A federal lawsuit against Harvard University that alleges the school has ignored the harassment of Jewish students for more than a year is set to begin after a U.S. District Court judge on Tuesday rejected Harvard’s request for dismissal, but denied claims that the school directly discriminated against Jewish and Israeli students. 

Filed in May in federal court in Boston by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and Jewish Americans for Fairness in Education, the lawsuit alleges that since the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Israel, students and faculty on campus have called for violence against Jews and celebrated Hamas’ terrorism daily as the university did nothing to stop harassment —- including a physical assault — of Jewish students. Five months earlier, the group filed a previous complaint against the university’s John F. Kennedy School of Government for violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, replacing him with Foreign Minister Israel Katz on Tuesday, amid longstanding public acrimony between Gallant and Netanyahu even as Israel has been engaged in a multifront war against Iran and its terror proxies.

In a video statement, Netanyahu said, “Unfortunately, while in the first months of the [war] there was trust [between him and Gallant] and very fertile work, in recent months the trust was eroded between me and the defense minister.” 

When Traci Siegel opened her email on Sunday, she was shocked to learn that her vote in the presidential election might not count. 

Siegel, who lives in Israel, voted absentee in her home state in Pennsylvania, as she had many times before, in accordance with federal law requiring states to allow Americans who live abroad to vote for federal office via their last county of residence. But this year, someone she does not know paid $10 to appeal against her vote.

NEWTOWN, Pa. — Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), the Republican vice-presidential nominee, spent the evening before Election Day courting undecided voters and Trump loyalists alike at a rally in Bucks County, one of the most purple districts in must-win Pennsylvania. 

Vance focused primarily on illegal immigration, the economy and the Trump-Vance plan for boosting American manufacturing. He also made the occasional joke. 

Jewish parents and educators in Chicago were relieved after Board of Education President Rev. Mitchell Johnson resigned last week following widespread public criticism of his antisemitic Facebook posts. But antisemitism concerns within the district still linger — and Jewish educators’ and community members’ confidence in the district to address them is waning.  

Last Friday, the day after Johnson resigned from the Board of Education, the body held a public meeting. Dan Goldwin, chief public affairs officer at the Jewish United Fund of Chicago, took to the microphone to express concerns on behalf of Jewish families in Chicago Public Schools (CPS).

Jewish leaders in Chicago felt a “sense of relief” on Thursday when the local prosecutor upgraded the charges against a Mauritian man, who crossed into the U.S. illegally, who shot a Jewish man walking to synagogue to include both hate crime and terrorism charges.

But the move has raised questions among Jewish security officials about whether the immigration status of the suspect, 22-year-old Sidi Mohamed Abdallahi, should raise larger concerns — namely, whether Chicago’s status as a “sanctuary city” could lead to growing risk for the city’s Jewish community. 

Rep. John James (R-MI) is facing a competitive rematch for a second term representing the state’s 10th Congressional District against Democrat Carl Marlinga. 

“It is a battleground within the battleground,” one Republican campaign operative characterized the district to Jewish Insider. “Michigan’s 10th is also 100% a majority maker seat with these new maps, and obviously there’s less and less of those.”

As the election season nears the finish line, leading Jewish political voices from across the political spectrum are sparring with one another – often on podcasts – about which presidential candidate will better serve the interests of the American Jewish community. 

“Unholy: Two Jews on the News,” a podcast hosted by Israeli news anchor Yonit Levi and British journalist Jonathan Freedland, dubbed the dilemma as “the great Jewish debate” over who — former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris — is actually “good for the Jews, to put it bluntly.” The program’s Tuesday episode featured Dan Senor, host of the “Call Me Back” podcast and a foreign policy advisor to Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, arguing for the Republicans, and Jeremy Bash, who was chief of staff at the CIA during the Obama administration, representing Democrats.