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Wednesday, January 28, 2026

01/28 Links Pt2: Islamists have been given a veto over public life; Hundreds at funeral of Ran Gvili, Israel’s final hostage; A Hospital’s Shocking Treatment of a Bondi Beach Survivor

From Ian:

20 Jews murdered, 815 severe antisemitic attacks took place worldwide in 2025
Twenty Jews were murdered worldwide and some 815 severe antisemitic incidents were documented in 2025, according to a report released Tuesday by the Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Ministry.

The total number of attacks was down from 2024, the ministry said without elaborating, while the number of deaths rose significantly from the one confirmed antisemitic murder in 2024, of Chabad Rabbi Zvi Kogan.

The report also recorded approximately 124 million antisemitic posts on X, formerly Twitter, and over 4,000 anti-Israel demonstrations, of which 365 were classified as posing a high or extreme risk to Jewish communities.

Antisemitic activity and rhetoric skyrocketed after Hamas launched its war against Israel on October 7, 2023. The data was presented during the International Conference on Combating Antisemitism, held in Jerusalem on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The highest numbers of incidents were recorded in the United States (273), the United Kingdom (121), Australia (45), France (44), and Canada (37), the ministry said.

The murders included 15 killed in the Hannukah terror attack at Bondi Beach in December, two killed in a Yom Kippur attack in Manchester, two Israeli embassy staff members killed outside the Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, in May, and a woman killed at a pro-Israel vigil in Boulder, Colorado, in June.

Other noteworthy incidents included an Israeli tourist hospitalized in Greece after a pro-Palestinian attacker bit off part of his ear in July; an elderly Jewish woman stabbed in a grocery store in Canada in August; the torching of a Sydney childcare center in January; the beating and attempted kidnapping of an Israeli in Wales in March; and the torching of a Melbourne synagogue with 20 people inside in July.

Belongings of members of the Jewish community are seen at the scene of a terror shooting at Bondi Beach in Sydney on December 15, 2025. (DAVID GRAY / AFP)

The data showed a clear correlation between spikes in violence and incitement and international security developments related to Israel’s war in Gaza, the report said without elaborating.
Brendan O'Neill: Islamists have been given a veto over public life
The Met imposed severe conditions on the UKIP march. No one, they decreed, is permitted to take part in a UKIP gathering anywhere in Tower Hamlets on 31 January. Their reasoning is truly scandalous. ‘We are not saying that the UKIP protest, in isolation, will be disorderly’, they said. But ‘we reasonably believe’ that ‘groups who are hostile’ will ‘find it provocative’. That means there could be ‘an adverse local reaction’ that might include ‘violence and serious disorder’. Strip away all the euphemistic cop-speak and what is being said here is that a right-wing, pro-Jesus rally is likely to piss off Islamists and thus it is forbidden.

If this doesn’t shock you, I don’t know what to say. The dictionary definition of appeasement is ‘giving in to hostile demands’ in order to maintain some kind of peace. That’s what happened here. The Met cravenly bowed to the belligerence of local bigots. They sacrificed freedom of assembly at the altar of ideological menace.

It matters not one iota what you think of UKIP. To prevent anyone from holding a ‘Walk with Jesus’ because you fear a ‘local adverse reaction’ is to play a dangerously divisive game. What the Met should have done is police those that they suspect will commit violence (local Islamists), not punish those who, by their own admission, are unlikely to be ‘disorderly’ (UKIP). In doing the opposite, the Met have made themselves the footsoldiers of Islamism and the enemies of freedom.

Who will now deny there is an Islamist veto over much of our public life? Courtesy of the moral cowardice of our institutions, Islamists enjoy staggering power over who is allowed to assemble in public, where, for how long, and for what reasons. The Met’s capitulation to Whitechapel extremists comes hot on the heels of the Maccabi Tel Aviv scandal, when West Midlands Police banned Jews from Israel from attending a game at Villa Park because they caught wind of the fact that local elements were planning to arm themselves to attack those Jews. West Midlands Police had earlier banned Birmingham’s 2025 Diwali celebrations, again out of ‘concerns for public safety’.

Anyone who’s thinking of gloating at the fact that a UKIP assembly has been forbidden should think again. For the Islamist veto, this trump card of violent menace, has also led to a prohibition on Jews from Israel and the brute prevention of Brummie Hindus from marking the most joyous festival in their religion. No one is safe from the extra-legal powers that our spineless rulers have gifted to noisy Islamists.

Recent history makes it clear where such kowtowing can lead. For what was England’s rape-gang scandal if not a vile byproduct of the elites’ fear of rocking the ‘multicultural’ boat? That industrial-scale abuse of mostly white working-class girls by men who considered them little more than ‘slags’, as police, councils and politicians looked the other way, was a testament to the horrors that can flow from official cowardice. And how does the Labour government respond to all of this? By obsessing over a new definition of ‘Islamophobia’, which will make it even harder for decent Brits – Muslims and non-Muslims alike – to discuss the Islamist scourge.

Tearing up the Islamist veto, shoving it in the shredding machine of history, is one of the pressing tasks of our time. Everyone who values secularism, liberty and equality should balk at the elevation of Islamist feeling over everyday freedom. This is how you respond when Islamists say a UKIP march, Jewish football fans or a Diwali celebration will cause them offence: So fucking what? Get over it. Stop being a baby.
When hate becomes a business: The monetization of antisemitism
Antisemitism has always adapted to its surroundings. Today, it has adapted to the digital economy.

What once circulated through fringe pamphlets or isolated gatherings now thrives online, in an environment where outrage is rewarded, provocation is amplified and attention can be monetized. Antisemitism is no longer just spreading. In many cases, it is being incentivized.

In the modern attention economy, clicks equal currency. Algorithms are designed to reward engagement, not accuracy or morality. Content that shocks or enrages travels farther and faster, and antisemitic material, unfortunately, performs well in that system. The result is not only broader exposure to hate, but a set of financial incentives that sustain and accelerate it.

We saw this dynamic recently in Miami Beach, where videos circulated online of influencers singing Nazi slogans and performing salutes, first in a limousine and later inside a nightclub. They laughed, played to the cameras, fully aware they were being recorded and without a hint of shame.

The episode spread widely because it was inflammatory. In today’s digital ecosystem, outrage fuels visibility. Visibility drives traffic. Traffic brings revenue. Antisemitism becomes content and content becomes cash.

Extremist figures understand this well. For some, antisemitism is strategic. Provocation drives attention. Attention drives donations, subscriptions, merchandise sales and influence. In these cases, hate is not just ideology. It is a business model.

What once existed on the fringes now operates openly on mainstream platforms, supported by systems that reward engagement without evaluating consequences.

When hate becomes profitable, behavior changes.

Repetition normalizes rhetoric that once would have triggered immediate alarm. Over time, the presence of money dulls moral resistance. If content is rewarded, it can begin to feel acceptable, or at least tolerable.

This is where the danger lies, not only for Jewish communities but for society more broadly. Antisemitism has become embedded in a digital economy that prioritizes virality over responsibility and profit over principle.


‘All the laughter is gone’: Hundreds at funeral of Ran Gvili, Israel’s final hostage
Ran Gvili, 24, the final hostage returned from Hamas captivity in the Gaza Strip, was laid to rest in his hometown of Meitar on Wednesday, eulogized by family members who spoke of their pride, defiance and sorrow after a more than two-year struggle to bring back the remains of the police special forces officer killed in battle on October 7.

Hundreds of Israelis lined the roads with flags as they paid tribute to Gvili, whose body was found by IDF soldiers in a Gaza on Monday. The funeral was notable for being the first hostage burial attended by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a host of other senior officials, including far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, Knesset speaker Amir Ohana and Sephardic Chief Rabbi David Yosef.

Gvili’s mother Talik eulogized her son, speaking of her pride and imagining him sitting in heaven, a glass of arak in his hand, part of a pantheon of fallen Israeli heroes, listening to the eulogies.

“Rani and the other heroes give us the strength,” said Gvili. “You’re so with me, Rani, I’m Talik Gvili, a proud, proud mother.”

She also issued a defiant warning to Israel’s enemies like Hamas who seek to destroy the Jewish state.

“You, our enemies, tried to scare us, look what’s left of you, and you’ll see what will be left of you,” she said.

Gvili, a member of the elite police Yasam unit, was awaiting surgery for a broken shoulder on October 7, 2023, when he began hearing about the Hamas invasion, a 50-minute drive from his family home in Meitar.

He threw on his uniform, hopped on one of his motorcycles, and sped to Kibbutz Alumim, where he battled Hamas terrorists for hours before he was killed.

Gvili had been the last of 251 people kidnapped on October 7 to remain captive, following the return of the rest of the hostages, living and dead, under the current ceasefire. For more than 50 days, he was the only hostage still held in Gaza, amid Hamas’s insistence that it had been unable to locate him, leaving his family and country fearful he might never be recovered.

Gvili’s father, Itzik, spoke of the emotions of how it felt to open the coffin that returned to Israel on Monday and touch his son’s body “for the first time in two and a half years. It was well worth it.”


Seth Mandel: A Hospital’s Shocking Treatment of a Bondi Beach Survivor
Every so often a story emerges from within an ongoing crisis and flips a switch in people’s heads that says: This cannot go on; something has got to change.

The world is seeing a shocking increase in anti-Jewish discrimination in public settings, but what happened to Rosalia Shikhverg ought to be a moment that changes the world’s understanding of what is happening.

Shikhverg suffered gunshot wounds to the head at the Bondi Beach massacre last month. According to an investigation by Sky News, she was rushed to the hospital—where staff allegedly cut her admissions wristband off and put a new one, with a new name, on her. Rosalia Shikhverg was now “Karen Jones.” The new name was printed on her discharge forms and her medication.

A government health official claimed the goyishization of Shikhverg’s identity was done to protect her from media hounding in the wake of the shooting. This feeble and insulting spin only proved that no thought whatsoever was put into the excuse that would be made for this violation of a hospital patient.

The truth—which Shikhverg understood immediately—was that the name change was done to protect her: from hospital staff and medical professionals who could not be trusted to treat a Jewish victim of terrorism because she was a Jewish victim of terrorism.

The crisis of anti-Semitism in public health is such that there was legitimate reason for hospital staff to worry that a patient’s survival depended on their colleagues not knowing the patient was Jewish. In Australia. In the year 2025.

This didn’t come out of nowhere. In Australia and elsewhere in the West, nurses and doctors have been recorded expressing their desire to murder their Jewish patients, in some cases explicitly threatening to do so. Here is the BBC’s description of one of the more infamous such incidents in Sydney:

“A man, who claims to be a doctor, tells Mr Veifer that he ‘has beautiful eyes’ but adds ‘I’m sorry you’re Israeli’ before saying he sends Israelis to Jahannam — an Islamic place akin to hell.

“He goes on to make a throat-slitting gesture, before a woman comes on screen and says that ‘one day’ Mr Veifer’s ‘time will come’ … ‘I won’t treat them, I will kill them,’ she says.”

What makes the Shikhverg case so chilling is that she was in the hospital because she had just been shot by anti-Semites hunting Jews, and then was made to go incognito lest the hospital staff finish her off. When a society reaches a point at which a Jew is thought to be in equal amounts of danger being shot at by experienced gunmen and being treated in hospital, that society cannot continue on as before. It will either descend into a permanent nightmare or its leaders will grab it by the collar and shake it out of its disgrace.

So, what’ll it be, Australia? What’s the plan, Anthony Albanese?


Dymocks remove anti-Israel children’s author Matt Chun from stores as police investigate apparent smearing of Bondi victims
A major Australian bookstore chain has dumped taxpayer-funded anti-Israel children’s author Matt Chun from its books after an astonishing tirade in which he attacked the “innocence” of the victims of the Bondi terror attack.

Dymocks CEO David Allen confirmed to Sky News that Chun’s books had been removed from the bookstores and the chain’s website following customer concerns over a newsletter article the artist had published on New Year’s Day headlined “We don’t mourn fascists”.

Mr Allen said the works had been removed as a result of Chun’s response to the attack.

“The Bondi tragedy is heartbreaking, absolutely heartbreaking, and something that should never have happened, and as we communicated, ‘we are constantly reviewing our offering to ensure our Brand is representing the expectations of our customers,’” Mr Allen told Sky News.

“We are doing our best to stay alert to the connections that any literature has had to this terrible tragedy and to respond accordingly, and the steps we have taken with Matt Chun or any other sensitive literature is as a result of this.”

A complaint raised with Dymocks, obtained by Sky News, shows a member of the public raising the January 1 article by Chun as having “the potential to cause significant reputational harm to your organisation”.

“This piece is quite frankly disgustingly antisemitic, dehumanises the victims, inflammatory, and cruel to the victims of the tragedy where Mr Chunn (sic) essentially villainises the victims of the shooting (including the 10-year-old child and Holocaust survivor) as deserving of death for celebrating their religious beliefs,” the complainant writes.

“Mr Chunn (sic) continuously frames the victims as responsible for their own passing, asserting that they are undeserving of public empathy or mourning because they attended an event organised by Chabad, an organisation which has political and religious views that differ from his own.

"For myself and many others, the fact that [he] continues to be commercially supported through the sale of children’s books in mainstream retail spaces is deeply disturbing. Children’s authors, in particular, occupy positions of public trust. Their work is often associated with education, empathy, and moral development. The contrast between that role and the rhetoric displayed in this article is stark and concerning."

The complaint also cites the Sky News story about a New South Wales Police investigation into Chun’s publications, and a previous decision by Dymocks, among other retailers, to remove books by celebrity chef Pete Evans in 2020, in response to a cartoon he posted on social media featuring a symbol associated with neo-Nazis.

Australian Jewish Association CEO Robert Gregory praised Dymocks for its response.


Eighty-one years on from the Holocaust, British Jews face a new erasure
Today, on Holocaust Memorial Day, I reflect not just on the horrors of the past, but on a chilling echo in our present. Eighty-one years after the liberation of Auschwitz, Britain’s Jewish community – a vibrant thread in our nation’s fabric – is being systematically edged out of public spaces.

This time it is not through pogroms or state decrees, but through an insidious drip of cancellations, threats and boycotts. This isn’t hyperbole; it’s the lived reality for Jews in the UK over the past two years. It erodes our shared values and invites darker forces to take root.

Consider the arts, where creativity should flourish without fear. In London’s Soho, comedian Roi Dolev’s show Useful Idiots – inspired by his experiences as a gay Israeli feeling unwelcome in LGBTQ+ spaces after October 7, 2023 – was abruptly pulled from the Phoenix Arts Club.

The venue cited safety issues amid threats of boycott from pro-Palestinian activists. At the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2025, Jewish comedians Rachel Creeger and Philip Simon saw their shows cancelled, again under the guise of “safety concerns” due to activists’ threats against Jewish acts. Music venues – bastions of free expression – have become battlegrounds.

Charedi musician Benny Friedman had his London tour stop cancelled in 2024 over anti-Semitic threats, forcing a venue switch. London’s Origins music festival dropped Israeli DJ, Roi Perez from after pressure from the group Ravers for Palestine, despite his own pro-Palestinian advocacy. Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood and Israeli artist Dudu Tassa had concerts in Bristol and London scrapped in May 2025 due to “credible threats” from activists, a move the duo decried as “censorship and silencing.”

In publishing, a “quiet boycott” prevails: agents report that British publishers shun Jewish authors or stories with Jewish themes, fearing backlash and boycotts from anti-Semites. The UK Jewish Film Festival struggled in 2024 to find venues – with many publicly funded precisely to promote minority voices suddenly becoming unavailable – leading its chief executive to warn of the “erasure of British-Jewish culture from national cultural life”.


Antisemitism Is a Cancer that Must Be Periodically Exorcised
There is not much of a “legislative record” for Resolution 60/7, but if it follows the typical pattern for such things at the U.N., it could not have passed had it explicitly connected the Holocaust with antisemitism. The resolution had to reflect the accepted Holocaust narrative that has emerged in the last forty or fifty years.

Yes, there were other groups that suffered significant persecution during the Nazi period in Germany and beyond. Some were violently repressed along racial lines, and others along social and political ones. But the Holocaust itself was the delivery of a campaign promise. It was the culmination of Germany’s electoral process. The National Socialist Party came to power democratically by politically organizing around the Jews. Slavs, Roma, homosexuals, the disabled, and communists, all indisputable targets of persecution, were secondary considerations in the Nazi political rhetoric.

The universalized narrative of the Holocaust that reduces the motives of perpetrators to hate and intolerance allows present-day antisemitic political posturing to go unchallenged. If the world were to admit that the end result of a blatantly antisemetic political project was the destruction of more than one third of the world’s Jewish population, then decent people would be morally obligated to question why antisemitism is allowed to foment on the left and right, across the Muslim world, and more recently in the calls to “globalize the intifada” on the streets of Western capitals and university campuses.

The surge of antisemitism and the apathy of much of the world is so intimately tied to anticolonialism, critical theory, and the demonization of the Western liberal project that it can’t be challenged and must be neutralized. The radical Islam of U.N. member states like Qatar and the need to appeal to growing Islamist voting blocks in western nations mean that there are many forces acting within the U.N. that cannot abide a counter-narrative based in reality. So, once again, political action and language must be organized around and against the Jews in order to achieve political ends.

All of this is not to say that much good can’t be realized by the widespread observation of such a day of remembrance. The news cycle that surrounds it, even if it is relatively disinterested and weak, still provides a platform to oppose antisemitism specifically and even criticize the dominant social and cultural narratives that allow it to persist. Those of us who truly desire to see the eradication of the world’s oldest hate, for Jewish communities to live in peace alongside non-Jewish neighbors, and for Israel to be secure can always use the occasion to speak, write, and organize. But part of that speaking, writing, and organizing must include clarity and honesty about the nature of the corrosive social cancer that threatens all of us, and not just the Jews.


Stephen Pollard: Why the BBC is one of the most dangerously antisemitic organisations in the West
Around 20 years ago I was booed in shul. It’s not a moment you forget. All the more so given that the context was that I was on a panel arguing (against my fellow panellists) that the BBC is not institutionally antisemitic.

How’s that for irony, eh? Today I’d not just say it is institutionally antisemitic but that the BBC is one of the most dangerously antisemitic organisations in the Western world, given its reach and global status, with 1.1 billion people looking at the BBC’s news site every month, making it the most widely read on the planet.

I look back now and wonder how I could have been so naïve back then? As the likes of Danny Cohen, the former controller of BBC1, have put it eloquently and with such deep regret, of course the BBC is intuitionally antisemitic. The evidence is so overwhelming – from its parroting of Hamas propaganda to its coverage of assaults and attacks on Jews in the UK and so much else – that you have to ignore reality to make the opposite case.

You don’t need me to list the many wilful distortions by the BBC in order to portray Jews and Israel in the worst possible light, such as last year’s “documentary”, Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone, narrated by the son of a Hamas minister, and its coverage in 2021 of an attack by a gang of Muslim youths on a bus of Jewish children in Oxford Street, when it asserted that one of the Jews had said “dirty Muslims.” The Jewish child was in fact calling for help in Hebrew, but the BBC reported the slur as fact – as if it was desperate to find a way to blame the Jews and excuse the behaviour of their Muslim attackers. It persisted in this reporting for weeks even after incontrovertible proof of how wrong it was.

But for the sheer audacity of its blatant, calculated, deliberate decision to make its own contribution to wiping Jewish suffering from history – one of the foundations of the contemporary revival in Jew hate - yesterday’s BBC reporting of Holocaust Memorial Day surely tops everything.


Vance faces bipartisan criticism for omitting Jews in Holocaust Remembrance Day statement
Tablet, the Jewish digital magazine that promotes conservative ideas but has drawn a line of skepticism around the vice president, swiftly criticized Vance’s comments.

“Thank you Mr. Vice President for this unique commemoration of the Holocaust that manages to avoid mentioning Jews or condemning Nazis,” the site’s Twitter account posted. The post was retweeted by Jews across the political spectrum, including pro-Palestinian activist and former Congressional candidate Cameron Kasky, and its sentiments were echoed by many other Jews.

“It really takes effort on the part of Vice President Vance to issue a Holocaust Remembrance Day statement like this without any mention of six million Jews lost, the Jewish people, Nazis, or the issue of antisemitism,” Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, tweeted.

“It’s not easy to leave Jews and Antisemitism out of your statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Yet here we are,” wrote Joel Petlin, superintendent of the heavily Hasidic Kiryas Joel school district and conservative political commentator.

Other Trump administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio as well as the official White House statement, mentioned Jews or antisemitism in their own commemorations of the holiday. Some arms of the government had blasted Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz the day before the holiday for comparing immigration raids in his state to Anne Frank.

American Jewish groups have anxiously parsed Vance’s approach to antisemitism over the last few months. The vice president has previously failed to condemn a college student’s antisemitic question; remains close with Tucker Carlson; and has said several times that antisemitism is not a problem in the conservative movement. “We have far more important work to do than canceling each other,” he said at a Turning Point USA conference in December.

He has also said that stopping immigration is the best way to combat antisemitism.


United Reform Church apologises over Holocaust Memorial Day social media post
The United Reform Church (URC) has apologised after posting a ‘Daily Devotion’ on social media marking Holocaust Memorial Day which said that “the disciples were bound by the Pharisee’s rigid legalism and the Sadducee’s sceptical unbelief, both of which distort God’s truth.”

The URC, a Protestant non-conformist denomination in the UK with more than 1,200 congregations across Britain, had specifically referenced Holocaust Memorial Day in their post, published on BlueSky on Tuesday. Though the “devotion” itself had no reference to the Holocaust, being concerned with a verse from the New Testament book of Matthew, social media users were highly critical of the post, linking it to the doctrine of Christian Supersessionism – the idea that Christians supplanted Jews as God’s ‘people of the Covenant’.

On Wednesday, following a query from Jewish News, the URC deleted their original social media post and released a statement saying that “Yesterday, a social media post included a reference to Holocaust Memorial Day which was unsuitable, for which we apologise.

“The URC has marked Holocaust Memorial Day for many years and is a member of many interfaith dialogues. We deeply regret any distress caused.”

A spokesperson for the Council of Christians and Jews (CCJ) said: “We are extremely disappointed to see the devotion shared on Holocaust Memorial Day by Revd Nicola Furley-Smith on United Reformed Church platforms.


Andrew Lawrence: BBC Verify- Holocaust Special

Convicted terrorist who plotted to bomb British consulate and was linked to hook-handed hate preacher Abu Hamza stands in Birmingham council elections to 'unify the people'
A convicted terrorist who was jailed for plotting to blow up the British embassy and had links to hook-handed hate preacher Abu Hamza intends to stand as a candidate in Birmingham's local elections.

Shahid Butt, 60, said he wants to 'unify the people' and push back against the far right when he stands for election in Sparkhill, in the upcoming Birmingham City Council elections, which will be held in May.

However his candidacy is marred by controversy.

Butt was convicted by a court in Yemen in 1999 after prosecutors said he was part of a militant group planning attacks on Western targets, including the British consulate in Aden, an Anglican church, and a Swiss-owned hotel.

The then 33-year-old - who was born in Pakistan before moving to Birmingham at an early age with his parents - was sentenced to five years in prison for associating with armed groups, 'plotting murder and destruction', and possessing weapons.

The case involved eight Britons and two Algerians and was linked to Islamist militants operating in the Middle Eastern country.

During proceedings, it was heard that Butt and the group had been sent to Yemen by Abu Hamza, the hook-handed and one-eyed British hate preacher who is now serving a life sentence in the USA after being extradited in 2012 on terrorism charges.

The defendants were said to have trained at a militant camp run by national Zein al-Abidine al-Mihdar, who was later sentenced to death for his role in the 1998 kidnapping of 16 Western tourists.
UNESCO survey: antisemitism reported in three quarters of EU classrooms
Antisemitism is being encountered in classrooms across the European Union on a scale described as deeply alarming, according to a major new survey published by UNESCO to coincide with Holocaust Memorial Day.

The study found that more than three-quarters of teachers surveyed across the EU have witnessed antisemitic incidents between pupils, alongside high levels of Holocaust denial, Nazi symbolism and even physical attacks on Jewish students.

Drawing on responses from 2,030 teachers in 23 EU member states, the report – Addressing antisemitism through education: a survey of teachers’ knowledge and understanding – is the first Europe-wide study to examine how educators experience and perceive antisemitism in schools.

According to the findings, 78 percent of teachers said they had encountered at least one antisemitic incident among students, while more than a quarter reported seeing nine or more such incidents. Nearly two-thirds (61 percent) said they had come across Holocaust denial or distortion in the classroom, with one in ten saying this occurred frequently.

One in ten teachers reported witnessing physical attacks on Jewish pupils at least once, while 44 percent said they had seen students making Nazi gestures or wearing or drawing Nazi symbols. A majority (61 percent) admitted they had at times been unable to answer pupils’ questions about antisemitism, and 42 percent said they had encountered antisemitic behaviour from fellow teachers.
Notes from a pro-Israel student: Our spaces should feel like home, not a hiding place
Being visibly Jewish on campus has never felt straightforward, but for the second anniversary of Oct. 7, we refused to shrink ourselves. My friend and I set up a stall in the middle of campus. Around us, we wrapped the pillars with hostage posters, hung Israeli flags and lit electric candles in remembrance. We had done the risk assessment, spoken about security and planned for almost every scenario—experience had taught us that visibility comes at a cost.

But the initial reaction wasn’t an explosion of noise; it was a strange kind of quiet. Hardly any Jewish students approached us. A few students paused, wide-eyed, telling us it was the first time they had ever seen an Israeli flag on campus. Some claimed that they knew far more about the war in Gaza than about the horror of Oct. 7, until they stopped and read our leaflets.

There were a few people who gave us looks, snickered or took photos in a way that felt hostile, but compared to what we had prepared for, it barely registered. This is a hopeful trend, but the only way it can continue is if more of us step up and show the world who we are.

As the day went on, something shifted. Jewish students who had initially been too nervous to be seen at the stall started to appear. Seeing photos of the stall online—open, calm, unmistakably ordinary—gave them the confidence to stop by. As a result, it was the public stall, and not the private Jewish event held for the anniversary, that sparked more engagement and conversation.

That shift reflected something I’d already seen leading both the Jewish and Israeli societies: on campus, fear often shows up as absence. We recently polled our community to get an honest sense of the mood on campus, and more than half of the community said that safety concerns are what keep them from showing up to Israel events. Many were supportive in private, but too anxious to be seen.
Columbia Tries To Distance Itself From New Pulitzer Board Member After Free Beacon Report
Columbia University attempted to distance itself from the Pulitzer Prize Board's newest member, Harvard professor Vijay Iyer, after a Washington Free Beacon report revealed his strident anti-Israel activism and membership in a faculty group that published an anti-Semitic cartoon.

"The Pulitzer Prizes are housed at Columbia University, but the Pulitzer Prize Board is independent of the University and operates as such," the university said in a statement on Wednesday. "The members of the Pulitzer Board are selected through their own process and neither the University nor any of its employees played any role in the Board's most recent selections."

The statement came less than 24 hours after the Free Beacon report and elides Columbia's deep connection to the prizes. Deliberations over the prizes take place on the Columbia campus in Pulitzer Hall, which houses the Columbia School of Journalism. The university also manages the investment portfolio used to fund the Pulitzers.

Columbia's president is a "permanent voting member" of the prize committee, and Columbia Journalism School dean Jelani Cobb has been a non-voting member since 2022. The prizes are also administered by Columbia employees Marjorie Miller and Joseph Legaspi, Miller's assistant. Miller is also a non-voting member of the Pulitzer board.

New board members are recommended by a nominating committee, according to the Poynter Institute, a journalism nonprofit. The full board then votes on the recommendations. When Poynter reported on the board's inner workings in 2018, it noted that the board's "Columbia brass has no more say than anyone else," indicating that Pulitzer board members affiliated with Columbia vote on new additions.

Columbia acting president Claire Shipman did not vote on Iyer's board membership, according to a university spokesman.
Jewish groups at UC Irvine decry student government statement for distorting Holocaust
A resolution commemorating International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which the student senate at the University of California, Irvine passed unanimously on Jan. 20, distorts the Holocaust and disregards Jewish student voices, according to the public school’s Hillel, Chabad-Lubavitch center and Alpha Epsilon Pi chapter.

The three groups stated jointly on Jan. 22 that they are “deeply disappointed” by the student government’s actions for opting “to delay and significantly dilute legislation recognizing International Holocaust Remembrance Day by labeling it ‘political.’”

The student government “removed references to the documented rise in antisemitism over the past two years, erased Hillel at UCI student authorship, excluded all campus Jewish organizations and eliminated educational resources, including the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Yad Vashem and relevant UCI courses on antisemitism and the Holocaust,” the trio said.

The original resolution, which JNS viewed, stated that there has been a “drastic increase in antisemitism over the last two years” and listed Hillel at UCI, Chabad at UCI, AEPi, Anteater Jewish Alliance and the school’s Center for Jewish Studies as endorsees. (The school’s athletic teams are the Anteaters.)

The resolution, before it was changed, also listed “educational resources, materials and courses,” linking to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Yad Vashem, the USC Shoah Foundation, Hillel International’s three-part video series on antisemitism and university courses related to the matter.

The revised resolution posted to the student senate website does not list campus student groups, nor does it mention the rise in Jew-hatred over the past two years.
University of Michigan to Host Event on "Queer Palestinian Film & the Second Intifada"
The University of Michigan (UMich) is set to host a screening and lecture on "Queer Palestinian Film & the Second Intifada" on Monday, February 2, 2026 to discuss how queer Palestinian cinema emerged and how those elements connect to the broader trends of the Second Intifada, a violent uprising in which over 1,000 Israelis were killed by Palestinian terrorists. The two short films to be screened are Chic Point (2003) and Diary of a Male Whore (2001).

The event at UMich’s Lane Hall is sponsored by multiple university departments, including Women’s and Gender Studies and Arab and Muslim American Studies, and will explore how these films use “queer narratives and experiences” as a visual language for critiquing Israel’s response to terrorism during the Second Intifada.

A Deadly Reality
While Western academics analyze queer Palestinian cinema as “resistance art,” LGBTQ individuals living under Palestinian Authority and Hamas control face severe persecution. In Gaza, same-sex activity remains a criminal offense, with LGBTQ individuals facing the threat of imprisonment or extrajudicial execution by Hamas. In the West Bank, while same-sex acts are technically decriminalized under Jordanian law, the Palestinian Authority provides no legal protections, leaving individuals highly vulnerable to state harassment and severe social violence.

A 2023 United Nations Human Rights Council report documented harrowing testimonies from gay Palestinians who escaped Gaza and the West Bank. One man recounted Hamas detention: “They put me in a tiny room two-by-two meters. They wouldn’t let me sleep or go to the bathroom inside. There was no food. They would torture me so badly.” Another described being “hanged from the ceiling,” beat up, and interrogated for five days.

LGBTQ Palestinians Fleeing to Israel for Protection
The desperation driving LGBTQ Palestinians to flee became horrifyingly clear in October 2022, when 25-year-old Ahmad Abu Murkhiyeh was beheaded near Hebron after years of family beatings forced him to escape to Israel in 2020. His alleged killer filmed the murder and circulated it on social media, reportedly to “make an example of him.” A BBC News Arabic survey found only 5% of West Bank Palestinians accept same-sex relations.
UKLFI: UKLFI Raises Concerns Over “Ancient Palestine” Reference at King’s College London
King’s College London (KCL) has been accused of presenting a historically inaccurate and misleading description of a Hebrew course on its website.

UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) has written to KCL, highlighting a statement in their Hebrew language course description claiming that Hebrew “was spoken in ancient Palestine” prior to the 3rd century BC. UKLFI argues that this terminology is incorrect, as the term Palestine was not used to describe the inland regions where Hebrew was spoken during that period

UKLFI explains that while the Greek term Palaistinē appears in the writings of Herodotus in the 5th century BC, it referred only to a coastal strip inhabited by the Philistines and did not include Judea, Samaria, or Galilee.

Palestine only became a name for part of the region in 135 CE, when the Romans renamed the province of Judea Syria Palaestina following the Bar Kokhba revolt, a move intended to minimise Jewish ties to the land.

UKLFI pointed out that applying the term retrospectively imposes a modern political label on a territory that had no such identity at the time and risks misleading students about the region’s history.

The letter also raises concerns about the impact of such language on Jewish and Israeli students, warning that it may contribute to a hostile or offensive learning environment. UKLFI notes that universities have a duty under the Equality Act 2010 to avoid conduct that could reasonably be perceived as harassing.

UKLFI has asked KCL to amend the description by replacing “ancient Palestine” with historically accurate terms such as “the Levant” or “Canaan,” and to clarify that Hebrew’s religious use from the 3rd century BC was specifically within Jewish life and worship.


Abbas signs decree seen aimed at barring Hamas from participating in local elections
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has signed a decree that will likely prevent Hamas and other like-minded factions from participating in PA municipal elections slated for April.

The election law amendment announced on Tuesday by the PA’s central election committee will require all candidates to sign a statement accepting the Palestine Liberation Organization’s “national program” — an apparent reference to the PLO’s resolutions, which include the recognition of Israel, the renunciation of terrorism and the pursuit of a two-state solution.

Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and other Israeli- and US-designated terror groups seeking to participate in the Palestinian political system have long refused to accept those PLO policies.

Analysts speculated that Abbas was motivated by a desire to prevent rival Hamas from gaining more of a foothold in the West Bank and ensuring that the PA won’t be exposed to punitive measures due to international sanctions against Hamas, PFLP and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

“I think Abbas is quite worried that Hamas’s stocks are rising and that Hamas might be positioned for a good showing in Palestinian politics,” former PA official Ghaith al-Omari told The Times of Israel.

“This is also about the PA sending a message to the international community and the Americans in particular that, ‘We are on your side,'” said Omari, who is currently a senior research fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.


‘Early enough’ to stop artificial intelligence from having social media’s Jew-hatred problem, ADL says
Six of the most popular artificial intelligence models display “gaps” in response to antisemitic and extremist content, according to new Anti-Defamation League research.

The ADL launched an artificial intelligence index on Wednesday, probing six large language models––OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google Gemini, xAI’s Grok, Meta’s Llama, Anthropic’s Claude and DeepSeek.

From August to October 2025, the ADL conducted more than 25,000 chats with the models to see how they would respond to antisemitic conspiracies, including anti-Zionist tropes, and other extremist content, such as white supremacy.

Daniel Kelley, senior director of the ADL’s center for technology and society, told JNS that the ADL tested document summaries and image recognition on the AI models and asked them a range of questions. Some of those questions were one-offs and others were large conversations.

“We wanted to do as broad a range of modes and modalities of interaction as possible,” he told JNS.

In one instance, ADL researchers asked the models to summarize an article expressing Holocaust denial and provide talking points to support it, according to Kelley. He said that the ADL scored models higher if they refused to go along with the antisemitic ask and explained why, and lower if they obliged.

The ADL says that Claude fights back against antisemitic and extremist content the best among the models. It was “exceptional” at recognizing and rebutting classic Jew-hatred and anti-Zionist conspiracy theories, earning an 80 out of 100, according to the ADL.

The other models earned lower scores: ChatGPT (57), DeepSeek (50), Gemini (49), Llama (31) and Grok (21). The index stated that the models are “evolving,” so the results could change.
Roald Dahl Story Company backs first British Jewish Culture Month
The Roald Dahl Story Company (RDSC) has confirmed it is backing Jewish community initiatives ahead of the launch of the UK’s first British Jewish Culture Month this year.

This support forms part of the company’s ongoing response to author Roald Dahl’s antisemitism, following a public apology issued in 2020 in conjunction with the Dahl family. Since then, the company says it has focused on education, training and engagement with Jewish organisations.

A spokesperson for the Roald Dahl Story Company said: “Since our original apology in 2020 which was made in conjunction with the Dahl family, RDSC has engaged in listening and learning from experts in tackling antisemitism, including the Antisemitism Policy Trust, which has supported us with advice and ongoing staff training to help us better understand antisemitism.

“As part of this work, we are supporting organisations within the Jewish community that work to combat antisemitism and educate people about Jewish life and culture.”

The Board of Deputies of British Jews confirmed it is among a number of Jewish charities receiving funding, which will be used to significantly expand its Jewish Living Experience Exhibition – a travelling educational project introducing audiences to Jewish life, culture and identity.

A Board of Deputies spokesperson said: “The Roald Dahl Story Company (RDSC) has pioneered a positive model for dealing with the legacy of an undoubtedly talented children’s author whose record was tainted by his antisemitism.
Isle of Man adopts IHRA antisemitism definition on Holocaust Memorial Day
The Isle of Man Government has formally adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, marking the decision on Holocaust Memorial Day.

Ministers agreed the move would support inclusive communities on the Island, despite its small Jewish population, and help authorities identify and respond to antisemitic language or behaviour should it arise.

The IHRA definition states: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

The Council of Ministers said formal adoption of the definition reflects the Isle of Man’s long-standing practice of aligning with the UK Government’s wider policy approach. The definition is non-legally binding and does not create new legal obligations or override existing protections for freedom of expression.
Pope Leo asks God for 'a world with no more antisemitism' on Holocaust Remembrance Day
Pope Leo appealed against the global rise of antisemitism on Wednesday, marking the annual commemoration of the Holocaust during his weekly audience at the Vatican with a prayer for a world without prejudice or racism.

"On this annual occasion of painful remembrance, I ask the Almighty for the gift of a world with no more antisemitism and, with no more prejudice, oppression, or persecution of any human being," said the pope.

Leo calls on world leaders to be vigilant so genocide will never occur again
Leo, the first American pope, called on world leaders "to always remain vigilant, so that the horror of genocide may never again fall upon any people."

International Holocaust Remembrance Day, an annual commemoration established by the United Nations, was marked on Tuesday.

Relations between the Catholic Church and Judaism have improved in recent decades, after centuries of animosity.

Leo, like his predecessor Pope Francis, has condemned antisemitism several times since becoming the leader of the 1.4-billion-member Catholic Church last May.

Previously, the pope denounced antisemitism at a weekly audience in October as well as at a ceremony the day before commemorating the Nostra aetate. Promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1965, the declaration marked a change in Catholic relations with Jews and the view on antisemitism.

During the October audience, Pope Leo described the goal of the Nostra aetate as bringing back “the original relationship” between Christianity and the Jewish people.
NJ church says antisemitic character in pageant was taken ‘out of context’
A New Jersey church says it is “committed to engaging in dialogue, and teaching others about our heritage” after putting on a Christmas pageant that drew criticism for reflecting antisemitic stereotypes.

St. Mary Protectress Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s pageant, known as a vertep, featured an antagonist named Moshko who danced with the devil while wearing faux-Hasidic garb like side locks and a black hat. The character was referred to as “zhyd,” a Ukrainian slur for “Jew.”

“We do not have any intention to promote harm or hatred with this pageant,” the church said in a statement issued on Facebook on Friday night. “However, we recognize some outside of our culture may assign elements of the performance to stereotypes when taken out of context which is inclusive of peoples historically present in eastern Europe.”

The church did not respond to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency request for comment prior to an initial report on the vertep earlier this month. It did not respond to an additional request for comment on Monday, following the statement. The church removed photos and video of the pageant from its Facebook page following the JTA report.

The vertep is a centuries-old Slavic Christmas tradition that emerged from puppet theater. In recent years, many Ukrainian Orthodox churches have removed material criticized as offensive. Since the current war between Russia and Ukraine began in 2022, one popular replacement for the Jewish antagonist has been a Russian character.

In its statement, St. Mary Protectress Ukrainian Orthodox Church emphasized that “the event does not target any specific group” but indicated that it could make changes in future pageants.

“The church is reflecting on this matter seriously and is committed to engaging in dialogue, and teaching others about our heritage while ensuring that future events continue to uphold the dignity, respect, and safety of all people,” it said.
Student influencer starts antisemitic argument with Students Supporting Israel club
Kaylee Mahony, a sophomore influencer with more than 125K followers, known as Kaylee Marie or @Kayshmoneyy on TikTok, started a verbal altercation with the Students Supporting Israel club at the Spring Involvement Fair on Tuesday, Jan. 27.

In a video recorded by a student who wishes to remain anonymous, Mahony can be heard saying “Christianity, which says love everyone, meanwhile your Bible says eating with someone who is a non-Jew is like eating with an animal. That’s what the Talmud says.”

She then can be heard projecting her voice and addressing multiple passing students saying, “That’s what these people follow. That’s what these people follow. They think that if you are not a Jew you are an animal. That’s the Talmud. That’s the Talmud.”

Later in the video, Mahony can be heard responding to one of the SSI members, saying “Because you’re disgusting. It’s disgusting.”

Mahony is known on TikTok for her political posts, which often take anti-Israel, anti-immigration and anti-Democrat positions. On her LinkedIn, she lists herself as the head of public relations for the UM College Republicans and the head of social media for Turning Point Miami. Until this evening, Mahony’s Instagram and Tiktok bios included “Proud Goy” — a term used by Jewish people to refer to non-Jews. It has since been deleted from her Instagram bio.

Screenshot of Kaylee Mahony’s Instagram profile before the bio was changed on Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026. // Screenshot via a student who wishes to remain anonymous. Lazaro Chavez, the president of UM College Republicans, said that the club’s executive board came to the collective decision to terminate her membership in the club.

“What happened today is disgusting,” Chavez said. “This is not an organization that accepts hate. This is not an organization that wants to see antisemitism run wild or any form of discriminatory behavior rampant. It’s completely against not only my own personal views, but it’s also completely against the club’s views.”
University of Texas at Austin announces new programs on Jewish, Western civilization
The University of Texas at Austin announced on Tuesday that it is launching two new programs focused on Jewish thought and Western civilization.

“Jewish ideas are central to the foundations of Western culture and the American constitutional order,” stated William Inboden, executive vice president and provost at the public research university. “Modern Israel is one of the world’s most remarkable nations—a singular story of political refuge, economic growth and strategic influence.”

The Ackerman Program on Jewish and Western Civilization includes courses such as “Jewish Thought and Western Philosophy,” “Israeli Grand Strategy and the Modern Middle East” and “The Roots of Modern Antisemitism.” The program will also include a study abroad opportunity in Israel, along with intensive study of modern Hebrew language, literature and culture, according to the university.

The Rosenthal-Levy Scholars program will offer full-tuition scholarships to students interested in studying Jewish and Western civilization. The program includes a $7,000 per year living stipend and “a rigorous academic program in philosophy, history, literature, Jewish civilization, Zionism, political thought, economics, law and strategy.”

Rosenthal-Levy scholars will also be required to complete a set of courses within the Ackerman program.
Israeli cloud security startup hits $1.5 billion unicorn status
Tel Aviv-based cloud security startup Upwind has joined Israel’s growing list of unicorns after the company said Monday that it raised $250 million in a Series B round at a $1.5 billion valuation.

Upwind, which uses artificial intelligence to protect live cloud environments in real time, reports 900% revenue growth and a global customer base that includes Siemens, Peloton, Roku and NuBank.

The round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Picture Capital, which is backed by the founders of Island and Transmit Security, according to Calcalist, which first reported the funding round last week.

Upwind said the latest financing brings its total funding to $430 million. Other backers include Craft Ventures, TCV, Alta Park Capital, Greylock, Cyberstarts, Leaders Fund, Cerca, Sheva and Penny Jar, a fund backed by NBA star Stephen Curry.
New documentary reveals saga behind Elie Wiesel’s world-famous Holocaust memoir ‘Night’
Elie Wiesel’s now-ubiquitous Holocaust memoir “Night” is taught in schools across the United States, but its mass publication and success were hardly preordained. About 10 years after the end of World War II, the Romanian-born Wiesel was making a living as a journalist in Paris when he decided to write a manuscript about surviving the Holocaust — and survival’s costs.

The ensuing text, an 862-page Yiddish-language tome titled “And the World Remained Silent,” was trimmed in length, published in Argentina, and struggled to find a wider audience. Wiesel cut the page count further and changed its focus. After numerous rejections from publishers, a small press finally accepted what the world has come to know as “Night.” Almost 10 years after Wiesel’s death at age 87 in July 2016, the book remains a mainstay of Holocaust education.

The origin story of “Night” is part of a renewed spotlight on Wiesel through a new documentary set for release on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

“Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire,” directed by veteran filmmaker Oren Rudavsky, will air on the PBS documentary series, “American Masters” on January 27, as part of “Honoring Our Stories: Jewish Culture and Remembering the Holocaust,” a recently launched initiative of The WNET Group.

“As Elie would say, suffering confers no privileges — it’s what you do with your suffering,” Rudavsky told The Times of Israel in a Zoom interview. “Elie’s lifelong attempt to give his life meaning is one way to understand him.”

Rudavsky has made numerous documentaries related to the Holocaust, including “Witness Theater,” about a program that connects high school students with Holocaust survivors to create plays about their experiences. “Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire” will air on TV following a festival run with stops at the Hamptons International Film Festival and DocAviv. Elie Wiesel arrives in the Hungarian Parliament building in Budapest in 2009. (AP Photo/Bela Szandelszky, File)

It begins with a quote from Wiesel: “Whoever listens to a witness becomes a witness.” Over the next hour and a half, it features perspectives from immediate family members, as well as scholars and some of the students Wiesel mentored as a professor at Boston University. Animated paintings are used to illuminate key moments in his life. The film incorporates numerous clips of Wiesel, from public appearances to family milestones, including some sweet moments with his wife Marion, son Elisha, and grandchildren, Elijah and Nova. The footage of Marion is bittersweet: She died almost a year ago, in February 2025.




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