Pages

▼

Thursday, March 13, 2025

03/13 Links Pt2: Phillips: Democrats’ Israel betrayal; Cardinal Dolan: The Evils of Antisemitism; Peter Beinart’s bewildering path; Lawyer for Mahmoud Khalil Repped Al Qaeda Members

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Democrats’ Israel betrayal: How the party flipped on its staunchest ally
The Palestinian cause has become for all liberal progressives the must-have badge of moral worth. But this cause is based on the demonisation of Israel.

This poison has infected the universities. Overwhelmingly dominated by liberal progressives, they have turned a blind eye to or actively connived at the hate marches, demonstrations and encampments that have turned so many of them into crucibles of Jew-hatred.

Rather than come to the defence of Jewish students running this gauntlet of hate, Democrats actually reinforced it.

In the face of the sometimes violent “occupations” of US campuses that consistently called for the end of Israel, President Joe Biden said the protesters “have a point,” while Vice President Kamala Harris said of one protester accusing Israel of genocide: “Listen, what he’s talking about, it’s real.”

Trump has vowed to deport foreign students and imprison “agitators” involved in “illegal protests”. The administration announced last week it’s rescinding $400 million in federal grants to Columbia, accusing it of failing to fight antisemitism on campus.

This is extremely welcome. But generations have been indoctrinated with propaganda demonising Israel and sanitising the exterminatory Palestinian cause.

And violence and intimidation have increasingly become tolerated over a range of issues such as Black Lives Matter and Antifa as well as Gaza.

These ideologies are all anti-West and anti-America. As I write in my new book, The Builder’s Stone: How Jews and Christians Built the West — and Why Only They Can Save It, Jewish values are at the very heart of western and American culture.

Concepts at the core of democracy — limited government and the rule of law founded in the consent of the people — were introduced to the world by the Hebrew Bible.

They were explicitly drawn upon by America’s Founding Fathers when they laid down the principles of the US Constitution and defined the American nation. That nation and its foundational values have been under sustained assault by liberal universalists led by the Democratic Party.

Scratch an opponent of Israel, and you’ll find someone who believes the worst of the West and rubbishes its institutions. Scratch a protester against the West, and you’ll find an enemy of Israel.

The war against Israel is a war against the West; and the war against the West is a war against the Jews.
Michael Oren: Our choice between ‘never again’ and ‘again’
Israel declared its independence in 1948, but 77 years later, has largely forfeited it. From American leaders participating in our war cabinet meetings to our dependence on foreign arms and military aid, Israel has hemorrhaged sovereignty. Though we will remain a small nation navigating between superpowers, we must nevertheless strive to achieve the maximum degree of freedom in our decision-making and our ability to implement it. No longer must Israeli citizens feel compelled to appeal to a president to do what their own government appears incapable. Israeli officials must work to regain the basic trust of our people, even those who oppose their policies, and their respect for the democratic system. We must once again take pride in, and zealously preserve, our sovereignty.

Independence must reign not only in Israel’s foreign relations, but, even more pressingly, in our domestic affairs. South of Beersheva — 62 percent of the country — there is minimal enforcement of Israeli law. Gun and drug trafficking, illegal building, are rampant. An additional 13% of the country’s population, the ultra-Orthodox, also rejects the state’s authority, if not its very legitimacy, refuses to serve in the IDF, and to provide a basic modern education for its youth. In Judea and Samaria, a minority of Israeli citizens flagrantly, and occasionally violently, defy Israeli law. Just as a state that does not safeguard its external freedom cannot fully defend that of its inhabitants, neither does a state that cannot govern itself retain the resilience necessary for national defense.

Resilience — khosen, in Hebrew — is essentially a prerequisite for keeping any promise of “Never again.” As captured Hamas documents agonizingly attest, the political divisions within Israeli society prior to October 7 rendered it vulnerable to large-scale attack. While democratically elected governments have every right to pursue their chosen policies, they also have the duty to maintain a basic degree of unity. America might be able to afford extreme political polarization; not so, Israel. Thus, though almost all of the security chiefs forum’s two dozen participants are outspoken critics of the government, the government must heed the forum, which warned that further efforts to weaken judicial checks on elected officials would again weaken Israel’s resilience. Unlike the United States, where the president is also the commander-in-chief, Israeli leaders cannot simply order Israelis to fight; rather, they must convince them. Conserving those powers of persuasion is critical for the state’s security and its ability to ensure “Never again.”

Seeking realistic peace options with our neighbors, strengthening our bonds with world Jewry, rebuilding ties with nations alienated by the war — all are essential if we are serious about averting “Again.” We must work to narrow what has become one of the world’s widest income gaps and to make our minority communities part of the Israeli story. Most crucially, we must struggle relentlessly against the sin’at chinam — gratuitous hate — that plagued our society prior to October 7. There is a dark and direct connection between the fighting that broke out around the Yom Kippur services in Dizengoff Square on September 25, 2023, and the catastrophe that befell us less than two weeks later.

The choice is ours. Only we can determine whether “Never again” remains merely a declaration and a vision that the state will stay ill-equipped to uphold. The founders of 1948 made a pledge and went to vast lengths — fighting off invaders, absorbing immigrants, forging a nation — to fulfill it. We now must do the same. We alone can decide if the next picture presented in the Oval Office shows, alongside those of Holocaust survivors, the images not of the defenseless victims of terror, but of Israelis standing indomitable, unified, and secure.
Cardinal Dolan: The Evils of Antisemitism
The Church’s stance on antisemitism is unequivocal. Our Savior was a faithful Jew killed by the Roman occupiers of Judea. He died for the sins of all mankind. According to our faith, Jesus brought about a New Covenant that exists side-by-side with the Old Covenant between God and the Jewish people. As Pope Saint John Paul II often observed, “God’s covenant with the Jews is unbreakable.”

We also believe that every human life is created in the image of God, regardless of race, religion, or ethnicity. As Pope Saint John Paul II said, “The Church rejects racism in any form as a denial of the image of the Creator inherent in every human being.”

John Paul II’s words do not exist in isolation. In the Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, also known as Nostra aetate or In Our Time, that seminal document of the Second Vatican Council, the Church tells us to decry “hatred, persecutions, displays of antisemitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone.”

In 1986, John Paul II reiterated that statement while visiting the Great Synagogue of Rome. “I repeat,” he said, “ ‘By anyone’.”

Fourteen years later, when he visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem, he left behind this prayer: “God of our fathers, you chose Abraham and his descendants to bring your Name to the Nations: We are deeply saddened by the behavior of those who in the course of history have caused these children of yours to suffer, and asking your forgiveness we wish to commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood with the people of the Covenant.”

Pope Benedict XVI, John Paul II’s successor, likewise reaffirmed the incompatibility of antisemitism and Christianity.

“The rulers of the Third Reich wanted to crush the entire Jewish people, to cancel it from the register of the peoples of the earth. . . . Deep down, those vicious criminals. . . wanted to kill God,” Benedict XVI said while visiting Auschwitz in 2006.

“By destroying Israel, by the Shoah, they ultimately wanted to tear up the taproot of the Christian faith and replace it with a faith of their own invention,” he added.

I hope this message is clear enough: Antisemitism is a grave sin, the work of Satan himself. The devil hopes to divide God’s people, to make them fear and eventually hate each other. In rejecting Satan’s lies and empty promises, as Christians are called to do this Lent, in the weeks before Easter—and as our Jewish neighbors prepare for Passover—we renounce his plans to divide the children of Abraham from one another.

Not long after the October 7, 2023 atrocity in Israel, which irrationally unleashed a new viral strain of Jew-hatred, I received a letter from a Jewish mom on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Every morning she would walk her little daughter to school and would smile at her neighbor as that mom walked her two children to the nearby Catholic school. “That Catholic mom must have noted my anxiety and fear those dreadful days after the attack,” the Jewish mom wrote, “because she came up to me and whispered, ‘Why don’t we all walk together?’ ”

For any Jewish people who might be reading this, please know: The Catholic Church stands with you in the struggle against antisemitism. And for those on social media who call themselves Christians but spread hate against Jews, we say that they have become blinded to core tenets of the faith they proclaim; that we are all equal in the eyes of God, that Christianity is a stem that grows off the good olive tree that is the Jewish faith, and that in the words of Pope Francis, “a Christian cannot be an antisemite.”

“Rather,” the Holy Father added, “we are called to commit ourselves to ensure that antisemitism is banned from the human community.”


‘Jews defending other Jews is a revolutionary act’
When does anti-Zionism become outright anti-Semitism? Since 7 October 2023, it has become disturbingly commonplace for ‘pro-Palestine’ demonstrations to demand the total destruction of Israel, the world’s only Jewish State. Claims that Israel deliberately targets children have echoes of the ancient, anti-Semitic blood libel. Sympathy for Hamas, a terror group committed to the murder of Jews, is also disturbingly widespread in a protest movement that claims to stand for ‘peace’.

David Christopher Kaufman – editor and columnist at the New York Post – joined The Brendan O’Neill Show last week to discuss why Jews need to be more vocal in standing up for Israel. What follows is an edited extract from that conversation. Listen to the full thing here.

Brendan O’Neill: What’s your response to the claim that, in the aftermath of 7 October, people were marching against Israel, rather than against Jewish people?

David Christopher Kaufman: The horror of that statement is that, when people turn on Jews, the endgame is usually an attempt at mass extermination.

Jews have often been alright in history. They were alright in Weimar Germany. In many ways, Jews were alright in the court of Isabella and Ferdinand in late-15th-century Spain. But, suddenly, they weren’t alright. Millions of Jews were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula in the 15th century, and millions of Jews were exterminated in concentration camps during the Second World War.

It pains me greatly to see so many Jewish people not speaking up. We had Adrien Brody winning an Oscar for playing a Holocaust victim for the second time in his career. Yet he said nothing about anti-Semitism, even while he was on the biggest stage in the world, benefiting from telling Jewish stories. In many ways, our own people are not doing their job. We’re allowing the bad guys to define the narrative.

The pro-Palestinian side, the anti-Zionist side, is banking on Jewish fear. It is counting on Jews being afraid, timid and silent. That’s the most important weapon it has in its arsenal.

Because of our history, Jews have not had many opportunities to defend themselves. We saw what happened in the ghettos in Warsaw under Nazi occupation. But now we have our own country. We have Jewish soldiers. We have Jews who are willing to risk their lives to defend other Jews. The way I look at it, Jews defending Jews is a revolutionary act. And we need Jews to be revolutionaries. No one is going to do it for us.
Peter Beinart’s bewildering path
Palestinian violence is a reaction to Israel, he argues, never the other way around. Antisemitism is only a danger when it comes from the right. Jewish victimhood is a myth that Jews use to cover up the truth about Israel’s moral depravity. American Jews worship Israel instead of worshipping God. He favors blunt assertions backed up with a token “source” – more often than not another journalist or professor with their own self-serving sources. Beinart is too smart not to know perfectly well there’s another side. His footnotes are his Achilles’ heel.

For example, he blithely mocks observers who question Gazan casualty figures supplied by Hamas, but never addresses the many thoughtful analyses that reveal glaring inconsistencies in the very numbers he relies on.

He never provides any roadmap to peace, but simply claims that Palestinian lambs will lay down with Israeli lions because that’s what happened in South Africa and Northern Ireland and he’s found a few academic studies to suggest it’s possible. He cites the South African anti-Apartheid movement as proof that if Israelis would simply hand over their country to an Arab majority, all will be well, quoting a Columbia professor’s assertion that “once a nonviolent way of ending Apartheid appeared as an alternative,” violence there ended almost overnight. Possibly, but he doesn’t mention that in the Middle East, the Oslo Accords also provided “a nonviolent way” to peaceful co-existence, yet Palestinians responded with waves of suicide bombings.

He offers up the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland as a model, but he never mentions that nearly a century of sectarian violence only came to an end once the British army had so forcefully suppressed the IRA’s paramilitary wing that the leadership finally gave up any hope of achieving their goals through terror. Palestinian armed groups could benefit from that lesson, to be sure, but so far, they haven’t.

Beinart skates past all of it, demanding instead that enough international pressure be brought to bear on Israel to force the dissolution of the Israeli state, without regard for the violent consequences that would surely come to pass in the unlikely event that his wish were ever granted.

In the end, he sticks with the idea that Palestinian violence and rejectionism can be overlooked because, in context, it is simply an understandable response to Israeli intransigence and oppression. But when Israel fights back with rage and fury, that’s unmitigated evil for which there is only one solution. Palestinians are fighting for freedom and human rights, even if a few bad apples occasionally behave like fascists and terrorists. Yet, Israelis are unforgivable. They are the executors of a deadly and dangerous inheritance. They can’t help it.

I’m bewildered by why he chose this current path. He could have maintained the positions he held in 2012, making common cause with left-liberal Zionists in America and anti-occupation activists in Israel who oppose the Netanyahu government. He could have focused on building alliances with Palestinian moderates who are willing to work with Israeli Jews. After all, he was winning that debate among American liberals, and more American Jews agree with that position than ever before.

So why up the ante? I’m no psychologist, but judging by the fact that he frequently mentions how high a price he has paid for his views and how many friends he’s lost, perhaps he thought that by pushing even further along the same road, he’d find a new community to make up the difference. But Beinart’s timing is dreadful. In the shadow of October 7th, his new allies are now more convinced than ever that there is only one solution, and Peter Beinart is not part of it.
Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis: Purim is not a celebration of slaughter, but of survival against attempted genocide
Peter Beinart’s claims that the festival of Purim somehow demonstrates a Jewish embrace of zealotry and is an example of “the evil that Jews commit”, (11 March) is an insidious attempt to cast Jewish history and identity as heartless and vengeful.

Purim is not a celebration of retribution or slaughter, but of survival against attempted genocide. The Book of Esther repeatedly emphasises that even when the Jews of Persia were finally granted the right to take up arms against those across the empire of its day who sought their destruction, they took no spoils, precisely because they were motivated not by a desire for revenge or the thrill of conquest, but by self-defence.

Indeed, this is why Purim is observed to this day without reference to military prowess or vengeance, but with charity for the poor, gifts of food and special meals. Beinart’s astonishing attempt to present the origin of Purim as an expression of blood lust and religious zeal for the downfall of our enemies is utterly baseless and a misappropriation of the true meaning of Purim. In fact, there are many examples in Jewish tradition of precisely the opposite principle: that we may never revel in the suffering of others, even if we ourselves have previously suffered at their hands.

The atrocities of 7 October and the consequent war in Gaza have caused immense human suffering, including for many innocent Palestinian civilians. The Jewish communities that I engage with around the UK and across the world are acutely aware of that fact and we long for a day when Israelis and Palestinians can live alongside one another in peace. The suggestion that we are oblivious to such suffering is false and offensive. But the implication that Jews might actively turn away from it precisely because of our Judaism crosses the line from provocative opinion journalism into hateful invective.


No charges for east London Imam’s ‘destroy Jewish homes’ sermon
The Metropolitan Police have decided to take no further action against an Imam who – shortly after Hamas’s atrocities on October 7, 2023 – cursed Jews and called for the destruction of their homes.

The preacher at an east London Mosque – in a Borough with a sizable number of Jewish residents – told his followers: “Oh Allah, curse the Jews and the children of Israel. Oh Allah, curse the infidels and the polytheists.

“Oh Allah, break their words, shake their feet, disperse and tear apart their unity and ruin their houses and destroy their homes.”

The JC’s coverage of the Met’s choice not to treat the original sermon as a crime prompted outrage; shortly afterwards they told the JC that the decision was being reviewed.


Alan Dershowitz: Case of Anti-Israel Green Card Holder Seized by ICE Could Be a Close Call for Even the Highest of Courts
So this is not a slam dunk for the government. Nor should it be. A delicate balance must be struck between the free speech rights of even the most obnoxious, anti-American, antisemitic and anti-free speech zealots and the rights of those who he may have victimized by his repressive actions.

The vast majority of Americans would almost certainly want to see Mr. Khalil deported, but when it comes to free speech, the majority does not rule — the First Amendment does.

So, depending on the evidence, this may prove to be an important First Amendment case challenging the power of the executive in the context of deportation.

In resolving this conflict, the courts should consider two related First Amendment rights: The right of the non-American citizen to express controversial views and the right of American citizens to hear such views.

It is certainly possible that the need to resolve these conflicting rights may be mooted by the evidence. If the government is able to prove that his actions went beyond First Amendment protected speech, the courts may well resolve the issue in favor of the government.

The presumption of innocence operates in criminal cases as a matter of law. It may also have applicability in civil cases as a matter of policy.

In the end, no one should have sympathy for Mr. Khalil as an individual, as an advocate, or as an ideologue. His views, as he himself has expressed them, are despicable, anti-American, antisemitic, and intolerant of others.

Yet the First Amendment knows no such things as a false or despicable idea. All ideas are created equal as a matter of constitutional law, though they are far from equal as a matter of morality.
Commentary Newsletter: Look Who Suddenly Loves Free Speech By Abe Greenwald
A host of Democrats have condemned his arrest, and on Monday, Senate Judiciary Democrats took to social media to post: “Free Mahmoud Khalil.” Today, at the Washington Post, Philip Bump has whipped up a theory that Khalil’s arrest is somehow evidence of Donald Trump’s cronyism (I read it twice and still don’t understand what he means). But what jumped out at me from Bump’s general defense of Khalil is this: “Trump’s allies and the administration itself have repeatedly reinforced the punitive aspect of Khalil’s arrest, with the White House sharing an obnoxious social media post bidding Khalil ‘shalom’ — a Hebrew word that can be used to mean ‘goodbye.’”

The first thing I want to say is: Ha-ha, free speech!

But more important, you want obnoxious social-media posts? Take a look at the work of Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), the organization in which Khalil is a prominent leader. On Instagram, the group posted: “We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance.” Resistance to what? Check CUAD’s Substack, where the organization described October 7 as “[Yahya] Sinwar’s crowning achievement” and said the “Al-Aqsa Flood was the very essence of what it is to resist ‘with what we have.’”

CUAD publicly cheers on Hamas and Hezbollah and mourns the death of individual terrorists. It also calls for the downfall of the United States. There’s plenty more, and the Jerusalem Post has all the receipts.

The point is: The Trump administration should reinforce the punitive aspect of Khalil’s arrest. He and his organization deserve punishment. Anyone who promotes American-designated terrorist organizations while in the U.S. on a conditional basis should get the same treatment that Khalil is getting from ICE.

And that’s Trump’s plan. “This is the first arrest of many to come,” he wrote on Truth Social. “We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it.” Which means the left and its liberal allies are going to be very besotted and very busy.

Not only are many liberals blind to the left’s true intentions; they’re also unaware that the rest of the country sees these eruptions for what they are—the glorification of hateful radicalism. Whether Khalil is ultimately deported or he wins in court, liberals are certain to lose their case before the public. And that’s how Donald Trump got back in the White House. Shalom, Democrats.


Trump is right to deport pro-Hamas foreign students | Think Twice
🔥 Trump’s Crackdown on Pro-Hamas Foreign Students – Is It Justified? | Think Twice with Jonathan S. Tobin & Benjamin Weingarten 🔥

In this episode of Think Twice, JNS Editor-in-Chief Jonathan S. Tobin sits down with Benjamin Weingarten, Senior Fellow at the London Center for Policy Research, Fellow at the Claremont Institute and Senior Contributor at The Federalist, to discuss the latest controversy surrounding deporting foreign students who support Hamas.

🚨 Topics Covered in This Episode:
Assessing President Trump’s first weeks in office.
Why Trump’s immigration policies are sparking outrage from the left.
The legal and national security rationale for removing pro-Hamas foreign students.
How the woke ideology in American universities fuels antisemitism.
The Biden administration’s past failures in tackling radicalization on campuses.
The broader implications for free speech, national security, and higher education.


Columbia anti-Israel agitator Mahmoud Khalil sues to block Columbia, Barnard from releasing student records to Congress
Detained anti-Israel protester Mahmoud Khalil filed suit Thursday to block Columbia University and Barnard College from turning over disciplinary records to Congress — claiming it would put student demonstrators at risk of “doxxing.”

Khalil – a Columbia grad who was arrested by ICE over the weekend – is suing the two affiliated schools and the House Committee on Education and Workforce after Chair Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) last month demanded the universities divulge information about students allegedly involved in “pervasive antisemitism.”

The suit claims that turning over the “confidential information” of students would violate their First Amendment right to free speech by exposing them to negative publicity and forcing the institutions to punish them.

“The Committee’s attempt to force the Universities to chastise and intimidate student organizers for protected speech is an abuse of its investigative powers,” the Manhattan federal court filing charges.

Khalil brought the new case alongside seven anonymous students — all of whom claim they were harmed when Columbia provided their records to the committee.
Commentary Podcast: The Green Carding of America Liel Leibovitz joins us today to discuss the ongoing controversy over the immigration and speech status of Columbia extremist Mahmoud Khalil and how he, as someone who has been through the immigration process, views these incendiary matters.



Lawyer for Radical Columbia Grad Student Repped Al Qaeda Members—Including 'Close Associate' of Bin Laden
When Hamas-supporting Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil appeared in court on Wednesday, he was represented by, among others, Ramzi Kassem, a lawyer perhaps best known for defending al Qaeda terrorists.

The Syrian-born Khalil had his green card revoked by Immigration and Customs Enforcement over the weekend as part of the Trump administration's crackdown on foreign nationals involved in pro-terrorist demonstrations at universities.

Kassem has represented terrorists including Ahmed al-Darbi, an al Qaeda member convicted in 2017 for the bombing of a French oil tanker, as well as several other Guantanamo Bay detainees, including a "close associate" of Osama bin Laden. He went on to serve as an immigration policy adviser to former president Joe Biden as a member of the White House's Domestic Policy Council.

Like his new client, Kassem was also involved in anti-Israel activism as a student at Columbia, where he lobbied to rename a sandwich called the "Israeli wrap" in the student dining hall, claiming the terminology was offensive to Muslims. He attended Columbia Law School on a fellowship funded by Paul Soros, the elder brother of Democratic megadonor George Soros.


NYPD makes ‘multiple’ arrests, as anti-Israel protesters hold sit-in at Trump Tower
The New York City Police Department told JNS that it arrested multiple people and that it is addressing an ongoing matter, as protesters staged a sit-in at Tower in Midtown Manhattan on Thursday afternoon.

Some 100 protesters advocated for the release of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian agitator who is in federal custody and facing deportation for, the Trump administration says, supporting the Hamas terror organization, the New York Post reported.

The anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for Peace organized the gathering, which included people wearing red T-shirts stating “Jews say stop arming Israel,” according to footage that the Post published.

The protest came after an initial federal court hearing on Wednesday, in which Jesse Furman, a U.S. district judge in Manhattan, determined that the Trump administration cannot yet deport Khalil.

Federal agents arrested Khalil, who was born in Syria and has ties to Algeria, on Saturday. The recent Columbia graduate holds a green card and is reportedly married to a U.S. citizen. The Trump administration has said that he led anti-Israel protests on Columbia’s campus, and the White House said that he has supported Hamas, which would be grounds for his deportation.

Randy Fine, a Republican, Jewish Florida state senator who is running for Congress, wrote that “Trump Tower has been invaded by Muslim terrorists seeking the release of Muslim terrorist Mahmoud Khalil.”

“Every non-American at this Muslim terror rally should be immediately deported to Gaza,” he wrote.


Andrew Fox: A Fascinating Look Into the Rise of Campus Hatred and Antisemitism
The latest offering from Jewish Quarterly provides a timely and thorough exploration of the state of antisemitism in contemporary universities. It particularly focuses on the rise of campus activism and its implications for academic freedom.

Mindless: What Happened to Universities? features an in-depth essay by Professor Cary Nelson, a respected scholar and former president of the American Association of University Professors. Nelson’s analysis is well-researched and candid, illuminating the ideological shifts within higher education and their consequences for open discourse.

Nelson’s essay is a critical reflection on how academic institutions have evolved in recent years, particularly in response to anti-Zionist activism, antisemitism, and the broader politicization of campus spaces. He examines how university environments, which should be spaces for debate and critical thinking, have increasingly become arenas for dogmatic activism, often at the expense of intellectual diversity. He argues that the Gaza Solidarity encampments that spread across Western campuses in 2024 were symptomatic of deeper issues in academia — specifically, the growing resistance to debate and the framing of complex geopolitical conflicts in binary terms.

Nelson does not claim that student activism itself is problematic. Rather, he critiques the extent to which some protests have crossed the line into intimidation and exclusion for Jewish students. The essay provides extensive and unsettling evidence of antisemitic rhetoric emerging in protests, alongside surveys indicating that over half of Jewish students in the US felt unsafe on campus in 2024. His argument is not that all activism is inherently harmful, but that in many cases, the principle of free inquiry has been overshadowed by ideological conformity and naked political activism in place of scholarship.

One of the strengths of Nelson’s essay is that it does not rely on alarmism; rather, he builds the case methodically. He traces the historical trajectory of academic institutions, illustrating how certain disciplines have gradually shifted toward ideological uniformity, especially in their framing of Israel and Zionism. He also emphasizes how some faculty members have actively promoted activism that extends beyond protest to include calls for exclusion and censorship.
Stanford Medicine community rejects hate and anti-Israel bias
As Stanford faculty, staff, students, alumni, patients and allies who work in or care about the Stanford Medicine community, we take issue with the misleading and divisive Stanford Daily opinion piece entitled “Stanford Medicine community demands an end to Stanford’s complicity in genocide.” The letter is replete with falsehoods and purports to represent the views of the entire Stanford Medicine community. It does not.

Healthcare providers and researchers are trained and entrusted to make recommendations and decisions based on evidence. As such, we are compelled to ask the signatories of the letter: Did you consider the accuracy of your narrative? Did you review the evidence? Did you listen to both sides carefully, or even at all? You call for the boycott of a sovereign democratic nation fighting to defend itself from a terror organization whose sole mission is to annihilate it. It is incumbent on each of you to be informed before making such serious and inflammatory accusations and demands that are not only misleading, but also extremely hurtful and divisive to our Stanford community, and endanger patient care.

The letter is grounded in the modern blood libels of “Genocide in Gaza” and “Apartheid in Israel.” The authors rely on non-evidence-based opinion pieces and misinformation as “evidence,” which is disappointing and reckless coming from physicians, researchers and medical students. Further, the authors completely ignore and disregard Hamas’s primary responsibility for the war and for the casualties and destruction in Gaza.

Accusing Israel of genocide fails to meet definitional and legal standards. It was the assessment of the Biden administration that the war in Gaza is not a genocide. Joan Donoghue, former president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) made clear that the ICJ did not decide the claim of genocide was plausible, and Alice Wairimu Nderitu, the UN Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide, said that Israel’s war with Hamas is not a genocide. Military experts including General Sir John McColl and officer John Spencer have evaluated Israel’s war in Gaza and determined that the civilian to militant casualty ratio is historically low for modern urban warfare.

Likewise, Spencer has concluded that Israel is going above and beyond to prevent civilian casualties. A report submitted to the International Criminal Court by the High Level Military Group, an independent body of former chiefs of staff, senior military officers and cabinet ministers with decades of expertise in conflict and the legality thereof, described why claims against Israel of intentional starvation and unlawful killing in Gaza are false. An International Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report has stated that “the available evidence does not indicate that famine is currently occurring” debunking claims that Israel is causing “starvation” in Gaza. Israel has distributed hundreds of thousands of flyers and made countless phone calls to warn civilians of military operations at the expense of military effectiveness while risking its own soldiers’ lives. According to Humanitarian Efforts Israel, Israel facilitated the vaccination of over 1 million Gazan children for polio. These actions are entirely inconsistent with “genocide.”
Anger as school for royals founded by Nazi refugee cancels talk by Jewish writer
An elite school founded by a refugee from Nazi Germany has sparked anger for cancelling an invitation to a Jewish commentator to speak to pupils.

Jonathan Sacerdoti had been due to talk about journalism and anti-Semitism at UWC Atlantic in South Wales last Sunday.

But the school, which educates pupils aged 16 to 18 from around the world, including many royals – made a U-turn on Friday after a group of pupils complained his presence would be ‘distressing’.

The decision is all the more baffling since the school was founded with the aim of promoting global understanding by Kurt Hahn, a Jewish educator who fled Germany in the 1930s for speaking out against the Nazis.

Mr Sacerdoti said he had been invited by pupils who were ‘Jewish and Israeli-backgrounded’ who had been trying to ‘introduce balance into discussions about Israel’.

It is understood school administrators agreed, with ‘multiple planning calls’ to ensure the talk would be ‘constructive, appropriate, and beneficial’. But when a group of pro-Palestine youngsters complained, UWC withdrew the invitation, saying it might harm children’s ‘emotional safety’.

He was offered the chance to address students in a pre-recorded video but turned it down, saying it would have prevented ‘real-time discussion’.
UEL upholds International Definition of Antisemitism, following CAA input
The University of East London has decided to uphold the International Definition of Antisemitism after Campaign Against Antisemitism wrote to the University as part of a consultation that the University was carrying out.

The University adopted the Definition in 2021, but decided to review its adoption last year, citing concerns from staff members about “potential stifling of freedom of speech” during a review of its Position Statements and Charter Marks.

Campaign Against Antisemitism monitors the adoption of the International Definition of Antisemitism by universities.
Sen. Jim Banks seeks to require colleges to publicize policies for responding to civil disturbances
Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) is set to introduce legislation on Wednesday requiring colleges and universities receiving federal funding to publicly disclose their policies for responding to civil disturbances on campus, a response to disruptive anti-Israel demonstrations seen on campuses across the country since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks on Israel.

The “No Tax Dollars for College Encampments Act” would require university administrations to prepare and publicly disclose their policies for responding to demonstrations, riots and strikes to preserve public safety and the normal learning environment, as part of annual crime statistics and safety policy reports.

The policies would be required to include plans for coordinating with state, local and campus law enforcement bodies to respond to such incidents. The bill would also require accrediting agencies to monitor schools’ compliance with this policy.

“Many of our ‘elite’ academic institutions have become hotbeds for antisemitism and pro-terror ideologies,” Banks said in a statement. “My bill holds these universities accountable and prevents American tax dollars from being wasted on institutions that act as safe havens for anti-American harassment and violence.”


Anti-Israel event at Boston University ‘betrayal of the ideals of a fine university’
Major U.S. Jewish groups lie to their constituents and believe that Jewish lives are more valuable than those of Palestinians, Israeli soldiers terrorize Palestinian students and the Jewish state is guilty of genocide and of killing children intentionally. Those were some of the claims that were made at the Conference on the Jewish Left, the second iteration of the event, which was held at Boston University on Feb. 28.

The Boston University Center for the Humanities, the Jewish Cultural Endowment at Boston University—which is part of the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies at the private university—and the Krupp Family Foundation, which supports “social and racial justice,” were listed as the main sponsors.

Other sponsors included the Religion, Conflict and Peace Initiative at Harvard Divinity School, BU Diversity and Inclusion and Wellesley College’s Jewish Studies Program. JNS sought comments from all of the sponsors and from the Israeli consulate general in Boston and the American Jewish Committee’s New England office.

David Wolpe, rabbi emeritus of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, told JNS that Boston University’s Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine invited him last year “to address blatant and persistent antisemitism there in particular and on campus in general.”

“You can mention that, and say what is happening in the BU campus is a betrayal of the ideals of a fine university, a threat—implicit or blatant—to Jewish students and a twisted perversion of the historical record and Israel’s actions,” Wolpe told JNS. (JNS sought comment from Boston University.)

The only sponsor of the event who responded to JNS was Warren S. Goldstein, executive director of the Center for Critical Research on Religion, which he said was “proud” to support the event.


BBC NEWS AMENDS HEADLINE’S MISLEADING PORTRAYAL OF JORDAN INCIDENT
On March 7th the BBC News website published a report – including on its ‘Middle East’ and ‘Asia’ pages – under the headline “Indian killed while entering Israel was victim of job scam, family says”.

As was pointed out on social media, that headline inaccurately suggested some kind of Israeli involvement in the man’s death. The report itself – which is credited to BBC Hindi contributor Imran Qureshi – opens as follows:
“The family of an Indian man who was shot dead while illegally crossing into Israel say he was a victim of a job scam.

Thomas Gabriel Perera was killed by Jordanian security forces by the border with Israel on 10 February.”

Four days prior to the appearance of the BBC’s report, the Independent had published an article headlined “Indian man shot dead in Jordan trying to illegally cross Israel border” which noted that the location of the incident was in Jordan.


Gazan influencer raises 10 million dollars in fake charity campaign
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah has accused Gazan influencer Saleh Al Jafarawi -- known on the internet as 'Mr. FAFO' – of embezzling funds intended for rebuilding Al-Nasr Children's Hospital.

Earlier this week, Jafarawi uploaded a video showing him and several other Gazan influencers locking themselves in a studio, announcing that they were raising 10 million dollars and claiming that the Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah had provided him with the number as a goal.

The campaign included the health ministry’s logo as well as the Kuwait Society for Relief.

However, the health ministry quickly issued a statement denying any connection to the campaign.

“The Palestinian Ministry of Health confirms that it is not responsible for any campaign to collect donations for the benefit of the Gaza Strip, and that it is not a partner in any campaign to donate and collect funds carried out by some activists on social media,” the ministry stated on its social media.

The ministry also warned against using its name or slogan for fundraising purposes “under the threat of legal liability.”

The Kuwait Society for Relief has not issued a statement on the campaign, which currently has 9.9 million dollars, but there is not currently an active campaign to rebuild the hospital on their site.

Jafarawi’s campaign is still live, and many Palestinians have expressed their outrage on social media, urging people to stop donating and speculating that he has either pocketed the money or given it to Hamas.


Israel delivers 10,000 aid packages to Syrian Druze
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that Israel has delivered 10,000 humanitarian aid packages to the Druze community in Syria.

The aid, including essential food supplies like oil, salt, flour, sugar and rice, was coordinated with local Druze leaders, the Israel Defense Forces and the Druze Religious Council. @https://cdn-jns.orgIsraeli trucks delivering aid to Druze communities in southern Syria in a video published on March 13, 2025. Video by Vadim Tityonin, GPO.

The majority of the packages were sent to the Jabal al-Druze region in As-Suwayda, with others delivered to nearby Druze communities along the border.

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar emphasized Israel’s strong alliance with the Druze, whom he called “our brothers,” stating, “It is both necessary and the right thing to do to assist other minorities in a region where we will always be a minority ourselves.”
US State, Treasury sanction Swedish drug gang in connection with Iran
The U.S. State and Treasury departments announced sanctions on Wednesday against the Foxtrot network, which the agencies said is a criminal gang and drug-trafficking organization based in Sweden, that has coordinated attacks with Iran throughout Europe, including on Israelis and Jews.

The U.S. government also placed penalties on the group’s leader, fugitive Rawa Majid, who it said has cooperated with the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security.

The Foxtrot Network collaborated with the Iranian regime to “carry out attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets in Europe,” including an attack on the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden, in January of 2024, per the State Department.

“Iran’s brazen use of transnational criminal organizations and narcotics traffickers underscores the regime’s attempts to achieve its aims through any means, with no regard for the cost to communities across Europe,” stated U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

“Treasury, alongside our U.S. government and international partners, will continue to hold accountable those who seek to further Iran’s thuggish and destabilizing agenda,” he said.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that the sanctions make America and its partners safer, as the United States “holds accountable those who advance Iran’s destabilizing agenda.”

“Foxtrot has employed minors and criminals in Sweden on behalf of Iran’s regime to attack Israel’s interests and Jews,” stated Jason Brodsky, policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran.


Healthcare Professionals Must Speak Out Against Antisemitism
In case you haven’t seen the recent story out of Australia on social media, CBS News has reported that two nurses at an Australian Hospital were removed from their jobs after bragging about how they would kill Israeli patients in their hospital. The Australian Health Minister swiftly condemned these “medical professionals” and apologized to the Jewish community for having been exposed to such hatred.

The UK Daily Mail, however, in covering the story, seems to have decided that the most newsworthy aspect of this incident was that one of the nurses had a panic attack after the video of her statements was released. This is the paradox of anti-Jewish racism: Some people recognize and condemn hate against anyone based on ethnic identity, except if the hate is against a Jew. Then it is okay.

It is critical that health care professionals and institutions do not grow complacent about the threat antisemitism poses to healthcare. Like every other form of intolerance, antisemitism puts us all at risk. It dehumanizes people and makes them targets for hate. It leaves people fearful that they will not receive the best possible care from healthcare providers who feel it is acceptable to voice their bigotry. Healthcare organizations must speak out clearly and decisively to end the antisemitic attacks that violate ethical standards.

Last summer, medical students were lauded for speaking up on behalf of the war victims in Gaza. However, they did not advocate for all parties to end the war and protect their citizens. Instead, they doubled down with resolutions and petitions to demonize all Israelis. How can we expect future physicians to care for all patients equally and with dignity if they are encouraged to discriminate against patients whose political views don’t align with theirs?

We cannot allow anyone to uplift one marginalized population by demonizing another.

This dangerous and unethical thinking has led to the UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese’s call for a global medical boycott of Israel. In a misguided effort to support the Palestinian cause by delegitimizing Israel, she has instead politicized health care in a way that harms all people. (Read Hadassah’s policy statement reaffirming its stance against boycotts.)

Obstructing the sharing of medical research, innovation and expertise for political gain does not stop war or save lives. Countries all over the world benefit from Israel’s medical knowledge and treatments. Israel is among the first to send medical teams to help rescue people following natural disasters all over the world, including the earthquakes in Haiti and Turkey, the Surfside building collapse in Florida and the recent California wildfires, to name a few.

Before the Hamas-Israel war, Israeli physicians and nurses from the Hadassah Medical Organization (HMO) were regularly treating Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank and collaborating with Palestinian colleagues. Its multicultural staff is a model of co-existence, where medicine builds bridges to peace. A medical boycott of Israel simply bastardizes the ethics of medical neutrality and the right of the most vulnerable to receive quality health care.

In the last year, bomb threats have been made against Jewish hospitals, Jewish therapists have been blacklisted, and Jewish medical students have faced dangerous antisemitic attacks. During these difficult and disturbing times, Jewish health care providers, like me, have turned to our professional associations for support. The alarming truth is that we are feeling abandoned and unable to fully participate in professional forums due to relentless antisemitic attacks from fellow healthcare providers who want to shame us and silence our voices.
Why Are Companies Still Doing Business With Kanye West?
Like witnessing a bad car crash, Ye’s (formerly known as Kanye West) latest episodes of hate speech and misogyny have been painful to watch and continue to elicit shock and dismay from every corner of the entertainment world.

After an earlier disingenuous apology to the Jewish community for previous antisemitic comments and actions, Ye has now doubled down on intolerance via social media missives that include “I Love Hitler,” “I’m a Nazi,” and “I’m never apologizing for my Jewish comments.” But perhaps most disturbing was his Super Bowl commercial that linked to yeezy.com, where the sole item for purchase was a T-shirt emblazoned with a Nazi swastika.

Prior to these recent events, our organization, Creative Community for Peace (CCFP), along with other organizations countering and educating about antisemitism, had already laid out the real-life consequences of his previous antisemitic actions, with the ADL claiming that numerous incidents – including violent attacks – were tied to Kanye’s previous antisemitic rants.

Many companies didn’t hesitate to immediately sever ties with him. Talent agency CAA dropped him, while Adidas severed ties. Independent studio MRC shelved a West film/documentary project, publicly stating “We cannot support any content that amplifies his platform.” In the wake of Ye’s Super Bowl stunt, e-commerce platform Shopify deleted his online account.

We echo the words of entertainment industry leaders Ari Emanuel (CEO of Endeavor) and Jeremy Zimmer (CEO of United Talent Agency) who in 2022 both stated unambiguously that no one, and no companies, should be in business with Ye. But they went further than that, as Emanuel stated that “silence is dangerous” and that “West’s business partners across the fashion and entertainment industries also need to speak out and take action.”

Yet, Fox and Fox Television Stations (FTS) so far have remained silent beyond an internal memo that we feel did not go far enough.

Fox and FTS has not made a public apology for platforming Ye after a weeklong antisemitic tirade, regardless of where his website eventually linked to.

Fox and FTS have not publicly disavowed Ye’s actions and statements.

And Fox and FTS have not agreed to donate the money paid to them by Ye to counter and educate about antisemitism. (A rep for Fox and FTS did not reply to a request for comment.)
Kanye West to convert to Judaism ‘to avoid accusations of antisemitism’
Kanye West, known for his long history of inflammatory antisemitic remarks, has announced plans to convert to Judaism.

The racist rapper, infamous for praising Hitler, wearing a swastika t-shirt and declaring his intention to go “death con 3 on Jewish people”, is apparently making the sudden move to shield himself from accusations of antisemitism.

His agents, H. Aman Reputation Consultancy, told Jewish News: “For a while now, Mr West has engaged in what we would describe as ‘tolerance-challenged behaviour’, often towards people with ‘Stein’ or ‘Berg’ at the end of their surnames. He has now come to a realisation that the people who sometimes seem to hate Jews the most are Jewish themselves.

“Mr West has looked closely at the work of certain fringe organisations on the edge of the UK Jewish community and realised the best way to engage in antisemitic behaviour, consequence-free, is to be Jewish yourself. Indeed, he’s noticed a number of Jews on the far-left whose response to the October 7th 2023 mass murder by Hamas was to use their Jewish status to express support for ‘Palestinian resistance, in any form’.

“Given that, he sees no issue with attempting to do the same, but on the far-right – converting to Judaism while still indulging in his occasional desire to big up the Nazis.

“Here at H.Aman, we applaud Mr West’s inventive solution, which will allow him to engage in one of his favourite pastimes – Jew baiting – while helpfully citing his own Jewish credentials.”

The representative also cited Mr West’s plan to re-record his famous hit, Gold Digger, with an explicitly Jewish theme.

Rabbi Mordechai HaTzaddik, a key rabbinic authority, expressed his opposition to such a plan. “We’ve had enough tzuris with Drake being called out at the recent SuperBowl in the most embarrassing way possible – we don’t need another incredibly problematic rapper to join the tribe.”
El Al almost quintuples profit
El Al Israel Airlines, headed by Dina Ben Tal Ganancia, could not have dreamt of a better year. It posted record revenue and profits in 2024, thanks to its streamlining program, but even more so to the Swords of Iron war and the abandonment of Israel by most foreign airlines, allowing El Al to dominate the skies, certainly on the profitable US route.

El Al posted a net profit of $545 million for 2024, 4.7 times the profit in 2023. In the fourth quarter, the airline earned $130 million, less than in the third quarter — traditionally its strongest quarter — when net profit was $187 million, but still a big number.

Revenue in 2024 totaled $3.4 billion, 37% more than in 2023. Fourth quarter revenue was $851, 26% more than in the corresponding quarter.

EBITDAR (earnings before interest tax, depreciation, amortization, and rent or leasing costs) totaled $1.1 billion, double the figure for 2023. The company ended 2024 with shareholders' equity of $527 million, versus a deficit on shareholders' equity of $209 million at the end of 2023.

Cash flow rose to $1.4 billion from $453 million in 2023. Cash flow in the fourth quarter was $355 million, which compares with $172 million in the corresponding quarter of 2023.
Dry Bones
This is Sali, the LSW posting for Yaakov. Yaakov is recovering from a stoke that he had about a month ago. Thank you all so very much for your good wishes, kind words and generous donations. We very much appreciate all! Here is a Purim cartoon. Yaakov is working hard at his physiotherapy, just as the soldiers in the cartoon are runnung in circles. We are hoping for a better year. Here is a bit of an update. Yaakov has been able to do a few cartoons while he is in the rehabilitation facility that he is posting on JNS.org He is still extremely weak and not able to talk very well. I bought him a new, HP 17 inch laptop and succeeded after lots of work with our computer guy, of putting Photoshop on it, along with a few other programs that he needs. He is able to write and draw the cartoon, when he has the energy to follow the news, but even with the new computer, the Photoshop manipulation is hard for him. We have a graphic design friend who is helping to do this for him most of the time. Other times, it falls on me to help, and I am not very good at it unfortunately. Also, now that I have been using Yaakov's big computer at home, I see that the monitor is terrible. He never complained but it is a TV and not a real monitor and the resolution is terrible and sometimes the screen goes yellow or green instead of white. I have our computer guy looking for a big used monitor. But until Yaakov will be home, it is not an urgent priority. Yaakov is in a good mood although impatient to come home. He is always in a good mood, as opposed to me. :) We wish you much joy, and prosperity, and happiness, and health with your family and friends. We are looking forward to a better year ahead, with more Dry Bones cartoons, and to all the hostages being released. The situation here in Israel changes daily. It looks like the fighting could start again soon. Wishing you all good things for you and your family. Blessings, Happy Purim, and soon Shabbat Shalom, Sali and Yaakov Please support DRY BONES (through PayPal or your Credit Card,) Just click on the link below: DONATE to DRY BONES ALSO PLEASE NOTE ANOTHER OPTION: DONATE $50 or MORE (U.S. Tax DEDUCTIBLE)


Hen Mazzig launches new show ‘humanising’ Jewish celebrities
Israeli writer and activist Hen Mazzig is addressing what he sees as a gap in Jewish entertainment with his new show And They’re Jewish, an online series offering glimpses into the personal lives of famous movers and shakers like Debra Messing, Mayim Bialik, and Emmanuelle Chriqui - who just so happen to be Jewish.

Mazzig came up with the idea for the series as part of an effort to “humanise Jews” during a time of virulent antisemitism, providing a medium for Jewish and non-Jewish audiences alike to engage with distinguished members of our community without centring discussions around the war in Israel but the unique talents of those individuals.

It’s a new adventure for Mazzig, whose activism has made him a wildly successful influencer, whose reach also extends into academic and political circles. And They’re Jewish will not only expose viewers to fresh perspectives on well-known Jewish figures but on Mazzig himself; whether it’s getting in a sauna with Love Island star Eyal Booker, attending a Pacers NBA game with billionaire Rachel Simon, or doing vocal warmups with Broadway icon Alexandra Socha, Mazzig will reveal a bit of himself alongside each of his guests.

“I think there's something so special and unique in seeing people in the environments that they feel most comfortable with and for me to participate in whatever they're doing that made them great, to learn about this world through this special angle of their passion, really,” said Mazzig.
Australian broadcaster ‘deeply ashamed’ when thanked for being non-Jewish Israel ally
On a recent visit to Israel, Australian broadcaster Erin Molan saw two Israeli soldiers stop outside a mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City. One put his hand on the other’s shoulder, took his boots off and walked inside to pray. The Jewish soldier, who wore a kippah, held his colleague’s boots until the other came out, again leaned on the Jewish soldier’s shoulder and put his boots back on. They appeared to resume their conversation as they walked away.

“There is your ‘apartheid state,’” Molan told JNS. “What an incredible image of these two soldiers. That is just mind-blowing.”

Near Israel’s northern border, Molan saw another mosque beside a store selling women’s lingerie. “I thought, that’s quite ironic, isn’t it?” she said. “There you go, only in Israel.”

An even bigger surprise for Molan, 42, who was born in Canberra—Australia’s capital—was hearing a group of 20 or so tourists speaking Indonesian at the Western Wall. Having been raised in Jakarta, where her father was an army attaché at the Australian embassy, she recognized some of the words they were saying.

“There are people speaking Indonesian at the Western Wall, during the conflict?” she told JNS. “It was crazy.” (Of some 280 million people in Indonesia, about 87% identify as Muslim.)

As the tourists took photos of one another, Molan asked if they were scared. “No, no, not at all,” they told her. “This place is beautiful.”

Molan, whose monologues often reveal hypocrisies of the political far left, is torn when people thank her, as a non-Jew, for being an Israeli ally.

“I’m deeply ashamed that I should be thanked for just telling the truth and seeing it for what it is,” she told JNS. “But no, I appreciate it very much.”
Erin Molan: Exiled Chief Rabbi Flees Putin’s Russia: Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt with Erin Molan (FULL VERSION)
In this exclusive FULL interview, Erin Molan sits down with Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, former Chief Rabbi of Moscow, who fled Russia in March 2022 after refusing to back Putin’s war in Ukraine. Now President of the Conference of European Rabbis, Rabbi Goldschmidt exposes why he left Russia, the precarious state of Russian Jewry under Putin’s regime, and the alarming rise of antisemitism sweeping Europe. He also warns of Iran’s growing threat and underscores the critical importance of Israel’s safety for Jews in Israel and the diaspora. Originally featured in part on Mario Nawfal’s 69 X Minutes—inspired by Elon Musk’s free speech vision on X—this unedited version dives deeper into his chilling insights.


Why Did This Rabbi Risk Everything for Justice? | Explained
Rabbi Joachim Prinz defied the Nazis and then fought for civil rights in America.

A fiery orator and fearless activist, he stood with Martin Luther King Jr. at the March on Washington, reminding the world that the greatest crime is silence in the face of hatred.

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:34 Early life in Nazi Germany
03:03 Racism in the USA
03:50 Joining the battle for racial equality
05:56 Black-Jewish tensions
08:08 Learning from Joachim Prinz


György Kun, Hungarian survivor of Dr. Mengele's twin experiments in Auschwitz, dies at 93
One of the last Hungarian survivors of “Angel of Death” Josef Mengele’s twin experiments, György Kun, died aged 93 on February 5, it was revealed this week.

According to his testimonies, including one with the USC Shoah Foundation, Kun and his brother Istvan survived Auschwitz in part due to the fact that Mengele believed them to be twins and thus spared them from the gas chambers.

Kun and Istvan were both born in 1932, but Kun was born on January 23 and Istvan was born 11 months later, to Márton and Piroska Kuhn.

The Kun family was evicted from their home in 1944 and sent to a nearby ghetto in Székesfehérvár. In May of the same year, the family was loaded on a train to Auschwitz.

On arrival, the two boys and their mother were separated from the father, Kun explained in a testimony to his daughter, Andrea Szonyi, in 1999. He then found himself face to face with the infamous Dr. Mengele.

“He asked my mother one word,” Kun recalled in his testimony, “‘Zwillinge [Twins]?’ My mother did not speak German, but instinctively she replied, ‘Ja.’”

Piroska was then separated from them and murdered.

The truth about the brothers not being twins came to light shortly after, during inmate registration when they provided their dates of birth. However, the inmate in charge of registering them – Erno (Zvi) Spiegel – did not report them and instead falsified Istvan’s birthday to match Kun’s. The two then received their tattoos: A-14321 and A-14322, respectively.

In his testimony, Kun said he never forgot about Spiegel, who, despite being trusted by Mengele, risked his life to save others. Spiegel went a step further for the “twins”; after the camp was liberated, he led them back to their home, and also appointed older boys to look after them when they parted ways.

Spiegel’s final words to the boys were, “Maybe, one day, life would be joyful again.”




Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

    
 

 

at