Media coverage of Stephen Wise Free Synagogue has included feature articles and highlights in the many local, national and international news outlets. Below is some select coverage that highlight the synagogue.
Press inquiries may be directed to Communications Director Ryan Greiss at rgreiss@swfs.org or (212) 877-4050, ext. 267.
NY Jewish Week: Jewish advocates demand policy changes to combat antisemitism at NYC public high schools
Dec 22, 2023
While public discourse on antisemitism in schools has largely focused on college campuses, a series of activists say that the same trends are manifesting in New York City’s high schools. Rabbi Rena Rifkin, who works with about 250 middle and high school students at Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, said that Oct. 7 had “opened the floodgates,” and made students more aware of persistent antisemitism, but that school hasn’t given them tools to cope with it. And while a range of voices are calling on schools to more proactively address antisemitism, Rabbi Tracy Kaplowitz cautioned, “If we rely on the media, public schools, private schools to deliver what should be a part of our kids’ Jewish education, they’re going to do a terrible job at it,” she said. “And they’re going to leave our kids lost.”
The New York Times: A Fraught Question for the Moment: Is Anti-Zionism Always Antisemitic?
Dec 10, 2023
The brutal shedding of Jewish blood on Oct. 7, followed by Israel’s assault on Gaza, has brought a fraught question to the fore: Is anti-Zionism by definition antisemitism? “We’re living in an increasingly post-religious age, and any Jewish community that walks away from the Jewish people, and its most articulate expression of our times — the Jewish state, the state of Israel — is walking away from their own future,” said our Rabbi Ammi Hirsch.
The Marker: How is the relationship with American Jews? Well, it’s complicated.
Dec 6, 2023
The war in Israel is also an opportunity to renew the close relationship that once existed between the state of Israel and American Jewry, writes Haim Handwerker. “We have an opportunity to restore the relationship — Israel is more united and world Jewry is more connected,” said our Rabbi Ammi Hirsch, who led a special event for some 800 New Yorkers to mourn the Oct. 7 attack and stand in solidarity with Israel. (In Hebrew)
eJewish Philanthropy: Reform rabbis on Amplify Israel Fellowship visit a ‘nation at war,’ bring experiences home
Dec 1, 2023
Unlike the dozens of missions and trips that have come to Israel since Oct. 7, the group of nine Reform rabbis who visited Israel from the United States last month weren’t there to show solidarity or to volunteer (though they did do both) but to learn. They were part of the Amplify Israel Fellowship, a newly launched initiative, led by Stephen Wise Free Synagogue’s Rabbis Ammiel Hirsch and Tracy Kaplowitz, that is meant to prepare the next generation of Reform rabbis to lead the movement, particularly on Zionist and Israel-related issues.
New York Magazine: The War and New York: Two Rabbis Who See Hatred in Anti-Zionism
Nov 20, 2023
At workplaces and in restaurants, on university campuses and in playgrounds, over Instagram and along lampposts, the war in Gaza has shifted something in the psyche of New York. There is a pervasive sense that everyone is hurting, aggrieved, and misunderstood and no longer pretending to share a common reality… Our Rabbi Ammi Hirsch and Sutton Place Synagogue’s Rabbi Rachel Ain sat down with New York Magazine’s Julia Edelstein to talk about the hatred in anti-Zionism. “It goes without saying it’s not antisemitic to criticize the Israeli government,” said Rabbi Hirsch. “What is problematic is to deny the right of Israel to exist. And all associated, adjacent, and related slogans to that effect are, in almost every case, antisemitic in either intention or in nature.”
NY Jewish Week: New York Jews, grappling with surging antisemitism, are bolstered by massive pro-Israel rally
Nov 14, 2023
Congregants lined up in the morning cold outside the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in the Upper West Side as the dawn broke Tuesday. Many of them held signs in support of Israel as well as supplies for the long day ahead as they boarded a large tour bus headed for Washington, D.C…
The Jerusalem Post: American Reform Jews’ support for Israel drops amid Gaza war
Nov 2, 2023
While support remains stronger among centrist and conservative Jews, the liberal sectors, particularly the Reform, show a clear trend toward disengagement. In June, Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch told The Jerusalem Post “I fear that we are losing the soul of the Reform movement. But the process of distancing from Israel was gathering strength for many years before this government came into existence.” This was one of the many topics he set at the center of a conference he hosted with Reform rabbis, discussing inner challenges that the movement has been dealing with for a while. Hirsch stated that critiquing decision-makers is a sign of health and vitality in the Jewish community. However, turning “against Israel; to join our ideological opponents and political enemies in castigating Zionism, is a sign of Jewish illness.”
NY Jewish Week: Three NYC synagogues raise more than one-third of UJA-Federation of New York’s $105M Israel Emergency Fund
Oct 20, 2023
Thousands of New Yorkers are contributing to an aid effort for Israel that is widely considered unparalleled in recent times. The spike in giving follows a pattern set out by American Jews in 1967 and 1973, the last two times Israel faced invasions from neighboring territories. Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, a Reform congregation, has established its own humanitarian relief fund that has raised nearly $100,000 to support relief efforts in Israel.
amNY: ‘A sad, devastating week’: Upper West Side synagogue mourns hundreds killed in Israel terrorist attacks
Oct 12, 2023
Days after the devastating terrorist attacks in Israel, about 800 people gathered at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue on the Upper West Side Wednesday for a communal gathering in unwavering solidarity to comfort each other and demand justice. In his address to the congregation, SWFS Senior Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch said it was a “sad, devastating week for the Jewish people and all decent people who value life.” He said: “We saw in vivid reality what a pogrom looks like: mass mayhem and murder. Make no mistake, Israeli civilians were massacred because they were Jews.”