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JCRC's Boston Jewish Now: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Boston JCRC
Real conversations with the voices who shape our community.For 80 years, we've led critical conversations for the Jewish community, and now, we're bringing them to you. Tune in as we share insights, engage with leaders and changemakers, and dive into the discussions shaping our future.
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- 2 days ago21 min
How You Can Use Massachusetts' Antisemitism Report
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 Melissa Garlick of CJP’s Center for Combating Antisemitism about how community members can take this report into the institutions they are already part of and use it to make meaningful, credible asks.What should you be asking of your child’s school district? What should students and faculty expect from a university? What can Jewish employees and allies ask their workplace to put in place? And what should residents expect from municipal leaders and law enforcement?This episode gives parents, students, employees, advocates, and allies an intro to the roadmap that is the Commission’s final report: a way to identify what is missing, understand who is responsible for addressing it, and a credible way to ask for concrete action backed by and embraced by civic leadership across all sectors of the Commonwealth.For anyone who wants to get started doing this work, and for the school leaders, administrators, employers, municipal officials, and others responsible for putting those recommendations into practice, CJP’s Center for Combating Antisemitism has developed practical, sector-specific resources to help you take the first step.Listen to the conversation, then explore the resources here.
- 2 weeks ago53 min
Can We Build a Politics of Opportunity? With Jake Auchincloss
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-ranging conversation, Auchincloss explains what his Majority Democrats organization is trying to build, how folks can break with party orthodoxy and embrace good ideas from across the political spectrum, and why the political center needs authenticity AND swagger to win.He also argues that TikTok is “a bigger enemy to Israel than Hezbollah,” pointing to the platform’s influence on how younger Americans understand Israel and to the broader role social media plays in distorting people’s sense of self, country, and one another.The conversation turns to the war with Iran and the difference between operational military success and strategic failure. Auchincloss describes where he believes a growing consensus is headed: continued commitment to Israel’s security, less reliance on the existing model of direct military financing, and greater emphasis on the Abraham Accords.Jeremy and Congressman Auchincloss also discuss the hard work Congress actually does when the cameras are off, the work he is proudest of that rarely makes headlines, and why Americans may be better served by spending less time scrolling and more time talking to people — outdoors.
- 3 weeks ago18 min
The U.S.–Israel Relationship Is Changing
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.In this episode of Boston Jewish Now, Jeremy reflects on the changing American-Israeli relationship. We go beyond Washington politics into liberal Israeli voices and the danger of letting slogans replace the harder work of listening to the people who actually live with the consequences.Read Ariel Beery's "Goodbye, America. Hello world" in the Times of Israel.
- 4 weeks ago25 min
When Enough Is Never Enough
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 out of the very spaces we helped show up for.At the same time, Jeremy argues that we cannot let the worst people in a movement decide whether we still sit at the table with others in that broader movement.Then, we turn to Lexington, where an alarming school communication sparked national outrage before many local leaders had time to understand what actually happened. Jeremy reflects on the need for facts, relationships, and the discipline to take a breath, especially when people are trying, however imperfectly, to address antisemitism.Finally, we discuss the Supreme Court rulings on birthright citizenship and Temporary Protected Status, including the threat now facing TPS holders in Massachusetts. For the Jewish community especially — TPS holders are our neighbors, coworkers, caregivers, and part of the human-service system our families and institutions rely on.
- Jun 30, 202612 min
The Promise of America Still Requires Work
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 working toward it.In this episode of Boston Jewish Now, Jeremy reflects on the Declaration, the American project, and why hope requires action.
- Jun 22, 20261h 3m
What’s Really Happening in the Group Chat
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 they feel, learn, and show up in school and in life.In this episode of Boston Jewish Now, Spencer Cronin, JCRC’s Director of Educational Partnerships, speaks with Dr. Jill Walsh, sociologist, researcher, Boston University lecturer, and founder of Digital Aged. They unpack the social dynamics and parts of digital culture parents may not realize are shaping their children’s daily lives online.This conversation is part of JCRC’s broader K–12 work: helping schools understand the online culture shaping students’ lives, respond to antisemitism and identity-based targeting, and build safer, more inclusive school communities for Jewish students alongside all students.Digital spaces can help young people find belonging and connection, especially when they feel isolated offline. But chats, algorithms, viral content, and peer pressure can also normalize cruelty and make it much harder for students to push back when hate shows up.This episode offers families and educators a clearer way to understand the digital world young people are navigating, and practical guidance for talking with them about it so we can help shape healthier school communities and healthier teens.
- Jun 17, 202623 min
A Bad Deal in Somerville, an Ambiguous Deal with Iran
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 JCRC showed up, what Shalom Somerville and local Jewish residents have been facing, and why local campaigns around Israel are more than just symbolic foreign policy debates. In Somerville, many Jewish residents have experienced these fights as a sustained climate of hostility, intimidation, and exclusion from public life in the city they call home.We also cover the possibility of a new agreement over Iran’snuclear program. Rather than rush to call it good or bad before the details are public, Jeremy argues for a more basic standard: release the agreement, brief Congress, and allow serious review by lawmakers, foreign policy experts, andnuclear nonproliferation experts.We discuss why Congress has to be part of any long-termforeign policy commitment, why American global credibility depends on commitments that can outlast a single administration and simply be overturned, and why Israel’s security interests cannot be treated as an afterthought indecisions involving Iran and its proxies.
- Jun 11, 202642 min
Platner, Mamdani, and What We Expect From Civic Leaders
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 show up for Jewish communities. Jeremy also discusses Graham Platner, Ralph Northam, Jake Auchincloss, and the double standard around racism and antisemitism in public life. The episode also covers Clover Food Lab and kosher food access in Boston, why consumer data privacy is a Jewish safety issue, and the importance of nonprofit security funding in the Massachusetts state budget.Find your legislators: https://malegislature.gov/Search/FindMyLegislator
About JCRC's Boston Jewish Now
Real conversations with the voices who shape our community.For 80 years, we've led critical conversations for the Jewish community, and now, we're bringing them to you. Tune in as we share insights, engage with leaders and changemakers, and dive into the discussions shaping our future.
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