On May 18th the Floor Session of the State Assembly began in prayer led by Rabbi Mona Alfi of Congregation B’nai Isreal, the oldest synagogue in California, founded during the Gold Rush, just down the street from the State Capitol where we were assembled on the meaningful occasion of the introduction of California Jewish Heritage Month, Bill ACR195.

To mark this occasion, 14 women and men were honored for their roles as community leaders. I traveled, with a small group of Angelenos, at the invitation of our friend, Karl Thurmond, one of the honorees, to support and celebrate him as he received this inaugural year honor for distinguished service to the Jewish community.

I was in the very same room a decade ago, accompanying another honoree, Michele Rodri z”l,  a Holocaust survivor and dear friend who was being honored along with an extraordinary group of survivor elders for their resilience, their lifetimes of service and as beacons of resilience and Jewish endurance. Since 2010, with Resolution 31, and with the creation of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus in 2013, these annual ceremonies were treasured by survivor elders, their families and the lawmakers who hosted them, and walked them, with dignity, ritual and respect, down the aisle.

In my years working with Holocaust survivors, I was often asked to nominate Holocaust survivor elders for this honor. Each year the invitation became harder to realize, my asks met with either “Thank you but I have been honored” or “I don’t think I can make the trip.” Each year it was clear there would come a day when that cycle, that rhythm, of honoring would become muted until the day when the legacy was finally an historic article and an indelible past.

On my first visit to the State Capitol, I was awed by the grandeur and history, as well as the vibrant emerald green carpet that I wasn’t expecting: somewhere between a shamrock, a newly mown lawn and a brand-new dollar bill. This time I expected that rush of green when I entered the room but was surprised that it was muted. Maybe the carpet was 10 years older? Maybe my eyes are older. This time it was a return to a sacred space, to an institution that held so much memory – I closed my eyes and imagined all the survivors I knew and didn’t know who progressed down this corridor, their district’s elected official holding their arm, supporting them physically and emotionally with their presence.

This May 18, with a calendar date “chai” dedicated to life and to Jewish service and leadership, I was touched by the power of ceremonial continuity. In the first piece I wrote for The Jewish Journal, 13 years ago, I explored the relay of history, passed dor v’ dor from survivor to child survivor to the generations who would follow them.

On this day, 14 remarkable honorees from across the state included Angelenos Julie and Jonah Platt and Karl Thurmond. Assembly member Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino), the bill’s co-author was joined by a long list of legislators who supported its proceeding. Gabriel lifted up the Jewish story over more than 175 years and expressed pride “that our Jewish community has contributed in deeply meaningful ways to the building of California,” citing contributions in building “not only synagogues and community institutions,  but  we have helped to build unions, universities, hospitals, film studios, tech companies, legal aid organizations and public institution that have strengthened American life for everyone.”

Many Assembly members shared potent words of allyship for their Jewish colleagues and constituents including Assembly member Isaac Bryan (D-Pico Robertson), who said: “I couldn’t be more honored to be here the first time that this floor is celebrating Jewish American History Month. Jewish American history is American history. It has made the world better. It has made our country better. It makes California better, and I respectfully ask for your aye vote”

On this morning, as the gathering commenced, Gabriel shared breaking preliminary news of the mosque shooting in San Diego. Three innocents murdered, two suspects dead and yet another community traumatized. A new tragedy to grieve and grapple with, in a line of incomprehensible and increasingly comprehensible tragedies where the preciousness of human life is subordinated to the brutality some humans will enact.

On this beautiful Sacramento morning,  in the face, perhaps in defiance of,  so much in the world that is painful, tenuous and deeply troubling, we convened and we lifted up what connects us–  the promise of growth and healing, and the potent ability for people to endure,  to create change, and to scaffold our communities in justice and truth. Rabbi Harold Schulweis z”l taught us that the memory of the Holocaust must be carried “as a flame and not a stone.” May the survivors, and their stories, memories and legacies , continue to light our way.

B’shem…..Michele Rodri z”l, Marie Kaufman z”l, Curt Lowens z”l, Armin Goldstein z”l, Freda Goldstein z”l, Idele Stapholz z”l, Maria Wida z”l. Peter Daniels z”l, Yisrael Zilberstein z”l, Lidia Budgor z”l, Joshua Kaufman z”l, Regina Lewin z”l, Jack Lewin z”l, Kalman Aron z”l, Henry Oster z”l, David Lenga z”l, Avraham Perlmutter z”l, Sarah Moskovitz z”l, Yitzchak Moskowitz  z”l,  Betty Cohen z”l, Dana Schwartz z”l, Vera Hirtz z”l and Estelle Laughlin z”l.

Samara Hutman is the co-founder of The Righteous Conversations Project, a program of Remember Us and Animate Possibility, a program of Second Nurture, where she serves as Associate Director.

For the first time, more than 700 attendees gathered in Toronto on Sunday, May 17 not to talk about Zionism, Israel, or antisemitism, but to examine antizionism as a distinct ideological phenomenon. The inaugural World Symposium Against Antizionism, hosted by Stop Antizionism, a newly launched educational initiative that I co-founded, and Tafsik, a Canadian organization, reflected a meaningful shift in how some Jewish thinkers and advocates believe the community should engage with the forces arrayed against it.

Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro delivered the keynote address with an argument that challenges a foundational assumption of pro-Israel advocacy: that Zionism still requires defense as a matter of legitimacy. Drawing on a simple analogy, Shapiro suggested that endlessly relitigating a nation’s right to exist is a category error. Nations are not granted existence through philosophical consensus; they earn and maintain it through persistence, will and action. Israel exists. That, he argued, should be the starting point of any serious conversation, not an open question requiring renewed justification.

By the close of the day, this thread was picked up in a fireside conversation between Shapiro and myself. I asked: “Zionism has fulfilled its purpose. How useful is this word for us?” Shapiro’s response framed the stakes clearly: “Antizionism is evil, it is wrong, it is predicated on lies and it requires violence to achieve the ends it seeks.”

The symposium was organized around a conceptual distinction that Stop Antizionism considers foundational: the difference between misinformation and disinformation. Pro-Israel advocacy has operated on the assumption that antizionism spreads because people lack accurate information, that correction and education are the appropriate remedies. The symposium challenged that premise directly.

Antizionism is not a collection of honest errors awaiting correction. It is a structured ideological system with roots in Soviet-era propaganda, designed not to inform but to subvert. Libels, by their nature, do not respond to factual rebuttal, they operate through emotional and moral channels that bypass evidentiary standards.

This framing was reinforced empirically at a panel on “Antizionism and Disinformation,” where researcher Zack Dulberg presented findings from a recent study. The data revealed that antizionism correlates with what the researchers termed “moral inversion”: individuals expressing stronger anti-Israel views also showed greater endorsement of Soviet and Nazi propaganda, more authoritarian political dispositions and more favorable assessments of governments with documented human rights abuses. The pattern suggests that antizionism is not simply a political position but may function as a marker of broader ideological distortion.

Shapiro’s assertion that antizionism is both immoral and untruthful points toward a broader cultural argument. Shapiro is correct because antizionism is a stress test. It tests whether a society, here the West, still believes that success itself is suspect. It tests whether narrative outweighs truth, and whether nationalism can still be understood as a virtuous force rather than an inherently immoral one. It tests whether false idols, such as a distorted notion of justice, i.e. social justice, have replaced a genuinely moral worldview.

The fact that antizionism has gained considerable purchase in mainstream Western discourse raises serious questions about the health of those conceptual frameworks, quite apart from the specific question of Israel. Writer Alana Newhouse’s recent essay in Tablet, “Zionism for Everyone,” offers a blueprint for how the West might regain its footing. She argues that Zionism should be embraced as a model of virtuous nationalism, pluralism and success. The broader argument animating the symposium, however, is more foundational. I would frame the task even more simply: the first step is to reject antizionism itself, an unethical and untruthful worldview that breeds moral corruption.

Rooted in my “Three-Era Framework” of Jew-hatred — anti-Judaism, antisemitism and antizionism — the symposium exposed antizionism as the contemporary mutation of anti-Jewish hostility and analyzed how it functions within modern political and cultural discourse. The event brought together scholars, journalists, legal experts, educators, policymakers and activists to discuss antizionism across academia, media, law, politics, and culture. Other speakers included former Soviet refusenik and human-rights activist Natan Sharansky, author and scholar Dr. Einat Wilf, evolutionary psychologist Dr. Gad Saad, and young voices such as Moderate Case, Nick Matau and Eyal Yakoby.

One of the symposium’s more arresting intellectual contributions came from Dr. Saad, evolutionary behavioral scientist and author of the recent bestseller “Suicidal Empathy.” Drawing on his signature method of applying evolutionary biology to cultural and psychological phenomena, Saad offered a model for understanding one of the more painful and perplexing dimensions of contemporary Jewish life: the participation of Jews in narratives that demonize Jews.

Saad’s analogy centered on the hairworm parasite, Spinochordodes tellinii, which infects the wood cricket and, in a process, gradually hijacks the insect’s central nervous system. The parasite reprograms it. The infected cricket, which would under normal circumstances avoid water, is compelled by the parasite to seek it out and leap in, an act of behavioral self-destruction that serves the parasite’s reproductive needs while killing the host. The cricket does not know it has been hijacked. From the inside, the compulsion feels like its own.

Saad’s argument is that certain social and ideological environments function analogously. When Jews adopt the framing of the antizionist worldview, amplifying narratives that demonize Israel, affirming libels that would have been recognizable to earlier generations as classic antisemitic libels, or lending their Jewish identity as a kind of moral credential to movements that traffic in the demonization of Jews, they are not exercising independent moral reasoning. They are, in Saad’s formulation, exhibiting the behavior of an organism whose motivational architecture has been captured by an external force.

What makes the analogy particularly apt is its emphasis on the involuntary quality of the behavior. Saad is not primarily making a moral accusation against individual Jews who have drifted into antizionism. He is making a structural and psychological argument: that sophisticated ideological systems can produce genuine belief in their hosts, and that the sincerity of a belief offers no protection against its being externally engineered. The cricket leaps into the water believing, in whatever sense a cricket can be said to believe anything, that it is doing what it wants to do.

The implication for the broader conversation at the symposium is significant. If antizionism operates as an idea pathogen rather than a good-faith political position, then the appropriate response is not simply to refute its factual claims; it is to understand its mechanism of transmission, identify the conditions that make certain individuals susceptible, and develop what Saad calls “ideological immune resistance.”

This first step in that process is appropriately naming the virus. It is called antizionism and has been terrorizing the West for at least two decades. Unfortunately, many within the established Jewish leadership and organizations are resistant to confronting antizionism, often hosting trainings on antisemitism guided by the principle that success means “Jews are liked.” This failing principle is not the answer to hate. Antizionism is a lethal hate worldview. The answer must not be pouring millions of donor money into how to bridge between communities, make better alliances or get a seat at the DEI tables. No, a new and bold approach must be taken: name, confront, and run a countersubversive campaign against antizionism. The symposium is the beginning. As one participant who attended the event said, “Wow, I did not realize I had been using an approach that is not helpful. I did not know that antizionism has its own history. I did not know about the Soviet origins. I am ready to fight back with the correct language.”

Naya Lekht is currently the Education Editor for White Rose Magazine and a Research Fellow for the Institute for Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy.

At American Jewish University (AJU)’s May 19 gala at Stephen Wise Temple, nearly 400 attendees rose in unison, their voices blending as they recited the ancient Priestly Blessing: “May the Lord bless you and protect you. May the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you.” The words carried a quiet power as they honored Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson and celebrated his quarter century at AJU and the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies.

A leading voice in Conservative Judaism, Artson has long shaped Jewish thought and leadership far beyond the walls of AJU. He reaches thousands through his weekly Torah commentary and prolific writing, including 11 books and more than 300 articles.

Recognizing both his enduring influence and the opportunity to expand it, AJU President and CEO Jay Sanderson — who marks his first year at the helm — recalled waking in the middle of the night with the idea of creating a scholar-in-residence–type role. “And I realized it’s Brad,” he said, announcing the creation of the Goldstine Distinguished Scholar position in Artson’s honor, a role he will assume on July 1, allowing him to continue serving as a teacher and scholar across AJU’s many programs.

In a way, the evening was a tribute to Artson’s career, as well as a welcome into his new position. It is not every day that someone hears from colleagues and friends just how deeply they are appreciated and loved, and Artson appeared visibly moved as former students and longtime friends spoke about the impact he has had on their lives.

Actress Mayim Bialik initially declined to emcee the event due to a prior commitment in Tel Aviv. When that engagement was canceled, she immediately called back to say she would be able to attend after all and was glad to take on the role. A close friend of Artson’s, Bialik told the audience, “I’m not going to tell you funny jokes, I’m here to honor Brad,” adding, “they don’t make men like him anymore.”

Rabbi Cheryl Peretz, who has known Artson for more than 30 years, reflected on a relationship that has spanned her entire professional life. She was a student at the Ziegler School when she dared to approach the dean for a job. “I told him, ‘You should hire me,’” she said.

She added that she did not know whether it would work, but it did, and Rabbi Artson has been an important part of her life and work for the past 27 years. “He has been my teacher, my chavruta, and my friend,” she said.

On July 1, Peretz will assume the role of interim dean of the Ziegler School, where she will oversee academic leadership, faculty, curriculum and student development following Artson’s transition into the Goldstine Distinguished Scholar position.

The gala opened with an outdoor reception under the sky, featuring an abundant spread that included sushi, falafel, salads, fish and shawarma alongside an open bar before the formal program began. Musician Craig Taubman provided entertainment with a brief performance. He was introduced by Mayim Bialik, who lightheartedly admitted she had a childhood crush on Taubman.

After being presented with an award — an art piece designed by an Israeli artist — Artson offered reflections on his 25 years at the Ziegler School. He described the evening as “a combination of my wake and my bar mitzvah,” drawing laughter from the audience.

In his remarks, he also reflected on his life, saying that the best decision he ever made was marrying his wife Elana, whom he met when she was 19. The couple has twins, Shira and Jacob. He also offered heartfelt thanks to his mother, adding that he feels he has “the best family in the world.”

The gala, which raised more than $1.6 million in support of AJU’s future, capped a significant week for American Jewish University. On May 17, its Masor School for Jewish Education and Leadership celebrated commencement, marking an historic milestone as seven students received the university’s inaugural Doctor of Education (EdD) degrees in Early Childhood Education Leadership. Held at AJU’s Brandeis-Bardin Campus in Simi Valley, the ceremony also honored 28 graduates earning Master of Arts degrees in Early Childhood Education and nine graduates receiving Bachelor of Arts degrees in the field, each preparing to shape the next generation of Jewish learning and leadership.

The following day, the Ziegler School ordained the newest rabbis in the Conservative movement — Rabbi Brianah Caplan and Rabbi Cantor Malachi Kanfer — while also conferring honorary doctorates upon members of the Class of 2006 in recognition of their leadership and impact.

During the ordination ceremony on May 18, Artson told the congregation from the bimah of Sinai Temple, “It gives me great pleasure to present to this community the world’s newest rabbis!”

“This week was a powerful reminder that AJU is more than an institution,” said Sanderson. “It is a community built by people who care deeply about Jewish life, Jewish learning, and Jewish leadership.”