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Wednesday, March 04, 2026

03/04 Links Pt2: Iran’s shadow in Australia’s antisemitism debate; 5 Reasons Why Paraguay Matters to Israel and the Jewish People; Newsom’s Bright Idea: Defund Allies in Wartime

From Ian:

Iran’s shadow in Australia’s antisemitism debate
The political response in Canberra over the past week found a predictable reaction from the Australian Greens, led by Senator Larissa Waters. She focused squarely on condemning the military strike itself. Waters said: “The Greens condemn these illegal, abhorrent and unilateral attacks. Australians do not want to be dragged into another US-Israeli war.” She added: “Australia’s support of Trump and Netanyahu’s illegal attack last night was disgraceful. We cannot bomb our way to peace.”

In a climate of heightened sensitivity, such statements by Larissa Waters are adding fuel to the fire of a political debate already saturated with anxiety about antisemitism, extremism and foreign influence.

For Australian Jews, this convergence of events creates a uniquely complex terrain to navigate.

On one hand, many in the Jewish community view Khamenei’s leadership as synonymous with a regime that has called for Israel’s destruction, funded armed proxies targeting Jewish civilians, and, according to Australian reporting, been linked to antisemitic criminal activity domestically. On the other hand, public mourning gatherings in Australia are being defended by organisers as religious observances rooted in Shi’a tradition rather than explicit political endorsements. I see this as a thinly veiled platform to further criticise Israel and call for Australians to “globalise the Intifada”.

Layered onto that is a polarised political environment in which anti-war rhetoric, foreign policy debates, and diaspora identities intersect in unpredictable ways. The result is not a simple story of opposing camps, but a dense and emotionally charged national moment. Expressions of grief in one community are interpreted as ideological alignment by another. Political denunciations of military action are heard by some as moral consistency, and by others as insufficiently attuned to the security fears of Jewish Australians.

As the Royal Commission gathers evidence and tests the boundaries between free expression, foreign alignment, and hate, this episode illustrates the difficulty of drawing clean lines. In an era where overseas conflicts are instantly absorbed into Australia’s domestic discourse, symbols carry weight far beyond their immediate setting. For Australian Jews, the landscape is therefore not defined by a single event but by the cumulative effect of rising incident data, geopolitical reverberations, and the knowledge that narratives formed abroad can reshape the social climate at home.

In the meantime, Australia finds itself needing to balance principles of pluralism and freedom with a pressing need for security and cohesion. For many Jewish Australians, that balance feels more delicate than it has in decades. My prayers are with the most pro-Jewish US president of my lifetime, Donald Trump, as he attempts to rid the world of the most dangerous and evil regime in the history of the world in Iran.
Seth Mandel: A 2028 Contender Bets on the Nazi Tattoo Guy
Gallego’s move was important because he is testing the waters for a possible presidential run in 2028. He’s betting that the Nazi tattoo guy is where the country’s headed.

And how does Gallego himself talk about Israel? Not great. After backing Platner, he had this to say on the Iran conflict: “So Netanyahu now decides when we go to war? So much for America First.” A Democratic senator with national ambitions sounding indistinguishable from woke-right podcasters is a bad sign of what’s to come.

If the party’s officeholders engage in an Israel-bashing arms race, the distinction they think they are making between anti-Semitism and spirited criticism of Israel’s government becomes functionally meaningless. Moreover, what kind of atmosphere does this create for Jews who consider themselves part of the Democratic coalition? If the party’s prominent electeds egg on the post-tentifada atmosphere in which synagogues are mobbed by violent Hamas apologists calling for an intifada, does Ruben Gallego get to wash his hands of the repercussions of his actions simply because he didn’t say “Jews have horns”?

Now imagine Ruben Gallego and Zohran Mamdani and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the rest assuring Jewish Democrats that they oppose hatred in all its forms including antisemitismandislamophobia. Feel better? Of course not. Recently, Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen publicly suggested AIPAC is anti-American. What’s he accomplishing besides further encouraging the anti-Semites? Nothing. They hear every dog whistle loud and clear.

What’s happening here is the creation of an environment in which anti-Semitism will grow and prosper with almost nothing to slow it down. There will be less and less room for non-closeted supporters of Israel. And that will continue until the electoral incentives in the Democratic Party change. Ruben Gallego is betting they won’t.
Students for the ayatollah
You do not have to support the US intervention in Iran to be alarmed by the students shedding tears for the ayatollah. Under his rule, Iranian authorities violently suppressed dissent. They arrested, tortured and executed those who spoke out against the Islamic Republic. Mandatory hijab-wearing is imposed by law, with security forces routinely capturing and punishing women for dress-code violations. In 2022, 22-year-old Kurd Mahsa Amini died after being detained by Iran’s morality police, sparking the Woman, Life, Freedom protests across the country. Amini had just been admitted to a university in Urmia to study biology. Yet in 2026, students at a top London university openly celebrate the regime that killed her.

When it comes to the keffiyeh-wearing tote-bag-resistance class, many of whom grew up in Kent or Surrey and know nothing of Iran, Islamism or anything else, it is easy to dismiss such ayatollah apologism as ignorance, stupidity or naivety. Indeed, the bizarre notion that Islamic extremists – from Hamas and Hezbollah to the ayatollahs – are a part of some ‘global left alliance’ has a long, shameful history among post-class ‘progressives’. Meanwhile, Britain’s Islamists, who are legion on modern campuses, understand perfectly well what they are supporting and why when they express grief for Khamenei.

Since the student vigils started garnering attention in the press, the MSC has hit back, accusing the media of trying to ‘smear Shia Muslim students’. It also claims that accusations of ‘extremism’ are ‘Islamophobic’ for focussing on a ‘fake issue’ that ‘does not exist in the UK’.

The trouble is, the embrace of Islamist fanaticism is sadly nothing new for British universities. We saw it in October 2023, when students at Oxford chanted ‘Long live the intifada’ on campus. We saw it last year, when a ‘feminist’ society at Goldsmiths held a ‘night of remembrance’ for the butchers and rapists of the 7 October pogrom. No doubt we shall see more of it tonight, when the University of Manchester holds its candlelit vigil in honour of the supreme leader’s memory.

These campus celebrations of Islamic tyranny can no longer be dismissed as simple naivety or youthful radicalism. It is now a fixture of British universities and beyond. Those weeping for the ayatollah know they are on the side of barbarism.


5 Reasons Why Paraguay Matters to Israel and the Jewish People
Since becoming president of Paraguay in May 2023, President Santiago “Santi” Peña has moved the country's embassy in Israel from a Tel Aviv suburb to Jerusalem, ratified Paraguay’s designation of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as terrorist organizations, and signed on to the U.S.-led Global Guidelines to Combat Antisemitism.

“For every act of antisemitism, every Paraguayan will respond unequivocally, 'Nosotros Judios, we are Jews,” he told AJC Global Forum 2025 when he received the AJC Gesher Award for bolstering his nation’s enduring friendship with the Jewish people and Israel.

“Paraguay is here to say, we are with you, our dear friends. We will not abandon Israel.”

Notably, when many countries in the region either downgraded or severed relations with Israel after the war started by Hamas’ massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023, Peña expressed full-fledged solidarity with the Jewish state and is one of 20-plus heads of state to join President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, a multinational effort to oversee maintenance of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, reconstruction of Gaza after the war and restoration of order in the coastal enclave.

Key Takeaways
Paraguay has been one of Israel’s most consistent allies since the Jewish state’s rebirth, and an ally of the Jewish people for over a century. Under President Peña, that friendship has never been stronger.
The Triple Frontier border area remains an active counterterrorism concern, with Hezbollah financing networks still operating in the region.
In 2026, American Jewish Committee (AJC) is deepening its on-the-ground partnership with Paraguay's Jewish community and government through its first-ever delegation to the country.


Seth Madnel: Newsom’s Bright Idea: Defund Allies in Wartime
It’s not easy being Gavin Newsom. Every morning the California governor has to wake up and figure out who progressive voters want him to pretend to be.

Today they want him to be more of an anti-Israel zealot. So he learned his lines and went on Pod Save America, the Israel-obsessed podcast hosted by former Obama advisers. But Newsom, with his impeccable timing, picked a moment when his performative sneering at our allies would be most insulting to America and the men and women in uniform.

“Do you think, looking down the road,” Pod host Jon Favreau asked Newsom, “that the United States should consider maybe, you know, rethinking our military support for Israel?”

To which the governor responded: “It breaks my heart, because the current leadership in Israel is walking us down that path where I don’t think you have a choice about that consideration.”

He also mocked Israel’s participation in the regime-change mission in Iran: “For two years, they haven’t even been able to solve the Hamas question.”

But of course Israel’s participation in the conflict saves American lives. That may not matter to Newsom, who has all the empathy of a mannequin slathered in Brylcreem. But it is shockingly disrespectful for a guy who wants to be president and, therefore, commander-in-chief of the armed forces if those same armed forces amount to little more than a punch line in Newsom’s scripted life.

This morning, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine briefed the press and the public on the conflict in Iran. Hegseth had a slightly different message for the Israeli military than Newsom did: “To our steadfast partner, Israel, your mission is being executed with unmatched skill and iron determination. Fighting shoulder to shoulder with such a capable ally is a true force multiplier and a breath of fresh air.”

He later added: “Usually it’s [the US military fighting a conflict] with some ancillary benefits from allies who are maybe willing but not as capable. When you have both the will and the capability of an ally that that can really bring things to bear—we take certain targets, they take certain targets—and you coordinate it, it has incredible effects.”
Newsom says some ‘appropriately’ label Israel an apartheid state

Columbia Anti-Israel Organizer, Now a New York City Social Worker, Calls For Zionists To ‘Burn In Hell’
An anti-Israel activist at Columbia University who now works as a social worker for New York City's municipal health system called for Zionists "to burn in hell."

"In case there was ever any doubt before: if u ever make an excuse or express sympathy for isr[ael], I rlly don’t care what happens to u!! Like at all! I wish for u whatever it is u wish for Gaza … plz take that in the worst possible way," Zainab Khan posted to Instagram on Sunday. "Every zio and every sympathizer can burn in hell."

Khan deleted her Instagram account after the Washington Free Beacon contacted her. She did not respond to a request for comment.

Khan started receiving a taxpayer-funded salary in August when she began working for NYC Health + Hospitals, according to her LinkedIn profile, which she also deleted. Her role providing "assistance and counseling to clients and their families who are dealing with social, emotional and environmental problems" likely involves assisting Zionists, considering the New York metropolitan area has the largest population of Jews in the country.

NYC Health + Hospitals also did not respond to requests for comment.

Khan's remarks echo a broader wave of anti-Israel activists condemning the joint U.S.-Israel strikes against Iran that began over the weekend. Following the announcement that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed, Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) posted "death to America" in Persian on X.

As a Columbia University graduate student, Khan became a prominent member of CUAD. She has boasted about "the first protest we had" after Hamas's Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack, just five days following the assault. It was part of a nationwide "day of resistance" organized by National Students for Justice in Palestine, which praised the attack as "a historic win for the Palestinian resistance."
Pro-Palestine protesters found guilty of damaging factory linked to Israel
Three pro-Palestine protesters have been found guilty of causing criminal damage at a factory they believed had links to Israel.

Hollie Mildenhall, 25, Georgia Coote, 28, and Summer Oxlade, 29 targeted the Pearson Engineering factory in Newcastle in February 2025.

They were found guilty at Newcastle Quayside Crown Court this week.

The trio had chosen Pearson Engineering as a target because it is owned by Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defence Systems.

Mildenhall and Coote climbed onto the roof, cut through razor wire, sprayed the factory’s sign with red paint and smashed it.

Oxlade dumped rubble from a truck outside and chained herself to the vehicle, the court heard.

They caused about £6,800 of damage and production was halted for eight hours.

Prosecutor Michael Bunch said the women were "motivated by compassion and a desperate desire to do something" but that they acted “unlawfully".

All three women told jurors they wanted to prevent the factory from running for as long as possible. They also told the court that they had believed the factory was "complicit" in a "genocide" and that it was contributing to "war crimes", which were "illegal", BBC News reported.

Judge Edward Bindloss said that if the women believed the company had been acting illegally, they "could and should" have collected evidence and reported it to the police.

He added that instead of seeking this “lawful route”, they "decided to take the law into their own hands".
Pro-Palestine activist who called policeman ‘terrorist’ guilty of harassment
A pro-Palestine activist “deliberately humiliated” a police officer when she repeatedly called him a “terrorist”, a chief magistrate has found.

Iman Zine also “slapped” Metropolitan Police Sergeant Burak Guven on the arm on 6 September last year, when Parliament Square was filled with activists as part of a demonstration in support of Palestine Action.

Mr Guven was with colleagues as they entered a crowd chanting “shame on you” and felt himself being kicked on the back of the leg, “erroneously” suspecting it was Zine, a trial at Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard.

The ensuing confrontation was caught on his body-worn camera as Zine repeatedly shouted “you f****** terrorist” and asked the officer “do you want me to suck your dick?”.

Mr Guven alleged Zine had struck him on the arm with a “hammer fist” as he tried to move past her, though it was later found to have been a slap.

Zine also scratched the officer while handcuffed, the court heard.

On Wednesday, Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring found her guilty of causing harassment, alarm or distress by using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour or disorderly behaviour, and assaulting a police constable.

He said Mr Guven was acting “entirely professionally”, telling the defendant: “You were being obnoxious towards the police because somehow you see them as the enemy.”


Bragg and Columbia BOTH ensured anti-Israel student goons would walk
A state judge just nixed a Columbia board’s discipline of the “pro-Palestine” students who occupied and trashed Hamilton Hall two years ago, completing the university’s elaborate dance with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to ensure the goons would suffer no consequences for their noxious actions.

Bragg’s office dropped charges against the students back in June 2024, citing its “understanding that the students would be subject to Columbia’s internal disciplinary proceedings.”

The school then took a year to actually deliver on that “understanding,” albeit with little more than wrist-slaps — whereupon the snowflakes sued to reverse this “oppression.”

And on Tuesday, a state judge threw out the rulings of the disciplinary board, inventing an absurd Catch-22 to protect the vandals.

You see, Columbia used the students’ arrest records to prove they took over Hamilton Hall and caused major damage — but the judge insists that evidence is no good because the records were subsequently sealed.

Talk about collusion: The DA’s Office did nothing to stop the arrest records from being sealed, no matter that the school might need them to discipline the students who rioted, took over Hamilton Hall, beat up two janitors and seriously vandalized the building.

Columbia didn’t try to keep the records unsealed, either.

The university, sniffs Judge Gerald Lebovits, can restart the discipline proceedings; it just can’t use the NYPD’s list of who was arrested.

But the occupiers were masked and covered up the security cameras inside Hamilton Hall, so there’s no other way to ID the culprits.

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This reeks: It’s obvious that no one in authority here — from Bragg to Columbia’s leaders to Judge Lebovits, who is a professor at Columbia — really wanted these rioters to face any consequences for their actions.

How else to explain why they keep passing the buck back and forth?

So a bunch of spoiled brats who terrorized Morningside Heights for months, setting up encampments and harassing Jewish students before occupying a university building, are laughing as they walk away.


Terrorists & Propagandists: The Not-So-Independent Journalists Included in the CPJ’s Annual Report
The headlines came quickly.
Israel responsible for two-thirds of record 129 press killings in 2025, says CPJ (The Guardian)
Record 129 journalists and media workers killed in 2025, mostly by Israel, says CPJ (Reuters)
Committee to Protect Journalists: Israel Killed More Journalists Than Any Other Country in 2025 (Ha’aretz)

With its annual report on journalist deaths, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has once again put Israel into the limelight, accusing the Jewish state of killing 86 journalists in 2025, accounting for two-thirds of journalist deaths globally.

For any cursory observer, this paints a picture of Israel as an aggressor, wantonly murdering journalists with impunity and attacking one of the core tenets of a free society: Independent journalism.

However, as HonestReporting has noted since the first weeks of the Israel-Hamas war, there is more than meets the eye when it comes to the CPJ’s statistics.

So, let’s break down the numbers.

Of the 86 journalists and media workers that Israel is accused of killing in 2025, 52 were in Gaza, 31 were in Yemen, and 3 were in Iran.

Based on our running list of Gazan journalists killed during the war, 18 (roughly 35%) were affiliated with a Palestinian terrorist organization, while 34 (65%) had no affiliation with any Palestinian terror group.

Of the 18 who were affiliated with a terror group, 11 had worked for a media outlet that was run or aligned with either Hamas or Islamic Jihad, while 7 have been accused of being terror combatants.

This includes Hossam Shabat (accused of being a Hamas sniper), Anas Al-Sharif (accused of being a Hamas terrorist in charge of a rocket unit), and Ahmed Abu Mutair (accused of being a Hamas terror combatant).

The CPJ is well aware of these accusations against some of these Palestinian journalists. It even profiled Shabat and Al-Sharif in its 2025 report. However, according to the CPJ, the evidence presented by the IDF against them was either not “credible” or “unsubstantiated.”

The IDF presented Hamas documents naming them as combatants within the terrorist organization. Short of taped confessions admitting to their duplicity, what level of proof does the CPJ need to take IDF statements seriously? Does the CPJ use an impossible standard of evidence in order to protect the reputations of everyone purporting to be a journalist, even when significant evidence proves otherwise?

It should also be noted that in the CPJ’s estimation, 18 of the 52 journalists killed in Gaza were designated as being targeted by Israel, while the vast majority (almost 65%) are determined to have been killed due to the conflict but were not specifically targeted. This belies the idea that Israel is purposefully killing journalists in order to silence them and instead points to the dangers of living in a combat zone where terrorists embed themselves and their infrastructure among the civilian population.
It’s not ‘Islamophobic’ to condemn Mothin Ali’s ayatollah apologism
Firstly, the protest Ali attended seemed less ‘anti-war’ than anti-America and anti-Israel. Protesters shouted the favourite incantation of Iran’s mullahs, ‘Death to America’, and burnt the star-spangled banner. They drew the same tired parallels between ‘Zionism’ – that is, the right of Jews to have a homeland – and terrorism. Attendees chanted, ‘Khamenei, you make us proud’, and waved flags that bore the grim visage of the Iranian despot. To reinforce the pro-regime message, those present also desecrated the lion and Sun banner – the symbol of the Iranian resistance.

Ali has form here. He may claim to be a pacifist, but he has no problem with war or violence when it’s waged against the world’s only Jewish State. In the aftermath of Hamas’s pogrom in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, he openly supported the ‘Al-Aqsa Flood’ (Hamas’s codename for the mass killings), citing Palestinians’ ‘right to fight back’. In 2024, when he was elected to Leeds City Council, he punched the air and shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ – declaring his victory a ‘win for the people of Gaza’.

As for being ‘thoughtful’ and ‘caring’, in 2024, Ali led a campaign of abuse and intimidation against Rabbi Zecharia Deutsch, an Israel Defence Forces volunteer and Leeds University’s Jewish chaplain. ‘You should be protecting students from this kind of animal’, he told the university in a vituperative social-media post, targeting Deutsch. He accused the rabbi of killing women and children in Palestine, and labelled him a ‘creep’. Deutsch, his wife and their two children were later required to flee Leeds on the advice of police, after being inundated with death threats.

Unsurprisingly, Ali’s attendance at the pro-ayatollah rally did not go unnoticed. In the House of Commons on Monday, Conservative MP Alec Shelbrooke said he was ‘appalled’ but ‘not shocked’ by the Leeds councillor’s attendance at the semi-vigil for Khamenei. ‘We’re all shocked by the actions of the deputy leader of the Green Party’, responded prime minister Starmer. ‘[But] perhaps not surprised, given their recent turn of direction.’ For once Starmer was surely right: Ali’s attendance of the rally was part of a pattern of inexcusable behaviour.

Polanski and Ali may cry ‘Islamophobia’, but the Greens’ embrace of Islamic sectarianism and their willingness to excuse even the most violent expressions of Islamic extremism fully deserve to be condemned. Indeed, the Greens’ success in the Gorton and Denton by-election was a reminder that this is no longer a small party on the sidelines of British politics. They cannot be dismissed as harmless.

For the Greens, the issues impacting Gorton and Denton, and the UK as a whole, hardly warranted a mention. Instead, their campaign was almost solely focussed on Gaza – specifically, ‘punishing’ Labour for its (extremely tepid) support for Israel. They successfully pitted members of the constituent’s significant Muslim population – and their partisans among students and graduates – against other ethnic and religious groups. The most shameless demonstration of this tactic was a campaign video in Urdu – the native language of Pakistan – which showed Starmer embracing Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, and accusing Reform (untruthfully) of planning to tax foreign residents at a higher rate.

The Greens are playing a dangerous game. They deserve all the criticism that is coming their way. When a senior party member is happy to cast the murder of innocent Israelis as resistance, hounds an innocent Jewish man and his family into exile, and attends a rally in defence of a theocratic tyrant, it isn’t ‘racism’ or ‘Islamophobia’ to condemn it. It’s called accountability – and it’s high time Mothin Ali and Zack Polanski got used to it.


Millions in German funds to fight antisemitism went to unvetted groups, probe says
Germany’s leading party is being investigated in Berlin for funneling millions to groups that proposed fighting antisemitism but lacked transparency about their use of the funds, including one group whose director has been accused of antisemitic language herself.

The Berlin branch of the Christian Democratic Union, the center-right party leading the federal government, is being probed by a parliamentary committee for allegedly improperly allocating 2.6 million euros (about $3 million) to combat antisemitism. The party, the committee alleges, did not vet the groups adequately or monitor their spending.

The government allocated special funds toward fighting antisemitism at the end of 2023, shortly after the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel that spurred a spike in antisemitic incidents in many places.

Among the grants triggering concern was 390,000 euros (about $450,000) to the Zera Institute, founded in December 2024 by an Iranian-German music producer named Maral Salmassi. She has been accused of posting antisemitic rhetoric online.

In a post on X from February 2025, Salmassi said the Jewish billionaire George Soros “is and always has been a parasite.” Nazi-era propaganda frequently depicted Jews as parasites. Since the comment was resurfaced by Die Tageszeitung, Salmassi has deleted it and expressed regret.

Daniel Eliasson, a local Green Party politician, called the post a “clearly antisemitic statement” to a local newspaper. “As a Jew, I find it nothing short of a mockery that the Berlin CDU is providing this person with 390,000 euros (about $450,000) to fight antisemitism,” he said.
Greek court upholds convictions in neo-Nazi party trial
A Greek appeals court on Wednesday upheld convictions for leaders and members of the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn in a landmark trial over crimes committed at the height of the country’s economic crisis.

The court found the officials guilty of “running a criminal organization.” The presiding judge is yet to announce the punishments meted out to the more than 40 defendants, some of whom risk sentences of up to 15 years in prison.

The police minister at the time of the Golden Dawn arrests, now Defense Minister Nikos Dendias, welcomed the ruling as “a historic milestone for the Greek justice system and the rule of law in Greece.”

Crimes attributed to the group include the savage beating of a group of Egyptian fishermen in 2012 and the murder of anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas in 2013.

More than 200 people rallied in front of the tribunal in a show of support for Fyssas, whose killer, Giorgos Roupakias, was again convicted of murder.

Senior prosecution lawyer Kostas Papadakis said Wednesday: “The criminal condemnation of the assault squads of the Nazi criminal organization is now final, and the sentences are expected in the coming days.”


Online Judea and Samaria series counters ignorance, disinformation
A new webinar program, “Beyond the Headlines: Judea and Samaria,” designed to chip away at disinformation spread by anti-Israel academics and opinion-makers, launched the first installment in a 10-part series on Feb. 22.

“Our central challenge in the battle for international public opinion is the absolute lack of knowledge regarding the facts on the ground,” said Yigal Dilmoni, CEO and founder of American Friends of Judea and Samaria (AFJS), which co-founded the project with Ariel University.

“We want to reach out to students and people who represent Israel in their communities, as well as all the hasbara activists who are involved in education—both Jews and non-Jews. So that they will spread the truth,” said Dilmoni.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar gave the opening remarks in the first webinar. Former Israeli Ambassador Yoram Ettinger delivered the main lecture, which focused on U.S. military aid to Israel.

“He explained why this matter is an investment that yields a very large return for the American public,” said Dilmoni. The issue of U.S. military aid has become a hot topic in recent weeks, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announcing his intention to move Israel off aid.

Hosting the webinar series is Gabriel Boxer, the “Kosher Guru,” an online influencer who has made a name for himself covering kosher restaurants and Jewish culture.
Poland returns 91 Jewish objects to Greece, decades after Nazi theft
A trove of sacred Jewish objects from Greece that was stolen by the Nazis and displaced for decades in Poland is finally heading back home.

Poland returned 91 religious and ceremonial artifacts to the Greek government at a ceremony in Warsaw on Wednesday. Among them were Torah scrolls, a Torah mantle and silver finials that adorned a scroll’s wooden rollers — fragments of a rich Greek Jewish heritage that was nearly wiped out.

This marks the first time Poland has repatriated cultural property held under its care that was illegally taken from another country.



The Nazis stole the objects from synagogues in Thessaloniki, a port city once known as the “Jerusalem of the Balkans.” Jews made up half of Thessaloniki’s residents in 1919. Some 59,000 Greek Jews, over 83% of the country’s Jewish population, were killed in the Holocaust.

These items were seized by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, a Nazi agency dedicated to looting Jewish valuables, as it plundered homes, synagogues, cemeteries and cultural institutions across Greece in 1941. The objects were transferred to Nazi depots in southwestern Poland and rediscovered at a castle in Bożków after the war. In 1951, the Polish Ministry of Culture moved them to the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, where they remained until now.

This return follows years of advocacy and provenance research. The Greek government formally requested the collection’s restitution in 2024, and the World Jewish Restitution Organization coordinated with Greek and Polish authorities to facilitate it. Now, the objects are headed to the Jewish Museum of Greece in Athens.

About 5,000 Jews live in Greece today.

Poland is the only member of the European Union with no comprehensive legislation to address the restitution of property seized by the Nazis and later nationalised by the communist regime. Since the country became a democracy in 1989, several bills have been proposed to return private property to Holocaust survivors and their descendants, but none became law.




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