The American Jewish Committee and the Secure Community Network have issued a Memorandum of Agreement to formalize and expand their long-standing collaboration to defend Jewish communities in the United States.

The alliance, announced on Dec. 13, will increase coordination in promoting public policies, growing hate crime reporting and developing safety initiatives. SCN will also increase intelligence and information sharing, security training and physical security assessments.

Ted Deutch, CEO of AJC, cited a recent committee survey that “showed 87% of American Jews think that antisemitism has increased in the U.S. after October 7, the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.”

“This partnership between SCN and AJC will allow us to better combat this surge and keep the American Jewish community safe, secure and resilient,” Deutch said.

Michael Masters, SCN national director and CEO, explained that the alliance between the two groups “allows us to better protect and empower the Jewish community in the face of rising antisemitism, threats and targeted violence.”

“This is another important step in organizations in the Jewish community working more closely to put the needs and concerns of the community first, and renews our shared commitment to confronting the threats facing our community head-on in service of empowering the community to live proudly Jewish lives,” Masters said. 

For years, Manischewitz has sold potato latke mixes, whether vegetable, low-salt or gluten-free. This year, the 136-year-old company joins other kosher purveyors, like Golden, in offering the product.

The company’s new frozen latkes will make Jewish cuisine more accessible to everyday consumers, Shani Seidman, chief marketing officer of Kayco, Manischewitz’s parent company, told JNS.

“When you think about Manischewitz over the past 130 years, it has always been associated with the shelf-stable kosher aisle,” Seidman said. “One of the strategies behind our rebrand was to become part of the grocery experience, the buying experience for the everyday shopper, which is not necessarily always in that one section of the supermarket.”

With many consumers buying more frozen than fresh food, “now that we have a frozen product line, it gives people an opportunity to have your favorite Jewish dishes when you need them,” Seidman said. “We offer convenience since you don’t even have to turn on a flame. You don’t have to be busy peeling, cutting and shredding potatoes. But you can still have yummy latke with no prep.”

Hasia Diner, professor emerita of history, and Hebrew and Jewish studies, at New York University and director of the American Jewish history center there, told JNS that “Manischewitz has always had this great business strategy of using technology to provide manufactured products in a kosher fashion.”

“They ensure kosher certification to appeal to the Jewish public, even though the foods that they sell are themselves totally American,” added Diner, who is the author of the 2003 book Hungering for America: Italian, Irish and Jewish Foodways in the Age of Migration.

“By offering frozen latkes, they are continuing a tradition that goes back to their company’s founding, since many people find frozen food to be more convenient and certainly don’t have the time to make latkes from scratch,” Diner told JNS.

JNS called several kosher food stores to ask if they are stocking the frozen Manischewitz latkes. Western Kosher, in the Pico-Robertson neighborhood of Los Angeles, confirmed that it is selling the frozen potato pancakes at $4.99 for a box of 10.

Adapting foods is an integral part of Jewish cultural history, according to the historian.

“There is no such thing as ‘traditional Jewish food,’ because Jewish people have always adapted the food around them, whether Jews in Yemen, Jews in Morocco or 14th-century Spanish Jews, Jews have always eaten the same foods as their neighbors just in a kosher-style,” she said. “Selling a frozen latke is just a continuation of millennia-old tradition, in which Jews take advantage of technology to adapt their own foods.”

Diner told JNS that it’s important to remember that there weren’t any potatoes in Europe until the 18th century.

“So none of our ancestors would have had potato latkes at all until fairly recently,” she said. “The Maccabees did not celebrate their victory with potato latkes.” (Growing up, Diner remembers her mother, who she says wasn’t educated about the history of Jewish food, telling her in the 1950s that it was “so goyish” to use latke mixes.)

Seidman, of Mainischewitz’s parent company, told JNS that the company offers a Jewish take on traditional holiday products.

‘Part of tradition and legacy’

“We have a lot of different products that can help families enjoy the holiday season, like our dreidel-themed cookie-decorating kits,” she said. “It’s a big deal over December, something that crosses cultures, and now it doesn’t have to just be for Christmas, Jewish families can now participate in the same activity.”

Manischewitz's new frozen product joins its larger collection of Chanukah-themed items, including its potato pancake mix, chocolate gelt and a pre-baked sugar cookie kit.

The company underwent a major rebranding earlier this year, launching new packaging that it hopes will appeal to modern consumers while maintaining the brand’s Jewish legacy, according to Seidman. 

“Most of the packaging, you will notice, is orange because we wanted to have a bold feel yet still have a retro color scheme that would harken back to a time when Manischewitz was very much a part of the cultural zeitgeist of the 1960s and 1970s,” she said. “You’ll also see ‘Yiddishisms’ on the back of the box, as we call them, which is part of a tradition and legacy that we don’t want to let go of.” 

Yiddish is undergoing a “renaissance,” particularly in New York, according to Seidman.

“I think there are words that are just like New Yorker words now, like schlep and schvitz, which are not just for Jewish New Yorkers but are so ingrained in the culture right now,” she said. “We wanted our brand to reflect that.”

‘About creating connections’

Jake Retzlaff, the Jewish quarterback for the Brigham Young University Cougars in Provo, Utah, is partnering with Manischewitz—the brand’s first sports sponsorship in its history, it announced earlier this month.

“Retzlaff, known as the ‘BY Jew’ is proud of his identity and totally embraced by his teammates, which is why we felt he was the perfect person to form a partnership with,” Seidman told JNS.

The Jewish quarterback noted that Manischewitz “has always been part of my life.”

“I grew up with matzah with peanut butter as my favorite snack, and every Passover, my family and I made matzah pizza together,” he stated. “At Chanukah time, our tradition was making potato latkes. Now at BYU, I’m able to share these traditions with my teammates.”

“This partnership is about more than football,” he added. “It’s about creating connections and celebrating Jewish pride in ways I never expected.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is accusing the U.S. State Department of having influenced U.S. airlines to suspend flights to Israel indefinitely.

“The Biden-Harris administration was lax in pursuing why some airlines will not fly to Israel,” Cruz said in a statement to Jewish Insider. “Indeed, they may have been worse than lax, and the State Department may have become inappropriately entangled in deliberations over safety and subverted the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration].”

He stated that “there have been allegations about antisemitic discrimination by airlines and that calls by unions not to fly to Israel were motivated solely by pro-Hamas activists.”

“These allegations are troubling, and, of course, American law prohibits American companies from participating in politically motivated boycotts of Israel,” he added.

Cruz, the incoming chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, said he “welcomes a full investigation of these issues” after more than a year of airlines refusing to resume regular service to the Jewish state. 

American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines suspended flights to Israel with varying end dates, leaving El Al as the only company providing direct flights between the United States and Israel.

“One of the things that Iran is trying to accomplish is to isolate Israel economically. This is just another sign of that,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said as airlines began their cancellations of flights to Israel earlier this year.

Shmuel Zakai, head of the Israeli Civil Aviation Authority, called the flight cancellations “significant,” adding that the main reason for the cancellations was that “flight crews are deterred from coming to Israel.” 

“Flights to Israel are safe,” he said, calling Israel’s airspace “absolutely safe.”

Three New Jersey lawmakers introduced legislation in the state assembly on Friday to move the June 3 date of the scheduled primary elections since it coincides with the holiday of Shavuot.

The two-day Jewish holiday begins on the evening of June 1 and ends after sundown on June 3, 2025.

Changing the date needs to be resolved through the state legislature.

To that end, bill A5149, which is being championed by Assemblyman Gary Schaer (D-Passaic), calls for the primary date to be moved one week to June 10 and allows for future adjustments to primary schedules if the date “coincides with a period of religious observance.” State Assembly Majority Leader Louis Greenwald and Assemblymember Yvonne Lopez are also sponsoring the bill.

Moving the date has the support of the state’s political leadership.

“The right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy, and everyone deserves the freedom to have their voice heard at the ballot box,” according to a statement signed by New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, State Senate President Nick Scutari and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin. “We have an obligation to encourage participation and ensure everyone can participate in and trust our electoral system. We cannot allow deeply held and legitimate religious beliefs to become a barrier to voting. We support moving the 2025 primary to June 10 and will work together to accomplish that goal,” they said.

More than 600,000 Jews live in New Jersey, making it the fourth-largest Jewish population in the United States after New York, California and Florida. Additionally, it has a large percentage of observant Jews in areas like Lakewood, Jackson, Teaneck and Bergenfield, who would be unable to vote in-person at the polls if the primary remains on June 3.

Kiran Sheth, a press aide for New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, told JNS on Thursday that the governor recognizes that “many Orthodox Jewish voters are not able to work, travel, write or use electronics that day. The governor is committed to ensuring that our democratic process remains inclusive and accessible to all New Jersey voters.”

Linda Scherzer, head of the Jewish Community Relations Council for the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest, said: “This is a very important year for the State of New Jersey in terms of the primaries. There are serious candidates running for the next governor of the state, and this will obviously affect us in a personal way. We feel on a profound level that we need to have the same access to the voting booth as every other person should have and every accommodation should be made.”

Among those running for the governorship on the Democratic ticket are Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka; and Reps. Josh Gottheimer and Mikie Sherill. Republican candidates include state Sen. Jon Bramnick and former state assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli.

Research reveals the evolution of teens’ social-media preferences since 2014, showing declines in older platforms and greater popularity among video and image-centric networks.

Pew released the results of a survey on Thursday of U.S. teens aged 13 through 17, conducted from Sept. 18 to Oct. 10.

YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat dominated the list with 90%, 63%, 61% and 55% of teens surveyed, respectively, reporting using each platform.

Facebook and X have shown large drops in popularity over the last decade, according to Pew’s research. In 2014, 71% of teens said they used Facebook. That number has fallen to 32% among today’s respondents. Likewise, X usage tumbled from 33% in 2014 (previously, Twitter) to 17% in 2024.

One platform that has seen recent growth is WhatsApp. While 17% of teens reported using it in 2022, today the number has increased to 23%. It is one of the preferred messaging programs used by Israelis as well.

Most platforms saw little partisan differences between Republican and Democratic teens with the exception of TikTok, in which 73% of Democratic teens versus 52% of Republican teens participated.

Some of the youth using these platforms report “almost constant” use. Of the 73% who use YouTube daily, 15% describe an “almost constant” engagement with the site’s videos. Likewise, of the approximately 60% of respondents who say they use TikTok daily, 16% report constant use.

“It’s alarming but not surprising that so many teens are on social media ‘almost constantly,’” Daniel Kelley, director of strategy and operations, and acting head of the ADL Center for Technology and Society, told JNS.

Across YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook, Pew says one-third of teens admit to almost constant use.

Kelley explained that “the main issue isn’t necessarily which platform someone is using, it’s that the algorithms keep feeding toxic content to the young people who spend the most time in these spaces, just to keep engagement up, and therefore causing a vicious cycle that leads to more and more hateful content.”

Despite disagreements between Washington and Jerusalem and tension between U.S. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Robert Wood, the deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told JNS in an extended interview that he has never gotten the sense that Biden would approve an abstention, as former President Barack Obama did, on a U.N. Security Council resolution about Israeli settlements in eastern Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria.

“No,” Wood said emphatically during a sit-down at U.N. headquarters in New York. “I haven’t seen that at all. The president has been very consistent in terms of our support for Israel across a range of fronts.”

“Are we heading toward a 2016 moment? No,” he told JNS.

The U.S. Congress has barred funding for the scandal-plagued U.N. Relief and Works Agency until at least March, and that ban is widely expected to be extended. President-elect Donald Trump and some of his nominees and allies in Congress have questioned whether U.S. tax dollars should continue to fund the global body.

But as the Biden administration winds down, as does Wood’s tenure in Turtle Bay, the U.S. diplomat said that he has no doubt about whether the United Nations can make itself “fit for purpose.”

“Going forward, I’ve come to believe that it is important to maintain the United Nations. If we didn’t have it we’d have to create it, just to have that forum to try to solve problems collectively,” Wood said. “The problem with the United Nations is there is a real stream of antisemitism.”

Both Wood and Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, have fought “very hard” against Jew-hatred at the global body, he told JNS. He aims to continue to push the United Nations to reform from the outside after his tenure.

The more the United Nations strays from its founding ideals, “the more difficult it is and the less support it will have going forward,” Wood said. “For the remainder of this administration, we’re going to continue to push for reform in the United Nations and to make clear antisemitism throughout the U.N. system will not be tolerated by the United States.”

It is critical for the global body to address the question of “whether or not there were certain Hamas elements operating within UNRWA,” Wood told JNS. “These need to be taken seriously, and we have insisted with the United Nations that ‘you have to take it seriously, and there has to be investigations of individuals.’”

Israel and others have documented that a number of UNRWA employees participated in the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas has stated publicly that some U.N. staffers were among its terror ranks.

Unlike some of his Israeli counterparts, Wood told JNS that UNRWA is irreplaceable and is the only entity that can carry out its unique mandate. The Jewish state has passed legislation curtailing UNRWA’s presence in Jerusalem and its ability to work in Gaza. Those laws are set to take effect shortly after the Trump administration assumes power.

Some have predicted that the Jewish state will implement the legislation selectively or will scale it back. Wood predicted that “Israel is going to go forward and implement” the laws it passed. 

“I think this is an opportunity for the U.N. secretariat to get on the right side of this issue with regard to the need to make sure that there aren’t terrorist elements operating within UNRWA,” he told JNS. “Many people are on different sides of it, but UNRWA reforms are important to survive and go forward.” 

Syria

The U.N. Security Council had a “productive conversation” behind closed doors and reached an informal consensus on Monday about the fall of Bashar Assad, the former Syrian president, Wood told JNS.

“The view that came out of the consultations, if you want to talk about a consensus, was that this was a great moment for Syria,” Wood said, noting that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the terror group that led the lighting offensive that led to Assad’s exile, is saying the right things but will need to be judged based on its actions.

There don’t tend to be such productive closed discussions on sensitive topics, but Syria was an exception, as members of the council felt that the country’s “sovereignty, territorial integrity be respected and that the Syrian people be treated with the dignity and respect they deserve.”

Wood’s comment that closed council meetings tend to be less productive contrasts with the theatrical nature of the council’s public meetings, particularly those about Israel and the Palestinians. Critics have increasingly said that the council fails to tackle major challenges, resorting instead to public recriminations of geopolitical rivals, with a West against East divide on full display.

“To be honest with you, the council does function,” Wood told JNS. “We do get some things done, but on the bigger issues of peace and security, sometimes it’s difficult because of the divisions of the council.”

“On certain resolutions that need to be renewed, we do manage to find the common ground even if it’s just agreeing to a technical rollover for another year,” Wood said. “Given the divisions in the council, I know it’s surprising for some that we actually do get things done, but we do.”

Since Oct. 7, Washington has grown increasingly isolated at the council for its refusal, as the other 14 members have, to call for a permanent ceasefire without the condition of Hamas releasing the hostages in Gaza.

The Biden administration has used its veto power, as a permanent member of the council, four times to thwart resolutions that would have ordered an end to the war. It abstained on a resolution in March—to great objection from Jerusalem—calling for a short-term ceasefire and phased-in hostage deal, but that resolution passed without any effect once the Ramadan holiday, upon which it was structured, ended a few weeks later.  

Wood told JNS that Washington has no regrets and is willing to bear the brunt of criticism from global capitals.

“Our support for Israel is ironclad, and that comes across, of course, in our public statements but also in closed consultations,” Wood said. 

“There are countries that try to take advantage of the situation,” he said, referring apparently to Russia and its allies, which consistently attack the United States at the council. “We have said for a long time that the best way to get a ceasefire in Gaza is to make sure that we have a resolution that addresses not only a ceasefire, but hostage release.”

“There are some countries on the council that don’t like that particular framework,” Wood said. “We have insisted.” 

There is now “the chance to create a new possibility in the Middle East,” Wood said. “Hopefully there’ll be some positive spillover into the Gaza discussions.” 

Both U.S. and Israeli officials have said recently that a ceasefire might be in reach due to Israel degrading Hezbollah and the fall of Assad’s regime. Both the terror group and the dictator were Iranian proxies, as is Hamas.

“We’ve heard so much about the so-called ‘axis of resistance.’ I think what we’re seeing now is it’s become an axis of impotence,” Wood told JNS.

JNS asked if Washington feels vindicated for saying that the council cannot force a permanent ceasefire on Israel and Hamas without it emerging from negotiations.

“‘Vindication’ is not the word, because I think we still have a long way to go,” Wood said. “I think it’s just that patient diplomacy is the only way we’re going to get to a resolution of the situation in Gaza. But I think you do have to maintain a strong position, not only diplomatically but militarily, to send a message to those who would like to see the entire Middle East unravel that, ‘No. We’re not going to let this happen.’” 

Wood defended the Biden administration’s position, for which it has been widely criticized, that Israel hasn’t done enough to provide humanitarian aid to Gazan civilians. Wood said that Washington was right to demand in October that the Jewish state make some changes.

“Many will say they didn’t adhere to what we had requested, in particular, specific things that were requested, but I think in its totality, Israel did a lot,” he said. “We’re starting to see an improvement.”

The University of Michigan has fired an administrator in its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) office for allegedly making antisemitic comments during a conversation with two professors at an academic conference in late March.

Rachel Dawson, the former director of the Office of Academic Multicultural Initiatives, was accused of saying that “the university is controlled by wealthy Jews” and “we don’t work with Jews. They are wealthy and privileged, and take care of themselves,” according to documents obtained by CNN.

She is also accused of stating that “Jewish people have ‘no genetic DNA’ that would connect them to the land of Israel.”

The former administrator denies making the statements that led to her firing on Dec. 10 and plans to sue the university.

“The law is extremely clear that public employees are protected by their First Amendment rights,” Dawson’s lawyer said.

The New York Times reported that a university spokeswoman declined to confirm on Dec. 12 whether Dawson had been fired, saying that the university would not comment on personnel matters.

In August, the Anti-Defamation League’s Michigan branch sent the university a letter outlining the allegations against Dawson. In response, university officials called on outside law firm Covington & Burling LLP to conduct an investigation.

The law firm’s Sept. 25 investigation summary stated that, while they could not “determine with certainty whether Ms. Dawson made the exact remarks attributed to her” due to a lack of recording and no other witnesses beyond the two reporting parties, “the weight of the available evidence supports ADL Michigan’s report.”

Jewish Theological Seminary has received a $2.5 million donation from trustee Robert Rifkind to support a new professorship focused on American Jewish history.

JTS announced on Dec. 12 that the endowment will establish the Rifkind Professorship of Jewish History to be held by a newly appointed tenured or tenure-track JTS faculty member. A search for the professorship’s inaugural holder is underway. 

“The large, energetic and prosperous Jewish population of America will inevitably continue to have a profound influence on the future of Judaism and Jewish civilization in the years ahead,” Rifkind said. “To bear that responsibility, it needs to understand itself, its strengths and shortcomings, its challenges and opportunities. It is the indispensable role of JTS to help explore, shape and articulate that understanding.” 

Jeffrey S. Kress, JTS provost, told JNS that “the new professor will specialize in but is not limited to areas of study related to American Judaism, the American Jewish community, and the relationship between American Jews and Israel.”

Chancellor Shuly Rubin Schwartz noted that “the Rifkind Professorship will ensure that JTS students from across our academic programs will graduate with an appreciation for the complexity and richness of the American Jewish experience.”

Rabbi Joel Seltzer, vice chancellor of institutional advancement, said that Rifkind’s “generous contribution will significantly enhance our academic programs and further our commitment to excellence in the field of American Jewish history.”

He told JNS that the donation is “the largest single gift to JTS since the completion of our Crossroads Campaign, which resulted in the creation of our state-of-the-art campus. 

“This generous gift from a longtime trustee and supporter of JTS represents a profound investment in the future of Jewish scholarship in North America,” Seltzer said. “It underscores the vital importance of understanding our past to gain deeper insights into our present.”

Kenneth L. Marcus, a former assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education, told JNS on the sidelines of the Tikvah Fund’s Jewish Leadership Conference that he likes what he sees so far from President-elect Donald Trump’s nominees for the department and the U.S. Justice Department.

Trump has announced Pam Bondi, a former Florida attorney general, as his nominee for U.S. attorney general, and Linda McMahon as his choice for education secretary.

“Both of them seem to be both conversant about the issues and committed to addressing antisemitism,” Marcus told JNS in New York on Sunday. “Moreover, we know that they will be implementing the agenda of a president, who has spoken out forcefully against campus antisemitism. So, that bodes very well.”

Marcus addressed the president-elect’s nominees in a personal capacity, rather than his role as president and founder and chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, a nonpartisan group that does not take political positions.

He said that he is, so far, “encouraged by everything that I have been hearing and seeing” about Bondi and McMahon.

No matter how Trump’s administration takes shape, the Brandeis Center will continue to be “very broad” in the cases of alleged Jew-hatred that it takes on when it believes the allegations give rise to a legal course of action.

The center is “building up our litigation muscle so that we have the ability not just to bring administrative actions” before the Education Department’s civil rights office but also in state and federal courts, where the center has about a dozen pending cases. (At the Tikvah event, Shabbos Kestenbaum, who is suing Harvard University, said that Marcus now represents him.)

“We are also adjusting to the present moment so that we can both blanket the administrative agencies with the administrative cases,” Marcus told JNS, “but also on a selective basis bring them bigger, larger-scale lawsuits.”

While serving in the Education Department during the George W. Bush administration, Marcus developed what became known as the “Marcus Doctrine,” an interpretation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that would grant broader protections for the rights of ethnic groups, including Jews, that exhibit religious characteristics.

He founded the Brandeis Center in 2011 and has helmed it, excluding a two-year stint as assistant secretary of education for civil rights in the first Trump administration.

He used both platforms to pursue cases of campus antisemitism vigorously through the legal system.

Marcus told JNS that such work is safe, regardless of the Trump administration’s potential moves on the Education Department. The president-elect and some of his allies have threatened to abolish the department altogether—something that some experts say would be at least exceedingly difficult to do.

Suing educational institutions for alleged Jew-hatred might have to “be taken under a different address,” perhaps the Justice Department, according to Marcus.

“It is entirely possible that this will be a strong benefit, a strong plus, and here’s how it would work,” he said. “There may be fewer administrative cases of a lesser degree of significance that are pursued, but those that are pursued will be done with much greater vigor.”

The Justice Department has the power to bring far more resources to bear and to generate greater accountability through its investigations than the Education Department, according to Marcus. He added that major existential changes at the Education Department aren’t expected “to happen overnight.”

“There’s no reason to assume that it will lead to weaker, as opposed to stronger, enforcement in the cases that we care about,” he said.

“Not to worry,” he added. “It can all work out.”