Thursday, May 01, 2025

05/01 Links Pt2: 77 Years of Vindication and Miracles; Collier: Violently attacked again. Is it time for me to leave?; Mohsen Mahdawi: ‘I like to kill Jews,’ per court filing

From Ian:

Jonathan Tobin: Antisemites are still proving why we need Israel
Still the answer to Jew-hatred
Zionism is more than just a justified reaction to persecution in the past and the existential threats of the present. It is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people and—in no small irony given the mendacious rhetoric of contemporary antisemites—it is the greatest and most successful anti-colonial movement in history since it restored this small country to its indigenous people: the Jews.

Rather than blaming its existence for antisemitism, it’s time to understand that Israel and Zionism must be the primary answer to hatred against Jews.

Israel is not merely a physical shield that is the only true monument to the Six Million slain in the Holocaust, as well as the only guarantee that it can never happen again. The idea of Zionism can and must serve as an inspiration for Jews, no matter where they live, no matter their religious beliefs, and whether or not they call themselves Zionists.

To imagine a world without Israel is to enter into a counterfactual scenario in which not only is the destruction of the Jewish people encompassed, but also a world in which barbarism, rather than the values of ethical monotheism, the nation-state and universal justice that the Jews gave the world, will reign unchallenged. If Israel is still under siege, it is because Islamists and Marxists—whether they fly a false flag of concern for “human rights” or are more open about their despotic beliefs—alike seek such a terrible outcome for humanity.

Jews have a right to their own nation in the place that has been their home for thousands of years, regardless of any other factor. Herzl was right that it was a necessity in a world in which, as the Passover Haggadah states, “in every generation, they rise against us.”

A symbol of justice
Though it is as imperfect as any human endeavor, Israel is more than a precarious shelter in a hostile world. Whether Israelis and Jews elsewhere would have it so or not, the Jewish state, like Judaism itself, remains a symbol of the greatness that humanity can achieve and of its highest ethics and morals. And it will never be forgiven for that by those who embrace the ideologies of hatred and destruction, and are inevitably to be found among the ranks of antisemites in every era.

No matter what its enemies throw against it—be it conventional armies, terrorists or calumnies about “genocide”—Israel is here to stay. The Jew-haters may labor under the delusion that they can destroy it and redefine Zionism as racism, but all they are doing is reminding the world of the imperative of the logic that made the modern-day nation of the Jews necessary. Whether it is a somber observance or a joyous party, Israel’s Independence Day is still a day that Jews and people of goodwill everywhere should celebrate since it is a commemoration of both freedom and the eternal cause of justice.

Happy Yom Ha’atzmaut!
Seth Mandel: 77 Years of Vindication and Miracles
It’s hard not to see some symbolism in the coinciding of three events this week: Israeli Independence Day, a rainstorm over areas of Israel scorched by a raging wildfire, and the U.S. and Ukraine signing a mineral deal.

To back up: Today is Yom Ha’atzmaut, the day Israelis celebrate the reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty in the Jewish people’s ancient land. Because Israel is still relatively young as a nation state—77 years—Jews around the world each year still contemplate the meaning of that independence. It’s worth noting that current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu became, in 1996, the first Israeli premier to have been born in the state after it achieved statehood. Indeed, Israel was not yet 18 months old when Bibi was born.

So as strong and successful as Israel has become in those 77 years, its existence isn’t taken for granted. And each year, I wonder how it would fare in today’s political climate were it to be born under the same war conditions.

Israel was subject to a wide arms embargo when five combined Arab armies set upon it at birth. If Israel were to start from scratch today, it would meet plenty of hostility from the West. The pressures of internal Democratic Party politics would make siding with Israel a nonstarter. Progressives have increasingly turned away from a two-state solution toward acceptance of the idea that Israel simply doesn’t deserve to belong to the family of nations, and a do-over would give them the opportunity to right what they have come to see as a historical wrong.

Republicans, meanwhile, have become the more reliable pro-Israel party, a turn that arguably began in earnest after 9/11 drove home for many Americans the commonalities between the two states’ strategic and moral concerns. But Israel’s strength makes it a more attractive ally to an influential portion of the GOP than it might otherwise be.

Last May, JD Vance—now the vice president—gave a speech to an isolationist think tank in which he made the case for U.S. support for Israel. This in itself was a positive development, because the isolationist/retrenchment wing of the conservative movement needed to be told that while some of the winds of change were blowing within the conservative coalition, going forward Israel would remain a cherished ally of the United States.

But Vance’s defense of Israel was pitted against his distaste for Ukraine as an ally. And it wasn’t hard to see the conditional nature of his defense of Israel lurking beneath the kind words:

“Israel is one of the most dynamic, certainly on a per capita basis, one of the most dynamic and technologically advanced countries in the world…. We have to sort of ask ourselves, what do we want out of our Israeli allies? And more importantly, what do we want out of all of our allies writ large? Do we want clients who depend on us, who can’t do anything without us? Or do we want real allies who can actually advance their interests on their own with America playing a leadership role.”
UK’s Charles laments ‘immense pain and suffering’ of Gaza hostages in letter to Herzog
Britain’s King Charles III wrote to President Isaac Herzog to congratulate him on the occasion of Israel’s 77th Independence Day, and said he is praying for the return of the remaining Gaza hostages.

“My wife and I wanted to send Your Excellency and the people of The State of Israel our congratulations on the auspicious occasion of your seventy-seventh Independence Day,” began the letter, which was sent on Wednesay.

“We are all too aware of the immense pain and suffering still being endured by those who remain hostage in Gaza,” Charles wrote.

“Our special thoughts and prayers remain with them and their families, as well as with all those whose lives have been so dreadfully devastated by this conflict.”

He added that it is his “profound hope that they are able to return home to their loved ones and that there is peace in the region.”

Herzog acknowledged the letter during remarks at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem on Thursday.

Charles also reached out to Herzog in the days after the 2023 Hamas attack, which started the ongoing war, and expressed his condolences and “deep shock” at the actions of the “barbaric” Hamas against Israeli citizens.

In January, he visited Auschwitz-Birkenau, laying a wreath in memory of those murdered at the Nazi camp.


Former hostage Agam Berger recounts Remembrance Day in Gaza captivity, memorializes friend
Former hostage Agam Berger, one of the female IDF observers abducted from the Nahal Oz army base on October 7, posted a heartfelt dedication highlighting how Remembrance Day was commemorated while in captivity via an Instagram post.

According to Berger, some of the hostages managed to light a candle for Remembrance Day while in captivity, standing in silence during the siren and even managing to hear the official ceremony despite being held against their will.

Berger’s post also memorialized her slain comrade and close friend, who was killed on October 7 amid the subsequent abductions. Agam Berger memorializes her slain friend, Shirat Yam Amar

Berger’s post apologized to her friend, Shirat Yam Amar, for her death and thanked her for her efforts in saving others.

Her post read:
"A year ago I was in Gaza on Remembrance Day, with no certainty I’d ever come back home. There’s no siren there, there’s no ceremony, there’s no flag at half-mast. There’s fear, darkness, pain, longing.

"I knew Remembrance Day was coming, but there was no way to track time. I didn’t know what day it was. And still, the soul knows. The heart remembers. We lit a candle, stood in silence, and imagined that we were hearing the siren.I said I would tell everyone what happened there, and the memory of you, Shirat, won’t be forgotten.

"For every person who says that on Remembrance Day they want to go to the beach, who thinks we need to "live" and not mourn — you’re wrong. We must live, and we must remember. We must tell the stories of the heroes who gave their lives so we could live. We need to cry, hurt, and feel this pain because that is how we express our gratitude.

"I will carry you with me forever. Your name is engraved on my heart in letters of fire.I miss you every day. Thank you for your bravery. You saved lives.Thanks to you, I came home. I love you ❤️❤️❤️"

"You saved others by deflecting grenades, and thanks to you, we are here,” she added.


David Collier: Violently attacked again. Is it time for me to leave?
A few nights ago violent antisemitic thugs threw an aggressive chemical based substance at my car causing substantial damage. Unlike a previous ‘key’ attack a few weeks ago – that may have arguably (although it wasn’t) been seen as random – this violent escalation is clearly a targeted hate crime directed against a vocal and front line fighter of antisemitism in the United Kingdom.

Strangely though, that is not my biggest problem – nor is this post really about the attack itself. When you take up a fight against bad people – you should expect those bad people to react as bad people do.

A more worrying problem is the wider environment that I find myself fighting inside. I am left wondering just who is on my side and what exactly I am left fighting for? When even the great institutions of the UK are more likely to be standing against British Jews than standing alongside them – is it just time for me to pack up and leave?

The attack
At some point during Saturday night, one or more Jew hating thugs visited my house, maliciously and violently attacking the car parked outside. I am not sure exactly which aggressive chemical substance they used as paint stripper – and the police were not certain either – but I am not sure that detail matters. Working away from home at the time – the surprise of this attack was met by my family on Sunday morning. The car had been targeted from several positions – and the damage covered different parts of the exterior.

There can be no mistake here. My family spent their Sunday talking to the police. This was a targeted hate crime. An attack against me because of my journalism which exposes extremism and antisemitism.

In a normal world
I am in the United Kingdom fighting what I know to be a just, necessary and moral fight. In any sane world, my enemies – the various anti-democratic, life-threatening monsters who all swim in sewers of extremism, conspiracy theory, and anti-Jewish hatred, would also be the enemies of not just the state, but of its institutions, and any decent, intelligent British citizen living within its shores. We should all be invested in the well-being of the democracy and value-driven soul of the UK.
Yisrael Medad: Facing the ideological lies
There are Jews who justify potential anti-Jewish violence. And there are those engaged in the contemporary anti-Zionist effort to deny Israel its right to self-defense and to assure the state’s future from Arab terror and the Iran-led “ring of fire” strangulation. This needs to be understood in historical context.

A new book published last month, The Ideological Lie, has its title based on a 1974 manifesto by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, who wrote Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents. The Soviet dissident called on his readers to evade lies and to walk out of a meeting, lecture or play as soon as he hears the speaker utter “a lie, ideological drivel or shameless propaganda.” Its author, Daniel J. Mahoney, deals with how “modern revolutionaries replaced the age-old distinction between good and evil with the illusory distinction between progress and reaction.” In his perception, “in the name of progress, evil was called goodness, and goodness in the form of wise restraint was labeled evil, backward, racist, colonialist, etc.”

I am unaware of anyone walking out of the Kneecaps sets at the Coachella Festival. Nor those of Saint Levant. For sure, the atmosphere of lies about Israel, Zionism and the situation in Gaza’s Hamastan would have found a home at such a venue. After all, if Harvard, Brown, Cornell, the University of California, Berkeley, and other locations of academic wisdom have become theaters of the absurd, halls of pop music and theaters are surely not immune to false messaging and the ideological lies being spread.

(As a historical aside, the poet Uri Tzvi Greenberg published a poem in early 1924, just four months after arriving in Eretz Yisrael from Berlin. In it, he describes a young chalutz, or “pioneer,” hungry and weary in his tent after a hard day’s work. He is writing to his mother in Europe. Despite the deprivation from which he suffers, he informs her of the beauty of the homeland, flowing with milk and honey, and of the moon over the vineyards. He will not tell her of his poverty, his pains—that he is burned by the day’s heat and at night, he will wash his one shirt for the next day. No, he will write her a “sacred lie” of how all is well and good.)

Israel today is suffering from an onslaught of ideological lies originating, in the main, from an academia captured by a new “true believer” sect. Israel, the state and its Zionism, the philosophy and evidence that provides Jews with their sens de l’existence, in Ludwig Stein’s term (the sociologist who saw that the first stage of social evolution was the period of community) are denied as being possible or justified. Stein saw in the prophetic-biblical dynamic world view of Judaism, with its idea of messianic redemption, utopian society, and the perfectibility of man that lies in the future and not in the remote past, as the ideal of a motive force of progress, as Jacob Haberman asserts. Those touting anti-colonialism place Zionism outside the pale.
The Brief and Wondrous Life of Intersectionality
Crenshaw’s theory and Davis’s activist dimension are now inseparable. George Washington University’s Intersectionality Research Institute describes its eponymous “critical theoretical framework” as “the concept that all oppression is linked and people are often disadvantaged by multiple sources of oppression: their race, class, gender identity, sexual orientation, and religion, just to name a few.” Then–Representative Bush infamously found abstract commonalities between social-justice causes: “The fight for Black lives and the fight for Palestinian liberation are interconnected. We oppose our money going to fund militarized policing, occupation, and systems of violent oppression and trauma.” More broadly, as one prominent activist outfit in Seattle put it, “intersectional organizing” means recognizing that “common enemies, Western imperialism, capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, they all work together.”

Activist intersectionality made progressive politics a team sport. But it led to two nasty habits. It suggested that anyone who wanted to be part of the movement would be subjected to regular purity testing, as in the exhortation that “if your feminism isn’t intersectional,” meaning focused on more than just sexism, “you’re not a feminist.” Ensuring that anyone who agreed with one element of contemporary progressivism agreed with every element affirmed the intersectional principle but made leftism less a political movement and more an inquisitorial mob.

It also led to rampant conspiracy theorizing. By suggesting that the interconnected nature of oppression can be observed in the real world, intersectional activists encouraged a literal interpretation of the interconnectedness of all oppression. And if the various “common enemies” serve one overarching apparatus of oppression, someone or something must be behind it all. In addition to the usual left-wing “enemies”—whites, capitalists, imperialists—vulgar intersectionality tempted its devotees to find one group that could embody all sources of oppression at once. And who could be more white, capitalist, and imperialist than the Jews and the Jewish state?

While Davis’s pro-Soviet left had long invoked conspiracy theories about Israel and its role in supposed Western imperialism, intersectional hatred of Israel took off in the early 2000s. Israel was becoming capitalist and rich, both intersectional no-nos. The violence of the second intifada evoked decolonial efforts like Algerians’ guerrilla warfare against the French, helping solidify the view that Israelis were white Europeans oppressing non-white, Third World Arabs. With no room for nuance in intersectional analysis, the now-familiar terms crystallized: Israel was the oppressor, Palestinians the oppressed. Students would learn that Palestinian liberation is intertwined with other social-justice movements. Gender theorist Judith Butler argued in 2006 that “understanding Hamas, Hezbollah as social movements that are progressive, that are on the Left, that are part of a global Left, is extremely important.” Intersectional thinking fundamentally reframed the way young Americans would analyze the Middle East, positioning Israel not as a nation with its own distinct history, but as part of a global power-relations matrix. And not in a good way.

Anti-Israel fervor still grips groups flying the intersectional flag. (The expression is apt; the Pride Flag, which once represented sexual orientations, has been replaced by the “Progress Pride” Flag, adding symbols of gender and racial identities.) Theories abound in activist fever swamps positing that police brutality in the United States is being directed by the Jews. “The NYPD is in effect a branch of the IDF,” according to a University of Chicago professor of sociology. In Atlanta, protests against a police-training facility in early 2024 descended into half-baked intersectional explanations of how Israel was to blame. “The cops being trained by the IDF is a connection that can’t be overlooked,” said one activist. “The show of force we saw,” when Georgia law enforcement dispersed protesters with rubber bullets, “shows that all our struggles are connected.”

The intersectional left’s response to the October 7 attack brought this grand conspiracy theory into the public eye, mounting an active defense for Jew-hating rapists and murderers. BLM’s Chicago chapter celebrating the image of a Hamas paraglider may have been bad marketing, but BLM was supposed to support Hamas. BLM and Hamas work to overthrow the same “systems.”

Some silences spoke just as loudly. The National Organization for Women, once focused on women’s rights but that now counts among its “core issues” “Racial Justice” and “LGBTQIA+ Rights,” did not issue a statement about Gazans raping Israeli women until six weeks after the attacks. When it finally did, it titled its statement “NOW Condemns the Use of Rape as a Weapon of War” and did not mention the specific incident it was condemning.

Self-proclaimed “Queers for Palestine” have drowned out other rainbow-coalition groups in defending Hamas, whose “heteronormativity” is the stuff of macabre legend. What appeared at first to be cowardice was soon understood as calculated. The intersectional project required not alienating Hamas supporters, lest that complicate intersectionality’s inviolable principle of indivisible justice.

Intersectional politics turned out to be not just untenable—holding together ostensible anti-rape activists and Hamas apologists—but liable to come to morally abhorrent conclusions justified by conspiratorial thinking. More profoundly, intersectional actors’ overwhelmingly siding with Hamas raises the possibility that intersectional theory—which was supposed to fight for the righteous against their oppressors—is at fault. That theory will not die unless we identify it, kill it, and bury it for good.
A cold wind blows through Canada’s Jewish communities
Mark Carney’s leadership means Canadian Jews are unlikely to be able to count on the police to enforce criminal, civil, or constitutional law in ways that protect their rights, freedoms, or safety.

A significant number of Liberal MPs endorsed the so-called “Palestine Platform” before the election – an agenda openly hostile to Israel. Now in power, many more are likely to follow suit.

Carney, characteristically, has been silent on this as well.

As I write this, three days after his victory, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has yet to issue even a perfunctory congratulation. That is extraordinary.

Carney had accused Israel of genocide during the campaign, for which Netanyahu publicly rebuked him. Carney attempted a limp walk-back the next day, claiming he hadn’t heard the “G-word” properly amid the noise of the rally. Not credible, if you examine the full exchange – which I covered here. Otherwise, Carney has said nothing.

That mutual silence between Prime Ministers may seem minor, but in diplomatic terms, it’s seismic.

In Canada, many Jews fear Carney more than Trudeau. He’s far more intelligent, professional and very ideologically driven. With the strong Liberal minority in Parliament, there is already talk of Carney recruiting several MPs from the weakened, socialist New Democratic Party to secure a functioning majority. Should that transpire, one of the NDP’s top agenda items is a policy approach that would make Ireland look soft on Israel.

Carney would likely have to sign on to their Palestine platform which promotes total diplomatic and economic isolation of Israel. And based on his comments to date, he would likely do so without any qualms.

What does it mean for the Jews? For Israel?

It’s bad. Very bad.
Almost all Canadian candidates who signed pro-Palestinian pledge lost
Almost all of the Canadian parliamentary candidates who endorsed the Vote Palestine policy platform lost their district races in the federal election, according to preliminary results, with a total of 25 of the 362 platform-endorsing candidates securing seats, though some defeated their pro-Palestinian peers.

Eighteen of the 28 Liberal Party candidates who endorsed the platform will be part of the 45th parliament, many of them incumbents. Only 10% of the incoming Liberal Party’s 169 MPs endorsed the platform that called for a two-way arms embargo against Israel, Canadian recognition of a Palestinian state, an end to all engagement with Israeli settlements, and a ban on ownership of properties in those towns.

Notable Liberal signatories to the platform include Housing, Infrastructure, and Communities Minister Nate Erskine-Smith and incumbent Burlington North-Milton West MP Adam van Koeverden, the latter of whom made waves during the election campaign after telling potential voters in an April 12 recording that he would use his position to “condemn the genocide and end the genocide in Gaza.”

The use of the term “genocide” in regard to the Israeli operations in the ongoing Israel-Hamas War drew flak as Prime Minister Mark Carney attempted to distance himself from an alleged April 8 gaffe in which he suggested the same and as he dodged challenges on the issue from New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh during debates.Six Liberals endorsed by the Vote Palestine program lost to NDP candidates who had also signed the pledge.

Singh was one of the many NDP candidates who endorsed the Vote Palestine platform and failed to secure their seat in an election that saw a catastrophic fall for the party from 24 to 7 seats, which disqualifies them from having a recognized parliamentary caucus.
Deborah Lipstadt marks 25 years since landmark victory in Holocaust denial case
Deborah Lipstadt fought back tears last night as she reflected on the landmark legal battle that defined her public life and reshaped the fight against Holocaust denial.

Twenty-five years after defeating arch-rival David Irving in a high-profile libel trial, the acclaimed historian returned to London to mark the anniversary of the case in which a British court effectively declared the Shoah to be a matter of legal record.

In April 2000, the High Court judge ruled in Lipstadt’s favour, finding that Irving had intentionally distorted historical evidence and that Lipstadt’s claims that he had done so were substantially true. The trial catapulted Lipstadt to global prominence.

Speaking at a panel hosted by law firm Mishcon de Reya, Lipstadt was reunited with lawyers Anthony Julius and James Libson, who had defended her against Irving’s suit over her 1993 book, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory.

The anniversary panel was chaired by journalist Jonathan Freedland and also included playwright Sir David Hare, who wrote the 2016 film adaptation Denial, in which Lipstadt was portrayed by Rachel Weisz.

“The trial changed my life,” said Lipstadt, who later served as the US Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Antisemitism under President Joe Biden.

She said she was “verklempt” as she marked the anniversary, describing the most moving part of her victory as the reaction from Holocaust survivors. She recalled that one survivor she met in Washington after the trial called her “our Devorah,” meaning warrior. “To be thanked by survivors of Auschwitz for a legal battle, it doesn’t make sense,” Lipstadt added.
New survey finds people holding very negative opinions of Israel are more likely to be antisemitic
A new survey finds “an important minority of Canadians” channel strong negative sentiment towards Israel into negative views of Jews.

Israel Independence Day begins the evening of April 30, marking the Jewish state’s 77th birthday, amid a tide of antisemitism in Canada and elsewhere.

“While people certainly have the right to criticize the government of Israel, it’s a serious problem when it descends into antisemitism,” said Jack Jedwab, the president and CEO of the Association for Canadian Studies and the Metropolis Institute, in an email.

Two surveys by Leger Marketing for the Association for Canadian Studies examine Canadians’ views on Israel, Judaism, and Jews, and explore the connections between opinions of Israel and attitudes toward Judaism and Jews. They also investigate the impact of Holocaust awareness on shaping these attitudes.

Since October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacks triggered the Israel-Hamas conflict, there has been a significant increase in hate crimes targeting Jews across Canada. Of the 1,284 police-reported religion-based hate crimes in Canada in 2023, an alarming 900 targeted Jews, according to the most recent Statistics Canada report.

The first Leger survey, conducted on March 1-2, 2025, asked questions of 1,548 Canadians. The second survey took place between April 17-19 and involved 1,603 Canadians.

One of the findings is that most people who hold a very negative opinion of Israel had the most negative views of Judaism. One survey found that the majority of people holding a negative view of Judaism hold negative views of Jews.
Muslim Association of Britain director called October 7 a lie
The Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) has always denied being an extremist organisation, yet there can be little dispute as to the extremist views of its most “significant” director.

Anas Altikriti, who was president of the MAB from 2004 to 2005, has described the mass slaughter and rape of Israeli citizens on Oct 7 2023 as “a lie” and called the taking of hostages “a very important part” of any “act of resistance”.

The MAB has tried to distance itself from Mr Altikriti, saying he “does not speak for, nor represent the views of the MAB”.

Yet Companies House lists Mr Altikriti as not only a current director of the MAB, but also the only director designated as a “person with significant control” of the organisation.

The MAB was founded by Muhammad Kathem Sawalha, the former Hamas chief, and was one of the groups that organised a pro-Palestine march in London on Armistice Day, a month after the Oct 7 massacre.

In a video recorded with the US imam Tom Facchine in Nov 2023, British Iraqi Mr Altikriti was asked about Hamas’s taking of hostages.

He said: “The taking of hostages is a very important part of any strategic sort of military action or act of resistance or the such because for every hostage you can then negotiate.

“You have personnel who are vital and crucial at least in your thinking and your mind to your adversary, to your enemy, so it’s a negotiating power.

“For the people of Gaza, for Hamas, for the resistance, call them as you may, a hostage is very, very valuable, and therefore they will be looked after, they will be cared for, they will be cared for even more than the actual citizens of Gaza simply because they provide cover for the resistance, they provide a negotiating card once the battle arrives at a point where people are sitting around the table or talking at least about some sort of deal.

“Therefore those hostages were taken by Hamas in order to negotiate more freedoms, more rights, the breakout of this prison that we call Gaza, this concentration camp that we call Gaza.”
Dan Goldman: Democrats shouldn’t make antisemitic visa holders into ‘martyrs’
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) warned that some on the left are focusing too heavily on individuals who have espoused antisemitic views and are being targeted by the Trump administration for deportation, and that Democrats should be directing more attention towards the Americans still held hostage by Hamas in Gaza.

“We are seeing, because of Donald Trump’s overreach, that people who have espoused antisemitism are becoming martyrs, and that scares me,” Goldman said at a Jewish Democratic Council of America conference in Washington on Thursday. “Because we should be talking about the five American hostages in Gaza who have been there for a year and a half, who were abducted by a terrorist group and are deceased in four of the cases, unfortunately, but one, Edan Alexander, remains alive.”

Goldman, a co-chair of the House antisemitism task force, continued, “if we allow our party to focus so much on these detentions of people who have espoused antisemitism and we’re not talking about these hostages who have truly been treated as horribly as anybody and are American, in the five cases, we’re losing the forest for the trees.”

Jewish Democrats, Goldman argued, must lead the charge on that issue. Goldman was speaking on a panel alongside former Rep. Kathy Manning (D-NC), Goldman’s predecessor as task force co-chair.

He also said that the “overreach by Donald Trump allows many to avoid discussing the real antisemitism that is out there on the left,” emphasizing that Democrats need to call out those on their own side of the political aisle even as they see major concerns with the administration hiring individuals who have espoused antisemitic and white supremacist views.
Mohsen Mahdawi allegedly said ‘I like to kill Jews,’ per court filing
Anti-Israel activist Mohsen Mahdawi, who was released from federal custody on Wednesday per a ruling of the U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont, allegedly told a Vermont gun shop owner in 2015 that he used to build weapons in Judea and Samaria to kill Jews, per a court filing.

Over two visits to the gun shop, Mahdawi, who led anti-Israel protests at Columbia University in 2024, told the owner that he wanted to learn more about firearms and to buy a sniper rifle and an automatic weapon, according to the owner.

The shop owner, who contacted the police about the visits, said that Mahdawi told him that he “had considerable firearm experience and used to build modified 9mm submachine guns to kill Jews while he was in Palestine,” per court documents.

The shop owner also informed police that he had heard from a frequent customer that Mahdawi had made other troubling comments. Mahdawi told the customer, during a visit to a museum in Windsor, “I like to kill Jews,” the customer told the owner.

According to court documents, FBI agents questioned Mahdawi in November 2015 about the incident, and the bureau subsequently closed the investigation.


Josh Hammer: Harvard is Hamas-occupied territory
On October 7, 2023, Hamas jihadists committed an unspeakably evil atrocity against Jews living in Israel. Within hours of the Nazi-like pogrom, nearly three dozen separate groups of Harvard University students blamed the Jews for it.

Did the Harvard “Students for Justice in Palestine” (SJP) chapter have, as a recently filed lawsuit alleges the Columbia SJP chapter had, advance knowledge of the massacre? (Columbia SJP has denied the allegations). Inquiring minds would certainly like to know.

But these days, Harvard is not a hospitable place for free inquiry.

Don’t get me wrong: Harvard certainly thinks of itself as a bastion of free inquiry. That was the moral high ground Harvard attempted to claim in its recent denunciation of the Trump administration’s attempt to enforce civil rights on campus. And that was the moral high ground Harvard again attempted to claim this week, when it released its much-anticipated report on campus anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias. In the report, Harvard purports to lament the rise of post-October 7 campus Jew-hatred, but it deigns to offer only toothless and symbolic suggestions for what to actually do about it.

Harvard cannot claim to care about the plight of Jews on its campus while simultaneously suing for its “right” to bilk the American taxpayer while appearing to defy the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It’s really that simple. Some circles just can’t be squared.

The reality is that the Harvard Americans once knew has been occupied. Once upon a time, Harvard held a privileged place in the minds of decent and intelligent Americans – a shining intellectual city on a hill. But in recent years, it seems to have been – first intellectually and then, literally, physically – occupied by an alliance of radical Islamists and far-Left Marxists, with the apparent approval of liberals who will rush to defend anything out of their own Jew-hatred and/or Trump-hatred.

It can be difficult to figure out the paranoid, irritable reactionary gestures that pass for liberal political thought these days.

But here is what’s not hard to figure out: the facts. The Harvard Kennedy School had an alleged financier of Hamas – a man accused of helping to fund the tunnels used for the October 7 attack – on its Dean’s Council (he has denied the allegations). In its negotiations with the Trump administration, Harvard has literally threatened to kill lab animals.


Denounced, Cursed, and Ghosted: What Harvard’s Antisemitism Report Found
Harvard University released its long-overdue report on campus antisemitism exactly 10 days after Trump officials demanded to see it. The findings are disturbing.

Nearly 60 percent of Jewish students at Harvard said they had experienced “discrimination, stereotyping, or negative bias on campus due to [their] views on current events,” according to the 311-page report. The report said that 73 percent of Jewish students expressed discomfort sharing their political opinions, while 75 percent believed there was an “academic or professional penalty” for expressing their views at Harvard.

Jewish students also said they had concealed their identity from classmates and been ghosted by longtime friends for expressing sympathy for Israel—or for appearing in Instagram posts with those who did. Jewish students at Harvard also reported choosing to “avoid certain degree programs, classes, and panel discussions sponsored by various departments and centers at Harvard because of antisemitism.”

The antisemitism report was based on what Harvard described as 50 “listening sessions” with a total of about 500 students, faculty, and staff, as well as 2,295 responses to an online survey, including 477 students, faculty, and staff who identified themselves as Jewish.

Harvard’s antisemitism task force had originally said it would publish its findings in the “early fall” of 2024. On April 19, Trump officials demanded that they be sent any reports written by the task force, any drafts of those reports, and the names of anyone involved in “preparing and editing the report,” The Free Press reported exclusively.

Harvard is suing the Trump administration to halt a $2.2 billion funding freeze after the university rejected demands for sweeping changes in governance, hiring, and admissions. It is the biggest clash in a growing showdown over academic freedom and federal funding of higher education.

The report was released on the same day as a separate, 222-page Harvard report on anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian bias. That report cited a faculty member who said, “The idea of ‘antisemitism’ has been expanded so much that anything that even remotely expresses concern about the calamity that’s facing Palestinians is prohibited at Harvard.”

Ruth Wisse, a former Harvard professor of Yiddish and comparative literature, said that releasing the two reports at the same time revealed what Harvard really thinks about its antisemitism problem: It doesn’t have one.

“If they don’t see the two reports as a contrast, not a similarity, if they don’t see that, then what?” she said. “It is so preposterous to do these two reports as if there’s some kind of equivalency.”


Christopher F. Rufo: “We Can’t Hire a White Guy”—a Professor on Life at Princeton
In 2020, Princeton president Christopher Eisgruber made headlines for declaring the university guilty of “systemic racism.” He meant systemic racism against racial minorities, but in truth, Eisgruber’s institution has practiced the opposite: systematically discriminated against supposed “oppressors,” like whites and males.

Though most Princeton faculty support Eisgruber’s “anti-racism” policy, a faction of dissenters—a few dozen in number—has grown bolder in recent months. In these professors’ telling, Princeton’s president is a vengeful administrator who punishes anyone who questions DEI orthodoxy. They have worked behind the scenes to assemble evidence of his discriminatory policies and hope the Trump administration will restore the principle of colorblind equality on campus.

I sat down with one of these professors for a wide-ranging discussion about anti-Semitism, radical ideologies, and DEI at Princeton. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Christopher Rufo: Harvard and Columbia have drawn the most attention for radical ideologies and anti-Semitism on campus. Set the stage for what’s happening here at Princeton.

Professor: Anti-Semitism is really a symptom of a deeper malaise at Princeton, which is that the university decided to go woke and—as President Eisgruber wrote in the last few months of the first Trump administration—declare that we were “systemically racist.” But if we have been systemically racist, it’s been against whites, Jews, Asians, and Indians, in favor of other demographics. We’ve always been told that we have to give special treatment to women and certain demographic minorities.

At one point, I was a “search officer” in my department. When our department was going to make a hire, a search committee was constituted. A search officer has access to demographic data that the search committee does not have and can look at the short list and then look at the demographic data and say, “I think you should maybe consider this person or that person,” i.e., people who belong to certain groups.

In one meeting of search officers, we were told that 70 percent of the faculty are white, and that the faculty composition has to change to reflect the composition of the class of Princeton, which they themselves had curated. Having engineered the class a certain way, they wanted then to engineer the faculty.

I have a colleague in the sciences, and he was told by the department, “You can’t shortlist this person. We can’t hire a white guy.” This colleague went to the chair, who was Jewish, and said to him, “In the 1930s, that’s what they used to say about Jews here at Princeton: ‘We couldn’t hire them because they’re Jewish.’”

Everyone knows, but academics are cowards. They see the way the wind is blowing and either go quiet or jump on the bandwagon.
A Look Inside the Harvard Anti-Semitism Report
Harvard recently released the 311-page report of its Task Force on Combating Anti-Semitism and Anti-Israeli Bias. In addition, it released the results of a series of surveys of students conducted last fall, containing data perhaps even more damning with regard to the situation of Jews on campus. Ira Stoll writes:

The data are buried in the tables of the appendix of the survey report, but they are pretty dramatic. . . . According to Harvard’s own internal survey research, Jewish students are substantially worse off at Harvard than other students, when it comes to matters that are pretty central to a university educational experience.

Thus, for instance, 68.1 percent of students agree with the statement, “I felt comfortable expressing my opinions to others at Havard,” but only 47.5 percent of Jewish students felt comfortable doing so. And then there’s the actual anti-Semitism report, which, Stoll writes, is “largely constructive” but “of uneven quality.” He highlights some key points:

The report goes into a lot of detail about an annual trip the Divinity School’s Religion and Public Life Program organized to Israel and the West Bank that the school’s own staff described publicly in writing as having the purpose of “denoting the urgent need to dezionize Jewish consciousness.” The report says, “Setting out in an instructional program to ‘dezionize’ the ‘consciousness’ of Jewish students is to craft instruction to target students based on their religious identity.”

I was disappointed by some other sections of the report. . . . The Kennedy School’s Carr Center gets a total pass, as does the Kennedy School class where a final project was convincing your classmates to attend a boycott-Israel rally and the instructor posed with the students for pictures in keffiyehs.

In one passage, the report blames Israeli military action for Harvard anti-Semitism.


Brandeis Center sues anti-Israel activists in federal court over Jew-hatred at UCLA, Columbia
In recent months, colleges and universities have been sued in court and undergone federal probes for alleged inaction protecting Jews on campus. Two federal lawsuits, which the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and others filed on Friday, target different defendants—individuals accused of setting up anti-Israel encampments and carrying out antisemitic attacks and making threats at UCLA and Columbia University.

“This is not just hate-filled students spewing ugliness,” Kenneth L. Marcus, chair of the Brandeis Center, told JNS. “This is a network of outside organizations working with students and faculty to engage in significant criminal behavior.”

“It is necessary here not just to hold the university accountable but to go after the perpetrators directly,” Marcus said.

Marcus told JNS that the campus Jew-hatred, which occurred at UCLA and Columbia, is part of an “international effort to bring Hamas’s terror agenda to the United States.”

“What we’re dealing with in these two cases is clearly a national and international problem, which we will continue to fight not just on these campuses, but elsewhere,” he said. “We will be fighting anti-Zionist criminals wherever they are operating, using the tools of civil litigation.”

It would be “entirely appropriate” for government agencies to involve themselves, “because what we have identified is not just a matter of civil wrongdoing but also criminality,” Marcus said. The center’s findings raise “questions about the corporate status and tax-exempt status of some of these groups,” he said.
Cambridge University investigates senior researcher who dubbed Chief Rabbi ‘Israeli Nazi’ and called October 7 ‘an act of resistance’
The University of Cambridge has said it is investigating one of its senior researchers who called the Chief Rabbi an “Israeli Nazi”, described October 7 as an “act of resistance”, and said antisemitism is a “fake problem”.

Edward Tomasz Napierała, a software engineer in the department of computer science and technology at the top institution, made the comments on his public X account.

In one post from April 2024, Napierała – whose LinkedIn says he has worked at Cambridge since 2017 – equated “Jews in 2024” with “German Nazis in 1945”.

“Do you know how Nazis argue about differences fascism and Nazism? You’re doing it now,” Napierała wrote in response to another X account.

“Everyone know [sic] what you did. Jews in 2024 are German Nazis in 1945. Your children will have to live with this stigma. And some of you will, hopefully, get hunted like German Nazis did.”

The JC was alerted to the researcher’s online activity by investigative research group Gnasher Jew.

In a tweet from June 2024, Napierała called the attacks of October 7, 2023, which saw around 1,200 killed and 250 taken hostage, “an act of resistance”.
George Washington U bans SJP one year for hosting ‘unapproved events’
George Washington University has banned the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine until May 2026 for hosting “unapproved events,” reported the student newspaper, The GW Hatchet.

The suspension forces SJP to cease activities on and off campus until May 18, 2026, and not to associate with GW in “any capacity.” Members are allowed to meet only to complete sanctions, including serving disciplinary probation, or talk with their academic advisor.

The decision came after SJP was issued a temporary suspension ahead of a planned “Palestine Liberation Week” for allegedly blocking university officials from attending programming, the Hatchet reported.

In 2023, SJP was issued a three-month suspension after projecting anti-Israel messages on the school’s library, including “Glory to our Martyrs,” less than one month after the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

SJP also took part in the university’s pro-Palestinian tent encampment in 2024 and was subsequently placed on probation by the university. During one of the protests, more than 100 demonstrators chanted, “Hitler, Hitler, go back home, Palestine is ours alone.”


Palestinian security prisoners can be referred to as ‘hostages’ in UK reporting, regulator rules
The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) has been hit by a wave of criticism since the press regulator ruled that Palestinian security prisoners held by Israel can be referred to as “hostages,” The Telegraph reported on Wednesday.

IPSO’s decision came after an article was published in the Scottish newspaper The National with a headline claiming that “hundreds of Palestinian hostages” were released by Israel - a reference to the latest ceasefire-hostage deal between Israel and Hamas.

The organization claimed the description of the prisoners as hostages, many of whom were members of Hamas, was “subjective.”

BBC News, which is covered by a different regulator, issued an on-air correction for referring to the prisoners as “hostages.”

IPSO’s ruling followed a complaint by Adam Levick, the UK co-editor of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting.

Levick said that describing the prisoners as hostages “puts on equal moral footing” the hostages abducted during Hamas’s October 7 massacre and Palestinian terrorists.

Many of the over 250 people initially abducted by Hamas were civilians, some children.


Turkey: Sweeping Arrests, Torture, Censorship
On March 19, just days before the March 23 primaries of Turkey's main opposition party, the Republican People's Party (CHP), Istanbul's Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu -- the CHP's leading candidate who was thought by many possibly to win the next presidential election against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan -- was arrested on contested charges of "corruption and terrorism."

A day earlier, on March 18, Imamoglu's university degree was revoked, "citing 'nullity' and 'clear error' as grounds for cancellation... The decision affects Imamoglu and 27 other individuals whose academic credentials have now been invalidated...."

"All of the detainees, absolutely all of them, were tortured terribly while being detained. They were tortured terribly in the detention vehicle, while being taken to Gayrettepe [police station]. There are young people among them who are in really bad shape. What is terrible is that there is nothing [as evidence against them] in their investigation files, not even a photo against them. ..... [T]hese are revenge trials. The prosecutors who took testimonies of detainees yesterday, today do not talk with the lawyers, in any way... This is not a [proper] judiciary." — Sezgin Tanrıkulu, MP from the CHP opposition party, March 27, 2025.

Meanwhile, Erdogan's regime has arrested many dissident journalists and continues to apply financial and judicial pressure on media outlets that refuse to operate as mouthpieces for the regime.

"There was no chance for a defense.... The decision appears prepared beforehand." — Elif Taşdöğen, attorney, medyanews.net, January 22, 2025.

Meanwhile, the government continues to pardon and release imprisoned Turkish Hizbullah terrorists.

The Erdogan regime's support for Islamic terror groups such as Hamas and ISIS (Islamic State) is also well-documented.....

Meanwhile, do Europeans really want the possibility of up to 87 million more Turkish citizens flooding Europe?
Dissidents Accuse Iran of ‘Covering Up’ True Death Toll from Port Explosion
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a dissident group based in Europe, has accused the regime in Tehran of lying about the true death toll from the massive explosions at the port of Bandar Abbas on Saturday.

According to NCRI, the regime is desperate to conceal both the cause of the explosion and the lethal incompetence of their response.

“The true death toll is several times higher than officially reported and certainly exceeds 100,” NCRI president Maryam Rajavi said on Sunday.

“The IRGC, intelligence forces, and other organs of repression have mobilized – not to contain the fires or rescue the wounded – but to control the situation and cover up the shipment of solid fuel for ballistic missiles and the full scale of the disaster,” Rajavi charged.

The IRGC is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the theocratically-controlled wing of the Iranian military. The IRGC is a designated terrorist organization that frequently uses force to terrorize Iranian citizens into obedience.

Bandar Abbas, located in southern Iran, is home to the most important container shipping port in the country. A titanic explosion ripped through the port on Saturday, starting fires that were still burning days later.

The incident reminded many observers of the August 2020 blast at the Port of Beirut in Lebanon, a disaster for which the dysfunctional Lebanese government has yet to hold anyone responsible. The blast was almost certainly caused by poorly-stored explosive material belonging to the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah.

As Rajavi indicated, international investigators suspect a similar situation occurred in Bandar Abbas. The regime mumbled something about poorly secured industrial chemicals, and vaguely hinted that foreign sabotage might have played a role.

“Our security services are on high alert given past instances of attempted sabotage and assassination operations designed to provoke a legitimate response,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Wednesday.


Trump Admin Targets $500-Million Iranian Smuggling Network in Fresh Batch of Sanctions
The Trump administration announced wide-ranging sanctions Wednesday on a vast Iranian oil smuggling network that has generated "hundreds of millions of dollars in illicit funds for Iran's destabilizing activities," according to information provided by the State Department.

The sanctions target five United Arab Emirates-based companies, a Turkish petrochemical supplier, an Iranian cargo firm, and two ships known to ferry Tehran’s illicit petroleum products to foreign markets like that of China. The State Department views the sanctions, some of the furthest-reaching to date, as key to "driving Iran’s illicit oil and petrochemical exports—including exports to China—to zero," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.

The companies the State Department singled out in Wednesday's sanctions have smuggled nearly $500 million in illicit petrochemical and petroleum products on Iran’s behalf, enabling the hardline regime to "advance its nuclear program and support its terrorist partners and proxies," including Hamas, Hezbollah, and Yemen’s Houthi rebels, according to Foggy Bottom.

Wednesday’s measures come on the heels of at least 16 other Iran-centric sanctions packages since President Donald Trump took office in January. The administration intends to cripple Tehran’s international oil smuggling operations, which generated upwards of $200 billion during the Biden administration, while pursuing diplomatic talks with the Islamic Republic with the goal of rolling back Iran’s nuclear weapons program.


Dachau unveils memorial honoring US troops on 80th anniversary of liberation
Eighty years to the day after the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp in Germany, a new memorial plaque was unveiled Wednesday to honor the U.S. Army’s 45th Infantry Division, which freed the camp’s survivors on April 29, 1945.

The ceremony took place at the former Jourhaus gatehouse of the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site, the Bavarian Memorial Foundation said in a statement.

Speakers at the dedication included Karl Freller, director of the Foundation; James Miller, U.S. Consul General in Munich; and Brig. Gen. Steven P. Carpenter of the 7th Army Training Command. Holocaust survivor Abba Naor and retired Sgt. Maj. Charles Giddens, representing the 45th Infantry Division Association, were also in attendance.

Following the unveiling, guests gathered in the memorial’s cinema hall for a staged reading titled “But It Was True: We Were Free.” Performed by students from the Bavarian International School, the program drew from letters, diaries and testimonies of survivors and liberators, offering a poignant account of the events surrounding the camp’s liberation. Gabriele Hammermann, director of the Dachau Memorial Site, introduced the performance.

The event marked the start of a series of commemorations in May, the month in which much of Western Europe was liberated from Nazi rule in 1945. A central memorial ceremony is scheduled for May 4 to honor both the victims of Dachau and the soldiers who freed them.
Argentina declassifies 1,850 documents about Nazi activities in the country
The Argentinian government has declassified a series of important documents about Nazis and their activities in Argentina, as well as secret and classified presidential decrees from 1957 to 2005. This includes many documents pertaining to the lives of Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele in the South American country.

The documents were made available to the general public this week via the Argentinian National Archives (AGN). Prior to this move, the documentation related to the activities of Nazi leaders in Argentina could only be viewed in a specially designated room at the National Archives. Now, anyone can access it online and download it from anywhere in the country or around the world.

The release of the documentation was requested by President Javier Milei in February of this year.

Argentina’s archives on Nazi activities consist of approximately 1,850 documentary pieces, all of which have been transferred to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which is currently investigating Credit Suisse’s ties to Nazism.

Mengele in Argentina
The documents are focused on the activities of several prolific Nazis who fled to the country following the collapse of the Third Reich. These include Josef Mengele, Adolf Eichmann, Ante Pavelić, Josef Schwammberger, Eduard Roschmann, Gustav Wagner, Walter Kutschmann, Martin Bormann, and Klaus Barbie.

Among the files are ones relating to infamous Nazi doctor and “Angel of Death” Mengele’s stay in the country, including his police record, newspaper clippings referring to him, photographs, and security reports.

Mengele, who entered Argentina on June 22, 1949, under the alias Helmut Gregor, later applied for a new ID card, including reverting to his actual name and surname on November 26, 1955. Following the restoration of his identity, Mengele traveled to Uruguay to marry his brother’s widow, and the two returned to live in Argentina.
Key committee Republicans say AAA can’t move forward with new amendments
Multiple Republicans on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee said that they will not support moving the Antisemitism Awareness Act forward in its current form after Democrats and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) voted to add controversial amendments to the bill in a committee meeting on Wednesday.

“Rand Paul totally killed that bill,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) told Jewish Insider, offering an unequivocal “no” when asked if he would still support the legislation.

The votes on advancing the bill and a second campus antisemitism-related bill out of committee was postponed after the amendment process ran out the two-hour time limit on the committee meeting.

“There were some really bad amendments added, in my opinion,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said. “Certainly the fact that the final vote was canceled is unfortunate. I’ve got to tell you, I thought those two bills were going to fly through without trouble.”

Collins, who was chairing another Senate hearing for most of the HELP meeting, voted by proxy for two amendments.

Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) had harbored concerns about the legislation potentially infringing upon free speech rights, but had worked with Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), the committee’s chair, to add language more explicitly stating the preexisting protections in the legislation for First Amendment-protected speech and religion.

“These amendments are dealbreakers,” Marshall told JI.
Senate committee hearing highlights antisemitism’s toll on older Jews
The Senate Aging Committee convened a hearing on Wednesday on the recent surge in domestic antisemitism and its impact on older Americans.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), the committee’s chairman, said in his opening statement that he organized the hearing to highlight the fear permeating elderly Jewish communities in Florida and nationwide. “Older Jewish Americans overwhelmingly recognize the increasing threat of antisemitism. In fact, according to the American Jewish Committee’s 2024 State of Antisemitism in America report, 96% of Jewish Americans over the age of 65 recognize that antisemitism is a problem in the U.S. today,” Scott said.

“These statistics are not just numbers. They represent lives, families, and communities being impacted by fear and violence. Beyond the statistics, elderly Jewish individuals have faced direct acts of aggression,” he continued, pointing to reports of “elderly Jewish individuals being harassed in public, attacked at protests and even killed in antisemitic incidents.”

Witnesses at the hearing included David Schaecter, president of the Holocaust Survivors Foundation USA (HSF); Rabbi Mark Rosenberg, a Florida law enforcement chaplain and director of Chesed Shel Emes Florida; American Jewish Committee CEO Ted Deutch; and Rebecca Federman, senior director of the security desk for the Community Security Initiative.

Schaecter detailed his harrowing experience surviving two Nazi concentration camps during World War II, the antisemitism he encountered in the years after escaping (while being transported to a third camp) and his work promoting Holocaust education after emigrating to the United States.

“Survivors suffer from extreme physical and mental-health challenges due to the long-term effects of starvation, beatings, disease, malnutrition and the murders of our loved ones. I am here to remind everyone that there are still thousands of survivors alive today who are in desperate need, and who cannot be forgotten,” Schaecter said in his introductory remarks, going on to tout his support for the HEAR Act “and other legislation that will enable families to recover their property from those who still want to profit from the Holocaust.”

Federman testified that she had found through her work that “campuses are no longer just centers of First Amendment-protected protest. While not all campuses have seen the same level of protest activity, harassment, and intimidation of Jewish students, in some cases, campuses have become launchpads for violence and hate.”


Oklahoma House of Representatives passes bills combating Jew-hatred
The Oklahoma state House of Representatives passed two antisemitism awareness bills on Thursday aimed at combating and defining Jew-hatred within the state and its education systems.

The bills were sponsored by state representative Emily Gise and state senator Kristen Thompson, both Republicans. Thompson authored both bills in the state Senate.

“These pieces of legislation intentionally focus on clarifying what antisemitism looks like, because for too long, this community has lived in a space of uncertainty without clear protections,” Gise said. “Oklahoma is taking a firm, unapologetic stand: hate has no home here.”

The bills, supported by the Combat Antisemitism movement, use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.

The first bill, SB 942, which passed by a 56-29 vote, requires public schools and higher education institutions to integrate the IHRA definition into codes of conduct and to provide antisemitism awareness training for faculty, students and staff.

It also allows the Oklahoma State Department of Education to use the definition for determining Title VI violations related to antisemitism.

The second bill, SB 991, approved by a 62-24 vote, adopts the IHRA definition into state law.


Israel Independence Day: 1948 calls out to a broken 2025
OUR SOCIETY seems too distant from achdut (unity) to merely preach it without offering a feasible path toward it. Perhaps we should begin with a more modest goal. If we can’t all align ideologically and religiously, let us at least cultivate loyalty toward one another.

Loyalty calls a person to act with commitment to others, placing shared values above personal agendas and needs. Loyalty is more than an emotional bond or ideological agreement; it is a deep, unwavering duty that binds us to each other and to our shared destiny.

We must remain loyal to our past and the expectations it carries. We have been entrusted with the opportunity to live in Israel, a vision that previous generations could only dream of. If we stood in 1948 next to those who fought for a state they weren’t sure would ever materialize, they would demand our loyalty to their vision, asking us to endure hardships just as they did, and to bear the burdens they never imagined we would carry.

The 600,000 Jews of Israel in 1948 would ask us to be loyal to the nearly eight million who live in 2025 and share one common battle. No one in Israel should envision building a state solely for their own group or ideology.

Perhaps, over decades or even centuries, we will merge into a singular ideology and culture, but that will take time. Until then, Israel will remain a vibrant mosaic of differing ethnicities, religious levels, and political views. The only true constants are our shared past and our collective future.

As fortunate custodians of both the land and Jewish history, we are called to account for our actions and, perhaps more importantly, our words. Encountering differing opinions can stir great frustration, a frustration that intensifies in times of war and tragedy. Instead of striving for an idealized unity, perhaps loyalty to one another is a more attainable goal.

We are sailing together on the same ship of history, and without shared purpose and collective effort we will struggle to move forward.
What Americans Should Learn from Israel’s Independence Day
As is the case in America, intense partisan passions have brought increasing political polarization in Israel. Yet today’s celebrations of Independence Day, writes Gil Troy, can be expected to be unifying and patriotic. America, Troy writes, could learn something from Israel’s example:

At 8 p.m. on Wednesday, when Israel’s flag is raised at Mount Herzl’s national cemetery, . . . Israelis will have been bonding culturally, patriotically, and existentially for eighteen intense days already. . . . On April 24, Yom HaShoah—Holocaust Remembrance Day—the country froze in place for two minutes at 10 a.m., memorializing 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis. Earlier on Wednesday, Yom Ha-Zikaron—Memorial Day—sirens again united Israelis in mourning the fallen in wars and during terror attacks. That includes Jews, Arabs, Druze, and Bedouin.

The country is enveloped in flags, and during both memorial days, a deep mourning. Honoring those who have been murdered, regular television programming stops. Cafes, restaurants, theaters, and sports arenas close. Millions light memorial candles. . . . . [S]tanding still for sirens represents a remarkable ability to mute partisanship and act in concert.

Each communal ritual, along with Independence Day barbecues, fireworks, hikes, concerts, and sing-alongs, updates a wise Jewish insight with Zionist actions.

And, in the frequent singing of the national anthem, “Hatikvah” (meaning “The Hope”), always standing at attention, Israelis concentrate on their national mission: “to live as a free people in our homeland, the land of Zion.”




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

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