JCRC's Boston Jewish Now

What happens when voters reject a government but can't agree on what should replace it? That may be the defining question emerging from Israel's election. Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition appears to have lost its majority, but the opposition faces its own challenge. Now, the country's political future could depend on negotiations that challenge long-standing divisions and a...

Three issues are drawing our attention this week, from Cambridge City Hall to the West Bank and Israel's upcoming elections. Following a contentious Cambridge City Council hearing on two proposals targeting businesses connected to Israel, JCRC CEO Jeremy Burton discusses what happened, what comes next, and how Jewish residents are working to make their voices heard. Then, we turn to escalating...

Israel’s Declaration of Independence promised political and social equality to all its citizens. What will it take to make that promise a reality for Jewish and Arab Israelis? On this episode of Boston Jewish Now, Jeremy Burton speaks with Mohammad Darawshe, Director of Strategy at Givat Haviva’s Center for Shared Society, about what it means to move beyond coexistence and build a country in which...

Massachusetts created the Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism to take a statewide look at how antisemitism is affecting Jewish life and what institutions can do about it. The Commission’s final report lays out recommendations across a range of sectors, including K–12 schools. In this segment, we break down the K–12 recommendations and walk through what schools and districts can do to bett...

Election Day is November 3. Are you ready to vote? With nine statewide ballot questions, races up and down the ballot, and important decisions about how Massachusetts conducts its elections, there's a lot voters need to know before heading to the polls. In this episode of Boston Jewish Now, Jeremy Burton is joined by our partners at Common Cause Massachusetts and JCRC's new Director of Government...

Three years after October 7, many of us can still remember exactly where we were when we first understood what was happening. We remember who we called, what we saw, and how the day unfolded around us. And only three years later, we are already confronting questions about how October 7 ought to be remembered, commemorated, and taught. So what can earlier experiences teach us about that process? Sp...

The controversy over Macklemore’s removal from the Ed Sheeran concert at Gillette Stadium was quickly framed as a fight over two words: “Free Palestine.” But was that really the whole story? Jeremy Burton looks at what much of the public conversation left out, including the lyrics and context of Hind’s Hall and Macklemore’s broader track record. He also takes on the larger free speech question: Wh...

State Senator John Velis joins Jeremy Burton for a wide-ranging conversation about the experiences that first moved him to confront antisemitism in Massachusetts and ultimately helped lead to the creation of the Massachusetts Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism. Senator Velis reflects on hearing from Jewish constituents, including young people experiencing antisemitism; asking Jewish coll...

The Massachusetts primary results are in, and some of the results have made national headlines. But how are the polls shaping up for Jewish life in Massachusetts? In this episode of Boston Jewish Now , CEO Jeremy Burton takes a closer look at what the results reveal about Massachusetts voters and the state’s political landscape. From the U.S. Senate and House races to the road ahead to November, J...

Massachusetts created the Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism to take a statewide look at how antisemitism is affecting Jewish life and what institutions can do about it. The Commission’s final report includes instructions for cities and towns, and gives residents something concrete to bring into conversations with their own local government. In this segment, we break down what this means...

Massachusetts created the Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism to take a statewide look at how antisemitism is affecting Jewish life and what institutions can do about it. The Commission’s final report lays out recommendations across a range of sectors, including colleges and universities. In this segment, we break down the campus recommendations and walk through how university leaders can...

Massachusetts created the Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism to take a statewide look at how antisemitism is affecting Jewish life and what institutions can do about it. The Commission’s final report lays out recommendations across a range of sectors, including the workplace. In this segment, we break down the workplace component and walk through how employers can put practical policies...

The Massachusetts Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism has given our community something we have long needed: a clear set of recommendations for what the Commonwealth, as well as school districts, colleges, workplaces, and local governments should be doing to address antisemitism. Now we need to know how to use it. In this episode of Boston Jewish Now, JCRC CEO Jeremy Burton speaks with Me...

Much of American politics now runs on telling people who to blame for what has gone wrong in their lives. Congressman Jake Auchincloss thinks we need to offer something more compelling: a politics of opportunity that gives people a fair chance to get a good education, own a home, build a secure life, and ensure that the circumstances of their birth do not determine their future. In this wide-rangi...

The U.S.–Israel relationship has long rested on certainassumptions: that America would remain a reliable ally, that support for Israel would remain bipartisan, and that American Jews could talk about Israel without reducing the Jewish people to the politics of any one Israeli government, anyone politician, or any one view on how Israel prosecutes wars. Those assumptions feel far less stable today....

What happens when Jews are told they have not gone far enough — and what happens when we tell imperfect allies the same thing? First, we discuss the antisemitic harassment of State Senator Scott Wiener in San Francisco, and what it says about whether Jews can ever meet far-left activists halfway when the demand always seems to be that Jews give up one more piece of ourselves or risk being pushed o...

As the United States of America approaches its 250th anniversary, Jeremy Burton asks a simple but important question: What are we really celebrating on the Fourth of July? Not the first battle. Not the final victory. Not even the vote for independence. The Fourth of July marks the adoption of the Declaration. The text that gave America its civic promise and called future generations to keep workin...

The group chat is not just a group chat. For young people, it is where friendships are built, plans are made, social status is negotiated, identity is tested, and harm can spread quickly. It is also one of the places where students encounter cruelty, exclusion, disinformation, antisemitism, and other forms of identity-based targeting — often away from adult view, but with real consequences for how...

In this episode of Boston Jewish Now, we unpack two verydifferent fights that raise a similar question: what happens when decisions are made about Jewish safety and belonging without the people most affected beingfully heard? The conversation begins in Somerville, where Jeremy recently testified before the City Council as it considered an ordinance tied to Israel divestment. Jeremy explains why JC...

In this episode of Boston Jewish Now , JCRC CEO Jeremy Burton discusses what Jewish communities should expect from civic leaders — in moments of celebration, in moments of pain, and in moments when antisemitism and public Jewish life are being tested.   The conversation covers Toronto’s March with Israel, Mamdani and New York’s Israel parade, and the question of what it means for civic leaders to...

This Pride Month episode is a conversation between two queer Jewish professionals working inside JCRC, each bringing a different generational lens to what it means to be queer, Jewish, visible, and civically engaged in this moment.   Rachel Schlesinger, JCRC's Marketing Coordinator, and Jeremy Burton, JCRC's CEO, are living different chapters of the same larger story. Jeremy brings decades...

Many Jewish parents are looking at college differently right now. Dr. Greg Weiner offers a perspective few others can. He is the 17th president of Assumption University, the first Jewish president of a Catholic university in the United States, and a scholar of American political thought. In this episode, Jeremy Burton speaks with Dr. Weiner about why Catholic education may offer Jewish students so...

This week, we’re catching up on the stories and events that had us talking — from Boston to Israel and beyond. We’ll look at what stood out, the questions these moments raised, and why they matter to us as a Jewish community. Reach out to your legislators to support data privacy: https://www.aclum.org/campaigns-initiatives/data-privacy-now/ Read Alan Dershowitz's Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journ...

A recent  Boston Globe Ideas essay  made sweeping claims about mainstream Jewish institutions, suggesting that their posture on Israel and their approach to defining antisemitism are themselves contributing to the climate that makes Jews less safe. In this episode,  Jeremy Burton  and  Oren Jacobson  unpack that argument, challenge its logic, and examine how reducing diverse Jewish communal leader...

A week with more attacks on Jewish institutions than days in the week. That’s the reality many are waking up to, and asking: what happens next?