NEW YORK (AP) — Leading Jewish groups in the United States are urging all Jewish organizations to ratchet up security measures at public events — including restrictions on access — following the deadly mass shooting that targeted a Hanukkah celebration on a popular Australian beach.
The groups — including three which specialize in security issues — said Jewish public events in the coming days should be open only to people who had been screened after preregistering.
“Provide details of location, time, and other information only upon confirmed registration,” the groups’ advisory said. “Have access control (locks and entrance procedures) to only allow known, confirmed registrants/attendees into the facility/event.”
Coinciding with this urgent appeal for increased precautions, some rabbis said their synagogues would proceed with large-scale celebrations, intended to demonstrate resilience. The mass shooting is the latest reminder of the Jewish community's longstanding reality of having to factor security into religious practice.
“This week, let us choose Jewish joy, communal strength, and courageous hope,” said a message posted by Temple Beth Sholom, one of the largest synagogues in the Miami area. "We invite every member of our family ... to join us this week as we celebrate Chanukah. Let us gather to share the warmth of the candles and reaffirm our unbreakable connection.”
Similar sentiments were expressed by Rabbi Jeffrey Myers of Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Congregation, a survivor of the 2018 attack by an antisemitic gunman that killed 11 worshippers at the synagogue.
“Hanukkah is supposed to be a time of light, celebrating the resilience of our people,” Myers said. “In the face of antisemitism and violence, my prayer is that we don’t let the fear win but instead lean into our Jewishness and practice our tradition proudly.”
At least 15 people died in Sunday's attack, which fueled criticism that Australian authorities were not doing enough to combat a surge in antisemitic crimes. On Monday, Australia's leaders promised to overhaul already-tough gun control laws after the targeted attack on Sydney’s Bondi Beach
Among those killed was Eli Schlanger, assistant rabbi at Chabad of Bondi and an organizer of the Hanukkah event, according to Chabad, an Orthodox Jewish movement that runs outreach worldwide and is known for its public menorah lightings.
Just a year earlier, according to Chabad, Schlanger had urged his fellow Jews to be uncowed in the face of rising antisemitism, voicing this message, “Be more Jewish, act more Jewish and appear more Jewish.”
Chabad.org said Chabad centers worldwide are going ahead with thousands of planned public menorah lightings and community Hanukkah celebrations “while taking greater security precautions — calling on the Jewish community to drown out hate with greater light and goodness while mourning those lost and wounded in Sydney.”
The Sydney shooting reinforced the importance of these public celebrations, said Rabbi Chaim Landa with Chabad of Greater St. Louis. The organization proceeded with its planned Sunday night menorah lighting near the Gateway Arch but with a greater police presence. He believes it is what Schlanger would have wanted.
“There’s a couple pieces to this. There’s making sure that it’s safe, and there’s also making sure that people feel safe. And we want both,” said Landa, who estimates close to 300 people attended the outdoor event in below-freezing temperatures.
“People wanted to come out, and they wanted to be together. So it’s very important that people feel that they can do that, and that’s what we want to ensure."
On Monday night, at the spot earlier this year where a man hurled fiery Molotov cocktails at people demonstrating in support of Israeli hostages in Gaza, members of the Jewish community in Boulder, Colorado, were set to light a dramatic new menorah.
The theme of the ceremony is “flames of love” -- in response to the June 1 attack that killed an 82-year-old woman and injured 12 others.
Yitzchok Moully, a rabbi and artist, said he was inspired to create a 7-foot-tall (2-meter), stainless steel menorah for the community in Boulder following the firebombing.
“We are here and we’re standing strong and we’re not cowering in the darkness,” said Moully, who is originally from Melbourne, Australia.
In a speech delivered after the Australia attack, the president of the largest branch of Judaism in North America elaborated on the mix of dismay and determination being experienced through the Jewish community.
“We are thinking about security and how to live openly and safely as Jews — asking questions that are newer to us but would have been all too familiar to generations of our ancestors,” said Rabbi Rick Jacobs of the Union for Reform Judaism.
“We need to ask these hard questions. We need to be smart about security and protecting ourselves and our fellow Jews — whether within the synagogue walls, or when we walk down the street wearing a kippah,” he added. “But the spirit of the defiant Maccabees is also part of the Hanukkah story. Our Jewish community will not go into hiding. We are proud Jews and will remain so even as we make the security of our Jewish community a primary obligation.”
Jacobs referred to the Jewish tradition of placing the Hanukkah menorah in a window for others to see.
“But in the Babylonian Talmud we are taught that in a time of danger, we do not do that,” Jacobs said. “We have been living in a time of growing danger for several years now. And for too many Jews, putting a menorah in the window is too dangerous.”
Alon Shalev, a research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, argued that Jews — following th attack — should be bolder in boosting their public profile.
“When Jews are attacked for being visibly Jewish, the instinct to retreat is understandable — but it is precisely the wrong response," he told The Associated Press via email.
“Jewish safety in democratic societies depends on open, shared civic affirmation, supported by political and community leaders and by fellow citizens, not on retreat behind closed doors,” he added. "Stepping into the public square and normalizing Jewish presence is how we defend ourselves.”
AP religion news editor Holly Meyer in Nashville, Tennessee, and AP reporter Colleen Slevin in Denver contributed.
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
People look at the Menorah during the annual National Menorah Lighting in celebration of Hanukkah, on the Ellipse near the White House in Washington, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Rabbi Levi Shemtov speaks to the crowd before he lights the Menorah during the annual National Menorah Lighting in celebration of Hanukkah, on the Ellipse near the White House in Washington, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
President Donald Trump’s top Cabinet officials overseeing national security are expected back on Capitol Hill on Tuesday as questions mount over the swift escalation of U.S. military force and deadly boat strikes in international waters near Venezuela.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and others are set to brief members of the House and the Senate amid congressional investigations into a military strike in September that killed two survivors of an initial attack on a boat allegedly carrying cocaine. Legal experts say it could have been a war crime, or murder. On the eve of the hearings, the U.S. military announced three more boat attacks targeting “designated terrorist organizations,” killing eight more people.
Here's the latest:
Susie Wiles sharply criticized Attorney General Pam Bondi’s handling of the Epstein case and the public’s expectations in the interview with Vanity Fair magazine that was released Tuesday.
Wiles specifically mentioned earlier in the year when Bondi distributed binders to a group of political commentators that included no new information about Epstein. Wiles also raised the issue of Bondi suggesting that a list of Epstein’s clients was on her desk and awaiting her review.
“I think she completely whiffed on appreciating that that was the very targeted group that cared about this,” Wiles said of Bondi. “First she gave them binders full of nothingness. And then she said that the witness list, or the client list, was on her desk. There is no client list, and it sure as hell wasn’t on her desk.”
After Vanity Fair published the interview, Wiles criticized it as a “disingenuously framed hit piece” on her, Trump, the White House staff and Cabinet. She did not deny any of the comments that were attributed to her.
Trump doesn’t drink. But Susie Wiles, according to Vanity Fair magazine, says the president has “an alcoholic’s personality.”
It’s among the many unvarnished thoughts attributed to Wiles in a series of interviews Vanity Fair featured Tuesday in a lengthy two-part profile of the White House chief of staff.
Wiles has called the profile a “hit piece” but has not denied any specifics.
In one interview, Wiles says she recognizes characteristics in Trump that she saw in her father, sports broadcaster Pat Summerall, who was an alcoholic.
“High-functioning alcoholics or alcoholics in general, their personalities are exaggerated when they drink. And so I’m a little bit of an expert in big personalities,” Wiles said, adding that Trump has “a view that there’s nothing he can’t do. Nothing, zero, nothing.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is defending chief of staff Susie Wiles after an explosive Vanity Fair piece that featured months of Wiles’ interviews with the magazine about Trump and his second presidency.
Neither Wiles nor Leavitt are denying any specific claims or quotations in the piece. But their pushback shows an effort to blunt potential criticism of Wiles, who to this point has maintained a low profile despite her considerable influence.
“President Trump has no greater or more loyal advisor than Susie,” Leavitt posted Tuesday on social media. “The entire Administration is grateful for her steady leadership.”
Wiles managed Trump’s 2024 campaign and then he tapped her as the first woman to serve as White House chief of staff.
Prosecutors are trying to convince jurors that Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan knew what was at stake when she directed an immigrant to a private door in the courthouse to evade agents.
Jurors on Monday heard audio from the incident in which Judge Dugan told her court reporter, “I’ll get the heat,” as they discussed who would assist Eduardo Flores-Ruiz.
The prosecution continued its case Tuesday with cross examination of an FBI agent who was part of the arrest team.
White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles is blasting a Vanity Fair piece that featured months of interviews about Donald Trump and his second presidency.
Wiles, in a social media post, called the two-part profile “a disingenuously framed hit piece on me and the finest President, White House staff, and Cabinet in history.” Wiles did not deny any specific quotations attributed to her, including criticism of Attorney General Pam Bondi, calling Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy “quirky Bobby,” and saying Trump has “an alcoholic’s personality.” (The president does not drink.)
“Significant context was disregarded and much of what I, and others, said about the team and the President was left out,” Wiles asserted without details.
The first woman to serve as White House chief of staff, Wiles previously has kept a low profile despite her considerable influence.
The United States gained a decent 64,000 jobs in November but lost 105,000 in October as federal workers departed after cutbacks by the Trump administration, the government said Tuesday in delayed reports. And the unemployment rate rose to 4.6%, highest since 2021.
Hiring has clearly lost momentum, hobbled by uncertainty over Trump’s tariffs and the lingering effects of high interest rates the Federal Reserve engineered in 2022 and 2023 to rein in inflation.
American companies are mostly holding onto the employees they have. But they’re reluctant to hire new ones as they struggle to assess how to use artificial intelligence and how to adjust to Trump’s unpredictable policies, especially his double-digit taxes on imports from around the world.
▶ Read more about how the uncertainty leaves jobseekers struggling to even land interviews
The Ukrainian president says proposals being negotiated with U.S. officials for a deal to end the fighting in Russia’s nearly 4-year-old invasion of his country could be finalized within days, after which American envoys will present them to the Kremlin before possible further meetings in the U.S. next weekend.
A draft peace plan discussed with the U.S. during talks in Berlin on Monday is “not perfect” but is “very workable,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters, while cautioning that some key issues — notably what happens to Ukrainian territory occupied by Russian forces — remain unresolved.
But as the spotlight shifts to Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin may balk at some of the proposals thrashed out by officials from Washington, Kyiv and Western Europe, including postwar security guarantees for Ukraine.
The security proposal discussed in Berlin will be based on Western help in keeping the Ukrainian army strong, an official from a NATO nation said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
“Europeans will lead a multinational and multi-domain force to strengthen those troops and to secure Ukraine from the land, sea and air, and the U.S. will lead a ceasefire monitoring and verification mechanism, with international participation,” the official said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov repeated Tuesday that Russia wants a comprehensive peace deal, and that if Ukraine seeks “momentary, unsustainable solutions, we are unlikely to be ready to participate.”
“We want peace — we don’t want a truce that would give Ukraine a respite and prepare for the continuation of the war,” he told reporters. “We want to stop this war, achieve our goals, secure our interests, and guarantee peace in Europe for the future.”
“It seems like another example of the pay-to-play administration,” said Kedric Payne, who leads the ethics program at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center in Washington. “There is clearly a perception that in order to get favorable policies and acts from the administration, a company needs to provide a financial benefit to the president.”
Trump Media did not respond to specific questions about the arrangement. “Neither the President nor his family have ever engaged, or will ever engage, in conflicts of interest,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
Crypto.com was under siege for more a year, told enforcement action was likely as part of an aggressive Biden administration push to regulate the cryptocurrency industry. Then Donald Trump won the 2024 election, and the company’s legal peril dissipated.
By August, Crypto.com announced it was plunging roughly $1 billion worth of assets into a venture with a new partner — Trump’s social media company, which had lost hundreds of millions of dollars since its 2021 launch.
Legal and ethics experts say Crypto.com’s journey from investigative target to Trump business partner provides a case study of conflicts of interest as Trump family businesses enter lucrative arrangements with federally regulated companies, some of which have benefited from action taken by his administration.
▶ Read more from the AP investigation into Trump’s relationship with Crypto.com
Hegseth, Rubio and others are set to brief members of the House and the Senate behind closed doors as the U.S. is building up its presence with warships, flying fighter jets near Venezuelan airspace and seizing an oil tanker as part of its campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who has insisted the real purpose of the U.S. military operations is to force him from office.
Trump’s Republican administration has not sought any authorization from Congress for action against Venezuela. But lawmakers objecting to the military incursions are pushing war powers resolutions toward potential voting this week.
▶ Read more about the briefing
The Trump administration said in a court filing Monday that the president’s White House ballroom construction project must continue for unexplained national security reasons and because a preservationists’ organization that wants it stopped has no standing to sue.
The filing was in response to a lawsuit filed last Friday by the National Trust for Historic Preservation asking a federal judge to halt President Donald Trump’s project until it goes through multiple independent reviews and a public comment period and wins approval from Congress.
The administration’s 36-page filing included a declaration from Matthew C. Quinn, deputy director of the U.S. Secret Service, the agency responsible for the security of the president and other high-ranking officials, that said more work on the site of the former White House East Wing is still needed to meet the agency’s “safety and security requirements.” The filing did not explain the specific national security concerns; the administration has offered to share classified details with the judge in a private, in-person setting without the plaintiffs present.
▶ Read more about the court filing
Here’s a look at key moments in Trump fights with the media in his second term:
The 33-page lawsuit filed in Florida accuses the BBC of broadcasting a “false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious depiction of President Trump,” calling it “ a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence ” the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
It accuses the BBC of “splicing together two entirely separate parts of President Trump’s speech on January 6, 2021” in order to ”intentionally misrepresent the meaning of what President Trump said.” It seeks $5 billion in damages for defamation and $5 billion for unfair trade practices.
The broadcaster apologized last month to Trump over the edit of the speech he gave before his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. But the publicly funded BBC rejected claims it had defamed him, after Trump threatened legal action.
BBC chairman Samir Shah had called the edit an “error of judgment,” which triggered the resignations of the BBC’s top executive and its head of news.
▶ Read more about the lawsuit
President Donald Trump speaks during a Mexican Border Defense Medal presentation in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, in Washington, as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, looks on. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
