Sunday, May 05, 2024

05/05 Links: Netanyahu to Holocaust survivors: If need be, Israel will stand alone; The Indelible Stain of Antisemitism: The Failure of ‘Jew-Washing’

From Ian:

Ruthie Blum: Never again?
Sadly, the obligatory Holocaust Remembrance Day mantra rings hollow in the wake of the Simchat Torah bloodbath. With 132 hostages still languishing in Hamas captivity, a ground operation in Rafah repeatedly postponed and an explosion of antisemitism around the world, it seems that a genuine renewal of the vow—not simply a chanting of the mantra—is in order.

Nevertheless, in “Oct. 6 mode,” Halevi went on to reiterate it.

“Never again will the Star of David be a mark of shame,” he declared. “Instead [it is] a symbol that proudly flies on the nation’s flag. Never again will we be a scattered, homeless and persecuted people in exile, [but rather] a strong and independent people united in its land and homeland. Never again will we be a nation without a force to protect it, but…[one] whose ranks include heroes and heroines who stand tall and proud, fighting shoulder to shoulder as part of the IDF.”

All true, but utterly out of place in the midst of a battle that even our closest ally, the United States, is preventing us from executing properly, let alone winning. The words are especially jarring in view of the way in which Washington is forcing Jerusalem to engage in “negotiations” with Hamas’s Hitler in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, for a “ceasefire” that doesn’t necessarily include the release of all the hostages.

Halevi ended his missive by paying homage to those who perished at the hands of the “German inferno” and the survivors who “mustered the rest of their strength to take part in establishing a state for the Jewish people.” It’s in their name, he said, that the IDF continues to stand strong.

Invoking the “just war” being fought right now—peculiarly against a vanishing perpetrator—he said that the memory of those Jews should be the “source of our strength and a reminder of the importance of maintaining a protective force for our people.”

Yes, he concluded, “We shoulder the responsibility to continue fighting for the freedom of the people of Israel and to ensure: Never Again!”

Whether he will be as forthcoming during a post-war investigation about “shouldering the responsibility” for the Oct. 7 fiasco—the victims of which included Holocaust survivors and their families—remains to be seen. But what became painfully clear seven months ago is that the mass slaughter of Jews can and did happen again.
Netanyahu to Holocaust survivors: If need be, Israel will stand alone
In a meeting ahead of Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Day, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told survivors of the Shoah that the Jewish state would stand alone if necessary to defend its very existence.

“If we need to stand alone, we will stand alone,” Netanyahu told the Holocaust survivors gathered at his office in Jerusalem on Thursday. “If it is possible to recruit the nations of the world, how much the better. But if we do not defend ourselves, nobody will defend us,” he added.

The premier’s remarks came during an annual event where Israel’s government leaders meet with the Shoah survivors selected to light torches at the official state ceremony on May 5 marking Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.

This year’s torch lighters include Itzhak Kabilio and Michael Bar-On. Netanyahu referenced comments from the survivors highlighting the reality that Israel is the sole guarantor of the Jewish people’s safety.

“Izi [Itzhak Kabilio] said here: ‘The State of Israel is the one and only sanctuary of the Jewish people.’ This is so correct,” he stated. “And Michael said: ‘We cannot rely on the nations of the world who make promises.’”

The Israeli leader then cited the examples of former U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill during World War II, arguing that even those powerful figures failed to take critical action to try to save Jewish lives during the Holocaust.

“Great leaders like Roosevelt, who was told what was happening at Auschwitz and Birkenau and in the [other] death camps. They told him and he knew. His answer was that he would be not prepared to lose a single pilot and he also refused to accept the Jews,” Netanyahu said. “Churchill, who I greatly admire, tried to involve his army, but his army rebelled against him.”
Israel marks first post-Oct. 7 Holocaust Remembrance Day
Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day began at Sundown on Sunday, with the official state opening ceremony taking place at 8 p.m. in Warsaw Ghetto Square, Yad Vashem, on the Mount of Remembrance in Jerusalem.

Israel’s President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were both set to deliver remarks at the ceremony. Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan will light the memorial torch, and Haim Noy was selected to speak on behalf of the survivors, including Yitzhak Perlmutter, who was chosen to recite the El Maleh Rahamim prayer for the souls of the martyrs.

During the ceremony, Holocaust survivors Pnina Hefer, Allegra Gutta, Arie Eitani, Raisa Brodsky, Michael Bar-On and Izi Kabilio will each light torches.

The live broadcast will include simultaneous translation into English and Hebrew as well as French, Spanish, German, and Russian. Additionally, Yad Vashem will offer simultaneous translation in Arabic available on the Yad Vashem YouTube Channel in Arabic. The live feed will also be accessible via Facebook (only live in English and Hebrew).

“This evening we will honor the memory of our six million brothers and sisters who were murdered in the Holocaust,” Netanyahu stated in remarks issued ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day.

“Last Thursday, my wife, Sara, and I met with the Holocaust survivors who will light the memorial torches this evening. We met with 96-year-old Izi Kabilio, a Holocaust survivor, from Yugoslavia. He told us about the horrors he, his family and his friends endured,” said the premier.

He continued, “Izi told us: ‘Today, the State of Israel is the one and only haven for the Jewish people.’


Torchlighters on Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day 2024
Six Holocaust survivors will light torches on Sunday evening, May 5, at the Holocaust Remembrance Day Ceremony in memory of the six million Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust. Here are their stories:

Michael Bar-On was born in Krakow, Poland, in 1932. In 1941, the family was incarcerated in the Krakow ghetto before they were transferred to Miedzyrzec Podlaski, where his parents died of typhus. Michael fled with his brother and sister almost 200 km. on foot to Hungary, and from there fled to Romania. They were imprisoned but released thanks to a bribe paid by a local Jew. They were able to sail to Istanbul and reached Eretz Israel in 1944. Michael served in the IDF for 25 years and retired with the rank of lieutenant-colonel.

Raisa Brodsky was born in 1937 in Sharhorod, Ukraine. Nazi Germany invaded the USSR in 1941 and then passed control of the town to the Romanians, who established a ghetto. Her father, Zamvel, organized underground meetings in his house, and together with his Jewish and Ukrainian resistance comrades, they smuggled food, clothes, equipment, and medicine to the partisans. The Red Army liberated Sharhorod in March 1944. After the USSR permitted immigration to Israel in 1989, Raisa and her family moved to Israel, where she became a mathematics teacher.

Arie Eitani was born in Milan, Italy, in 1927, the only child of Hungarian immigrants. On the eve of World War II, Jews with foreign citizenship were forced to leave Italy and the family returned to Hungary. In May 1944, Arie and his family were incarcerated in the Eger ghetto. One month later, they were deported to Auschwitz, and the entire family except for Arie was murdered in the gas chambers. He survived a death march and reached the Allach camp, where he contracted typhus and became a living skeleton. When U.S. Army soldiers liberated the camp, Arie was too weak to stand up. He reached Eretz Israel in 1947, enlisted in the Haganah, and fought in the War of Independence. He was captured by the Syrians in June 1948 and was tortured, returning to Israel after 13 months.

Allegra Gutta was born in 1928 in Benghazi, Libya. In 1941 the British retreated from Benghazi and the Italian army arrived. In early 1942, the Italians deported most of Benghazi's 3,000 Jews to the Giado concentration camp, 1,000 km. to the west in the Libyan Desert. Her father and two sisters succumbed to typhus at Giado, before the British liberated the camp in 1943. In September 1948, the family escaped to Tripoli in the dead of night and reached Naples, Italy, with the help of the Jewish Agency, eventually reaching Israel.

Pnina Hefer was born in Nusfalau, Romania. In 1940, Hungary gained control of the area. The Germans entered Hungary in March 1944 and the Jews were rounded up and sent to the Szilagysomlo ghetto. Three weeks later, Pnina and her family were deported to Auschwitz. Most of her family were murdered in the gas chambers. In late 1944, Pnina and her sister Bluma were transferred to Bergen-Belsen. They were liberated by U.S. soldiers on April 14, 1945. They eventually reached Israel in 1947.

Izi Kabilio was born in 1928 in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. The Germans occupied Yugoslavia in April 1941. One of his father's factory employees, a German mechanic named Josip Eberhardt, befriended him, even though Eberhardt was recruited by the Gestapo. Eberhardt hid Izi and his parents in the cellar of his house, obtained forged papers for them, and helped them escape. They were eventually caught and in 1942 were sent to a concentration camp on Rab Island. After Italy surrendered to the Allies in September 1943, anti-Nazi partisans raided the island and liberated the Jews. The family immigrated to Israel in 1948, where Izi enlisted in the IDF and fought in a combat unit.


We Deserve Better. Much Better
Since 10/7, Jews around the world have been under attack. Jewish unity, and pride in our peoplehood, are more important than ever. Even the slightest weakness on our part is a gift to our many enemies. I had hoped that in the post-10/7 world, that would be obvious to all of us.

Alas, many in the “mainstream” Jewish institutions have slid right back to business as usual. While most of us are just as upset today as we were on 10/7, many “Jewish” institutions in America seem to want to hide behind routine, or worse, are afraid to be openly, proudly, and fiercely Jewish. They are cowardly, feckless, and totally ill equipped to really make a difference in today’s world.

I have been involved with, or on the inside of, many of those institutions for large parts of my life. I was the Marketing Director of the Jewish Federation of San Diego County between 2009-2011. While I am singling that Federation out in this article, I want to make it clear that I have had similar experiences with several Jewish institutions over the years.

I enjoyed my tenure with the Federation. The people I worked with were very nice. The Jews there were proud of their Jewishness and felt connected to Israel. However, the overall Federation culture is one of conformity, obeyance to whatever the ideology of the democratic party happens to be at the moment (I was warned to never share any conservative views during my first week), and a total unwillingness to take even the slightest risks, even though risk-taking is a necessary aspect of true leadership.

Their ideas were stale, old fashioned, and boring. I was once chastised for “using too much Hebrew” in a copywriting assignment. The words I used were along the lines of “Shabbat shalom,” “chai,” and “Eretz Yisrael.” They would, my bosses claimed, alienate anyone who doesn’t speak Hebrew. I don’t speak fluent Hebrew. My stance was that as the “leaders of the Jewish community” (an obviously absurd, but regular claim made by all Federation leadership), we had a responsibility to teach. Words like “Shabbat” and “chai” should not be some sort of obscure esoteric language at any Jewish institution. That is just one example of many. Anything authentically Jewish scared them. It was a bagels and “oy vey” culture. Not a mindset ready to handle 21st century challenges.

I hadn’t thought much about the San Diego Federation though until I received a marketing email from them recently. They had removed me from their mailing list years ago. So, it was a surprise when I received a message about something called “Jewish heritage night.”

Sounds positive right? In a post 10/7 world, we should ALL be publicly celebrating our Jewish heritage. Except this wasn’t that. This was the typical tepid, emotionless, and yes – cowardly type of thing that was the norm when I was there but MUST be called out in a post-10/7 world. We as Jews can no longer tolerate weak, scared leadership who seem to care more about always flying under the radar, hiding behind blandness, and worst of all, showing zero courage in what is, obviously, a major crisis.
A morally pure Judaism without actual Jews
This is a moment of reckoning for American Jews, on and off university campuses. Political alliances built up over many years have been shattered. Friendships have been forsaken and family relationships strained. Jewish loyalties and convictions long taken for granted have been questioned, abandoned, or reaffirmed. As a scholar of American Judaism and a teacher of American college students for nearly half a century, I confess that I’ve been surprised to see slogans and tactics employed decades ago by antisemites and the New Left – and widely discredited since then — refitted and deployed in the wave of protests against “American complicity in Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people.”

Last week, with memories of my family’s Passover seders still vivid, I watched video of the protest “seder in the streets” held in Brooklyn on the second night of the holiday – and was shocked, though not surprised, to see Israel denounced in the name of a definition of Jewish faith that we have not heard much of since its heyday in 19th century Europe and its use in the 20th century by the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism. I found myself wishing that the students in my courses on Jewish thought could have seen the video too. I want them to understand that some of the current arguments made by young Jews against Zionism are in fact old claims about the nature of Judaism.

As is usual these days, Israel was denounced at the rally as inherently colonialist and apartheid; nothing new there, only more evidence that lovers of Zion have not done a good job in telling the story of how the State of Israel came to be. Too often the standard Palestinian narrative is met with silence or confusion; some knowledge of world history would be helpful too, lest Israel be denied legitimacy for mistakes and injustices all too common in the annals of nation-states. What was new at this “seder,” for me at least, was the charge that Zionism is literally a “false God,” that attachment to Israel is “worshipping a golden calf.” That is so, it was proclaimed, because Judaism is ethical monotheism and only that; Judaism is work for justice, full stop, and therefore any lapse from moral purity constitutes idolatry.
Holocausts and Harvards: Antisemitism and Jews joining in
“Come gather ’round, people, wherever you roam; and admit that the waters around you have grown… The battle outside ragin’ will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls; for the times they are a-changin’.” – Bob Dylan, 1964

Alas, times – and history itself – is not really changing at all; it is just repeating itself.

The week(s) ahead offer both tears and cheers as they lead us once again into the modern “Yom” holidays: Yom Hashoah, Yom Hazikaron, and Yom Ha’atzmaut (and later, Yom Yerushalayim). But the “Yoms” this year are of a very different nature.

Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) comes on the verge of what may very well be the beginnings, God forbid, of another Holocaust in the making; while Yom Hazikaron (Remembrance Day for Israel’s Fallen) comes in the midst of an existential war that has brought us far too many fallen soldiers to memorialize, and placed Israel at its most perilous precipice since the state was founded.

Dangerous times: Antisemitism and anti-Israel protests
We live in a dangerous world at a dangerous time, with equal parts ignorance and evil surrounding us. The well-orchestrated and well-financed protests on American university campuses are eagerly populated by students who are more than willing to jump on what has become a trendy bandwagon, while muttering mindless mantras. It doesn’t matter that they have no concept whatever of Middle East realities or complexities – “Palestine” for them is not actually a physical place.

Indeed, my experience with these confused kids is that they can’t locate it on a map – it is more a concept and a cause that can be succinctly summed up in one sentence: People are suffering, and the Jews are to blame.

Tragically, there is no shortage of un-Jewish Jews who have joined together with the antisemitic mob, helping to add credence to their crusade. This is a syndrome aptly described by the well-known Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl of logotherapy fame.
Andrew Pessin: The Indelible Stain of Antisemitism: The Failure of ‘Jew-Washing’
This point is only amplified by closer examination of the “Jewish” resources JVP offers on its website. Its “Rosh Hashana” guide (for example) converts the traditional shehecheyanu blessing into one praising the many successful Israel-boycott achievements of the preceding year. Its Chanukah guide praises the sumoud (Arabic for “steadfastness”) of Palestinians, interprets olive oil as a symbol of Palestinian sumoud, and asks, “This night of Chanukah, how will you honor the steadfastness of the Palestinian people? What will you do to ensure that Palestinian steadfastness will be rewarded with a bountiful harvest?” Its Passover guide opens with sentences about

arriving at the Passover table with the salty taste of authoritarian racism on our tongues … devastated, lead in our water or no access to water. Ferguson, Flint, Aida Refugee Camp in Bethlehem …scared, aware of the rise in Islamophobia and anti-immigrant discourse.

The “authoritarian racism” that JVP deplores appears by all counts to be only that alleged of Israel, and not that of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas; and while the group is concerned here about Islamophobia it offers not a word of concern about the ever-rising violence toward Jews around the world. The Passover message of liberation from slavery conveyed by this document is that of the Palestinians, from the Israelis.[6] Tu B’Shvat is now about Palestinian olive trees, and ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Jews. And what does Tisha B’av become, for JVP? Not a day for remembering and mourning the destruction of the great Jewish Temples, the two great symbols of ancient Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel. Rather JVP offers, “The Tisha B’av Gaza Mourning Ritual Guide.”

By converting Jewish religious symbols and ceremonies into those with a pro-Palestinian significance, it seems to me, JVP seriously calls the “Jewish” part of its name into question. To Jew-wash with JVP, then, is once more akin to medieval Church officials denying their antisemitism by referring to their fondness for those converts who reject Judaism.

Or even worse—for JVP is doing something more sinister than converting out of Judaism in the way that individual medieval Jews did, often out of understandable necessity. It is converting Judaism itself, claiming that its new, pro-Palestinian religion simply is an authentic form of Judaism.[7]

JVP goes so far as to remind the reader, in its Passover Haggadah, that the word “Israel” there refers to Jacob, who “wrestled” with God, and perhaps thus symbolizes those who admirably struggle against authority. “Israel,” the text insists, does not refer to the modern state, Israel—lest someone read anything in the long-established history of the Jews as providing grounds for Jewish sovereignty in that land. JVP ignores the fact that the actual name of the modern state of Israel is the “State of Israel,” i.e. of the people of Israel, i.e. of the descendants of that very same Israel.

In that one move in its Haggadah JVP denies to Jews the very foundation for their rights in the Land of Israel—and it does so as a “Jewish” voice.

Add to this the fact that most of its financing apparently comes from non-Jewish sources,[8] and it becomes hard not to see JVP as literally in the business of providing professional (if unsuccessful) Jew-washing services.

In the final part we turn, then, to “Social Justice Jews,” and a conclusion.
Professor Andrew Pessin Registers Objection to Faculty and Staff Solidarity Statement
Dear Conn College students,

It is a sad day when some 90 Conn College faculty members can publicly sign a statement accusing Jews of “Jewish supremacy”; Nazi propaganda minister Goebbels would be proud to see his trope so widely adopted. What’s next? Deciding that the Nazis were right after all in pursuing the Holocaust?

Never mind that the one sliver of a Jewish state (32 of which would fit inside Texas!) and its 7 million Jews is massively dwarfed by the 460 million Arabs in 20-plus Arab states and the 2 billion Muslims in the 50-plus Muslim states, most of which actively seek to destroy the one tiny Jewish state in the name of Muslim Arab supremacy (read Hamas’s (never renounced) charter!); and that this tiny state is currently under active attack from Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and of course nuclear-approaching Iran. And lest you think that those actors attack Israel in the name of “human rights,” consider that not one of them provides human rights even to its own citizens. As protestors cheered the recent Houthi attacks, the Houthis announced they were crucifying gay men; at least Iran only publicly hangs their gays. Yet somehow the Jews and their little state are the problem.

It is also sad, even tragic, that such educated people can proffer such absolutely terrible advice. But happily we do have some dissenting opinions here, if only as small a minority as the Jews themselves are, perhaps to help you figure out, of course, your own thoughts on the matter.

In general I believe it is inappropriate for a mob of faculty to promote their opinions to you this way. There is a bullying process that goes into acquiring signatures that is inconducive to free and open inquiry. This document may also make some of you uncomfortable, and feel unsafe in the classrooms of those who signed it. Are these professors looking at their Jewish students, thinking about those Jews and their evil Jewish supremacy? How could you object to or protest this statement, and expect to prosper in that professor’s class, under the threat of the professor’s grade? For that reason alone I register my objection to it. (I only share my opinion here in response, having failed to persuade my colleagues to desist from their disgraceful action and unable to let it go uncontested.)
Jake Wallis Simons: As Palestine protests spread, the West is devouring itself
We have arrived at the culmination of decades of Critical Race Theory being pumped into our young people’s brains by academics who inherited their radicalism from the Cold War. Central to the dogma is the notion that equality is a cover for white supremacy, so society must instead be structured advantageously to non-whites. That this will lead us into a perpetual state of identity warfare – a future fast becoming reality – is of no concern to these shrieking revolutionaries.

That the “anti-racist” movement is a Trojan horse for the oldest hatred, revamped as Israelophobia, is now blindingly obvious. Starting on campus, our culture is eating itself. The Jews are just the first course. Or rather, the Jews plus the silent majority of decent Britons. When does modesty become cowardice?

Overseas, we face an “axis of resistance” as Russia, China, Iran and authoritarian states form up together. At home, we face an axis of radicalism, with different factions devoted to race, climate change, transgenderism and Islamism rallying to the Palestinian flag. The “queers for Palestine” movement speaks volumes; this was never about real-life Palestine. It’s counter-cultural rebellion at home.

But the idiocy of these people doesn’t make them less useful. Which brings me back to Gaza. Meeting with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh last month, Iran’s supreme leader said: “We have, so far, successfully won the media and PR wars, and have managed to change public opinion across the globe. We must continue with this.” In November, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said: “We must salute all those who took to the street in support and solidarity with the Palestinians, from all over the world.” In Gaza, signs were held up paying tribute to campus protests.

It’s myopia that’s the problem, isn’t it? That and the narcissism. But the danger is real.
Dexter Van Zile: Students for Justice in Palestine Grooming American Students for Intifada: A First Person Account
I asked him one last question. He is worried about American support for Israel, I said. "But we've also given money to Iran. We've given billions of dollars to Iran. We've released funds to them. And they [Iran] launched a whole bunch of drones at Israel. Do you want to separate America from Iran?"

"We're here to cut ties," he said, "[to] demand that we cut ties with the Israeli Ministry of Defense to end the genocide in Gaza."

"Okay, but so you don't really want to basically limit American resources or dollars going to Iran?" I said.

"This is, I think, again, just not painting the full picture," he said.

"You would think that the full picture would include something to do with Iran because Hamas is an Iranian proxy," I said.

"Iran ended up firing those missiles after the bombing of what was an embassy," he said.

"I'm not sure it was an embassy or even a consulate, but the thing is that Iran has basically been attacking Israel through proxies for years," I said. "You got a problem with that?"

Berkinsky wouldn't answer the question: "I'm going to leave you with this. We're going to be in this encampment until MIT is willing to have a conversation, a real conversation, about cutting ties with the Israeli Ministry of Defense. We have multiple projects that contribute directly to the murder of people. And just more broadly, we just need to question the ethics of our research and what those projects contribute to." You have to hand it to him: this guy stuck to his talking points.

At this point, it was my turn to think I was reliving the 1970s. But instead of listening to protesters condemn the U.S. bombing of Cambodia, I was listening to liberal protesters siding with the Islamists who hijacked the Iranian Revolution in Iran in 1979, ushering in decades of repression and abuse at the hands of the Islamist regime in Tehran. No, these young people are not Islamists, but they are promoting a central element of Islamist propaganda—that through its support for Israel, the United States is revealing itself to be a singular force for evil in the modern world. They're paving the way for Islamists in the West just as they did in Tehran in 1979.

And that's the point. Richard Landes, a former history professor at Boston University and author of Can 'The Whole World' Be Wrong? Lethal Journalism, Antisemitism and Global Jihad, says the encampments taking place throughout the United States are part of a "cognitive war" intended to convince Westerners to stand down in the face of Islamist efforts to transform our civilization.

The success of the encampment movement, Landes declared, "is the culmination of fifty years during which [Edward] Said's Orientalism occupied Western academia (hence it's most apt for [the campaign] to emanate from Columbia) pushing out any sane narrative about Caliphators' invasion of the West."

The encampments represent "a new stage in the Bolshevization of the movement in which outside money and outside actors are infiltrating, brainwashing, and regimenting the wannabe 'true believers' on the inside," Landes reported. "Thus, the ugliest aspects of global Jihadi warfare can express their desires openly, with the support of the 'cream' of the elites they target. It's hard to imagine a greater cognitive war victory for the Jihadis and a greater peril for the West." (This may sound preposterous to the uninitiated, but anyone who thinks Landes is overreacting needs to take a close look at events at Columbia University, where one lawyer reports activists are making open calls for genocide.)
Eve Barlow: Student activists or pro insurgents?
Last night I gained access to a GoogleDrive (see below) obtained by social media account Israel War Room via a source who is allegedly within the UPenn “anti-war” encampment. It contains over 200 documents linked below that are pro-terrorism, with guidelines on how to riot and cause disruption, how to make weapons and take over buildings. Israel War Room highlight that the drive lists Carrie Zaremba as the owner of all files, who is reportedly a spokesperson for National Students for Justice in Palestine, aka SJP.

Students for Justice in Palestine has a very long track record of promoting antisemitism on university campuses in America. Sorry, antizionism. SJP is present across hundreds of institutions and is part of the bigger umbrella organization American Muslims for Palestine, or AMP. It should be noted that SJP has alleged links to terror groups such as the PFLP (whose literature appears in this GoogleDrive) and PIJ, while AMP’s membership contains overlap with groups that were previously shut down for supporting Hamas (the literature of which also appears in this GoogleDrive).

To trawl through the trove of documents is to take a dive into the minds of wannabe insurgents, not future hopeful university graduates. Contained within the sub-sections of the drive are how-to guides, including “sabotaging Zionist infrastructure”, creating print propaganda, strategizing on demands and actions, establishing an autonomous zone, “wheatpasting”, crowd and riot control, blockaiding and first aid. Are you wondering why all the encampment occupants are wearing masks and covering their identities? It’s all detailed here via PDF guides on anonymity, security, and avoiding the police. There are documents unabashedly glorifying child soldiers, martyring Aaron Bushnell (the US soldier who self-immolated back in February) and promoting the globalization of the Intifada. Also included are articles by known terrorists including Leila Khaled, Ghassan Ali, and Ibrahim Nabulsi. It’s a DIY occupation guide. No joke - that PDF is included too.

The widespread vandalism and destruction on college campuses in the wake of these encampments doesn’t appear to be coincidence given the paraphernalia here promoting destruction of property and violence.

Welcome to detailed educational materials in how to be a criminal: Strategic monkey-wrenching. Disabling vehicles. Breaking windows. Plugging waste discharge pipes. Burning machinery. Smoke bombs. Stink bombs. Slingshots. Burning Billboards. Computer sabotage. Jamming locks. Avoiding arrest. Disposing of evidence. Smashing cameras. Occupying buildings. Barricading.

You name it, it’s all collected here and is incredibly easy to access.
The Democratic Party: The Purveyor of Anti-Semitism
The scene: the Democratic National Convention of 2012. The job at hand: renominate President Barack Obama.

But first, as is standard procedure for both political parties, a party platform had to be adopted. As such, headlines like this one from the U.K. Guardian emerged:
Democratic convention erupts over reinstatement of Jerusalem to policy

Row over Israel mars second day of convention as party moves to add back ‘God’ and ‘Jerusalem’ language to platform

It took the personal intervention of Obama to reverse the removal — because, according to reports, Jewish donors were livid.

Move through the next few years to 2019, and there is Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar, as NPR reported at the time:
In February, Omar responded to a tweet from journalist Glenn Greenwald, who posted about House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy threatening to punish Omar and another congresswoman for being critical of Israel.

Omar wrote back, “It’s all about the Benjamins baby.” ….

In another tweet soon after, Omar named the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, saying it was funding Republican support for Israel.

And in 2021, the New York Post headlined of Omar’s colleagues in the so-called Squad convincing their fellow House Democrats to “zero out” funding of Israel’s “Iron Dome” defensive security system:
The Squad’s anti-Semites carry the day among House Democrats yet again

It’s no shock that the news articles on the current anti-Semitic Columbia protests report the enthusiastic presence of none other than Omar’s student daughter.

All of this considered, it is no wonder that there has been an explosion of Jew-hatred coming from all these far-left-leaning colleges and universities.

The plain, hard fact that must now be understood is that one of America’s two major political parties — the Democrat Party — has not only become the command central platform for today’s outbreak of anti-Semitism; for those who came in late, anti-Semitism has always had a home on the left and specifically in the Democratic Party.
Pro-Palestianian protesters are backed by a surprising source: Biden’s biggest donors
President Joe Biden has been dogged for months by pro-Palestinian protesters calling him “Genocide Joe” — but some of the groups behind the demonstrations receive financial backing from philanthropists pushing hard for his reelection.

The donors include some of the biggest names in Democratic circles: Gates, Soros, Rockefeller and Pritzker, according to a POLITICO analysis.

Two of the main organizers behind protests at Columbia University and on other campuses are Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow. Both are supported by the Tides Foundation, which is seeded by Democratic megadonor George Soros as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and it in turn supports numerous small nonprofits that work for social change. (Gates did not return a request for comment, and Soros declined to comment.)

Another notable Democratic donor whose philanthropy has helped fund the protest movement is David Rockefeller Jr., who sits on the board of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. In 2022, the fund gave $300,000 to the Tides Foundation; according to nonprofit tax forms, Tides has given nearly $500,000 over the past five years to Jewish Voice for Peace, which explicitly describes itself as anti-Zionist.

Several other groups involved in pro-Palestinian protests are backed by a foundation funded by Susan and Nick Pritzker, heir to the Hyatt Hotel empire — and supporters of Biden and numerous Democratic campaigns, including $6,600 to the Biden Victory Fund a few months ago and more than $300,000 during the 2020 campaign.

The trail of donations shows a series of blurred lines when it comes to liberal causes and Democratic politics. Often those missions are aligned, but they also sometimes have different and — particularly when it comes to Gaza — conflicting agendas and tactics. And a small group of wealthy heavyweights are often playing an outsize role funding many of them.
Bipartisan House coalition comfortably passes IHRA antisemitism bill
The House passed the Antisemitism Awareness Act (AAA) by a 320-91 vote on Wednesday, with opposition coming largely from progressives and the far right, who cited concerns about free speech relating to the bill’s codification of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.

The Antisemitism Awareness Act would codify the Trump-era executive order that designated antisemitism as a form of prohibited discrimination on campuses, as defined by the IHRA definition. Despite bipartisan support and the backing of many major American Jewish organizations, the bill was still the subject of controversy. It now faces an uncertain path forward in the Senate.

Seventy Democrats voted against the legislation. Progressives argued it would chill speech critical of Israel, including protests on college campuses, and that the federal government shouldn’t favor the IHRA definition — even though that’s the definition of antisemitism the Department of Education is already supposed to be using in evaluating antisemitism cases; it has also been adopted by the State Department.

“As someone who is also a longtime champion of protecting freedom of speech, I must oppose this misguided bill,” Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) said. “While there is much in the bill that I agree with, its core provision would put a thumb on the scale in favor of one particular definition of antisemitism — to the exclusion of all others — to be used when the Department of Education assesses claims of antisemitism on campus… The problem is that [the IHRA definition’s affiliated] examples may include protected speech, in some contexts, particularly with respect to criticism of the State of Israel.”

On the right, 21 lawmakers opposed it. Two separate Republicans, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Matt Gaetz (R-FL) voiced objections to IHRA’s classification of accusations that Jews killed Jesus as antisemitic, claiming that the IHRA definition would mark the Bible as antisemitic.

The Republican Jewish Coalition’s leadership said it is “disappointed in the Republicans who voted against the bill,” as well as blasted House Democratic leadership for not whipping support for the bill.

The top Democratic leaders voted for the legislation.
Backlash to the Antisemitism Awareness Act ‘exemplifies the need for this legislation,’ Christian conservative leaders say
Two prominent Christian conservative leaders pushed back publicly on Friday against a growing narrative on the right that the House-passed Antisemitism Awareness Act contradicts Christian scripture or would limit freedom of speech.

The bill, which codifies the Department of Education’s use of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism in evaluating accusations of unlawful antisemitic harassment and discrimination on campuses, passed the House with strong bipartisan support but conservative outrage has been building in the subsequent days.

In particular, some right-wing lawmakers and influencers have claimed that Christian scripture declares that Jews are responsible for the death of Jesus Christ, something the IHRA definition’s examples label as an antisemitic trope.

Pastor John Hagee, the national chairman of Christians United for Israel who is also a well-known televangelist, and Ralph Reed, the chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, said in a joint statement first obtained by Jewish Insider, “To the Biblically literate, claims that the Antisemitism Awareness Act is anti-Christian are as insulting as they are injurious.”

They said that the debate over this bill reflects that “the world’s oldest hatred is alive and well on both fringes of the partisan divide” and “exemplifies the need for this legislation,” alongside the ongoing anti-Israel protests on college campuses with “genocidal ambitions.”

Hagee and Reed added that the legislation would not, as some have claimed, limit free speech on college campuses.

“For the law to apply, a student would have to have an unlawful act committed against them first, and only thereafter would the definition of antisemitism be considered in order to determine whether or not the underlying unlawful act was motivated by antisemitism,” they said. “This definition and its examples are only used for guidance, because as we have recently seen across American college campuses, you cannot defeat what you are unwilling to define.”


Tablet Editorial: Not in Our Name
Let’s begin with some basic facts.

There is no exception for hate speech in the Constitution. It is not, according to the Constitution of the United States of America, illegal to misgender someone, or call them a dirty kike or a pig, or tell them you want them to be shipped back to Africa, or say that the State of Israel has “no right to exist,” or that all women are nasty hookers who play men for money. Those statements might rightfully earn you the disgust of those around you, as well as exclusion from any number of personal and professional opportunities, or access to private institutions and spaces. But they are not unlawful, and no governmental authority has the standing to penalize you for making or believing them—in the privacy of your home, in the public square, or on the open internet.

That includes Congress, which is made up of elected officials. Americans have radically lowered our standards for what we expect of this class of people, but we think we can all draw a line at a basic understanding of the Bill of Rights. The fact that a word or idea is annoying or upsetting to you—or us!—does not make it illegal.

This includes the phrase “From the river to the sea,” which the House of Representatives voted to condemn last month. This is wrong. No citizen of America, Jewish or not, should support the condemnation of speech by those whose conditional authority is entrusted to them by the people. You are American citizens! However noxious your beliefs, as long as they stay beliefs, they should be none of the business of the government.

H.R. 6090, the bipartisan bill that passed the House of Representatives this week, is technically more sound—and a lot of the emotionally unstable criticism of the bill (hi, Tucker) appears to come from people who haven’t bothered to actually read it. If they had, they would understand that the bill mandates that, in investigating complaints against universities accused of antisemitism under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Department of Education should use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of “antisemitism.”

This does not, as keyboard warriors would have it, expand the definition of antisemitism to include any and all criticism of the State of Israel. Instead, what the bill establishes is that—in the context of guidance in the enforcement of current anti-discrimination laws, to help assess discriminatory intent—simply substituting the words “Zionist” or “Israel” for the word “Jew” or “Jews” when making insane accusations about harvesting the organs of children or controlling the international banking system does not prima facie absolve someone of accusations of antisemitism. This is a semantic move used mainly by antisemites who attend, or who graduated from, fancy universities. Here’s the situation this bill prevents:
“Jews control the world and want to kill all people of color” = bad.
“Zionists control the world and want to kill all people of color” = fine.

These two statements obviously could have something in common! To argue otherwise is childish, bordering on insane. A fuller example, courtesy of George Mason law professor David Bernstein: “A Campus Hillel keeps getting its room reservation requests denied by Dean Smith. Dean Smith claims that it’s just a series of coincidences. Dean Smith also ends all his campus emails with ‘Free Palestine, Death to Israel.’ Even though it doesn’t say ‘Jews’ anywhere, it’s obvious potential evidence of that Hillel being denied rooms wasn’t really a series of coincidences.”

And again, none of these statements may end up being sufficient to establish intent at all. What this new legislation proposes is for it now to be admissible. On this narrow point, we are—technically—in agreement with the bill.

Our objection, however—and it is an important one—is to the broader edifice of speech-policing of which this bill is a part.

The 1964 Civil Rights Act was a landmark for America. Emerging from a status quo of overt racial inequality under the law, and following a decadelong campaign of fiery resistance by Southern politicians and institutions to enforcing Supreme Court rulings that declared the Jim Crow system of legalized segregation by race to be illegal, it was entirely reasonable—and in some places, necessary—to position the federal government as the arbiter of whether institutions were, in fact, attempting to flout the law and preserve segregation. The ills that Title VI was designed to redress were anything but subtle. Attempts to systematically relegate African American students to separate and inferior facilities, or to deny them admission to professional schools, or to frighten them off campus with mobs and nooses, were not micro-aggressions.
Christopher F. Rufo and Jenin Younes: Don’t Expand DEI. Dismantle It.
What should be done about the turmoil, violence, and explicit antisemitism that have engulfed college campuses over the past months? Political leaders in Washington have reacted to the escalating chaos with an understandable and predictable instinct: do something.

In this case, the student protests have motivated a bipartisan coalition of legislators in the House of Representatives to compose the Antisemitism Awareness Act. It passed on May 1 with 320 votes (and 91 against).

The goal of the Act is noble: to prohibit discrimination against Jewish students and employees on campus. As is often the case, however, the impulse to “do something,” even when supported by a bipartisan majority, does not always mean the resulting actions are wise or productive.

We come from two sides of the political spectrum. One of us (Christopher) is a conservative, the other (Jenin) is on the left. We also take very different positions on Israel—one of us believes that Israel deserves America’s support in its fight against Hamas; one of us believes that the denial of Palestinians’ right to self-determination is the primary impediment to peace. But both of us agree that the Antisemitism Awareness Act is profoundly misguided.

First, the main purpose of the legislation is to codify a definition of “antisemitism” as a point of reference for civil rights enforcement on college campuses. Legislators outsourced this definition to a nonprofit, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which defines antisemitic conduct and speech in a broad manner. Under this standard, “claiming the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor,” “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis,” and “accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel” will be deemed antisemitism.

It’s important to note, despite the hysteria of many online, that the Antisemitism Awareness Act does not, in itself, criminalize such speech. What it does is instruct bureaucrats to apply what could be, in effect, “hate speech” analysis to civil rights complaints. The Department of Education would gain the authority to withhold funding to institutions of higher education that do not punish violators.

This is a move in the wrong direction.

Existing laws against trespassing, violence, and property destruction are sufficient to deal with unlawful expressions of antisemitism on campus. And campus codes of conduct, which prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, religion, and ethnicity, cover much else.
Lionel Shriver: PEN America Rewards Cowardice
Another day, another opportunity for huffy, hypocritical “progressive” posturing. PEN America has now been forced to cancel its World Voices literary festival in New York and L.A., on the heels of also canceling its 2024 awards ceremony. Too many authors had withdrawn from both events to make going ahead with staging either practicable. The reason for so many writers flouncing from these programs? PEN’s failure to publicly denounce Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza. But you had probably guessed the point of indignation already, because as of October 2023, the Anglosphere’s far left has neatly pivoted from the infantilization of black people to the Palestinian cause with the coordinated grace of a synchronized swimmer.

To clarify: the purpose of PEN is to defend freedom of speech and to protect writers from political oppression and persecution. It makes perfect sense, therefore, that a significant cadre of its membership would seek to stifle freedom of speech and engage in political oppression and persecution. Or: we’re all for free speech so long as you say what we tell you. These folks are athletes. It requires considerable intellectual acrobatics for Writers Against the War on Gaza to regard the shutting down of events to advance free expression as “a win for free expression.” Presumably, the fact that a number of withdrawals from both occasions were motivated by fear of being attacked by a mob of pro-Palestinian zealots is also “a win for free expression.” PEN itself stated its concern “about any circumstance in which writers tell us they feel shut down, or that speaking their minds bears too much risk.”

PEN is, by its nature, a big tent. It represents not only Muslim writers but Jewish ones too, some of whom might just support the existence of Israel, might just regard Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza as justified, and might just find alliance with genuinely genocidal terrorists whose unembarrassed aim is to wipe Israel and the Jewish people off the map as a teeny tiny bit obnoxious. While one PEN member decries the nonprofit’s “both-sidesing,” the truth is that PEN has no business taking a position on this issue whatsoever.

Unfortunately, the left has successfully installed the expectation that, regardless of their established purpose, all institutions—companies, museums, theaters, universities, charities, you name it—must proclaim their fealty to the “right” (which is to say left) position on a host of inflammatory issues of the day. This hyper-politicization of entities that ought sensibly to remain politically neutral has been systematically debauching everything from the UK’s National Trust to its NHS, from Anheuser-Busch to the Chicago Art Museum. First, all such outfits were required to fly Black Lives Matter flags, then garishly incoherent Pride flags, and now these banners have all to be swapped out for Palestinian flags, never mind what constituency or customer base might be alienated by this gratuitously partisan branding. Thus, an organization established for the defense of free speech of every sort—including the overtly Zionist kind—is necessarily obliged to openly advocate for Hamas, a murderous, cheerfully antisemitic cult whose interest in free speech on its home turf would fit in a thimble.
When Writers Silence Writers
It isn’t a pretty sight when writers bully other writers into shutting down a celebration of world literature—especially when big names with the most expansive free-speech rights in the world take away a platform from lesser-known writers hoping to reach an audience outside their own repressive countries. Leyla Shukurova, an Azerbaijani German writer who just finished her first story collection and was planning to attend the festival, wrote after the event was canceled to thank PEN for “upholding the values that this festival, as well as PEN America as an organization, represents,” but she added: “The suppression of political discourse that we are witnessing right now in the US is very alarming and unsettling.”

The cancellation of one literary festival by writers—a kind of man-bites-dog story—may seem small, but it is part of a much bigger thing. The cause of the boycott was Gaza. In many ways, it’s a compelling cause. PEN America, like so many other organizations, had fallen into the habit of releasing statements about issues tangential or unrelated to its essential purpose. After October 7, PEN was internally divided over the war between Israel and Hamas, and slow to report on the deaths of scores of Palestinian writers, artists, and journalists. This response was unfavorably compared with PEN America’s vigorous stand for Ukraine after the Russian invasion. When I joined the board at the end of last year, I found an organization under siege from inside and outside. A number of writers and staff members wanted a much stronger response from PEN—not just on behalf of Palestinian writers, but against Israel. They wanted the organization to call for an immediate and permanent cease-fire; they wanted it to denounce Israel’s “genocide.”

These demands were political and geopolitical in a way that diverged from PEN’s charter and mission. They also threatened to tear the institution apart. When PEN balked, the writers found another way to impose their demands. Their boycott, like most protests, soon exceeded its original purpose of stating a position of individual conscience and turned into an organized campaign to shut down the festival, as well as PEN’s literary-awards ceremony. Criticizing PEN and Israel didn’t require silencing writers. Geetanjali Shree, the Indian novelist, wrote me afterward: “I hold strong views against Israel but I believe PEN stands for free dialogue and debate and in unequivocal defence of human rights.” But the writers’ disagreement with PEN had become a quest for power over PEN, even at the price of others’ right to free speech and the organization’s future. The boycott was an expression of the authoritarian spirit.

This turn was perhaps inevitable, because authoritarianism is the spirit of the times, around the world and in this country, where it animates both the right and the left. The two sides have vastly different values and goals, and they use different language—the left’s is academic and specialized (decolonization, imperialism, marginalization) while the right’s is crude and abusive (libtard, groomer, hoax). But in both cases, the words aren’t meant to invite a reply or open a dialogue; they shut discussion down. The two sides reflect and require each other, driving each other to greater extremes, while between them the center of Never Trump conservatives and traditional liberals, with their creaky institutions and halting appeals to reason, collapses.

This is how the authoritarian spirit plays out in a democracy. A party leader compels other politicians to defile their conscience and succumb to his dictates. A political rally turns into a violent effort to overturn an election. A student protest starts with calls for peace and ends in eliminationist chants, vandalism, closed campuses, and an invasion by police or state troopers. A group of writers bring an organization dedicated to their freedom to its knees.
Israel Outlines Plan for Gaza's Future
Documents from the Prime Minister's Office were published online on Friday showing Israel's plan for returning Gaza to self-governance. The first step is planned to last 12 months and will focus on humanitarian aid. Israel will create safe areas free of Hamas control, starting in the north and slowly spreading south. A coalition of Arab countries will supervise humanitarian aid in the safe areas, while Gazan Palestinians will run the safe zones under the supervision of the Arab states.

In the second stage, the Arab coalition will create a Gaza Rehabilitation Authority to oversee reconstruction efforts and manage Gaza's finances. The authority will be run by Gazan Palestinians and will take responsibility for managing the safe areas. This will be done in coordination with the implementation of a "Marshall Plan" and a deradicalization program.

In the final stage, power would slowly be transferred to either a local Gaza government or a unified Palestinian government, contingent on the successful deradicalization and demilitarization of Gaza and subject to agreement by all parties. Israel would retain the right to act against "security threats." At the end of the final stage, the Palestinians would fully manage Gaza independently and join the Abraham Accords.
Netanyahu to Hamas: We will not stop the fight
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a stern message to Hamas on Sunday amid ongoing negotiations for the release of the hostages still held by the terror group in Gaza.

“While Israel showed this willingness [to compromise], Hamas remained entrenched in its extreme positions, chief among them the demand to withdraw all our forces from the Strip, end the war, and leave Hamas intact,” Netanyahu said following the weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.

“The State of Israel cannot accept this. We are not ready to accept a situation in which the Hamas battalions come out of their bunkers, take control of Gaza again, rebuild their military infrastructure and return to threatening the citizens of Israel in the surrounding communities, in the cities of the south, in all parts of the country,” he continued.

Should that occur, “the next Oct. 7 is only a matter of time.”

Hamas terrorists killed some 1,200 people and abducted 252 during the Oct. 7 massacre; they are still holding 132.

Israel is prepared for a truce to free the remaining hostages, said Netanyahu.

“That’s what we did when we freed 124 abductees [during a truce in November], and we returned to fight—and that’s what we’re ready to do today as well,” he said.

Hamas politburo head Ismail Haniyeh released a statement after Netanyahu’s, saying his terrorist group is willing to reach a deal while blaming the Israeli prime minister for “the continuation of the aggression and the expansion of the circle of conflict, and sabotaging the efforts made through the mediators and various parties.”

The prime minister’s message comes hours after Israeli officials on Saturday night vehemently denied reports that the government had agreed to end the war against Hamas as part of an emerging hostage deal.
Gallant: Hamas stalling hostage talks, Rafah battle ‘soon’
Jerusalem is seeing “worrying signs” that Hamas has no intention of agreeing to any hostages-for-ceasefire-and-terrorists-release deal, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told troops in the Gaza Strip on Sunday.

Hamas’s refusal “means action in Rafah and the entire Strip in the near future,” Gallant said during a tour of the Israel Defense Forces’ Netzarim Corridor that splits the coastal enclave between north and south.

“We have clear goals for this war: We are committed to the elimination of Hamas and the release of the hostages,” stated the defense minister.

“We gave a period of time and wanted to reach a situation where we could realize the release of the hostages as quickly as possible, with a certain delay in the operational action. Because the hostages are in a difficult situation, we have to make every effort to free them,” he added.
Israel’s Cabinet approves immediate closure of Al Jazeera
The Israeli Cabinet voted unanimously on Sunday to approve a Knesset bill from last month that will bring about the closure of Al Jazeera’s bureau in the country.

“The government headed by me unanimously decided: The incitement channel Al Jazeera will be closed in Israel,” wrote Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on X, while thanking Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi.

Karhi added, “Our orders will go into effect immediately. Too much time has passed and too many unnecessary legal hurdles for us to finally be able to stop Al Jazeera’s well-oiled incitement machine that harms the security of the country.”

He also said, “There will be no freedom of speech for the Hamas mouthpieces in Israel. Al Jazeera will be closed immediately and their equipment will be confiscated.”

Economy Minister Nir Barkat said after the vote, “Al Jazeera is the biggest engine of antisemitism in the world that Qatar operates against the State of Israel and the Jewish people.


Seth Frantzman: The IDF's Waze-Style Navigation App
Israeli soldiers who went to war in Gaza carried a new, Israeli-made 3D navigation device called the Orion, designed to allow soldiers to "see" friendly units and to maneuver in an imagery-fed 3D visualized environment in real time - what the IDF in March compared to a military version of the popular Waze traffic app.

While the system has been in use with the IDF for six years, "this is the first large-scale war" for the system, said David Harel, CEO of Asio, which made the device.

The concept is to provide soldiers with updated maps in the palm of their hand, knitted together with recent aerial photos, enabling real-time navigation and situational awareness.


Ten wounded as Rafah terrorists fire 14 mortar shells
At least 10 people were wounded in southern Israel, four seriously, on Sunday when Hamas terrorists fired 14 mortar shells from the Rafah area of southern Gaza at Kibbutz Kerem Shalom.

Several rockets exploded near an Israel Defense Forces military facility, causing the casualties, the Eshkol Regional Council said.

“The injured are not residents of the council and we pray for their recovery,” the council said.

The wounded were evacuated to hospitals by ambulances and a helicopter. Their identities were not immediately known. One of those hurt was listed in very serious condition. Many military personnel were on the scene.

The Israeli Air Force subsequently attacked terrorist targets in Rafah, in the areas from which the missiles were fired towards Kerem Shalom.

“Fighter jets, directed by the Gaza Division, attacked the launch pad that carried out the launches towards the area. In addition, fighter jets attacked a military structure in the launch area,” the IDF said.

The military noted that “the launches were carried out by the Hamas terrorist organization near the Rafah Crossing, around 350 meters from civilian shelters. This is another clear example of the systematic exploitation by Hamas of humanitarian facilities and areas for terrorist purposes, while using the civilian population as a human shield.”


Hezbollah rocket barrage wounds Kiryat Shmona man
An Israeli man was lightly wounded in a Hezbollah rocket barrage on the Upper Galilee city of Kiryat Shmona on Sunday.

The victim, 65, was treated on the spot by Magen David Adom paramedics whose ambulance was also hit by rocket shrapnel.

Rockets struck across the largely evacuated city, with hits reported on residential buildings and parked vehicles.

“Police are currently handling several scenes where rockets fell around the city of Kiryat Shmona,” the Israel Police said in a statement, adding that forces, including bomb sappers, were working to secure the area.

In a statement, Hezbollah said it fired dozens of rockets at Israel in response to a deadly IAF strike on Mis al-Jabal in Southern Lebanon.


Hamas and the propaganda machine: Keren Pikes | Israel-Hamas War
Visegrad24 presents an in-depth series covering the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. This comprehensive series features on-the-ground interviews, bringing firsthand insights from a diverse range of voices, including politicians, professors, journalists, experts and influencers.

Our guest today: Keren Pikes

Spokeswoman for the national information system of the national public diplomacy directorate of Israel. The Public Diplomacy Directorate coordinates the activities of the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister’s Office on the one side, and the media. Before joining the Directorate, Keren worked as a journalist for many years.

00:00 - Introduction
01:18 - Israel's media strategy
05:31 - Is Israel losing the propaganda war?
13:11 - Anti-Israel protests in the West
17:03 - The transformation of the media
20:02 - Countering state misinformation
24:41 - Are Israelis safe in the West?


Humor is an important part of Jewish culture: Avi Liberman | Israel-Hamas War
Visegrad24 presents an in-depth series covering the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. This comprehensive series features on-the-ground interviews, bringing firsthand insights from a diverse range of voices, including politicians, professors, journalists, experts and influencers.

Our guest today: Avi Liberman

Avi is an American-Israeli stand-up comedian. He has performed stand-up comedy on CBS' The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, Comedy Central's Premium Blend and Make Me Laugh, as well as NBC's Friday Night. His acting credits include CBS's Dave's World, NBC's Boston Common and Comedy Central's Anytown, USA.

Since 2001, Liberman has successfully arranged widely acclaimed stand up comedy tours in Israel to help boost morale while donating all of the proceeds to a charity.

00:00 - Introduction
01:30 - Being in Israel on October 7th
05:20 - First stand-up after October 7th
06:50 - Comedy and Jewish culture
09:55 - The best Jewish comedians
12:15 - Why Israel is right
14:57 - Cenk Uygur
16:20 - The IDF and how to fight in Gaza
17:20 - Two-state solution
19:40 - The UN and UNRWA
23:25 - The West Bank thrives under Israel
30:15 - Ignorant anti-Israel protesters




US professors 'fed' anti-Israel agenda to students initially: Horowitz
Filmmaker Ami Horowitz says US college campus professors can’t be expected to condemn the violent anti- Israel protests as they are the ones who “fed” the agenda to students in the first place.

“Do you expect campus professors, and campus administrators to push back?” Mr Horowitz said.

“They are the vanguard of feeding these students this rubbish for years.

“They’ve been pushing this anti-Israel agenda for years.

“Of course they are not going to condemn it. Of course, they are not going to be in the forefront of stopping it.”


Spiked: Columbia’s phoney revolutionaries
Jacob Reynolds joins Tom Slater and Fraser Myers to discuss the entitlement and bigotry of the anti-Israel protesters on American campuses.


Why we shouldn’t shut down student protests for Palestine
But these protests have also been a reminder that the majority of students are not a) this lame or b) this stupid. At the university of North Carolina, members of the school’s fraternities not known for their politics took it upon themselves to defend their campuses’ American flag from anti-Israel protesters intent on tearing it down. A picture of the incident went viral and a gofundme to throw them a party in thanks reached half a million dollars in about two days, with thousands of small donors. It was nice to remember that the majority of Americans look at scenes of campus chaos and see them for what they are: violent for the sake of it, violence masquerading as social justice.

This isn’t just true for the onlookers, it’s true for the majority of students. As the encampment movement tiptoes its way across the pond, I say we let it run its course. Do you think there are bigger queues for nightclubs or to join Gaza protests? Are more students buying keffiyehs or Jäger bombs? If you think about it for more than a second, the idea that a handful of students is seen as representative of a campus’s politics is really quite silly. Bristol has an undergrad population of more than 60,000. At the time of writing, there were no more than a dozen tents in their encampment.

It sounds like a cliche, but the right to protest is important, and should be protected, even the ‘cause’ is stupid and contradictory. But it should not come at the expense of the normal students who deserve to not be accosted and Jewish students who should be free to look identifiably so at a university they pay far too much money to attend.

But at the end of the day, if a few Warwick undergrads want to camp in this resolutely wet May then let them. If the good people of Bristol want to further demonstrate their disdain for showers then I say go ahead - it will only diminish their cause for people to see what they actually believe.


'Radicalised' teenager, 16, is shot dead by cops after stabbing rampage
A 'radicalised' 16-year-old boy was shot dead by officers after stabbing a man in the back in a shopping centre car park.

More than 30 police vehicles rushed to Bunnings car park on High Street in Willetton, south Perth, about 10pm on Saturday following reports of a stabbing.

There officers found a 16-year-old brandishing a large kitchen knife and a man with serious back injuries.

The teenager was fatally shot by police after he 'rushed the attending officers'.

'There are indications [the teenager] had been radicalised online,' Western Australia Premier Roger Cook told reporters in a press conference on Sunday morning.

'Members of the WA Muslim community who were concerned by his behaviour contacted police prior to the incident and I thank them for their help.

'Our police responded within minutes, they encountered a very confronting situation but their rapid and professional response kept our community safe.'

WA Police Commissioner Col Blanch clarified several concerned community members called triple-0 after the teenager indicated he was going to hurt people.

The teenager also phoned police and told operators he was planning a violent attack but did not reveal who or where he was.

Officers arrived at the Bunnings car park three minutes after the first triple-0 call.

The injured man, aged in his 30s and a stranger to the teenager, was taken to hospital in a serious but stable condition.


Shocking moment man spits towards pro-Israel counter-protesters right in front of police - only for an officer to tell the group: 'Yes I saw it, go away'
Shocking footage shows the moment a man spits towards a group of counter-protesters supporting Israel near a pro-Palestine demonstration in London.

Police are seen speaking to an individual who then turns to the person behind the camera and spits in his direction, in full view of one of the officers.

The officer then walks the man away from the group for a few steps, pushing him as he ushers him to leave the area near the University College London (UCL) campus in Bloomsbury, central London.

The Met officer responds to questions from the cameraman over whether he saw the incident by saying: 'Yes, I saw it, go away.'

The exasperated policeman then appears to try to justify letting the man go, saying to the shocked person taking the video: 'He done it on your... in front of you. Yeah, he's not saying sorry he's being rude.'

The police officer then turns away from the camera and walks off, with it unclear as to whether any further action was taken as the clip comes to an end.

Spitting in public is subject to a fine, and spitting at a person deliberately can constitute assault.

The Metropolitan Police said on X that the man had been arrested shortly after the incident. The Met has been contacted for further comment.

It took place outside UCL, where Israel-supporting demonstrators faced off with a pro-Palestine crowd.


Peggy Noonan: What I Saw at Columbia's Demonstration
Young people like to be part of something big and passionate. They want to care. It's romantic to be a revolutionary. However, a characteristic of the recent campus demonstrators was the covering of their faces, the hiding of their identities. This struck me as sinister. The 1960s antiwar protesters didn't hide who they were, they didn't wear masks. Students in the past two weeks did, to make observers feel menaced - some big, faceless force is enraged, occupying, and marching toward you.

I was at Columbia hours before the police came in and liberated Hamilton Hall from its occupiers. Unlike protesters of the past, who were usually eager to share with others what they thought and why, these demonstrators would generally not speak or make eye contact with members of the press. They weren't a compassionate group. They weren't for anything, they were against something: the Israeli state, which they'd like to see disappear, and those who support it.

A friend who counsels students at Columbia said these students don't believe the terrorist organization Hamas was unjustified in its actions on Oct. 7. They are "totally on board with neo-Marxist oppressor-oppressed ideology." They don't have compassion for Gaza and its people "any more than they've had compassion for Ukraine." They are driven by an anti-Israeli animus that is also and inextricably an anti-American animus.

The people of my liberal town were relieved to see the NYPD come in, drag the protesters away, restore order, and let people clean things up.
Higher education’s descent into chaos with anti-Israel protests leads to the question — who is behind this mass indoctrination?
In January, as the world was still grappling with the brutality of the massacre, Georgetown’s Qatar campus bizarrely featured a symposium titled “Israel’s War on Palestinians: Gaza as Epicenter.”

Or maybe not so bizarrely given that tens of millions of dollars from Qatar have flowed into Georgetown since 2015, according to the US Department of Education website.

A school flack said: “We strongly condemn antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism, and hatred of any kind in our community . . . Our campus in Qatar has helped educate more than 800 students from around the world in international affairs.”

while maintaining our . . . commitment to academic freedom, religious freedom, and inclusion and non-discrimination.”

Yet it’s not just foreign money but money from US sources that continues to pour into these schools, according to my sources.

Look at the make-up of the board of trustees of our top schools — the main conduit for college fundraising — and you see a preponderance of Wall Street types.

For years, they have looked away from the radicalization at our elite colleges while they financed through endowment contributions the instruction and expansion of courses that teach a false narrative about the evils of capitalism, and the systemic racism of America and Israel.

They still are despite the recent upheaval that seems to grow by the day.

For every Robert Kraft, Marc Rowan and Bill Ackman — billionaire Ivy League grads thoroughly disgusted with what their contributions to Columbia, Penn and Harvard have financed — too many others continue to throw their money at these schools.

Attorney Marc Kasowitz has been suing universities like Columbia, Harvard and Penn for violating the civil rights of Jewish students who are the daily targets of abuse and threats.

He has seen this cowardice firsthand as he seeks support for his litigation.

“These are people worth hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars, and some won’t step up. It’s unbelievable,” Kasowitz said.
Daniel Greenfield: Media Pushes Big Lie That Hamas UCLA Supporters Were “Peaceful”
The media has settled on its ‘Big Lie’.

The UCLA version of the Big Lie is that the Hamas supporters and their encampment were “peaceful” and then they were attacked by violent Jewish counterprotesters.

You’ll see variations of this lie at local papers like the LA Times and the LA Daily News, and in the nationals, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and of course across a lot of cable news.

The actual facts are that the Hamas supporters had been harassing Jewish students and even violently assaulting them.

The day before the riot, I heard an account at my own table of a student being assaulted.


Jewish Rutgers professor slams university in scathing letter to the president: ‘All I do is confront antisemitism’
An orthodox Jewish professor slammed Rutgers University’s administration for letting the campus become a hotbed of bigotry, claiming in a scathing letter she cannot do any work because “all I do is confront antisemitism.”

Rebecca Cypess, a professor for the school’s music department, said she’s been “privy to the details of antisemitic incidents at Rutgers from the classroom . . . to the highest offices at the university,” according to the missive to President Jonathan Holloway and Chancellor Francine Conway.

The toxic climate has prevented her from publishing any scholarly writing, Cypess contended, noting she finds herself devoting all her time to advocating for “students, staff members, and faculty members in distress.”

Pro-terror demonstrators at the New Jersey state school have been caught on video yelling, “Hitler would have loved you” at Jewish students; chanting for intifada and plastering posters featuring a picture of Jewish student all over their dorm.

The toxic culture forced her out, wrote the professor, who is leaving Rutgers to become dean of the men’s and women’s undergraduate colleges at Yeshiva University.

“Throughout this year, I have found it difficult to breathe. I have lost my taste for my job; the joy that I used to feel in working at Rutgers has disappeared,” Cypess wrote.

The music professor also criticized the university for agreeing to numerous demands made by the organizers of the anti-Israel tent encampment, who she says have “held the university hostage all year.”


University of Vermont Bows to Pro-Palestinian ‘Encampment,’ Cancels Black UN Ambassador
The University of Vermont has capitulated to a demand by the campus anti-Israel “encampment,” canceling a commencement address by UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a black female diplomatic pioneer.

The “encampment” is one of dozens across campuses in the U.S., demanding the destruction of Israel and making other antisemitic demands.

According to local NBC affiliate WPTZ:
Thomas-Greenfield is the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. UVM student protesters had listed the cancellation of her commencement speech as one of their key demands. She has overseen three votes for a cease-fire to war efforts in the Middle East, and has vetoed the measure each time.

“Every time you see a headline of U.S. vetoes U.N. cease-fire resolution in the Security Council, it’s accompanied by a picture of her raising her hand for that veto that picture carries an immense amount of pain and trauma and suffering,” James, a student with the group Students for Justice in Palestine, said in an earlier interview with NBC5.


NYPD gives chilling update after 56 arrested at NYU, New School: 'There's somebody behind this movement'
Officers from the New York Police Department went to two different universities on Friday morning to clear out anti-Israel agitators and break up demonstrations they held on campus.

Officers first cleared an encampment at New York University, where they arrested several protesters and called cleaning crews to the area to remove tents and sweep away the trash left behind by the protesters. The NYPD was then called to take similar actions at The New School in New York. After the operations, NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell spoke to reporters to confirm the NYPD took the actions "at the request of school presidents" and ultimately arrested 56 people, with no incidents, between both schools.

NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry also spoke to reporters, saying there is "somebody" or "some organization" behind the massive movement where students and other protesters are taking over schools and academic buildings, chanting antisemitic slogans, resisting law enforcement and administrators’ orders to disperse, and getting away with little to no consequences.

"I just want to say, and I said it before, there's somebody behind this movement," Daughtry said. "There is some organization behind this movement. The level of organization that we're seeing in both of these schools and at Columbia."

Police arrest protesters during anti-Israel demonstrations at different universities and colleges in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

The deputy commissioner said officers found leaflets with "all the details" provided to the protesters.

"There are leaflets on how to protest leaflets or how to commit civil disobedience. There are leaflets on what to do when you get arrested, leaflets on what to say to police," Daughtry explained.

He reiterated: "There is somebody funding this. There is somebody radicalizing our students." Police officers standing in a line

During the remarks, the NYPD said that "99%" of those arrested on Friday were students. (Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

During the remarks, the police chief noted that "99%" of those arrested on Friday were students.

Chell then read one piece of literature that urged students to "occupy the occupiers."

"Enter the temporary autonomous zone from New York to Gaza," another said. "Disrupt. Reclaim. Destroy Zionist business interests everywhere."

"Long live the intifada," read another.

"So this is the mindset of some of these protests for sure," Chell added.


Harvard Employee Fired Following Online Heated Exchange With Jewish Student
Harvard terminated the employment of Gustavo “Gus” Espada ’96, a staff member in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, following an online exchange with a Harvard student over the defacing of posters displaying Israeli hostages.

In an email obtained by The Crimson, EALC department chair David L. Howell wrote to department members that Espada would not be returning to his post.

Espada’s removal comes months after a January exchange with Harvard Divinity School student Shabbos “Alexander” Kestenbaum — who denounced on X the defacing of campus posters that displayed the names and faces of Israeli hostages — in which Espada challenged Kestenbaum to a debate on Israel’s role in 9/11.

“I invite you to debate me today at the Cambridge Street overpass 12-1, don’t miss it!” Espada wrote in a Jan. 25 email to Kestenbaum.

Howell and Faculty of Arts and Sciences spokesperson Holly J. Jensen declined to comment on Espada’s removal. Espada did not respond to requests for comment on Friday.

According to Espada, he was terminated on April 23 after working for the University for more than 26 years as the financial and systems coordinator for the EALC department.

Espada has long been known for his conspiracy theories about 9/11. He has also repeatedly posted on X and Tiktok about the war in Gaza and promoted false claims about Israel’s role in 9/11.

Later on Jan. 25, the same day he emailed Kestenbaum, Espada posted a TikTok video speaking in Spanish and waving a toy machete. The video includes a screenshot of Kestenbaum’s X post.


ADL, StandWithUs and Brandeis Center Call for the Resignation of Northwestern University President Michael Schill
ADL (the Anti-Defamation League) Midwest, StandWithUs, and The Louis D Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law today called for the resignation of Northwestern University President Michael Schill in response to the reprehensible and dangerous agreement reached between President Schill and leaders of the university’s encampment protest:

“As the three leading organizations in the United States holding colleges and universities accountable for creating hostile environments for Jewish students, we are shocked and dismayed by the agreement Northwestern University President Michael Schill reached on behalf of Northwestern University with encampment protestors yesterday.

“For the last seven months – and longer – Jewish Northwestern students have been harassed and intimated by blatant antisemitism on campus, worsening since October 7. On April 29, 2024, President Schill signed an agreement with the perpetrators of that harassment and intimidation, rewarding them for their hate.

“For days, protestors openly mocked and violated Northwestern’s codes of conduct and policies by erecting an encampment in which they fanned the flames of antisemitism and wreaked havoc on the entire university community. Their goal was not to find peace, but to make Jewish students feel unsafe on campus. Rather than hold them accountable – as he pledged he would – President Schill gave them a seat at the table and normalized their hatred against Jewish students.

“It is clear from President Schill’s actions that he is unfit to lead Northwestern and must resign.
University of Pennsylvania Middle East Center: Platforming Jew Haters
On September 22, 2023, roughly two weeks before Hamas would launch a barbarous and unprovoked attack on innocent Israeli civilians, the University of Pennsylvania hosted the Palestine Writes Literature Festival on campus. The event was sponsored by numerous university departments and centers including the Middle East Center, the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, the Department of Cinema & Media Studies, and the Wolf Humanities Center.

Even before the Hamas attacks brought anti-Semitism to the forefront of the nation’s consciousness, the event drew strong criticism and outrage from Jews and supporters of Israel as well as the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia. Those latter two groups sent a letter to the University’s then-president Liz Magill back in August of 2023, sharing their “deep concern” that individuals scheduled to speak and present at the event had a history of promoting anti-Semitism. These scheduled speakers included Roger Waters, “whose shows were recently condemned by the U.S. State Department as antisemitic after he dressed in a Nazi-like uniform and shot a prop machine gun into the audience during two concerts performed in Germany.” Another featured speaker was CNN contributor Marc Lamont Hill, who was fired by the network after endorsing the genocidal statement “Free Palestine, from the River to the Sea” in a speech at the United Nations and who has glorified convicted terrorist Fatima Bernawi.

Other speakers at the event which were highlighted in the ADL/JFGP letter included the festival’s co-chair Susan Abulhawa who wrote, following a terrorist shooting outside a synagogue in Jerusalem, that “Every Israeli, whether in a synagogue, a checkpoint, a settlement, or shopping mall is a colonizer who came from foreign lands and kicked out the native inhabitants. They all serve in the racist colonial military. The whole country is one big militarized tumor” and Rutgers University Professor Noura Erakat who “repeatedly expressed complete opposition to Israel’s right to exist and shared her approval for military campaigns to end Israel’s existence. She also suggested Zionism is a ‘bedfellow’ to Nazism.”

Unsurprisingly, these predictions that the Palestinian Writes Literature Festival would openly promote Jew hatred at the university proved to be spot on. As the American Jewish Committee reported, “The festival’s inaugural event includes a screening of the film Farha, which includes a number of toxic antisemitic tropes, including a modern retelling of the blood libel trope that casts Jews as vicious, bloodthirsty, and cruel. The film is a distortive piece of fiction, yet it is often treated as evidence of extreme, unprovoked Israeli cruelty towards innocent Palestinians during Israel’s War of Independence.”
'It's antisemitism' Anti-Israel protesters now demand U. California cuts ties with Hillel, Jewish groups
Anti-Israel protesters in California have outed themselves as raging antisemites after demanding that the University of California cut ties with Hillel and other Jewish community groups that support Jewish students and faculty on campuses.

The demands were revealed in a flier for the Students for Justice in Palestine at UC-Santa Cruz.

Critics were swift and did not mince words in pointing at that the flier demonstrates clear antisemitism.

“We are supposed to pretend, for the sake of political correctness, that SJP is simply criticizing the Israeli government rather than targeting Jews,” Bronx Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres wrote.

“Attacking Jewish institutions, however, is not criticism. It’s antisemitism.”

In a list of demands shared on Saturday on social media, the group calls for the university to “Cut ties UC-wide with all zionist organizations — including study abroad programs, fellowships, seminars, research collaborations and universities.”

Listed among the so-called “Zionist organizations” were Jewish community groups, including the Hellen Diller Foundation, Koret Foundation, Israel Institute and Hillel International — the biggest Jewish student life organization in the US.

“Three of the four organizations cited in the academic boycott demand by encampment activists at UCSC are Jewish charities and communal groups,” the Bay Area Jewish Community Relations Counsel wrote on X.


UC Berkeley opens civil rights investigation into backyard confrontation between a law professor and a student
The University of California, Berkeley, has opened a Title IX civil rights investigation into whether a law professor harassed a Muslim student during a dinner last month in the professor’s backyard.

The investigation by the university’s Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination stems from an April 9 incident at the home of professor Catherine Fisk and her husband, who is dean of the university’s law school.

Graduating law student Malak Afaneh said she was subjected to harassment and discrimination when she attempted to deliver an unexpected pro-Palestinian speech at the invitation-only dinner.

“It was reported that on April 9, 2024, during a dinner for UC Berkeley Law School students, held at Respondent’s off-campus residence, Respondent physically grabbed you, attempted to forcibly take your cell phone and microphone from your hand, and asked you to leave a University event when you began to speak in support of Palestine and about Ramadan,” the office wrote in a document provided to Afaneh confirming the investigation.
Violence breaks out at Leeds University as pro-Palestine student protesters clash with security guards in angry scenes
A pro-Palestine demonstration descended into chaos after violence broke out between security guards and students from the University of Leeds.

The students standing against Israel's war in Gaza decided to stage a protest during the student union's Hall Awards in a bid to 'disrupt' the ceremony on Thursday.

In a video posted by Student Rebellion Leeds, the group alongside Youth Demand Leeds began to chant: 'The students united will never be defeated.'

But when the protesters attempted to enter the hall - where the ceremony was being held - pandemonium erupted.

Screams and shouting could be heard, as the angry clash continued between the security guards and students.

One student could be seen sobbing on the floor as blood flooded from her nose following the shocking incident.

Student Rebellion Leeds alleged on Instagram that injury had been sustained during the clash.

In a statement posted to the social media site, the student group alleged security staff had threatened to remove them following the chants outside the awards ceremony.

They also claimed security employees tried to take a university student's megaphone and also alleged they 'violently attack[ed] student protesters without warning.'

The group claimed: 'Multiple students were manhandled, dragged, shoved, and kicked by security, with several sustaining injuries.'

A spokesperson for the University of Leeds said: 'We are deeply disappointed that an annual celebration of outstanding student contribution to University life – held by and for students - was temporarily disrupted by a demonstration by protesters entering the event.


Get to class ‘SNL’ takes aim at Columbia students squandering tuition by skipping class to protest
Saturday Night Live took on the anti-Israel protests sweeping the nation in its cold opening Saturday, with a blue-collar parent warning that his daughter better not squander her tuition by participating.

Kenan Thompson, playing Uber-driver father, appeared as one of three college parents discussing the weeks-long saga on a NY1 “Community Affairs” talk show hosted by cast member Michael Longfellow.

Each agreed that they supported the movement, but Thompson made clear his support didn’t extend to his little girl’s participation.

“Alexis Vanessa is gonna have her butt in class,” Thompson said, saying he would not let his $68,000 annual tuition go to waste.

“Let me find out she’s in one of them damn tents instead of the dorm room that I pay for.”

When a Hunter College father confusedly asked why he said he supported the protests — which resulted in hundreds of arrests at Columbia since the encampment sprung up two weeks ago — Thompson clarified that he supports “ya’lls kids.”

“I’m out here busting my hump to pay all that tuition,” Thompson said, telling The New School mom played by Heidi Gardner: “Sister, I do it all.”

“Uber all day. Uber Eats all night. Cut grass on the weekends. Sell Gucci watches out my trunk. Life coaching on IG. All for that for her to say she’s got a degree in African Studies. It’s like, little girl, you’ve been Black your whole life.


World antisemitism report: ‘Oct. 7 helped spread a fire’
Even before the Oct. 7 invasion, antisemitism was on the rise, but a dramatic spike followed the Hamas attack, according to the 2023 Antisemitism Worldwide report whose findings were released on Wednesday by Tel Aviv University and the Anti-Defamation League.

The report, “Concern for the Future of Jewish Life in the West,” emphasizes that while 2023’s leap in antisemitic incidents largely followed Oct. 7, most countries with sizeable Jewish minorities also saw increases in the first nine months of 2023, before the war started.

“October 7 helped spread a fire that was already out of control,” the report states, noting that “from Brazil to South Africa, from Italy to Australia, from Belgium to the United States,” antisemitic incidents in western countries rose by dozens of percentage points in 2023 over the year before.

“The aftermath of Hamas’s horrific attack on Israel on October 7 was followed by a tsunami of hate against Jewish communities worldwide,” said Anti-Defamation League CEO and National Director Jonathan Greenblatt.

“Unprecedented levels of antisemitism have surged globally in the streets of London, New York, Paris, Santiago, Johannesburg and beyond.

“This year’s report is incredibly alarming, with documented unprecedented levels of antisemitism, including in the U.S. where 2023 saw the highest number of antisemitic incidents in the U.S. ever recorded by the ADL,” he added.

In the United States, the ADL recorded 7,523 incidents in 2023 compared to 3,697 in 2022. The number of assaults increased from 111 in 2022 to 161 in 2023, and of vandalism, 1,288 to 2,106.

In New York, the city with the largest Jewish population in the world, the New York Police Department recorded 325 anti-Jewish hate crimes in 2023 in comparison to 261 in 2022.

In Los Angeles, the city’s police department recorded 165 antisemitic incidents, up from 86, and in Chicago, there were 50 up from 39.
Dozens of New York synagogues receive bomb threats over Shabbat
At least 20 synagogues were targeted by bomb threats over Shabbat, according to a New York State representative for Manhattan.

Alex Bores, the representative for the state’s 73rd district wrote in a post on social media that a least four Manhattan shuls received threats as well as a number of others across the city.

He said: “I’ve spoken with rabbis and the police; they have investigated the specific threats and found them to be not credible,” adding “Antisemitism is unacceptable, and the perpetrators should be prosecuted.”

On Saturday evening, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul wrote that the state is “actively monitoring a number of bomb threats at synagogues in New York.”

“Threats have been determined not to be credible, but we will not tolerate individuals sowing fear and antisemitism,” she wrote. “Those responsible must be held accountable for their despicable actions.”

Several other city and state lawmakers commented on the threats.

Rebecca Seawright, another New York state representative, called them “disgraceful.”

“There is zero tolerance for antisemitism and those responsible must be held accountable,” she wrote. “We must keep our community safe for all New Yorkers.”


Noa Tishby and Emmanuel Acho discuss their candid new book on Black-Jewish relations
Uncomfortable conversations may seem an unlikely way to willingly spend time these days — but former NFL football player and current sports analyst Emmanuel Acho has taken these conversations on as what he calls his “vocation.” His most recent project is a collaboration with Israel’s former antisemitism envoy, actor Noa Tishby.

In their new book, “Uncomfortable Conversations with a Jew,” co-authors Acho and Tishby meet the current moment with a book full of candid conversations between friends about Jewish history, antisemitic tropes, Zionism and prejudice in America.

“My initial thought was simple, and it was how often marginalized groups fight in silos. Black people fight for Black people, women fight for women, and Jewish people fight for Jewish people. But what would happen, and how much more powerful could we be, if we collectively fought together?” Acho mused in a recent conversation with The Times of Israel.

Acho is quick to note that the idea for the book came about well before the October 7 terror onslaught in which thousands of Hamas-led terrorists brutally murdered 1,200 people in southern Israel and kidnapped 253 to the Gaza Strip.

In fact, he said, it almost didn’t come about at all due to an online conversation between Acho and Tishby, in which Acho brought Palestinian-American activist Noura Erekat in as a counterpoint without informing Tishby beforehand.

Once the two got back on track with holding their conversations, Acho recounted, October 7 occurred, rendering antisemitism even more of a force in the world and, in his opinion, further necessitating these dialogues.

“I didn’t know if the book was going to come back to life with Noa, but the book literally fell apart, and thankfully Noa saw that there was still such a need for this book, and we just found a way to come back together and write it. And after we got through that, I think we realized we could get through anything,” Acho recalled.

The “uncomfortable conversations” of the book range from explorations of Jewish stereotypes and antisemitic tropes to discussions of Zionism. Acho candidly asks Tishby about stereotypes such as Jewish success in America, about “white-passing” Jews, and other fundamentally taboo topics, while Tishby responds with both knowledge and kindness.


The story of the ANZAC Torah and how it survived
Last week, April 25 marked ANZAC Day. You ask: What is ANZAC Day?

ANZAC Day holds profound significance for Australians and New Zealanders as they commemorate the valor of their soldiers in World War I, notably in the Gallipoli campaign.

But what connects this distant history to us, the Jewish community?

Let me recount an inspiring tale intertwined with ANZAC lore.

In 1915, rabbi David Yitzchak Friedman, who served as the rabbi of Perth Hebrew Congregation in Western Australia, embarked on a journey that would etch his name in the annals of heroism.

Joining the ranks of the ANZAC forces, rabbi Friedman carried with him a sacred mission and a symbol of faith – a small Sefer Torah gifted by the Jewish community of Alexandria, Egypt, where he had stopped during the arduous journey to Gallipoli.

The ancient Jewish community of that famous city wanted to show its appreciation for his and the Jewish soldiers’ war effort and to do something to protect them. They gave him that small Sefer Torah, a very special Sefer Torah, which he took and kept with him at all times.




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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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