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Wednesday, May 21, 2025

05/21 Links Pt2: The Politics of Being Israeli; The ugly truth is that ‘pro-Palestinian’ now means antisemitic; ‘Jewish Simpsons’ Holocaust mural defaced in Milan

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: The Politics of Being Israeli
The war in Gaza was the reason that many Israel-haters called for the Jewish state’s exclusion from the contest in the first place. But the call to judge the performance itself based on the home country’s politics is a funny one. The suggestion is that Raphael’s song didn’t deserve to be rated so highly because she is Israeli. “United by music” indeed.

This isn’t a Eurovision-specific problem. Recently, two very different bands have faced show cancellations in Europe. Comparing their respective “crimes” is instructive.

First there is Kneecap, an Irish rap trio. At Coachella, Kneecap sought to maximize the goodwill of the audience with an anti-Israel backdrop. That succeeded in drawing attention to the group, at which point it was discovered that the trio has in the past encouraged its audience to “kill your local MP”—according to Kneecap, “the only good Tory is a dead Tory”—and turned one concert into an explicit rally of support for Hamas and Hezbollah.

Kneecap had a few gigs cancelled by venues after that. The band received a warm rush of support, however, from across the music world. An open letter backing Kneecap and supporting artistic freedom was signed by Paul Weller and dozens of others in the industry. Kneecap, many believed, should be forgiven their incitement to mass murder and their public support for proscribed terrorists in the name of art.

But not everyone gets that artistic license. Another band hit with cancellations was the duo of Jonny Greenwood and Dudu Tassa. Greenwood is a member of Radiohead, which refuses to boycott Israel. The band has long been subject to harassment campaigns for its willingness to play in front of Israelis.

Two of their planned shows, in Bristol and London, were cancelled after a Palestinian activist group drummed up what one venue described as “credible threats” that led the proprietors “to conclude that it’s not safe to proceed.”

Tassa was born in Israel. Greenwood is married to an Israeli. I have not seen a rousing statement on their behalf from Paul Weller.

So if you’re following along: One band had shows cancelled for threatening the lives of elected officials; the other had shows cancelled because their lives were being threatened. In both cases, the threats were coming from “pro-Palestinians.” Those responsible for the threats received widespread support from the music industry.

In Europe, it is considered politically provocative for an Israeli to have been born. It is considered slightly less politically provocative to threaten to murder that Israeli.
Top UK Klezmer group has Bristol gig cancelled due to Israeli band members
One of the UK’s best-known klezmer bands has informed fans that a venue has cancelled its concert this evening due to some of its members being Israeli.

Oi Va Voi, which formed in London more than two decades ago, announced that the Strange Brew in Bristol had cancelled their appearance “due to pressure it had received from activist groups, who contacted the venue making untrue or misguided claims about ourselves and Oi Va Voi’s music.”

The band stated that those who had called for its cancellation “have clearly not listened to our output, or seen us perform. They are taking one fact, the ethnicity of some of our members, and using it as evidence for damning accusations about our beliefs and our right to perform in our home country.

“We believe this is a clear case of discrimination, and the tactics of intimidation are identical to those used by far-right groups across the world.”

All information regarding the concert had been removed from the Strange Brew’s website.

The band also called on the Government to “pay closer attention to the increase of ethnically-based censorship of the arts in the UK”, citing recently cancelled concerts featuring Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead and Israeli singer Dudu Tassa.

Drafting new legislation would help to protect venues from intimidation from pressure groups,” they said.
Jonathan Tobin: The ugly truth is that ‘pro-Palestinian’ now means antisemitic
Gaslighting the Jews
Yet for so-called progressives, this is not just the thin edge of the wedge of right-wing Trumpian authoritarianism. In order to discredit Heritage, those supporting this antisemitic surge are seeking to gaslight the country and tell us that the people trying to defend Jews are the real antisemites.

That’s the substance not only of the Times’ slanted news coverage of this issue but also of the writings of some of its left-wing columnists, like Michelle Goldberg. She hasn’t made any secret about her own version of “criticism” of Israel, which involves not just falsely labeling its democratically elected government as authoritarian but invoking opposition to Zionism and its existence as a Jewish state. In a gob-smacking analogy, Goldberg claims those behind Project Esther, like the admirable Heritage scholar Victoria Coates, are somehow akin to antisemites of the past like those who favored appeasement of the Nazis such as Charles Lindbergh.

What Goldberg disingenuously ignores is that organizations like Heritage, and even leaders like Trump, are the ones fighting to save “the liberal culture that allowed Jews to thrive” in the United States, not the “pro-Palestinians.” It is progressives like her and other anti-Zionists who seek to destroy that culture and replace it with woke leftist ideologies that, as we’ve seen since Oct. 7, condone and justify antisemitism.

Part of that involves smearing Christians who support Israel as antisemites who only want to bring on Armageddon, as did Detroit Free Press editorial page editor Nancy Kaffer, who echoed the Times’ disgraceful attack on Project Esther as being linked to Jew-hatred.

Boiled down to its essence, the leftist critique involves a willingness to see those who oppose the murder, rape and kidnapping of Jews, and the destruction of the Jewish state, as bad people who should be viewed with distrust. At the same time, they want us to believe that those “pro-Palestinian” advocates are not haters of Israel and the Jews, even though they celebrate or rationalize Oct. 7 and oppose efforts to prevent Hamas from repeating its crimes.

The label “pro-Palestinian” is equally dishonest.

Anyone who wishes the Palestinian Arabs well would want them to be free of the rule of Islamists like Hamas, a terrorist group that preaches endless war on Jews and Israel. Genuine friends of the Palestinians would welcome Hamas’s destruction and call for it to release all the remaining hostages it took on Oct. 7, and to surrender. Those who wished the German people well in 1945 would not have called for a ceasefire with the Nazis that would allow the Adolf Hitler regime to survive World War II, but urged a swift Allied victory that would allow for that country to be rebuilt as a democracy. Still, that’s what Project Esther’s critics at the Times and elsewhere are doing with respect to the baby-killers and criminals of Hamas, as well as opposition to Israel’s justified campaign to defeat them.

Advocates for genocide
In this context, it’s clear that the functional meaning of “pro-Palestinian” in 2025 America has nothing to do with the welfare of the residents of Gaza. A “pro-Palestinian” is now someone who opposes Israel’s existence and supports, whether openly or tacitly, Hamas’s murderous war to destroy it. Though they mendaciously label Israel as perpetrating a genocide of Palestinian Arabs, they are the ones advocating for the genocide of Israeli Jews.

It is a sad fact that Palestinian nationalism, whether the version exemplified by Hamas or the equally intransigent one displayed by the Palestinian Authority, is inextricably tied to a century-old war on the Jews that they stubbornly refuse to end. The same is true of those who support them from afar by labeling Israel’s existence as illegitimate. It would be better for all concerned if this weren’t so. But it is now undeniable that those who claim the title of “pro-Palestinian” are indistinguishable from antisemites in their rhetoric and intentions.

Liberal Jews who dislike Trump because of partisan leanings and who distrust Heritage for the same reasons should not be deceived by the effort to convince them to reject Project Esther and the administration’s long-overdue enforcement of the law to protect Jewish students. Project Esther is no conspiratorial threat to democracy. Instead, it is a much-needed clarion call for ridding colleges and universities of Jew-hatred that deserves to be cheered by those who care about Jewish safety. Its opponents are a clear and present danger to Jewish life that should be labeled for who they are: the allies and fellow travelers of a pro-terrorist movement that seeks Jewish genocide.
A Pastor’s Attack on the Jewish State and the Jewish Religion
In Christ in the Rubble, Munther Isaac, a Lutheran pastor from Bethlehem, presents a familiar pairing of arguments: a theological attack on Judaism rooted in the New Testament, and an accusation that today’s Jews are collectively engaged in deeds of the utmost evil. Isaac’s accusation is that Israel is currently committing genocide in Gaza. This libel is so at odds with reality that it shouldn’t require refutation, but Gerald McDermott provides an especially lucid and well-argued rebuttal for any who find it necessary. More interesting is his analysis of the theology:
Isaac makes the theological claim that God cannot “have a special relation with a particular nation or race.” In his earlier book From Land to Lands, Isaac explains his reasoning: since Jesus came to fulfill everything in God’s first covenant with Israel, Israel as a people no longer has a special relationship with God. Christians are the new Israel because the old Israel broke its covenant. A broken covenant is not a binding covenant, so the new covenant nullifies the old.

Like many Lutherans, Munther anchors his theology in Paul’s letters. . . . Tellingly, Isaac ignores Paul’s clear assertion that his fellow Jews who had rejected Jesus “are [present tense] beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11:28–29, emphasis added).

Isaac has just completed a triumphant tour of elite Ivy, Catholic, and evangelical universities, telling the story he relates in Christ in the Rubble. He received standing ovations from standing-room-only crowds. As in the book, his speeches exploit genuine suffering that tugs on the heartstrings of naive listeners and demonizes Israel. Tragically, his invented history and distorted exegesis will be used by cynical Palestinian leadership to prolong Palestinian suffering.


The US pro-Israel activist who shot an attacker and faces jail time over it - interview
In September 2024, pro-Israel protester and Iraq War veteran Scott Hayes, 47, shot at a pro-Palestinian protester who charged across the street and tackled him to the ground in Newton, Massachusetts. The video went viral on social media at the time.

Hayes was arrested and charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and faces years in jail. His attacker was not charged.

Hayes met with The Jerusalem Post in Tel Aviv earlier this month to discuss the incident, which “upended my entire life” and led to him being fired.

“The incident happened on a Thursday evening. I was actually leaving our [pro-Israel protest] event that night to go home to do an online introduction to Judaism course. He [the attacker] was yelling at some of our women, and the situation just didn’t feel right,” Hayes began.

“I engaged with him a few times. He actually came across the street at me once before the video that’s been seen everywhere.”

“I placed my hand near my pistol, and I threw my other hand up, and I told him, ‘Stop, go back.’ He stopped, and he spat at me. He went back across the street and said, ‘You’re f***ing packing,’” referring to Hayes’s weapon.

“It had reached the point then that it had escalated, and I thought, ‘Time to call the police.’”

At this point, Hayes reached for his phone, took a step back from the street, and dialed 911. He said that the police actually have a 53-second recording of the incident from his phone.

“[The attacker] saw that as his opportunity to attack when I was distracted,” Hayes said. “He hit me, and my phone actually fell out of my hand.”

“When he came across me, my head hit the concrete. If I had been knocked out, he would have killed me; he would have killed my friends. I feared for my life. He tackled me, and my head hit the ground. He was trying to choke me and trying to get my firearm.”

After he had fired his gun, Hayes pushed it away and told someone to get it.

“You hear me telling somebody to grab my pistol,” Hayes said. He then proceeded to give the man first aid, keeping him alive until the police came.

“Even as I was giving first aid, he was still talking s*** about Palestine and Israel.”
My Father Prosecuted History’s Crimes. Then He Died in One.
He was a Nazi hunter — and was killed in the Lockerbie bombing. What does it mean to seek justice for his death?
On an early summer day in 1986 in a federal building in Newark, my father, Michael Bernstein, sat across a conference table from an elderly man named Stefan Leili. Then a young prosecutor at the Department of Justice, my father spent the previous day and a half deposing Leili, who emigrated to the United States from Germany three decades earlier. While applying for an entry visa, the U.S. government claimed, Leili concealed his service in the Totenkopfverbände — the infamous Death’s Head units of the SS, which ran the Nazi concentration and extermination camps. In 1981, the Supreme Court ruled that such an omission was sufficient grounds for denaturalization and deportation. If my father could prove that Leili lied, the United States could strip him of his citizenship and kick him out of the country.

In an earlier interview, Leili repeatedly denied guarding prisoners at Mauthausen, one of a cluster of work camps in Austria, notorious for a stone quarry where slave laborers spent 11-hour days hauling slabs of granite up a steep rock staircase. But my father and a colleague sensed that this time around, the weight of hundreds of detailed queries might finally be causing Leili to buckle. Leili had begun to concede, bit by grudging bit, that he was more involved than he first said. My father had been waiting for such a moment, because he had a piece of evidence he was holding back. Now he decided that it was finally time to use it.

Leili sat next to his college-age granddaughter and a German interpreter. Earlier in the deposition, the young woman said her grandfather was a sweet man, who couldn’t possibly have done anything wrong. Indeed, it would have been hard to look at this unremarkable 77-year-old — bald, with a sagging paunch — and perceive a villain.

Certainly, the story Leili first told my father was far from villainous. Born in a small town in 1909 in Austria-Hungary, present-day Romania, Leili was an ethnic German peasant, who like millions of others had been tossed from place to place by the forces convulsing Europe. In 1944, Leili said, the Red Army was advancing toward his village. He had to choose whether to join the Hungarian Army or, like many ethnic Germans from his region, the SS. The Schutzstaffel promised better pay and German citizenship, plus money for his family if he was killed. And besides, if he hadn’t gone along with what the SS wanted, Leili said, he would “have been put against the wall and shot.”
Jewish leaders must thank Donald Trump for fighting antisemitism
THESE FORMER Jewish leaders’ twisted, pricey ad nonsensically said that the federal government was using “a purported concern about Jewish safety as a cudgel to weaken higher education, due process, checks and balances, freedom of speech and the press,” and called on Jewish leaders “to resist the exploitation of Jewish fears.”

How sickening that former so-called Jewish leaders want Jews to “resist” the protection of Jewish students.

The ad provides no explanation as to how the Trump administration’s actions are supposedly weakening higher education, due process, freedom of speech and the press, etc. In fact, assuring that campuses are safe, instead of hotbeds of violent antisemitism and antisemitic indoctrination, strengthens higher education.

Refusing to allow Hamas-infested mobs to ransack, take over, and expel students from campus libraries strengthens the precious freedoms of every student who comes to the library and the university to read, learn, and study. Students do not have the right to disrupt other students who want to learn. Lawless violence and threats of imminent harm to Jewish students are not protected free speech.

Invoking the federal grant defunding penalties authorized by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is not a violation of due process. As president John F. Kennedy stated in 1963, “Simple justice requires that public funds, to which all taxpayers of all races [colors, and national origins] contribute, not be spent in any fashion which encourages, entrenches, subsidizes, or results in racial [color, or national origin] discrimination.”

Yet, these former Jewish leaders essentially absurdly theorize that protecting and granting untrammeled license to antisemitic, Islamist mobs who are tormenting our Jewish students will somehow help American Jewry and democracy “thrive.” Well, we’ve seen how that theory has worked. The failure to protect Jewish students has resulted in campus antisemitism and violence becoming worse and worse over the past two decades.

Could you ever imagine even a single African-American leader calling for “resisting” protecting African-American students who faced the types of horrors that Jewish students face these days? Of course not. If African-Americans faced the sort of situation Jews are facing today, every African-American leader would be screaming to protect the African-American students.

Every former and current Jewish leader should likewise be screaming to protect Jewish students, instead of advocating for protecting the Jewish students’ tormentors.
Biden Education Dept Ignored Hundreds of Anti-Semitism Complaints, Official Says
The Biden administration failed to act on nearly 200 anti-Semitism complaints, even as anti-Semitic sentiment surged across the United States following the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, according to a senior Trump Education Department official.

More than 150 of the unresolved complaints were filed after Hamas's Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack, which killed nearly 1,200 Israelis and triggered the war. Instead of investigating the spike in anti-Semitism, the Biden Education Department's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) redirected limited resources to cases involving pronoun usage and "bans" on age-inappropriate school books, the official told Fox News.

The revelation comes as President Donald Trump has cracked down on campus anti-Semitism, revoking billions in federal funding from universities that fail to protect Jewish students and rein in anti-Semitic protests. Under former president Joe Biden, anti-Semitic incidents surged on college campuses, with Jewish students facing harassment and intimidation from protesters.

Trump officials have rolled back Biden-era policies on the "book bans" and expanding Title IX to cover "gender identity."

"The Biden administration placed an undue burden on OCR by stretching the scope of civil rights law beyond its statutory purview," Trump Education Department spokeswoman Julie Hartman told Fox News.

"The Trump OCR is cleaning that up daily," Hartman went on. "By enforcing the law as it is written, the Trump administration's OCR is using its personnel and resources responsibly and eliminating wasteful and unfounded investigations."
A Screenwriter from Hollywood’s Golden Age Explains How to Fight Anti-Semitism with Jewish Pride
What then should be done about this rising tide of anti-Semitism? This was the question that led the journalist, dramatist, and Hollywood screenwriter Ben Hecht—known for his contributions to such films as His Girl Friday, Gone with the Wind, and the original 1932 Scarface—to write A Guide for the Bedevilled in 1943. Few American Jews of prominence at the time devoted nearly so much energy as Hecht to the plight of their coreligionists in Europe, nor to the cause of establishing a Jewish state. Jesse Tisch probes this troubling, and strikingly relevant, work:

When [Hecht] wasn’t lancing anti-Semitism, he was probing it, analyzing it. Historians focused on what and when. Hecht wanted to know why. Many of his hunches, while purely intuitive, have proved astute, reaffirmed by later thinkers who struck Hechtian chords in their writing.

One of Hecht’s darkest theories found expression in the stunning remark quoted by Henryk Broder: “The Germans will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz.” Hecht saw that clearly. German guilt would fester. “They already have it, and are already engaged in the medical work of its exercising,” he wrote. “This is done by exchanging the guilt complex for a rage at the thing that produced it.”

And yet, for all its darkness, Bedevilled refuses despair. It’s too energetic for that. Reading it, one recalls that writing is an act of hope—for progress and thinking. “Without hope!” Hecht writes toward the end. “Have you also misunderstood my violence and pessimism?” Indeed, a battered hope prevails. Hecht’s assault on humanity is also a defense of humanism—the belief in human potential and dignity.

Much of Bedevilled addresses the question, “How should a Jew be?” For Hecht, Jewish morale—pride, self-respect—mattered most. “I felt that the Jews have been trying to arouse all kinds of emotions in the world—pity, compassion, horror, guilt,” Hecht told a friend. No more, he said firmly. No pleading. No virtuous poses. “Jewish diplomacy has been wasting its time in this fashion for almost twenty centuries,” he says in Bedevilled. It was undignified—and useless.
Brighton festival condemned for ‘whitewashing of terrorism’
An event at this year’s Brighton Festival has been condemned by members of the local Jewish community for its “whitewashing of terrorism”, after senior representatives of Hamas and the PFLP were eulogised.

“We are not numbers; the voices of Gaza’s youth”, which took place last week, was focused on the launch of a book with a similar name, featuring poems and essays compiled by Ahmed Alnaouq and Pam Bailey. It featured Alnaouq, formerly an employee of the Palestinian mission in London, in conversation with author and journalist Monisha Rajesh, while British-Palestinian writer and international performer, Tasneim Zyada, recited essays from the collection.

One of the poems read by Zyada included the line “the first time I saw Mama cry was when they killed Sheikh Ahmad Yassin in his wheelchair with Hellfire missiles”. Yassin was the founder and spiritual leader of Hamas, and a vocal advocate for the use of suicide bombers; under his leadership the group carried out scores of terror attacks within Israel, murdering hundreds of civilians.

During his discussion with Rajesh, Alnaouq bemoaned the death of Ghassan Kanafani, stating that: “Israel has a habit of assassinating writers and novelists. They did assassinate Ghassan Kanafani in the 70s and Ghassan Kanafani became a symbol as a Palestinian novelist and writer. This is what they do.”

Kanafani was the spokesman for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist group, perhaps best known for its plane hijackings. He was killed in a car bomb in Beirut in 1972, in what was believed to be a Mossad retaliation for the PFLP’s arrangement of the Lod Airport Massacre earlier that year in which more than two dozen people were killed.
Palestine flag flown over Jewish cemetery in Plymouth ‘breached Equality Act’
The local council in Plymouth is reportedly under pressure to U-turn after allowing a resident to fly a Palestinian flag in his garden, which overlooks a Jewish cemetery in the city.

The flag, which is affixed to a flag pole on private land, has caused consternation in the local community, drawing several objections and even a police complaint, according to PlymouthPlus.

Peter Senior, the homeowner at the centre of the controversy, has claimed that he erected the flag in 2023 in protest at Israel’s war in Gaza and that it is not targeted at the Jewish community.

He told PlymouthPlus: “The intention of the flag is to show my support of the innocents who have now suffered 18 months of horrific treatment.

"To express my objection to my government’s response to this outrage and to elicit conversations with anybody who wishes to engage with me.”

Senior also suggested that the complaints against him were, in fact, antisemitic, saying: “I believe it is an antisemitic trope to say that all Jews throughout the world support The Zionist regime’s genocidal behaviour.

"There has been a campaign to conflate criticism of the Zionist regime with antisemitism by Israel and the few countries that support their actions.

"This is a dangerous and cynical ploy that clearly will increase the incidents of antisemitism occurring. I am sorry if Jewish people consider my action with the flag as antisemitic. This is not the case.”
Michigan Senate Candidate Backed by Bernie Sanders To Speak at Islamist Convention Alongside Hamas Sympathizers
A Michigan Senate candidate endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D., Calif.) will appear at a major Islamist convention this weekend with anti-Israel speakers who have called for the destruction of Israel, praised Hamas leaders, and expressed "euphoria" over the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.

Abdul El-Sayed, a former CNN commentator running to replace retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D.), will speak at the annual Islamic Circle of North America and Muslim American Society (ICNA-MAS) annual convention in Baltimore, according to a speaker roster for the event.

It’s his first major national appearance since entering the Senate race last month to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters. El-Sayed, a self-described progressive Democrat, is running against moderate state senator Mallory McMorrow and Rep. Haley Stevens, a pro-Israel Democrat. El-Sayed, a public health physician, has already landed the most high-profile endorsements of the race. Sanders endorsed El-Sayed last month, saying he is needed to "stand up to Trump’s authoritarianism." Khanna praised El-Sayed for "standing up for the human rights and self determination of Palestinians."

The upcoming ICNA-MAS Convention will focus squarely on the Israel-Hamas war, and feature a parade of speakers who claim Israel is waging "genocide" in the region.

El-Sayed will share the convention stage with Sami Hamdi, a British activist who said he felt "euphoria" after Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel. Tom Facchine, another conference speaker, said after the Hamas attack that, "we are with the Palestinian resistance 100 percent, no ifs, no ands, no buts, no equivocations, no apologies, no condemnations." He has also encouraged Columbia University students to "take out" pro-Israel professor Shai Davidai, the New York Post reported.

Muslim American Society director Ayman Hammous, another convention speaker, has praised Muslim Brotherhood leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who called for another Holocaust to "punish" Jews and has defended Palestinian suicide bombers. Hammous recently promoted a protest sign that referred to "the Satanic state of Israel."
In first, German intelligence agency labels BDS ‘hostile to constitution’
The Berlin Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which collects intelligence on extremist groups and reports to the German Interior Ministry, on Tuesday denounced the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement as “hostile to the constitution.”

Berlin’s BDS chapter was listed for the first time as a “proven extremist endeavor hostile to the constitution,” the office said as it announced its annual report on threats to the free democratic basic order and the existence of the Federal Republic of Germany, as well as its states.

The conclusion came after gathering info on “the anti-constitutional ideology of the BDS campaign, which denies Israel’s right to exist, as well as its central role within Berlin’s anti-Israel scene,” the office said.

The report noted that “supporters of BDS in Berlin justified and/or glorified the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7, 2023,” in which approximately 1,200 people, primarily civilians, were murdered.

The worst single-day massacre against Jews since the Holocaust “was welcomed in official statements as a ‘liberation struggle against settler colonialism’ or as a breakout from the ‘open-air prison’ of Gaza,” it said.

In addition, “signs with stereotypical antisemitic imagery were repeatedly displayed” at BDS protests, according to the report.

While the core group of BDS Berlin consists of some 30 activists, there is significant overlap with Islamist extremist and terror groups, the report charged.

Berlin’s Islamist scene continued to grow in 2024 to 2,440 individuals, up by 60 since the year prior, the report noted, linking the surge to an increase in Hamas’s support base, now estimated at some 200 people.

“Islamist attacks in Germany underscore the persistently high threat level posed by this spectrum. Within the Islamist scene, propaganda spread via social networks serves as a key driver of radicalization, increasingly targeting young people and even children,” it said.
UKLFI: Headteachers warned about Nakba day of Action
UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) has written to all schools in Sussex, Tower Hamlets and some other London Boroughs, to warn them of teachers taking action in their workplaces in support of the Palestinian cause.

The National Education Union (NEU) had been circulating a message, calling on its members to take action in schools on Thursday 15 May, which the NEU dub “Nakba Day”.

UKLFI has warned that the teachers’ actions could lead to the promotion of partisan political views in schools, against the government’s policy on political impartiality in schools and in breach of the prohibitions under the Education Act 1996 on political indoctrination in schools.

The NEU’s message to teachers encouraged them to take action including:
wear red on the day in protest at the ongoing violence;
take a group photo in the staff room, printing off NEU signs to hold;
hold a lunchtime protest off site in solidarity with Palestinians (together with local schools);
organise a lunch-time meeting, teach-in or film screening to educate colleagues about the Palestinian struggle for freedom;
hold a Disarm Education meeting; and
distribute leaflets for the national demonstration for Palestine on 17 May;

UKLFI wrote to head teachers in light of the legal obligations on schools on prohibiting political indoctrination (and prohibiting junior pupils pursuing any partisan political activities) and suggested that they should:
remind teachers of their legal obligations;
consider what additional steps can be taken to prevent teachers from pursuing political agendas at school and ensure teachers behave in ways that uphold the standards expected of teachers both inside and outside of school;
take disciplinary action against teachers where appropriate; and
refer teachers who are particularly radicalised to Prevent to block the spread of extremism among both teachers and students.
UKLFI: Chelmsford Council to remove “Jesus was a Muslim” Booth from High Street
An illegally placed booth in Chelmsford High Street, advertising that “Jesus was a Muslim” will be removed by the Chelmsford City Council. This follows a letter from UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) pointing out that the words on the Booth were offensive and likely cause distress to the public.

Free copies of the Quran are being distributed from the booth, indicating an attempt to convert the public. The words on the booth appeared to subvert religious beliefs, and foster hostility between all religions since it is widely accepted that Jesus was born a Jew in Bethlehem and is the central figure of Christianity, and Islam did not exist at the time of the birth of Jesus.

UKLFI further pointed out that permission from Chelmsford City Council was required for the erection of the booth “for commercial, voluntary or fundraising activities”. There is also a Public Spaces Protection Order (“PSPO”) in place in Chelmsford city centre, which means it is prohibited to distribute free literature in the High Street, including distribute free copies of the Quran.

UKLFI warned that the Council is also likely to be breaching Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, known as the “Public Sector Equality Duty” whereby it has a duty to consider the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality, and foster good relations between different ethnic and religious groups when exercising its functions. The words emblazoned on the Booth do not foster good relations between those with the protected characteristics of “religion, race or belief”, nor do they tackle prejudice and promote understanding.
UKLFI: Misleading Information removed from School Table Tops
School tables containing erroneous geographical information that had been spotted by a sharp eyed thirteen year old girl, have now been replaced by new plain table tops.

We previously reported that six lunch tables at a South London school featured a map which incorrectly listed Tel Aviv as the capital of Israel, and Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine.

After UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) wrote to both the school and the table manufacturer, the manufacturer has agreed to provide six new replacement table tops for the school.

UKLFI wrote to the school pointing out that these tables promoted incorrect and partisan political views. This is contrary to Section 407 of the Education Act 1996, which requires schools to take reasonably practicable steps to offer a balanced presentation of opposing views when political issues are brought to the attention of pupils while they are in attendance at a maintained school.

The head teacher of the school responded that the tables were in an outside area and used by students at lunch or break time. They had been purchased in January 2019. She explained that the maps on the tables were not used for teaching curriculum subjects in school and are certainly not part of any attempt to politically indoctrinate pupils. She insisted that staff at her school were always very careful to offer a balanced representation of opposing views if the situation regarding Israel and Palestine is discussed. She said that with a tight budget, they could not afford to replace the table tops.

UKLFI also wrote to the manufacturer of the Tables, Space Right, which manufactures equipment for schools. The manufacturer explained that the tables were launched in 2012 and discontinued in around 2020. During this time only 65 units were sold.
At US campus symposium, billionaire Bill Ackman solitarily defends Trump’s Harvard feud
In the days before hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman was to speak at the May 18 conference on “Jews and Elite Universities” at New York’s Center for Jewish History, some 60 scholars signed a letter of objection saying that the vocal critic of Harvard’s handling of antisemitism allegations had no place speaking in such a setting.

The signers, either associated with CJH or users of its archives, found it “disgraceful” that the center gave top billing to Ackman, a Harvard alum who led a high-profile battle against former Harvard president Claudine Gay over antisemitism. Ackman, the letter said, is not a scholar and “used his wealth and influence to attack American universities and support the ongoing campaign to defund them.”

The letter also criticized the conference lineup for its “overall lack of academic expertise on Jews and higher education.” (Among the 15 speakers, this reporter counted eight academics, two rabbis with campus connections, four journalists and Ackman.)

But if the critics thought the other invitees were going to roll over for Ackman, a former chair of the center’s board of directors, they were premature. Ackman was perhaps the only speaker to defend US President Donald Trump’s cuts in federal funding to Harvard and the administration’s list of demands to increase “viewpoint diversity,” among other things. If a consensus emerged during the daylong conference, it was that while many elite universities stumbled badly in their responses to the anti-Israel protests after October 7, the government shouldn’t dictate what universities teach or how they operate.

Many of the speakers also agreed that the Trump administration — which has cited universities’ response to antisemitism as justification for withholding government funds — is using antisemitism as a pretext to undermine what the US president sees as a leftist elite.
Anti-Israel protesters burn diplomas outside Columbia graduation
Some anti-Israel Columbia University graduates torched their newly received, symbolic diplomas outside of the Ivy League school’s commencement ceremony, the New York Post reported on Wednesday.

Inside the graduation on Wednesday morning, protesting anti-Israel students disrupted Columbia President Claire Shipman’s address by shouting “free Palestine,” while graduates holding signs accusing Israel of war crimes burned their diplomas outside the ceremony, according to the New York Post.

The New York City Police Department told JNS that it responded to a protest at about 10:20 a.m. near West 116th Street and Broadway, which involved some 65 participants.

Officers arrested two people and issued them desk appearances, the NYPD told JNS.

A Columbia University spokesperson told JNS that police “managed the small group of protesters outside the gates while the commencement festivities carried on successfully on campus.”

“The university planned and prepared for commencement for months to ensure a safe and celebratory event for the tens of thousands of attendees who joined us on campus,” the spokesperson said. “We are pleased that thousands of our graduates and their families and guests were able to enjoy the events.”


Israeli Supreme Court says firing of Shin Bet chief violated law
On Wednesday, Israel’s Supreme Court, sitting as the High Court of Justice, ruled that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government violated the law when it fired Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) head Ronen Bar due to its “lack of trust” in the internal security chief.

The court ruled against the government, which had wanted the petition thrown out following Bar’s announcement that he would resign on June 15, and the subsequent Cabinet decision to cancel his firing.

“The government is neither authorized nor permitted to act contrary to the law. It was the government of Israel that decided, years ago, that the appropriate way to end the term of senior public servants, one of whom is the head of the Shin Bet, is by appealing to the advisory committee,” wrote Supreme Court President Yitzhak Amit in the majority opinion.

Amit said the March decision to remove Bar from his position was also unlawful due to “lack of a factual basis, absence of a [dismissal] hearing and argument, and acting under a conflict of interest.”

The latter referred to suspicions against several aides of Netanyahu as part of the Shin Bet’s “Qatar-gate” probe into the connection between elements in the Prime Minister’s Office and elements linked to Doha.

However, in light of Bar’s decision to end his term, the High Court did not order the government to take any action in response to its ruling.

The Jewish state’s highest court issued a ruling in principle, stating, “there is a need to deter future similar and inappropriate behavior.”


Highly Enriched Uranium Stand-Off May Scuttle New Iran Deal
The latest back-and-forth on a nuclear deal between the United States and Iran hinges on enrichment, and the question may put nails in the coffin of any new agreement.

White House envoy Steve Witkoff said Sunday, after weeks of mixed messages, that no future accord can allow Iran the right to enrich uranium.

"We have one very, very clear red line, and that is enrichment," Witkoff told ABC's This Week anchor Jonathan Karl. "We cannot allow even 1 percent of an enrichment capability."

Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday denounced Witkoff’s remarks, describing calls for the Islamic Republic to give up enrichment entirely as "nonsense."

Before Witkoff’s interview, Iranian leaders indicated that they were willing to accept a deal eliminating the country’s highly enriched uranium (HEU) stockpiles, which grew substantially during the Biden administration and brought Tehran within a hair’s breadth of an atomic bomb.

That particular agreement, according to negotiator Ali Shamkhani, would have Iran exporting its reserves of uranium enriched to around 60 percent, the level generally understood to be necessary for a bomb. In return, the United States would lift its sanctions and grant Iran the right to enrich uranium at lower levels.

Though President Donald Trump said earlier in May that he would only accept "full dismantlement" of Iran’s nuclear program, he appeared amenable to Shamkhani’s framework. Trump announced a day after the Iranian negotiator’s public offer that the two sides had "sort of" agreed.

Trump revealed during his tour through the Middle East last week that the United States presented Iran with "a proposal," though he did not disclose whether the offer on the table would allow the Islamic Republic to continue enriching uranium.

"Most importantly, they know they have to move quickly, or something bad is going to happen," he said.
US intel. suggests Israel preparing strike on Iran's nuclear facilities - CNN
New intelligence obtained by the United States suggests that Israel is preparing to strike Iranian nuclear facilities, CNN reported on Tuesday, citing multiple US officials familiar with the matter.

It was not clear whether Israeli leaders have made a final decision, CNN added, citing the officials, adding that there is "deep disagreement within the US government about the likelihood that Israel will ultimately act."

Any Israeli strike on Iran would be "a brazen break with President Donald Trump," the officials told CNN. They added that it could also risk triggering a broader regional war.

"Whether and how Israel strikes will likely depend" on Jerusalem's views of US-Iran nuclear negotiations, CNN added.

However, another source told CNN that "the chance of an Israeli strike on an Iranian nuclear facility has gone up significantly in recent months, and the prospect of a Trump-negotiated US-Iran deal that doesn’t remove all of Iran’s uranium makes the chance of a strike more likely.”


‘Jewish Simpsons’ Holocaust mural defaced in antisemitic attack at Milan Shoah Memorial
An internationally recognised Holocaust mural depicting the Simpsons as Auschwitz deportees has been defaced in a targeted antisemitic attack at the Shoah Memorial in Milan.

The mural, created by Italian pop artist aleXsandro Palombo in January 2023, showed the cartoon family wearing yellow stars behind a barbed wire – a powerful visual warning against forgetting the atrocities of the Holocaust. It has now been smeared with blood-red paint and the words “Free Pal”, in what Palombo described as “a visual representation of the antisemitic fury spreading through our cities.”

Speaking to The Jerusalem Post, the artist confirmed this is the sixth time the work has been vandalised in two years. “Little remains of the original artwork. It has been transformed a tribute to memory into an expression of hatred,” he said.

Palombo, known for his provocative public works on antisemitism, has faced repeated death threats and intimidation but says he will not stop. “These attacks do not intimidate me; they reinforce my determination,” he said.

The mural had not only artistic value but also educational significance, aimed at making Holocaust memory accessible to younger generations through the familiar visual language of the Simpsons. “Using the universal language of cartoons is a key tool for educating young people and fostering a shared historical conscience,” Palombo added.

The vandalism comes amid a surge of antisemitic incidents across Europe. The Anti-Defamation League called it “antisemitism in action”, warning that Holocaust memory is “under attack”. The words “Free Pal” were scrawled across the mural, which is located just metres from Milan’s Holocaust deportation platform.


ZIM beats Q1 expectations, signals maritime shipping rebound
ZIM Integrated Shipping Services posted stronger-than-expected earnings for the first quarter of 2025, beating analyst estimates on both revenue and profits, and pushing its share price up by 3% in pre-market trading.

The Israeli shipping giant reported adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $2.45, significantly above analysts’ expectations of $1.74. Revenue for the quarter reached $2.01 billion, exceeding forecasts of $1.82 billion and marking a 28% increase compared to the same period last year.

The company shipped 944,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in the first quarter, a 12% increase from Q1 2024. The average freight rate per TEU climbed 22% to $1,776, highlighting a broad recovery in global shipping demand amid easing supply chain bottlenecks.

“ZIM started 2025 with strong momentum, driven by 12% growth in carried volume and robust profitability,” said CEO Eli Glickman. “Leveraging our enhanced fleet and improved cost structure, we generated $2.01 billion in revenue and a net profit of $296 million this quarter.”

The Haifa-based company reaffirmed its full-year guidance, projecting adjusted EBITDA between $1.6 billion and $2.2 billion, and adjusted EBIT between $350 million and $950 million.
Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese tzaddik
The Power of One is the title of both a book and a movie. It tells the story of a young boy growing up with many challenges and how he overcomes them. The phrase “the power of one” has, however, become a truism for the ability of one individual to make a difference and even change the world.

We will conclude the book of Leviticus (Vayikra) this week with a double portion, Behar and Bechukotai. In the last chapter (27:1-8), we read the laws of evaluations. If a person pledges to donate his value or the value of another person to the Temple treasury, how much must he give? The Torah tells us that it does not depend on the individual’s physical, intellectual or financial worth, but that there is a rule of thumb based on age and gender as if they would apply it on the labor market.

A person may have a stock portfolio of billions, but his inherent “worth” is not measured by accumulated wealth, no matter how impressive that may be. He or she may have a brilliant mind with an IQ of 180, but the Torah’s evaluations are great equalizers where all people of a certain age bracket and gender are valued at the same amount.

Just this week, my physiotherapist told me he went on a tour of Japan and visited a museum dedicated to Chiune Sugihara, the legendary Japanese diplomat stationed in Lithuania at the beginning of World War II. Jews were desperately trying to escape from Europe, but no country was willing to accept Jewish immigrants.

Sugihara was the consul general in Kovno, now Kaunas, and requested permission from his superiors in Tokyo to issue transit visas for Jewish immigrants begging for help. Tokyo repeatedly refused the request. Sugihara agonized, wrestling between his professional responsibilities and his conscience. In the end, he decided to defy his superiors by issuing 2,000-plus visas, many for families. He saved the lives of more than 6,000 Jews who were thus able to leave Europe and find refuge temporarily in Japan, en route to safety and security elsewhere.
2,300-year-old gold ring discovered in Jerusalem excavation
A gold ring dating back more than two thousand years has been discovered by archaeologists in Israel.

Encrusted with a red gemstone, it was found in excavations run by the Antiquities Authority and Tel Aviv University in the City of David in a national park surrounding the walls of Jerusalem. It’s the second gold ring discovered in less than a year, from the same dig and the same period dating back to the end of the 3rd century or the beginning of the 2nd century BC.

The newly discovered piece of jewellery is believed to have belonged to a boy or girl who lived in Jerusalem during the Second Temple period.

Rebecca Langler, a digger in the City of David who was present at the unveiling of the precious gold band said at first they were sure that it was a modern item that had fallen into one of the digs, “but when I looked at the ring, I immediately understood that it was something ancient. The gold earring and gold bead discovered in the City of David from the same period. Photo by Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities Authority

“When I held the ring in my hand, I felt part of my history. I felt like I could really touch and connect with the people who lived here in Jerusalem thousands of years ago”.

In the same layer where the rings were discovered, a number of bronze earrings were also recently found, whilst a gold earring decorated with a horned animal and a gold bead were discovered a few years ago – all of them date back to the ancient Hellenistic period.

Dr. Marion Zindel of the Antiquities Authority explained that the discovery of both small rings and the rest of the jewellery underneath the building’s floors “raises the possibility that they were intentionally engraved there.”




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