The survey, released last week by the Milwaukee Jewish Federation, found that 43% of Jewish adults said they identified as Zionist, while 42% said they did not. A much higher share, 69%, said they feel somewhat or very “emotionally attached to Israel.” At the same time, 52% of respondents agreed that “Israel regularly violates the human rights of the Palestinian people.”
Milwaukee, WI
Milwaukee armed robberies; Cashun Drake sentenced, 18 years prison
MILWAUKEE – A Milwaukee County judge sentenced Cashun Drake on Wednesday, Feb. 28 to 18 years in prison plus an additional ten years of extended supervision in connection with a series of armed robberies in October and November 2022.
Drake reached a plea deal in November 2023, agreeing to plead guilty to six felonies. Ten other charges were dismissed and read into the court record for the purposes of sentencing.
Drake and his co-defendant in the case, Alphonso Reavis, were both 17 years old at the time the robberies took place in Milwaukee and West Allis.
Case details
The first alleged armed robbery happened on Oct. 8. Prosecutors said the two stole an Amazon delivery van on the city’s north side. Prosecutors also accused Reavis and Drake of involvement in multiple cellphone store robberies, a Pick ‘n Save robbery, and a Greenhouse CBD robbery. Along the way, the two allegedly involved in crimes that unfolded outside St. Sebastian Catholic School, and of robbing two people who they planned to trade with via the “Offer Up” app.
Amazon driver robbery | Oct. 8, 2022
Milwaukee police were called to an armed carjacking near 22nd and Concordia around 12:30 p.m. The vehicle – an Amazon delivery van – was soon recovered near 21st and Burleigh, a few blocks from where it was stolen.
The Amazon driver told police that two masked suspects – one of whom was armed with a gun, pointing it at the Amazon driver – went through his pockets, took the keys to the van and got in.
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A criminal complaint states the suspects couldn’t get the van to move and asked the driver how to “get the van to work.” The driver said they needed to take the parking brake off, and the two then fled southbound in the van.
The Amazon van had a surveillance camera inside attached to the rearview mirror, but the suspects took it down, the complaint states. However, a different camera from inside showed the same man, who was driving, with his mask pulled down. Police later identified that man as Drake, and say he is the one who pointed the gun at the Amazon driver.
‘Offer Up’ robbery | Oct. 24, 2022
Around 6:25 p.m., two victims went into Milwaukee Police District 3 and reported that two suspects robbed them at gunpoint near 27th and Burleigh.
According to a criminal complaint, the victims said they met one of the suspects through the “Offer Up” app to trade some items. One of the suspects signaled to the other, and they both pulled out handguns and demanded items from the victims. The victims said the suspects took a backpack, Chromebook, two iPhones, Cartier glasses, and cash before running off. As they ran off, the victims said both suspects fired shots toward them.
The next day, police were told that one of the victim’s debit cards was used to buy a drum-style handgun magazine online. That purchase was delivered to “Joe Baby” at a home near 24th and Chambers. That address belonged to Drake, the complaint states.
From a photo lineup, one of the victims identified Reavis and Drake as the people who robbed them.
Pick ‘n Save robbery | Oct. 30, 2022
Milwaukee police responded to a Pick ‘n Save near 36th and Meinecke around 12:20 p.m. An employee said four people came in and tried to sell a tablet to someone; however, that person did not take the tablet, so the four left. A short time later, the employee said, two of the four people came back inside.
The complaint states the two people asked the employee to break a $20 bill. When the employee opened the register, the complaint states, one of the people pushed her and grabbed the money out of the register. The employee called for security, but the other person pulled out a handgun with a drum-style magazine and pointed it at the employee and the security guard.
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Before the two people ran off, the complaint states, one of them grabbed the security guard’s sunglasses off his face. The security guard told police that the armed person told him “don’t (expletive) move.”
The entire robbery was captured on surveillance video.
Boost Mobile, Greenhouse CBD robberies | Nov. 2, 2022
West Allis police were called to a Boost Mobile near 71st and Greenfield around 2:35 p.m. The owner told police, per the complaint, that two people came in and asked if Boost Mobile bought phones. One of them pulled out four iPhones, but the owner said he wasn’t interested – referring them to another location.
The complaint states the owner called another location and was writing down information when one of the people punched him in the face. The other person, armed with a handgun, said “I am going to kill you” and kept repeating something to that effect.
The suspects took the owner’s car keys, the complaint states, and one of them ran out to where it was parked. That suspect then started running in and out of the store’s “back room” with items as the armed suspect continued to hold the owner at gunpoint. The suspects then put the owner in a restroom and blocked the door with a refrigerator. Once he heard it was quiet, the owner pushed his way out and hit the alarm to notify police.
Surveillance video from the store showed both men were wearing the same clothing as the people who robbed the Pick ‘n Save near 36th and Meinecke, the complaint states. The gun also had a drum-style magazine.
While investigating, the complaint states, police noted the business next door to the Boost Mobile – Greenhouse CBD – “appeared to be ransacked.” The owner said several items were missing. In the Boost Mobile store owner’s car, police found several items that were apparently stolen from the CBD store.
St. Sebastian incident | Nov. 3, 2022
Around 5:10 p.m. Milwaukee police were called to St. Sebastian Catholic School near 55th and Washington for a reported battery.
The complaint states officers spoke to a man at the scene who had been working to lay concrete. The worker said someone who identified himself as “Joe” came up to him and “wanted to talk to him about a job.” A few minutes later, the worker said “Joe” and another person – who had a “gold grill” and stepped in the wet concrete – came back.
The worker told police, per the complaint, that the two suspects got into his SUV and tried to drive of. When he confronted the suspects, one of them pushed and then hit him. As the SUV began rolling down 55th Street, the two suspects got out and ran. The worker was able to get into his SUV and drive it back to the school. There, he saw one of the suspects running from the school with a backpack.
A school employee told police, per the complaint, that he was inside when he saw the struggle involving the worker and the two suspects outside. When the school employee went to help, the complaint states, one of suspects was apparently able to get inside the school and take the school employee’s backpack.
During a struggle to get his backpack back, the complaint states the school employee said he was hit by the SUV and broke his leg. The backpack had a Nintendo Switch and prescription medications inside.
The incident was captured on surveillance video.
T-Mobile robbery | Nov. 3, 2022
Later the same day, just before 6 p.m., police were called to a T-Mobile near 57th and North for an armed robbery. An employee said roughly $20,000 worth of cellphones were stolen, including a tracker phone that was “pinging” near 23rd and Clarke. Other officers were then sent to that location.
The employee said, per the complaint, that he was doing an inventory count when three people came in and were asking about changing phones and service. Suddenly, the complaint states, one of them pointed a handgun with a drum-style magazine at him and pushed him to the back of the store.
A second person then went into the storage area and asked “what’s the code for the door.” With the gun still pointed at him, the employee opened the door and the two suspects followed him inside where they ordered him to open the safe. The suspects ordered the employee to the ground and took his phone and car keys.
The armed suspect ordered another employee to “grab the register till keys out of the safe.” At this time, the complaint states, two other suspects were “clearing out” all the cellphones from the safe and removing other items from the shelves and emptying the cash register tills that were inside the safe.
The complaint states, as the robbers left, one of them returned the employee’s cellphone and car keys but said, “We have your telephone number.”
The robbery was captured on surveillance video. Comparing that video to the video from St. Sebastian, police identified two of the people – Reavis and Drake – were involved in both incidents.
Arrests near 23rd and Clarke | Nov. 3, 2022
At the home near 23rd and Clarke where the tracker phone was pinging, responding officers spotted “two young Black males” who “appeared to be frantically running around the residence.” The complaint states one of them was quickly changing into different clothes and apparently looking for way to escape.
After a woman answered the door to the lower unit, the complaint states officers saw Drake – who “appeared to be looking for a way to escape.” Officers went inside and took Drake and Reavis into custody.
The complaint states items including cellphones, tablets, smartwatches and a handgun with a drum-style magazine were found in plain view throughout the home. Shown pictures of the suspects in the West Allis Boost Mobile robbery, another woman identified the suspects as Drake and Reavis.
Defendants’ statements
During a Mirandized interview, the complaint states Drake admitted to taking the Amazon delivery van because he “needed money” and to being involved in the Boost Mobile robbery – but nothing else.
However, in his own Mirandized interview with police, the complaint states Reavis admitted to being involved in each of the incidents and identified Drake as a “co-actor” in each of them as well. His descriptions of the crimes, per the complaint, are as follows:
Amazon driver robbery
Reavis said he and Drake robbed the Amazon driver to pay someone back – identified in the complaint as “T” – who had given them the gun that was later used in the other incidents, though it did not have a drum-style magazine at the time.
‘Offer up’ robbery
The “Offer Up” incident began as a “legit trade,” Reavis said. However, he said some people he owed money to saw him on his way there, beat him up and demanded their money. He said they beat up Drake, too, and told them to rob the people they planned to trade with and fire a shot afterward to “scare” the victims.
Reavis admitted to firing a shot, but said it was “into the air.” He said they gave everything to the people who told them to do the robbery – except for the Cartier glasses. He said Drake was the one who used a stolen debit card to buy the drum-style magazine, and that it was the one thing he and Drake did “on their own, otherwise they were forced to do everything else.”
Pick ‘n Save robbery
Reavis said he and Drake were “chilling” when a man armed with an AR-style rifle knocked on their door and told them “they were going to do a job and get him money that day.” They then picked up two other people and went to the store to sell phones. He said they sold three phones, got $80 and left. However, he and Drake went back in – Reavis armed with the gun – robbed the store and took the security guard’s sunglasses.
Boost Mobile, Greenhouse CBD robberies
Again, Reavis said, “T” ordered him to get money. Reavis said he and Drake first went to a different store to sell phones that were stolen in a previous robbery, but the store did not want them. They then went to the Boost Mobile across the street.
Reavis identified himself as the one armed during the Boost Mobile robbery and Drake as the one who punched the owner. He said they put everything in the owner’s car because they “wanted to get away” but realized they couldn’t start it. While Reavis held the owner at gunpoint, he said Drake stole from the Greenhouse CBD next door.
St. Sebastian incident
Reavis said “T” came by and “beat on” him and Drake, “demanding his money.” The three of them and a woman then started driving round “looking for a car to steal” because they needed a “better” getaway car. That’s when they tried to steal the worker’s SUV outside the school – but “it went bad.”
T-Mobile robbery
Reavis said they went from to the T-Mobile after the St. Sebastian’s incident because “T” had demanded money. Reavis said he was armed with the handgun, and that he, Drake and a third person were dropped off in the back of the store. They then went in the front, robbed it and ran
Reavis said “T” was then “satisfied” and considered the debt cleared. They never delivered any of the stolen items to “T” because “there was not an arrangement” and he “thought they were good,” Reavis said.
Milwaukee has officially joined the Global Swimmable Cities Alliance, aligning with other Great Lakes communities like Sheboygan and Ottawa in a growing movement to make urban waterways safer for recreation.
Milwaukee Riverkeeper Cheryl Nenn joined WTMJ’s Jeff Sherman on The Upswing to discuss what that means for the city. With a background in environmental science and experience working with both the City of New York and the U.S. Forest Service, Nenn says joining the alliance builds on years of water quality progress – while also creating accountability through a clear action plan.
Efforts are already underway to improve both safety and accessibility. Nenn says Milwaukee Riverkeeper is pursuing grants to install more safety ladders along lower piers throughout the river system, ensuring that anyone who ends up in the water has a way to get out. At the same time, the organization is working with the city and local businesses to green riverfront areas, creating healthier habitats for wildlife and improving the overall ecosystem.
Nenn emphasized that becoming a swimmable city is a community effort. Residents can play a role by picking up trash along beaches and rivers, keeping streets and storm drains clean, and reducing plastic use.
The Upswing is presented by Horicon Bank.
MILWAUKEE — Bastille Days and Festa Italiana are filling downtown Milwaukee with live music, food and large crowds this weekend.
For many, events like these are a summer tradition.
“The festivals for the summertime-they’re something to do like almost every single day and almost most definitely every single week,” Natara Riley said.
But some festivalgoers say outside of these big events, downtown’s entertainment scene isn’t what it used to be.
“I grew up partying on Water Street. I won’t go there no more at all,” Leandra Wohner said.
“I think it’s the city is not upkeeping the entertainment that people need to have fun. So when something does happen, like Bastille Days or other festivals, a lot of people tend to go to it because there’s not a lot of room for like activities for people,” Riley said.
Watch: Festivalgoers say Milwaukee’s summer events fill a gap in downtown entertainment
It’s a weekend of festivals in downtown Milwaukee
Festivalgoers say events like these give people a chance to enjoy live music, support local vendors, and try new foods — all in an environment they feel is well organized.
“I feel like it’s safe. They block off the roads, especially where there’s a lot of people walking around, and you know, parking wasn’t hard to find either. So it’s very-I want to say-I feel like it’s very well put together,” Dana Garcia said.
For those who may be hesitant about coming downtown, Emma Maertz offered this encouragement.
“If you never give it a chance, you never discover all the wonderful little vibrant things out here on the streets, and so I’d say give it a chance. You know, come down, see what it’s like, walk around, try out a street festival, park a few blocks away, and explore a new area,” Maertz said.
Let’s talk:
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Milwaukee, WI
Survey finds less than half of Jews in Milwaukee identify as Zionists | The Jerusalem Post
Yet another survey has found that fewer than half of Jews in an American city identify as Zionists, this time in Milwaukee, the childhood home of Golda Meir, the Zionist icon and former Israeli prime minister.
The results join a growing number of similar data points generated by Jewish groups that point to evolving, and at times seemingly contradictory, views about Israel among American Jews. A survey released in February by Jewish Federations of North America, an umbrella group, found that 37% of Jews identified as Zionist even as 88% believed that “Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish, Democratic state.”
The findings cut across North American Jewish communities of different regions and sizes and are prompting Jewish leaders to reexamine their assumptions at a time when Israel is shedding support among Americans of all backgrounds.
“A year ago I really would have had a knee-jerk reaction where I was stuck on the word, because I am a Zionist,” Miryam Rosenzweig, the Milwaukee federation’s president and CEO, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about her views on the survey. “What I needed to overcome and understand is that, as a brand, it’s tarnished.” The word, she said, “is tainted.”
‘The values are still there’
Yet, Rosenzweig insisted, for her Jewish community, “the values are still there.”
The Milwaukee area is home to an estimated 27,500 Jews who attend more than a dozen synagogues and six Jewish schools. The local federation operates a number of programs directly and supports a wide range of education, cultural, religious and security initiatives meant to strengthen the Jewish community. (It also gives to a number of national Jewish organizations, including a small grant to 70 Faces Media, JTA’s parent company.)
The local survey, completed by 980 families, was conducted between December 2024 and March 2025, at a time when criticism over Israel’s handling of the war in Gaza was sharply mounting. More than 100 hostages taken when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, triggering the war, were still in captivity at the survey’s start, while dozens were released during a temporary ceasefire midway through the survey period.
Conducted by researchers at Brandeis University and the University of Chicago’s NORC social research firm, the survey is the federation’s first deep dive into its Jewish population since 2011. It was conducted by email, mail and phone, with options to complete the survey online or over the phone, and has an overall margin of error of 6.5%.
The survey asked about a wide range of topics and, Rosenzweig said, has illuminated unique challenges for the federation, including the region’s aging Jewish population and its relatively lower average household income when compared to similarly sized Jewish communities.
High levels of Jewish ‘participation’
The data also offered unique bright spots, such as high levels of what Rosenzweig classified as Jewish “participation.”
Three-quarters of Jewish children in the area’s interfaith households are being raised Jewish, for example, and nearly one in four of all Jewish children in Milwaukee are enrolled in a Jewish day school or yeshiva, higher than the national average.
But it is the Zionism question that has seized public interest, in part because it was asked at all.
For decades, according to Matthew Boxer, a researcher at Brandeis’s Cohen Center for Jewish Studies who led the Milwaukee study and has worked on many others, local federations conducting population studies would ask about topics such as emotional attachment to Israel, but largely refrained from directly asking their communities whether they identified as Zionists.
That changed with the 2020 Chicago federation survey, also led by Boxer’s team, which found that 40% of the region’s Jewish adults self-identified as Zionist while 80% agreed with the statement “It’s important for Israel to be a Jewish state.”
Since then, Boxer said, around a dozen federations have opted to ask some version of the Zionism question on their surveys. Recently released findings from the federations in Boston and St. Louis found similar results to Chicago’s and Milwaukee’s; new survey results in Austin, Texas, and Orange County, California, are expected later this year. (Some have decided against including the question, too.)
The findings have functioned as something of a Rorschach test for American Jews. Those who are deeply critical of Israel say the fact that a minority of American Jews identify as Zionists prove that American Jewish groups should roll back their support for and engagement with Israel. Those who want to preserve the historic relationship urge looking beyond the label and focusing on the fact that a significant majority of Jews are aligned in their support for traditional tenets of Zionism.
In an essay for JTA published after the national federations group released its survey, Mimi Kravetz, JFNA’s chief impact officer, concluded that most Jews still believe in the “historic definition” of Zionism, while conceding that the term has gone through “definition creep.” She urged federations to “open pathways for learning and belonging,” and avoid “responding with anger when the moment calls for steady leadership.”
For Rosenzweig, who came to Milwaukee in 2019 after years working with Jewish young professionals at Detroit’s federation, polling her community about Zionism was a no-brainer even when they were first conceiving the survey before Oct. 7. “We have to ask the question,” she said.
“The demographic study is not meant to answer what we want to hear,” she said. “We need to know where they stand, where do people agree and disagree?”
While the survey found a split on Zionist identification, it found broad consensus on other issues, sometimes ones that are in tension with each other. For example, 84% of Milwaukee Jews somewhat or strongly agreed with the statement, “I consider it important for Israel to be a Jewish state.” At the same time, 88% agreed that “Israel should be a democratic state for all of its citizens, regardless of religious identity.”
Two ideas could coexist
Rosenzweig said she believes the two ideas could coexist. “Our community can support Israel and support Israel’s right to exist and be a Jewish state, and they’re concerned for the human dignity of Palestinians. It’s not binary,” she said. “And I think that’s really an important message about who American Jews are.”
Rabbi Noah Chertkoff, who leads the Reform Congregation Shalom in the suburb of Fox Point, said he wasn’t surprised by the survey results on Zionism but cautioned against drawing too many conclusions from them.
“I proudly identify as a Zionist, but I also recognize that the word itself has been badly distorted and, at times, deliberately defamed by people more interested in vilifying Jews than engaging seriously with Jewish history, Jewish belief and the Jewish people’s own understanding of our story,” he wrote in an email to JTA.
Chertkoff added that his own congregants have expressed both “real anguish” over Oct. 7, as well as concerns for democracy in Israel and “the suffering of civilians on all sides of the conflict.” He added that the survey should be read as a “mandate”: “If we want the next generation to inherit a durable connection to Israel and Zionism, we cannot rely only on inherited labels.”
Rabbi Lex Rofeberg, a Milwaukee native who runs the alternative Jewish engagement network Judaism Unbound from his current home in Rhode Island, said he believed the survey is surfacing more than mere confusion over the word Zionism.
“As a person who would self-identify as ‘not a Zionist,’ I hope that Jewish organizations in Milwaukee, and beyond, would respond to this finding not by trying to shift my beliefs, or by insisting that I don’t really know what I’m opposing,” he wrote in an email. “I’d hope instead they’d recognize the reality that ‘I’m not a Zionist’ is a sincere, deeply-held belief for a lot of Jews all around the world, and that includes just over 40% of Jews in the greater Milwaukee area.”
Jewish institutions, he suggested, “should respond to lower support for Zionism not with ‘how do we re-brand Zionism’ but rather ‘how can we create meaningful Jewish experiences for folks who are actively not Zionists?’”
Jewish Milwaukee, which Rofeberg calls “awesome” and credits with having “shaped me as a person and a Jew,” could achieve this, he insists.
What the federation does with this new information is still to be determined. Rosenzweig is currently drafting “a very extensive strategic plan,” she told JTA, but said it was too early for specifics. She does hope to focus on points of commonality, rather than trying to convince half of the local Jews they are, or should be, Zionists.
For inspiration, Rosenzweig has been dusting off Milwaukee’s community survey from exactly a century ago. (Meir had already moved to Palestine by way of Denver at the time.) Back then, she said, the community was roughly the same size it is now, and its Jewish funding arms were raising roughly the same amount of money, adjusted for inflation.
“It was talking about the ‘Campaign for Palestine,’ in 1926, because the Jews of Eastern Europe had nowhere to go,” Rosenzweig said. “They were worried about it then. And so today, we’re responding to the moment. And yes, it looks dark. There were dark days, and we survived because we came together. We know how to do this.”
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