Tuesday, November 18, 2025
Seth Mandel: Fighting the Post-Oct. 7 Battles
Solutions are harder to come by than realizations, but the realizations are the essential first steps. As expected, the post-Oct. 7 world is a different place, and navigating that new world requires every Jewish leader and organization to acknowledge what has changed.Seth Mandel: A Tale of Two Film Festivals
We see one example of this playing out right now. The Anti-Defamation League has taken steps to refocus on anti-Semitism after years of sacrificing its founding mission for a chance to be part of the progressive political coalition. ADL launched a “Mamdani Monitor” which consists of an anti-Semitism tipline for New Yorkers and a pledge to scrutinize the Mamdani administration’s actions and appointments. It’s an entirely reasonable, moderate approach, and it could be useful so long as the ADL follows through. The emerging Jewish consensus that bad actors must be held to account is healthy.
But it has inspired anger from, for example, the Nexus Project, a liberal critic of attempts to fight anti-Semitism and, though young, a relic of the pre-Oct. 7 status quo. Jill Jacobs, an activist with another progressive Jewish group, called the ADL “Islamophobic.”
Still, these attempts to conjure the naïve and dangerous fantasies that were shattered on Oct. 7 haven’t had much effect; reality is reality, and the Jewish community has been clear-eyed. As Emanuel said, “[I]f we don’t understand the depth of where we are, we’re never going to fix the problem.” The new normal isn’t pretty, but we don’t have to let it become permanent.
Late last month, Variety broke the story that IDFA was joining the boycott-and-blacklist trend aimed at the Jewish state. DocAviv, the main documentary film festival and organization in Israel, gets some public funding, as is common in the industry. So DocAviv, along with Kan and CoPro, were banned from IDFA. According to DocAviv artistic director Michal Weits, the groups received a letter from IDFA saying “that they are not going to provide us accreditation since we are complicit with the genocide, which is obviously not true.”If Hillel Is Not for Jews, Who Will Be?
The Israeli government has no say in what DocAviv does or does not screen. Indeed, the dark irony in all this is that, if art is as powerful as we are told by the pompous anti-Israel industry figures, then the blacklists undoubtedly harm the Palestinian “cause” and do nothing to help it.
That’s not to say that there won’t be plenty of anti-Zionist agitprop at the festival. There will be. If you’ve made a documentary with the word Gaza in the title, as long as you’re not an Israeli Jew you’ll get your piece shown like everybody else.
But the festival will not have Israeli projects intended to drum up empathy for Gaza or make the case for coexistence because that would acknowledge the fact that Israelis are people. The flat-minded artistic activists at IDFA need Israelis to be a concept—faceless and devoid of humanity, no matter the subject. “Culture and films are the only way to communicate with each other,” Weits says. “But the boycott wants us to be isolated and disappear, and yet I think our voice is important.”
But it isn’t—not to the art world, anyway. The entire focus of anti-Zionist activism is the erasure of the Jewish state. If it’s any consolation, there will continue to be plenty of Chinese films to see.
What keeps me up at night is not the campus hordes. As I have tried to explain, I worry mostly about Hillel’s reaction to them. That is, I worry about the internal slackening of the Jewish attitude toward survival.
The New York Times columnist Ross Douthat observes that humankind is passing through a civilizational bottleneck. AI, social media, and accelerating digitization, alongside the deleterious social consequences of these phenomena, put all of what has passed for human culture at risk. The digital age “is killing us softly,” he writes, “by drawing people out of the real and into the virtual, distracting us from the activities that sustain ordinary life, and finally making existence at a human scale seem obsolete.”
What if we looked at the rise of campus anti-Semitism not as a threat but as a measure of internal strength in the fight for human culture? On the surface there are plenty of successes, in large part thanks to the efforts of the current administration to hold universities accountable. Internally it’s a different story.
The equation of Judaism with social justice is a key spiritual failing of Hillel. It has the unforgivable consequence of tying Judaism’s significance to Jews’ adherence to ever-changing moral litmus tests du jour, up to and including hatred of Jews. But Judaism as a civilizational project has survived in large part because of the steadfastness of its moral vision, often despite being in opposition to mainstream cultural mores. Its enduring teachings, including the gifts of hospitality and charity and profound respect for one’s parents, are not modeled after what is normal or popular at any given moment.
In 1924, the year after Hillel was founded, Congress passed the Johnson-Reed Act, limiting immigration. The number of legal Jewish immigrants dropped from 119,000, in the year before the bill’s passage, to 10,000 the following year. The gates were closed. Instead of the status quo of mass immigration, which for 40 years led American Jewry to believe that its native-born population would be continually renewed and replenished from abroad, now the existing population was all that Jews could practically rely on. American Jewry would have to renew itself.
Hillel, then, didn’t just provide young Jews with social and spiritual community in an era of incipient assimilation; it gave American Jewry a tool to fashion new generations to lead and sustain the community. In those years, Hillel believed in the future. Today, still, Hillel is uniquely constituted to lead American Jewish youth, the rising generation.
But to do so, Hillel must embrace the gifts of the past, and recognize that civilizations can die; history is littered with the corpses. The Jews are a small people, vulnerable to destruction along with their ideas. That is not to say that extinction is their fate—but, to borrow a line from Charles Krauthammer, “only that it can be.”
Hillel has a decision to make. Whether to face not only Lasch’s question, but Hillel the Elder’s—If I am not for myself, who will be for me?—as well as the choice Moses put before the People of Israel long ago, as recorded in Deuteronomy: “I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day: I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life—if you and your offspring would live.”
There Is No Blessing in This Poisonous Breeze
Then, a week or two after October 7, 2023, the scales fell from my eyes. My professor, along with many of his fellow faculty members at Columbia, signed his name on a letter that delicately explained it was not anti-Semitic to refer to Hamas’s recent invasion and massacre as a justified act of resistance. In shock, I confronted my professor in a private meeting during his office hours, hoping that he may not have fully understood the letter’s implications. I explained that the letter justified the mass rape and murder of my people. He stood by his signature.'Don’t Feed the Lion': Israeli, American journalists tackle antisemitism in middle school
As I left that small office in Philosophy Hall, I comforted myself with an epiphany. I realized that these two intellectual aberrations in the thinking patterns of my otherwise brilliant professor—his aesthetic equivalence of Robertson and Wordsworth, and his moral equivalence of Israel and Hamas—were rooted in a single idea. He had learned, through his many years in academic training, a reusable method to blur the bright lines between good and evil, and ugliness and beauty.
The key concept that underpins these two equivalencies is the idea that all truth is relative. I had long felt the omnipresence of this idea in the general consciousness of the Columbia campus. For a while, I had noticed in several different classes how my professors and fellow classmates seemed incredibly reluctant to contradict claims made in class discussions, even when a student might suggest an absurd or demonstrably false idea. At first, I assumed that this was merely a polite mannerism they had adopted so as not to embarrass students who had not done the reading or who held idiosyncratic opinions. But as time passed, and I continued to marvel at this phenomenon, I suspected that it indicated something more philosophically significant.
On one particularly revealing occasion, I was part of a class discussion about Isaac Asimov’s short story “Reason,” which was published in his landmark 1950 collection, I, Robot. The narrative takes place on a spaceship orbiting Earth and concerns the aftermath of the assembly of an intelligent robot programmed with the ability to think for itself. The robot, using its advanced capacity of pure reason, comes to the surprising conclusion that the Earth and the entire universe outside of the spaceship do not exist. What struck me, as we discussed this story in class, was how sympathetic my fellow classmates were to the robot’s opinion. They were offended that the astronauts in Asimov’s narrative rejected the robot’s philosophy out of hand. Who were they to say that the robot’s truth was less legitimate than their own? I listened to the discussion in amazement.
Of course, I noticed certain exceptions to the dominant campus culture of relativism. Specifically, when it came to certain political issues, it was understood that there was an acceptable and an unacceptable opinion. But when it came to questions of metaphysical weight, of distinctions between absolute truth, beauty, and morality, most of those with me on Columbia’s campus were unable or unwilling to take a clear stance.
My poetry professor, like my fellow students, had been systematically trained to ignore the notions of objective truth and goodness that Western culture had embraced for thousands of years. He had been taught that an educated individual does not make affirmative truth judgments. Who are we to say that Wordsworth created works of greater beauty than Robertson or Bonney? Who are we to say that the Hamas barbarians are in the wrong when they burned Israeli children alive? The very same education that can teach a person to point at the grotesque and call it beautiful can also train a person to point at the murder of Jews and say it could be justified, depending on the context.
This educational process had already begun working on me. I had been shown ugly poems and had been told that they were beautiful. I had thought to myself, “I do not think this is beautiful; I think this is ugly. But if everyone here agrees that it is beautiful, and if they use fancy words and complex sentences that I don’t understand to explain how it is beautiful, then it must be beautiful, and I am just not sophisticated enough to understand it yet.” In time, with enough training, my aesthetic revolt would have relented, and I, too, would have pronounced that these poems were just as beautiful as Wordsworth’s epic. If I had not been fortunate enough to have been raised by parents who made sure I received a strong Jewish pre-collegiate education, I might also have trained my mind to equate Israel and Hamas, as far too many of my fellow Jewish students have.
Much has been said and written lately about our universities’ uncanny tolerance for anti-Semitic ideas and activities. Most of the discussion misses the fact that the underlying philosophy that allows these bad ideas to flourish has also deeply affected the quality of the education we offer our college students. Liberal education has historically followed a different path. Before moral and aesthetic relativism overtook the academy, students learned about objective beauty and shared moral principles. A pedagogy that is rooted in lofty and absolute principles, both moral and aesthetic, is more likely to edify and less susceptible to being overtaken by evil actors and ideas. Universities like Columbia would do well to try it out again—though, of course, the vast majority of them won’t.
In Don’t Feed the Lion, a new novel about antisemitism for middle schoolers, published in the US by Arcadia Publishing, its first-time authors set out to fill a gap in books for tweens (children aged between 8-12) dealing with this issue, but also to tell a story that will entertain and enchant young readers.Jonathan Tobin: Trump’s defense of Carlson: Free speech doesn’t come without judgment
The fact that it helps tweens understand contemporary antisemitism isn’t all that makes the book unusual. Its authors are among the world’s most respected television journalists: Yonit Levi, who for 22 years has been the anchor on Channel 12 of Israel’s top prime-time news program, and who has interviewed celebrities ranging from US presidents to Microsoft founder Bill Gates; and Bianna Golodryga, an Emmy-award-winning journalist, CNN anchor, and senior global affairs analyst. Based in New York, Golodryga anchors One World with Zain Asher on CNN. Levi also cohosts Unholy, a podcast in English about Israel and the Jewish world.
The novel follows three tweens in Chicago, siblings Theo and Annie, who are Jewish, and Gabe, who is part Korean, and examines how they are affected when Theo’s soccer-player idol tweets an antisemitic comment. The comment is repeated endlessly and uncritically on social media and leads Theo’s soccer teammates to deface his locker with a swastika.
The three protagonists cope with this incident in different ways and face pressure from their peers and the school administration, who at first simply see the incident as a minor problem that can be swept under the rug.
In a secondary but critical role are Theo and Annie’s grandparents, especially his wise and charismatic granddad, Ezra, a musician who wrote a hit Israeli pop tune for their grandmother.
In an afterward to the warm, often funny novel that nevertheless doesn’t flinch from showing how antisemitism can flare up in the US, the coauthors wrote that, following the October 7 massacre by Hamas in Israel, “as journalists and as Jewish mothers, we were shaken. As friends, we found comfort in turning toward each other. And as writers, we knew we had to create something for the children who, like our own, were asking hard questions and deserved better answers.”
Carlson’s decision not merely to platform but give the views of the repellent racist and Jew-hater a sympathetic and even supportive hearing has divided conservatives in recent weeks. More than that, he used the show to vent his own hatred for Israel, “Christian Zionists”—whom he denounced as guilty of “heresy” and suffering from a “brain virus”—and to float the traditional antisemitic trope about Jews being guilty of dual loyalty.Yisrael Medad: Beinart gets liberally bumped
Most mainstream conservatives and Republicans treated this latest example of Carlson’s soft spot for Jew-hatred as conclusive proof that the podcaster and longtime member of the Trump family inner circle should be condemned as a hate-monger, rather than be treated as a star of the political right. Others, such as Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts, as well as other right-wing podcasters like Kelly and Walsh, defended Carlson and condemned those calling him out.
Roberts walked back his claims that Carlson’s critics were “venomous,” as well as some of his claims that the issue was opposing efforts to force America to disregard its own interests to help Israel. But the continued willingness to treat Carlson as a friend, rather than someone to be censured and isolated, has led to an exodus of staffers, scholars and donors from Heritage, and some of its task forces. They believe that an institution that had become a leading voice of opposition to the growing threat of left-wing Jew-hatred is fatally compromised by its ties to someone who is obsessed with disgust for Israel and the Jews.
Part of this is just another manifestation of the surge of antisemitism that was unleashed by the Hamas-led Palestinian Arab attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Mainstreaming antisemitism
That demonstrated the way that the violent victimization of Jews seems to unleash the virus of hate against them that continues to plague civilization. That it exists on the right as well as the left, which has given up being judgmental about people who support the destruction of the one Jewish state on the planet, is tragic. It’s an objective that can only be achieved via the genocide of approximately half of the Jews in the world who live in Israel, and almost always involves the use of tropes, language and actions that are inherently and unabashedly antisemitic. At the same time, significant numbers on the right—though nothing close to the consensus on the left—have come to a similar conclusion, even though they arrive at it via a different ideological path.
The allergy that conservatives have developed to the idea that lunatics should not be tolerated is a problem that must be addressed. Trump’s acquiescence to this idea and Vice President JD Vance’s silence about the actions of Carlson, who is his personal friend and someone to whom he owes a political debt, is more than troubling.
The cancellations of the left and their intolerance for free speech remain a major concern. They still have no problem with shouting down or ensuring that conservatives and supporters of Israel don’t get a hearing on college campuses. That they treat their efforts to suppress the speech of others as a form of free speech that must be protected—their main argument against Trump’s efforts to defund schools that tolerate and encourage antisemitism—is nothing less than gaslighting.
However, if the right’s reaction to this lamentable state of affairs is to declare that nothing is out of bounds and that everything, including the unabashed racism and hatred of Fuentes, is something about which decent people must agree to disagree, then that is just as bad. It also contradicts normative conservative political philosophy from its origins in the writings of English statesman Edmund Burke to Buckley to those who are now seeking to defend the right from Carlson and Fuentes. Such ideas attack the basic notions that liberty is best defended by the preservation of traditions and norms that stem from the founding principles of Western civilization, and the legacy of Jerusalem, Athens and Rome.
The left’s war on the West isn’t purely one about silencing opposing views. It’s an assault on the beliefs that are the foundation of our civilization. The West cannot be defended by platforming and normalizing neo-Nazis and antisemites; that’s exactly how the left is seeking to destroy it. Being judgmental about hate isn’t weak or surrendering to political opponents. It’s time for conservatives, including those who are still traumatized by the intolerance of the left, to realize that defending their movement against hatemongers—which sometimes may require “gatekeeping”—is just as important as fighting against the insidious Marxist ideas of the left.
I almost felt sorry for Peter Beinart. Almost. But then I took hold of myself, reviewed his history and enjoyed a wry chuckle.Chief Rabbi condemns Archbishop of York for claiming Israel commits ‘genocidal acts’
In 2012, Mark Levine, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, published a piece in Al Jazeera criticizing the journalist, which began, “Poor Peter Beinart. For the past two years, he has served selflessly on the front lines of a fight for the “soul of Zionism,” attempting to preserve—or better, revive—its supposedly liberal patrimony.”
He noted Beinart’s 2010 opinion essay in The New York Review of Books in which he argued that “by refusing to criticize the never-ending occupation and support for a more liberal strand of Zionism, the organized Jewish community was in danger of losing the support of the emerging generation of Jews.” The policies of Israel’s government were perceived to “contradict their largely liberal sensibilities.”
A dozen years later, in March 2024, Beinart, still championing liberalism, wrote in The New York Times: “The emerging rupture between American liberalism and American Zionism constitutes the greatest transformation in American Jewish politics in half a century.” By that time, he was four years into his rejection of the idea of a Jewish state, preferring, as he wrote again in the Times, that a Jewish state not be “the dominant form of Zionism.” He insisted that a Jewish state “is not the essence of Zionism. The essence of Zionism is a Jewish home in the land of Israel, a thriving Jewish society.”
In the past three years or so, Beinart has adopted more and more extreme positions. Yet as we know, once one enters that arena, the competition to stand out simply causes one to become even more extreme. On Nov. 16, under the sponsorship of Jewish Currents, where Beinart is editor-at-large at the magazine, he was in conversation with Palestinian (actually, Syrian) Columbia University graduate and pro-Hamas activist Mahmoud Khalil, the target of an attempt to deport him. Beinart is far gone.
But last week, “Within Our Lifetime/Palestine” activist Nerdeen Kiswani came upon the scene. The following excerpts from their exchanges may be a tad complex, but stay with me. But first, some background.
The Archbishop of York has said Israeli forces have committed “genocidal acts” in Gaza in remarks the Chief Rabbi has condemned as an “incendiary and morally inverted accusation”.BBC Arabic is corroding the corporation with Middle East-imported extremism
The second-most senior figure in the Church of England suggested the IDF were responsible for “deliberately indiscriminate acts”, in comments reported in the Church Times.
Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis has said he will write to the Archbishop about his “concerns” over the cleric’s “irresponsible approach”.
The Jewish Leadership Council (JLC) has said they are “deeply disappointed” over the “perverse distortion” of the conflict and “the failure to understand the devastating impact” such remarks may have on Britain’s Jewish community.
Archbishop Stephen Cottrell said: “When hospitals and schools are targeted, when children are targeted . . . I wonder what other language we use to describe what is happening.
He claimed: “What is happening is deliberate and systematic, persistent and intentional, and its impact is devastating.”
Defending himself against anticipated criticism, Archbishop Cottrell said: “I want to be very clear that these are the policies of the Israeli state. This is not about Judaism. It’s not about Jewish people. It’s about the state’s actions and policies which the international community must challenge.”
The Archbishop went to the West Bank and east Jerusalem when he travelled to Israel earlier this month. Looking back to his visit, he said: “What’s happening in the West Bank is not what happened in South Africa, but you’re left thinking: what other language do I use to describe such a two-tier system where one group of people is so persistently and systematically denied their human rights and having to live a parallel life?”
He also voiced support for divestment from Israel, saying he would support a vote for it in the Synod.
The Chief Rabbi responded in a post on X, saying: “The Archbishop of York has spoken of the need to be ‘painfully honest’ about the conflict in Israel and Gaza. But it is simply not possible to do that without faithfully seeking to understand more than one perspective.
“It saddens me greatly that his irresponsible approach, reaching for the incendiary and morally inverted accusation of ‘genocidal acts’, will serve only to foster yet more enmity and division.
It seems satire is alive and well at the BBC. How else to explain a senior BBC executive – still in post after the resignations of Tim Davie and Deborah Turness – defending the deeply flawed output of the corporation’s Arabic service by claiming it is “almost as trusted as Al-Jazeera”?FDD: Does Al Jazeera Collaborate With Hamas?
Sadly, Jonathan Munro, the BBC’s global news director under whose remit BBC Arabic falls, was not joking. He had been referring to an audience survey showing that the service ranked just behind Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-run broadcaster widely regarded as a Hamas mouthpiece – an allegation the Qatar-run broadcaster denies.
Munro’s boast came as a private response to overwhelming evidence that BBC Arabic has given grotesquely disproportionate prominence to Hamas narratives in its coverage of the Gaza war.
Treating the finding that Arabic-speaking audiences are content with BBC Arabic’s coverage almost as much as they are with Al-Jazeera’s as a point of pride rather than shame is indeed laughable.
Yet it is only one of many revelations in a confidential memo, recently leaked to the Telegraph, written by independent adviser and former journalist Michael Prescott. Circulated to the entire BBC board, Prescott’s report lays bare how the Arabic service has become a reliable ally of Hamas’s propaganda machine, in utter dereliction of BBC editorial guidelines and always at the expense of Israel and Jewish communities worldwide, including Britain’s own.
For those who have monitored the Arabic service closely, Prescott’s finding that these problems are “systemic” is not new. What is shocking are the details. A BBC Arabic contributor who once declared that Jews should be burned “as Hitler did” appeared on air 244 times. Another freelancer who called Jews “devils” has been featured 522 times. That such individuals were permitted to report unchallenged on the Gaza war even after their antisemitic records were exposed speaks volumes about the culture of bias for which BBC Arabic editors are responsible, and which UK taxpayers and licence fee payers have been funding for many years.
More disturbing findings: according to Prescott, between May and October 2024 BBC Arabic failed to publish any of the 19 English-language stories on Hamas’s hostages, ran no pieces critical of the terror group, and consistently downplayed Israeli suffering. Rather than a public broadcasting service worthy of its name, this can only be described as extremist advocacy, inflaming prejudice against Israel and fuelling conflict rather than informing and encouraging debate.
As the Telegraph revealed last weekend, drawing upon research by Camera (the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis), BBC Arabic had to make corrections or clarifications on 215 stories over the course of the war. That’s more than two pieces of information each week over two years found to be biased, inaccurate or misleading.
But the rot runs deeper still. Prescott’s memo quotes Munro praising BBC Arabic’s reporters for delivering “exceptional journalism”, calling them “an unrivalled source of knowledge” for the wider BBC. Remember: among those reporters is Sally Nabil, who, shortly after the horrors of October 7, “liked” a series of posts praising and justifying the massacre, one of them describing it as a “morning of hope”. Evidently lacking the basic journalistic skill of distinguishing combatants from civilians, not only does she remain employed at BBC Arabic, but her reporting on alleged civilian casualties in Beirut following an IDF raid has even been broadcast to British audiences on BBC Breakfast.
Al Jazeera’s leadership shake-up has been in the headlines. Will its new executives direct the Qatari state-funded media arm to cease its cozy relationship with Hamas? Allegations have been swirling that the royal family’s soft power news outlet is not merely reporting what Hamas says but is actively collaborating with the terrorist organization.Here I Am With Shai Davidai: I Risked Everything To Stand With Israel | Dalia Ziada (Part 1)
Al Jazeera sells its content to major wire services like AP and Reuters. Al Jazeera has resource-sharing agreements that allow outlets like CNN to access Al Jazeera’s footage and Al Jazeera to use CNN’s news feed. Al Jazeera also has arrangements with BBC, France 24, and The Guardian that enable them to use Al Jazeera’s video footage and reports. Other media outlets, including Deutsche Welle and Euronews, have direct syndication arrangements, allowing them to use Al Jazeera’s content without intermediaries.
Credible reports indicate that Al Jazeera’s ties to Hamas extend well beyond journalism. Evidence points to coordination between the Qatari network and Hamas terrorists, raising serious reputational and policy questions for Al Jazeera and for media or corporate partners that cooperate with it. Reporters Working for Both Al Jazeera and Hamas
Six Al Jazeera journalists simultaneously worked for Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), according to evidence seized by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) that has been made public. Three have since been killed in Gaza. At any credible outlet, concurrently working for a U.S.-designated terrorist organization would result in immediate dismissal. Not so with Al Jazeera. The absence of accountability speaks volumes.
Some of these journalists reportedly participated in Hamas’s October 7, 2023, assault, joining the terrorists who breached and burned Israeli kibbutzim near Gaza, massacring nearly 1,200 and kidnapping 250 others.
Media and corporate partners should have immediately paused collaboration with Al Jazeera until a credible internal investigation was conducted. But it appears that no such credible investigation occurred. Instead, the network issued denials that its reporters were working with Hamas.
In this powerful episode, host Shai Davidai sits down with Dalia Ziada—an Egyptian writer, civil rights activist, and outspoken critic of extremism. Dalia shares her personal journey from growing up in a conservative Egyptian society to becoming a leading voice for peace, justice, and democratic values in the Middle East. She discusses the impact of October 7th, her fight against terrorism, and the importance of standing up against hate. Dalia also reflects on her role in the Arab Spring, the challenges of promoting nonviolence, and the ongoing struggle for human rights and coexistence in the region. This conversation offers deep insights into the complexities of the Middle East and the courage it takes to advocate for change.
Here I Am With Shai Davidai: I Was Exiled From My Home And Branded a ‘Traitor' | Dalia Ziada (Part 2)
In part 2 of his conversation, host Shai Davidai sits down with Egyptian activist and scholar Dalia Ziada for an to discuss her personal journey, the complexities of Middle Eastern politics, and the aftermath of October 7th. Dalia shares her experiences facing backlash in Egypt for condemning Hamas and supporting peace with Israel, including threats to her safety and her dramatic escape from her home country. The discussion covers the role of the Muslim Brotherhood, the challenges of combating misinformation, and Dalia’s ongoing advocacy for peace and education in the US. Through her story, Dalia highlights the importance of resilience, standing up for truth, and empowering the next generation—especially young women—to be courageous and hopeful in the face of adversity.
Erin Molan: Miss Israel STRIKES BACK Over Viral ‘Side-Eye’ Clip — Lord Marland Says UK Is a ‘Crumbling Wreck’
Miss Universe Israel Melanie Shiraz Asor & Lord Jonathan Marland join Erin on this episode 48 of The Erin Molan Show. Erin opens with a fast-paced rundown of the big stories: Trump’s decision to sell F-35 jets to Saudi Arabia, the UN vote paving the way to formal Palestinian statehood, the security risks for Israel and the West, the emotional first public appearance of hostages Noah and Avinatan, plus her unfiltered take on Michelle Obama’s latest comments and the online rhetoric of figures like Nick Fuentes and Andrew Tate.
Then Erin is joined by Miss Israel, Melanie Shiraz, who responds to the viral clip accusing her of giving a “death stare” to Miss Palestine on the Miss Universe stage. She explains what really happened, how the footage was used online, what it’s like being Miss Israel in 2025, and why this controversy has only strengthened her commitment to advocacy for Israel and the Jewish people.
Finally, Lord Jonathan Marland breaks down the situation in the UK under Keir Starmer: tax hikes, division, unrest inside Labour, immigration tensions, and institutions under strain. He explains why he thinks Britain is at a tipping point, what that means for the future of UK politics, and squeezes in some classic Aussie–Brit Ashes banter with Erin.
Chapters
0:00 – Erin’s welcome & why this show is your “best 40 minutes”
2:10 – Trump’s F-35 jet deal with Saudi Arabia
5:20 – UN votes for Gaza force & Palestinian state recognition
7:22 – Noah & Avinatan: reunited after captivity
10:40 – Ted Cruz & Marco Rubio 2028? Erin’s “Rubio/Cruz or Cruz/Rubio?”
11:37 – Michelle Obama’s comments & Erin’s response
15:40 – Nick Fuentes & Andrew Tate: Erin reacts to their posts
17:20 – Miss Israel, Melanie Shiraz Interview
28:33 – Introducing Lord Jonathan Marland
46:50 – Fan feedback, your comments & Erin’s final message
US school that expelled Jews after antisemitic bullying apologizes in settlement
A top US private school in northern Virginia has settled a lawsuit over its expulsion of three Jewish students after their parents complained about repeated antisemitic bullying, lawyers for the parents and the state attorney general said on Tuesday.UKLFI: UK Lawyers for Israel warns Origin Festival UK that banning Israeli artists may breach Equality Act
The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and Dillon PLLC in July filed a complaint against the Nysmith School for the Gifted, located an hour outside of Washington, DC, saying the expulsion violated the Virginia Human Rights Act.
Nysmith is considered one of the best elementary schools in the United States and charges an annual tuition of more than $46,000 per year. It is not clear how many of its approximately 500 students are Jewish.
According to the complaint, bullies taunted the 11-year-old daughter of Brian Vazquez and Ashok Roy for being “Israeli,” called Jews “baby killers,” and said they deserved to die because of what is happening in Gaza.
“The bullies told their daughter that everyone at the school is against Jews and Israel, which is why they hate you,” the Brandeis Center said in a statement. “The other children also taunted her about the death of her uncle, saying that they were glad he died in the October 7th attack, even though he had died years earlier.”
According to the complaint, the sixth-grade girl’s history class had created a large artistic image of Adolf Hitler to represent an image of a “strong historical leader” in October 2024. The parents spoke with other parents about the matter and decided not to complain at the time, assuming it was an isolated instance of poor judgment, the complaint said.
UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) has written to Origin Festival UK, warning that the festival may be acting unlawfully after reports that it has decided to ban Israeli musicians from performing at its 2026 event. Origin is a new techno psychedelic music festival, due to take place in July 2026 in Abbots Repton, Cambridgeshire.UKLFI: Muay Thai world body urged to end discrimination against Israeli competitors
The letter was prompted by a WhatsApp message in which an individual—apparently the festival’s founder—states:
“We are not booking any acts from Israel for the Origin UK event… I don’t support the Israeli government’s actions… Unfortunately for them untangling the people from the country and their government is challenging. So we just have to stay away from the scenario.”
UKLFI’s letter explains that excluding performers on the basis of nationality may breach the Equality Act 2010, which prohibits discrimination in the provision of services and in the treatment of contract workers. Festival organisers, as service providers, cannot legally refuse to provide services—including performance opportunities, backstage facilities, payment, or logistical support—on grounds related to race, nationality, or religion.
UKLFI further highlights that the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism identifies “holding Jews collectively responsible for the actions of the State of Israel” as an example of antisemitism. Penalising individual artists for the policies of the Israeli government, the group argues, falls within this definition.
UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) has written urgently to the International Federation of Muaythai Associations (IFMA) after learning that an Israeli athlete has once again been denied recognition of his nationality at an upcoming IFMA competition, despite prior assurances that the discriminatory practice would end.
In a letter sent on 14 November 2025, UKLFI expressed dismay that Israeli competitor, Maxim Branis, has been designated as “AIN” (Individual Neutral Athlete) – effectively concealing his Israeli nationality – in official information for the European Championships due to begin in Athens on 17 November 2025. UKLFI notes that this follows IFMA’s previous exclusion of Israeli flags and symbols, a practice that IFMA’s Secretary General, Stephan Fox, reportedly undertook to end after two recent tournaments.
UKLFI emphasises that such treatment is unlawful, discriminatory, and in direct breach of IFMA’s constitutional guarantees of non-discrimination. In its earlier detailed letter of 7 August 2025, UKLFI set out multiple constitutional violations arising from IFMA’s exclusion of Israeli national symbols, highlighting:
IFMA’s Preamble, which affirms participation in Muaythai “without discrimination of any kind”;
Articles 2.5 and 2.9, which prohibit discrimination on national or political grounds; and
Article 21.2, which requires national flags and anthems to be used during medal ceremonies.
UKLFI stresses that IFMA has no constitutional authority to impose what amounts to a sanction against Israel, noting that no disciplinary process has been followed and that the measure is neither temporary nor neutral in effect.
In its new letter, UKLFI also draws attention to the Fundamental Principles of Olympism, bearing in mind that Muay Thai and IFMA are fully recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and were featured as a demonstration sport at the Paris Olympics.
The discriminatory treatment of Israeli athletes appears to breach the Fundamental Principles of Olympism, particularly:
Article 4, prohibiting discrimination of any kind;
Article 5, requiring political neutrality; and
Article 6, ensuring access to sport without discrimination.
Because of IFMA’s Olympic recognition, UKLFI has copied the letter to senior IOC officials, including the Director of NOC Relations and the President of the Israel Olympic Committee, urging them to consider the consequences of IFMA’s conduct.
Even from a site that repeatedly spews out vile hard left takes, this is particularly sick.
— Stephen Pollard (@stephenpollard) November 18, 2025
One of my golden rules is that people always reveal their real selves, eventually. Same holds for websites. https://t.co/1BoB1Jp5dJ
Study: PA newspaper antisemitic, rejects peace with Israel
A new study by the Jewish People Policy Institute found persistent antisemitic and anti-Zionist messaging in the Palestinian Authority’s official newspaper, Al-Hayat al-Jadida, alongside mostly negative depictions of Hamas.German auction house cancels ‘shameless’ sale of concentration camp artifacts
The study—based on AI analysis of more than 2,300 opinion columns published between January 2022 and August 2025—found that about 20% of pieces mentioning Jews contained clear antisemitic content. These included denials of Jewish peoplehood; conspiracy theories about Jewish control of world power; and comparisons of Israel to Nazism or colonial regimes.
The report noted little change in antisemitic content before and after Hamas’s terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
While Al-Hayat al-Jadida frequently described Hamas as illegitimate, the tone briefly softened following Oct. 7. During the first weeks of the war, 67% of articles took a neutral stance toward Hamas and 11% were mildly positive, often in calls for Palestinian unity. Negative coverage later rebounded, with nearly 80% of wartime pieces portraying Hamas in a strongly critical light.
Two-thirds of articles referencing Oct. 7 described the attack negatively, mainly as a disaster that brought severe consequences on Palestinians, while only about 7% took a positive view.
The paper also consistently opposes peace with Israel, with 62% of articles dismissing prospects of an agreement and labeling Israel a colonial entity.
An auction house in Germany canceled the sale of hundreds of items that belonged to Holocaust victims a day before it was set to take place.Georgian national known as ‘Commander Butcher’ pleads guilty to plan to poison Jewish children
The Felzmann auction house planned to offer 623 artifacts, including letters from concentration camps and documents detailing Nazi crimes, in the western German city of Neuss on Monday. After outcry from a Holocaust survivor group, the auction was canceled on Sunday and its listing disappeared from the house’s website by Sunday afternoon.
The auction was canceled shortly after being condemned by the International Auschwitz Committee, a group of survivors based in Berlin. The group’s executive vice president, Christoph Heubner, called the sale a “cynical and shameless undertaking” that left survivors “outraged and speechless.”
“Their history and the suffering of all those persecuted and murdered by the Nazis is being exploited for commercial gain,” Heubner said in a statement on Saturday. He demanded the auction house cancel its event, saying the contents “belong to the families of the victims” and “should be displayed in museums or memorial exhibitions.”
Poland’s Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said on Sunday he confirmed with his German counterpart, Johann Wadephul, that the “offensive” auction was aborted.
“Respect for victims requires the dignity of silence, not the din of commerce,” Sikorski said on X. He also appealed for artifacts to be handed to the Auschwitz Museum.
Days before cancelling without a statement, the auction house defended its planned sales to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, saying that private collectors used the items for “intensive research” and their activity contributed not to “the trade in suffering, but the preservation” of memory.
Titled “System of Terror, Vol. II,” the catalog showed items dating from 1933 to 1945. The first part of a privately collected trove of Holocaust letters was sold by the auction house six years ago, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Many items came from the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps. A postcard from Auschwitz to Krakow in 1940 had a starting bid of $580, with a listing advertising the prisoner’s “very low inmate number” and their letter’s “very good condition.”
A Georgian national who goes by “Commander Butcher” and who plotted to poison Jewish children with ricin-laced poison pleaded guilty in federal court in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Monday, the U.S. Justice Department said.Maryland man pleads guilty to threatening Jewish orgs, faces up to 169 years in jail
“The outstanding investigative work in this case saved untold lives and underscores the crucial behind-the-scenes activity of our federal law enforcement agents,” stated Pamela Bondi, the U.S. attorney general. “Violent, nihilistic, racist groups like these are an ongoing threat to the American people. Our vigilance will not waver as we protect our citizens.”
As a leader of the Maniac Murder Cult, an “international racially motivated violent extremist group,” Michail Chkhikvishvili recruited people to plan a “mass casualty attack in New York City,” the Justice Department said.
Chkhikvishvili traveled to Brooklyn in June 2022 and encouraged others, who turned out to be an undercover FBI agent, to commit violent hate crimes via encrypted communications platforms, per court documents.
In November 2023, he planned to have someone dress as Santa Claus and hand out candies to black children. He also plotted to target Jewish children in Brooklyn, including detailed instructions for creating lethal poisons and gases.
Chkhikvishvili, who faces up to 40 years in prison, inspired other attacks, according to the Justice Department, which stated that a shooter at a school in Nashville, Tenn., and an attacker in Turkey cited him in their manifestos.
Clift Seferlis, 55, of Garrett Park, Md., pleaded guilty on Monday to sending “numerous threats” to Jewish organizations in Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington, D.C., the U.S. Department of Justice said.Man accused of plotting to target Jews was ‘very happy’ running a restaurant, jury told
Seferlis made the threats between March 2024 and June 2025, when he was arrested.
He threatened more than 25 Jewish institutions, including “synagogues, Jewish museums, Jewish community centers, Jewish schools, Jewish non-profit organizations and a Jewish delicatessen,” the department said.
It added that his letters and postcards “threatened to destroy physical buildings and/or to injure individuals.”
Some of these threats referred to dangerous weapons, fire or explosives, the Justice Department said. When he is sentenced on March 16, he faces up to 169 years in jail, three years of supervised release and a fine of $5.65 million.
A terror plot accused was “very happy” running an Italian restaurant in Norfolk before he moved to the north West of England, where he allegedly planned to target a mass gathering of Jews, a court has heard.France promotes Jewish soldier Alfred Dreyfus, 130 years after wrongfully convicting him of treason
Tunisian national Walid Saadaoui, 38, is said to have wanted to cause “untold harm” and kill as many Jewish people as he could in a gun atrocity.
The married father-of-two denies preparing acts of terrorism between December 2023 and May last year.
Giving evidence on Tuesday at Preston Crown Court, Saadaoui told jurors how he came to the UK in 2012 with his first wife, Jane, who he met in his home country, where he worked as a hotel entertainer helping to stage dance shows, quiz contests and water aerobics.
He said he successfully applied for a work visa and the couple moved to Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, and he gained employment at a Haven Holiday Village.
France Tuesday promoted Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army captain wrongly convicted of treason in 1894, to the rank of brigadier general as an act of reparation in a notorious case of anti-Semitism that has caused outrage for generations.Holocaust survivor Vera Schaufeld MBE dies aged 95
The law is seen as a symbolic step in the fight against anti-Semitism in modern France, at a time of growing alarm over hate crimes targeting Jews in the country in the context of the Gaza war.
President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu signed the promotion into law on Monday, and it was published in the so-called Official Journal of new legislation on Tuesday.
"The French nation posthumously promotes Alfred Dreyfus to the rank of brigadier general," the law reads.
Parliament's lower house unanimously approved the legislation in June, and the Senate backed it earlier this month.
Dreyfus, a 36-year-old army captain from the Alsace region of eastern France, was accused in October 1894 of passing secret information on new artillery equipment to a German military attache.
The accusation, based on a comparison of handwriting on a document found in the German's wastepaper basket in Paris, kicked off what would become known as the "Dreyfus affair".
Dreyfus was put on trial amid a virulent anti-Semitic press campaign. But novelist Emile Zola then penned his famous "J'accuse...!" ("I accuse") pamphlet in support of the captain.
Jewish organisations across the UK have paid tribute to Holocaust survivor Vera Schaufeld MBE, who has died at the age of 95.
In a personal tribute, Olivia Marks-Woldman, Chief Executive Officer of Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, said: “I am deeply saddened by the passing of Vera Schaufeld MBE, a wonderfully kind and gentle woman who contributed so much to Holocaust education after her active working life as a teacher.
"Vera has left an indelible mark on me, as she has done on all those she met. I have wonderful memories of having tea in the garden of her care home, discussing the books we'd read in our respective book clubs, and dissecting the news of the day. Her intelligence, warmth and generosity will inspire all of us at the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust for years to come.”
Born Vera Löwyová in Prague in 1930, Schaufeld was just nine years old when she came to the UK on the Kindertransport, organised by Sir Nicholas Winton.
“Despite being only nine years old, Vera’s strength and courage shone through as she bravely waved farewell to her parents on the platform of Prague Main Station – never to see them again,” said Michael Newman OBE, Chief Executive Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR).
He went on: “Within the AJR, Vera’s dedication was unfaltering… Through her eloquence and heartfelt storytelling, she brought the human dimension of the Kindertransport to life.”
A bio on the Holocaust Memorial Trust’s website says: “Throughout the war, Vera hoped that she would be reunited with her parents in Czechoslovakia. However, after the war ended in 1945 she received a letter from the Red Cross telling her that none of her family had survived and she had no home to return to.”
After the war, Schaufeld spent time in Israel, where she met her future husband Avram Schaufeld – who had survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald – on a kibbutz. The couple were married in 1952, and moved back to the UK where they had two daughters, and Schaufeld trained as a teacher.
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