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Friday, August 23, 2024

08/23 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: The anti-Jewish candidate; Campus on Fire: Why Antisemitism Matters;Burning Man to feature tribute to the Nova festival victims

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The anti-Jewish candidate
Contrary to Holtzblatt’s strictures, American Jews can be forgiven for being skeptical of Harris’s views on Israel and the Jewish people.

Tragically, however, Holtzblatt was speaking for too many American Jews, who believe that the “social justice” agenda embodies the Jewish concept of tikkun olam, or “repair of the world.”

Holtzblatt wasn’t wrong that compassion and respect for the natural world are Jewish values. But these are also values prized by those of other faiths or none. When dislocated from Judaism, they are no more than Kumbaya values—and so the “intersectional” social-justice agenda, which actually repudiates Jewish principles, has turned into a weapon against Israel and the Jewish people.

Jewish values are fundamentally based on moral responsibility. The social-justice agenda, by contrast, dispenses with moral responsibility altogether for an entire “victim” class based on race and gender. Those people are deemed not to be responsible for their actions, whose bad effects are blamed instead on their supposed “oppressors”—notably, white people, men and Jews.

Since moral choice defines what is to be human, the social-justice agenda is thus the quintessence of racial and dehumanizing bigotry against that supposed “victim” class. It stands for a culture of resentment and grievance that traps the poor permanently in poverty and disadvantage, promotes division and hatred, and is a dagger in the heart of Jewish values and identity.

Harris is, therefore, the anti-Jewish candidate. To disguise this, she is cynically recruiting anti-Israel Jews like Goldenberg to her team. She is also deploying what she presumably regards as her biggest weapon of deception: her husband, Doug Emhoff.

In a cheesy address at the convention, Emhoff played his Jewish card. He said Harris had helped him connect more deeply to his Jewish faith; she accompanied him to synagogue during the high holidays; and she made “a mean brisket” for Passover that “brings me right back to my grandmother’s apartment in Brooklyn; you know, the one with the plastic-covered couches.”

This is aimed at persuading those who think that Jewish identity is about brisket, sepia-colored memories of booba in Brooklyn and twice-a-year synagogue visits that Harris has the interests of the Jewish people at heart.

In fact, Emhoff has a starring role in a circus of deceit being used to launder a viciously anti-Israel and anti-Jewish agenda. There are sacred texts explaining that, too.
I told Christy Moore that a song he performs called Palestine makes me want to leave Ireland
The song, Palestine, which folk singer Christy Moore has been singing for months deserves special mention. Written by Seattle-based Jim Page, it starts: “the Jews and the Arabs lived all the same for 1,000 years until the Zionists came . . .” This is ahistorical demonising of Zionists who, the song goes on, “came in a river and a flood”.

The Zionists who came in “a river and a flood” were Jews persecuted first in pre-war Europe and they also comprised the sorry remnants of the Holocaust, including some of my family. The Zionists who came from the Middle East were expelled from neighbouring Arab countries, mirroring the Palestinian Nakba, from 1946 until 1980, by which time 850,000 Mizrahi Jews had been displaced. These Jews did not have any concept of colonisation; they were all refugees.

There’s more.

“They talk about dollars,” the lyrics continue, which obviously refers to (Jewish) American support of Israel, a dog whistle to the cliched, seemingly evergreen anti-Semitic tropes of dual loyalty and the centuries-old conspiracy theory concerning Jews and money.

The word “jackboot” referring to Israeli behaviour towards Palestinians is the single most jarring note of the song. This is unreconstructed Holocaust inversion. The equivocation of Nazi oppression of Jews to the oppressive behaviour of the Israeli state in the occupied territories towards Palestinians minimises the Holocaust and dispossesses Jews of the worst suffering in their history, still in living memory, ratcheting up hatred towards all Jews, regardless of their political bent.

Christy Moore approached me two years ago when he was about to release 1942, a song about the arrival of a trainload of deported Jews to Auschwitz. He wanted reassurance that he had not unwittingly trampled on sensibilities. I was grateful that he had been so thoughtful and, even more so, when he offered me the song to use in my own advocacy.

I wrote to him expressing my horror at the lyrics of Palestine. I also explained my confusion that he wanted affirmation for the first song but not the second. His reply was courteous and gracious, stating that the song had been sent to him to perform at a gig in aid of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which he said came about after three MSF doctors died in an Israeli air strike on their hospital. He said that he had been accused of being both an anti-Semite and a Hamas supporter, an accusation I do not make.

However, I am sure that Hamas are not unhappy with the song. Christy did not answer my questions. I told him that his song makes me want to leave Ireland. He wished me well. He continues to play Palestine.

In extremis, Zionism – like any other form of nationalism – has a racist and bigoted element. In Israel this represents about 7 per cent of the population. The continued expansion of settlements in the West Bank is illegal, unjustified and morally repellent.

But the assault on Zionism has now blurred into full scale anti-Semitism. Why are Jews, alone, not entitled to express their identity through their ancient connection to their homeland? Howard Jacobson again: “The Jews are the most racially abused people in history. To deny them the right to be who they are is racism. Anti-Zionism is itself racism.”

The equivocation of Zionism to nazism is now frequently invoked. I want Israel, where half the world’s Jewish population live, to exist. I want an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, a return of the hostages, an end to regional hostilities and a sustainable, just peace settlement for Israelis and Palestinians based on a two-state solution. This does not make me a Nazi. Anti-Zionism is the new anti-Semitism.
Campus on Fire: Why Antisemitism Matters
In sum, the HOW of this Red-Green Alliance is a case of the “useful idiot” syndrome, a confluence of ideologues who, for the time being, are willing to put some fundamental differences aside to reach their desired goals. For the Reds, who continue to want to overthrow capitalism despite mounds of evidence showing that communism in practice never works, the Islamists are a welcome ally. For the Islamists, the goal is not to overthrow capitalism, but Western democracies. One would think, however, that the Reds would understand that they are being “played” or, far worse, that such an alliance destroys the very pillars they hold dear.

How could they not see the dangers of radical Islam? Is not the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979 a cautionary tale of lending one’s support to a regime that is an anathema to the rights of minorities and women, not to mention freedom of the press and assembly? Cautionary because leftist ideologues and theoreticians played a critical role in supporting the overthrow of the Shah of Iran. Leading Marxist literary critic Michel Foucault praised the Islamic revolution in Iran, stating that Iran is the perfect location for a “first great insurrection against global systems.” In sum, Foucault’s worldview contributed to one of the greater heists in the history of Western thought: The blind and largely uncritical support to a backward and anti-progressive Islamic regime led to the butchering of hundreds of thousands of innocent lives.

Undermining the dangers of radical Islam can likewise be seen in how we incorrectly identify the cause of the conflict between Israel and her Muslim neighbors as having to do with territory, race, and oppression when, in reality, the conflict is driven by the religious zealots of Islam. Take, for example, how we are told that Hamas is the radical and unsavory neighbor to Israel’s direct south-west, whereas the Fatah party governing the Palestinian Authority in Judea Samaria, or Area A of the West Bank, is the reasonable peace partner. In Arabic, al-Fatah means “the opener.” Within the context of political Islam, it means to open society up for Islam to rule, what Jonathan Spyer calls a “formula” for political Islam to prosper: “Islamist fervor plus state capacity.”

Interestingly, for the Islamists who have proven to be clever and who are continuing to tolerate the Marxists, the strand of antisemitism shipped to the West takes anti-colonial undertones. To the West, that is, to their sophomoric allies on college campuses, Islamists brand Jews as colonists and racists; to themselves, an entirely different strand of antisemitism takes form: Jews are apes and pigs, unworthy of living as equals in the Middle East.

And so the Red-Green Alliance is, in many ways, a master chicanery. The victims, of course, in all this will be the willing participants who chant “Free Palestine” and “Globalize the Intifada.” But the victims will also be those who minimized campus antisemitism, those who looked away as American flags burned on American streets, and an entire generation of freedom-loving Westerners who know little of the grandiose replacement plans set in motion by radical Islamists.

As recently reported by The New York Post, Jewish graduates of elite NYC schools are avoiding their parents’ and grandparents’ alma mater: Columbia University. “For the first time in over 20 years, we will not have a Ramaz graduate enrolling in Columbia College,” the Ramaz School said recently. And while the rabid Jew-haters who chant “Zionists off our campus” will be pleased, what history teaches is that when Jews flee spaces, these spaces continue to decline. It is not for nothing that the Jewish character of Arthur Miller’s 1993 play “Broken Glass” yelled, “Don’t you understand? When the last Jew dies, the light of the world will go out!” Let us then take this explosion of antisemitism seriously, for in combating Jew-hatred, we fight the greater threat to our vibrant democracy: the Red-Green Alliance.


Brooklyn book launch rescheduled after cancellation over ‘Zionist’ rabbi moderator
An event at a Brooklyn bookstore that was canceled because an employee objected to its “Zionist” moderator, causing widespread backlash, has been rescheduled for a different location next week.

The event for “Tablets Shattered,” a new book on American Jewish life by journalist Joshua Leifer, will take place on Monday evening at the Center for New Jewish Culture in Brooklyn’s Prospect Heights.

Monday’s discussion will be moderated by Rabbi Andy Bachman, who was supposed to host the initial event at Powerhouse Arena, an independent bookstore in the Dumbo neighborhood of Brooklyn. Leifer is a Jewish journalist who has written for a range of left-wing publications including Jewish Currents and +972, and Bachman, who previously led Park Slope’s Congregation Beth Elohim and identifies as a Zionist, is a progressive and a critic of the Israeli government.

The Powerhouse Arena event was initially set to take place this past Tuesday. But shortly before the start time, Leifer said he learned the event had been canceled because Bachman is a Zionist.

The bookstore “told me they were unwilling to host the conversation with Andy because they would not permit a Zionist on the premises,” Leifer wrote on X.

The owner of the bookstore, Daniel Power, told the New York Jewish Week that a rogue employee had canceled the event and would be fired over the incident. “It’s hideous, it’s uncalled for, and it was completely unauthorized,” he said.

On Thursday, the bookstore released a public statement condemning the employee’s decision to cancel the event, confirming she had been fired, and acknowledging “anti-Semetic [sic] hostility.”

“Bookstores especially cannot fulfill their basic raison d’être without an unflinching commitment to the free and open exchange of ideas,” the statement said.

The cancellation drew harsh criticism from Jewish leaders and public officials, including New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander (who also self-identified as a Zionist) and New York Reps. Dan Goldman and Ritchie Torres.

“We know and respect both Josh and Rabbi Bachman quite a lot and so it feels like a no-brainer from us, from a community perspective,” said Rabbi Matt Green, co-founder of the Center for New Jewish Culture, about why the venue decided to host the event.

“The Center for New Jewish Culture is founded on the idea that we need to have difficult conversations, and I would say we need to have conversations that really impact the Jewish people right now, and this obviously is one,” he added.

The term “Zionist” has become pejorative in parts of the American left, with progressive groups, business owners and college students actively seeking to exclude “Zionists” from public spaces. Surveys show that most Jews in the United States feel an attachment to Israel.


Chicago Jews and Hindus unite in protest against violence in Bangladesh
A passionate group of Jewish activists and Hindus from Bangladesh gathered to show unity and stand up against hate and terror just blocks from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Wednesday.

“What is happening in Bangladesh should serve as a warning to us in America,” said Josh Weiner, co-founder of the Chicago Jewish Alliance, which organized the event along with help from the Israeli American Council.

The latest unrest in Bangladesh began after students protested a controversial quota system for government jobs, and, earlier this month, ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

“Islamic extremists have filled that vacuum and are perpetrating violence against the Hindu ethnic minority in Bangladesh. By some reports, there have been over 200 incidents of violence, including the burning of temples and religious sites, and what some are calling a Hindu genocide,” Weiner told the group.

As he spoke, Hindus from the South Asian country held a giant banner calling for an end to “Bangladesh Hindu genocide by Islamists” and a boycott of “blood-stained Bangladesh garments.”

None of them would speak publicly for fear of retribution, but one man said he sought asylum in the US 12 years ago, “People were trying to kill me,” he said, “They burned our house and vandalized our business.” His mother, father, wife, and two children remain in Bangladesh where they are living in hiding.

Joined forces following antisemitism at protests
The groups came together after tense demonstrations the previous evening when pro-Palestinian protesters marched on the Israeli Consulate.

“75 of them got arrested while we were working with the Chicago Police,” said Daniel Schwartz, co-founder of the Chicago Jewish Alliance.

“The Hindu community, Assyrians saw it and wanted to do something,” said Schwartz.
Editor's Notes: A surprising display of support for Israel at DNC
The atmosphere in the United Center in Chicago was one of solemnity and unity as the crowd began to chant, “Bring them home.” The energy was palpable, yet tempered with the weight of the moment. Some in the audience wiped away tears, while others stood silently, their attention fixed on the stage.

Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin, parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin – one of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza – stood before the crowd of the Democratic National Convention (DNC). For nine minutes, they shared their story, speaking on behalf of all the families with loved ones held captive.

As they spoke, the entire convention stood in quiet respect, listening intently to what were the most extensive remarks on Israel and Gaza at the event so far.

Their words highlighted the ongoing crisis and the need for bipartisan support in bringing the hostages, including American citizens, home. It was a moment that surfaced the human element at the heart of the conflict, setting the tone for the discussions that would follow throughout the convention.

Liz Hirsh Naftali, the great aunt of four-year-old Abigail Mor Edan – taken hostage on October 7 and held for 50 harrowing days – stood behind the stage, overcome with emotion, tears flowing as she watched the Polins address the crowd.

“The room was silent. It was like you could hear a needle drop as they spoke,” Naftali told The Jerusalem Post’s US Correspondent Hannah Sarisohn from the DNC. “It was stunning.”

The Polins later told Dani Cushmaro, the N12 new anchor, that they prepared for possibly being booed or for possible demonstrations while they spoke. “We were shocked that the opposite happened,” they told Cushmaro.
At DNC, Harris says she will always defend Israel, calls Gaza suffering ‘heartbreaking’
U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are “working around the clock” to “get a hostage deal and a ceasefire deal done,” Harris said at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Thursday, as she formally accepted her party’s nomination for president.

Toward the end of her 40-minute-long remarks—which concluded shortly after 10 p.m. local time and which varied, with respect to Israel, only slightly from prepared remarks that her campaign circulated to press—Harris expressed strong support for both the Jewish state and the Palestinian people.

“Let me be clear: I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself, and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself,” Harris said. “Because the people of Israel must never again face the horror that a terrorist organization called Hamas caused on Oct. 7, including unspeakable sexual violence and the massacre of young people at a music festival.”

“At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating,” the vice president added, to loud applause. “So many innocent lives lost. Desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, over and over again. The scale of suffering is heartbreaking.”

Harris told attendees that she and Biden “are working to end this war, such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination.”

Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, criticized Harris’s remarks about the Jewish state.

“Harris just made clear she is for Israel’s defense from terrorists but opposes its offense against terrorists,” Goldberg wrote. “In triangulating good and evil, she created a false moral equivalency between Oct. 7 and Israel’s just war of self-defense.”

Harris said in her speech that she will also “never hesitate to take whatever action is necessary to defend our forces and our interests against Iran and Iran-backed terrorists.”
Caroline Glick: The DNC mutiny you may have missed
While Jewish Democrats kvelled over-representation at the DNC, there was a “quiet” riot happening behind the scenes. On today’s CG In Focus, we’ll look behind the curtain to figure out who is running today’s Democratic Party. We’ll also examine the terror coalition protesting in Chicago; Biden’s farewell address; AOC serving socialism; and the Hamas ally takeover of the party.

Chapter titles timestamps
0:00 Democratic National Convention
2:30 Protests & chaos
10:00 “They have a point”
14:30 AOC takes over
20:00 Israel at the convention
24:00 Gaza event at DNC
28:30 The outsiders go mainstream




Kamala Harris Taps Her Radical Pastor for DNC Convention Prayer
Days after 9/11, San Francisco pastor Amos Brown blamed the United States for the terrorist attacks in a fiery sermon that drew condemnation from 9/11 victims’ families and liberal lawmakers like Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.). Brown was back at the pulpit this week, this time to bless his longtime parishioner, Kamala Harris.

Harris chose Brown, the pastor of San Francisco’s Third Baptist Church, to give the closing prayer at the Democratic convention on Thursday. He blessed Harris and prayed for "a future ... where the humanity of all persons will be affirmed and celebrated."

It’s no surprise that Harris would invite the preacher to the most significant event of her political career. She has been a member of Brown’s church for more than 20 years. Harris worked for Brown’s campaign for San Francisco supervisor in 2000 and has called Brown "an inspiration to me always." According to Brown, Harris phoned him last month before she announced her decision to run for president.

But Brown has espoused radical anti-American views over the years.

"Ohhhh—America, what did you do?" Brown said at a memorial service on Sept. 17, 2001. "America, is there anything you did to set up this climate?" Brown questioned at the time.

Harris’s relationship with Brown has sparked comparisons to Jeremiah Wright, the pastor to former president Barack Obama. Obama faced scrutiny during his 2008 presidential campaign after a video emerged of Wright shouting, "God damn America!" during a sermon. Obama quit Wright’s church over the dustup. Harris remains a member of Brown’s.

Brown defended Wright in an interview just before his recent DNC appearance. "He was speaking in the style of an Afro-American preacher. It was how he was feeling about America. Can’t a man express his genuine feeling?" Brown told the Washington Post.

Brown’s controversial sermon came at a memorial service for Mark Bingham, who fought with al Qaeda hijackers on Flight 93 to bring the plane down in a Pennsylvania field, preventing it from hitting intended targets in Washington, D.C.

"America, what did you do two weeks ago when I stood at the world conference on racism when you wouldn't show up?" Brown said at the memorial service. He had just returned from the United Nations' World Conference Against Racism, which the United States and Israel boycotted, citing concerns about anti-Semitism.
'Joy! Joy! Joy! Joy!' Chants DNC Speaker Who Said 'Diamond Merchant' Jews Have the 'Blood of Innocent Babies' on Their Hands
Rev. Al Sharpton, an anti-Semite who in 1991 incited a pogrom in Brooklyn, struck an upbeat tone during his primetime remarks Thursday at the Democratic National Convention.

"Joy! Joy! Joy! Joy! Coming in the morning," Sharpton shouted at the conclusion of his speech, a reference to Vice President Kamala Harris’s central campaign message. Minutes before, he pledged to "do a job on those that have done a job on us."

Sharpton’s speaking slot at the convention shows how much his image has recovered in the eyes of Democratic elite over the last three decades. But his presence remains striking given the party’s struggle with an outburst of anti-Semitism among a faction of its constituency over the war in Gaza.

In the late 1980s and 1990s, Sharpton cultivated an image of an outspoken race baiter and anti-Semite. He gained prominence in 1987 as an advocate for Tawana Brawley, who erroneously accused an alleged white gang of rape. The individuals accused in that case were cleared of all wrongdoing and won a judgment against Brawley for defamation.

Four years later, Sharpton defended an anti-Semitic college professor who blamed "rich Jews" for the slave trade. In the midst of outrage of New York’s Jewish community, Sharpton said, "If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house."

One day later, a Jewish driver accidently ran over a 7-year-old black boy in the Crown Heights, Brooklyn neighborhood. A Jewish rabbinical scholar was shortly stabbed to death.

In response to the violence, Sharpton called for escalations. A pogrom broke out in the Jewish neighborhood. Seven businesses were burned down and nearly 150 people were injured.

"The world will tell us he was killed by accident," Sharpton said at the time, referring to the accidental killing of the boy. "Yes, it was a social accident. … It’s an accident to allow an apartheid ambulance service in the middle of Crown Heights. … Talk about how Oppenheimer in South Africa sends diamonds straight to Tel Aviv and deals with the diamond merchants right here in Crown Heights." Sharpton also said Jews have the "blood of innocent babies" on their hands.


Senators call on IRS to investigate charities linked to anti-Israel protests
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) spearheaded a letter on Thursday to Daniel Werfe, commissioner of the IRS, about an “insufficient and insulting” response to an inquiry to review the legal compliance of nonprofit charities that support demonstrations opposing the Jewish state.

Co-signatories included Sens. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), John Thune (R-S.D.), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) and Marsha Blackburn, (R-Tenn.). They began by blasting the response to their previous inquiry, taking offense to being told to contact a helpline.

“If the IRS policy is to direct United States senators to publicly accessible toll-free numbers and email inboxes, the funds Congress appropriates to the IRS Office of Legislative Affairs each year is clearly being wasted and in need of reprogramming,” the senators wrote.

Two groups the senators noted as involved with anti-Israel protests were Students for Justice in Palestine and Alliance for Global Justice.

“An entity’s tax-exempt status is a privilege, and it is your responsibility to ensure only those who abide by tax laws are granted this privilege,” the senators wrote.

The letter concluded with the lawmakers listing requests for information such as the number of recent investigations since Oct. 7 of organizations involved in protests and when an update will come of the newest groups to have lost their nonprofit status.
House leaders demand 10 elite colleges detail plans to counter campus Jew-hate
The heads of the Education and the Workforce Committee, and the Ways and Means Committee have called on administrators at 10 top colleges to provide detailed plans to prevent bigotry and intimidation against Jewish students seen since Oct. 7.

“The university has had the entire summer to plan for the upcoming school year,” wrote Reps. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) and Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), respective chairs of each committee, on Thursday. “As such, we expect that your institution will be ready, willing and able to prevent such antisemitic conduct and disruptions.”

The representatives sent the letter to Barnard College, Columbia University, Cornell University, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, the University of Pennsylvania and Rutgers University.

The University of California’s campuses in Los Angeles and Berkeley also received letters.

The correspondence concludes with requests for any revised policies or plans to prepare for protests. The lawmakers also ask for updates of any revisions in disciplinary procedures.

Foxx and Smith wrote that “the problem of antisemitic harassment, disruption and violence has not been resolved. Based on the evidence available, these disruptions are likely to return to campuses this fall and you must be prepared to act.”
Ed. Dept. civil rights chief, UC Berkeley Law dean assail rising campus antisemitism
As another academic year begins, and universities face the specter of further division and antisemitism on campus, two prominent attorneys speaking on a panel on the sidelines of the Democratic National Convention offered a dire portrait of the state of hate at American universities.

One of them is the dean of a top law school. The other is the most senior official tasked with implementing civil rights policy at the U.S. Department of Education.

“I’m a 71-year-old Jewish man. I’ve heard antisemitic things throughout my life. But I’ve never seen the antisemitism on our campuses that’s been there since Oct. 7,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, a First Amendment expert and the dean of the University of California Berkeley law school. “My fear is that this isn’t going to get better anytime soon. We all hope that there’s going to be peace in Gaza and the release of all of the hostages, but what’s happened on campuses now is that the pro-Palestinian position has hardened to one that Israel should not exist at all.”

Chemerinsky described an antisemitic incident he faced in April, which garnered national headlines. He hosted an annual dinner at his home for students. Beforehand, some of them shared a flier with a caricature of Chemerinsky holding a blood knife. It read “No dinner with Zionist Chem while Gaza starves” — though the dean had never spoken about Israel publicly. At the dinner, a student berated him and his wife about the situation in Gaza and refused to leave.

“There was no basis for them targeting me other than that I was Jewish. I have no doubt that if it was a dean who wasn’t Jewish, they would have never done this,” Chemerinsky said at the event in Chicago, which was hosted by the advocacy group Zioness. “This is, of course, one incident on one campus, but representative of what we have seen so much across the United States.”

Seated on the panel with Chemerinsky was Catherine Lhamon, the Education Department’s assistant secretary for civil rights. She leads the unit tasked with investigating whether universities have violated a legal doctrine known as Title VI, which looks at whether their handling of complaints about discrimination and harassment have created a hostile learning environment for students. Campuses put their federal funding at risk if they continue to tolerate antisemitism.
University of California Encampment Ban Is ‘All Smoke and Mirrors,’ Lawyer Behind Antisemitism Lawsuit Says
The policy announcement issued by the president of the University of California to address campus protests is all “smoke and mirrors,” according to a lawyer representing three Jewish UCLA students who accused the administration of allowing “Jew exclusion zones” to exist on campus.

The statement released this week by the UC president, Michael Drake, offers various “measures” meant to “strengthen and clarify” the policies and procedures surrounding free speech across the 10-campus university system.

The “steps” he lists include clarifying and reinforcing prohibitions on encampments and identity concealments, and developing a framework for consistent implementation and enforcement of the school-wide policies. The plan, he writes, was drafted after he spent the summer “reflecting with students, faculty, staff, Regents, and others.”

While many community members — on both sides — took the statement to suggest a sweeping ban on encampments and face masks, the president of Becket Law, Mark Rienzi, the attorney for the three Jewish students, is skeptical that the directive will prompt any meaningful change.

The policies that Mr. Drake references “are policies that the UC system has had in place for years — the same policies that were supposedly in place all spring and obviously didn’t work,” Mr. Rienzi tells the Sun.

The statement, he adds, doesn’t even mention “discrimination, anything about what happened in the spring, or anything about Jews.”

Last week, a federal district court ruled in favor of Mr. Rienzi’s clients and ordered UCLA to prevent student activists from setting up anti-Israel encampments that exclude Jews from areas across the university’s campus.

In a 16-page ruling, the judge condemned the school for allowing Jewish students to be prevented from accessing portions of campus because they refused to denounce their faith, adding, “This fact is so unimaginable and so abhorrent to our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom that it bears repeating.”
Rutgers releases set of guidelines to curb tent encampment protests
Rutgers University has released a new set of “guidelines for free expression on campus” that would limit the large anti-Israel demonstrations seen on campus during the previous academic year.

The public university announced the new rules on Tuesday, which include a ban on encampment protests and a requirement for groups to submit request forms three days in advance of protests. Rutgers will require such activist events to take place in a designated field.

Also, in an emailed statement obtained by NorthJersey.com, the school confirmed that it had placed the New Brunswick chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine on suspension for the upcoming school year, to continue until at least July 4, 2025.

Rutgers spokesperson Dory Devlin said in a statement that the anti-Israel organization had “violated the terms of their probationary status and other university policies by disrupting final exams and university operations and failing to comply with university directives.”
University of California Bans Encampments, Face Masks on All Campuses
The University of California (UC) system has announced a ban on encampments, a major policy decision aimed at preventing student protesters from illegally occupying and living on school property in the wake of the anti-Israel demonstrations of this past spring semester.

Writing in a mass email, UC President Michael Drake said officials will uphold the “freedom to express diverse viewpoints” while enforcing “policies impacting expressive activities, including policies that prohibit camping or encampments, unauthorized structures, restrictions on free movement, masking to conceal identity,” and disobeying lawful orders to present identification.

Drake added, “Some of this work has already begun, and you will hear more about it from your campus leadership in the coming weeks. Our ultimate goal is for all of our community members to feel supported in their ability to express themselves, and to pursue their studies, research, patient care, and other work on our campuses. We also want our community members to understand what’s expected of them, including a clear understanding of the principles, policies, and laws that govern our behavior on campus.”

The missive came ahead of a new academic year and followed a tumultuous one in which pro-Hamas demonstrators, including some faculty, upended UC campuses, morphing them into what Jewish students and civil rights groups described as hubs of antisemitic discrimination and support for terrorism. Setting up “Gaza Solidarity” encampments on school ground was the most disruptive behavior in which the protesters engaged, and universities in some cases protected it.

At UC Los Angeles (UCLA), chancellor Gene Block ordered that an encampment there be protected by physical barriers and campus police, allowing the area to become the site of violent clashes between pro-Hamas and pro-Israel protesters and a zone of nullification in which federal civil rights laws prohibiting the exclusion of individuals based on their racial or religious identity were, according to a US federal judge, flagrantly flouted. Throughout the encampment’s existence, Jewish students were barred from walking near or through the area on their way to class unless they denounced the Zionist component of their Jewish identities, a policy which UCLA police upheld without compunction.


Emhoff speaks out against antisemitic campus harassment in JDCA speech
In a prime-time address on Tuesday night at the Democratic National Convention, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff introduced himself to Americans. On Thursday, when he walked into a convening of Jewish Democrats, no introductions were needed.

“I think I know most of you,” Emhoff said with a laugh as he took the stage at a Jewish Democratic Council of America event focused on antisemitism. He has been a familiar face for Jewish Americans over the last several years, stepping into a role as a prominent voice against antisemitism soon after his wife, Kamala Harris, was elected vice president in 2020.

In recent months, as Harris has worked to fine-tune her own public image, Emhoff has developed his voice as a public speaker and an advocate for his wife, and for the American Jewish community. Where Emhoff strenuously avoided sensitive topics like Israel and Zionism-tinted antisemitism on college campuses, now he speaks more fluently about both. The Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks may be a factor in that.

“We had our plan. May of 2023,” Emhoff said, referring to the Biden administration’s national strategy to counter antisemitism. “Fast forward to October 7, that horrific, horrible day which we are all still living with. The hostages must come home. It must come to an end. But then after that day, we knew we had to do more.”

In polished remarks delivered without a teleprompter or printed documents, Emhoff outlined his conversations with Harris and President Joe Biden after Oct. 7. He described travel to Paris and to U.S. college campuses to raise awareness about antisemitism.

“Even though we are working hard to elect Kamala as the next president, even now we’re working on getting ready for school coming back,” Emhoff said.

“We are still working to make sure that when the students come back, they’re going to be safe, they’re going to be able to go to class, they’re not going to be harassed, not going to be harassed inside the classroom, and that, yes, if there’s protests, that protests are fine,” said Emhoff. “But when they cross the line — when they cross the line into violence and to preventing kids who just want to go to school, who have nothing to do with the policies in Israel … they need to be able to go to class. They need to be safe. We’re going to make sure that happens.”


NYU Proscribes Using ‘Zionist’ as Racial Slur
New York University has issued a new policy which acknowledges the “coded” subtleties of antisemitic speech and its use in discriminatory conduct that targets Jewish students and faculty.

On Friday, the university updated its Non-Discrimination and Harassment Policy (NDAH), including in it language which identified “Zionist” as a racial dog whistle that sometimes conceals the antisemitic intent of speech and other conduct that denigrates and excludes Jews.

The updated NDAH listed numerous examples of the use of “Zionist” in perpetrating discriminatory behavior, including, “excluding Zionists from an open event, calling for the death of Zionists, applying a ‘no Zionist’ litmus test for participating in any NYU activity, using or disseminating tropes, stereotypes, and conspiracies about Zionists” as well as “demanding a person who is perceived to be Jewish or Israeli to state a position on Israel or Zionism, minimizing or denying the Holocaust, or invoking Holocaust imagery or symbols to harass or discriminate.”

NYU went further, recognizing that Zionism is central to the identities of the world’s 15.7 million Jews, an overwhelming majority of whom believe the Jewish people were destined to return to their ancient homeland in the land of Israel after centuries of exile. “For many Jewish people, Zionism is a part of their Jewish identity. Speech and conduct that would violate the NDAH if targeting Jewish or Israeli people can also violate the NDAH if directed toward Zionists,” the university said.

The NDAH covered examples of behavior that have occurred across the US, both on and off college campuses, especially since the launch of the Israel-Hamas war in October.


MEMRI: Top Hamas Official Ghazi Hamad In Interview With Pro-Palestinian NGO 'Masar Badil': Protests In West Are 'Much Appreciated,' 'Very Effective'; We Coordinate 'With All The Parties, Not Only With The Resistance Factions In The Region'; 'We Will Never Recognize Israel'; We Have Met With 'Leftist Parties'; Since October 7, 'We Were Able To Expand The Area Of Confrontation With The Enemy' And 'Move In So Many Wide Areas, Politically, Diplomatically, Media-Wise'; 'The World Is Becoming More Pro-Palestinian'
On June 29, 2024, Masar Badil, aka the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, livestreamed a webinar interview with Hamas political bureau member Ghazi Hamad. The video of the webinar was posted the next day on the Masar Badil's Odysee account and embedded on its website. The interview was in Arabic with simultaneous translation in English.[1]

The embedded interview with Ghazi Hamad on the Masar Badil website.

Masar Badil, or the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, is an anti-Israel, pro- Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) NGO headed by Khaled Barakat, who is also affiliated with the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network.[2] According to numerous sources, Barakat is a senior PFLP member[3]; he is barred from entering the U.S. and Germany,[4]and was also barred from entering the EU for four years starting in 2020 due to his support for terror organizations.

Barakat is married to Samidoun's international coordinator, Charlotte Kates. Kates was arrested in May 2024 following her speech at a rally in Vancouver, British Columbia in which she expressed support for Hamas, the PFLP, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and Lebanese Hizbullah and demanded that they be removed from Canada's terror list.[5] She is facing a police hate speech investigation.[6] In August 2024, Kates traveled to Iran to accept the "Eighth Annual Islamic Human Rights And Human Dignity Award," presented in Tehran on August 4 by the secretary general of the High Council for Human Rights of the Islamic Republic of Iran.[7] The following day in Tehran, she gave a detailed interview to Iran's Ofogh TV, discussing her arrest.[8]

Samidoun also publishes interviews with Hamas and Houthi officials, and regularly promotes Hamas messages.[9]

Samidoun promoted the Ghazi Hamad live interview on its X account.

The interview, titled "Al-Aqsa Flood and the Palestinian Resistance Today" was conducted in Arabic with live English audio translation. The following are the main points of the interview, based on that translation.

Khaled Al-Raheb Of Masar Badil: Countries Like America, Germany, Britain, France, And Their Agents In The Arab World Seek "To Smear The Truth Of The Palestinian Struggle And To Smear The Image Of The Resistance – And Very Specifically The Image Of Hamas"

Khaled Al-Rehab: "We welcome you all. As we always start our events, we say that we salute the martyrs of Palestine, of Yemen, of Lebanon, of all the people who are fighting against imperialism. And we say 'long live October 7, that has brought the Palestinian struggle to the top of the agenda of global politics. On the Arab scale, in the Islamic region, the place of the Palestinian struggle has regained its natural position in the fight against imperialism and occupation. [...] We also welcome Dr. Ghazi Hamad for his presence today. [...] He was responsible for many positions and many tasks. He was in charge of the official newspapers for the Islamic resistance movement Hamas. He was the official speaker for Hamas in 2006, and worked in the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Development in different times.

"We welcome everyone today in the sixth event that is organized by the Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement [Masar Badil] with the leadership of the resistance, and we thank the dear brother Dr. Ghazi Hamad for his presence with us today. Since the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Flood operation we decided in the Masar Badil movement to organize this series of events to be a chance for us to get to know all the positions of the resistance and to track to political developments and the developments on the ground for the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation.

"Dear comrades, you also know of the attempts of specific countries like America, Germany, Britain, France, and their agents in the Arab region to smear the truth of the Palestinian struggle and to smear the image of the resistance – and very specifically the image of Hamas. Those are all very dangerous political policies.

"Youth and student organizations that are expressing their opposition and pride in the resistance, regardless of where they are and what their ideology is. In this context, we want to point out the important and respectable position of the comrades in Samidoun and Within Our Lifetime in New York and the women's movements Al-Karama and Students for Justice in Palestine and so many other friendly powers that are carrying the voice of the Palestinian prisoners and are using their political line as their compass for their positions. Now we will listen to Dr. Ghazi."


Bassam Tawil: The Only Award Qatar Deserves: Supporting Islamist Terrorism
It is grotesque that Qatar should be recognized for its contributions to "maintaining national and regional security" in the Middle East given that it has long been openly supporting Islamist terrorist organizations and serving as a home and haven for the Hamas leadership.

"[H]istory will not forget that the Qatari Al-Jazeera was and still is a platform for leaders of terrorism.... Al-Jazeera is now playing the same tole in spreading speeches of the leader of the Al-Houthi terrorist militia." — General Secretariat of the Council of Senior [Islamic] Scholars in Saudi Arabia, March 27, 2018.

Not much has changed in Qatar since then.... Al-Jazeera, meanwhile, continues to serve as a mouthpiece of terrorist organizations, especially Hamas, whose leaders are frequently given a platform to promote terrorism. Saudi social media pundit Mesha'al Al-Khalid wrote: "The Al-Jazeera channel burnishes [the image] of the militias and terrorist organizations that have waded in Arab blood, describing them as 'Islamic resistance.' We seem to be facing a planned and organized project to burnish the image of Iran's agents and use the Palestinian issue as an excuse to direct accusations of heresy at anyone who exposes the proxies and agents loyal [to Iran]."

The only award Qatar is due is for encouraging Islamist terrorism and jeopardizing security and stability in the Middle East.

In 2017, Qatar and the US signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on combatting the financing of terrorism. The MoU ensures increased collaboration between US and Qatari military and intelligence forces, and even provides the ability for the U.S. Treasury Department to work closely with the Qatari Government to help monitor suspected terror-financing activities. Evidently, this agreement did not apply to Qatar's ties with Hamas. Nor did it prevent the October 7 massacres.

Based on the data compiled from multiple English, Arabic and French sources within the Middle East, Europe and the US, a team of American and Israeli investigators concluded in April that Qatar "operates not as an independent mediator as it claims, but benefits directly from the bloodshed and geopolitical fallout and unrest that result from its policies."

The "Doha-Gaza Alliance at all levels — financial, political, and military — has resulted in the current regional upheaval, the impact of which is being felt worldwide," the same investigators said in a confidential report, adding that Qatari funding and policies led directly to October 7. They noted that although the US has known about Qatar's malign activities for years, it has failed to strategically act on them. This has allowed Qatar to advance policies that are harmful to the interests of the US and its allies in the Middle East and beyond.

Instead of showering yet more money and awards on countries that seem to be plotting to bring America down, the US love-fest with Qatar and Iran should immediately be ended.


MEMRI: Iranian Islamic Scholar Mohammad-Taghi Akbarnejad: We Cannot Expect The West To Give Us Leeway When We Chant 'Death To America' All The Time; Iranians Feel They Have Been Taken Hostage By Palestine, Were Not Saddened By Haniyeh's Death
Iranian Islamic scholar Mohammad-Taghi Akbarnejad said in an interview posted on Azad TV on YouTube (Iran) August 10, 2024, that the Iranian regime is not fulfilling the goals and promises of the Islamic Revolution. He said that Iran has lost without firing a single bullet by losing its people. Akbarnejad said that Iran has taken an entire people hostage for the sake of religion. He added that the regime tells the people that they will remain hostages so long as America exists. Akbarnejad stated that the public in Iran feels that it has been taken hostage by Palestine, and therefore most Iranians were not saddened by the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.

To view the clip of Mohammad-Taghi Akbarnejad, click here or below:

"The Islamic Republic Has Duplicated [Soviet] Tension-Creating Policies; It Confronted Its Own People, And Therefore, It Has Lost"

Mohammad-Taghi Akbarnejad: "The Islamic Republic has lost without firing a single bullet. A government, a country, or a regime loses when it has lost its people. You see? The USSR had several times more weaponry than we do. You cannot even compare the two. It had an army, missiles, and planes, but it lost even though the U.S. did not fire a single bullet.

"The Islamic Republic has duplicated the [Soviet] tension-creating policies. It confronted its own public, and therefore, has lost it.

"This is no longer the first year after the Revolution, nor the first five years, or the first decade. Forty-five years have passed since the Revolution. You have reached power with a whole lot of slogans.

"You said that you would reduce the social class differences. Has this happened? You said that you would give the people respect and spirituality, and that they would reach human perfection. Has our country become more monotheistic? Mr. Khomeini said that he would not have the same authorities the Shah had, and this is recorded in the pages of history. Has this happened?

"You said: We would uproot poverty. Has this happened? The public no longer accepts these things from us. You had this country, which is a rich country, at your disposal for 45 years. Seven to nine percent of the world's resources are located in this country. You had a rich country at your disposal, and with all these slogans you have mobilized us to the streets.

"Now, after 45 years, you are saying 'if' and 'but'? The chance you had is over. Today is the day that the Islamic Republic must be held accountable to the people. The insistence on justifying what was done in the past – deeds that stem from turning our leaders into idols – does not serve our leaders, the Islamic Republic, or the people.

"The Only Way To Get Out Of The Current Situation Is To Own Up To Our Mistakes And Take he First U-Turn Ahead... What Way Is Left For The People To Tell The Regime That They Do Not Agree To Its Strategy And Conduct When Regard To Palestine?"

"The only way to get out of the current situation, is to own up to our mistakes, and take the first U-turn ahead. Even if the regime would not admit that it was wrong, but it would actively show that it changes course, in keeping with the people's will and interests, but it would ask the public not to badmouth Mr. Khomeini – I would happily accept this. This is what China did. What is doing is the complete opposite of what Mao did, yet the statues of Mao are still in the city squares in China.

"What way is left for the people to tell the regime that they do not agree to its strategy and conduct with regard to Palestine? My colleague has made a good point with which I agree. He said that if the world leaves us alone for 20 years, everybody will see what progress we can make.
Seth Frantzman: Araqchi returns as Iran's Foreign Minister amid regional tensions and nuclear diplomacy
Abbas Araqchi, the new Iranian foreign minister, is taking the reins at his new office. After he was appointed and approved by parliament, he visited the Foreign Ministry for the first time on Thursday.

This is important because it comes as Iran has continuing tensions with the US and Israel in the region and preceding important UN meetings over the next month.

“Upon arrival, Araqchi first appeared at the Martyrs Memorial at the ministry’s complex and paid his respect to the martyrs and renewed his allegiance to their lofty ideals,” Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported.

“The top diplomat then held the first meeting with the Council of Deputy Ministers, where he honored former president Ebrahim Raisi and foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and hailed their sincere service to the nation.”

Araqchi was previously a deputy foreign minister, but he was replaced in 2021. His return to the ministry brings him full circle. In 2021, Amirabdollahian replaced Araqchi with Ali Bagheri Kani, who became acting foreign minister when Amirabdollahian and Raisi died in a helicopter crash.

Kani had worked hard as acting foreign minister to cement Iran’s position in the region and increase its ties with Moscow. Araqchi is expected to continue along those lines.
Iran speeding up nuclear progress, outsourcing attack role to proxies
Iranian uranium enrichment activity at the country’s nuclear sites has reached disturbingly advanced levels amid growing regional tensions. The Islamic Republic now faces critical decisions about its nuclear doctrine and the timing of additional steps, beyond the enrichment of uranium, needed to produce nuclear weapons.

On August 14, Iran International reported that Iran is secretly restructuring its Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research (SPND), and resuming experiments on nuclear weapon triggering mechanisms.

Last month, the National Intelligence director’s office told Congress in an annual threat report that since 2020, Iran has “undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so,” according to a report by Voice of America on August 20.

The report notably omitted a long-standing assertion, previously held by U.S. intelligence and which appeared in past reports, according to which Iran “isn’t currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons development activities necessary to produce a testable nuclear device.”

Professor Uzi Rabi, a senior researcher and head of the Program for Regional Cooperation at Tel Aviv University’s Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, described Iran’s nuclear program as the regime’s “strategic jewel.”

Iran is unlikely to take risks with its nuclear advancements now that it is so close to realizing its nuclear potential, he told JNS.

“All the regional commotion forces Iran to adopt a more cautious and calculated approach. It directs Hezbollah to keep ‘biting’ Israel, while lowering the intensity of its own responses and revenge against Israel,” he said.

At this stage, a full-scale conflict that could jeopardize its nuclear ambitions and see its nuclear sites attacked is not in the Islamic Republic’s interest, he explained.

“Iran has seen its vulnerabilities up close and understands that in terms of air defense and internal security, it is very exposed,” Rabi told JNS. “Therefore, it believes it must accelerate the completion of its nuclear program to be treated differently and prevent such penetrating attacks.”

On April 19, international media reported that an airstrike had targeted an S-300 air defense battery situated at Iran’s Shikari airbase, which protects the Isfahan nuclear site. The strike came five days after Iran launched over 300 missiles and drones at Israel.

Iran has in recent weeks been threatening to retaliate for the July 31 blast that killed Hamas political bureau terror chief Ismael Haniyeh in Tehran.

According to Rabi, Iran is determined to complete its nuclear program quickly to solidify its strategic position, and hopes thus to become immune to future attacks.


How Jacques Maritain went from antisemite to Catholic champion of the Jewish people
Last year marked 50 years since the death of the French Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain and almost 60 years since the promulgation of “Nostra Aetate,” the Catholic Church’s declaration at the Second Vatican Council on its relationship with non-Christian religions. As we are witnessing an explosion of antisemitism in our time, I want to tell the intertwined stories of Maritain and this shortest of Vatican II’s documents, now in its sixth decade as a milestone in Catholic-Jewish relations. In so doing, I hope to underscore the need for Christians, now more than ever, to repudiate and combat antisemitism.

In 1990, Pope John Paul II, commemorating the 25th anniversary of “Nostra Aetate,” affirmed that Christian self-understanding is predicated on acknowledging and respecting Jews as a covenantal people: “The Church is fully aware that Sacred Scripture bears witness that the Jewish people, this community of faith and custodian of a tradition thousands of years old, is an intimate part of the ‘mystery’ of revelation and of salvation.” He credited a handful of pre-Vatican II “Catholic writers” with this insight, including Thomas Merton and Jacques Maritain.

An ugly start
Maritain is often cited as a bright spot in the church’s otherwise problematic history of relating to Jews and Judaism. In 1997, the French Catholic bishops issued a Declaration of Repentance at Drancy, site of the camp known as “France’s antechamber to Auschwitz”:
In the context of the debate which we know took place, why did the Church not listen to its best voices? On several occasions before the war, through articles and public lectures, Jacques Maritain endeavored to open Christians to another perspective on the Jewish people. He also forcefully warned about the perversity of the antisemitism which was developing.

The bishops lamented their predecessors’ unwavering support for the collaborationist Vichy regime, which cooperated with the Nazis in the Holocaust, and which Maritain had vehemently opposed. Maritain also helped inspire the French Resistance with his wartime writings and radio addresses.

But Maritain had not always stood on the side of the angels. He had converted to Catholicism in the first decade of the 20th century, when France found itself roiled by the Dreyfus Affair, the bitter separation of church and state and endless political squabbles that only partially subsided during World War I. By the 20s, this philosophy professor found himself drawn to the ultra-nationalist rhetoric of Action Française, an authoritarian and xenophobic movement that seduced many French Catholics with its promise to return the country to unity, tradition and order. Though married to a Russian-Jewish convert, Maritain lent his pen not only to antimodern diatribes, but also an essential equation of modernity’s ills with Jews:
Dagestan airport pogrom: Russia sentences 5 for antisemitic airport riots
A court in southern Russia on Friday sentenced five men to more than six years in prison each in the first convictions related to a mass anti-Israel riot last October at an airport in the predominantly Muslim Dagestan region.

The men, who were given sentences ranging from just over six years to nine years for engaging in rioting, did not admit guilt, the court in the Krasnodar region said. One rioter was also found guilty of committing violence against a government official.

The trial was moved from Dagestan to Krasnodar due to the sensitivity of the case.

Last October hundreds of anti-Israel rioters stormed an airport in the city of Makhachkala where a plane from Tel Aviv had just arrived in a spate of unrest in the North Caucasus. Attacking arrivals from Tel Aviv

Video footage showed the rioters, mostly young men, waving Palestinian flags, breaking down glass doors and running through the airport shouting "Allahu Akbar" (God is greater).

The crowd converged on the airport after a message on a local Telegram channel urged Dagestanis to meet the "uninvited guests" in "adult fashion" and to get the plane and its passengers to turn around and fly somewhere else.

The channel, which was later banned by Telegram, did not use the word "Jew" but referred to the plane's passengers as being "unclean."

In Khasavyurt, also located in Dagestan, rioters gathered at a hotel where Israelis who had fled the fighting were reported to be staying, with some of the rioters entering the hotel and only leaving after ensuring that no Israelis were in the hotel.

The “ChP Dagestan” Telegram channel reported that the riots in Khasavyurt began after “a person resembling an Israeli citizen” was seen walking near the hotel.

The Russian Echo FM radio reported that a resident of Dagestan stated “I went into every room, I checked every person. I looked at the passport, looked at the face to see if this face corresponded to the passport. There are no [Jews] there, brothers, you are simply being provoked. We need to go home. Well done to everyone who came, you’re all caring.”
Exploding Jewish athlete video causes Canada's largest union to ask VP to resign
Canada’s largest union called on its vice president to resign on Tuesday after he published a video on social media of a Jewish Olympic diver turning into an exploding bomb, according to union members, politicians, and Jewish organizations.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees’ (CUPE) National Executive Board passed a resolution on Tuesday calling for General Vice President and Ontario CUPE President Fred Hahn to resign and was waiting for his response, CUPE said in a Wednesday letter to members.

“The National Executive Board has lost confidence in the ability of Fred Hahn to represent the national union in his role as General Vice President, and consequently calls for his resignation from that position,” the motion said according to the letter.

CUPE said that the move followed Hahn’s Aug. 11 Facebook post depicting a Paris Olympics athlete with a Star of David tattoo turning into a bomb and exploding as he dove into a pool.

Hahn deleted the video and said in a Sunday social media post that he regretted the painful reaction it caused for some viewers, explaining that he had intended to call to attention a double standard in which the Russian Federation was barred from competing but the State of Israel had been permitted.

“My intent was never to associate Jewish people with the violence enacted by the state of Israel. It remains my strongly held view that it is a terrible mistake, and antisemitic, to conflate abhorrent actions by the state of Israel with Jewish humanity or identity,” said Hahn.

“The horrors that continue to unfold in Gaza and the ongoing colonization of the West Bank are deeply troubling and continue to cause so much anguish and pain for so many. Our collective focus should be on the unfolding genocide, on the continued contravention of international law by the state of Israeli -- not on me or my social media posts.”
New Hampshire man faces fines, three years in prison for vandalizing synagogue
Police charged a man on Friday that they suspect used a hammer to damage two decorative lanterns outside the Temple Israel in Portsmouth, N.H., on April 8. The damage to each lantern has resulted in a separate indictment.

John M. Formella, the state’s attorney general, announced charges that Kevin O’Leary, 31, had broken the lights at the Conservative synagogue, violating the New Hampshire Civil Rights Act. The lanterns contained Star of David artwork in stained glass.

O’Leary faces as much as $10,000 in fines and three years in prison. Prosecutors have asked for a restraining order against him.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, signed a bill earlier this month implementing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism as the state’s guide for assessing hate crimes.


Kardashian’s stylist: ‘I will never hide my Zionism’
Dani Levy, a name that resonates through the corridors of Hollywood’s fashion elite, has long been an elusive figure for the media. Despite being one of Israel’s most sought-after interviewees, Levy has maintained a strict policy of declining press engagements—until now.

“Los Angeles is where I work, but Israel is my sanctuary,” Levy explains, shedding light on her previous reluctance. “When I’m here, it’s my escape from the spotlight. Every summer, I return to this paradise, free from the demands of work and interviews.”

The architect behind some of the most influential wardrobes in the world was born 35 years ago to Ezra and Yona, emigrants from the Israeli cities of Rehovot and Ness Ziona to the U.S.

“We’re a traditional family, I’m of Yemenite and Persian descent. My mother still makes jachnun,” Levy shared, referencing the traditional Yemenite pastry. “My parents have lived in Los Angeles for decades but still struggle with English.”

At age 7, Levy’s life took an unexpected turn when her family moved back to Israel for six years.

“I went from a typical American kid to a student at an ultra-Orthodox school in Jerusalem,” she reminisced. “Suddenly, my wardrobe consisted of long skirts, long-sleeved shirts and socks with sandals. While the school wasn’t my cup of tea, the spiritual connection I forged there has remained a constant in my life.

“My bat mitzvah was in Israel, and I maintained a religious lifestyle until I was 26. I observed Shabbat and prayed regularly, this is why my Hebrew is still flawless,” Levy explained. “Even now, in the heart of Hollywood, I insist on kosher wine and meat. It’s not always easy in my social circles, but it’s important to me. In another life, I could have been a devout, ultra-Orthodox housewife with eight kids in Rehovot.”


This year’s Burning Man to feature massive tribute to the Nova festival victims and their spirit
At 6:29 a.m. on Oct. 7, the Supernova music festival in Israel came to a screeching halt as Hamas terrorists attacked, killing roughly 400 attendees, taking dozens of hostages and launching a bloody massacre across southern Israel.

Next month, attendees of another desert festival for free-spirited music lovers plan to pause one day at 6:29 a.m. to honor the Nova victims and their memory.

This year’s Burning Man, the festival that draws 70,000 people annually to Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, will feature an installation and events that aim to bring to life the Nova community’s rallying cry: “We will dance again.”

Burning Man begins Sunday and runs through Sept. 2. Already, members of the “Nova Heaven” team, in addition to planning the early morning commemoration, have begun constructing elements of an installation that is to feature a replica of the multi-colored tent that stood at the heart of the Nova festival and has since appeared in the Nova exhibit that has been on display in Tel Aviv, New York and now Los Angeles.

Nova Heaven will also feature a large gate-shaped art piece with the “We Will Dance Again” motto, along with 405 laser-cut angels to represent the Nova victims and a spiral staircase with 100 English and Hebrew messages including “love conquers all” and “compassion unites us.”

Organizers have arranged for several of Burning Man’s famous “art cars,” including a fire-breathing dragon and an illuminated zeppelin, to swing by their home base on the desert landscape, known among aficionados as “the Playa.” They have also set up a series of events framed around the motif of angels and “dancing again,” including sets from Israeli DJs, music from handpan musician Noah Katz and “healing sound experiences,” such as a gong performance from David Shemesh.

Nova Heaven’s organizers include producers of the original Israeli music festival; leaders of the Tribe of Nova Foundation set up to support survivors and spread their message, and longtime “Burners” who understand the power of the desert experience.

“To us, ‘Nova Heaven’ is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit in the face of profound loss,” the organizers wrote on a GoFundMe page where they have raised nearly $100,000 toward a projected bill of $130,000.

“It is a space where participants can connect with memories of those lost, find solace, and draw strength from shared experiences,” they wrote. “This installation is a message of hope and resilience, reminding us all that the human spirit can prevail even in the darkest times.”




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