An AI-generated Instagram account portraying an Orthodox-looking rabbi is pushing antisemitic conspiracy theories to its more than 1.4 million followers, and it’s not the only one, a study published this week about antisemitic content on the social media platform has found. 

An account called “Rabbi Goldman” “uses fake, AI-created authority figures to spread hate” in “a troubling and growing tactic,” according to the report, published on Wednesday by the Combat Antisemitism Movement.

The 12-page report, titled “Engineered Exposure: How Antisemitic Content Is Pushed and Amplified to Millions Across Instagram,” documents 100 posts that researchers described as antisemitic, pushed directly to Instagram accounts over a 96-hour period from March 19-22. 

These posts, actively suggested by the platform’s recommendation systems, generated more than 5.3 million likes and 3.8 million shares, with an estimated reach of 150 to 280 million users, according to the report. 

CAM defined antisemitic posts as ones that invoke conspiracy theories — such as Jews controlling the media or manipulating global conflicts — and posts that claim Jews, often referred to as “Zionists,” are linked to demonic forces or satanic imagery, all of which have been used to justify antisemitic violence. 

The report raises particular concern around the creation of “closed content environments,” in which users are repeatedly fed similar antisemitic themes, with little or no countervailing content. 

“This type of algorithmic clustering reaffirms dangerous beliefs, contributing to a process of radicalization that can have lethal real-world consequences,” the report states. Researchers identified 12 AI-generated “rabbis” with a combined following of 2.1 million Instagram users, all of which promote classic antisemitic stereotypes. 

The “Rabbi Goldman” account features many of these, including one video in which the “rabbi,” wearing a tuxedo and seemingly seated in a luxury airplane, claims that Jews utilize empty private jets to evade taxes. The community note attached to the clip reads, “This is an AI generated rabbi who is trying to scam you by selling a fake 9$ get rich handbook. This account is ran by scammers based in south India.”

Meta, which is the parent company of Instagram — as well as Facebook and WhatsApp — did not respond to a request for comment from Jewish Insider about the report’s findings. 

“Simply put, this is evidence of a broad systemic failure on the part of Instagram and Meta,” Sacha Roytman, the CEO of CAM, said in a statement. “When a platform actively recommends content that dehumanizes Jews to mass audiences, we are no longer talking about a simple oversight or a mistake in the algorithmic design. We are talking about infrastructure that normalizes hatred at scale that must be addressed immediately.”

“CAM is calling on Meta to go beyond basic enforcement and take real responsibility. What’s been uncovered here must be taken seriously. This isn’t a fringe problem. Rather, it points to a broader, systemic issue with global reach, shaping how millions of people encounter and engage with antisemitic ideas in 2026,” the report states. 

Last year, Meta received pushback from Jewish leaders when it introduced a new community-driven fact-checking system, ending its third-party fact-checking program and replacing it with a system modeled after the community notes feature on Elon Musk’s X.  Some Jewish leaders expressed concern that the move would “open the floodgates to content” that could target Jewish communities and individuals, and called the decision a “step back” in the fight against rising antisemitism.

Dangerous implications of social media have extended beyond the Jewish community, with a jury in Los Angeles ruling on Wednesday that Meta, as well as Google, are liable for creating addictive products that caused a teenager’s depression and anxiety. The verdict marks the first time juries have decided that tech companies are at least partially liable for distress online and offline. 

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.

The women’s basketball team at Rochelle Zell Jewish High School in Chicago was practicing earlier this month ahead of its annual Senior Night when an announcement came over the intercom, presenting a special guest. That’s where the video starts — one of those designed-to-go-viral tearjerkers showing a child reuniting with their parent who is in the military.

“He is joining us after leaving the military service in Europe,” the announcer says. Team members start to look around, smiling but confused, when they see that the door to the gym is open.  

“We are grateful for his dedication, especially his daughter Hannah,” the announcer continues. That’s when one athlete, in a long-sleeve practice jersey and a ponytail, begins to cry and run toward the door. “Thank you for your service and sacrifice, and welcome home, U.S. Army Chaplain Rabbi Aaron Melman.” Everyone cheers. Throwing her arms around her father, Hannah sobs.

Melman, a Conservative rabbi who since 2021 has served as a chaplain in the Illinois Army National Guard, had just returned from a U.S. Army base in Western Poland. He submitted his request for leave back in September but didn’t tell his daughter, who was devastated most of all to learn his deployment conflicted with the pinnacle of her high school basketball career. (She was more upset that he would miss that game than her graduation.) When she hugged him, Melman took off his cap and revealed a light brown yarmulke that matched his fatigues.

“We made it happen,” Melman tells his daughter in the video, smiling. Days later, RZJHS won at Senior Night. Hannah scored four points.

For more than two decades after he graduated from the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2002, Melman was a congregational rabbi in the northern suburbs of Chicago. He had thought, early in his career, about joining the military — his father served in the U.S. Army Reserves — but decided against enlisting, recognizing that serving in active duty would be challenging as he raised two young children. 

But later, when his kids were older, the itch to serve returned. Melman was commissioned as an officer in the Illinois Army National Guard, a responsibility that typically required two days of service a month and two weeks each year, until he was sent to Poland earlier this year. That assignment made him one of several Jewish chaplains serving on the front lines of Europe, providing religious support and counseling to American soldiers — most of whom are not Jewish — who are stationed in Germany, Poland and other allied nations largely as a bulwark against Russia. 

Many Jewish chaplains serve in the military only part-time. They fit the training into already-busy schedules leading congregations and providing pastoral care to people in their own communities. 

Several military rabbis told JI that they view their mission as more than counseling the soldiers in their care and helping them deal with the hardships of military service. They explained that it’s also about reminding American Jews — many of whom have parents or grandparents who fought in World War II, Korea or Vietnam — about the value of service. During World War II, the military printed pocket-sized Hebrew bibles for Jewish soldiers. Today, some Jews don’t know anyone serving in the military. 

“Most Jews in America are not connected in any way, shape or form to the United States Armed Forces. The common reaction many of us get, when we go into the armed forces here in the States is, ‘Oh, you don’t want to go into the IDF?’ or, ‘Why didn’t you go into the IDF?’ And for the record, I happen to be a very strong Zionist,” Melman told Jewish Insider in an interview last week. “One of the things for me that I’ve really grown to appreciate is trying to connect the younger generation of American Jews into joining or thinking about joining the military and how important it is.”

Rabbi Aaron Gaber spent nine months at Grafenwoehr, a major American base in Germany, starting last summer. As a member of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard, his unit’s mission was to train Ukrainian soldiers, and Gaber was tasked with training Ukrainian chaplains. He took them to the Memorium Nuremberg Trials, a museum located inside the German courtroom where Nazi leaders were tried for their crimes after World War II. 

“That created a whole conversation about moral integrity and personal courage. How do you say to your commander, ‘Don’t commit atrocities’? Or how do you keep your soldiers who are angry at what’s happening and want to do things that are unethical or immoral from doing that?” Gaber told JI. “That elicited a whole conversation on a theological level about light versus darkness, good versus evil, but also then on a practical level: How do you advise your commander in a way that gives him or her the option not to do something that shouldn’t be done?”

Most of Gaber’s job, when dealing either with Ukrainian troops or American, involved assisting people who were not Jewish. 

“As a rabbi, I got to make sure every week there was a Protestant worship service happening,” said Gaber, who returned from Germany in June (and specified that he did not lead those services).

Last year, he volunteered to spend the High Holidays in Poland and Lithuania. He drove between several different bases to make sure Jewish soldiers had access to religious services, food and learning opportunities tied to the holidays. 

“I take the idea of ohr l’goyim, or bringing light to the world, I was able to bring light to the world. I was able to help Jewish soldiers celebrate their faith. If I met 10 Jewish soldiers through the entire two weeks, that was a lot. So it was individual work,” Gaber said. “In one case, I had one soldier travel, I think, three hours each way to be able to spend an hour with me. He couldn’t go by himself, so he had a noncommissioned officer, one of his squad leaders, go with him. That was the length that the military can and does go to make sure soldiers can access their faith.” 

Ohr l’goyim is a phrase that comes up often for Jewish military chaplains. For Rabbi Laurence Bazer, a retired U.S. Army colonel who is now a vice president at the JCC Association and the Jewish Welfare Board’s Jewish Chaplains Council, those words — from the Book of Isaiah — commanded him to be a light unto the nations. “And that’s not just to our own fellow Jews, but to the rest of the community,” Bazer told JI. 

A friend of his from the North Dakota National Guard once took Bazer, who served in the Massachusetts Army National Guard, to visit North Dakota’s state partner in Ghana. He sat down with a group of Ghanaian soldiers and told them to ask him anything they might want to know about Judaism. 

“Now, these are all Catholic, Protestant and Muslim chaplains from the Ghanaian army,” Bazer recalled. “I said, ‘You could ask me, like, why Jews don’t believe in the New Testament, or Jesus, whatever.’ That’s part of the role that I love doing, of being, again, ohr l’goyim, a light unto the nations, to be able to share the positive, affirming side of Judaism so that they felt enriched. It was all in true fellowship of, we’re all servants of the Divine.” 

Bazer spent his final years in the military in Washington, working full time in an active duty role at the National Guard’s headquarters. He oversaw the religious response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 racial-justice protests and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. 

“I was advising commanders up to four stars at a senior level about what’s going on religiously, which really meant the moral welfare of their troops,” said Bazer, who had served in New York during the 9/11 attacks and later led the chaplaincy response to the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013. “That emotional level affects readiness, and chaplains are the key to help that readiness.” 

In 2023, Bazer was asked to go to Europe to lead Passover services and programming for Jewish troops. He led Passover Seders in Germany and Poland, and then drove between Lithuania and Latvia, delivering matzah and visiting with Jewish soldiers. 

The Seder at Grafenwoehr took place on a large lawn on the base. After he spoke about opening the door for the prophet Elijah, a symbolic act tied to hope that the Messiah will come, a Christian chaplain on base who had attended the Seder pulled Bazer aside. He pointed to a tower that stood next to the lawn.

“He says, ‘You know, Hitler used to go up there and watch,’” Bazer said. The base — now so central to America’s operations in Europe — was once used by the Nazis. “To think that back then he used to watch the Nazis do formation, and now, in 2023 we’re holding a Passover Seder on the same base in the shadow of that tower is an incredible experience.”

Former British Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks was a towering figure in Jewish life whose unique blend of Torah and Western wisdom attracted adherents around the world for many years before his death in 2020.

Now, with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, approaching later this month, and the restarting of the cycle of reading the weekly Torah portion a few weeks later, Rabbi Sacks’ longtime Jerusalem-based publisher, Koren, is releasing a posthumously completed Koren Shalem Humash, with a new translation and insights to encourage deeper understanding of the Five Books of Moses.

Each spread features the words of the Humash in Hebrew — written in the clear Koren font, recognizable to users of the publisher’s popular prayer books — on one side. On the other side there is a new, modern English translation that Sacks completed in 2018. Below there are two of the standard commentaries: from the 11th-century French rabbi Rashi and second-century sage Onkelos, who translated the Torah into Aramaic. 

On the bottom half of the pages is Sacks’ own commentary, which he began writing before his death, after which The Rabbi Sacks Legacy continued his work based on his writings and speeches.

The story of the Koren Shalem Humash begins in 2006, Joanna Benarroch, president of The Rabbi Sacks Legacy, told Jewish Insider last week. At that time, Sacks began working on his popular series of books about the weekly Torah portion, Covenant and Conversation.

“He started writing it online every week,” Benarroch recalled. “He was the chief rabbi of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, based in London, but he started to build a global audience.” 

Sacks’ goals for Covenant and Conversation were “to make Torah relevant to us today, so it’s not just wisdom from 2,000-3,000 years ago today, but wisdom we can also take with us. It was very important to him for us to be proud, knowledgeable Jews and to share that with the next generation … to create new leaders who were proud, knowledgeable Jews. These were the things permeating his mind when he was writing,” Benarroch said.

After Rabbi Sacks’ death, Koren brought scholars, including the rabbi’s niece, Jessica Sacks, to compile elements of Covenant and Conversation, his many other books, his BBC Radio “Thought for the Day” segments and other essays and speeches to complete Sacks’ commentary on the Humash.

“The scholars beautifully weaved his ideas from each parasha [Torah portion] into detailed commentary,” Benarroch said. “It’s his words, very carefully crafted to give a whole picture of each parasha. The ideas are woven together in a way they had never before been [presented]. You have 15 years of writing and speaking on Bereishit [Genesis] crafted in this way.”

In his Passover Haggadah, quoted in the editor’s note of the Humash, Sacks wrote that “traditional commentaries are usually close readings of individual words and phrases rather than reflections on the meaning of the whole. That is a classic Jewish response and I have not hesitated to do likewise … But it is the great themes, the overarching principles, that are often neglected or taken for granted.” 

Sacks’ commentary combines both, in some places referring to specific words and phrases, and in others sharing insights on broader stories and ideas, which gives, Benarroch said, “an overview of what you can learn from the parasha. You’re coming out with a clear understanding of what it is about, with relevant ideas for today.”

Benarroch recounted recently being in synagogue and sitting near a non-Jewish visitor who was reading along to the Torah portion in English.

“I was mortified, because it was a parasha that was quite difficult, with a lot of blood and gore,” Benarroch said. “I wished at that point that the Rabbi Sacks Humash was available, because he would have given her a sense of what is going on and an understanding of the battles in the time of the Humash … He wanted people to understand the whole picture, to read it as a narrative.” 

She paid tribute to Sacks’ ability to “make very complicated things accessible.” 

In addition, the Humash features detailed references, such that if there is an idea a reader seeks to explore further, he or she can find the full essay, book or radio program it came from.

Benarroch worked for Sacks for 24 years, as executive director of the Office of the Chief Rabbi and then of his private office, and was key to establishing The Rabbi Sacks Legacy after his death. She said that the greatest lesson she’s taken from him is the importance of listening to and learning from one another. 

“He felt active listening was absolutely imperative for all of us. We talk a lot, but we don’t listen enough,” she said. “When he was writing his Humash, he felt he was connecting to God through it, and that for us to listen to the words and the messages, we must also listen closely to one another. Judaism is a religion of listening … in terms of unity, community, being part of the Jewish people.”

St. Louis’ Jewish community is reeling after a targeted antisemitic attack in the predawn hours of Tuesday morning on a family whose college-aged son served in the IDF.

The family, living in a quiet suburban neighborhood with a significant Jewish population, found three of their cars burned and a message spray-painted on the street which read, in part, “Death to the IDF.” Another part of the message specifically targeted the IDF veteran, local news reports and members of the local Jewish community said, but has not been publicly disclosed.

The attack has shaken a Jewish community that has faced frequent and heated protests since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel. This is the first time that activity has turned openly violent. Local and federal officials are investigating the attack as a hate crime.

“People are just really startled,” Rabbi Jeffrey Abraham, a board member of the Missouri Alliance Network, a local political organization dedicated to fighting antisemitism and supporting Israel, said. 

He said the local Jewish community has been “on edge” for months following the violent antisemitic attacks in Washington and Boulder, Colo. “But when it actually happens in your own backyard, it takes on a different meaning. I think people are legitimately worried and also just really upset.”

Abraham said that he and other Jewish leaders are in close touch with local law enforcement, but attacks targeting individual families are harder to prevent than those targeting Jewish institutions.

“[Law enforcement] know any time we’re having a service or event, but it’s hard to protect everyone’s individual home in the middle of the night,” Abraham said. He said he’d had a conversation earlier Wednesday with a congregant who asked if he should take down his mezuzah, for fear that it would make his home a target.

Stacey Newman, director of the Missouri Alliance Network, said the community is “completely on edge.”

“Everybody’s worried about their kids,” Newman continued. Newman said she’s heard about another family whose children had served in the IDF that had asked local police to keep a closer watch on their home.

A coalition of Jewish organizations including the local American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League and National Council of Jewish Women branches, the St. Louis Jewish Community Relations Council, Jewish Federation of St. Louis and the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum issued a joint statement condemning the attack.

“We condemn in the strongest terms the attack on members of our community last night. This is more than vandalism; it is a hateful act of intimidation and only the latest example of what happens when antisemitic and anti-Israel rhetoric are normalized,” the organizations said. “We are a resilient community, and we will not be deterred in our quest to uproot antisemitism and hatred, alone and with our partners. Antisemitism is a social ill that must be rejected by all of society.”

Local and federal officials have condemned the attack.

“This targeted attack against the Jewish community in St. Louis is horrific and must be met with full condemnation,” Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) said. “Antisemitism has no place in our society. Everyone involved in this awful attack must be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”

Rep. Wesley Bell (D-MO) said, “Hate in any form is unacceptable and should never be tolerated. Those responsible must be held accountable to the full extent of law.”

Leo Terrell, who leads the Department of Justice’s antisemitism task force, described the incident as “horrific,” and said that he had engaged the FBI and the attorney general, as well as spoken directly to the family and informed them that the DOJ task force will be focused on the attack.

“I am outraged. Antisemitic violence has no place in America, not in St. Louis and not anywhere,” Terrell said. “We will pursue every avenue to bring the perpetrators to justice. If you commit antisemitic hate crimes, you will be caught. And you will be held accountable.”

State Rep. George Hruza described the incident as “Jew-hatred violence” and an “act of pure evil,” linking it to the attacks in Washington and Boulder, Colo.

“Nothing happening in the world at large can justify such a hateful act,” Hruza said. “This incident is antisemitism, plain and simple. This act did not arise in a vacuum. Since the mass murder, torture, rapes, and hostage-taking by the terrorist group Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, antisemitic rhetoric has become commonplace in the United States. Tragically, with echoes of 1930s Germany, this rhetoric has fueled incitement to violence.”

Hruza, the son of a Holocaust survivor, said he is angry but committed to continuing to push to pass legislation to combat antisemitism in the state Legislature.

Newman and Abraham said that the IDF veteran in question had been individually targeted by protests in the past, when he delivered a speech in the community following his return from his service earlier this year.

A poster advertising that protest, reviewed by JI, includes the individual’s name and photograph, and the caption “Resistance is Justified, When People are Occupied,” and calls on supporters to “join us for a powerful demonstration to oppose the Zionist military presence in our community and to demand accountability for those who help commit atrocities abroad.”

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.”