Emily Benedek

Sep 10, 2024 | tabletmag.com | Emily Benedek

On Tuesday night, Sept. 3, Ilya Bratman—U.S. Army veteran, CUNY English teacher, and Hillel executive director at eight CUNY and SUNY schools—hosted a welcome-back dinner for Hillel students at a kosher restaurant near Baruch College. Soon after their entrance into Mr. Broadway, guests were surrounded by a chanting, braying, mob. “CUNY, CUNY, You can’t hide.

May 1, 2024 | tabletmag.com | Emily Benedek

Ari Kalker fought in the 551st commando brigade in northern Gaza until the end of January. He is an infantryman whose job it is to protect and provide support to the battalion commander and his team of officers (fire support, intelligence, and so on) as they move through the operating theater and direct the operations of the battalion. “Our job is to help the battalion commander perform his work efficiently, and keep him and his team from being killed,” Kalker says.

Feb 15, 2024 | tabletmag.com | Emily Benedek

Itai Reuveni, a 40-year-old Israeli father, was awakened in his home near Jerusalem during the early morning hours of Oct. 7 by the eerie wail of incoming rocket sirens and the explosions of Iron Dome interceptors in the sky over his head. Not long after, his phone blew up with “endless videos of murder and executions,” images of Israelis dying in towns not even 30 kilometers away from his family home in Ashkelon, where his father and younger brothers live.

Jan 2, 2024 | tabletmag.com | Emily Benedek

It was a belated awakening. For many American Jews, Oct. 7 uncovered the deep rot in the elite institutions they had invested in for decades, psychically and financially. A recent poll found that 73% of Jewish students experienced or witnessed antisemitic incidents since the beginning of this academic school year, a 22-fold increase over the year before. Jewish students have been punched, spat upon, assaulted with sticks, shouted at, and corralled by students in kaffiyehs.

Nov 13, 2023 | tabletmag.com | Emily Benedek

Israeli street artist Nitzan Mintz, 32, and her partner, Dede Bandaid, 36, had just arrived in New York to study at the MANA Contemporary Art Center in Jersey City, when Hamas terrorists crashed through the Gaza border fence and unleashed their barbaric rampage of murder, rape, arson, and torture on Jewish communities inside Israel. The shocked couple withdrew from their art program before it had even started, and tried to think of what they could do to help the desperate situation at home.