The Focus Project

What Made 2025 Impossible to Ignore

Posted on December 30, 2025

December 30, 2025 BACKGROUND – TALKING POINTS – ACTIONS TO CONSIDER – STORIES MAKING NEWS Hope but Vigilance for the Jewish Community in 2026 The Jewish community enters the new year with renewed clarity and determination despite the significant and deadly challenges faced in 2025. This past year has stripped away any remaining illusions: anti-Jewish […]

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Choosing Light in a Time of Darkness

Posted on December 23, 2025

December 23, 2025 BACKGROUND – TALKING POINTS – ACTIONS TO CONSIDER – VOICES – STORIES Communities Choose Courage Amid Escalating Hate This Holiday Season As more than 2 billion Christians around the world celebrate Christmas and billions more celebrate their own winter holidays, extremist rhetoric and violent attacks have caused heightened security, canceled events and […]

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Jewish Light and Life Targeted During Hanukkah

Posted on December 16, 2025

December 16, 2025 BACKGROUND – TALKING POINTS – ACTIONS TO CONSIDER – VOICES – STORIES Hanukkah Under Fire: Gunned Down for Jewish Identity Hanukkah is the story of the Jewish people who refused to abandon their identity, faith and history in the face of persecution. From ancient Jerusalem to the present day, the lighting of […]

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Safe Spaces for Jews: Targets for Violence

Posted on December 9, 2025

December 9, 2025 BACKGROUND – TALKING POINTS – ACTIONS TO CONSIDER – STORIES MAKING NEWS Safe Spaces for Jews Become Targets for Violence Jews are being targeted in the very places they gather to feel safest. Recent attacks at synagogues in Los Angeles, New York and Manchester, England, now join the wave of assaults on […]

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Identity Tests Target Jews

Posted on December 2, 2025

December 2, 2025 BACKGROUND – TALKING POINTS – ACTIONS TO CONSIDER – STORIES MAKING NEWS Purity Tests Target Jewish Identity to Segregate Jews A growing number of Jews are being told they may only eat at certain restaurants, participate in organizations and even attend a soccer game if they abandon a core element of their […]

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Jews Told to ‘Be Scared’ Outside Synagogue

Posted on November 25, 2025

November 25, 2025 STAY INFORMED – TALKING POINTS – ACTIONS TO CONSIDER – STORIES MAKING NEWS Anti-Israel Protesters Aggressively Target Jews at Synagogue ‘We need to make them scared’ – Protesters Chant Outside Synagogue Anti-Israel protestors in the hundreds recently shouted hateful slogans outside a historic house of worship in NYC, threatening Jews who tried […]

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Wildfire of Words: Dangerous Rhetoric Spreads

Posted on November 18, 2025

November 18, 2025 BACKGROUND – TALKING POINTS – ACTIONS TO CONSIDER – STORIES MAKING NEWS Anti-Jewish Rhetoric: Fringe Narratives Reenter American Discourse Overt hatred of Jews is now being mainstreamed from both the left and the right. A dangerous spike in right-wing antisemitism – once confined to fringe corners of the internet – has now […]

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Echoes of History: Why Words Are Still Dangerous

Posted on November 11, 2025

November 11, 2025 BACKGROUND – TALKING POINTS – ACTIONS TO CONSIDER – STORIES MAKING NEWS Dangerous Rhetoric Can Incite Violence, Shatter Lives Hate is being given a free pass far too often. Once confined to the margins, hatred now finds acceptance in public life. For Jews, that normalization has already turned deadly and the rising […]

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Free Speech or Free Pass on Anti-Jewish Hate?

Posted on November 4, 2025

November 4, 2025 STAY INFORMED – TALKING POINTS – ACTIONS TO CONSIDER – STORIES MAKING NEWS Free Speech or Free Pass on Hate? Heritage Foundation Controversy The Comments That Sparked a Firestorm The president of one of the nation’s most influential conservative policy organizations released a statement defending his ties to conservative media firebrands Tucker Carlson […]

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When Leaders Excuse Hate, Jewish Safety Endangered

Posted on October 28, 2025

October 28, 2025 STAY INFORMED – TALKING POINTS – ACTIONS TO CONSIDER – STORIES MAKING NEWS When Anti-Jewish Hate Becomes Routine, Rhetoric Replaces Responsibility Gunshots rang out and moments later 11 American Jews lay murdered in their Pittsburgh synagogue. Now, seven years after the deadliest massacre of Jews in the U.S., hate against the American […]

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