each congregation “will dedicate their services to raising awareness about the sharp increase of antisemitism and all forms of hate against religious communities in the United States by standing together on September 7.” 

FCAS’ Blue Square pins will be distributed to attendees “as a visible display of solidarity across faiths,” the group said. Congregational leaders will deliver remarks on antisemitism and faith-based hate in their sermons and houses of worship will place signs and posters throughout their buildings. 

The solidarity project comes less than two weeks after a mass shooting at the Annunciation Catholic Church and School in Minneapolis, in which two students were killed and 21 others injured. Since 2021, the number of religious-based hate crimes has doubled, according to the FBI. The FBI’s 2024 crime statistics show a record number of hate crimes against Jews in particular, accounting for nearly 70% of all religious-based hate crimes.

Bawa Jain, an Indian advocate for interfaith dialogue, told Jewish Insider that the participation of 11 Hindu temples around the country was a “no-brainer.” 

“People [aren’t aware] that Hindu temples are also vandalized. The media doesn’t cover it to the extent that other acts of violence are covered,” said Jain, secretary-general for the World Council of Religious Leaders and the founder and president of the Centre for Responsible Leadership. 

As Hindu temples across the U.S. have seen a surge of vandal attacks over the past year, Jain said that “the Hindu and Jewish communities share a similar past. We are constantly targeted. Any crime against one of us is a crime against all of us,” adding that in his 35 years as a religious leader, he has “never seen a time where Hindu communities were targeted in such a way. We must stand together.”

“One of the things I hope comes out of this is that people realize other communities are being targeted too, even if you don’t hear about it,” said Jain. “When I was approached to get the Hindu community behind this, it was a no-brainer. [Sunday’s] program will focus on incidents of hate, supporting each other and how we must educate our communities. Our hope is that through this first launch, next year more than 120 temples across the country will participate in Stand Up Sunday.”  

Participants in the day-long event include the Churches of the Catholic Archdiocese of New York, New Jersey and the Diocese of Brooklyn, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, Armenian Diocese of America, National Council of Churches of Christ, and numerous Christian, African Methodist Episcopal, Episcopal, Presbyterian Churches as well as the Akshardham BAPS Swaminarayan Hindu Temple USA. Synagogues are not taking part. 

For Pastor Bob Long, head of St. Luke’s Methodist Church in Oklahoma City, speaking out against antisemitism goes back to the immediate aftermath of the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, where 11 congregants were shot dead during Shabbat morning services.   

Following a visit to the synagogue with other pastors, Long reflected that he “became aware of a Catholic church in the area that put up a sign that said ‘Love your neighbor, no exception.’”

“That became a theme for us in 2020 and 2021 when we gave away thousands of shirts” with the phrase, he told JI. 

Last year, the church dedicated its annual “St. Luke’s on Broadway” musical production to learning about Jewish heritage by putting on “Fiddler on the Roof.” St. Luke’s also hosted a pilot version of Stand Up Sunday last year. 

“Every Sunday, we have banners at our welcome center that say ‘St. Luke’s stands up to Jewish hate’ and ‘St. Luke stands up to all hate.’ For us, this is something we keep in the forefront all year long,” Long said. 

But he called this Sunday “a special lift” for learning about hate and antisemitism in particular. 

“We will be talking about [antisemitism] in our worship service,” said Long. “The sermon will be dealing with how we chose to participate and reminding people of what happened at Tree of Life but also what happens all across the country [today] and around the world. We will have multiple banners all around the church about standing up to Jewish hate.” 

“Stand Up Sunday is about raising awareness, inspiring action and standing together against hate,” Robert Kraft, founder of the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, said in a statement. “By uniting behind the Blue Square, faith leaders are sending a powerful message, that antisemitism and all forms of hate have no place in our communities. At a time when division and intolerance threaten to pull us apart, this initiative shows what is possible when we unite across backgrounds and beliefs, and that our shared values are greater than what divides us.”

“Sept. 7 is the moment for us to stand shoulder to shoulder as people of faith to say enough is enough. We are all God’s Children and together we can silence the voices of hate and the perpetrators of violence,” Karen Dresbach, executive vice president of Appeal of Conscience Foundation, said in a statement. “In this concerning time of rising antisemitism and faith-based hate, ‘Stand Up Sunday’ underscores our core mission to ‘Respect the Other,’ a call that is more urgent than ever.”