Simone Zimmerman

On this episode of On the Nose, editor-in-chief @ArielleLAngel, publisher Daniel May, news director @joshnathankazis, and advisory board member @simonerzim parse the Michigan synagogue attack—and the missed opportunity for American Jewish reckoning. jewishcurrents.org/on-the-michiga…

"Palestinians will be left to languish in heavily surveilled concentration camps, serving as captured labor for the international corporations seeking to profit." @simonerzim discusses Trump’s 'Board of Peace' and its dystopian vision for Gaza.

“The consensus is essentially that women are subhuman,” she says, “and I mean that quite literally: subrational, non-agentic, cattle.” New in @NYMag: I spoke to women in, around, and leaving MAGA about the right’s unabashed embrace of misogyny.

News from Iran & Lebanon increasingly resembles years of bloodshed in Gaza—civilian areas pummeled, international law ignored & a spiral of war endangering millions. Understanding why means understanding the US-Israel dynamic in one key period: under President Joe Biden, after October 7, 2023. CROSSING THE RED LINE, the book I’ve been working on for more than 2 years, documents the Biden administration’s failures in Gaza & beyond. I conducted over 150 interviews to detail why the US enabled unimaginable violence against Palestinians and Lebanese, and ignored off-ramps toward peace – with Biden drawing a red line, yet still rushing weapons to Israel after Benjamin Netanyahu crossed it. He sent Israel a message of impunity and sent Americans a message of disdain and incompetence, helping Donald Trump win back power. I’m thrilled to share that the book is now available for pre-order at wwnorton.com/books/97813241…. These orders affect availability in bookstores, my publisher’s decisions about printing numbers + more. If accountability for Palestine matters to you, or if my investigative reporting has ever struck a chord, please place an order. To those who made this possible, in my life and at Norton: I can’t thank you enough. Onward to publication day: September 22!

For Mahmoud Khalil, this past year has been marked by profound hardship—and by profound courage. A year ago, Mahmoud was walking home through our city after sharing an iftar with his wife Noor when he was detained by federal agents, flown to Louisiana, and then held in an ICE facility for months. In that time, he was forced to miss the birth of his first child. All of this for exercising his First Amendment rights in protesting the ongoing genocide in Palestine. And yet, even in the face of that cruelty, there has also been beauty. New Yorkers raising their voices in solidarity. A city refusing to look away. Mahmoud won his freedom, and a father was finally reunited with his child. Last night, as we marked the one year anniversary of his detention, Rama and I were honored to welcome Mahmoud, Noor, and their son Deen to Gracie Mansion to break our fast together. Mahmoud is a New Yorker, and he belongs in New York City.

Recalling ⁦@LaraFriedmanDC⁩’s prescient warning from 2024. Blame for the unfolding catastrophe in Iran belongs to Trump first and foremost, but these new rules of war were co-authored by Biden. Democrats must reckon with that.

The U.S. and Israel have just poisoned the sky over a metro area of 17 million civilians. Anyone who is more concerned about the mayor of NYC’s wife’s social media likes from 3 years ago is irredeemable.

Watch the full episode of ‘Beyond Israelism’ with @simonerzim: zeteo.com/p/zionism-will…

"Even before the genocide began, Gaza felt like the most truthful place of what the Palestinian experience is." On the new episode of 'Beyond Israelism', Palestinian-American scholar Tareq Baconi discusses how Gaza is representative of the Palestinian experience.

Today’s military strikes on Iran — carried out by the United States and Israel — mark a catastrophic escalation in an illegal war of aggression. Bombing cities. Killing civilians. Opening a new theater of war.  Americans do not want this. They do not want another war in pursuit of regime change. They want relief from the affordability crisis. They want peace. I am focused on making sure that every New Yorker is safe. I have been in contact with our Police Commissioner and emergency management officials. We are taking proactive steps, including increasing coordination across agencies and enhancing patrols of sensitive locations out of an abundance of caution. Additionally, I want to speak directly to Iranian New Yorkers: you are part of the fabric of this city — you are our neighbors, small business owners, students, artists, workers, and community leaders. You will be safe here.

For @JewishCurrents, I wrote about Epstein and the Jews jewishcurrents.org/the-line-betwe…

if someone put a palestinian flag in your mailbox on camera, you’d call it an antisemitic hate crime and blame zohran mamdani for it

I'm so excited for this new project. Such a thrill to be working with @ArielleLAngel and @alexbkane and everyone else at @JewishCurrents. Much of what I'll be writing will be exclusive to the newsletter - sign up or you'll miss it! jewishcurrents.org/newsletter

Some of Mayor Mamdani's Jewish critics feared that they would be isolated out of City Hall. Yet @NYCMayor's first interfaith breakfast proved that even his detractors were welcomed. It's just the rest of us Mayor Adams made invisible, reintroduced. jta.org/2026/02/06/ny/…

NEW: Leqaa Kordia — who’s been detained for nearly a year since ICE took her the same week as Mahmoud Khalil — has been hospitalized. Whereabouts & health unknown. She was taken at what she thought was routine immigration check-in, after she protested Israel’s genocide of Gaza.

And yet we keep hearing from those that want to weaponize antidiscrimination law to silence dissent against Israel that Zionism is an integral part of Jewish identity. Turns out a majority of American Jews don't identify that way. Yikes.

This is a complicated role to fill. Being able to hold the safety and wellbeing of a diverse community while staying true to principle is a challenge few are up for — and even fewer can be trusted to do. Well done @NYCMayor. Congrats @phylisajoy.

Watch the full episode of Beyond 'Israelism' with @simonerzim exclusively on Zeteo.com: zeteo.com/p/yuli-novak-i…

Israel is operating a network of torture camps for Palestinians. Inmates in these facilities are routinely subjected to physical and psychological torture and are held in inhumane and degrading conditions. Listen to Yuli Novak, executive director of B'Tselem, speaking on Beyond Israelism with @simonerzim on @zeteo_news Produced by the creators of ‘Israelism’ at Tikkun Olam Productions. The full episode >> zeteo.com/p/yuli-novak-i… Our new report, “Living Hell,” is an update to “Welcome to Hell”, a report published in August 2024 documenting the abuse and inhuman treatment of Palestinians held in Israeli custody. The new report provides further documentation and new testimonies, exposing the ongoing reality inside these camps. The full report >> btselem.org/publications/2…

This brought tears to my eyes. As most media outlets turn away from Gaza even as Palestinians continue to be slaughtered by Israel, @thenation turned its entire website into “A Day For Gaza,” publishing writers from there.