Tuesday, September 01, 2026

08/31 Links Pt2: RNC chair Dem majority a: ‘Direct threat to the Jewish community’; Hollywood celebrities are backing a terrorist murderer; Michigan AG tells Jewish Dems to put ‘needs of world’ ahead of ‘our own survival’

From Ian:

Nitsana Darshan-Leitner: Hollywood celebrities are backing a terrorist murderer — read the facts
These were not fictional villains in a screen-adapted comic book tale — they were real terrorists with real victims.

And one of the victims was an American citizen.

That is the problem with the Marvel campaign. These are limousine liberals at their most comfortable: wealthy, privileged and insulated from the consequences of the causes they champion.

They have spent their careers playing superheroes, but appear to know remarkably little about the history they are now trying to rewrite. They sit comfortably in their movie studio trailers and pronounce moral judgments on a bitter conflict in which they have no personal stake and, judging by this campaign, very little understanding.

They do not have to stand before the widows — the parents and orphans of the five people whose murders resulted in Barghouti’s convictions — and explain why their loved ones’ killer should be released. They simply sign a petition.

And now they have something bigger to answer for, because a candidacy is not a pardon; it’s a promotion.

Barghouti drew the most votes in Fatah’s central committee elections in May.

Everyone involved can do the arithmetic: The plan is to run him from a prison cell, win, and dare the world to say a democratically elected murderer should remain incarcerated.

What do you think? Be the first to comment.

But before the Marvel justice league starts drafting its victory statement, they should do something remarkably simple: Read the documents.

Acknowledge the five people he was convicted of murdering.

Then explain to their millions of followers why those victims should be written out of the story while Barghouti becomes its hero.

Hollywood can manufacture superheroes. It cannot manufacture innocence — nor can any election.

And a man convicted of murdering five innocents cannot be transformed into a statesman because the red-carpet revolutionaries have decided to make him one.
Israel, the DEI exception to 'everyone': How the music industry lost its moral compass
Peace-building musical collabs such as Jonny Greenwood and Dudu Tassa's Arabic show, Jarak Qaribak (“Your Neighborhood is Your Friend”), were canceled as a result of the BDS Movement. The project involved musicians from Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait, and Iraq - the kind of cross-collabs generally praised by the arts & culture.

While peace-building performances become unacceptable, shouting hate speech and antisemitic libels through a mic when accepting an award on stage becomes celebrated as an act of cool resistance; what is being contributed to these foundational DEI values of the music industry? Because where does political accountability end and collective punishment of a people as a whole begin?

By 2025, over 400 musicians had joined a geo-block boycott to make their music unavailable in Israel, calling their campaign ‘No Music for Genocide’. The name itself invites an uncomfortable question. If No Music for Genocide is really a principle rather than a geographical preference, where were the comparable mass geo-blocking campaigns and cultural boycotts as Sudan or Iran descended into mass atrocity?

Challenging their objective, I posted a few very politically correct words on my LinkedIn, the point of which was ‘Boycotting musicians and fans in Israel will not free Palestine’.

Exclusion, hate, and polarization didn’t really seem like the way to go for me as a music executive who believed in dialogue and listening to each other.

I’d lead my own panel for five years at Amsterdam Dance Event on the subject of DEI, so I believed in ‘talking about the hard stuff’. Then followed the wave of hate, antisemitic libels, and threats from industry professionals employed by major labels, publicly traded tech companies, and places of work with codes of conduct specifically prohibiting them from publicly attacking ‘fellow colleagues’.

'I believed... safety, dignity, inclusion applied to everyone'
The proof remained, indeed, in the pudding.

I believed that the principles we spent years building - safety, dignity, and inclusion - applied to everyone.

Radical inclusion, it seemed, had added an exception: it did not apply to people born in a particular country, or to Jews and Israelis. A counterculture that once challenged the boundaries of society was now policing the ideological boundaries of its own. Glorifying terror under the banner of DEI was dubbed ‘resistance’.

DEI's own conviction of righteousness and one-sidedness expanded rapidly, well organized, and well funded. By then, the contradiction became impossible to ignore.

And perhaps Damon Albarn provides the simplest counterexample. Albarn has hardly been silent about Palestinian suffering or his criticism of Israel. Yet after Bob Vylan’s Glastonbury performance, he called the episode a ‘spectacular misfire’ and spoke instead about wanting to work with musicians in both Palestine and Israel.

It really should not be revolutionary to suggest that one can advocate for Palestinians without demanding the cultural exclusion of Israelis. Isn’t this exactly what music was supposed to be for?

What started as an industry-wide commitment to safety had developed into ideological gatekeeping: diversity but under political uniformity. Inclusion, except when the artist was born in Israel.

Freedom of expression, unless the expression comes from Boy George or another ‘wrong person’. And #MeToo, except if you were a girl dancing at 6:29 a.m. at the Nova festival.

To quote a house classic: If music is the answer, the answer cannot be less cultural contact. It has to be more. Because when we try to make music morally pure, we destroy precisely the thing that made it morally valuable: its ability to bring together people who would otherwise never meet.
The Loophole in "Death, Death to the IDF"
That is the element a stadium field and a cordoned riverside protest both managed to avoid, while a shared public highway outside a gig was not. Weeks after disclosing the Kentish Town charge, the Met announced that organisers would, for the first time, be made responsible for speakers’ hate speech at future protests, and that it was reviewing with the CPS “language… previously advised [as not meeting] the threshold”. An acknowledgment, in effect, of the gap it kept running into.

None of this requires bad faith on the Met’s part, or a plan on Robinson-Foster’s. Everything is explainable by a comparison of reach, not culpability. Robinson-Foster is documented saying the words on number occasions, including at Alexandra Palace, Glastonbury, Amsterdam, and the Embankment. Each performed or broadcast to a crowd in the thousands, one to a live, nationally watched BBC stream; the phrase has since acquired its own Wikipedia entry. His own public response to the Glastonbury backlash was to mock “crying” critics rather than dispute what the words meant.

The Kentish Town defendant is alleged to have repeated the same six words, that single night, a number of times, on a small loudhailer. He reached, cumulatively, a demonstration of dozens on one residential street. But the Kentish Town defendant had clearly defined victims, which Robison-Foster did not..

If the harm the law exists to address is the spread of a chant calling for the deaths of people who are, for most Israelis, their children or themselves, it is not obvious that the more repetitive but contained allegation did more of that harm than the far less repeated but internationally amplified fact. That the defendant with the smaller reach is the one facing trial, while the man whose performances actually spread the phrase abroad has been cleared twice and gained rather than lost from it, looks less like a corrupt system than a badly drawn one.

The Public Order Act is highlighted as measuring proximity, not scale: it catches a chant however few times it was said, provided somebody was standing close enough to be frightened by it, and lets the same words through however many times repeated, provided the crowd chanting back is large enough, sympathetic enough, or simply on the right side of a river.

The gap between impact and proximity leaves one wondering if the real problem is a weakness in the law. Chanting for the death of anyone is distinctly uncivilised, an invasive cultural meme that should be resisted rather than absorbed. If not, whose death shall be heralded next, leaving one wondering, when shall it be my own fair turn.


Call me Back: Who REALLY Made the Modern Middle East - with Simon Sebag Montefiore
How much of the Middle East’s history was actually shaped by the West?

The story most of us learned about who created the modern Middle East is incomplete. Dan is joined by historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of The Cauldron, who argues that we give Western powers too much credit and the people of the region too little agency. In Part I of their conversation, they trace the forces that shaped the region, from the Ottoman legacy and the rise of nationalism to the Iranian Revolution and Islamism.

In this episode:
Who really made the modern Middle East?
The myth of empire as a Western phenomenon
How the Middle East lost its diversity
Did the nation-state fail the Middle East?
Why Iran’s 1979 revolution changed everything
How Khomeini turned Islamism into a regional force


RNC chair claims Dem majority in Congress will put antisemites in power: ‘Direct threat to the Jewish community’
The head of the Republican National Committee claims a Democratic takeover of Congress will put antisemites in power and pose a “direct threat to the Jewish community.”

“A Democratic majority in November is not just a political setback for our party and our movement — it is a direct threat to the Jewish community,” RNC Chairman Joe Gruters is set to tell the Republican Jewish Coalition leadership summit in Las Vegas on Monday, according to excerpts of his speech obtained by The Post.

“The people in charge would not be the moderate Democrats who have occasionally pushed back on antisemitism — it would be the squad. It would be the DSA [Democratic Socialists of America]. It would be the people who looked at Oct. 7 and stood with Hamas.”

Gruters says in his upcoming address that Israel-bashing and Jew hatred “has found a home in the Democratic Party” and that “this did not happen overnight.

“Radical extremists took over the party — and the Democrat leaders let them,” he says.

The head of the national Republican Party points to democratic socialists who have big voices in the Democratic Party — chief among them New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who oversees the municipality with the largest Jewish population in America.

Mamdani did not immediately condemn Hamas after the terror group invaded Israel Oct. 7, 2023, and murdered more than 1,200 people. The far-left mayor also has repeatedly refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, and on his first day in office, he revoked his predecessor Eric Adams’ strong executive order to combat antisemitism, the GOP chairman notes.

“That was his priority,” Gruters says in his speech.

The RNC chief also flags Jew-bashing Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) and the rantings of the anti-Israel Democratic candidate running for Senate in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed.


Vance slams Senate hopeful El-Sayed as ‘very, very evil’ at Michigan rally
Vice President JD Vance laid into Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed on Monday during a campaign rally held in the state, calling him “very, very evil” and an apologist “for the worst people in the world and America’s enemies all over the globe.”

Speaking at the event in Sterling Heights organized by a pro-Trump super PAC, Vance accused El-Sayed of sympathizing with the assailant who carried out a terrorist attack against a synagogue outside of Detroit in March and associating with the antisemitic Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who had claimed that America deserved 9/11.

“I realize that there’s something about Abdul El-Sayed that is very, very evil and on the rise in the United States of America today,” Vance said at the rally, where he touted the campaign of former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), El-Sayed’s opponent.

“It’s people who see themselves not as citizens of a common nation fighting for every single person — whether they’re Jewish or Christian, whether they’re white or Black or brown — but see themselves as fighting for one group at the expense of others — and that is how, ladies and gentlemen, you destroy the United States of America,” he added in his speech.

Vance devoted significant attention to the violent terrorist attack targeting Temple Israel, a Reform synagogue in West Bloomfield, which El-Sayed had initially dismissed as representing a broader cycle of violence where “hurt people hurt people,” prompting widespread backlash from Jewish voters in Michigan.

The vice president’s focus on the synagogue attack indicates that El-Sayed’s remarks have reverberated well beyond the sizable Jewish community in the key battleground state.

Vance also said in his remarks he was “honored to be joined by the rabbi and some of the security guards of Temple Israel,” though Jewish Insider was unable to immediately confirm their individual involvement. (A Jewish community leader told JI that he knew of one rabbi who was attending the rally, but did not share a name.)

While El-Sayed voiced regret for his comments in meetings with Jewish Democrats over the weekend, Vance said that his response raised questions about what he is “going to do when he goes to Washington D.C.. when the cameras aren’t on.”

Vance called El-Sayed, who is Muslim, “a man who has sympathy and compassion for people who share his religion, but have nothing for people who don’t.”

“My message to Abdul El-Sayed is: You can pal around with terrorist sympathizers, and you can say that America deserved 9/11, or you could empathize not with the children who were targeted at Temple Israel, but with the attacker,” Vance said, before his comments took a personal turn.


‘Shocking’ how Jewish Californians ‘fear for their safety,’ says California GOP candidate for governor Steve Hilton
When former Fox News host Steve Hilton visited the Hillel at University of California, Los Angeles a few months ago, he was “shocked” at the stories he heard from students at the public school and local high schools and from local leaders about “what the daily reality is.”

“People having to pay for extra security, for community events, for family events—it’s just completely unacceptable to me,” Hilton, who is running as a Republican in California’s gubernatorial race, told JNS.

“As governor, I won’t accept that,” he said. “We cannot have part of our community in California fearing to show their identity in public because of the threat of violence. It’s just not OK.”

Marissa Streit, CEO of PragerU, moderated a discussion with Hilton on Sunday at the Jewish American Summit, which some 1,000 attended in Los Angeles.

Hilton told JNS before he came out on stage that to fight antisemitic hate crimes in the state, California laws must be enforced “for everyone, and not turn a blind eye when it’s certain people that maybe, for whatever ideological reasons, aren’t treated the same way.”

“You’ve got to treat everyone the same. You’ve got to enforce the law, and you’ve got to ensure people’s safety and community safety,” he said. “Somehow, we’ve got to the point where it has become a contested issue. That’s crazy to me.”
California Legislature passes creating buffer zones around houses of worship, barring hate speech from voter guides
The California Legislature passed bills on Sunday establishing buffer zones around houses of worship and restricting hateful content in official voter guides.

AB 2664, the Safe Worship Zone Act, establishes a 100-foot zone around entrances and exits of houses of worship. Within the zone, a person may not intentionally approach someone entering or leaving within 8 feet without consent to distribute literature, display a sign, engage in oral protest or education or harass, obstruct, threaten or intimidate the person.

The measure passed the California State Assembly 49-2, with 28 abstentions, according to Jewish California, a statewide coalition of Jewish organizations. The Senate approved it 34-0, with six abstentions, on Aug. 27.

“Every Californian, no matter their faith, should be able to walk to their place of worship without fear of being surrounded or intimidated,” David Bocarsly, CEO of Jewish California, stated. “This bill faced sustained, organized opposition, and it passed because lawmakers listened to people of every faith who said the same thing: let us pray in peace.”

AB 1853 sets standards for candidate statements in official state and county voter guides. It limits the statements to information about candidates’ education, professional experience, public service, community involvement and qualifications, while barring attacks on individuals or groups, external links, false or misleading claims and hateful or discriminatory content.

The bill passed the Assembly 47-9, with 23 abstentions, and the Senate 32-0, with eight abstentions, per Jewish California, which sponsored both bills. It was introduced after an antisemitic and white-nationalist candidate statement appeared in California’s June 2026 primary voter guide, which was mailed to 23 million households.

“Hate speech does not belong in a state-approved document paid by tax dollars paid,” Bocarsly stated, adding that the bill “boldly declares that our state’s official election documents can’t be used to spread conspiracy theories and bigotry.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, has until Sept. 30 to sign or veto both bills.


Lander ‘honored to be invited’ to rally where he got heckled as a Zionist
Former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander — whose fierce criticism of Israel helped him prevail over Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) in a Democratic primary for Congress in June — dismissed viral footage of demonstrators berating him as a Zionist at a protest as nothing more than run-ins with “a couple of loud numbskulls.”

Video taken at a demonstration against a right-wing Hindu nationalist gathering at Madison Square Garden shows multiple participants screaming at Lander to leave because of his self-described “progressive Zionist” views, as well as one vividly describing his appearance as “like a wilted ballsack.” In his own clip posted to X on Monday, Lander voiced no regrets over attending the protest and praised the gathering’s organizers, as well as those who defended him both at the event and online.

“I was honored to be invited and glad to participate,” said Lander. “Of course, it’s not great when a couple of fringe a**holes with drums and bullhorns take over a rally and try to bully people.”

The candidate, one of several insurgents New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani endorsed for seats in the House, took the occasion to present himself as a defiant and independent thinker “who stood my ground.” He also used it to repeat his critiques of Israel, on which he has tacked hard to the left since aligning with the democratic socialist leader during last year’s mayoral campaign.

“As someone who objects vehemently to what Israel is doing to Palestinians in Gaza, which I do believe meets the definition of genocide — and in the West Bank and in Lebanon — I get criticized frequently by centrist and right-wing Jews,” he said. “And as someone who nonetheless believes in the vision and the possibility of a Jewish and democratic Israel alongside a free Palestine once decades of occupation and apartheid end, I get criticized frequently by left-wingers.”


Michigan AG Nessel tells Jewish Democrats to put ‘needs of world’ ahead of ‘our own survival’
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Jewish Democrat, encouraged Jewish voters on Sunday to put aside concerns about their safety “in exchange for the opportunity to save the rest of humanity,” in a stark reference to the choices facing Jewish Democrats in the closely contested Senate election this November.

“We have a moral imperative to place the needs of the world above even our own self-interest and, yes, even our own survival,” Nessel told attendees in her remarks at the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus’ annual “Summer Simcha” gathering, where she was honored, according to reports confirmed by Jewish Insider.

Nessel’s comments did not explicitly refer to Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee who has faced profound skepticism from Jewish Democrats over his hostile rhetoric toward Israel as well as his equivocal response to a violent terrorist attack on a synagogue outside Detroit in March.

But her plea to attendees suggested she was moving toward voting for El-Sayed, who also appeared at the event on Sunday to apologize for his initial comments on the synagogue attack in which he had claimed that “hurt people hurt people” and “violence is a cycle,” in remarks that were widely seen as insensitive to Jewish safety.

El-Sayed voiced regret for those remarks on Sunday, asking the caucus members “for forgiveness and a moment of grace” for what he called an ill-timed response. He also clarified that there was “an opportunity for context later on,” a sentiment that some voters found offensive in light of the attack, which had been perpetrated by a Lebanese American man who has lost relatives in Israeli strikes in Lebanon, including a brother who was a Hezbollah commander.

Nessel has been among the most high-profile Jewish Democrats in Michigan to withhold an endorsement of El-Sayed, whose response to the synagogue attack she had criticized in a podcast interview last week as “making excuses” for domestic terrorism that raised questions about how he would respond to other potential acts of violence.

Despite her reservations with El-Sayed, Nessel has also clarified that, unlike some Jewish Democrats in the state, she will not back former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), the GOP nominee now aggressively courting Jewish voters who could help decide the election in a key battleground state.

In her speech on Sunday, Nessel alluded to Queen Esther, the biblical heroine of the Jewish holiday of Purim, in a dramatic illustration of the high stakes of the race.

“It is perhaps up to us now to follow in her path,” Nessel said, “and sacrifice the comfort, safety and security and even the very future of our own people in exchange for the opportunity to save the rest of humanity.” (In the Purim story, however, Queen Esther risked her own life to save the Jews rather than putting aside Jewish safety for a supposed greater good.)


What happened in the room where El-Sayed spoke to Jewish Michigan Dems
Even among caucus leadership, though, there were deep divisions over the right Jewish approach to take in the election.

“I’m a Mike Rogers supporter,” Troy Zukowski-Serlin, a Kalamazoo-based member of the Michigan Jewish Democrats board, told JTA on Sunday before El-Sayed’s speech. Despite his board position, Zukowski-Serlin said nothing would change his mind about voting for the Republican candidate: “It’s signed, sealed and delivered with me.”

His wife Michelle, who attended the event wearing a dress with an Israeli flag imprint, said she would be writing in Nessel, “my hero,” on the ballot.

Jewish Michigan state Sen. Jeremy Moss, who is running for Congress in a heavily Jewish suburban Detroit district and whose own disagreements with El-Sayed have spilled into public view, told JTA that the event was “a step in the right direction” for the candidate.

“It has lingered in the Jewish community for the last six months,” Moss said, of El-Sayed’s initial comments about the Temple Israel attack in his district. “And I appreciate that this is something that he recognized there needed to be a reckoning with, and amends toward.”

Some Jewish communal leaders in attendance, though, said he wasn’t there yet.

“He is moving, and I’m hopeful about that. And it’s making me feel more secure in his leadership,” Rabbi Josh Whinston of Temple Beth Emeth, a Reform synagogue in Ann Arbor, told JTA. “There’s still work to do.”

Whinston said he would also like to see El-Sayed address other comments he has made, including having referred to the Israeli government as “bloodthirsty.” Such language, the rabbi said, “puts us in harm’s way.”

The event’s organizers were also skeptical that El-Sayed had changed many minds.

“I think that people are pretty well set in what they want to do,” Joan Lowenstein, another caucus board member, told JTA. “But I think they still want to hear words that make them feel that someone else is thinking about what they’re concerned about.”

Liz Fried, of Ann Arbor, was one of the attendees who went up to speak to El-Sayed afterwards. She told him that her children were soon to fly to Israel, and asked if he would support funding for the Iron Dome defensive system.

He wouldn’t, she recalled to JTA — a position he has held in public.

“I was upset,” Fried said. “He doesn’t care about the safety of my children.”


Ms Rachel confronted on accusing Israel of ‘genocide’ in park interaction with podcaster
Podcaster Avi Lichtschein confronted popular children’s educator Ms. Rachel about her anti-Israel comments during an interaction at a neighborhood park, according to the Sunday episode of his show, “Depends on the Context.”

During the episode, Lichtschein described running into the YouTuber, whose real name is Rachel Griffin Accurso, while they were both taking their children to the park. After meeting her, he asked her why she was anti-Israel. Accurso reportedly told him that she was not anti-Israel, but anti-Israeli government and anti-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“I pushed back on this, and I said, ‘That’s absurd,'” Lichtschein said. “Saying you’re anti-Netanyahu, but you’re not anti-Israel? Netanyahu is the democratically elected leader of the sovereign nation. I think what [she does] is way beyond that.”

Lichtschein said that Accurso also accused Israel of committing a “genocide” through its war with Hamas.

“She said something along the lines of, ‘Twenty thousand children have died. How is that not a genocide?'” Lichtschein said. “The answer is — and this is what I was trying to convey to her — genocide is not just a word for, like, a war. War is terrible. Again, Hamas started this war. Genocide is the specific accusation that [she’s] hurling at the Jewish people, hurling at the state of Israel, and now it gives carte blanche to go open season on Jews literally around the world.”

Lichtschein added that Accurso repeatedly said that her “husband’s father is Jewish” and that she supports the existence of a Jewish state. He informed her that she was “spreading blood libel” and that there was “blood on your hands” for her ignorance before she ultimately walked away.

Lichtschein then spoke to Accurso’s husband on the matter, apologizing for upsetting her, though he did not take back his comments.

“I wasn’t planning on changing her mind,” Lichstein said. “I wanted to point out your words are creating a lot of damage and someone with an audience as enormous as hers has a responsibility to understand what happens downstream from the things that she says. I think that what she’s doing is motivated by compassion for children, but I think she’s very naïve and gullible and doesn’t realize what her actions are doing to the Jewish community at large, what her words are doing to the enemy of the Jewish people. What she’s doing is harmful.”


John Galliano pulls out of 2027 Met Gala exhibition
John Galliano has announced the 2027 Met Gala honouring his career has been cancelled after his past racist and antisemitic comments.

The British fashion designer, 65, had been set to become only the third living designer to be honoured by the museum.

His retrospective had been due to run from May 2027 until January 2028, with the designer also chosen to be the theme of next year’s Met Gala.

However just a month after the exhibition was announced, Galliano has now revealed he has pulled the retrospective while also addressing his past racism controversies.

Posting a statement on Instagram, he wrote: “After much reflection and discussion with all those involved, I have decided, with great sadness, that it is best for the exhibition not to take place at this time.

“I understand that meaningful atonement is not achieved through an exhibition, institutional recognition or a single public gesture. It is a continuing responsibility, demonstrated through listening, learning and one’s conduct over time.”

He continued: “I do not want the debate surrounding me to place the Met in a difficult position or to distract from the remarkable work of the Costume Institute. I also recognize and respect that an exhibition honoring my work would be painful for some.”

Galliano went on to thank those who have “guided, supported and accompanied” him throughout the last “fifteen years of sobriety and recovery from alcoholism and addiction”.

In a statement shared with Vogue, The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s director and chief executive Max Hollein said: “Following thoughtful discussions with John Galliano, we have together decided not to proceed with the exhibition.”

A statement from Vogue global editorial director Dame Anna Wintour said that Galliano’s decision to ask the museum to postpone the exhibition was “very courageous and a measure of the man he is”.

The statement said: “I believe this is the right decision, and both he and the Museum have my full support. His soaring imagination, fed by a lifetime of curiosity and research, is matched by his exceptional craft. Cut, fit, the evocative line of a bias-cut dress, color – he’s a master of it all. Without one or the other, if his technique wasn’t equal to his storytelling talents, he wouldn’t be the premiere couturier of his generation. But he most certainly is.”

Dame Anna added that Galliano’s impact “reverberates across generations”.

Galliano was convicted of a hate crime by a French court in 2011 for his public antisemitic comments after he launched an attack on a couple sitting on a cafe terrace following a late-night drinking session in the upmarket Marais district.

Footage later emerged of a separate incident which appeared to show him abusing drinkers in a bar and telling them, “I love Hitler”.

The Dior creative director was then sacked by the label in light of the “deeply offensive statements and conduct” contained in the video.

The designer was later convicted of “public insults based on origin, religious affiliation, race or ethnicity” stemming from the two separate incidents and handed a 6,000 euro (£5,000) suspended fine.


Manchester synagogue attack survivor says son has received death threats
Yoni Finlay, who was wounded during last year’s Heaton Park Synagogue attack, has said that his son has received death threats and that he “doesn’t think things feel safer” for the community almost a year on.

It comes as Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation’s Rabbi Daniel Walker also warned that British Jews are now in an even “harder position” than immediately after the attack.

Finlay spent two weeks in hospital after being wounded during Jihad al-Shamie’s attack on the Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur last year, in which Adrian Daulby, 53, and Melvin Cravitz, 66, were killed.

Speaking about his family’s life since, Finlay told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “My son, who is in college at the moment, has faced death threats. Asked how the Jewish community was feeling almost a year on, he said: “I don’t think things feel safer. I think we certainly live behind ever-increasing gates, more security than we’ve ever had.

“Any event that we attend within the community, the address is never displayed on the poster.

“Jewish people are having to hide their identity.”

During the attack, Finlay helped other worshippers barricade the synagogue doors to prevent al-Shamie from entering before being struck by a police bullet.

In a separate BBC interview, Rabbi Walker said the sense of vulnerability among British Jews had increased over the past year.

“I think we're actually almost in a harder position than we were even immediately after the attack. I think the sense of vulnerability has grown. It hasn't diminished.”

Rabbi Walker cited further attacks on the Jewish community since Heaton Park, including the Golders Green stabbing on April 29, which left two people in hospital.

It had been a “year of difficulty and of grief and pain”, he said, adding: “Something has gone seriously wrong in our society.

“I think we're dealing with symptoms. We're extremely grateful for the increased security, but I don't think there's really any evidence of anyone dealing with the core problems.

“And on the contrary, in many ways, those may have become worse over the last months.”


Second Israeli confirmed missing as death toll continues to climb in Nepal floods
A second Israeli was confirmed to be missing in Nepal on Monday, six days after devastating floods swept through the Nepal-China border region.

The Foreign Ministry identified the missing person as Katerina (Katya) Sakovich, a 41-year-old Israeli citizen who also holds Belarusian citizenship.

“Israel’s consul in Kathmandu and the Foreign Ministry’s Department for Israelis in Distress Abroad are in continuous contact with her family and are working with the authorities and local officials in efforts to locate her,” the ministry said.

Sakovich, who has been living in Milan in recent years and was in Nepal as part of a trip to Mount Kailash in Tibet, was last seen in the area of the Rasuwagadhi-Gyirong border crossing, around the time the floods began, according to the Kan public broadcaster.

Kan reported that until now Sakovich had only been listed among the missing in Nepal as a Belarusian citizen, and her family reached out to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem to receive help with the search.

There is currently no update on the status of another Israeli, a 60-year-old man, who was confirmed missing last week and whose identity has not been published, the ministry told The Times of Israel on Monday.

The death toll from the flash floods has risen to at least 903 in Nepal and in Tibet in China, while the number of people missing has soared to 4,247, the country’s disaster authority said Monday.

Among Nepal’s list of the missing are 592 foreigners, including tourists who had come for trekking in its mountains, as well as Hindu pilgrims seeking spiritual peace at Tibet’s sacred Mount Kailash.
Nobel Prize, Israel Prize laureate, Ada Yonath, dies aged 87
Professor Ada Yonath, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2009 and the Israel Prize in Chemistry in 2002, died on Monday at age 87.

Born in Jerusalem, Yonath worked at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot’s Structural Biology and Chemistry Department, where she led the Ribosome Group, according to the institute's website.

A ribosome is a "tiny particle made up of RNA and proteins that specialize in protein synthesis and are found free or bound to the endoplasmic reticulum within cells," according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.

She was the daughter of Polish immigrants, whose father tried to earn a living by running a grocery store, despite having qualifications as a rabbi, according to a biography on the Nobel Prize website.

The Yonath family moved to Tel Aviv after her father passed away, and Ada studied chemistry at the bachelor's and master's levels at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, graduating in 1962 and 1964, respectively. She later earned her PhD from the Weizmann Institute in 1968, researching X-ray crystallography.

She was elected a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 2000 and the US National Academy of Sciences in 2003, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.

"An organism's vital functions are managed by large, complex protein molecules produced in cells' ribosomes. There, genetic information from messenger RNA is translated into chains of amino acids that then build proteins. In the 1970s, Ada Yonath began a project that culminated in 2000 in her successful mapping (together with other researchers) of the structure of ribosomes, which consist of hundreds of thousands of atoms, using x-ray crystallography. Among other applications, this has been important in the production of antibiotics," the Nobel Prize biography said, describing her work. President Herzog eulogizes Israeli award-winning chemist

“I am deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Professor Ada Yonath, Nobel laureate in Chemistry, Wolf Prize laureate, Israel Prize laureate, and one of the leading researchers in the history of Israeli science," President Isaac Herzog said.

“Anyone who followed Professor Yonath’s scientific journey knew that she was an international trailblazer, and a pioneer who proved that curiosity, dedication, and unwavering determination can push back the frontiers of human knowledge. Her groundbreaking discoveries changed the face of science and brought great honor to the State of Israel," he added.

“Professor Yonath lived out that very aspiration, serving as an inspiration to countless women and men alike. We will remember her for her modesty, the originality of her thinking, and as a role model and inspiration to generations of scientists in Israel and around the world. I send my deepest condolences to her family, her colleagues at the Weizmann Institute of Science, her students, and the entire scientific community. May her memory be a blessing," he stated.
Israel commemorates 129th anniversary of First Zionist Congress
On Aug. 29, 1897, the first Zionist Congress assembled in Basle, Switzerland. It brought together delegates from 17 countries with the purpose of re-establishing a Jewish commonwealth.

Theodor Herzl, who conceived of the congress, and the idea of using modern political methods to achieve the ancient Jewish dream of returning to the Land of Israel, set forth its purpose with his opening words: “We are here to lay the foundation stone of the house which is to shelter the Jewish nation.”

A program was laid out, including the settlement of the territory comprising ancient Israel, then ruled by the Ottomans, and the strengthening of Jewish national consciousness.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry celebrated the milestone on X:
“129 years ago today, Theodor Herzl convened the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, bringing together 200 delegates around a shared vision: self-determination for the people of Israel in their indigenous homeland,” the ministry said.

“The return to the Land of Israel had already been unfolding for decades, as tens of thousands of Jews from across the Middle East, North Africa and Europe made their way home.

“Herzl’s vision gave this grassroots movement a unified political framework, turning a centuries-old dream into a structured state-building enterprise.”

StandWithUs, a U.S.-based pro-Israel group, commemorated the congress on Facebook: “This pivotal event solidified the Jewish people’s longing for and endeavors to reclaim their homeland after millennia of forced diaspora.”

The American Zionist Movement, composed of 51 national Jewish Zionist organizations, posted: “On this day in 1897: Theodor Herzl attended Shabbat services at the Great Synagogue of Basel before the opening of the First Zionist Congress. The Congress began the next day, creating the foundation of what became the State of Israel.”





Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon!

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

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

    

 

 



AddToAny

Printfriendly

EoZTV Podcast

Podcast URL

Subscribe in podnovaSubscribe with FeedlyAdd to netvibes
addtomyyahoo4Subscribe with SubToMe

search eoz

comments

Speaking

Speaking

translate

E-Book

For $18 donation








Sample Text

EoZ's Most Popular Posts in recent years

Search2

Hasbys!

Hasbys!

2019 Nobel Peace Prize nominee

Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون



This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

Donate!

Donate to fight for Israel!

Monthly subscription:
Payment options


One time donation:

Follow EoZ on Twitter!

Interesting Blogs

Show All

Blog Archive

Copyright © Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News | Powered by Blogger
Blogger Templates