jon ben-menachem
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jbenmenachem.com
jon ben-menachem
@jbenmenachem.com
19K followers 890 following 9.2K posts
criminalization, abolition, labor, politics, journalism—social science theory & methods too. sociology phd candidate @ columbia. @swcolumbia.bsky.social
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jbenmenachem.com
Can't speak to Chicago but the NYC program is the largest in the country (almost 2000 intersections). It's definitely true that our model can only speak to effects for those intersections that installed cameras. But more than 4-5...
December 13, 2025 at 7:00 PM
jbenmenachem.com
Criminal justice data quality is so bad across the board, and that’s not an accident. inquest.org/our-evidence...
I don’t think that improvements in data quality are “equal opportunity,” so to speak. It is fairly common for researchers to enter into restrictive data use agreements with criminal legal agencies in order to collect better data. This can create conflicts with aspirations toward data transparency and replication. Scientists expect academic journals to share data that others can use to replicate findings. This is a concern about the integrity of science, but there are also political problems: Law enforcement can freely deny data access to any researcher who is perceived to be too critical, which makes political moderatism and “relationship management” key for the aspiring researcher.
December 12, 2025 at 4:11 PM
jbenmenachem.com
“an academic perspective that treats Zionism as legitimate is underrepresented in Columbia’s course offerings, compared to a perspective that treats it as illegitimate”
B. Promoting Intellectual Diversity in the Curriculum and Research on Israel 1. More Expertise on Judaism and Greater Diversity of Views About Israel The academic resources available for teaching and research on Jewish and Israeli topics at Columbia are insufficient, especially in comparison to the resources available for teaching and research on other parts of the Middle East. The University should work quickly and energetically to build up its capabilities here, through academically first-rate full time tenure line additions to the faculty and the curriculum. In particular, an academic perspective that treats Zionism as legitimate is underrepresented in Columbia’s course offerings, compared to a perspective that treats it as illegitimate. Columbia lacks full-time tenure line faculty expertise in Middle East history, politics, political economy, and policy that is not explicitly anti-Zionist. This is an important gap in the University’s academic capacity, which should be addressed through the establishment of new chairs at a senior level in Middle East history, politics, political economy and policy. Columbia is missing an opportunity for leadership here; correcting that should be an urgent priority.
December 9, 2025 at 10:05 PM
jbenmenachem.com
Columbia's Task Force on Antisemitism has dropped its final report. They're advocating what seems to be affirmative action for Zionist scholarship (resonant with "viewpoint diversity" push for e.g. pro-racism scholarship from anti-higher ed activists)

www.columbia.edu/content/repo...
Intellectual Diversity on the Middle East: We heard from many students that an academic perspective that treats Zionism as legitimate is underrepresented in Columbia’s course offerings, compared to a perspective that treats it as illegitimate. The University should work quickly to add more intellectual diversity to these offerings. Columbia lacks full-time tenure line faculty expertise in Middle East history, politics, political economy and policy that is not explicitly anti-Zionist. We recommend the University address this imbalance through the establishment of new chairs at a senior level in Middle East history, politics, political economy and policy.
December 9, 2025 at 9:43 PM
jbenmenachem.com
I think it's worth testing :)

Our study also coincides with a huge increase in foul play w/ license plates (i.e., we observe these large safety effects even as some motorists actively dodge cameras)

comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/audi...
December 8, 2025 at 9:17 PM
jbenmenachem.com
We didn't look at any police or crime data in this study so can't say a whole lot there. Speculation: NYPD traffic enforcement variation likely unrelated to this program, as it affects limited # intersections.

they definitely generate money www.osc.ny.gov/files/report...
December 8, 2025 at 8:39 PM
jbenmenachem.com
Although many studies evaluate traffic cameras, very few apply causal inference methods. Some scholars who implement stronger designs argue that they eliminate the observed safety benefits of cameras. Yet we find substantial effects using the Callaway and Sant’Anna diff-in-diff estimator.
December 8, 2025 at 8:21 PM
jbenmenachem.com
When cameras are installed, they issue many violations in the first month, followed by a steep decline in the second month. This suggests that the cameras effectively deter speeding by changing underlying driver behavior rather than relying on sustained revenue extraction.
December 8, 2025 at 8:19 PM
jbenmenachem.com
will be very very interesting to see how Zohran manages Tisch during the first Palestine actions of 2026.
www.thenation.com/article/poli...
The first major hurdle for this relationship may come alongside any major Palestine-related action in 2026. Mamdani’s support base overlaps with Palestine activists—he started a Students for Justice in Palestine chapter in college—so it’s hard to imagine that he would be enthusiastic about police cracking student skulls or swarming Bay Ridge, as they did under Eric Adams. At the same time, Tisch is committed to brutal protest policing. Mamdani’s coalition will be severely, perhaps fatally, damaged if he winds up overseeing that kind of assault. He’s already working on an alternative protest-policing approach, but implementing it will be an early, defining test.
December 4, 2025 at 6:21 PM
jbenmenachem.com
The litigation of Jewish identity is intensifying as Israel becomes less popular. Speaking for myself, I dislike using my identity as a basis for political speech. But my hand was forced when other Jews used their Jewish identity to call for police violence in my workplace. Not in my name.
Alex גדעון בן װעלװל @JewishWonk · Nov 7 As a Jew, I am frustrated with clocks changing twice a year, especially when it means Shabbos comes in at 4:27 today! As a Jew, I showed up to shuls, JCCs, young professional events, and Shabbos meals even though it was uncomfortable and unfamiliar. Alex גדעון בן װעלװל @JewishWonk · Nov 7 As a Jew, I studied Rambam's work with the same intensity as I did Aristotle and Kant. As a Jew, I affirm my ties to my tribe, even when it would be easier not to. Alex גדעון בן װעלװל @JewishWonk I could go on all day with this, but my point is if the only time being Jewish is relevant to you is to use a rhetorical cudgel, what is it really? Make it a part of your daily life. Put in the work. I promise it is more fulfilling than self-tokenizing.
December 4, 2025 at 5:25 PM
jbenmenachem.com
Well. I guess my work background music really took over this year
Top Artists of 2025 1 Caribou 11,079 minutes > 2 Aphex Twin 9,135 minutes ＞ 3 Floating Points 7,721 minutes ＞ 4 Four Tet 7,025 minutes > 5 Burial 6,055 minutes > 6 Butcher Brown 5,304 minutes > 7 Machinedrum 4,526 minutes
December 4, 2025 at 3:15 AM
jbenmenachem.com
Responses to the above interview are interesting...

"When 800 leaders issued a public letter warning that Mamdani posed a danger to the Jewish community, he announced that he would retain the police commissioner." mishpacha.com/counterpoint...
I firmly believe that any improvement in Mamdani’s rhetoric or policies that may occur in the future will happen despite the endorsement, not because of it. Offering legitimacy without requiring substantive change weakens our community’s ability to draw the boundaries we critically need. The shifts in tone that have occurred so far did not result from warmth or ideological persuasion. They occurred because the media and New York leaders had expectations regarding acceptable speech. When 800 leaders issued a public letter warning that Mamdani posed a danger to the Jewish community, he announced that he would retain the police commissioner. Mamdani wishes to succeed as mayor and implement his policy agenda. He does not wish to be viewed as unwelcome in the Jewish community, as Rabbi Indig himself noted. Maintaining clarity regarding these boundaries is therefore critical.
December 3, 2025 at 11:13 PM
jbenmenachem.com
"I didn’t take Israeli politics into account at all. Bibi knows how to run his own show... Activists called me from all over, people that never spoke to me before, demanding that I not support Mamdani. I asked them, what do you suggest I do the day after the election? They told me, “Move to Israel.”
How can you support someone who openly condemns Israel and threatens to arrest its prime minister? Did Satmar’s position on Zionism play a role in your decision? I’m don’t involve myself in foreign affairs and international politics. I’m only interested locally, here in New York, in what is in the best interest of our community now. I didn’t take Israeli politics into account at all. Bibi knows how to run his own show. He does not need my help. He doesn’t need to worry about our community in Brooklyn and I don’t need to worry about him. Let him let him do his business and I’ll take care of ours. Our best interest dictates that we have to have an open relationship with the mayor, not fight him; and this candidate had a good chance of becoming mayor. Activists called me from all over, people that never spoke to me before, demanding that I not support Mamdani. I asked them, what do you suggest I do the day after the election? What’s the plan for Wednesday? They told me, “Move to Israel.” I said, “Look, that’s a great solution for you — you can move. I’m not moving and I’ve spoken to a few people who are also going to stay. You can go, but I have to take care of the people that are planning to be here, and that means having a relationship with the man who is likely to be mayor.”
December 3, 2025 at 11:09 PM
jbenmenachem.com
This piece is full of gems.

mishpacha.com/the-kingmake...
What kind of pushback have you gotten? I’m taking missiles over this, not just bullets. Millionaires and billionaires I’ve never heard of keep calling me and telling me I can’t do this, because Mamdani’s an anti-Semite. If he turns out to be an anti-Semite, who is going to have to deal with him? Me! Not them! They accuse me of having an agenda. I think they have an agenda. I’m working for Klal Yisrael for 25 years, while they are making money off Klal Yisrael. Why do they feel entitled to tell me what’s good for Klal Yisrael now? Where have they been all this time? Rich developers called me to complain that Mamdani is going to ruin their business. Oddly, they’re more responsible for his election than I am. For years, major builders — a large percentage of them Jewish — have been constructing high-rise luxury apartment buildings in Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Park Slope, and many similar areas. Families are priced out of these developments, and they are populated with hundreds of thousands of young, single, liberal hipsters — Mamdani voters. People call me a kapo. Anyone who knows what a kapo is can see that I am the exact opposite — a kapo beat you up to save himself. I’m taking beatings to save you. Some people stab me in the back in public, and privately apologize and ask for a favor in the same breath. I don’t turn them down, I don’t hold a grudge. I’ve been blessed with skin thick as a turkey. To be a real and responsible leader, you need to make correct decisions that are in the best interest of the community, even when they are difficult and unpopular. But people are already telling us we were right, that it was chacham haroeh es hanolad. We are currently the only Yidden with access to the future City Hall, but I hope that changes. You can’t imagine how many new friends I’ve made since the election.
December 3, 2025 at 11:06 PM
jbenmenachem.com
Astonishing that certain people think this is an indictment of Rhodes in any way

Screenshot via Jeremy Slevin on X
When he got tired of hearing me argue that Obama had to show sympathy to the Palestinians, he started calling me Hamas. "Hamas over here is going to make it impossible for my kid to have his fucking bar mitzvah in Israel."
December 2, 2025 at 9:04 PM
jbenmenachem.com
Here's the rubric for the assignment (sorry, I don't have alt text for it on desktop). drive.google.com/file/d/1vgjT...
December 1, 2025 at 5:54 PM
jbenmenachem.com
This critique is elaborated by Kristin Luker (Salsa Dancing in the Social Sciences, Ch. 2). She argues that the switch happens as a result of WW2 and changes in survey technology, which boosted the professional status of sociologists and reconfigured internal methods status hierarchies.
Under the rubric of “social arithmetic,” Addams and her colleagues used surveys and other quantitative methods to do something close to what we moderns might call a “needs assessment” of the community in which she was located, although that doesn’t begin to do justice to the scope and vision of Hull-House Maps and Papers.10 The men in the sociology department at Chicago, however, found social arithmetic (that is, quantitative methods) much too rigid, not subtle enough, and too “feminine” to do the real sociology they had in mind, and turned instead to life documents, participant observation, and verstehen (“sympathetic understanding”), a methodology that reached its apogee in the monumental, much-cited (though not often read these days) Polish Peasant of W. I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki.11 If you wanted to think about this sociologically, you might argue that this disagreement was shaped by the different material and ideal interests (in Max Weber’s terms) of the men and women undertaking social research in and around the University of Chicago in the early years of the twentieth century.12 In terms of material interests, many of the men, having had advanced training in philosophy, often in Germany, possessed the kinds of cultural capital likely to be enhanced and valued should verstehen become the dominant way to view social reality. Or as Albion Small put it, “It should be said that sociology is a pursuit which should be undertaken only by those whose philosophical talents and training are of the first order.”13 The different ideal interests of the men and women, moreover, tended to reinforce their material interests. That same education in philosophy that had given male academics forms of cultural capital amenable to verstehen had at the same time sensitized them to debates about epistemology, and in particular the much-discussed “objectivity” then being actively debated by the leading nineteenth-century philosophers with whom they had studied.14 As a consequence… But today, if you have taken a methodology course as an undergraduate or a graduate student in an American sociology department (or most of the other social sciences), it’s likely you did not get a great deal of training in the study of life documents and participant observation, the kinds of things these early professional (male) sociologists took to be key to social inquiry. (Anthropologists are the only social scientists I know of who are expected to engage in participant observation, and historians sometimes study life documents, but my highly unscientific survey of top departments in these two disciplines suggests that “methodology” is something that students are expected to pick up along the way, rather than something they study formally.)15 In fact, if your training was anything like mine, you may well have picked up quite the opposite message—that qualitative techniques are unscientific, soft, and (although people rarely say this out loud) feminine. Verstehen, the sympathetic understanding of Weber, now has connotations of tea and sympathy—a methodology not quite masculine enough for a “real” science. “Rigorous” training in the social sciences is now defined as quantitative, and the more abstractly mathematical, the better. A typical course in methods briefly covers how to execute a piece of survey research, the brevity premised on the notion that most people will either “outsource” any surveys that they do or will take lots more courses on survey research. Then the bulk of the course, a course designed to teach everyday social scientists how to do research, is spent on learning how to do the statistical manipulation of the data thus gathered, with a particular emphasis on linear models. (I exaggerate to prove my point, but not by much.) The “Swiss Army knife” used so much in social research these days is linear regression, which, along with its relatives, forms the basis of a set of techniques that seem to be at the core of most “methods” courses. Three int…
December 1, 2025 at 12:41 AM
jbenmenachem.com
lol. lmao, even www.miamiherald.com/news/busines...
The cool down of Miami's hot housing market Resale data tracked by Case-Shiller shows the housing market in the Miami area (from Miami to West Palm Beach) backing off a peak set in February. As the chart of the S&P Cotality Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index shows, when housing values climb nationally, they tend to soar in the Miami area.
November 30, 2025 at 10:25 PM
jbenmenachem.com
Now @jackmirkinson.bsky.social just gotta put my next one in print and my dad can do this
leo point meme
November 30, 2025 at 1:50 AM
jbenmenachem.com
Marte calling the sky blue in NYT www.nytimes.com/2025/11/29/n...
“It’s really despicable,” said Christopher Marte, a New York City Council member whose district covers Lower Manhattan and who was at the protest since it began Saturday morning. “It seems like the N.Y.P.D., specifically the S.R.G., is working to clear the way for ICE agents to go out in our city to do arrests and put people in the process of deportation,” he added, referring to the department’s Strategic Response Group, a unit of several hundred officers often deployed to protests.
November 30, 2025 at 12:25 AM
jbenmenachem.com
screenshot of wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_i...
November 29, 2025 at 11:42 PM
jbenmenachem.com
striking that so many cities are seeing parallel homicide declines this year. i have no good explanation

jasher.substack.com/p/the-fbi-wi...
Murder is down a lot in big cities 2025 vs 2024 YTD murders in top 30 cities w/most murders in 2024 Table with 5 columns and 32 rows. Sorted ascending by column "% Change" (column headers with buttons are sortable) City YTD 2025 YTD 2024 % Change As Of Birmingham 53 109 −51.4% 25-Aug Denver 28 51 −45.1% 28-Aug Dallas 82 131 −37.4% 29-Aug Chicago 272 397 −31.5% 29-Aug Louisville 75 109 −31.2% 30-Aug Las Vegas 55 79 −30.4% 31-Aug Charlotte 53 76 −30.3% 28-Aug Baltimore 90 129 −30.2% 31-Aug Memphis 176 251 −29.9% 30-Aug Columbus 54 77 −29.9% 31-Aug Oakland 41 57 −28.1% 31-Aug Atlanta 63 84 −25.0% 23-Aug Indianapolis 84 111 −24.3% 31-Aug Albuquerque 50 66 −24.2% 31-Aug Phoenix 65 83 −21.7% 31-Jul New Orleans 74 93 −20.4% 31-Aug Nashville 47 59 −20.3% 30-Aug New York City 209 260 −19.6% 31-Aug Cleveland 68 83 −18.1% 28-Aug Philadelphia 150 183 −18.0% 31-Aug St Louis 90 109 −17.4% 31-Aug Washington 103 122 −15.6% 28-Aug Detroit 122 138 −11.6% 28-Aug Houston 195 218 −10.6% 31-Aug Los Angeles 182 200 −9.0% 30-Aug San Antonio 80 83 −3.6% 31-Aug Greensboro 26 26 ±0.0% 31-Aug Kansas City 107 104 +2.9% 31-Aug Milwaukee 100 93 +7.5% 28-Aug Fort Worth 51 46 +10.9% 31-Aug Jacksonville 51 41 +24.4% 31-Aug
November 29, 2025 at 11:10 PM
jbenmenachem.com
Menin, who is expected to become City Council Speaker, manages to frame today's events as something that ICE did to the NYPD
Julie Menin @JulieMenin Today, ICE threatened the public’s safety yet again — and this time, their actions created a dangerous situation for both the public and our NYPD officers. That is utterly irresponsible.
November 29, 2025 at 10:51 PM
jbenmenachem.com
@emmagf.bsky.social on X: "Ricky Patel, the Special Agent in Charge at Homeland Security Investigations, called Jessica Tisch, the police commissioner, to apologize after there was a confrontation between protesters and the police in Manhattan today, according to a person familiar with the matter."
Ricky Patel, the Special Agent in Charge at Homeland Security Investigations, called Jessica Tisch, the police commissioner, to apologize after there was a confrontation between protesters and the police in Manhattan today, according to a person familiar with the matter. (1/2) Jessica Tisch told Ricky Patel that what happened today was "unacceptable" and that shows of force were putting the public, federal agents and police officers in harm's way. She warned them that it needs to stop and someone will get hurt if it continues, the person said. (2/2)
November 29, 2025 at 8:26 PM
jbenmenachem.com
NYPD building an illustrious record of friendly fire
NEW YORK -- An NYPD officer and two bystanders were wounded when police opened fire on a man armed with a knife at an L train subway station in Brooklyn, authorities said. Police said the gunfire was reported just after 3 p.m. Sunday at the Sutter Avenue station in Brownsville. NYPD detective shot in ‘friendly fire’ as officers come across carjacking on Queens expressway during morning rush By Desheania Andrews, Joe Marino, Amanda Woods, Matt Troutman and Shane Galvin Published Aug. 22, 2025 Updated Aug. 22, 2025, 10:18 p.m. ET 460 Comments An NYPD detective was shot and wounded in a “friendly fire” incident while confronting a violent repeat offender on parole trying to carjack an Uber on the Queens expressway Friday at the tail end of a one-man crime spree, officials said. Det. Corey Fisher — a 12-year-old police veteran assigned to the department’s Queens North Warrants Squad — was shot in his right hand and left leg shortly before 9 a.m. as three cops opened fire on the Whitestone Expressway near 22nd Road, said NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch. The accused carjacker – Kevin Dubuisson, 28, a four-time violent convicted felon – did not appear to have a firearm and was not struck by any bullets from the officers, Tisch said.
November 29, 2025 at 8:04 PM