Rabbi Emily Cohen

#NYC! We have an ICE Watch Hotline! I repeat, we have an ICE Watch hotline! I updated the zines to include the hotline #. FINALLY!!!

(If you have the old zines, you have my blessing to write the # in with a sharpie or pen.)

drive.google.com/file/d/1y2S_...

Heads up there’s an ICE checkpoint in Harlem right now apparently

it’s actually so insane that having a huge following, bringing tons of high-profile active users to the site, and generating exactly the kinds of lively and thoughtful conversations social media companies want to be perceived as facilitating makes you a bad guy here

Suspending Erin Biba, a Jewish woman for this skeet is nasty work. Between this and intentionally misreading Link’s use of a meme as a threat, bsky mods are more than willing to ban based on the Spirit Of The Law for *some* posters but never Jesse Singal.

bsky.app/profile/aman...

Over the past days, a story broke finding 4 in 10 American Jews think Israel is committing genocide in Gaza: www.timesofisrael.com/poll-nearly-...

and another that Israel is investing millions in trying to court Christian support in the US: www.jta.org/2025/10/03/i...

This is the same story.

Annnnnd between getting off Instagram at the start of Shabbat and coming back to it, the reel I posted with a clip from this sermon got me called a:

-kapo rabbi
-satanic cult [member I assume?]
-criminal war monger

This is apparently what nuance gets you in 2025

May the protestors in Chicago be safe.
May their care for their fellow human beings inspire a nation in desperate need of humanity.
May this be the worst it gets.

And if it must get worse
(for it will get worse)
May we cultivate strong wills and soft hearts.
And may we keep protesting.

Thank you!/I'm sorry!

Three things to say to my fellow yid'n and allies:

1) Thank you for responding so kindly to my drash.

2) If your rabbi said something on the holidays that moved you, especially related to Israel/Gaza, please tell them because they're def gonna be hearing from people who were upset.

3) שבת שלום

certainly plenty of antisemites demand that anti-zionist jews pass purity tests before they’re willing to believe we deserve to be treated with a modicum of humanity (which is antisemitic)

but lots of antisemites — often the most violent of them — really don’t give a shit about our beliefs

This does make me very sad, but it doesn't surprise me.

Too many people want someone to demonize.

I appreciate this perspective a lot and I think that on-the-same-side disagreements are things that we are all going to have to get a lot better at navigating.

I also appreciate your noting the audience

1) my synagogue openly calls for an end to the genocide in Gaza, and it doesn't stop of us from receiving threats and requiring security.

2) "just don't go to the only synagogue(s) in your location on Yom Kippur" is a ridiculous ask of observant Jews.

I know not everyone in my following list wants to hear or read this but it is beautifully put together, a blending of yom kippur liturgy and stark truths about gaza from a perspective of someone with hereditary jewish trauma who has had to unlearn a lot about Israel.

I don't usually post about this on here...or anywhere...but, this is very good.

Proud of @thatrabbicohen.bsky.social and all my colleagues who chose to speak painful truths instead of doing what would have been easy and convenient this High Holy Day season.

Text version in skeet below this one.

Some people cried because they were so relieved to hear a rabbi in a mainstream shul say it, and some people walked out, which was a first for me. An Israeli leftist hugged me after so that was heartening at least. I expect I'll get a lot more challenging feedback in the next couple of weeks.

Question 21: Can We Reckon Together? A Kol Nidre sermon as Gaza continues to burn

Text here for those who prefer reading:

YouTube video by Rabbi Emily Cohen Reckoning Within: A New Ashamnu for Our Times

I'm sharing my full Kol Nidre drash. I dive hard into Gaza. I've had sermons that were more difficult to write than this one but I've never had one that was this difficult to deliver. Thank you to @theradr.bsky.social and so many other colleagues for giving me the courage.

And bringing that up in response to an attack on a synagogue in the UK on the holiest day of the year shows that you really don’t get it.

We are entitled to mourn.

Israel’s actions do not justify terror against Jews in the diaspora.

Your conflation of the two is wrong.

❤️

And this is the problem.

Because antisemitism is always, always wrong.

This was an attack on British Jews, praying in their shul on the holiest day of the year.

If your response to hearing of their murder starts with “but Gaza” you are missing the point.

If your response to a fatal attack on a synagogue outside of Israel-Palestine on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar is to make it entirely about Israel-Palestine, in either direction, consider that you are part of the problem.

This is not the post I wanted to make coming out of Yom Kippur.

Antisemitism must be addressed just as fiercely as other forms of baseless hatred

And— If the attack had been in America it would have been with a gun.

May the memories of the dead be blessings.

May the wounded heal.

May we learn.

Relatedly:

If you drink normally today and then chug a bunch of water right before services tonight you will

1) have to pee a bunch during services and you won't enjoy it
2) not be hydrated.

The best time to start over-hydrating is a few days ago. The second best time is this morning.

Drink up.

To be clear, saying you're going to "avoid politics" is an INCREDIBLY political statement, especially in an age of fascism.

Right wingers in 2017: Dumb libs think words are violence
Right wingers in 2025: Words are violence and we're going to throw you in jail for saying the wrong ones, which is terrorism bsky.app/profile/atru...

If any other president in all of history said the military should use American cities as a training ground he would be removed from office that same day. The hardest thing to tolerate in all this is how relatively silent elected democrats are. It’s ridiculous.

ICE agents assault amNewYork reporter at Federal Plaza immigration court; another journalist seriously injured after shove | amNewYork ICE agents assaulted amNewYork's own Dean Moses, and allegedly attacked another journalist, on Tuesday morning as they were documenting the ongoing arrests of

ICE agents shoved multiple journalists while they were doing their jobs. One had to go to the hospital.

www.amny.com/immigration/...

People saying the fascism we’re seeing is unprecedented, unimaginable etc miss the larger point.

We‘re not experiencing anything new. We‘re experiencing an *expansion* of existing realities targeting Black people especially. Until we get that, we’ll miss how to fight US fascism at its core.