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Friday, September 04, 2026

09/03 Links Pt2: Dame Maureen Lipman: I Won't Be Bullied by Actors over My Views on Israel; What Happened to America’s Teachers?; House passes anti-BDS bill, even as most Democrats voted against it

From Ian:

Dame Maureen Lipman: I Won't Be Bullied by Actors over My Views on Israel
A young actor by the name of Gerard McCarthy has withdrawn from his role in a West End play because...I am in it, and my "views" on Israel are beyond the pale. What prompted this man to now refuse to share a stage with me for one day in "Right Before I Go" - a play meant to generate awareness about suicide and raise money for the cause?

My appearance as Evelyn Plummer in "Corrie" a few times a week does not give me a back channel to Bibi Netanyahu, despite the fact that yes, I am Jewish. So Mr. McCarthy, I challenge you to explain your rejection of the things which make our business viable and comradely. Why are you refusing to work with an 80-year-old, experienced actress (allegedly I'm a national treasure) for the benefit of young people who are struggling to find the strength and courage to go on living?

There are a lot of Jewish actors who won't speak up for Israel. They keep quiet. That is up to them. But I will not countenance juvenile, immature posturing. Why did Mr. McCarthy have to release a lengthy, moralizing statement attacking views I have "publicly and repeatedly" expressed?

I will not be bullied, nor will I allow anybody to tell me what to think. If that affects their ability to work with me, as opposed to convert me to their point of view, then they are lily livered. Mr. McCarthy could change his mind though. Let's behave as actors who believe in free speech and free thought, rather than engage in a new McCarthyism.
Exclusive: BBC Arabic ‘got it very wrong’ over Israel coverage says Lord Grade
The BBC’s former chairman Lord Grade has condemned the Arabic service for its bias against Israel, telling the JC: “They know they got it very wrong and they’ve got to put it right.”

In a frank interview, the broadcasting grandee says it is “shocking” how slow the broadcaster has been to acknowledge the well-documented long-standing problems of antisemitism and anti-Israel bias at BBC Arabic.

Speaking out on a range of contentious topics after stepping down as Ofcom chief in April, the Tory peer who was born into a celebrated Jewish showbiz dynasty has also said:
The BBC should have called the Hamas October 7 attackers terrorists;
The Corporation’s complaints system must be overhauled and was wrong to reject the claim that ‘moneybags Rothschild’ is an antisemitic phrase;
The BBC must urgently take on the findings of bias – including in Middle East coverage – exposed by Michael Prescott’s report last year;
Failures to identify the editorial flaws in a documentary which was revealed to feature the son of a Hamas minister are a “shocking indictment” of the BBC.
While chairman of Ofcom, Grade received Prescott’s report into the BBC’s editorial standards and immediately passed it to Ofcom chief executive Melanie Dawes.

Prescott, a former independent adviser to the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee, catalogued allegations of bias in the news department. Among his findings were concerns about reporting on the Israel-Gaza conflict.

“I’m used to reading rants from all sides of the divide, and I expected another rant,” Grade says. “I read it, and I realised there was real substance to the criticism and the accusations contained in it.”

He wrote to BBC chairman Samir Shah seeking assurance that the board had read the report and was taking its findings seriously.

What particularly concerned him was the history of major BBC scandals being exposed from outside rather than uncovered by the corporation itself.

He points to the Martin Bashir interview with Princess Diana and the documentary Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone, which centred on a young boy who was revealed to be the son of a Hamas minister.

“We the public, the licence fee payers, would never have known about them unless outside journalists had exposed it,” he says.

“It wasn’t the BBC owning up to their mistakes. It had to be exposed by outside people, which is a shocking indictment of an organisation that calls on everybody else to be transparent and accountable and open.”

The longest section of Prescott’s report concerned the World Service’s Arabic-speaking network, BBC Arabic.

Prescott concluded that the service had attempted to “paint Israel as the aggressor” and that allegations against the Jewish state were “raced to air” without adequate editorial checks.

Grade says there had been “clear signals that there were problems in the Arab service” and criticises the BBC for being “very, very slow” to respond. “It was absolutely shocking how slow they were to acknowledge it,” he says.
Liberal leaders who protested Mahdawi’s deportation silent about his antisemitic, pro-terror posts
Both J Street and the ACLU — two groups that have previously defended Mahdawi — did not respond to requests for comment from JI on Thursday, asking if the organizations would update their statements of support in light of the newly unveiled posts. Both groups have previously stated Mahdawi is being unfairly targeted by the Trump administration over his advocacy for Gaza and Palestinian rights.

In 2025, when Mahdawi was arrested, J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami said the group was “outraged by the Trump Administration’s continued anti-democratic crackdown on Palestinian and pro-Palestinian students in the United States, and its cynical exploitation of genuine fears of antisemitism as its pretext for doing so.”

The group encouraged people to sign a petition supporting him in late July.

Beth Jacob Synagogue, a non-denominational congregation in Vermont that co-sponsored a fundraiser last month for Mahdawi’s legal aid, also did not respond to a request for comment from JI on Thursday.

Democratic members of Congress have also rallied in support of Mahdawi, particularly Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT). Balint, who is Jewish, led close to 70 House Democrats on a letter condemning Mahdawi’s arrest, calling it “dystopian” and motivated by “statements that the Trump Administration does not agree with.”

“It is Mr. Mahdawi’s right as a legal resident of the United States to argue for what he believes in,” the letter reads. “This most fundamental of American rights is crucial to the fabric of our country, and one that America was built upon. … We profoundly oppose unlawful abductions and expect a prompt response to our questions.”

Balint, Sanders and other Democrats also held a rally in April 2025 outside the State Department, defending Mahdawi and dismissing past allegations that he had told a gun shop owner that he had made comments about killing Jews and having built weapons for terrorist groups.

Balint, Sanders, Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT), who met with Mahdawi in detention, and other Democrats who have been vocally supportive of Mahdawi did not respond to requests for comment.

The Congressional Progressive Staff Association also hosted a happy hour with Mahdawi earlier this year.

“Mahdawi frequently speaks of justice. It is one of the central themes of the identity he presents to American audiences,” Collier and Feldman wrote in their report. “But justice requires something more fundamental: truth. After almost one hundred pages examining his words, his history and the stories upon which his public identity was built, that is where the problem with Mohsen Mahdawi ultimately lies.”

Although the report exposes dozens of Mahdawi’s most egregious comments, his extreme anti-Israel stance and support for terrorist groups has been public knowledge for years.

Mahdawi has been characterized by the Department of Homeland Security as a “ringleader” in anti-Israel protests at Columbia. It accused him of using “threatening rhetoric and intimidation” against Jewish students before graduating last year. He has not been charged with a crime.

In a “60 Minutes” interview in December 2023, Mahdawi said he could “empathize” with Hamas and its Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. “To empathize is to understand the root cause and to not look at any event or situation in a vacuum. This is for me that path moving forward,” he said.

Meanwhile, Mahdawi is scheduled to speak at a Columbia symposium next week titled The Forever War and the First Amendment. The university did not respond to a request for comment from JI.


Jews for Haman
This “Jews for Haman" mentality, and its consequences, was perfectly encapsulated by the abuse former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander received on Saturday from the anti-Israel mob he has given his full support to. In an interview with the New York Times Magazine, Lander admitted that the current campaign against AIPAC relies on antisemitic tropes, but knowing the bigotry behind the cause he was supporting, he insisted that he “had to" support this bigotry against his own people.

Lander did everything “right." He supported Zohran Mamdani, a man who has done everything he can to make Jews as unsafe as possible in his city, and has taken the side of the genocidal Hamas terrorist organization over its would-be Israeli victims, deciding that Jewish survival in the face of attempted genocide is in fact genocide. And even this is not enough for the mob he courts, which continues to shout obscenities at him and call for his death, because there is no appeasing Haman when Haman seeks to murder all Jews, down to the last child.

The choice the “Jews for Haman" like Nessel and Lander present is a false binary. Not a single polar bear will be saved just because El Sayed sits in the Senate for 6 years. It isn’t hard to predict that he will spend more time worrying about “Zionists," meaning Jews, and trying to empower those who seek to kill them than he will fighting global warming. If the Jews of Michigan listen to the insane and suicidal advice of Nessel, they will be sacrificing the safety and security of their children for nothing. No one benefits but Jew-killers when Haman achieves power.

Collective suicide is not a Jewish value, especially suicide for vague promises of fighting climate change that won’t accomplish a single thing. The Jewish people are cursed to have “leaders" like Dana Nessel and Brad Lander in politics, cowards who throw their own people to the wolves for scraps, who lack the courage to stand up to true evil and who cheer as evil triumphs and good people are attacked for the ethnicity of their birth. They bring shame not only to the Jewish people, but to America as a whole.

American Jews must reject the “Jews for Haman," because despite what Dana Nessel claims, a world in which Jewish children are safer is a world in which all are safer, and not the other way around.


Joshua Namm: Food Fight! The Propaganda War On Jewish Food
Food is so identified with culture, peoplehood, and nationhood that it is, of course, becoming another weapon in the arsenal of stupid which defines all antisemitism.

That weapon is now being used more frequently and, along with every form of propaganda wielded by Jew haters, its use is intensifying.

For at least the last decade one of the most common assertions against the Jewish people, and particularly Israelis, is that we stole the dishes which we identify as “Jewish food.”

The most frequent target is Israeli food. That stems from the fact that if they admit that Jews have been eating traditional Middle Eastern foods for millennia, they will also have to admit that we originate in, and have always ultimately called the Middle East, and specifically Israel, home. Not Poland, not Russia, not Hungary, and not the U.S.A. (Although I love chili dogs-maybe the world’s most perfect food, but hey, I am an American, so cut me some slack. Like all Americans I also love pizza, sushi, and Mexican food)

In 2022, James Zogby, founder of the “Arab American Institute,” and of a well-known, yet incredibly biased polling agency, called Israeli food “cultural genocide.” Decent people understand that a hallmark of any genocide (the real ones, not the Pallywood variety) is a complete lack of food. But Zogby’s attitude is emblematic of this facet of anti-Zionism.

That same year, the New York Times ran an article called “Preserving a Palestinian Identity in the Kitchen.” The assertions were typically dishonest and grotesque.

In it, propagandist Aina J. Khan quotes a Palestinian chef who claimed to be “reclaiming a cuisine that is part of a broader Arab tradition involving foods like hummus, falafel, tabbouleh, fattoush and shawarma that he felt was being co-opted by Israeli cooks.”

It further claimed that “Food is being used to normalize the Israeli occupation by denying the origin of everything from hummus to falafel… The images of our grandmother’s hands working in the kitchen, rolling the vine leaves, dipping the bread of the mussakhan in oil, are images of beauty that are being stolen from us.”

Oh, so sad. (The possible heaviest sarcasm intended)

In other words, Middle Eastern food belongs to Arabs, and only Arabs. Of course, all of the usual lies about the Nakba, “Palestinian” nationhood, and Israeli “occupation,” were present, as was the myth that Jews are “colonizers” who arrived suddenly in the 20th Century. As always, it ignored the concurrent expulsion of over a million Jews from communities that frequently dated to the Biblical era, and always predated the Arab invasion of the Levant in the seventh century C.E.

Fast forward to June of 2026. The same New York Times awarded its first ever four-star review to a restaurant outside of New York City, and that restaurant was, of course, Never Landian, I mean Narnian, I mean Wakandan, oops, that was wrong too…I mean “Palestinian.”

According to the Washington Free Beacon that “restaurant, Albi, includes on its website a portion of a poem by Mahmoud Darwish, who resigned from the Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee in protest in 1993 in opposition to the Oslo Accords between the PLO and Israel.”

The article goes on to say that even the NY Times admitted that the food was mediocre when they had visited years before the place became publicly vocal about Jew hating, I mean “Palestinian activism.” Awarding four stars is a VERY rare event for the Times. Obviously, like so much else, the facts don’t matter when you’re in the denigrating the Jews business.

That brings us to earlier this summer when New York Magazine ran a cover story called “Habibi City.” It shimmers with joy about “a blooming cultural ecosystem, led by young SWANA New Yorkers … born out of the resistance and protests in the months following October 7.”

The most common ploy of Jew haters is projection, and they have been promoting the insane falsehood that they are the “true” victims of October 7, literally, since October 8, 2023.
Call me Back: Who REALLY Made the Modern Middle East - with Simon Sebag Montefiore (Part 2)
Is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict really at the center of the Middle East?

In Part 2 of Dan’s conversation with historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of The Cauldron, they trace how the balance of power in the Middle East shifted after 9/11, from Iran’s rise and its network of proxies to the emergence of Israel, Iran and Turkey as the region’s dominant military powers. They also ask whether the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has obscured a much larger struggle for power across the region, and what history can tell us about the possibility of peace.

In this episode:
How the Iraq War empowered Iran
Iran’s proxy empire and October 7
The rise of the Middle East’s non-Arab powers
The surprising parallels between Turkey and Israel
Why does the West focus so intensely on Israel?
Beyond the one-state vs. two-state debate
Is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a regional sideshow?
Can the Middle East choose “honey” over blood?




Ask Haviv Anything: 143: How to win the Israeli election
Israel's first election since October 7 will be held on October 27 -- and the system it runs through is one of the simplest in the free world, which is exactly why the results look insane from outside.

One district: the whole country. One ballot slip. You vote for a party, never a person.

In this primer, Haviv walks through how a slip of paper becomes 120 Knesset seats: the 3.25% threshold that erased Bennett and Shaked's party in 2019 by just 1,380 votes, the Bader-Ofer leftover math that quietly rewards big parties and can decide the election, and the surplus-vote agreements filed by October 16 that could hand a bloc the last two seats -- and the country.

Plus: why the most chaotic Knesset in memory produced the most stable government since 1973, why religiosity predicts an Israeli's vote better than income or ethnicity, the Haredi demographic numbers nobody can wish away, and the most under-covered story of the cycle -- Arab turnout.

By the end you'll know what to watch on election night, and why Israeli broadcasts will be excitedly obsessing about "Bader-Ofer" on election night.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Israeli Election System and Its Significance
01:58 The Electoral System: Single National Constituency and Closed Lists
03:48 Key Dates and Schedule for the 2024 Election
06:51 Coalition Formation and the Role of Party Leaders
10:06 Mechanics of Voting, Surplus Vote Agreements, and Seat Allocation
14:55 The Impact of Electoral Thresholds and Remainder Votes
19:56 Strategic Mergers and Campaign Strategies
24:48 The Political Landscape: Netanyahu, Opposition, and Key Parties
30:01 The Role of Arab Parties and Voter Turnout
40:06 Demographic Factors and the Religious Divide
50:04 The Judicial Reform Debate and Its Political Implications
01:00:13 Historical Context and System Origins
01:09:58 Current Campaign Strategies and Key Contests
01:20:13 What to Watch for in Election Night and Beyond




Unpacked Podcasts: How Protesters Can Actually Help Palestinians
Can Israelis and Palestinians still recognize each other’s humanity after October 7th and the war in Gaza?
Noam Weissman speaks with Gaza-born Palestinian writer Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, author of “Hamas and Its 2 Million Hostages.” They discuss anti-Hamas voices inside Gaza, the difference between being pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel, and the trauma shaping both societies. Ahmed explains why peace requires rejecting extremism, mutual recognition, and action over slogans.




House passes anti-BDS measure, even as most Democrats voted against it
House Democrats overwhelmingly voted against a bill that would strip federal funding from colleges and universities engaged in boycotts of Israel, with just 33 Democrats supporting the measure.

The bill ultimately passed 237-169, with two Republicans voting against the measure along with the majority of House Democrats.

The Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act, led by Reps. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), would make colleges that participate in a “nonexpressive commercial boycott” of Israel ineligible to receive federal student aid funding, requiring them to certify annually that they are not engaged in such boycotts and instructing the Department of Education to annually publish a list of schools that fail to submit such certifications.

The law would apply to boycotts of Israel as a country or to companies and other entities operating under Israeli law, which would include settlements in the West Bank.

The Democrats who supported the bill were Reps. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), Kathy Castor (D-FL), Gil Cisneros (D-CA), Jim Costa (D-CA), Joe Courtney (D-CT), Henry Cuellar (D-TX), Don Davis (D-NC), Lois Frankel (D-FL), Laura Gillen (D-NY), Jared Golden (D-ME), Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX), Greg Landsman (D-OH), George Latimer (D-NY), Susie Lee (D-NV), John Mannion (D-NY), Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), Donald Norcross (D-NJ), Jimmy Panetta (D-CA), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA), Josh Riley (D-NY), Brad Schneider (D-IL), Hillary Scholten (D-MI), Kim Schrier (D-WA), Brad Sherman (D-CA), Darren Soto (D-FL), Haley Stevens (D-MI), Tom Suozzi (D-NY), Shri Thanedar (D-MI), Dina Titus (D-NV), Ritchie Torres (D-NY), Juan Vargas (D-CA), Eugene Vindman (D-VA) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL).

Republican Reps. Warren Davidson (R-OH) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) opposed it.

“No student, no professor should be shut out of research, study abroad opportunities, or academic partnerships, or feel unwelcome in the classroom because of where they’re from or what religion they practice,” Gottheimer said in a statement ahead of the vote. “Yet that’s exactly what the boycott-divest-sanction movement seeks to do — targeting one country and one religion: Israel and Judaism.”

He insisted the bill would not impact speech, protest or academic debate, but “simply says that if your university takes federal taxpayer dollars, it can’t discriminate against academic partnerships or investments with one country. That’s it. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this bipartisan bill.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) called the bill a “poorly-written Republican bill” that would not oppose the BDS movement but instead “provide Donald Trump with the power to punitively launch political attacks on our colleges and universities.”


‘Tucker is a friend,’ despite political disagreements, Vance says
U.S. Vice President JD Vance says Americans should not end friendships over political disagreements.

“That is a terrible place for the United States to go,” he said.

At Thursday’s White House press briefing, which Vance led while the administration searches for a replacement for former press secretary Karoline Leavitt, the vice president was asked about his friendship with conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, whom Jewish Republicans have criticized over his anti-Israel rhetoric and his interview last year with Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes.

“Tucker is a friend despite the fact that we disagree on a number of things,” Vance said. “I’m not gonna play the game where I throw friends under the bus because I have political disagreements.”

“I think that is a terrible place for the United States to go, and if you have a disagreement with somebody politically, even over a deeply held issue, you should still be friends with that person, because the whole republic depends on people of different perspectives being able to talk to one another,” he added. “That’s how I try to live my life, and I encourage everybody else to do the same.”

Vance also recalled attacks on his family during the 2024 presidential campaign.

“When I became the vice presidential nominee, one of the hardest things for me personally is not when people attacked me but when people attacked my wife, including friends of hers who knew her heart, who knew what a good person she was,” the vice president said.

“I remember thinking to myself, ‘What a travesty it is that in the United States of America, we let political disagreements define who our friends are going to be and not going to be.’ So yeah, Tucker is a friend of mine,” Vance said.

On Monday, Vance addressed concerns about his relationship with Carlson at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual summit in Las Vegas, where he spoke privately with Jewish Republicans. He said that he draws a line at what he called a “blood-guilt attitude” but did not explicitly condemn Carlson.

The vice president has been a central figure in the Trump administration’s negotiations with Iran and has publicly criticized Israeli government officials over the war. In June, he said that if he were a member of the Israeli cabinet, he “might not be attacking the only powerful ally” Israel has.


‘Jews for Abdul’ co-founder acknowledges El-Sayed’s weaknesses with Jewish voters
A co-founder of “Jews for Abdul,” a loose coalition of Jewish activists backing Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic nominee for Senate, voiced reservations over the nominee’s approach to Israel in a recent organizing call, arguing he could “do a better job” toning down harsh rhetoric that has alienated many Jewish voters in the key battleground state.

Steve Gold, a “Jews for Abdul” member in a heavily Jewish Detroit suburb, said during the mid-August call that there were “three issues” about which El-Sayed has been “less than effective in communicating” his views, citing his refusal to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, his “insistence on using the word genocide” to describe Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza and his opposition to all U.S. funding for Israel, including defensive aid.

Gold confirmed to Jewish Insider on Thursday that his comments made on the private organizing call, a video of which was first reported by The Midwesterner, were authentic.

His remarks underscore how even some Jewish supporters of El-Sayed recognize that his hostile statements against Israel could cost him votes in the broader Jewish community, which he will likely need to prevail in the closely contested election. Michigan is home to around 100,000 Jewish voters, many of whom have raised concerns about rising antisemitism within the Democratic Party.

Even as El-Sayed has recently apologized for his comments equivocating over a violent terror attack against a synagogue outside Detroit in March, some Jewish Democrats remain skeptical of his campaign and feel his outreach has been politically calculated.

Meanwhile, a growing number of Jewish Democrats have gravitated to El-Sayed’s Republican opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), a vocal supporter of Israel.

Even “without changing his policies and feelings,” Gold said during the video call that El-Sayed “could do a better job” of articulating his views in a manner that is less alienating to Jewish community members who do not share his views.

The question over whether Israel has a right to exist “needs to be answered ‘yes,’ full stop, and then go on to explaining the nuances,” Gold said, while warning that El-Sayed’s frequent accusations of genocide have also been unhelpful. “It’s something that makes some Jews stop as though he is denigrating the significance and importance of the Holocaust, which of course he is not,” he explained.

Gold noted that he was “just talking about problems” and was not casting judgement on “whether they’re right or wrong.”

With regard to El-Sayed’s “statement that all aid to Israel,” including for its Iron Dome missile-defense system, “should be cut off,” Gold told the organizers, “people stop listening when they” hear “Israel doesn’t have a right to defend itself,” using air quotes around the oft-repeated line.

“I think that those are three things that turn off a lot of Jews,” he concluded, “and if Abdul did a better job talking about them, it would help.”


Belgian mayor cancels match against Israeli soccer team
The mayor of the city of Leuven in Belgium, Mohamed Ridouani, on Tuesday ordered the cancellation of a soccer match between a local team and an Israeli one, prompting condemnations by Israel’s embassy, local Jews and others.

Ridouani cited “security concerns” as the reason for the ban on the scheduled match later this month between HaPo’el Beersheba and Union Saint-Gilloise.

“This was also the reason for previous decisions to ban games, including that of the Red Flames and the Rode Duivels,” Ridouani said on Tuesday at the City Council, following a query on the subject by a council member. “I am continuing a consistent policy. We cannot guarantee the safety” of spectator and players during the match, he added.

A spokesperson for the embassy of Israel in Belgium responded on X by stating that the Israeli team in question”is an example of coexistence in Israeli football. The team includes three Arab-Israeli players: Muhammad Abu Rumi, Mohammed Kna’an and Zahi Ahmed. Politics should never be allowed to interfere with sports.”

Israeli players, the embassy spokesperson wrote, “should be judged by their professional abilities, not by politics or political views. Sport should remain sport, free from political agendas.” The spokesperson offered that Israel’s Ambassador-designate to Belgium, David Saranga, meet with Ridouani. Israel has faith in Belgium authorities’ abilities to maintain public order, and is ready to help if needed, the embassy added.

The Forum of Jewish Organizations (FJO), the main Jewish group in Belgium’s Flemish Region, also protested the ban in a post on X, adding that the decision to scrap the match altogether “leaves a bad feeling” considering that authorities could have sufficed with not allowing an audience.
Anti-Israel protesters attempt to disrupt wounded Israeli veteran event at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo
Anti-Israel protesters tried to disrupt an event during which two wounded Israel Defense Forces veterans spoke at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, on Aug. 30.

The event, hosted by Mustangs United for Israel and Chabad of SLO and Cal Poly, was titled “Rising to the Challenge” and featured the two Jewish speakers who “paused their lives to defend their people,” according to promotional materials for the event.

CAMERA, which sponsored the event, stated that protesters refused to leave “even after being told by authorities they were violating university rules.” It shared a video on social media of an officer telling masked protesters holding signs at the event to step outside and stay in a designated protest area. One sign stated “U.N. says genocide” and another, “end the occupation.”

Other footage posted on social media appeared to show a sign stating “IDF kills.”

Matt Lazier, assistant vice president for communications and media relations at the university, told JNS that “at one point, several individuals attempted to disrupt the event in protest.”

“Cal Poly police officers, who were present, directed those individuals to leave, as their actions were a violation of the university’s time, place and manner policy,” he said. “The protesters complied, no laws were broken, and there were no arrests.”

Hali Spiegel, director of education at CAMERA, told JNS that the protesters “created a hostile environment that forced Jewish and pro-Israel students to leave through an alternate exit.”

“Disruptions like this have a chilling effect. Students should not have to weigh whether attending an event will mean being mobbed, intimidated or forced to leave under police protection,” she said. “Campus events that hardline anti-Israel activists dislike should not be subjected to a heckler’s veto.”


Jewish graduate students arrive on the Hill to urge lawmakers to tackle campus antisemitism
For 40 Jewish graduate students gathered on Capitol Hill on Monday, the trip to Washington was not simply an exercise in advocacy. Many arrived carrying stories from campuses where they had felt increasingly isolated, targeted or ignored — and left with a desire to do something about it.

The students gathered for the Jewish Grad Organization’s Partners Summit, sponsored by Adam Miller and Family, and met with congressional offices throughout the day to advocate for the Jewish American Security Act, a bipartisan bill designed to strengthen security on university campuses, among other efforts to combat antisemitism across American society. They also discussed campus codes of conduct and equal protection, and shared their personal experiences with antisemitism.

For Rachel Applefield, the stakes of the legislation were deeply personal.

Applefield, a second-year student at Indiana University Maurer School of Law and president of the school’s Jewish Law Student Association, grew up in West Bloomfield, Mich. She is a member of Temple Israel, where an attacker drove a truck into the synagogue’s early childhood center in March. That attack underscored for her the vital need for robust Jewish security—and reinforced her belief that college campuses require similar resources to protect students.

“It’s been very, very difficult and very personal,” Applefield told Jewish Insider. “I’m sure it’s personal for everyone, but it’s very personal for me, this Jewish American Security Act.”

Applefield said the security resources at Temple Israel helped prevent the attack from becoming deadly.

“My temple is so blessed and lucky to have had all of the resources to prevent anything bad from happening,” she said. “Obviously, it was an awful event, what happened, but what went right went right. Like, everything that was supposed to correctly happen happened.”

“All of the security that was in place really saved lives,” she continued, “and you don’t see that level of security, those resources, on college campuses.”
Pro-Iran prof vows to go after critics ‘with an army’ for exposing her — as her work is scrutinized for plagiarism
A disgraced Pro-Iran professor is vowing to go after the anti-regime activist who exposed her “with an army,” landing her under FBI investigation, The Post has learned.

Former University of Arkansas professor Shirin Saiedi blames the end of her career in the US on Lawdan Bazargan, whose Alliance Against Islamic Regime of Iran Apologists (AAIRIA) helped expose alleged plagiarism in her academic work and her support for the Iranian regime.

“Lawdan Bazargan, you are absolutely finished,” Saeidi says in a Persian-language post on X last month, verified as accurate by The Post. “I am coming after you with an army… Lawdan, we will do something to you that will be recorded in history.”

In addition, Saeidi allegedly threatened to find the grave of Bazargan’s brother in Iran, and “dance” on it. The brother, Bijan Bazargan, was executed by the Islamic Republic in a 1988 massacre of political prisoners.

In 2025, Saiedi submitted a letter on University of Arkansas stationery supporting Hamid Nouri, a former Iranian prison official who was convicted in Sweden for his role in the ‘88 massacre.

AAIRIA also urged Cambridge University to investigate her PhD thesis, written while studying at the UK university. AAIRIA activists accuse Saiedi of fabricating interviews with female victims of the Iranian regime and other alleged ethical breaches.

“Saeidi has talked about ‘coming after’ me with an ‘army’, ‘erasing’ us and doing something to me that will ‘go down in history.’ Since she began targeting me publicly, I have also received threatening messages from strangers…I feel genuinely unsafe,” Bazargan said, regarding the threats.

In an August 28 letter to the FBI, Bazargan also said she was worried the regime would target her using “third-party criminals or organized-crime networks” to target dissidents.
What Happened to America’s Teachers?
Antisemitism in American education isn’t merely a matter of elite universities. It’s being tolerated and encouraged at colleges large and small across the country by woke administrators and faculty. But according to JNS Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Tobin, it’s also happening in K-12 schools, something that is being facilitated by teachers’ unions.

He’s joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by Deborah Project Legal Director Lori Lowenthal Marcus, whose cases involve suing school districts and institutions of higher learning where Jews are being targeted and suffering discrimination.

Marcus recently won a significant victory by forcing Haverford College, where administrators and faculty were tolerating anti-Zionist and antisemitic behavior, to adopt new standards that will, if enforced, force them to fundamentally change their approach to Israel and the treatment of Jewish students.

What made the difference in the Haverford case was the fact that investigations by Congress and the federal government pressured the school into conceding to the demands of Jewish students. Without that pressure, Marcus says, the school would have stood its ground.

The Deborah Project has also been defending students in Philadelphia whose families were forced to move to enable them to go to school without suffering antisemitic targeting. The incident involved a public high school that established a “prayer room” that was a de facto mosque, where Jewish students were falsely accused of assaulting other students.

According to Marcus, part of the problem in fighting back against antisemitism in education is the way the entire profession of teaching, at both the K-12 and college levels, has been captured by people indoctrinated in toxic theories. They don’t consider antisemitism to be a problem because Jews don’t qualify as victims in the intersectional mindset, in which only racial minorities deserve help.

The other problem is that many Jews are either too intimidated to take action in defense of themselves or their children. Many are also partisans and so prejudiced against President Donald Trump and the Republicans that they oppose their efforts to combat antisemitism even when it is to their benefit.


Philadelphia Public Schools Host Prison Abolition Workshops With Convicted Felon Who Helped Torch Cop Car and Said Jews Control the Media
The Philadelphia public schools hosted a series of "liberation" workshops for students taught by a convicted felon who has argued that Jews control the media and was involved in torching a police car.

Anthony Smith, who has also praised the Hamas "freedom fighters" behind the October 7 terrorist attacks, facilitated workshops for hundreds of students—including some as young as seventh grade—as part of a partnership between the school district and the W.E.B. Du Bois Movement School for Abolition and Reconstruction, a self-described "political education program for aspiring revolutionaries."

Held between 2025 and 2026, the workshops drew more than 150 students and included a session titled "Imagining A World Without Prisons," according to emails and documents obtained by North American Values Institute (NAVI). Other facilitators included Eliana Atienza, a University of Pennsylvania student who participated in the school's "Gaza Solidarity Encampent," and Geo Maher, a Penn lecturer who was pushed out of Drexel University after he tweeted in 2017, "All I want for Christmas is white genocide."

Attendance at each "Liberation Symposium" was mandatory, though students could choose between different sessions. The workshops were endorsed by Assistant Superintendent for School Performance Jeffrey MacFarland, who thanked the organizers of the symposium in a February 2025 email, and appear to have had the sign-off of the district's social studies director, Ismael Jimenez, who sits on the Movement School's board.

The Movement School has said that its goal is to create a "revolutionary pipeline" for K-12 students. The group's Study With Us page, which says "young people are the key to … resisting capitalist imperialism," advertises its curriculum to public schools and includes a quotation from Karl Marx.

"The District needs to answer for why it has repeatedly allowed a radical organization, one that boasts of creating a 'revolutionary pipeline' into K-12, access to its students," said Mika Hackner, NAVI's director of research.

MacFarland, Jimenez, and the School District of Philadelphia did not respond to requests for comment.

Hosted at the Workshop School—where zero percent of students are proficient in math, according to state test scores—the sessions show how self-proclaimed radicals have influenced the curriculum of Pennsylvania's largest school district, which is facing a $300 million deficit and where just 18 percent of eighth-graders read at grade level. The workshops came amid an ongoing congressional probe into reports of antisemitism in the district, including statements from Jimenez, the social studies director, who has praised the convicted cop-killer Assata Shakur and argued that "every child should walk into a classroom and feel the revolution stirring in the air."
‘Serious concern’ about Jew-hatred in largest US labor union, Senate panel finds
There is a “distinct and serious concern” about how the National Education Association, the largest U.S. labor union, treats its Jewish members, according to a report that the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions released on Wednesday.

“Children are struggling to read and to do basic math,” stated Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who chairs the committee. “Instead of helping students succeed, teachers’ unions are injecting a dangerous, anti-American agenda into our classrooms.”

“Parents deserve to send their children to school without worrying that they will be indoctrinated with diversity, equity and inclusion and taught that Americans have ‘misplaced faith’ in our institutions,” added the senator, who lost his bid for another term in May.

The report stated that various Jewish members from the union told the committee that “they feel increasingly threatened and ostracized.” (JNS sought comment from the union.)

“For example, after the NEA endorsed resources that members say erased Israel off the map, some Jewish members sought to leave the organization but were told their decision was ‘short-sighted,’” the report stated.

In October 2025, the union emailed its members a “native land digital map” that depicted all of modern Israel as “Palestine” as part of a theme on “indigenous lands.”

The email linked to a website with a “landing page for a variety of articles that feature distortions and antisemitic claims about the Holocaust, contain strong Nazi apologism and promote Oct. 7 denial,” the Senate panel said.

Union representatives allegedly targeted Jewish members at schools and told them that “Oct. 7 has been debunked” and “antisemitism is only swastikas and nothing antisemitic is happening here,” according to the report.


New JFNA study: American Jewish community spends over $1 billion on security each year
The American Jewish community spent over $1 billion on security in 2025, according to a new Jewish Federations of North America study — a record high and a 33% increase over 2024. The results, published today, showed that on average, Jewish communal organizations, including Jewish community centers, synagogues, schools, summer camps and nonprofits, spend roughly $225,000 on security per institution.

“Even the old number, $765 million [spent in 2024], was just a demonstration of the impossible situation that the Jewish community is being put in,” Eric Fingerhut, JFNA’s president and CEO said. “To have to raise extraordinary sums of money and dedicate extraordinary sums of money to security just to be able to fully live a flourishing Jewish life in this great and free country,”

Fingerhut said the statistics didn’t shock him. According to the Anti-Defamation League, last year was the deadliest year for Jews in three decades. The security threats had grown, alongside the necessary precautionary measures.

“This is just not the way America is supposed to work,” Fingerhut said. “There’s no other religious faith that has to incur this kind of expense just to protect itself in its places of worship and communal gathering.”

According to the latest FBI Hate Crime data, Jews remain the most targeted religious group in America — making up 64% of all religiously motivated hate crimes. While the numbers of antisemitic hate crimes have decreased since 2024 — from 1,938 to 1,528 — last year remains the third highest year on record.
Case to proceed against Los Angeles man accused of threatening to ‘shoot up’ JCC
A case against a man accused of threatening to “shoot up” a Jewish Community Center in the Los Angeles area will move forward in court, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said on Wednesday.

Paul Dean Andrews, 43, is being prosecuted under hate crime charges for allegedly calling the Jewish Community Center in Redondo Beach, Calif., four times—once on Aug. 11 and three times on Aug. 13—and saying that “we do not want Jews in the South Bay.” He also directed an expletive at Jews, according to the district attorney.

During his last call, Andrews is accused of saying, “Get out of the neighborhood. I know where you guys are. I know you are on Vail Avenue. I know there are a whole bunch of kids there. I am going to come up and shoot up the place.”

The arraignment is scheduled for Sept. 16. He is being charged with a hate crime, making criminal threats to a school and attempted criminal threats and faces up to nine years and four months in prison. Andrews is pleading not guilty to the charges.

Andrews was placed in a diversion program in February 2024 and required to complete an anti-bias program at the Museum of Tolerance after being charged with negligence in discharging a firearm.

Instead of completing the program, he called the museum and said, “You’ll never be real Americans. All Jews need to hang from trees,” according to the district attorney’s office. It said that he also called a local synagogue and used antisemitic slurs on the call.
Vile kickboxer with SS tattoo gives Nazi salute after beating Jewish fighter — as supporters hold swastika banner
A kickboxing fight descended into hate-filled chaos when a fighter with an SS lightning bolt tattoo gave a Nazi salute after defeating his Jewish opponent — as supporters unveiled a swastika banner.

The ugly scenes erupted at the Kia Center in Orlando on Saturday night as so-called “GypsyCrusader” Paul Miller — a convicted felon the Anti-Defamation League calls a “volatile white supremacist-accelerationist” — faced off against Jewish influencer Ben “King” Azoulay.

Azoulay walked to the ring carrying an Israeli flag — prompting someone in the audience to display a Nazi flag as others flashed Nazi salutes, according to WESH 2.

About a half-dozen fights broke out in the section of the arena, the home of the NBA’s Orlando Magic, and a woman who appeared to work at the venue yanked the Nazi banner away.

Miller was ultimately declared the winner in a close split decision by the judges — taking the microphone to mock his opponent with slurs, telling the crowd, “He’s not a tough guy. He’s not some alpha male. He’s a short little f–king Jew prick.”

Video circulating on social media shows Miller twice flashed the Nazi salute to the crowd as he exited the ring, with a member of his corner wearing a T-shirt with “FCK ISRL” on it.

Azoulay later vowed to “take down every Anti Semite” — and mocked his hateful opponent, saying he “got kicked in the nuts too so no Nazi babies for him.”

Miller has served time in federal prison on gun charges and has advocated for a “race-based civil war,” according to prosecutors.

He had copped to three felony counts of possession of an unregistered firearm and ammunition and possession of a weapon as a felon after his Fort Lauderdale home was raided five years ago by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, according to the Washington Post.

He was released from prison in 2023.

Local elected officials were swift to condemn the naked hatred on display at the event.

“A symbol of hate was brought to our city this weekend. But hate, fear and division will never be welcome here,” Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer wrote on X.

State Rep. Anna Eskamani, a Democrat whose district includes Orlando, called the display “disgusting, and another reminder of how prevalent extremism is in our society and the responsibility we all have to combat antisemitism, racism, white supremacy, and more,” she wrote on Instagram.

“We cannot normalize this. Ever.”


IDF Veteran Shalev Biton Promotes Adidas Single-Shoe Service In Israel
IDF veteran Shalev Biton, who lost a leg after being critically wounded during the 2021 Gaza conflict, has helped promote Adidas’s new single-shoe service in Israel. The program allows people with amputations or other lower-limb disabilities to purchase one shoe for 50 percent of the price of a complete pair. It is available at Adidas stores throughout Israel, including outlet locations. Biton reportedly participated in the company’s Israeli campaign and highlighted a longstanding problem faced by amputees: conventional footwear retailers normally require customers to purchase two shoes even when they need only one. His involvement has been celebrated in Israeli media and on social media as an example of an injured veteran helping advance accessibility for others. However, reports claiming that Biton single-handedly persuaded Adidas to change its worldwide sales policy overstate his role. Adidas launched its Single Shoe service across European markets in March 2026, before introducing the program in Israel. The company said it developed the wider initiative in consultation with disability communities and organizations, as well as athletes and consumers who raised concerns about being required to purchase an unnecessary second shoe. British Paralympian Stef Reid was among the prominent advocates involved in the international One Shoe campaign that preceded the Israeli launch. The service initially covered 22 European countries before reaching Israel in August. Adidas said it was intended for customers with limb differences who require only a left or right shoe. Under the Israeli program, a single shoe costs exactly half the listed price of the pair. A shoe from a pair priced at 500 shekels, for example, would cost 250 shekels. The service requires participating stores to alter conventional inventory practices because shoes traditionally arrive, are tracked, and are sold in pairs. For customers with amputations, the change addresses both financial inequity and unnecessary waste. Until now, many were forced to pay for footwear they could not use or search for another person with the opposite amputation, the same shoe size, and similar preferences.


Fauda writer Avi Issacharoff reveals little-known secret about what’s coming next
Fauda is heading to the big screen, co-creator Avi Issacharoff revealed to a packed audience at St John’s Wood Synagogue last night.

More than 300 fans had gathered to hear Issacharoff discuss the eagerly awaited fifth season of the global Israeli hit when he dropped the unexpected news that a Fauda movie is in the works.

Asked by Life magazine editor Brigit Grant whether there would be a sixth season, Issacharoff remained tight-lipped — but revealed instead that Doron and the Fauda team are destined for cinema.

Issacharoff was in conversation with Grant at a special event for the Tel Aviv University Trust, in collaboration with Jewish News and Immanuel College, ahead of the new season’s international launch.

There were no spoilers — despite some determined questioning — but Issacharoff offered a glimpse behind the scenes of the series he created with Lior Raz and the extraordinary partnership that has sustained it.

After 16 years of working together, he described Raz, Fauda‘s co-writer and leading man, as being like a brother — before laughing and amending that to “a married couple”.

The pair have known each other since their younger days in Jerusalem, and their shared experiences and personal histories have repeatedly found their way into the drama. Issacharoff revealed that even the name of a terrorist in the first season was borrowed from the man who shot him during his military service in 1994.

He also brought some much-needed humour to an evening inevitably touched by the events of October 7.


“Never let hatred define you – be proud of who you are”
Hundreds of thousands of Jewish students around the world will receive a personal letter and video message from 98-year-old Holocaust survivor and educator Nate Leipciger as they return to campus for the new academic year, amid rising antisemitism since October 7.

The international initiative, led by the International March of the Living, brings together Jewish organizations and student groups worldwide to distribute Leipciger’s message calling on young Jews to take pride in their identity, stand against antisemitism and remain connected to Israel.

Participating organizations include the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS), The Jewish Agency for Israel, ASHER, the World Zionist Organization, IAC and Students Supporting Israel (SSI), among others.

The letter is being distributed on September 1, the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.

Leipciger was 15 when the Nazis deported him and his family from the ghetto to Auschwitz-Birkenau. He was separated from his mother and sister, whom he never saw again. Leipciger and his father survived Auschwitz, the death march and several other concentration camps. For almost three decades, he has shared his testimony with younger generations through the International March of the Living.

In his letter, Leipciger urges students: “Please remember: You are not responsible for the hatred directed at you. You do not have to conceal who you are to earn the right to belong. Never permit those who hate you to define you. Do not allow anyone to force you into a false choice between your Jewish identity and your place in the wider world. No one should demand that you deny Jewish history, disown the Jewish people or surrender your connection to Israel. Be courageous, but do not stand alone. Find one another. Support the classmate who is afraid or isolated. The future of Jewish life is passing into your hands. Carry it without apology, with compassion and strength.”

Nate Leipciger’s full open letter: https://motl.org/an-open-letter-to-jewish-students-never-let-hatred-define-you/

The initiative comes as Jewish students have faced heightened antisemitism on campuses since October 7, including harassment, exclusion and hostility related to their Jewish identity and connection to Israel. In the letter, Leipciger draws a distinction between legitimate criticism of any government, including Israel’s, and discrimination against Jewish students.

Leipciger’s appeal also comes months after mezuzahs were torn from the doors of apartments belonging to elderly Jewish residents, including Holocaust survivors, in the Toronto building where he lives.

This past April, Leipciger participated in the International March of the Living for the 22nd time, more than any other Holocaust survivor from the Diaspora who has accompanied young people through the program. At 98, he once again walked from Auschwitz to Birkenau alongside thousands of participants, continuing his decades-long commitment to preserving Holocaust memory for the next generation.

Leipciger also calls on Jewish students to support one another, strengthen their knowledge of Jewish history, build alliances and stand against racism, antisemitism and all forms of discrimination.





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)

    

 

 

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