Friday, February 20, 2026

02/20 Links Pt2: Reduced to one word – Jew; The Man Setting Fire to the GOP; Israelis called occupiers and ‘human fragments’ on BBC; A pro-Israel bookshelf

From Ian:

Alex Hearn: Reduced to one word – Jew
Comedian. Radio host. Actor. Presenter. Jew.

Only the last one mattered to Thomas Abdullah Bourne. He erased the individual identity and achievements of Matt Lucas until all he saw was a Jew. And Bourne decided that a Jew needed to be publicly humiliated.

There are no exceptions for racists. In the Soviet era, even leading Jewish communists were executed on charges of Zionism after show trials.

Bourne proudly uploaded his video of a Jewish man being harassed for no other reason than his Jewishness. After the backlash, he deleted it along with his account, but the damage was done. Targeting a popular public figure in this way had shown the hateful face of antizionism to the public.

Matt Lucas wasn’t alone. Last week, a Holocaust survivor and other visitors were called “child killers” and harassed by people in Madrid’s Reina Sofía museum because they were visibly Jewish. Instead of receiving assistance, a senior official instructed staff to remove them, saying others were “disturbed” by their presence. The Reina Sofía is considered one of the world’s leading cultural institutions.

Across the west in 2026 Jews are being excluded from museums, harassed on public transport and confronted on the street. And now, incredibly, antizionists could be coming to your home.

In cities including Brighton, Bristol, London and Sheffield, people are going door to door checking whether residents accept their “truth” about Israel – like racist Jehovah’s witnesses. They want people to sign pledges boycotting the world’s only Jewish state. The door-knockers compile lists of those who don’t pass their purity test. What will they do with this information?

Footage from Sheffield appears to show one door-knocker physically attacking a woman who confronted him. When an ideology becomes part of your identity, criticism feels like a personal attack. The door-knockers in Brighton were filmed having a rally by Sky News, with one speaker revealing what appears to be the campaigners’ ultimate goal: to harm Israel “until it shrivels and dies”.

This is the aim of antizionism – the destruction of Israel and the Jews who live there. Some hide behind the fantasy that Israel would be replaced by another democracy, but the Middle East isn’t known for democracy, particularly when it comes to Palestinian leaders. We know what would happen to half the world's Jews in this scenario. October 7, 2023 showed us, when Hamas attempted to implement it.
NGO Monitor: A Growing Threat in Sweden: Samidoun’s Network and Terror Affiliations
Samidoun, a terror-linked and terror-supporting NGO, is active and expanding its presence in Sweden, raising the spectre of incitement, public unrest, and violence.

Designated as a terrorist entity by Israel in 2021, by Germany in 2023, and jointly by the US and Canada in 2024, Samidoun is closely linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) – an EU-designated terrorist organization. Samidoun also promotes other EU-designated groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah and openly advocates for Palestinians’ “natural right to armed resistance,” underscoring the NGO’s ideological commitment to violence.

Terror Designations
In February 2021, Israel designated the NGO, identifying it as “play[ing] a leading and significant role in the PFLP’s anti-Israel propaganda efforts, fundraising, and recruiting activists,” and serving as a “front for the PFLP abroad.”
In 2020, Germany expelled Samidoun head Khaled Barakat, and imposed a four-year entry ban; his appeal was rejected, citing PFLP links and “support for a terrorist organization.” As a result of the ban, Barakat was denied entry into the EU in 2022.
In November 2023, Germany banned Samidoun for violating its Basic Law (Article 9(2)) and its Associations Act; namely, it “impairs and endangers the peaceful coexistence of Germans and foreigners,” “advocates and calls for the use of violence as a means of enforcing political interests,” and “supports associations that initiate, advocate and threaten attacks against people or property.”
In October 2024, the US and Canada issued joint statements listing Samidoun as a terrorist entity. The US described it as a “sham charity that serves as an international fundraiser for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization” and designated Samidoun head Khaled Barakat, “a member of the PFLP’s leadership” who played a “critical role[] in external fundraising for the PFLP.”
The Dutch Parliament passed a resolution in the same month calling on the government to designate Samidoun as a terror organization.

Samidoun’s Operational Presence in Sweden
Samidoun maintains chapters in Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö, which organize and participate in demonstrations and protests across Sweden, including events in Stockholm (Sergels Torg), Gothenburg (Brunnsparken, Centralstation, Gazaplatsen, Gustaf Adolfs Torg), Eskilstuna (Smortorget, Cityhustorget), Ostersund (Badhusparkens scen), and Vasteras (Stora Torget, Sigmatorget).

Support for Terrorist Organizations and Violence
On November 23, 2025, Samidoun Gothenburg co-organized a demonstration in “support of the resistance,” using promotional materials that featured members of terrorist organizations, including Hamas and the PFLP. The demonstration was followed by a joint event commemorating Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, the Muslim Brotherhood figure who is the namesake of Hamas’s military wing. The gathering honored “the legacy of his resistance.”

Promotional image for the November 23, 2025, Samidoun Gothenburg demonstration
On October 12, 2025, following the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, a Samidoun Gothenburg member gave a speech at a demonstration, stating, “The united armed resistance, led by the al-Qassam Brigades [Hamas’ military wing] and backed by a determined people, has stood strong through all this and forced the occupation to an agreement. The ceasefire is a statement of strength for the Palestinian resistance, and it is worth rejoicing over!”
On July 6, 2025, as Iran launched daily ballistic missile attacks on Israeli cities, a Samidoun Gothenburg member gave a speech at a demonstration stating, “I feel hope as the rockets fall over Tel Aviv.” He concluded his speech by calling out, “Death to Israel! Death to the USA! Glory to the martyrs! Long live the resistance! Long live Palestine!”
On November 29, 2024, a Samidoun Gothenburg member participated in a “cultural evening for Palestine” arranged by the cultural association Solens Port, claiming “PFLP, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, the organizations that are building the armed resistance are not terrorists, they are our comrades, they are our heroes.”
PEN America gets captured: organization accepts Palestine as a member and rejects Israel; Jewish chief executive resigns after accusations of being a “Zionist” and not signing on to Israel’s “genocide”
Every day, it seems, another group gets ideologically captured, valorizing Palestine (or Hamas) and demonizing Israel. This is dispiriting for Jews, but the latest such capture—of the free-expression literary group PEN America—is especially depressing.

The decline of PEN American was first evidenced to me when, in 2015, it decided to give a “freedom of expression” award to the magazine Charlie Hebdo, many of whose writers (and a few others) were killed in an attack by al-Qaeda, presumably for making fun of Islam and Muhammad. The award was formally called the “PEN/Toni and James C. Goodale Freedom of Expression Courage Award”, and was to be conferred with other awards at a literary gala banquet.

But six PEN members refused to be “table hosts” at the banquet, and then 139 other members (now 242) signed a letter taking issue with the award. Why? Because although Charlie Hebdo is well known to be an “equal opportunity offender,” whose metier is mocking everyone, including politicians and religions, those PEN members said that it was a no-no to mock Islam because its adherents were “already marginalized, embattled, and victimized.”
South Africa pulls out of Venice Biennale after minister pans artist’s focus on Gaza
South Africa will not participate in this year’s Venice Biennale following a dispute between its culture ministry and the artist it had selected, whose planned installation focused on Gaza.

Gabrielle Goliath, a South African artist selected to represent the country at the international culture exhibition, had planned to showcase a performance piece titled “Elegy” that would include a memorial for the Palestinian poet Hiba Abu Nada, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in 2023.

Goliath’s selection to represent South Africa at the biennale by Art Periodic, a nonprofit that was running the pavilion on behalf of the country, quickly drew the scorn of Gayton McKenzie, the South African culture minister, who called her work “highly divisive.”

While South Africa has long been among the most vocal critics of Israel, and diplomatic ties between the countries have frayed over the course of the war in Gaza, McKenzie has stood out for his staunch support of the Jewish state.

In January, McKenzie terminated the agreement with Art Periodic, writing in a letter that he would instead feature art in Venice that gave “a positive message” about South Africa, according to the New York Times.


The Man Setting Fire to the GOP
While audiences are eagerly awaiting broadcast of the conversation between U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and Tucker Carlson, the podcaster has already scored a decisive win. Carlson and his team leaked to a friendly reporter that after the interview with Huckabee at Ben Gurion Airport, Israeli airport authorities detained and harassed them. According to Carlson, “Men who identified themselves as airport security took our passports, hauled our executive producer into a side room, and then demanded to know what we spoke to Ambassador Huckabee about.”

Not true, explained embassy staff and airport officials. The American media celebrity wasn’t detained, and the questions asked of him and his team in the airport’s VIP lounge were routine. On Thursday, video of Carlson posing for photographs with airport staff surfaced, evidence that he’d fabricated his account.

But all that’s irrelevant because Carlson put points on the board first, and that’s all anyone who isn’t already in the pro-Israel majority will remember. It won’t matter if the interview itself shows Ambassador Huckabee exorcising the demons that Carlson says haunt his nights, because MAGA’s top influencer got all he wanted out of his several-hour-long trip to Israel: one, to show that a long-standing U.S. ally is not really on the side of Americans; and two, to show up the ambassador and the president he serves.

Ambassador Huckabee is a man of great faith and a fine spokesman for the U.S.-Israel relationship, but it’s hard to understand why neither he nor his staff, nor anyone else in the administration, was able to game out Carlson’s move beforehand and instead gave him room to run a variation of the same op he’s been running for two years now. Ben Gurion, where Carlson wanted to do the interview, is a traditional staging ground for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) activists to dramatize their anti-Israel animus. Behold the hypocrisy of the tyrannical occupiers who detained and then deported Umm Jihad, thereby depriving her of the right to organize plots from inside the Zionist entity to destroy the Zionist entity! Since Carlson left Fox News in 2023, he’s effectively become a BDS activist. He says his big political project is to change U.S. foreign policy, by which he means pushing Israel out of the U.S. alliance system.

It’s not possible to debate with Carlson about Jews and Israel, never mind reason with him, because he is a conspiracy theorist whose narratives revolve around Jews and Israel. For instance, according to the podcaster, Israeli Defense Force officers ran roughshod over Trump’s war secretary, Pete Hegseth, and took over the Pentagon during Israel’s 12-day war with Iran. Carlson holds Israel and the “neocons” responsible for dragging the United States into every Mideast conflict—including Trump’s own Operation Midnight Hammer targeting Iranian nuclear facilities—to serve the interests of the Jewish state


A course of indoctrination at the University of Chicago
None of the sources I examined condemned Hamas (the course, after all, is about justifiable violence), and all I saw were resolutely anti-Israel.

What is my conclusion? Well, first, Doostdar surely has a right to teach this course; to prohibit it because it may peddle hatred and lies (“apartheid”, “genocide,” etc.) would violate academic freedom. All I can do is say, that as a fellow faculty member, I think the course is biased and promotes misunderstanding and hatred. Is this an academic or a polemic course?

I would add that if any Jews want to take the course (and some of course should—to see what other side is arguing), they will not emerge having learned that there’s anything good about Israel, or that the IDFs war in Gaza was justifiable. It’s ironic since Israel’s response to the attack on October 7 could also be seen as “liberatory violence” in response to yearslong Palestinian attacks on Israel, though either missiles or acts of terror.

My inspection of the syllabus and perusal of the reading suggest that this is an example of the “one-sided” syllabi that I discussed in a post last year. The authors of the study I described looked at 27 million syllabi. I summarized their results thus:
The upshot is what you might expect: “anti-progressive” (or “conservative”) works were assigned with progressive ones far less often than were works that buttressed the progressive point of view. Conclusion: liberal academia is not exposing students to credible alternative points of view (and yes, the authors took care to examine cite only works that academically credible).

Classic “progressive” works used in their analysis include the following; you won’t know the critical views so much but you can see them in the paper. I’d recommend reading the big unpublished paper if you have time as it has a lot more data.

1. The classic progressive views of racism in the criminal-justice system: Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow and Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book Between the World and Me 2. The classic progressive view of the Israel/Palestine conflict (and oppression of Arabs in general): Edward Said’s book Orientalism 3. The classic progressive “pro-choice” paper: Judith Jarvis Thomson’s paper “A Defense of Abortion“

In short, “progressive” courses did not assign views counter to the course’s own ideology nearly as often as they assigned papers buttressing that ideology. This seems to be the case in Doostdar’s course. Make of it what you will, but it looks like an example of “myside bias.“


Columbia ‘punishing’ graduating class for anti-Israel protests by moving ceremony, students claim
This year’s tassel is causing a hassle.

Columbia University is moving its graduation from the Ivy League school’s campus to its uptown football stadium — prompting a group of angry students to claim the switch to the “foreign” location is “punishment” for years of controversial pro-Palestinian and anti-ICE protests.

The school’s graduating class is desperately trying to reverse the decision to host the ceremony at the Robert K. Kraft Field at the Baker Athletics Complex in Inwood — a move the class of 2026 has slammed as “evil.”

“It’s disrespectful to the student body. We’ve all put in so much hard work at least four years here, and we deserve to feel like we’re being honored and celebrated and respected by the university,” Barnard pre-med student Vivian Carmody, 22, told The Post.

“Between everything that’s happened — especially to my class in the last four years — it feels like more and more of a disconnect between the student body and the administration. And this is just like the cherry on top.”

Widespread outcry erupted almost immediately after Columbia broke the news that this year’s commencement wouldn’t be held on the Morningside campus’s Low Steps in a Feb. 9 email — just three months before its 18,000 students were set to cross the stage, the Columbia Spectator first reported.

Instead, the ceremony would be held eight miles north in the bleachers of the school’s football stadium, which Carmody said most students rarely ever venture out to.


Israelis called occupiers and ‘human fragments’ on BBC
The BBC is facing calls to stop “marking its own homework” after its internal complaints unit ruled it was acceptable to describe Israel as an “occupation” and Jews living there as “human fragments”.

The ruling by the Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) is one of scores in favour of the controversial BBC Arabic service since October 7.

In almost every case, the complaint submitted by media watchdog Camera was rejected.

They include:
Failing to report on violence against Israeli football fans in Amsterdam
Omitting any mention of killings committed by released Palestinian prisoners
Interviewing only pro-Palestinian students at Gaza encampments in the UK
In all, 36 complaints from Camera against BBC Arabic concerning reports since October 7, 2023 have been rejected by the ECU. Two have been upheld, after rulings emerged in recent weeks.

The ECU deals with appeals after complaints have been rejected at the first stage by the broadcaster. Crucially, BBC Arabic, as a part of the World Service, falls outside the scope of Ofcom for further appeals, meaning the findings are the final word on any complaint.

The ruling on the use of “occupation” and “human fragments” concerned an appearance by Palestinian poet Al-Mutawakel Taha on the BBC Arabic programme Hardtalk.

The ECU rejected the complaint, arguing Taha’s incendiary comments to describe Israel and Israelis were his “personal opinion” and did not warrant a challenge from the presenter.
Sunday Times journalist speaks of ‘revulsion’ after ‘grotesque’ smear on his Jewishness in secret report
A senior Sunday Times journalist has said his Jewishness was “grotesquely subverted” in a secretive report that has sparked “revulsion” after it was commissioned to look into the writers of an article on a Labour-linked group.

Gabriel Pogrund, currently the title’s Whitehall editor and Political Journalist of the Year at the 2025 Press Awards, was named in a report compiled by US lobbying group Apco.

The £36,000 report, paid for by the think tank Labour Together, included Pogrund and other investigative journalists in its probe into the “backgrounds and motivations” of those who worked on a 2023 article revealing Labour Together’s failure to declare £730,000 in donations between 2017 and 2020.

The group was later fined over £14,000 by the Electoral Commission for 20 breaches of campaign finance law.

Speaking for the first time about the impact of the Apco report, which was shared with senior Labour Party figures and became Westminster gossip, Pogrund said: “I think the detail which has probably ended up causing a lot of heat and a fair amount of revulsion too is the fact that the report used my Jewishness, which is a source of great pride for me.”

He added the report had “grotesquely subverted that, and said that I must have an odd relationship with my ethno-religious background because of the views that it falsely purported that I hold.”

On The State Of It podcast, alongside Sunday Times columnist Patrick Maguire, Pogrund further addressed the report’s slurs: “A rabbi characterises gossip as being akin to taking a knife and ripping it through pillows stuffed with goose feathers and then asking somebody after you’ve shaken the pillow to collect every feather.”


Democratic socialist NYC councilmember catches flak at DSA event for criticizing Hamas
A New York City councilmember known for her fervent criticism of Israel faced harsh questioning at a recent gathering of the Democratic Socialists of America — because she had also spoken out against Hamas, as well as supporters of the terrorist organization who demonstrated outside New York synagogues.

The comments came during Councilmember Shahana Hanif’s interview earlier this month with the NYC-DSA Socialists in Office committee. Hanif, a DSA member who long lambasted Israel prior to facing a centrist challenger last year, appeared before the group in order to receive formal endorsement and volunteer support from the organization in the future.

But during the interview process, held both in-person and over Zoom, Hanif faced questioning for her condemnation of Hamas for its Oct. 7, 2023, attacks — which came belatedly in April 2024 — and her denouncement of protesters who chanted, “We support Hamas” outside a Queens synagogue in January, according to a recording obtained by Jewish Insider.

“Something that concerned me is the comparison of protesters who chanted support of Hamas to neo-Nazi protests, equating them both as antisemitism. Many of us, with 60% of Gen Z supporting Hamas against Israel, many of us are realizing now that we’ve been lied to all our lives,” one participant in the interview said to Hanif. “We do so under fear knowing that the politicians that represent us are supporting a genocide, as well as supporting political repression against us.
So will you fight back against that effort to repress us, or will you take part in it yourself?”

Hanif asked the questioner to clarify her query.

“When we are accused of antisemitism for supporting the Palestinian resistance, many leftist politicians equate that to the antisemitism of neo-Nazis and I feel that is extremely dangerous,” the young woman said.

In response, Shanif did not directly engage with the speaker’s comments on Hamas but appeared to agree that too many protesters had been identified as antisemitic.
Reform UK probes campaign manager over alleged antisemitic posts
Reform UK has begun a disciplinary process against its Tameside campaign manager after he was reported for making allegedly anti-Jewish comments, the JC understands.

Adam Mitula, who is the party’s interim campaign manager in the Greater Manchester borough and who has recently been canvassing with candidate Matt Goodwin for the upcoming Denton and Gorton by-election, made the comments on social media in July 2024.

His posts, revealed by anti-racism group Hope Not Hate, include one in which he stated he "would never touch a Jewish woman", and another that appeared to downplay the number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust. The latter was in response to a post by former UFC fighter Jake Shields, which claimed that the Holocaust’s death toll is "made up".

Mitula wrote: "Six million Polish people, including some Jews. They always use Poles to make up the number. And on top of it they claim Poles were killing. Just sick.”

Mitula, originally from Szczecin in Poland, also made a post, first reported by the Manchester Mill, featuring a racial slur against black people, and another that suggested that 60 to 70 per cent of transgender people are paedophiles.

The account in question now appears to have been deleted.

A spokesperson for the Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “These are the sorts of putrid comments one might expect to see in the dark corners of the internet. Instead, they are reportedly attributed to Adam Mitula, Reform UK’s interim campaign manager in Tameside.

“Disgraceful remarks like these require a full explanation and, if found to be true, immediate action from Reform UK.

“Antisemitism must be rooted out in every political party.”

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has himself faced backlash recently for anti-Jewish comments he allegedly made when he was in secondary school.

He later apologised, saying: "If they genuinely [were upset] then that's a pity and I'm sorry, but never, ever did I intend to hurt anybody".

The recent revelations about Mitula come less than a week after Reform UK launched its new Reform Jewish Alliance (RJA). The launch event took place last Tuesday at London’s Central Synagogue and was attended by around 300 people.


Scholarly journal ‘PLoS One’ publishes article by Hamas health official
The peer-reviewed journal PLoS One, published by the San Francisco-based Public Library of Science, recently ran an article about “rebuilding Gaza’s health system.” One of the authors is a Hamas official.

Youssef Abu al-Rish, deputy health minister in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, penned the “qualitative study of healthcare workers’ experiences and lessons learned from responding to mass casualty incidents (2018-2021)” with colleagues from Newcastle University in the United Kingdom and University Hospital of North Norway in Tromso.

Al-Rish is designated the 10 of spades in the set of playing cards of Hamas officials. (JNS sought comment from PLoS One and from the U.S. Justice and Health and Human Services Departments.)

The article refers to “ongoing genocide” in Gaza, and the authors, including the Hamas official, declared that they have “no competing interests.”


Truck smashes into famed synagogue, police charge man with hate crime: 'Very distressing'
A man has been criminally charged after allegedly damaging the famed Brisbane Synagogue in Australia on Friday night.

A 32-year-old Sunnybank man, whose name has not yet been released, is charged with willful damage, serious vilification or hate crime, dangerous operation of a vehicle, possession of dangerous drugs and possession of utensils or pipes etc. for use, according to a statement from Queensland Police.

Authorities said just after 7:15 p.m. local time Friday, a black Toyota Hilux utility truck struck and knocked down the gates of the synagogue, located on Margaret Street, before leaving the scene.

No one was injured during the incident, according to officials.

The suspect, who is believed to have acted alone, will face Brisbane Magistrates Court on Saturday.

There is no ongoing threat to the community.

"The Queensland Police Service is focused on ensuring community safety and continues to support and engage with all local religious communities," the agency wrote.

Queensland Premier David Crisafulli said he was briefed on the incident, noting the incident was "very distressing for the Jewish community in Queensland."


British artist who depicts murder of Zionists and appears to celebrate Hamas is convicted graffiti tagger
A British artist whose work has been sold around the world and appears to celebrate Hamas as well as the murder of Zionists, police officers and politicians, is a convicted graffiti “tagger”, the JC can reveal.

Plymouth-based graphic designer Elliott Phillips, who uses the moniker “Krime”, has depicted in his work bulldozers tearing down metal fencing – an apparent reference to Hamas’s invasion of Israel on October 7 2023 – called for “death to the IDF” in a piece that appeared in a Canadian art gallery and appears to have encouraged the death by hanging of Zionists.

In addition to works appearing to condone the deaths of Zionists and featuring imagery associated with Hamas, Phillips has produced a piece suggesting police officers kill themselves, with the image in question showing an illustration of an officer shooting himself in the head alongside the caption “Hey officer! Do us all a favour?”. Another creation depicts the assassination of US conservative political commentator Charlie Kirk.

His work is available for purchase through his online store and is reproduced on clothing, stickers and posters.

The JC has learnt, however, that the artist has a criminal record for spray-painting his graffiti “tag” across Plymouth. In 2020, Phillips pleaded guilty at Plymouth Magistrates’ Court to 10 counts of criminal damage at 19 locations across the city, according to local news site Plymouth Live. He was given a two-year Criminal Behaviour Order and ordered to pay the council more than £4,650, in addition to court costs. At sentencing, the magistrates reportedly told the then 29-year-old to “grow up”.

https://api.thejc.atexcloud.io/image-service/alias/contentid/1pb5gxox33pyvl9syjk/Screenshot%202026-02-19%20at%2015.31.19.png?f=3x2&w=732&q=0.6 Among the anti-Israel works produced by Phillips is one depicting a masked figure appearing to represent Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by the IDF in October 2024 and is widely regarded as the architect of the October 7 attacks. In the work, the figure is seated in an arm chair amid rubble with a gun propped up beside him. It bears the caption: “Does the world expect us to be well-behaved victims while we’re getting killed?”


A pro-Israel bookshelf: Top book recommendations by a veteran reviewer
I have been reviewing books for The Jerusalem Post and its sibling, the bi-monthly Jerusalem Report, for a good many years. One day, looking through the ever-expanding “Reviews” folder on my computer, I was struck by just how many good books and eminent authors the Post and the Report have allowed me to bring to the attention of their readers. A quick tot-up showed that I had well over 100 reviews stored online.

Dedicated readers, I thought, might welcome the chance to learn about books and authors they could have overlooked, while occasional book buyers or people seeking a suitable gift could surely find something to their taste in such a wide selection of titles. So, the idea was born of bringing 100 of my book reviews together in one volume.

What would I call such a volume? My first thought was “Your Middle East Bookshelf,” but I realized almost immediately that potential readers might be misled into thinking that the contents would cover the whole regional spectrum, whereas the books I have been reviewing all these years were selected to appeal specifically to a Jewish readership. Honesty is always the best policy, so I decided on Your Pro-Israel Bookshelf: 100 titles reviewed.

With that issue settled, the next challenge was how to present the material. The reviews covered a very wide range of genres. Among the 100 were biographies, political and personal memoirs, novels, thrillers; works on morals, religion, and psychology; and poetry, humor, children’s books, even a cookbook and a graphic novel (that is, a book conceived as drawings accompanied by words). Should all the biographies be listed together, all the short stories, and so forth?

That possibility was rejected for good reasons, as were several others. Finally, the best solution, from the point of view of the potential reader, seemed to be to present the 100 volumes alphabetically by title. Anyone reading through the book would never be aware of what type of volume the next review would be dealing with and would, it was hoped, be pleasantly surprised by the variety of subject matter and the range of authors – some of them very eminent – whose works are represented.
‘Deep joy and strength’: 96-year-old Holocaust survivor is Israel’s newest immigrant
Eight decades after surviving the Auschwitz death camp during the Holocaust, 96-year-old Charlotte Roth officially became an Israeli citizen this week.

After building her life in Cleveland, Ohio, ever since she arrived in the United States as a refugee shortly after the war, the matriarch of four children, nine grandchildren, 26 great-grandchildren, and 11 great-great-grandchildren is now based in Israel’s coastal city of Netanya.

“I usually come twice a year to visit my family,” Roth told The Times of Israel. “Now, I decided to stay here to be with them.”

After she arrived in September for the Rosh Hashanah holiday, Roth began the immigration process through the Nefesh B’Nefesh organization, aided by her granddaughter. The paperwork was finished in about three months, and on Wednesday, Roth celebrated her aliya (Hebrew for immigration) with her family at the Nefesh B’Nefesh office in Tel Aviv.

Roth first visited Israel in 1988, and she recalls climbing Masada, the mountain fortress in Israel’s Negev, at age 81 on foot. So far, she has had five great-grandchildren serve in the IDF.

“After what I’ve been through, I was always afraid of seeing soldiers carrying guns,” Roth said. “But in Israel, I’m proud to see them.” 96-year-old Holocaust survivor Charlotte Roth celebrates her immigration to Israel with her family at the Nefesh B’Nefesh office in Tel Aviv, February 18, 2026 (Nefesh B’Nefesh)

Roth was born in Czechoslovakia into a large and close-knit family, where “family was everything.” But in 1944, when she was 14, her world was shattered.

That Passover, her family was forced into a ghetto, and weeks later, right before the Shavuot holiday, they were deported to Auschwitz in a cattle car. Upon arrival on the second day of Shavuot, Roth was separated from her mother and siblings during the selection process. It was the last time she saw them.




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