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Mazel tov to the Philadelphia Eagles on their Super Bowl victory! Last Sunday’s game didn’t feature any Jewish players, but Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie and general manager Howie Roseman must be kvelling after their team’s 40-22 trouncing of the Kansas City Chiefs.

Beyond the Eagles’ two Jewish executives, there were a few other Jewish storylines on Super Bowl Sunday — both on the field and off. Read on for more.

Alex Bregman signs with the Boston Red Sox

Houston, we have a signing. It’s just in Boston.

Two-time World Series champion Alex Bregman signed a three-year, $120 million deal with the Boston Red Sox late Wednesday night, capping a months-long negotiation process that ended with the reigning Gold Glove third baseman joining a new team after nine seasons with the Houston Astros.

Bregman’s deal with Boston includes deferred money and opt-outs after each year. According to reports, he turned down a six-year, $171.5 million offer from the Detroit Tigers to take the Sox’s short-term deal with a higher annual average value. Bregman, 30, who is expected to play second base for Boston, was originally drafted by the Sox in 2012 before opting to play in college and then ending up in Houston.

Bregman, who was involved in Houston’s local Jewish community and has displayed his Jewish pride on the field, was seeking a total number closer to that of his fellow Jewish star Max Fried, who signed with the New York Yankees in December for eight years and $218 million, the largest contract in baseball history for a Jewish player. Instead, Bregman will settle for a paltry $40 million per year and the chance to battle Fried for supremacy in baseball’s most storied rivalry.

Boston’s chief baseball officer (and Team Israel alum) Craig Breslow vowed to be aggressive this offseason after his team finished a distant third in the American League East last year. Now, he has a fellow Member of the Tribe to show for it.

Halftime report

FLAG ON THE PLAY. During Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show, a performer unfurled a banner showing the Sudanese and Palestinian flags bearing the words “Sudan” and “Gaza,” and ran onto the field before being detained. The NFL said in a statement that the performer will be barred from all NFL stadiums for the rest of his life.

CAN YE NOT? When we previewed Jewishly relevant Super Bowl commercials in last week’s newsletter, we did not anticipate this spot: rapper Ye purchased an awkward 30-second ad promoting his website, which featured exactly one item for sale the following morning — a swastika T-shirt. Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, has embarked on a string of blatantly antisemitic acts and statements recently, including praising Adolf Hitler. Later Sunday night, he announced he was quitting the social media platform X, where he had posted much of his invective.

OUCH. Spring Training is underway, which means the inevitable wave of pre- and early-season injuries is also nigh. Team Israel alum and new Pittsburgh Pirates first baseman Spencer Horwitz is expected to miss six to eight weeks after undergoing surgery on his right wrist. Horwitz, who debuted with the Toronto Blue Jays in 2023, joined the Pirates this offseason after being traded twice in one day.

HANGING ‘EM UP. Another Team Israel alum who won’t play this spring — or apparently ever again — is veteran reliever Richard Bleier, who announced his retirement on Instagram on Tuesday. Bleier played in parts of eight MLB seasons across a 17-year pro career, appearing with four teams. Bleier ends his career as one of just six pitchers in MLB history to throw 300+ innings with an ERA+ of 135 or better and 1.5 or fewer walks per nine innings. Not bad for a pitcher who didn’t make his MLB debut until he was 29 years old!

(IN)VICTORIOUS. Israel nabbed two medals at the Invictus Games in Vancouver on Monday — a gold medal in wheelchair basketball and a bronze in wheelchair curling. The Invictus Games were founded by Prince Harry in 2014 for wounded, injured and sick military service personnel and veterans. Israel trounced the U.S. in wheelchair basketball, winning the gold medal game 62-7.

BOO-YA. The Athletic caught up with NHL prospect Zeev Buium, who is playing his sophomore season at the University of Denver after being selected 12th overall in the 2024 NHL Entry Draft by the Minnesota Wild. Buium is the son of Israeli parents and younger brother of fellow NHL prospect Shai Buium. Here’s our profile of Buium from last summer.

Domantas Sabonis’ inexplicable All-Star snub

NBA All-Star weekend is here, with a slate of events starting today and running through Sunday, hosted at the Chase Center in San Francisco. There’s the All-Star Game, the celebrity game, the three-point contest, the slam dunk contest and more.

And across all the various events, there is exactly one Jewish (or Jewish-adjacent) competitor: singer Noah Kahan, who will be playing in the celebrity game and performing live.

That’s because Sacramento Kings star Domantas Sabonis, who is converting to Judaism and has been practicing Judaism with his family for years, was inexplicably left out of the All-Star festivities.

Sabonis, a three-time All-Star coming off back-to-back top-10 MVP finishes, is in the midst of perhaps the best season of his nine-year career. Sabonis is averaging 20.4 points and a league-best 14.3 rebounds per game, both career highs. He’s shooting 60% on field goals, 75.3% on free throws and an NBA third-best 45.5% on threes. Sabonis also has a league-best 48 double-doubles (out of 51 total games played). Last night, Sabonis dropped 22 points with a staggering 28 rebounds as the Kings lost 140-133 in overtime to the New Orleans Pelicans.

Not only was he not chosen as a starter or reserve player, but when stars Giannis Antetokounmpo and Anthony Davis bowed out from the weekend due to injury this week, Sabonis was passed over yet again, with Trae Young and — who else? — Kyrie Irving selected as replacements.

With Sabonis’ insane numbers, how is he not an All-Star? Yahoo! Sports senior writer Ben Rohrbach makes the case that Sabonis is the biggest snub in the league this year.

Chalk it up to one of life’s great mysteries.

Jews in sports to watch this weekend (all times ET)

🏒 IN HOCKEY…

The NHL is hosting its first-ever 4 Nations Face-Off this week, a round-robin tournament featuring the U.S., Canada, Sweden and Finland. Jewish players Adam Fox, Jack Hughes and Jeremy Swayman are all representing the U.S. — which played its first game Thursday night, defeating Finland 6-1. The U.S. takes on Canada Saturday and Sweden on Monday, both at 8 p.m. In the PWHL, Sam Cogan and the Toronto Sceptres host Aerin Frankel and the Boston Fleet Friday at 7 p.m. Abbey Levy, Elle Hartje and the New York Sirens face Montreal Saturday at 2 p.m. On Sunday, Boston hosts Minnesota at 1 p.m., and Toronto plays Ottawa at 4 p.m.

⚽ IN SOCCER…

Goalkeeper Matt Turner and his Premier League squad Crystal Palace host Everton Saturday at 12:30 p.m. Turner led his team to a 2-0 shutout on Monday in the fourth round of the FA Cup. Manor Solomon and his first-place Championship club Leeds United host Sunderland Monday at 3 p.m.

⛳ IN GOLF…

Max Homa, Max Greyserman and Daniel Berger are competing in the PGA Tour’s Genesis Open this weekend in San Diego. Berger finished tied for second place in last weekend’s Phoenix Open.

Let’s wrap this up

It was a busy week for famous Jewish athletes wrapping tefillin. NFL kicker Greg Joseph met up with Orthodox college player Sam Salz this week, while YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul wrapped at the Super Bowl with Orthodox influencer Yossi Farro and declared, “Mazel Tov yes I’m Jewish.” We reported on Paul’s Jewish heritage ahead of his bout with Mike Tyson in November.

On June 15, 1942, days after receiving a diary for her 13th birthday, Anne Frank wrote that a classmate she had only recently met “is now my best friend.”

She and that friend, Jacqueline van Maarsen, promised to write each other goodbye letters if they were forced apart — which came to pass just weeks later. Frank went into hiding in Amsterdam in July, and wrote van Maarsen her farewell letter in the diary in September, wishing that “until we see each other again, we will always remain ‘best’ friends.”

That meeting never took place, as Frank was murdered by the Nazis in 1945. But beginning in 1986, van Maarsen began lecturing on the Holocaust and hate, and writing about her friendship with Frank.

On Friday, the Anne Frank House announced that van Maarsen had died on Feb. 13, at age 96.

“Jacqueline was a classmate of Anne Frank at the Jewish Lyceum and shared her memories of their friendship throughout her life,” the institution, which is the official custodian of Frank’s legacy, said in a statement that included details about the friendship. “In her books and during school visits, Jacqueline spoke not only about her friendship with Anne but also about the dangers of anti-Semitism and racism, and where they can lead.”

Van Maarsen was the daughter of a Jewish father and a mother who was raised Christian and converted to Judaism. Her mother managed to get her and her sister declared non-Jewish in 1942, which enabled them to survive the war and Holocaust. Most of van Maarsen’s father’s family was killed by the Nazis.

After the war, she got married, had three children and worked as an acclaimed bookbinder. Later in life, she wrote multiple books about Frank, including 2008’s “My Name is Anne, She Said, Anne Frank.”

Van Maarsen stayed in touch with Frank’s father, Otto, and with the Anne Frank House. In 2020, she laid the first stone of a Holocaust monument in Amsterdam. Last year, she donated a book of poetry from her youth to the institution. It included a poem written by her friend Anne.

This story contains spoilers for “Apple Cider Vinegar.”

Early in the new Netflix miniseries “Apple Cider Vinegar,” the central character of Millie Blake is diagnosed with a rare cancer and told she must amputate her arm. 

Desperate for another solution, Millie seizes on an “alternative” treatment: at a center called the Hirsch Institute, in Mexico. The center is run by the daughter of a German Jewish refugee from the Nazis. Decades after her father’s death, she tells her patients that the medical establishment has tried to suppress her father’s revolutionary therapies. 

There, Millie (played by Alycia Debnam-Carey) embarks on a tightly controlled diet of regular juicing and five daily coffee enemas. It initially appears to work, and Millie builds a media empire on her belief that she has cured her cancer without the use of chemotherapy.

The show is based on the true story of two less-than-honest wellness influencers, and the Hirsch Institute is based on a real place and course of treatment founded by a German Jew. In real life, Max Gerson became a hero to the anti-establishment medicine community, even as his methods have been widely discredited and flagged as dangerous by researchers, who continue to warn cancer patients against him to this day. 

Born in Germany in 1881, Gerson received his medical education in Europe, graduating from the University of Freiburg. His interest in seeking diet-based therapies for difficult illnesses surfaced early, as Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports from 1929 describe him as being the “discoverer of a new cure for tuberculosis through rigid diet.” Though Gerson “was derided and mocked at during the experimental period of his cure,” JTA wrote at the time, he “has now gained world-wide recognition.”

Gerson fled Germany for Vienna in 1933 as the Nazis came to power and soon banned all people of “Jewish or related blood” from working for the state — including in the field of cancer research, which Hitler, a hypochondriac, had made a policy priority. Eventually Gerson and his family made their way to the United States.

There, Gerson pursued the newly blossoming field of cancer research with vigor, taking his “rigid diet” protocol even further with unusual treatment methods. He operated a cancer clinic in upstate New York, testified on his methods before the Senate and authored multiple books documenting his methods prior to his death in 1958.

Those methods were unorthodox, to say the least — even for the time. Rejecting the promises of chemotherapy technologies then in their infancy, Gerson instead focused on metabolic therapy, believing that cancer stemmed from a patient’s diet and lifestyle choices and could be excised with a focus on natural foods, juices and expunging toxins from the body. 

Gerson came to believe that the medical establishment, which was taking a hardline approach toward rooting out “quacks,” was conspiring to suppress his research. Ironically, the most visible anti-quackery figure during this period was Dr. Morris Fishbein, the Jewish editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, whose zealous lifelong campaign to debunk and discredit pseudoscience led critics to deem him the “medical Mussolini.”

Decades of studies since Gerson’s death have found no evidence that metabolic therapy alone can serve as an effective cancer treatment, and the case studies he chronicled in his book were unconvincing to many researchers. 

But that didn’t stop Gerson’s descendants from continuing and promoting his methods, most prominently at the Gerson Institute. Founded in 1978 by Max’s daughter Charlotte, the institute is headquartered in San Diego as a nonprofit but its physical “treatment” center is across the border in Tijuana, where medical regulations are less stringent. It has for decades promoted its “hyper-nutrition and detoxification” regimen to cancer patients around the world. 

In the late 2000s it won over a major convert in Jessica Ainscough, whose story heavily inspired the character of Millie in “Apple Cider Vinegar.”

An Australian woman diagnosed with the incredibly rare cancer of epithelioid sarcoma at age 22, Ainscough rejected her oncologist’s advice to amputate the affected arm and instead opted for Gerson therapy. After appearing to find initial success, Ainscough began evangelizing for Gerson and branded herself as “The Wellness Warrior,” becoming a popular influencer. 

When Ainscough’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, she, too, waved off chemotherapy in favor of the Gerson method, a saga also chronicled with slight variations in the Netflix show. In the series, an elderly woman named Alma Hirsch (played by Robyn Nevin) personally supervises both treatments while deriding chemotherapy as “poison.” She’s modeled after Charlotte Gerson, who in real life continued to claim Gerson therapy could beat cancer and oversaw operations at her family’s institute until her death in 2019 at age 96.

Ainscough’s claim to have beaten cancer with Gerson’s methods was all a mirage — and in due time it collapsed. First, in 2013, her mother died of her breast cancer. Ainscough’s own health then worsened, which at first she tried to hide by wearing long sleeves in public to obscure the effects of the sarcoma (which is also depicted in the show). By the time she could no longer hide the disease’s progression, it was too late for serious medical intervention. 

Ainscough died in 2015; Belle Gibson, a parallel wellness influencer who faked cancer and is the show’s central figure, played by Kaitlyn Dever, attended her funeral, as she does in the series. 

The Gerson Institute remains active to this day, but now contains disclaimers announcing it “has its limitations, and we can make no guarantees about its effectiveness for every individual; recovery is on a case-by-case basis.”

Particularly in the aftermath of Ainscough’s death, medical professionals have called for the Gerson Institute to be held accountable.

“As outraged as we might have been over Ainscough’s promotion of the Gerson protocol in life, as we mourn, we should also remember that Jess Ainscough was also a victim of the very pseudoscience that she promoted,” Dr. David Gorski, a surgical oncologist at the Karmanos Cancer Institute, wrote on his blog Science-Based Medicine after Ainscough’s death. “Now that she is gone, what I want to know is this: Who are the quacks who enabled her and egged her on? Who are the quacks who conned her into believing that Gerson therapy would save her life?” 

Meanwhile, the “wellness” industry — which often includes hostility toward established medical practices — has been shown in some cases to intersect with fascist and antisemitic attitudes while also enjoying cultural reach as never before. This week Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose anti-vaccine campaigning has led him to make Holocaust comparisons and deem COVID-19 as being “ethnically targeted” to avoid Ashkenazi Jews, was confirmed as President Donald Trump’s new secretary of health and human services.

Last month, the Supreme Court agreed to weigh in on the constitutionality of Oklahoma’s St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School — what would be the country’s first religious charter school.

The case has all the hallmarks of a blockbuster church-state case, addressing the constitutionality of publicly funded religious education and potentially opening the door to tuition-free Jewish day schools. But the crux of the case comes down to which path the court will pick when facing a constitutional fork in the road: Should charter schools — which are publicly authorized and funded, but privately operated — be considered public schools or private schools?

This question has divided educators for decades, ever since charter schools were developed as a strategy to improve public education. And for the Supreme Court in the Oklahoma case, its answer makes all the difference. A religious public school is likely a constitutional non-starter — even for a court like this one has shown a willingness to shift the borders of church-state separation. But under longstanding precedent, a religious private school is entitled to receive funding equal to its nonreligious private school counterparts.

Back in 2023, Oklahoma’s Charter School Board voted to approve St. Isidore’s application to become a charter school. Gentner Drummond, Oklahoma’s attorney general, described the decision as “unconstitutional,” and a “serious threat to the religious liberty of all four million Oklahomans.” The Oklahoma constitution, after all, requires the state to establish and maintain a public school system “free from sectarian control.” And Oklahoma law defines charter schools as public schools. Therefore, Drummond concluded, Oklahoma law forbids the creation of a religious charter school.

Indeed, in his view, the First Amendment — and its prohibition against state establishment of religion — prohibits Oklahoma from doing otherwise. And so Drummond filed suit to undo the Charter School Board’s decision. (He also noted that allowing religious charter schools could result in ones that he said Oklahomans would find “reprehensible,” like schools associated with “radical Islam.”)

Notwithstanding its superficial appeal, the argument moves too quickly. It may be true that Oklahoma law calls charter schools public schools. But for constitutional purposes, the relevant legal question is whether the St. Isidore’s conduct is attributable to the state. And here the structure of a charter school makes the inquiry quite messy. On the one hand, charter schools are authorized by the state. On the other hand, they are operated by private entities. So which is it?

In a speech in Munich, Vice President J.D. Vance scolded European leaders for boycotting populist parties, and said German politicians should abandon their policy of maintaining a “firewall” against the far-right.

Vance’s speech to the Munich Security Conference on Friday was greeted with murmurs from the audience and backlash from German officials. It comes as the country’s far-right party, Alternative for Germany, is polling second ahead of national elections next week. The country’s center-right and center-left parties have long refused to work with the party, known as AfD.

“What German democracy — what no democracy, American, German or European — will survive is telling millions of voters that their thoughts and concerns, their aspirations, their pleas for relief, are invalid or unworthy of even being considered,” Vance said. “Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters. There’s no room for firewalls.”

Vance never directly mentioned AfD in his speech, which came one day after he visited the site of Dachau, the Nazi concentration camp, alongside a Holocaust survivor.

But the theme of the address was taking European leaders to task for what he called antidemocratic practices, including suppressing speech and refusing to work with populist politicians.

“The organizers of this very conference have banned lawmakers representing populist parties on both the left and the right from participating in these conversations,” Vance said. “Now, again, we don’t have to agree with everything or anything that people say. But when people represent, when political leaders represent, an important constituency, it is incumbent upon us to at least participate in dialogue with them.”

AfD’s rise has alarmed many Jews in Germany who say the party’s rhetoric resembles that used in the lead-up to the Holocaust. Some of the party’s most extreme representatives have belittled the Holocaust, saying that Germany has paid enough penance for the sins of an older generation. AfD also drew protests last year amid revelations that it held a secret meeting at a lakeside villa to discuss plans to deport foreigners, including those who had become German citizens. Prominent neo-Nazis attended the meeting, according to the news organization that broke the story, inducing painful echoes of the gathering of Nazi leaders at nearby Wannsee in 1942 to devise a plan to deport and then murder Jews.

Vance championed AfD’s central issue, opposing migration to Europe. His remarks echoed his seeming defense of AfD’s policies in December, when he wrote a post on X pushing back against criticism of the party’s policies.

“Of all the pressing challenges that the nations represented here face, I believe there is nothing more urgent than mass migration,” Vance said on Saturday. “No voter on this continent went to the ballot box to open the floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants… More and more, all over Europe, they’re voting for political leaders who promised to put an end to out-of-control migration.”

He also defended comments made by Elon Musk, the multibillionaire and top Trump adviser who has endorsed AfD and spoke at one of its rallies.

“Speaking up and expressing opinions isn’t election interference, even when people express views outside your own country and even when those people are very influential,” Vance said. “If American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg’s scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk.”

Vance’s words were met with criticism from German leaders.

“I don’t think it is right for foreigners, including those from friendly foreign countries, to interfere so intensively in an election campaign in the middle of an election period,” a government spokesperson said, according to Reuters. The German defense minister called Vance’s criticism of European democracy “unacceptable.”

An American-Israeli released from Gaza during the current Israel-Hamas ceasefire is exhorting President Donald Trump to press for the release of the remaining hostages.

“President Trump, you are the reason I am home alive. You are the reason I was reunited with my beloved wife, four children and five grandchildren. Thank you,” Siegel says in a video released by his family and hostage advocacy groups. “Thank you for your continued fight against terror and for your bold leadership that has brought me and many others back home, to our families, to safety and to security.”

Siegel, 65, moved to Israel from his native North Carolina as a young adult and was abducted from his home on Kibbutz Kfar Aza along with his wife Aviva, who was released during a weeklong ceasefire in November 2023. He remained in dire conditions for 14 more months.

“When I was in Gaza, I lived in constant fear — fear for my life and for my personal safety. I was starved and tortured, both physically and emotionally,” he says in the video, in which he speaks in English while sitting on a couch and appearing more robust than he had during his release. He also says he loves country music and making pancakes — a recipe for which has become a symbol for his supporters.

The current ceasefire, during which 33 hostages are to be released over 42 days, was struck just before Trump’s inauguration and he is widely seen as having pressured Israel and Hamas to reach an agreement that had previously been elusive. A recent poll found that nearly three-quarters of Israelis, including majorities across demographics that rarely agree on politics, credit Trump for pushing the deal through.

Now, advocates for the hostages are appealing to Trump to keep the pressure on to achieve the return of dozens of living hostages and more known to be dead.

“Mr. President, once again your leadership, power and authority are necessary to enforce the ceasefire and put an end to the unnecessary daily dangers to the lives of innocent hostages and civilians. Your leadership and strength will ensure the agreement is honored by all sides,” Siegel says in the video. “That is what will allow all 76 hostages to return home to their families. I trust your strength and leadership, Mr. President. The helpless hostages in the dark, cold tunnels in Gaza also trust you.”

After Hamas said it would delay future hostage releases, Trump said this week without elaborating that “all bets are off” if Hamas does not release all of the remaining hostages by Saturday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu followed up by promising a return to “intense fighting” if that deadline was not met. He has since backed off, and three more hostages — including another dual U.S.-Israeli citizen — are set for release on Saturday.

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After days of brinksmanship in which both Hamas and Israel threatened to breach their current ceasefire, Hamas has named three more Israeli hostages that it will release in accordance with the ceasefire’s terms on Saturday.

The hostages set for release include the only remaining American citizen set to be freed during the current phase of the deal and an Amazon employee whose captivity became a rallying point for some of his colleagues. They are:

• Sagui Dekel-Chen: One of three American citizens thought to remain alive in Gaza at the ceasefire’s start, Dekel-Chen, 36, is believed to have been shot on Oct. 7. A father of three, including a daughter born in his absence, he was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, where his mother was injured and played dead to avoid being taken hostage. His father, Jonathan Dekel-Chen, was born and raised in the United States and is a professor at Hebrew University.
• Yair Horn: An immigrant from Argentina, Horn, 45, was abducted from his home on Kibbutz Nir Oz with his younger brother Eitan, who remains a hostage.
• Sasha Trufanov: The only Russian citizen remaining in Gaza, Trufanov, 28, has drawn advocacy from Moscow as well as from fellow employees at Amazon, who have criticized the company for not advocating more publicly on his behalf. He was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz with his mother, grandmother and girlfriend, who were released during a November 2023 ceasefire; his father was murdered on Oct. 7. He has appeared in multiple videos released by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, most recently in November 2024.

If the men are released as planned, there will be 73 hostages remaining in Gaza, of whom 70 were taken when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. At least 43 of the remaining hostages are thought to be dead.

During the  two weeks that remain in the first phase of the ceasefire, Hamas has committed to releasing 14 more hostages, six of whom are alive. In recent days, following the release of three men last week, signs of life have been reported for a dozen male hostages — as well as harrowing details about the conditions of their captivity.

Israel is due to release a larger number of Palestinian security prisoners in exchange for the hostages.

The latest release will leave just one American thought to be alive in captivity in Gaza: Edan Alexander, a New Jersey native who joined the Israeli army after graduating from high school. There are also four dead hostages who held American citizenship.

Earlier this week, Hamas said it was suspending further releases of hostages, and then U.S. President Donald Trump, who is credited with successfully pressuring Israel and Hamas to strike the current ceasefire, added a further dose of uncertainty when he said “all bets are off” if all of the remaining hostages were not released by Saturday at noon. Israel endorsed that demand.

In subsequent days, however, both sides retreated from those positions and agreed to proceed with the original deal they struck last month.

Danielle Sassoon, the interim U.S. attorney in Manhattan, has resigned after the Justice Department ordered her to drop the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

Sassoon was one of a few top officials to resign over the order on Thursday, which she did not carry out. Also stepping down are the heads of the Justice Department’s public integrity office, which was to handle Adams’ corruption charges after Sassoon resigned.

Sassoon, 38, who is Jewish, had a quick rise through the ranks of the prestigious Southern District of New York before this week. She is a graduate of the Ramaz School, an Orthodox prep school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, as well as of Harvard University, where she held a leadership position with Harvard Students for Israel, according to a profile in The New York Times. She then attended Yale Law School.

At the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, Sassoon was involved in a number of high-profile prosecutions, including those of crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried and Larry Ray, who ran a sex cult at Sarah Lawrence College. Both received lengthy prison sentences. Sassoon was serving as interim U.S. attorney pending the confirmation of President Donald Trump’s nominee, Jay Clayton.

In her lengthy resignation letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, she outlined her objections and wrote that the evidence against Adams “proves beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed federal crimes.” She said that she could not “in good faith” request that the charges against Adams be dismissed.

She noted that the official who wants the charges dropped has not disputed the merits of the case. Dismissing the charges, she added, would be “inconsistent with my ability and duty to prosecute federal crimes without fear or favor and to advance good-faith arguments before the courts.”

Sassoon’s resignation is also the latest example of a conservative official clashing with the dictates of the Trump administration. She is a registered Republican and member of the conservative Federalist Society, and clerked for conservative judges early in her career, including Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. When he died in 2016, she wrote an affectionate remembrance calling him a “mentor and a mensch.”

“Both men instilled in me a sense of duty to contribute to the public good and uphold the rule of law, and a commitment to reasoned and thorough analysis,” she wrote in her resignation letter, referencing Scalia and another judge. “I have always considered it my obligation to pursue justice impartially, without favor to the wealthy or those who occupy important public office, or harsher treatment for the less powerful.”

Sassoon’s resignation has earned praise from another local Jewish official. New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who is running to unseat Adams in this year’s Democratic primary, tweeted on Thursday, “This is what integrity looks like. Danielle Sassoon is a hero for democracy.”

At her confirmation hearing Thursday, Linda McMahon made clear she expected to face questions about how she would combat campus antisemitism as secretary of education.

“If I am confirmed, the department will not stand idly by while Jewish students are attacked and discriminated against,” McMahon told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee during her opening statement. She also said she would fight “for the college freshman facing censorship or antisemitism on campus.”

But when asked how she’d differ from the Biden administration’s approach to the issue, President Donald Trump’s nominee offered few specifics — beyond saying she would “make sure that the presidents of those universities and those colleges are taking very strong measures not to allow this to happen.”

As education secretary, McMahon would be tasked with fulfilling one of Trump’s central pledges to Jewish voters: to take an aggressive posture toward campus antisemitism.

The Republican Party platform last year vowed to “deport pro-Hamas radicals” — and Trump signed an executive order to that effect last month, directing the removal of foreign students who support terrorism. On the campaign trail, Trump also promised to remove federal funding and accreditation from schools that host “antisemitic propaganda.”

But at the same time, Trump has mused about abolishing the Education Department entirely. The department’s civil rights office, which handles antisemitism complaints, has recently begun laying off workers.

When Democrats asked her about those layoffs, McMahon demurred.

“I have not yet been in the department. I don’t know about all the administrative people that have been put on leave. I want to look into that,” she said in response to Sen. Andy Kim, from New Jersey.

Kim had noted that some of the laid-off employees “were in the process of investigating cases directly related to antisemitic harassment” under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Title VI investigations were the anchor of the Biden administration’s response to the proliferation of campus antisemitism following the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war 16 months ago, and his education department promised to investigate every complaint it got. Now, dozens remain unresolved.

Republicans faulted the Biden administration for the large number of outstanding cases, even as many were resolved in the waning days of Biden’s term. Since Trump took office, more investigations have been opened.

At the hearing, Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, pressed McMahon multiple times on how she’d handle the “backlog” of Title VI investigations. McMahon declined to offer specifics, saying only that she would examine the issue.

“I’d like very much to be confirmed and to be able to get into the department and understand that backlog,” she told Cassidy. That answer led Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, a Republican, to praise McMahon’s “strong commitment” to dealing with Title VI.

McMahon, a former executive with World Wrestling Entertainment who led Trump’s Small Business Administration during his first term, is one of Trump’s more polarizing cabinet nominees, largely due to her relative lack of experience in education. She has served on the Connecticut state board of education as well as on a Catholic university board.

Trump’s first-term secretary of education, school choice advocate Betsy DeVos, was likewise controversial and was narrowly confirmed. School choice remains a priority for Trump, and he could get a boost from the Supreme Court, which is set to rule on whether states must allow publicly funded religious schools. McMahon’s hearing was interrupted multiple times by protesters, several of whom identified themselves as public school teachers.

McMahon defended Trump’s policies on campus antisemitism and, at other points, appeared to endorse campuses’ existing policies. She suggested that university presidents could “call in the police” and “set standards” to contend with violent pro-Palestinian protesters — both steps multiple university presidents have already taken. She also endorsed a continued emphasis on Title VI.

The only new idea related to antisemitism McMahon committed to was a request from Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall to form an “antisemitism commission,” though neither Marshall nor McMahon offered details on how such a commission would differ from an existing federal task force on the issue. At times during the hearing McMahon seemed more animated by other issues, including school choice and barring trans girls from playing girls sports.

Campus protests have cooled considerably under Trump, with only one encampment, at Maine’s Bowdoin College, so far lasting for a few days before the school suspended eight students for participating. University boards also remain a target of student activism, with Michigan State University protesters shutting down a meeting of the school’s Regents last week to push for divestment from Israel. Protesters at the University of California, Los Angeles, meanwhile, targeted a Jewish regent at his home with violent messaging.

Antisemitism also remains in the spotlight for university leadership: Harvard recently settled lawsuits from Jewish groups in part by promising to more stringently enforce policies on dialogue around Israel, which led two of its prominent pro-Palestinian faculty members to exit the school.

Meanwhile, Columbia’s faculty senate voted Wednesday on a new resolution to combat antisemitism, shortly after a Jewish professor at the school publicly announced his own exit owing to what he described as “systematic” anti-Israel bias. Columbia has also handed down harsh disciplinary measures to student protesters in recent weeks.

Faculty conduct around Israel and Zionism also remains under scrutiny. A recent Brown University conference on “non-Zionist Jewish traditions,” headlined by several prominent Jewish academics, drew opposition from a local pro-Israel group.

In her hearing, McMahon voiced support for freedom of speech on campus tempered by concern for public safety, echoing language used by university leaders. Pro-Palestinian activists have contended that they are being censored under the guise of fighting antisemitism, while campus administrations have responded by saying their protests often violate school policy.

“I fully believe that there should be First Amendment protection for discourse and for freedom of speech,” McMahon said in response to a question about campus antisemitism from South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott. “But when you become involved in activities that are actually endangering the students that are on campus, then that is not what should happen.”

New York City’s popular Israeli restaurant 12 Chairs Café is going kosher — but only for four nights.

The Tel Aviv-inspired spot in SoHo is known for its brunch — particularly its jachnun, a Yemenite fried dough that’s only available on weekends — but not for being kosher. From March 3 to March 6, however, diners can enjoy a special certified kosher prix-fixe meal, priced at $180 per person.

The restaurant — which opened in 2001, and established a second branch in Williamsburg in 2015 — is teaming up with Chef Avi Levy from Jerusalem kosher restaurant Hamotzi to create a special Moroccan-Algerian menu that will include dips, salads, breads, Glatt kosher meat entrées and kosher wine.

“We’re an Israeli restaurant and it’s not kosher, and we wanted to bring it to the new customers that we want, to the new audience that we want, because a lot of people know 12 Chairs, but because it’s not kosher, it sucks,” the restaurant’s marketing coordinator, Kate Amrani, said. “We have a lot of people that [said] they’re sad that it’s not kosher. And we can do it, and we’re Jewish, and we understand that. So why not bring a big chef that we all know and make it kosher?”

Born in Jerusalem, Levy, 48, with whom 12 Chairs is partnering, something of a legend in Israel. As a teen, Levy became addicted to drugs and was unable to complete his army service. After serving multiple drug-related prison sentences, during which he continued cooking — a skill he learned from his mother as a child — Levy entered rehab, and when he got clean, his sister entered him into the second season of the Israeli version of “Master Chef” in 2011, which he won.

The following year, with the assistance of the co-owner of the Café Rimon kosher chain, Levy opened Hamotzi to rave reviews.

The collaboration with 12 Chairs, which was named to our list of 18 essential Israeli restaurants in New York City, is Levy’s first popup in New York City.

“How excited I am to arrive at a gorgeous restaurant in New York to do a kosher week at a restaurant that has been hosting a non-kosher audience for many years,” Levy wrote in an Instagram story Tuesday. “They are specially preparing the restaurant. An amazing operation. What fun.”

This will be 12 Chairs’ third popup, following two collaborations last year with chef Ohad Levi from Mamo in Eilat and chef Moshiko Gamlieli, the founder of Israeli restaurants Bar 51, Mona and Radler.

This popup will be 12 Chairs’ first time going kosher. The special event will take place at 12 Chairs Next Door, the restaurant’s private event space, which has a separate kitchen from the adjacent main restaurant. Diners who want to experience the everyday 12 Chairs menu and atmosphere can still do so at the main restaurant (or head to their Brooklyn outpost).

Rabbi Sholtiel Lebovic, the director of GoKosher.org, is helping to turn 12 Chairs over for those four nights. Though Lebovic’s business typically kashers private homes, he’s also worked with Chef Daniel Boulud’s namesake restaurant, Daniel, on the Upper East Side, to make it kosher for a one-time, private event.

Kashering 12 Chairs for this popup will include the process of immersing dinnerware and glassware in the mikvah, or ritual bath, and placing dinnerware and flatware in boiling water.

Ceramic, Lebovic explained, cannot be made kosher, so the restaurant is purchasing new plates, as well as new deep fryers, because old grease is difficult to remove. (The new plates will be held in storage for possible future kosher events.)

They’ll begin kashering everything the Sunday before guests begin arriving; Lebovic said that with his team of three, the process will take less than two full days. During the run of the popup, Lebovic will serve as the mashgiach, or kosher supervisor, who will ensure that everything is up to code.

“Once you have all those things in place, you can maintain and run a kosher kitchen,” he said.

12 Chairs Next Door, which has a capacity of 55, will seat 40 guests at each of the two dining sessions available per evening, at 6:30 p.m. and 9 p.m.

As of press time per Resy.com, all seatings of the popup are sold out.

“It seems that it’s struck a chord, that there’s enough people, the critical mass is there,” Lebovic said. “They want the kosher [experience].”