How US Jews are fighting American antisemitism

Eilon and Rami Even-Esh’s parents are Israeli immigrants. Raised in New Jersey, Rami, 42, a rapper, is the first in his immediate family to be born in the US.

He performs under the stage name Kosha Dillz and describes himself as inadvertently fighting antisemitism through his music and by embracing his Jewish identity and expressing his authentic self. He appeals to a widely diverse audience that is learning about Israel, Jewish history and culture, and antisemitism through the messages of his songs.

His brother, Eilon, 50, a self-defense instructor who served in the IDF and the Marine Corps, was born in Haifa, where he lived for the first three years of his life before his family moved to New York. He is empowering the Jewish community, particularly the Orthodox, by teaching them how to defend themselves against hate crimes. Eilon and Rami’s other brother, Zach, 48, a strength coach and former bodybuilder, was Mr. Israel in 1995.

Rami once pushed aside his Jewish identity during a turbulent period of drug addiction, but after over 18 years of sobriety, he’s proud that it’s an inherent and inseparable part of who he is, and he expresses this in his art. Dressed up as Moses, he performed outside Manhattan’s Katz’s Delicatessen with a box of matzah; and he rapped about Hanukkah while riding on horseback through Brooklyn, wearing a white cowboy hat. He has entertained audiences at the Upper West Side Holy Schnitzel Kitchen and at South by Southwest’s Oy Vey showcase.

“I use lighthearted music to deal with a lot of darker stuff. If you think of our famous comics, they probably have gone through a lot of darker things in their lives,” Rami states.

Since October 7, Rami has rapped about his anger and pain. The chorus to one of his songs, “Bring the Family Home,” states, “Bring the family home, we got the world sayin’/Cry to death or can’t sleep, that’s the worst pain/I’ll remember tonight, the night the world changed/ The Lion just roared, y’all can’t hurt me.”

He vents his frustration about the tragedies and suffering Jewish people have endured throughout history by rapping, “See, I used to get punched in the face, but now I do the punching/My family heated ‘cuz most of us died in the ovens.”

Rami explains, “I come from a family that almost everyone died in the Holocaust. My mom’s entire family, my father’s entire family.”

The music video for Ceasefire shows Rami rapping in New York City, with posters of Israeli hostages covering walls of buildings in the background, many of which have been torn down. His lyrics plead for their release: “Weapons down and no profit/Okay release the hostage”; and he raps about the behind-the-scenes profiters of this war: “Privilege is benefiting/who don’t suffer from the killing/but they trying to make millions.”

Rami explains that creating artistically is helping him to navigate through the trauma of recent events. “Some people are crying. Some people are writing, some people have taken [themselves] off the Internet and are like, ‘I need my mental health...’ Everything is valid…You do what you can.” 

He says that people in the music and film industries have been reaching out to him “more silently than publicly” to show their support.

Rami has been attending pro-Israel and pro-Palestine rallies to talk with people, and footage of his interviews has been shown in media outlets like The Daily Mail and TMZ. At a Washington, DC, March for Palestine rally, Rami asked a young woman what would happen to all of the Israelis if the “From the river to the sea” slogan became a reality. She responded by stating that Israelis would go back to the countries they hold dual citizenship with, like Yemen, Ethiopia, and Libya. Her friend chimed in, “People aren’t educating themselves.”

Rami started rapping in high school, and in 2004 he developed a Jewish gangster stage persona that is lively and fun rather than sinister. “I was very enamored by the tough Jew aspects,” he says, “I liked Ray Liotta and Bugsy Siegel; Jewish gangsters, street hustlers, and Italian movies was sort of what I envisioned.” 

“Schmoozin’” is one of his most popular tracks. With the bravado of a mobster, he humorously raps, “Kish kish from cantors in a kibbutz room/Holy moly shmolyy, she looking for a shidduch soon/But I’m straight meshugganeh, shvitzin’ like I’m into June.”

Rami has always engaged with his audience, and his interactive performance style draws a crowd that is learning about Judaism through him. He is the only kippah wearing cast member on VH1’s Wild ‘N Out, an improv rap battling show that Rami describes as being “like a boxing match.” Season 21 is premiering in 2024. He also organizes events through Time Out Market New York to bring Black and Jewish communities together, such as “Soulvey,” which artistically commemorated International Holocaust Remembrance Day with Martin Luther King Day and Black History Month.

When Kanye West revealed himself as a rabid antisemite to the world, Rami made his first-ever “diss track” to fight back. Recorded by West’s engineer, the track is called “Death Con 3” after West’s infamous tweet. Its lyrics call attention to antisemitism from both sides of the political spectrum: “This for every right wingers leftist who do/Absolutely nothing and pretend they making moves/For Ye Lovers, Ilhan and Candace Owens too/You can all get dissed/I can’t tell who is who.”

Rami’s follow-up single, “Rise Up,” was released in response to a Canadian teacher telling him that her Jewish students were contending with severe incidents of antisemitism. His lyrics ask, “This Israel/now they hate you for being Zion... is it a bad word?/what I’m missing/I can’t hear cuz I’m going deaf every time they try to change the definition.”

His song “Chaverim,” about friendship and loneliness, was released in Hebrew with English subtitles. Rami explains, “I enjoy bringing my Jewishness to the world... The reason why I’m doing a song in Hebrew is so people that maybe don’t like Israel... now they’re listening to a song in Hebrew.” He has also performed outside the Grammy awards twice and had a song air in a Super Bowl commercial.

To give back to the Jewish community, Rami has run for the past two years in the New York City Marathons in November to raise money for Blue Card, a charity that provides financial assistance to Holocaust survivors in need. In 2021, he worked with the nonprofit organization Value Culture to host a Q&A with child Holocaust survivor Sami Steigmann on the social app Clubhouse. There were over 50,000 attendees from all over the world, including other survivors. 

His new film, Not Everything Has To Be So Serious, is about two men who bike ride from Auschwitz to Kraków, and one finds out he is part Jewish. It was privately shown at the Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival on March 30, and Rami has submitted it to the Sundance Film Festival. He explains, “I’m trying to talk about the Holocaust with people that don’t go to synagogues.”

Rami is currently in Israel, performing on army bases by the Gaza border. He is hoping to meet with the Bibas and Goldberg-Palin families, whose relatives are missing and being held hostage.

Rami’s website can be found at koshadillzworld.com.

Eilon Even-Esh: Empowering Jewish women through self-defense

Rami’s oldest brother, Eilon, is the head instructor of Shomer360, a Torah-observant self-defense, firearm, and security training organization he founded in 2012, which specializes in teaching Orthodox Jews how to defend themselves.

Eilon explains that Orthodox Jews are the most targeted group for hate crimes, and they also tend to be the least prepared. Shomer360 has programs for students at yeshivas and summer camps and is devoted to teaching security teams about how to take safety precautions in houses of worship and schools should an active assailant enter the premises.

Recently, Eilon is hearing reports from women in Israel who are feeling afraid, since many of the men have left to fight in the war. He wants to empower them through teaching self-defense training for individuals and group sessions on Zoom.

Eilon describes self-defense as “a mitzvah... it’s halachicly required.” When he was 19, he voluntarily served in the elite units of the IDF for almost three years, where he learned Krav Maga, shooting, and received anti-terrorism training. In 1997, he enrolled in Columbia University, and rather than take offers to work on Wall Street, he trained with world champion fighters in the Marine Corps. He served as captain of an amphibious assault vehicle school from 1999-2003, and trained marines at Camp Pendleton to join their platoons in Iraq during the Second Gulf War. At the end of his service, he became skilled in martial arts.

Last year, Eilon moved from New York to Florida, in part because less restrictive gun laws in Florida allow for him to teach firearms training. He stresses that guns are “the great equalizer” because even someone in a wheelchair can defeat a stronger opponent with one. He says that some women find it challenging to overcome their resistance to shooting a gun. He had a student who was a nurse, and although she was used to seeing blood, she cried the first time she shot at a paper target. “Some women have a spiritual resistance... They view themselves as nurturers, as protectors, not necessarily with the ability to kill someone.” 

Eilon emphasizes the importance of women viewing themselves as powerful rather than “nice.” He asks, “What’s the difference between a 90-pound woman and a 90-pound pit bull? One has teeth and the emotional and mental capacity to commit violence. How do you equalize that? Give the woman a knife and the technical and emotional mindset to use it.” 

He adds, “Technical martial arts training is not enough. Women need to see themselves as capable of violence in order to protect themselves and the people they love.”

In the past, it has been exceedingly difficult for Israeli citizens to obtain guns, and only two percent of the population owned them. Since the Hamas terror attacks on Oct. 7, this has changed. On Oct. 8, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir announced on Twitter that he instructed the Firearms Licensing Division to “go on an emergency operation in order to allow as many citizens as possible to arm themselves” in 24 hours.

“Now is the time to figure out what to do before the stuff hits the fan,” Eilon states. “If you’re caught off guard... you messed up a long time ago... If you’re helpless, you chose to ignore the reality of antisemitism. Change that and choose to be a fighter now.”

Eilon role plays scenarios to make people feel prepared and empowered, such as training people how to react when there’s an active shooter. He teaches women how to strike back using Muay Thai, otherwise known as Thai boxing. “You learn how to hit with your elbows and smash with your knees,” he explains. The striking action of Krav Maga that he learned in the IDF was based on Muay Thai.

Some basic safety tips Eilon recommends are to walk upright and proud, and with a purpose. He says to always be aware of your surroundings, and try not to walk alone. Also, don’t stay too long in a parked car or become too distracted on your phone while out in public.

Eilon explains how your car can be your best defense and a massive weapon. If terrorists are blocking the road, he says you can use your car to hit and run them over. He advises people to keep knives in their cars. “Knives are horrifying,” he says. “A gun, you can grab. If an attacker grabs a knife, he can cut his own tendons and ligaments, and disable his hands.” If you’re in an emergency situation and don’t have a knife, he suggests using a box cutter or screwdriver, or even breaking a glass bottle. He does not recommend pepper spray for every situation because, if confronted with a violent attacker, it’s not a deadly force weapon. It also could spray back into your face, especially in an enclosed space, like a vehicle.

Eilon suggests that everyone have an already thought-out escape route should a terrorist try to enter their house, and to familiarize themselves with the topography of their surroundings. He says people need to ask themselves, “Can I escape through the backyard? Can I jump the fence? Can I run through my neighbor’s yard? Do they know I’m there?” If you live in a low-rise apartment complex, you can buy a rope ladder for a quick escape through a window or terrace.

He relays the story of how his sister-in-law’s father’s family was hidden in a hole in the ground of their non-Jewish friend’s barn to escape the Nazis in Poland. “If you’re a lone wolf, it’s harder to survive,” Eilon explains.

Eilon advises against wearing anything too flashy that can draw attention to yourself. “Can you disappear into a crowd?” he asks. “There’s a concept of a gray man, how nondescript can you look.” Eilon recommends steering clear of people wearing masks if they look suspicious or like they could be hiding behind one to commit a crime. He recommends that people use their judgment to profile people. “Who’s the person behind the mask? Is it a typical person of an age group and demographic that commits crimes?” he says. “It’s okay to profile. A gazelle doesn’t walk by lions and say, ‘I don’t want to profile the lion.’”

Other precautionary measures people can take are to get a large or medium-sized dog. “Even a small dog makes a great alarm system,” Eilon states. Installing a ring camera that takes pictures and has a motion detector accessible through an app on your phone is an inexpensive security precaution. There are also neighborhood apps you can join that report crime. 

Eilon says that this is the time to get closer to Hashem. He did not grow up religious but felt a calling to explore his Jewish roots on a deeper level after 9/11, when he realized he could have been in the towers had he taken a Wall Street job rather than serve in the Marine Corps. He became a ba’al teshuva (Jew from a secular background who becomes religiously observant) through Chabad, and later attended Yeshiva University’s pre-smicha program.

Referencing the Torah, Eilon explains that the ancient Hebrews who witnessed miracles and were divinely freed from Egyptian slavery had faith that God would protect them, but they also carried swords. He says, “They left chamushim, meaning armed... According to the Midrash, only one out of five Hebrews at that time merited to leave Egypt. It just so happened that the ones who left their life of slavery got out armed.” 

Eilon affirms: “I suggest that this generation should likewise be strong in their faith and capable in their ability to defend themselves.”

Shomer360 can be found at: www.shomer360.com

Jew in the City’s Hollywood bureau: Protecting how Jews are portrayed on TV and film

Allison Josephs, 43, grew up in New Jersey and was just eight years old when a tragedy prompted her to ask existential questions about life and death. Her sister’s friend was killed by her own father, who also killed her brother and himself.

She tells the Magazine that she remembers seeking spiritual wisdom from her parents, which they were unable to provide. “It was sort of this realization that I was now existing, and no one knew why they were alive.”

Josephs suffered from panic attacks and insomnia until she turned 16 and found solace in learning from an Orthodox Hebrew school teacher, who she says showed her “the depth and inherent beauty” of Jewish traditions and rituals. Josephs grew up in a Conservative family that used to be critical of Orthodox Jews. She describes her prior perceptions of them as “Fiddler on the Roof – old fashioned, Stranger among Us, extreme and separate.” 

As she began exploring Judaism, a whole new experience unfolded and she discovered “so much joy and so much meaning in the texts and traditions.” When she decided to become Orthodox herself, her entire family followed in her footsteps and also became observant.

In 2007, Josephs founded a nonprofit organization called Jew in the City (JITC) so the true meaningful stories of Judaism can be heard. JITC is devoted to changing negative perceptions of Orthodox Jews and helping Jewish people connect with each other, have pride in their identity, and learn about their faith in a relatable way. JITC’s three divisions, Keter, Makom, and Tikun, work to foster this. Josephs built her organization “for someone like me, who is a proud Jew but doesn’t know what it looks like to have a balance of being in the world, but also very committed to Jewish tradition and observance.”

Last year, Josephs launched a Hollywood bureau to advocate for fair and realistic portrayals of all Jewish characters and to combat antisemitic tropes and stereotypes of Jews on TV and film, with a special focus on addressing negative depictions of Orthodox Jews. The bureau is currently collaborating with the USC Norman Lear Center to study how secular and Orthodox Jews are represented in scripted TV. They are testing to find out how often Jewish characters on TV shows are portrayed in ways that are consistent with stereotypes and tropes, and how often Orthodox Judaism is shown as something that needs to be escaped from.

A graph from an informal survey JITC conducted illustrates how there is a disproportionate number of TV shows and movies about Jews abandoning their religious upbringing: twelve times more than Muslims, and more than double that of Christians. 

Josephs comments, “As an Orthodox Jewish woman, I’ve never seen anyone beautiful or empowered or happy with her life [in the media]. I only see examples and insufferable extreme people who only receive praise when they leave their identity. Imagine that lens on any other group – that they have to leave who they are in order to receive praise... Hollywood is obsessed with the story of the Jew becoming less Jewish.”

In 2021, Netflix debuted My Unorthodox Life, a reality show starring Julia Haart, who rebelled against her past Orthodox life by wearing revealing clothing, divorcing her Orthodox husband, marrying a non-Jewish man, and becoming CEO of a modeling agency. The previous year, Netflix came out with their first primarily Yiddish series, Unorthodox, based on the book Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots by Maria Schrader. The 2017 Netflix documentary One of Us is about three ex-Hassidic Jews who leave their abusive communities. 

Josephs notes that unresolved intergenerational hurt and pain caused, in many cases by antisemitism, can lead to people attributing suffering they experience to their religion and to the Jewish community at large rather than to the specific people who harmed them. She says that Hollywood is quick to amplify this narrative, which some Jews will acquiesce to out of ignorance and from having a negative relationship with their own identity.

Abandoning Judaism goes along with the Jewish experience throughout history. Josephs explains, “Countries that were liberating their Jews did so with a condition, and that condition was ‘lay down the observance...’ lay down the connection to Israel. If you’re not into your traditions, and Israel, then you’re kind of a passable Jew.” Josephs brings attention to the fact that other minorities also “went through their own journey of feeling ashamed, hiding... trying to become more white or more kind-of mainstream to blend in,” and that now people are being encouraged to celebrate their differences. “Jews do that for everyone else,” she notes, “except for Jews.”

A main reason Josephs established a Hollywood bureau is that she was shocked to discover that Muslim, Hispanic, and African Americans already had Hollywood bureaus to advocate for them for over 20 years, but there wasn’t one for Jews. When she attended an Academy of Television Arts & Sciences DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility) Summit on December 1, 2022, in Los Angeles, she noticed a similar phenomenon. There were groups representing every minority except for Jewish people.

When the conference organizers asked if they had missed any issues, she grabbed the microphone and responded, “I’m sitting here for an hour and a half... feeling completely invisible. Antisemitic attacks are the highest they’ve been since they started being tracked in this country. Because Jews are seen as too powerful and too privileged in Hollywood, no one includes us in these conversations. We are scared. We are raised to look out for antisemitic signs about when it may be time to run next, and we’re starting to see them.”

After Josephs spoke out, the Television Academy had a panel on Jewish representation and antisemitism at their next summit held on June 27.

JITC meets with DEI groups at Hollywood studios, as well as with producers, scriptwriters, and other bureaus to ensure that Jewish people are being represented authentically and are included in diversity panels. She has observed how DEI spaces tend to include other minorities but exclude Jews. 

She explains, “We’re beginning to be excluded from university and professional spaces because we’re seen as white and privileged... Antisemitism will always find a way to get the job done to exclude the Jew – they just have to change the reason depending on what’s in vogue.”

Josephs was the first Jewish representative advocating for positive change on behalf of other Jews to be included in Variety magazine’s Inclusion Impact Report last year. She also held the first Jewish Media Awards in Manhattan last March. At the Sundance Film Festival in January, she organized the first-ever panel to discuss Jewish representation in movies. 

On February 2, Josephs appeared on Chris Cuomo’s News Nation to bring attention to Farrakhan-inspired tropes in You People, a movie starring and co-produced by Jonah Hill. 

Like Hill’s movie, the HBO series The Idol, directed and co-created by Sam Levinson, portrays Jewish people in the music industry in a way that can provoke antisemitic stereotypes. Josephs notes, “It’s a great reminder that Jews, sadly, can cause real harm to the Jewish community in the entertainment industry.”

BUT DESPITE all the negative portrayals of Jews and how disheartening it can be to call them out, there is a light on the horizon.

Netflix’s Jewish Matchmaking reality series, which premiered on May 3, stars Aleeza Ben Shalom, the endearing Orthodox matchmaker. Josephs, who is in touch with the consulting producer, elatedly states, “The contestants are all proud Jews. The Orthodox characters are really lovely human beings. Aleeza is a person who is representing Jewish wisdom, and she has so much warmth and is nonjudgmental.”

Josephs adds, “For the first time... people who are not living as observant... are looking towards the observant Jew, who may have something to share with them, as if it’s possible that there may be something that the Torah has that may not exist in the secular world.”

She also points out that the Jewish people on the show are choosing other Jews to date. She’s noticed that on other shows, “If they’re secular, we see the Jewish men generally passing over Jewish women and choosing gentile women instead.”

On May 18, Josephs was featured in an ABC Storytellers Spotlight episode to show a day in the life of an Orthodox woman and bring attention to the positive work JITC is accomplishing. She describes how the camera crew “went to the mikveh, they came to shul with me, they filmed an enactment of a Shabbat meal with my family... We got a shot of my husband and sons doing dishes.” She adds, “It’s pretty groundbreaking because when do you ever see an Orthodox woman speaking about the joy in her life, of leading with meaning in her life?”

On the show, Josephs talks about how Queen Esther is one of her biggest inspirations for going up against Haman, the villainous vizier who wanted to annihilate all Jews. She asks, “I looked into my own texts and traditions and saw a strong Jewish woman who was willing to take on the biggest empire in the world, so I could certainly take on Hollywood, couldn’t I?”

On May 31, Josephs was honored by the Jewish National Fund-USA with the Women for Israel Award at their “Wonder Women Unite for Hollywood, Antisemitism, and Israel” event in Los Angeles. Josephs emphasizes the importance of standing up for Israel – the people, the land, and the Torah of Israel – at a time when others “constantly try to erase our connection to Israel.” 

She adds, “I think we need to call Jews ‘exiled to Europe’ as opposed to European Jews because we were never actually full citizens in these places. When they did make us full citizens... they expected us to erase some of our Jewishness... disavow our connection to Israel and our heritage.”

SINCE OCTOBER 7, Josephs’s Instagram has become an online refuge that offers comfort, hope, and wisdom to people struggling with grief and looking for answers. She brings attention to media headlines that gaslight the Jewish community by mitigating crimes against Jewish people, and how painful it is to see how many people in the world hate Jews. She describes how Jewish sages in the Talmud noticed that the Hebrew word for hate is sinah, and that this hate was directed towards Jews because the Jewish people received the Torah on Mount Sinai. Noting that antisemitism is “meant to defy logic because it’s a spiritual disease,” she references how it is also described as a feature of exile in the Torah.

Josephs believes that the perilous times we are living in are analogous to when Jews were slaves in Egypt. “I think of how the Torah tells us that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart in order to create a situation where the Jews had to be redeemed by miracles. It seems like the hearts of many non-Jewish people have been hardened against explanation [and] against logic... to not see what we see.”

She ponders, “I wonder if God is making the world feel upside down now so we have no options but to return to Him, and He will once again redeem us with miracles.”

On October 18, Josephs attended Variety’s Hollywood & Antisemitism Summit, where she noticed that “There are actually more celebrities talking about Israel than ever before.” She reports feeling a heartwarming and compassionate reception there, as well as at studio meetings she’s attended since October 7. “The non-Jews that we’ve spoken to have expressed some real solidarity and horror at what we’re going through.” 

Sometimes it takes the darkest of times for the light to come through. 

Jew in the City can be found at: jewinthecity.com