This week: Responding to Tragedy Around the World 🕎 | This Is How We Fight Antisemitism 🕍 | Word on the Street 🚧 | Save Your Seat at the J Street 2026 Convention 🎟️ | This Week’s Must-Reads/Listens 📖 | Our Pro-Democracy To-Do List 🗳️ | And much more.

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🕎 Responding to Tragedy Around the World: This past weekend was incredibly painful for our community after a horrific school shooting at Brown University and a deadly antisemitic attack during a Hanukkah celebration in Australia.

• "We are horrified and heartbroken by the antisemitic terror attack at Bondi Beach in Sydney, where Jews celebrating the first night of Hanukkah were targeted in an act of unspeakable violence. Our hearts are with the families of those killed, the many injured and all who witnessed this atrocity," J Street Director of Communal Relations Sam Berkman said. Read the full statement here >>

• “As J Street U students, we carry forward a vision of a world shaped by understanding, not fear – a world we are determined to fight for, in the face of violence and loss, and now more than ever,” the J Street U National Board said. Read their powerful statement here >>

🕍 This Is How We Fight Antisemitism: This week, Representatives Jerry Nadler, Rosa DeLauro, Becca Balint and Maxwell Frost introduced The Antisemitism Response and Prevention Act (ARPA), which would provide security funding for places of worship, strengthen national hate crime tracking and responses and ensure college students have on-campus support to prevent and address antisemitism.

• “If passed, this legislation would safeguard American Jews by protecting the democratic pillars that have allowed Jewish life to flourish in this country. Our safety is inextricably linked to defending democratic freedoms. The ARPA advances both goals, and we urge Members of Congress to support it,” Jeremy said in a press release about the bill. Read the full statement here >>

• The Trump Administration has doubled down on its demonization of immigrant communities in response to an increase in antisemitic hate crimes, with many MAGA Republicans suggesting that only Christians or people of certain ethnic groups should be allowed access into the US.
  
  "The administration selectively cites violence, instability and extremist activity to justify sweeping restrictions that treat entire communities as security threats, abandoning individualized, evidence-based vetting in favor of collective exclusion. Targeting people as a group erodes the values the United States claims to uphold," J Street Vice President and Chief of Staff Adina Vogel-Ayalon said in a statement responding to the administration’s ban on people with Palestinian Authority passports from entering the country.

🚧 Word on the Street: J Street publishes commentary, video conversations and policy pieces on our Substack throughout the week. Subscribe here >>

• Where Have All the Profiles in Courage Gone? This week, Jeremy demands answers from the Republican Party as they increasingly give into the Trump Administration’s authoritarian onslaught:
  
  "The failure of the Republican Party in Congress to stand up to Donald Trump – and to defend the prerogatives of the legislative branch in the face of his unprecedented expansion of executive power – may be the clearest example. Over and over, Members who know better have chosen acquiescence over accountability". Read the full piece >>

• Combating Antisemitism Through Coalition-building: Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and former J Street staff member, joined Jeremy Ben-Ami and J Street Chief Policy Officer Ilan Goldenberg to discuss the attack in Australia and how to make Jewish communities safer:
  
  “I think that the story out of Australia – Ahmed al-Ahmad's heroism – is exactly the sort of stories we need to be lifting up right now because the most extreme voices are telling us that we're alone, that no one shows up for our community when we're under attack, that no one cares right now. And that's a core tactic of extremism to make us feel alone and isolated,” she said. Watch the full conversation here >>

🍦 Next week's Word on the Street will feature Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream next Tuesday, December 23 at 4pm Eastern. Subscribe here to get an alert when we go live >> 🍦

📝 This Week from the Policy Center: J Street’s Policy Center publishes weekly analyses on US-Israeli policy and broader Middle East politics.

• Netanyahu's Pardon Gamble and What It Means For Israeli Democracy
  Prime Minister Netanyahu’s 111-page pardon request is unprecedented in Israeli political and legal history – a sitting prime minister requesting a pardon mid-trial, without admitting wrongdoing. J Street Policy Fellow Yael Patir assesses the constitutionality of the request, why it poses a threat to the rule of law and the reaction across Israel’s political spectrum.
  
  “Domestically, the pardon request is a classic Netanyahu maneuver: Whichever way the system turns, he wins. If Herzog and the legal establishment move toward some form of clemency, Netanyahu can present it as national reconciliation and use it to reshape the political map – perhaps by assembling a unity government, moderating his coalition, and rehabilitating his image as a unifier after years of polarization.” Read the full piece here >>

🎟️ Save Your Seat at the J Street 2026 Convention: From working to press the ceasefire forward to defending for our democracy at the ballot box, J Street’s work has never been more important. 

• Our 2026 convention will feature pro-peace leaders from Israel and Palestine, pro-democracy champions in the House and Senate, and challengers looking to defeat MAGA incumbents up and down the ballot. Don't miss out on the largest gathering of our pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-democracy movement next year! Learn more and register here >>

📖 This Week’s Must-Reads/Listens:

• From Military Discourse to Security Through State Craft
  "The leadership of the centrist parties is also huddled around the military tribal campfire, afraid to talk about a political solution, lest it diminish the perception of 'security above all else' that it seeks to project to the public," J Street Israel Executive Director Nadav Tamir writes in Times of Israel.

• Cynicism After Horror: Netanyahu Exploits Bondi Attack for His Own Agenda
  “It takes boundless audacity for Netanyahu to directly blame a government – however ineffective it may be – for an attack when he himself has never assumed the slightest responsibility for the October 7, 2023, attack, the largest murder of Jews since the Second World War, instead placing the blame (to this day) on the heads of the army and security services who were in office that day," J Street leader Sebastien Levi writes in Jerusalem Post.

• From Jerusalem to DC, the Rise of Qatar Is a Grim Marker of the Death of Democracy
  "There was once a time when a state's claim to be a democracy was integral to its international legitimacy and central to its image on the world stage. Even countries that were neither democratic nor republics – that were, in fact, despotic regimes or dictatorships – affixed those descriptors to their names because even their cynical deployment was necessary in a world in which democracy remained the dream of the world's masses," Joshua Leifer writes in Haaretz.

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