🧵1/ You can’t fight division by telling people their fears are the problem. Real leadership starts with listening.

🧵 1/ I went to the Kristallnacht memorial tonight at Emek Sholom in Richmond. It’s the oldest Holocaust memorial in North America — survivors built it in 1955 after they made Virginia their home. This one hit different. Let me tell you why.

The moment it became official. Virginia’s first woman governor. History in real time. 🇺🇸 @abigailspanberger.com

Tonight, Virginia made history. @abigailspanberger.com: Our FIRST woman governor. @senatorhashmi.bsky.social: America’s FIRST Muslim woman in statewide office. Jones: Our FIRST Black Attorney General. Three trailblazers. One message: THIS is what the future looks like.

Abigail Spanberger just shattered Virginia’s highest glass ceiling. Former CIA officer turned public servant. Flipped a red district. Now Governor-elect. The Commonwealth said: send us someone who gets shit done. History. Made.

Omer Neutra is home. For 426 days, his parents lived between hope and heartbreak — not knowing if he was alive. For many more, they kept fighting to bring him home. After 758 days, Omer has been returned to the land he loved and served. May his memory be a blessing. 🕯️

John Reid could watch Ghazala Hashmi rescue kittens from a burning building and still call it “radical.” There’s nothing she could do that wouldn’t offend a man this fragile.

While Virginians worry about groceries, bills, and childcare, Glenn Youngkin’s busy attacking a sitting senator for being Muslim. He keeps picking fights while Virginians just want solutions. On Tuesday, we’ll remind him — Virginians decide who belongs here.

Tonight was everything. @noatishby.bsky.social came to Richmond, and the turnout was incredible. The conversation was powerful. The connection was real. And the room was packed with people who care deeply about what comes next. Thank you to Jewish Federation of Richmond for making it happen.

🧵 1/ I need to talk about what happened at Langley HS and Thomas Jefferson HS last week. Student groups at both schools posted videos simulating kidnappings as “recruitment humor.” This isn’t funny. It’s cruel. And we need to talk about why. @jcrcgw.bsky.social

I just finished Eli Sharabi’s “Hostage” and I can’t stop thinking about it. A husband and father, dragged from his home. His family killed. 491 days starving in tunnels. Yet he became a protector to younger captives, finding light in total darkness. Read this book. Please.

Rom Braslavski watching the sunset over Tel Aviv—free, home, alive. After years in the dark, he’s standing in the light again. Od lo avda tikvatenu—our hope is not lost. 🌅🇮🇱

No one forgot Noa Argamani—screaming, reaching for Avinatan as Hamas dragged her away on that motorcycle. That video stayed burned in our minds. Today, they’re together again. Holding each other. Breathing again. Love survived 738 days of hell. ❤️‍🩹

You can’t fake joy like this. After more than 700 days in Hamas captivity, Omri Miran is finally home, playing on the floor with his daughters, Roni and Alma. Evil took years from them. Love gave them this moment back.

This is what moral clarity looks like. @markwarner.bsky.social didn’t hedge or hesitate—just humanity, relief, and hope. After 738 days, every living hostage is home. Every leader should be able to say that.

I still remember that morning, October 7. Refreshing my phone. Crying. Praying for names I didn’t even know. Today I watched those same families hold each other again. It’s the kind of good news that makes you believe again. From that day to this one—heartbreak to hope. 💙

738 days later—they’re home. Every living Israeli hostage. The hugs say it all. 💙

Confronted with facts, Virginia Del. Sam Rasoul didn’t correct himself. He said “Paid by Israel.” It’s a textbook case of twisting evidence to keep the same villain. Hard to believe this is the person setting standards for truth in Virginia classrooms. (thread ⬇️)

1/ There’s finally a ceasefire. Hostages are being released. People are taking their first real breath in years. And Virginia Del. Sam Rasoul decides this is the moment to post a tribute to a Hamas influencer… and blame his death on “Zionism.” Unreal.

After two years, there’s finally a deal to bring the remaining hostages home. For every family, the silence finally breaks. For the first time in two years, there’s space to breathe, for every family touched by this, to begin healing. 🎗️

My heart is with @candimundonking.bsky.social and her entire family. Losing Candis at just 15 is devastating beyond words. I believe people live on through the love they inspired and the hearts they touched. May you find strength in community and in Candis’s beautiful memory. 💔

Yom Kippur begins tonight. We fast not as punishment, but as clarity—stripping away everything until only truth remains. This year’s truth: when cruelty is normalized, kindness is defiance. May we be defiant. G’mar chatimah tova.

Calling campus antisemitism “preposterous” ignores how institutional failure works. When the alarm goes off, you find the fire—you don’t disconnect the wiring.

The shofar calls us to wake up, bread in water calls us to let go. For thousands of years, Jews have chosen renewal in the darkest times. With antisemitism rising, choosing to celebrate feels like victory. Hope is a choice. We’re choosing it. L’shanah tovah.

Shanah Tovah. This year, the sweetness feels harder to reach. But still—we gather, we sing, we hope. Being Jewish has never been easy. But it’s always been brave. Here’s to another year of holding fast to who we are. Together. Always.

🧵1/ In her JCRC of Greater Washington Virginia Jewish Voter Guide responses, Sen. @senatorhashmi.bsky.social laid out what real leadership on antisemitism looks like. This progression floored me. 👇

First day of early voting in VA and it’s BUZZING after our kickoff with Jay Jones in Norfolk! Shoutout to my favorite staffer Emily—she's CRUSHING IT for @abigailspanberger.com, @senatorhashmi.bsky.social & Jones. VOTE EARLY. The democracy you save might be your own. 🗳️ iwillvote.com?state=VA

Shye rips himself open every time he tells his October 7th story. He's been homeless since that day, traveling to 230+ cities, choosing our education over his survival. Help him keep speaking. 🗣️

🧵1/ Last night I had the privilege of attending an event at ODU’s Hillel, organized by Dr. Amy Milligan. The room was packed to hear Shye Klein share his firsthand account of surviving the Nova Music Festival massacre. What I heard changed me.

Jewish faculty are hiding their identity to survive at work. When fear drives self-censorship, academic discourse suffers. Two surveys show how campus antisemitism operates—not through majority opinion, but through institutional failure to address harassment.

This Selichot season feels different. Not quiet preparation—persistence. Not whispers into the void, but cries that demand to be heard. Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting. It means carrying grief without letting it consume us, and choosing to return, together.

Damn. Davey Johnson’s gone. Feels like a chunk of my childhood just got yanked out. I was a kid in ’86 but I still remember that team, that feeling. Thanks for making me believe baseball was magic.

Republicans talk “pro-worker.” But scratch the surface—it’s all for the bosses. Loud slogans up front. Corporate favors in the fine print. More in my Labor Day piece in the comments ⤵️

Nine ex-CDC directors just dropped the loudest alarm you’ll ever hear. RFK Jr is firing scientists, killing vaccine programs, leaving kids exposed. These aren’t pundits. They’re the people who built the defenses that keep Americans alive. If they’re scared, we should be terrified.

Labor is freedom. The freedom to come home safe from a shift. The freedom to take a sick day without risking your job. The freedom to spend time with family instead of juggling three paychecks. That’s the promise of Labor Day—and the future workers deserve.

Schools are banning phones. Let’s do the White House next, save us from late-night ALL CAPS.

Spanberger’s not asking you to believe in magic. She’s asking you to believe in results you can take to the bank.

Adam Duritz worked the fields at Nir Oz at 18. Decades later, the kibbutz was nearly destroyed, and now it’s being rebuilt. Proof that even when the places that shape us break, we carry them forward. In memory, in music, in the work of starting again.

Trump showing up looking like the first clinical trial for RFK Jr.’s health plan.

John Reid thinks 322,000 Virginians losing health care is “a lie.” Imagine being that comfortable calling people’s lives fake news. 😳

Orange smoke means rebooting… 25% complete.

CVS: no prescription, no vaccine. America: no background check, no problem. We’ve made public health harder than stockpiling weapons.

Every empty chair at the table is a reminder of what these drugs do. Glad to see @repvindman.bsky.social trying to stop nitazenes before they wreck more lives.

Being Jewish in America right now is lonely. Not because we don’t belong, but because every side finds a reason to blame us. Full reflection for the High Holidays ⬇️

He said “don’t hate Jews.” They couldn’t clap. That silence is what antisemitism looks like today.

Colorado, 2025: Jews need “undisclosed locations” to grieve. Feels familiar? It should.

Groceries keep climbing. Coffee, beef, and hardware have gone up again. Trump’s tariffs are squeezing Virginia families and Republicans here just clap along. People are hurting while they cheer the pain. November’s our chance to stop it.

WORLDWIDE HYSTERIA. DC edition.

🧵1/ Praying for the families in Minneapolis tonight. Two children gone. Seventeen more injured.

This is what it feels like to be Jewish right now: • Too white to be victims. • Too foreign to belong. • Too loud if we speak. Too complicit if we don’t. That loneliness is the reckoning of It’s Complicated. You can read my full essay in the comments.