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Saturday, July 04, 2026

07/04 Links: America at 250: Why Washington’s promise to US Jews still matters; 1,000 days after Oct. 7, the Jewish people stand proud; 'Hijacked his name': US genocide institute faces probe amid Israel attacks

From Ian:

250 years of America: The alliance that safeguards the free world
Not just interests
Some believe that the closeness between Israel and the United States stems solely from geopolitical considerations. There is no doubt that shared interests matter, but they do not explain the depth of the relationship. The deeper reason is that Israel and America are perceived, by their friends and enemies alike, as representing a similar idea: human liberty, moral responsibility and the belief that man is created in the image of God.

It is no coincidence that regimes and movements that hate the Jewish nation also tend to hate America. And with almost the same consistency with which hatred of Jews has served as a moral test for societies, hatred of America has also become a moral test of nations, regimes and individuals. Despite all its flaws, America alone stands between democracy and the rise of tyranny around the world, and so it is no surprise that among tyrannical regimes and their defenders, America and Israel are so often identified as one and the same enemy.

This is not only because the United States stands alone behind Israel; the United States has also given generously to various Arab states, and at several critical moments even supported Arab regimes (such as Nasser’s Egypt in 1956) against Israel itself. This hostility stems largely from the fact that America and Israel continue to strive toward a moral ideal higher than themselves: the belief that liberty is not only a right but also a moral responsibility granted by God, and that a nation’s strength is measured not only by its power but also by its values. This is also why the two non-Muslim countries that have suffered the most casualties from Islamic suicide bombings are the United States and Israel.

An alliance that must never be taken for granted
For precisely these reasons, neither Israelis nor Americans can afford to take their alliance for granted. The special relationship between Israel and the United States is founded on far more than defense agreements, military assistance or intelligence cooperation. Above all, it rests on cultural, moral and spiritual foundations that have been built over more than four centuries, from the voyages of the Mayflower and the Arabella to the New World, through Independence Hall in Philadelphia, and into today’s Oval Office.

This is why the relationship between the United States and Israel has endured crises, changes of administration, and political disagreements for nearly eight decades. It is also why it has the strength to withstand the challenges of the future.

As America marks a quarter millennium of independence, and Israel continues to fight for its security and its right to exist, we should remember that the alliance between Jerusalem and Washington did not begin in 1967, nor even in 1948. Its roots run far deeper.

They are anchored in an ancient book given in the wilderness of Sinai thousands of years ago, a book that found a home at the very heart of the American story. That is why this alliance is greater than any administration, deeper than any disagreement, and longer-lasting than any political cycle. As long as both nations remain faithful to those values, they will not only secure their own futures, but also strengthen the very foundations of the free world.

Happy Independence Day, America. And thank you.
America at 250: Why Washington’s promise to US Jews still matters
As America celebrates Independence Day and the 250th year of our Republic, it is worth recalling one of the founding promises that has distinguished our nation from the beginning.

In 1790, president George Washington wrote to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, assuring a small community of Sephardi Jews that the Government of the United States “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”

Those words were no mere courtesy. They were revolutionary.

The Jews who received Washington’s letter were descendants of families expelled from Spain and Portugal, driven from one refuge to another across Europe, the Caribbean, and the New World. They knew what it meant to live only on sufferance, forever dependent upon the whims of princes and magistrates.

Washington offered something radically different: not toleration bestowed by a sovereign, but equal citizenship secured by law.

Americans of every faith, he declared, would stand not as guests but as equal members of one republic. Each would “sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.”
America at 250: The triangular relationship between US, Israel, and Jews is at risk
The weakening relationship with the US, Israel, and American Jews

But strength does not last forever. A sober look at this triangular relationship shows that each of its sides has weakened in recent years.

On the Washington-Jerusalem axis, American public support for Israel has declined significantly and worryingly.

Significant parts of the Democratic Party now voice sharply critical positions toward Israel, while even among younger Republicans, the once-instinctive warmth toward Israel can no longer be assumed.

On the Washington-American Jewry axis, changes are also evident. Waves of antisemitism from the fringes of both the American right and left have raised the fear that the golden age of American Jewry may be coming to an end.

Finally, on the Jerusalem-American Jewry axis, cracks are visible as Israeli governments have failed to invest sufficiently in cultivating the vital ties between the two branches of the family.

The gaps between an American Jewish public that tends toward liberalism and an Israeli society that tends toward conservatism are growing wider. The unfortunate facts are clear: Israel’s position as a central anchor of identity for North American Jewry is no longer what it once was.

The government formed after the elections will need to think anew about how to strengthen each side of this triangle.

This will require renewed investment in bipartisan support in Washington, serious engagement with younger Americans across the political spectrum, and a deliberate rebuilding of trust between Israel and Diaspora Jewry.

The resilience of “we, the Jewish people” depends on the success of this effort.


1,000 days after Oct. 7, the Jewish people stand proud
The old antisemitic libels have simply acquired new vocabulary.

Instead of accusing Jews of poisoning wells, they are called “colonizers.” Instead of depicting them as racial conspirators, they are accused of “apartheid.” Instead of alleging global domination, they are charged with “genocide.”

The labels have changed. The objective has not.

But after nearly three terrible years since Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has demonstrated extraordinary resilience.

It has dismantled Hamas’s military leadership, eliminating figures including Ismail Haniyeh, Mohammed Deif and Yahya Sinwar. It has broken Hezbollah’s strategic position, killing Hassan Nasrallah and reaching a new security framework with Lebanon. It has established strategic positions along Syria’s unstable frontier, strengthened relations with the United States despite inevitable tensions, expanded ties with Arab, Balkan, Latin American and Indian partners, and confronted the Iranian regime directly, striking deep inside Iranian territory before the United States joined in targeting Tehran’s nuclear facilities.

Is the work complete? Of course not. It never will be.

The Jewish people, perhaps more united today than at any time in recent history, understand both their 3,000-year-old heritage and their responsibility to confront radical Islam before much of Europe is willing to do so itself. Across the Diaspora, Jews increasingly recognize that attacks on Israel are often merely the newest expression of hatred toward Jews.

Since Oct. 7, the United Nations has condemned Israel hundreds of times while largely ignoring those who openly seek its destruction.

And yet life continues.

Schools have just closed for the summer. The children who spent two years running to bomb shelters are once again playing and singing in the streets of Jerusalem.

This year. Next year. With our fingernails if we must. In Israel and throughout the world.
America at 250, Entebbe at 50: Defining moments for the US-Israel alliance
The war against Iran and its proxy network is not Israel’s war alone. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has American blood on its hands – from the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing that killed 241 US servicemen to the IED networks that killed American service members in Afghanistan and Iraq. It has called for “death to America” since 1979, and it still does.

Every Iranian proxy degraded on the battlefield is a blow against a terror machine that has long targeted both nations. Israel has been fighting on the front lines of a broader civilizational conflict with tenacity and moral seriousness, even as it faces relentless criticism from institutions that hold the Jewish state to unique standards. Double and at times triple standards.

The second half of the 20th century – the most prosperous and peaceful era in human history – was made possible by American power and leadership. It was America that defeated fascism and contained Soviet totalitarianism for decades. It was America that built the liberal international order that lifted billions out of poverty.

That order is now under renewed assault from authoritarian powers – Iran, China, Russia – and from Islamist movements that seek to replace it with a world governed by violence and fear. Today, we are once again confronted with the oldest of choices: civilization or barbarism.

Freedom, as both Americans and Israelis know well, is never free. It must be defended by those willing to pay the price. On July 4, 1976, Yoni Netanyahu paid that price in Entebbe. American and Israeli service members have paid it on countless battlefields. Today, IDF soldiers pay it daily fighting on the front lines.

The forces of barbarism have not retreated. Civilization still needs defending, and America will once again need to have civilization’s back.

As the United States celebrates 250 years of independence and Israel commemorates 50 years since Entebbe, the message of that extraordinary coincidence rings clearer than ever: two nations, forged in the pursuit of liberty, are strongest when they stand together.
Rescued at Entebbe 50 years ago, former child hostage feels her experience resonating today
Ella Rosenkovitch was just five and a half years old when terrorists hijacked her family’s flight to Paris and diverted it to Entebbe, Uganda, on June 27, 1976.

But 50 years later, memories of the week she spent as a hostage before Israel’s legendary Operation Thunderbolt remain vivid — so much so that they motivated her to campaign for the return of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, 2023.

“I was a small child at the time, and there are a lot of details that I only learned years later,” the 55-year-old Jerusalem resident told The Times of Israel in a telephone interview. “But I remember the most fateful moments very well.”

On the day of the hijacking, Rosenkovitch was on Air France Flight 139 with her parents and 10-year-old brother on a trip to visit her grandparents in Paris. Another brother, age 16, didn’t join the trip and remained in Israel alone. The flight, as expected, made a scheduled stop in Athens to pick up additional passengers.

But there, four terrorist hijackers — two Palestinians and two Germans — boarded the plane and forcefully diverted it, first to Libya and then to Uganda. Chaos erupted as the hijackers separated mothers and children from the rest of the passengers and moved them to the front rows of the aircraft, Rosenkovitch recalled.

“I remember that I didn’t understand what was happening, so I asked my brother,” Rosenkovitch said. “He said he didn’t know, but I still remember the terrified look on his face.”

Her next memory is of the moment the hostages disembarked at Entebbe International Airport, after a refueling stop in Benghazi, Libya. Her mother cracked a dry joke that would be repeated for decades inside the family.

“She said, ‘Kids, we’ve landed in Africa. I’ve always wanted to visit Africa,'” Rosenkovitch recalled. “The way she said it sounded so wise and clever at the time.”

As the hostages were evacuated to a cavernous old terminal building at the airport, the hijackers announced their demands: $5 million and the release of 53 pro-Palestinian terrorists. If their demands were not met within three days, they said, they would start killing hostages.
At Entebbe reunion, ex-hostages say Oct. 7 shattered their faith in Israel’s promise of rescue
For the survivors of Operation Entebbe, marking the 50th anniversary was less a celebration of one of Israel’s most mythologized military operations than a reckoning with the distance between the country that rescued them and the one that failed to prevent another mass hostage crisis decades later.

About two dozen of those rescued at Entebbe and their relatives gathered on Monday at the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation in Jaffa for an event honoring Sorin Hershcu, the Israeli paratrooper gravely wounded in the 1976 raid. Teasing and jokes repeatedly broke through the formalities, giving the room the feel of an unruly extended family.

The hijacking began when an Air France flight from Tel Aviv to Paris carrying 246 passengers was seized after a stop in Athens by terrorists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Germany’s Revolutionary Cells. The plane was diverted to Uganda, where the despotic, notoriously unhinged dictator Idi Amin gave the hijackers safe haven. They separated Israeli and Jewish passengers from most of the others, who were released over two days.

On July 4, Israeli commandos flew thousands of miles to Entebbe and rescued more than 100 hostages in an audacious raid that became one of Israel’s defining military operations.

To mark the 50th anniversary, Israel released previously classified protocols from the raid, later renamed Operation Yonatan, after Yonatan “Yoni” Netanyahu, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s brother and the operation’s commander, who was killed during the mission. (Uganda’s military chief Muhoozi Kainerugaba in February announced plans to erect a statue of Yoni Netanyahu at the airport in the exact spot where he was killed, saying it would strengthen his country’s “close blood relations with Israel.”)

The documents, including cabinet minutes and phone records, show the government abandoning its longstanding policy of not negotiating with hostage-takers even as it prepared the military rescue.

Most of those at the anniversary gathering were the so-called children of Entebbe, the youngest hostages from the raid now in their 50s and 60s who still meet regularly. Three of them — Benny Davidson, who was 13 at the time, Shay Gross, who turned 6 in Entebbe, and Tzipi Cohen Gonen, who was 8 — had just returned from their first trip back to Uganda, where they visited the old Entebbe terminal in which they had been held at gunpoint for a week.

Cohen Gonen’s return to Uganda meant going back to the place where her father, Pasco Cohen, a Jerusalem doctor, was shot and killed, one of four hostages who lost their lives. She was terrified to return, she said, but accepted the Ugandan government’s invitation because she wanted to confront the site directly.

“I wanted to look evil in the eyes,” she told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “It closed a circle in that way, because the Ugandans were so nice to us. But there was no closure for my father’s death.”
'Hijacked his name': US genocide institute faces probe amid Israel attacks
Law enforcement authorities in Pennsylvania have opened an investigation into the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention following a complaint filed by relatives of Jewish jurist Raphael Lemkin and the European Jewish Association.

The complainants allege that the institute used Lemkin’s name without authorization. Lemkin coined the term “genocide” and played a major role in shaping the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The complaint also alleges that donations were raised using his legacy, against the family’s position.

The investigation does not focus on the institute’s positions or its allegations against Israel, but rather on the use of the Lemkin name and issues related to nonprofit law and fundraising in Pennsylvania. The findings could determine whether the institute will be allowed to continue operating under its current name or will be required to make changes.

In recent years, the Lemkin Institute has been at the center of controversy over a series of publications accusing Israel of committing genocide.

On October 17, 2023, just 10 days after the Hamas attack and before the start of the IDF’s ground operation in the Gaza Strip, the institute published a statement accusing Israel of genocide. Since then, it has issued dozens of statements, opinions and condemnations repeating the claim, becoming one of the bodies most closely associated worldwide with use of the term in relation to the war in Gaza.

The institute continued to publish documents and statements arguing that Israel committed genocide in Gaza, and became one of the organizations most frequently cited by anti-Israel groups and international campaigns promoting similar claims.

At the center of the complaint is Joseph Lemkin, the closest living relative of Raphael Lemkin. Together with the European Jewish Association, he asked the institute to stop using the family name, but the request was rejected. According to the complainants, despite the family’s opposition, the institute continued to operate under the name “Lemkin.”


Alex Ryvchin: ‘We’re determined to be the change’
Jewish law and custom approach mourning in a highly prescriptive and regimented way. There is sense to this. When one is bereaved and unsure where to turn and what to do, it is comforting to have the answers laid out for you. Three phases of mourning – seven days, 30 days and the remainder of the year, during which the mourners transition from intensely confronting their grief to gradually resuming everyday activities and, finally, ceasing their mourning altogether and returning to a full and productive life.

This process begins with focusing on oneself and one’s mental state through introspection to fully confront the loss and the feelings it naturally produces, to eventually looking outward again, performing righteous deeds in memory of the dead and encouraging others to do so. We heal ourselves but we do not wallow or descend into spirals of anger and pain. When the time is right, we return to trying to heal our world.

This is where the Jewish community is today, on the sixmonth anniversary of the act of terror that ripped through scores of bodies, ending the lives of 15, and ripped apart the notions that all Australians are equally free to practise their faith, gather in peace and live without fear of violence from fellow Australians.

We, as a community, looked inward in those early days when all was pain and chaos. We had to. We had to soothe the widows, ease family fears of financial ruin, comfort the wounded in intensive care units and embrace the families of the dead so tightly that they understood they’d never be alone.

But then we began to look at our community, our society, our nation. Terrorism seeks to rattle our selfconfidence as a country and a civilisation, makes us point the finger in the wrong places, makes us paranoid and suspicious, inwardlooking and frightened. The Jewish community was never going to allow this to happen to us. As NSW Multiculturalism Minister Steve Kamper said, ‘‘all I wanted to do was wrap my arms around the grieving Jewish community. Instead, they wrapped their arms around us.”

And so, initiatives were launched like the One Mitzvah campaign, encouraging all Australians to do even a solitary act of kindness like visiting the sick or elderly, donating to charity or bringing a meal to the hungry. Artists such as Nina Sanadze turned the thousands of decaying flower bunches left at the Bondi Pavilion memorial into a permanent piece of art to elevate and remind. Nikki Goldstein, who had been co-writing a book with the slain organiser of Channukah by the Sea, Rabbi Eli Schlanger, in the form of a dialogue between the secular and the devout exploring all aspects of faith, love and life, completed the work without her fallen friend. To do otherwise would have been to succumb and that’s not what we do.


2 men arrested after pointing fake gun at synagogue-goers in Sydney
Two men have been arrested and allegedly charged after pointing a fake gun toward Jewish worshipers at a synagogue in Sydney’s Double Bay neighborhood, Australian media reports.

The reports say police were called to the scene at 12:10 p.m. on Saturday, as congregants at the Chabad synagogue were gathered outside after the end of Shabbat prayers.

Officers tracked and cornered the offenders’ car, found an imitation pistol which they took for forensic examination, and took the suspects, aged 22 and 25, to a police station for questioning, the reports say.

Cops took statements from people who had been outside the synagogue when the incident occurred.

The synagogue’s Rabbi Yanky Berger tells congregants in an email after Shabbat that the suspects are “French nationals working as Uber Eats drivers,” who “have been charged with several offences.”


Trump says Netanyahu ‘knows who the boss is,’ will meet with him as soon as next week
US President Donald Trump on Saturday said he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “get along very good” and that the Israeli premier “knows who the boss is,” in a brief phone interview with Axios.

Trump also confirmed that he would soon meet with the Israeli leader, saying that Netanyahu had asked him for a meeting at the White House, and that it could take place as early as next week after the NATO summit in Turkey.

The Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement on Friday that the two leaders spoke on the phone and “agreed to meet soon in the US.”

An Israeli official told Axios that the meeting “might take place the week after [next]” due to scheduling difficulties.

“During their conversation, the Prime Minister said that the United States is a guarantor of global freedom, and that Israel greatly values the close relationship between the two nations,” Netanyahu’s office said Friday.

The upcoming meeting will be the first between the two leaders since February, when Netanyahu presented Trump with plans for their joint military operation against Iran.

It comes amid ongoing tensions over Washington’s peace negotiations with Iran, which Israel fears will lead to a deal that will be detrimental to its security. Last month, after weeks of negotiations, the US and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding to extend the ceasefire, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and undertake 60 days of negotiations on a final deal covering Iran’s nuclear program.

Israel was not a party to the deal and is not involved in the resulting negotiations, but its fight with Iran has also paused.

Trump also told Axios that he is following the ongoing funeral ceremonies for the late Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed in US-Israel strikes on February 28.

Claiming that the Iranians are “begging to make a deal,” Trump said the two sides put negotiations on pause to allow for the days-long funeral to take place, during which the American president claims neither party will attack the other.
Satellite images show construction near Iranian nuclear site, in apparent MOU violation
Recent satellite imagery from Iran has shown that construction appears to be taking place at a secret tunnel complex adjacent to the Natanz nuclear facility, the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security said Thursday, although there was no indication that Tehran had begun repairing damage caused by US and Israeli strikes at its main nuclear facilities.

According to the think tank, the underground enrichment halls at Natanz remain inaccessible, with damaged entrances, destroyed power systems and displaced HVAC chillers still unrepaired.

It said, however, that fresh satellite imagery from late last month indicated that the portion of the Natanz complex known as “Pickaxe Mountain,” or Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, has been the site of recent vehicle activity and construction, with workers appearing to be reinforcing tunnel entrances.

The underground site tunneled into a mountain near the main Natanz facility is thought to have been under construction since 2020, according to experts quoted by The New York Times last month.

The exact purpose of the site is not known, and inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency have never been granted access.

According to the Institute for Science and International Security, there has been persistent activity at the site since April, when a ceasefire was declared in the US-Israeli war with Iran.

Since then, it said, Iran has partially filled some of the tunnel portals, blocking vehicles from accessing them, while a smaller tunnel complex within the site’s perimeter has been sealed. The contents of the sealed tunnels are unknown, it noted, but could be enriched uranium.

It said, however, that the vast majority of the Pickaxe Mountain facility did not yet appear to be operational.


IDF says it killed armed Hezbollah operative after manhunt in southern Lebanon
An armed Hezbollah operative identified near Israeli forces in southern Lebanon was killed following a manhunt on Saturday, the Israel Defense Forces announced.

The IDF said reservists of the 551st Brigade spotted the gunman in the Majdal Zoun area, inside Israel’s buffer zone.

The troops opened fire on the operative and, following a chase, killed the operative “to remove the threat,” the military said.

Hezbollah dragged Lebanon into the war with Iran in March by attacking Israel in support of Tehran, resulting in the destruction of large parts of southern Lebanon and the disruption of the lives of those living in northern Israel. US-sponsored efforts to halt fighting between the two sides have reduced hostilities, but have yet to achieve peace or bring the war to a definite end.

Israel is currently maintaining a “security zone” in southern Lebanon, from which residents have been ordered to evacuate, and where troops are dismantling the terror group’s infrastructure, which was used for attacks on Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on a visit to the security zone — which runs up to 10 kilometers (six miles) deep — in south Lebanon on Tuesday, reaffirmed that forces would remain there so long as Hezbollah remained a threat.


Iran said to bar Mojtaba Khamenei from father’s funeral, fearing Israel could kill him
Iranian security officials have rejected Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei’s request to attend the burial of his slain father and predecessor, Ali Khamenei, because they fear Israel will kill the son or track him back to his hiding spot, The New York Times reported Saturday.

Mojtaba Khamenei seeks to attend his father’s July 9 burial in Mashhad and perform funeral rites, but has so far been refused, the Times said, citing two unnamed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps members and a person involved with planning the multi-day funeral that began on Saturday.

Khamenei has not been seen in public since he was injured, and his father, wife, and son were killed in the opening strikes of the US-Israeli bombing campaign in Iran on February 28. According to the Times, he was absent from a memorial for his wife in Tehran on Wednesday.

Four senior Iranian officials cited by the Times said Khamenei’s continued absence from the public eye has triggered concern about the sustainability of his rule.

While a written statement attributed to Khamenei okayed negotiations with the US, hardline Iranian conservatives have vowed to resist diplomacy until he appears in public or produces a voice recording, the Times said.

In the meantime, hardliners have called for the prosecution and even the death of Iranian negotiators, who hail from the self-described pragmatist wing of Iran’s conservative camp.


Mourners chant for ‘revenge’ as Iran’s regime choreographs mass, days-long Khamenei funeral
Massive crowds gathered as Iran began a days-long funeral Saturday for the late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with many calling for “revenge” and “death to Israel,” months after an airstrike killed him at the start of the war.

Authorities unveiled the casket containing Khamenei’s body in a glass case at the Grand Mosalla in Tehran, Iran’s capital. Mourners wept at the sight, with some chanting: “Our word is one! Revenge! Revenge!” and “We will kill, we will kill he who killed our Imam.”

Some carried banners and red flags, a symbol of revenge in Shiite Islam, while billboards across the city bore Khamenei’s image. Crowds of men rhythmically beat their chests in mourning, a common practice at Shiite funerals.

“We have come not for the funeral but for revenge,” a eulogist at the event chanted. “We’re never going to give up your blood, which is the reddest line.”

“We must rise up and, God willing, avenge the blood of our leader,” said Hamidreza Shabani, an 18-year-old student.

“I am here to say goodbye to my beloved leader Ali Khamenei,” said a weeping Hananeh Mousavi, 27, who attended the funeral alongside her mother. “I never expected to see such a day. I wish I had died before this tragedy.”


Egypt’s manager raises Palestinian flag after World Cup knockout win
The Egyptian national soccer team’s manager, Hossam Hassan, held up a Palestinian flag after his team’s win in the World Cup round of 32 on Friday night, beating Australia in penalties.

Speaking to the press after the final whistle in Dallas, Hassan dedicated his team’s victory to the “good and noble” Egyptian and Palestinian people.

“My heart and soul are with them,” he said in an emotional post-game interview.

A video of Hassan on social media shows him walking around the pitch holding the flag as people chanted “free free Palestine.” The video went viral.

Hassan is not known to be religious or connected to any political group. In the 1980s and 1990s, he was adored by the youth, a street soccer player who played in the slums.

It wasn’t immediately clear if FIFA would seek to take any action, and it didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. It has previously sought to restrict what it sees as political statements on the pitch.

The Egyptian team is set to play superstar Lionel Messi and the Argentine national team in their round of 16 match on Tuesday in Atlanta.


Jewish man attacked in Toronto by self-identified ‘Houthi’
Police in Toronto arrested a man on Tuesday on suspicion of attacking a Jewish man while yelling antisemitic slurs against the victim.

Around 12:10 p.m., the accused approached the victim in the Jane Street and Lawrence Avenue West area at a commercial property that the latter manages, the Toronto Police Service said in a statement.

The suspect, identified as Abdulkadir al-Jelani, 58, from Toronto, started yelling and throwing rocks “and other items” at the victim, causing him minor wounds.

Al-Jelani is charged with three counts of assault with a weapon and one count of uttering death threats, the Toronto Police Service said. He appeared in court at the Toronto Regional Bail Centre on July 1.

“It is believed that the victim was targeted because of their religious attire,” the police added.

The victim was named as Joseph Bitton by the National Post.

A real estate agent and lawyer, Bitton told the newspaper that the assailant swung a parking pylon at him, shouting that Jews are “baby killers committing genocide.”

“He said he was from Yemen and a Houthi,” Bitton, who wears a kippah, related.

“I dodged all the projectiles he was throwing at me, blocked him with my arms. I’ve got lesions and scratches on both arms,” he said.

“Some people are telling me I should have knocked the guy out. I said, ‘Absolutely not. Then I would be arrested, and he would go free, and I would be the bad guy.’ So I deliberately just stayed 10 or 15 feet away,” he continued.

Bitton followed the attacker, who attempted to flee. The incident lasted for approximately 35 minutes before police arrived and detained the assailant, Bitton said.


‘Digging Deep’ for legacies, author finds missing Jewish soccer players killed in Holocaust
David Bolchover immediately issues a challenge upon sitting down for this interview: Ask a group of Jews to name great Jewish soccer players.

“They’ll laugh at you,” says the British writer and lifelong Manchester United fan. “Even if they’re huge football fans with a deep knowledge of modern Jewish history, they think football is not a Jewish forte.”

There may be a complete dearth of Jewish players in the 2026 World Cup, which is being held in North America through July 19, but that was not always the case, says Bolchover, 59.

In his new book, “Digging Deep,” Bolchover sets the record straight on the many Jews who contributed to the so-called beautiful game before they were murdered in the Holocaust.

The book follows Bolchover’s “The Greatest Comeback,” in which he told the remarkable story of Bรฉla Guttmann, a Hungarian Holocaust survivor who started his career on the pitch before the war and later became a hugely successful coach and manager. The critically acclaimed 2017 title was shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year and translated into several languages.

Now, Bolchover is razor-focused on resurrecting the memory of 11 Jewish soccer professionals who have long been forgotten. Determined to pay tribute to the group he describes as his “team,” he brings their heartbreaking stories to life in his new, meticulously researched book.

The Times of Israel spoke with Bolchover in a video call from his home in north London. He discussed what inspired him to embark on this dark detective journey, what he uncovered along the way, whether he can envisage a revival of Jewish soccer — and who he thinks will emerge victorious in the World Cup.


Netanyahu hails US as ‘guarantor of global freedom’ in call with Trump
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated on Friday U.S. President Donald Trump on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the independence of the United States, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.

“The United States is a guarantor of global freedom and Israel deeply values the close bond between the two nations,” Netanyahu told his counterpart over the phone, according to the PMO.

The two leaders agreed to meet soon in the United States, the statement added.

Also on Friday, Israeli President Isaac Herzog visited U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee at the American embassy in Jerusalem to mark America’s 250th Independence Day, delivering a letter of congratulations to President Donald Trump and the American people.

“I am extremely moved and happy to be here at the American embassy in Jerusalem, the capital of the State of Israel, at the embassy which was launched by President Trump in his historic recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital,” Herzog said.

“I want to congratulate the president, the Congress, the leadership and the people of the United States of America through you, Mr. Ambassador, on 250 years of independence,” Herzog said. “American independence is one of the greatest moments in history, and it has changed the fate of humanity.”

In his letter to Trump, Herzog described the anniversary as “a moment to honor the incredible triumph of the American spirit.”

“The story of America has inspired humanity the world over,” he wrote. “From sea to shining sea, America stands as a beacon of liberty, and as the leader of the free world.”





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Reclaiming the Covenant on America's 250th (May 2026)

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PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

    

 

 

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