The Karlin-Stolin Hasidic community has issued new guidelines significantly limiting the use of artificial intelligence, especially among its younger members.
Released by the Hasidic Committee for Media Guidance and Advice last weekend, the rules include a total ban on teens independently interacting with AI systems. The committee described AI as technology "based on databases of billions of documents and various contents found across global computer networks," and warned that its rapid evolution demands extreme caution.
For adults, the guidelines outline strict conditions: AI may only be used to obtain specific, necessary information—not for entertainment or casual inquiry. Usage should be limited in duration, and any results should be reviewed critically, especially for accuracy and alignment with religious values.
A strong warning was issued against seeking halachic (Jewish legal) guidance from AI tools. The committee noted that such systems may fabricate sources or cite non-existent texts.
Young married men and their families, particularly those under 25, are advised to completely avoid smartphones, even filtered ones, unless absolutely necessary. The committee cautions that these devices could negatively affect their spiritual and personal well-being.
Teenagers face the most stringent restrictions: they are entirely prohibited from using AI tools on their own, whether by text or voice, even if parents are present. This ban applies equally to boys, girls, and seminary students. In cases where AI use is needed, parents are expected to consult the system themselves and share only vetted responses with their children.
For seminary graduates engaged in professional or academic studies, limited AI use is permitted, but only under parental oversight and strictly for educational or work-related purposes.
The guidelines conclude by urging community members to stay vigilant against the potential spiritual harm of AI, stressing that these restrictions are meant to protect individuals and families from being "swept away and dragged after vanity."
A legal battle over a three-block-long bike lane in a predominantly Orthodox Jewish Brooklyn neighborhood has become a central issue in Mayor Eric Adams' re-election campaign.
The mayor in June ordered the transportation department to move the newly installed bike lane on Bedford Avenue between Willoughby and Flushing avenues away from the curb, where cyclists are protected by parked cars, and into the middle of the street. The directive now sits in limbo after a state appellate judge temporarily blocked the move on Tuesday.
Critics of the mayor chastised it as a political move aimed at garnering political support from Hasidic Jewish voters in South Williamsburg and Bedford-Stuyvesant, who have protested cycling infrastructure for decades, citing concerns over safety as well as a general preference to give cars priority on streets in their area. It comes as Adams, who skipped the Democratic primary in June and plans to run on a ballot line in November called either "Safe&Affordable" or "EndAntisemitism," rushes to build a coalition large enough to compete in the general election.
" The mayor needs Jewish voters, he needs Hasidic voters. He's squaring off against [former Gov.] Andrew Cuomo, who did really well with Hasidic voters during the primary, he's obviously squaring off against [Zohran] Mamdani, who did not do as well with Jewish Hasidic voters," said Chris Coffey, CEO of the political consulting firm Tusk Strategies who worked on several campaigns, including ones for former Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Andrew Yang. "He's looking to use this as one of the issues that galvanizes support."
Cuomo won 72% of the first-round votes in the election district that encompasses most of the bike lane.
" I don't think that the Satmars in Williamsburg are going to base their decision for mayor based on this bike lane," added Coffey. (Coffey also advised Cuomo's Democratic primary bid, but his company has since vowed to support Mamdani.)
Adams ordered the change less than a month after a 3-year-old girl was struck by an e-bike rider in the bike lane while crossing the street mid-block.
Cycling advocates sued Adams shortly after he ordered the changes to the bike lane, arguing it was a "major transportation project" that required notice and review from community leaders. "After several dangerous incidents — many of which involved children — the Adams administration listened to the community's concerns and moved to reconfigure the bike lane to its original model while still maintaining safety measures," said mayoral spokesperson Sophia Askari.
City Councilmember Lincoln Restler, who represents the neighborhood, said Adams disregarded the bike lane's safety benefits, noting its installation correlated with a reduction in car crashes along the corridor. The transportation department acknowledged as much in court filings in the lawsuit that aims to prevent the bike lane from being moved.
" It's nakedly obvious what this is and it's really sad," said Restler. " Eric Adams' decision to rip out the Bedford Avenue protected bike lane and send cyclists back into three lanes of vehicular traffic is purely political."
Still, many members of the area's Hasidic community said they were elated by the decision.
" It's dangerous. Everyone is happy that they're moving it," said Mike Joel, 23. " I think the kids are supposed to be safer than the bikers."
Adams' push to remove the bike lane is not an original political idea. The same bike lane stirred controversy in 2009 after Bloomberg won a third term. In December of that year, he agreed to remove cyclists' protections along 14 blocks of Bedford Avenue, citing concerns from local residents.
Danny Pearlstein, spokesperson for the transit advocacy group Riders Alliance, protested against Bloomberg's removal of the bike lane, which sparked a culture war in Brooklyn.
"Protesters at the time promised a naked bike ride through the community," he said.
Like Adams this year, Bloomberg ran as an independent during his 2009 re-election. "There were various parts of the margin of victory, but one of them was certainly the Jewish community in Williamsburg," said Pearlstein. "And the mayor's political team knew that."
More than 50 prominent Jewish leaders and rabbis from across Europe have signed a letter to the president of the European Commission defending the Jewish rite of circumcision as part of a new campaign to defend the tradition.
The letter, spearheaded by the European Jewish Association, was sent as a response to a series of raids conducted in Belgium in May looking for people illegally conducting ritual Jewish circumcisions.
That raid, in which police confiscated instruments needed to perform the procedure and demanded a list of all infants circumcised in the past year, "echoed one of the darkest chapters in European history," the letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says. The European Commission is the primary executive arm of the European Union.
On May 14, police conducted raids on three locations in Antwerp to investigate reports that said the brit milah ritual was being performed on Jewish baby boys by unlicensed mohalim (people who perform circumcision) instead of licensed doctors.
While the law does not specifically regulate Jewish ritual circumcision, Belgium requires that all medical procedures be performed by a licensed doctor.
No European country has laws banning circumcision, but there are fears that rising antisemitism could lead to such legislation in the future.
"Banning circumcision would mean an end to Jewish life in countries with such law, which is contradictory to the European Commission's aim at fostering Jewish life in the EU," the letter says.
"Circumcision is much more than a key tenet of Judaism. It is what defines the Jewish male, a religious commandment. It represents a core pillar of our faith and a practice carried out over millennia without incidents by meticulous and highly-trained Mohalim."
Medical research shows that circumcised men have a lower risk of urinary tract infection, a lower risk of penile cancer, a lower risk of penile infections, and a lower risk of some sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, the European Jewish Association notes.
A rare act of antisemitic aggression has stirred concern in Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, after two women assaulted a visiting Jewish man from Israel by knocking his traditional Sabbath hat off his head, laughing, and making antisemitic remarks — all while filming the incident and later uploading it to Tik-Tok.
The victim was a guest of Rabbi Avraham Bleich, son of Ukraine's Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Yaakov Bleich. The incident took place over two months ago, as the two walked home from a Friday night meal. At the time, the women ran off after the attack, and the matter seemed to fade.
But last week, the assailants uploaded the video to social media — where it quickly went viral in Ukraine, amassing over 2 million views. The popularity of the clip prompted immediate concern among the Jewish community, fearing copycat attacks.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently distributed $94 million to Jewish faith-based organizations to help respond to the nationwide increase in anti-Semitism following Hamas's Oct. 7 attacks against Israel.
"This money, part of the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, will be used to help these organizations harden their defenses against attacks," DHS announced on June 27. The agency described how the award is in response to terrorist attacks against Israel supporters, including the recent attack in Boulder, Colorado.
The agency also cited a report from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which identified a "record high" of anti-Semitic incidents during 2024, "marking a 344% increase over the past five years."
The money is dedicated to protecting "Jewish faith-based institutions from further attacks," DHS explained in a press release.
The money is part of a security grant program under the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Its purpose is to aid physical security upgrades, such as cameras and barriers, as reported by Fox News.
In total, the grant program has around $220 million, according to The Jerusalem Post. The remaining funds have yet to be distributed.
"DHS is working to put a stop to the deeply disturbing rise in antisemitic attacks across the United States," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin in a press release.
"That this money is necessary at all is tragic. Antisemitic violence has no place in this country," McLaughlin continued. "However, under President Trump and Secretary Noem's leadership, we are going to do everything in our power to make sure that Jewish people in the United States can live free of the threat of violence and terrorism."
In a statement to Jewish Insider, Lauren Wolman, director of federal policy at ADL, praised DHS for the grant award but said that the job "isn't done."
New Jersey has more Jews than all but three states. That's why many expected the Garden State to join 37 other states that have already done what the CEO of the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey Jason Shames calls "an issue critical to the safety and security of New Jerseyans": ratifying a bill that codifies the definition of antisemitism as defined by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.
The New Jersey Assembly had the chance to do this last month, but decided on June 23 to table a vote on the matter. This decision came as a surprise to Jewish community leaders, who were assured by some unnamed lawmakers that the bill would pass, said Robin Freedman-Kramer, CEO of the Jewish Federation of West-Central New Jersey.
"We had been told behind closed doors that there was no doubt that the bill would pass," she said.
Freedman-Kramer said that lawmakers did not give a reason for delaying the vote, although those who opposed its ratification cited the fact that it could effectively criminalize anti-Israel protests and sentiments.
The bill says that the standard definition of antisemitism used by numerous governments across the country and world includes "discriminatory anti-Israel acts that cross the line into anti-Semitism," as well as other antisemitic actions like Holocaust denial. Examples given by the IHRA include drawing comparisons of contemporary Israel policy to that of the Nazis, holding Jews collectively responsible for the actions of the state of Israel, denying the Jewish people's right to self-determination by claiming the existence of Israel is racist and accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel or the alleged priorities of worldwide Judaism than to the interests of their own nations.
"We feel like with such a large Jewish population and so much antisemitism that law enforcement needs a definition to work from to be able to say, 'This is antisemitism and this is not antisemitism,' so we're trying to give them the tool that is practically universal and acceptable to use in helping them do their jobs better and protecting this very large Jewish community in our state," Freedman-Kramer said.
The Anti-Defamation League reported in April that there were 719 total incidents of antisemitism in New Jersey in 2024. That was a 13% increase from 2023 and the third-highest total for any state last year.
"Antisemitism isn't going to solve itself. Unless New Jersey legislators decide to take the first step to addressing antisemitism — defining it — they are not part of the solution. Like all groups, Jews must be the ones who define their own experiences with oppression.
Rather, through inaction and delay, the legislators will be part of the problem, abandoning the safety of large segments of New Jersey residents," said Avi Posnick, the Northeast regional director for StandWithUs.
When the vote's delay was announced, Jewish community leaders who were in attendance walked out in protest of the decision.
"When we got there to give what we thought was just going to be a little bit of testimony, before the vote, the chair of the committee announced that they would only be hearing testimony and they would not be voting, which was another slap in the face for us,"
Freedman-Kramer said. "The first time, it was virtual testimony, because they said they could not ensure our safety if we came to Trenton to testify, which was a horrifying thing."
Freedman-Kramer said that much of the opposition the proponents of the bill heard argued that its ratification would limit free speech. She said that's not true because the bill differentiates between what they consider acceptable criticism of Israel and unacceptable criticism. She said that the bill "has nothing to do with whether or not anybody else can live [in Israel] or whether you can criticize the government of Israel."
Freedman-Kramer said that the definitions set forth by the bill are key to bettering the entire public's understanding of the issue.
"It also defines Zionism and anti-Zionism, and when it's OK to criticize Israel and when it's not, and [states] Zionism is part of the Jewish identity. I think, again, this is a definition problem that people don't understand — the definition of Zionism is that our fundamental core belief is that the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people is in Zion, is in Israel," she said.
For the Jewish community of New Jersey, the ratification of this bill in June would have been an important step.
"The brutal murders of two young Jewish leaders after an AJC event in Washington, D.C., followed by the setting on fire of peaceful Jewish demonstrators in Boulder, Colorado, has amplified the need for this bill," said Rabbi David C. Levy, director of AJC New Jersey. "As we have seen, in their most extreme forms, antisemitic words of hate can be deadly, and as New Jerseyans we have a singular responsibility to call out such hateful speech by clearly defining it. All of which makes this continuing delay in moving this bill forward utterly unacceptable."
Overall and violent crime rates continued a downward trend in Massachusetts last year, according to new data released by the state, however there was one glaring and troubling increase -- anti-Jewish hate crimes, which spiked more than 20% in 2024.
For the first time since the state began tracking in 1991, the preliminary data released Tuesday shows that anti-Jewish bias incidents surpassed anti-Black incidents as the most reported hate crime in the Bay State.
Massachusetts also experienced an increase in anti-transgender bias incidents.
Some of the positive highlights from the data include:
Homicides decreased by 11.4% with 132 reported incidents. This figure is below the five-year average of 146.
Robberies fell by 8.6%, aggravated assaults dropped by 5.7%, and motor vehicle thefts saw a sharp decrease of 16.1%.
Fraud-related offenses, including identity theft and welfare fraud, experienced double-digit declines.
"This new data is encouraging and reflects the important work that law enforcement and community partners do day in and day out to keep the people of Massachusetts safe," Gov. Maura Healey said in a press release. "We know there is always more work to be done, and we remain committed to bringing people together to continue to enhance public safety in communities across the state."
Healey said her administration is deeply committed to embracing diversity, upholding its values, and combatting incidents of hate crimes. This is being done through numerous key initiatives, including launching the State Police Hate Crimes Awareness and Response Team (HART), the awarding of over $15.5 million in security grants for high-risk nonprofits and hosting statewide educational forums and seminars for law enforcement and faith-based organizations. The Legislative Task Force on Hate Crimes also continues to advise the administration as it advances efforts to promote justice, equity and civil rights protections statewide.
The Anti-Defamation League of New England is also monitoring the situation closely, and an audit shows antisemitic incidents in the region (not including Connecticut) last year broke all previous annual records for the fifth year in a row. According to the ADL, of 638 acts of assault and vandalism targeting Jewish communities in New England in 2024, 438 of them were recorded in Massachusetts, making it the fifth-highest number of incidents per state in the country following New York, California, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
There were 53 incidents in New Hampshire, 52 in Rhode Island, 51 in Maine and 44 in Vermont.
"The persistent increase in antisemitic incidents over the past five years is a stark reminder that antisemitism continues to impact our communities," Samantha Joseph, ADL New England's Regional Director, said in a press release. "Particularly concerning is the continued proliferation of extremist incidents and the rise of attacks against Orthodox Jews. The alarming manifestations of antisemitism in 2024 instill fear and are reminders that much work remains to be done."
