Plus, Israel-Ukraine relations face grain of contention
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL)
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The gunman who attacked the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night, Cole Tomas Allen, was arraigned in Washington this afternoon. He is being charged with transportation of a firearm between states, discharging a firearm during a crime of violence and attempting to assassinate the president of the United States, which carries a potential life sentence.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jocelyn Ballantine said Allen, 31, had “a 12-gauge, pump-action shotgun, a .38-caliber semiautomatic pistol and … three knives and other dangerous paraphernalia” during the attack. He will remain in detention with another hearing scheduled for Thursday…
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that President Donald Trump met with his national security team this morning where they discussed Iran’s latest proposal to end the war, which reportedly includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz but postponing talks on the country’s nuclear program…
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the U.S. is “being humiliated” by Iranian leaders after negotiations between the two countries this weekend were called off.
“The Iranians are obviously very skilled at negotiating, or rather, very skillful at not negotiating, letting the Americans travel to Islamabad and then leave again without any result,” Merz told a group of students. The result is “an entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, especially by these so-called Revolutionary Guards,” he added…
Russian President Vladimir Putin praised how “courageously and heroically the people of Iran are fighting for their independence” in a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi today in St. Petersburg. Araghchi thanked Russia for standing by its side and said the countries will continue their “strategic partnership”…
Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said today that the terror group will not disarm, despite the Lebanese government’s intent to remove the group from power in the south of the country under the terms of the ongoing ceasefire with Israel. Hezbollah and Israel have continued to exchange fire throughout the ceasefire, including a wave of Israeli airstrikes today in response to Hezbollah’s deadly drone attack that killed an IDF soldier and wounded six yesterday…
New Department of Homeland Security training materials allow green card applicants to be denied for antisemitic and anti-Israel social media posts and activism, as well as anti-American activism, The New York Times reports. The documents, distributed to immigration officers last month, cite “as an example of questionable speech a social media post that declares, ‘Stop Israeli Terror in Palestine’ and shows the Israeli flag crossed out”…
Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Andrii Sybiha summoned Israel’s ambassador to the country to protest the arrival of a ship allegedly carrying grain taken from Russian-occupied Ukraine at Israel’s Haifa Port, Sybiha said on X. Sybiha also denounced Israel’s “lack of appropriate response to Ukraine’s legitimate request” regarding a similar vessel that docked in Haifa last week.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar slammed Sybiha for his announcement: “Diplomatic relations, especially between friendly nations, are not conducted on Twitter or in the media,” Sa’ar wrote. He said that “evidence substantiating [Ukraine’s] allegations have yet to be provided” and that “the matter will be examined”…
Several pro-Israel House Democrats in Florida could lose their seats after Gov. Ron DeSantis unveiled a new congressional map that eliminates their districts — state lawmakers are expected to approve the map for use in this year’s midterm elections at a special session of the state Legislature tomorrow.
The new map could give the GOP up to four additional House seats by redrawing Democratic-leaning districts, including those of Reps. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and Darren Soto (D-FL)…
Claims by New Jersey congressional candidate Adam Hamawy that the Gazan hospital where he volunteered as a trauma surgeon in 2024 during Israel’s war with Hamas was a “completely benign civilian hospital with no tunnels underneath it” are false, The Washington Free Beacon reports.
While Hamawy claimed in an interview shortly after he returned that “there were definitely no tunnels underground and no command base there,” Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed a year later “in a tunnel directly under the hospital emergency department, where he was leading a high-level meeting with senior Hamas terrorists,” the Free Beacon writes…
All five of Pennsylvania’s living former governors, both Democrats and Republicans, released a statement today calling on state officials to prioritize the safety and security of Gov. Josh Shapiro, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
The letter came days after state Treasurer Stacy Garrity — Shapiro’s leading Republican opponent in this year’s gubernatorial race — said the state will not pay for security upgrades made to Shapiro’s privately owned family residence, done after the state-owned governor’s mansion was targeted in an antisemitic arson attack last spring…
The New York Times chronicles Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s turn away from the Democratic Party and increasing political involvement, including against the proposed “billionaire tax” in his home state of California.
“I fled socialism with my family in 1979 and know the devastating, oppressive society it created in the Soviet Union. I don’t want California to end up in the same place,” Brin told the Times. Brin, who is Jewish, has also been disturbed by the Democratic Party’s leftward shift on Israel policy…
Toronto-based Jewish advocate Adam Hummel argues in the “Boundless Insights” Substack that “anti-Zionism” is an obsolete position, given the 78-year-old existence of the State of Israel.
“Israelis don’t owe anyone an argument for their existence. … The debate is over, not because one side won, but because the thing itself came into being. They are a people. They speak a language. They live on a piece of land and have mortgages. That is what peoples do. The Greeks do it. The Poles do it. The Québécois do it. The arguments about whether they should are, at this point, a leisure activity for people who live elsewhere”…
⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today
An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead
Keep an eye out in Jewish Insider for a profile of Keith Sonderling, the acting secretary of labor, who is Jewish and the grandson of Holocaust survivors, following the resignation of Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer.
The Zionist Rabbinic Coalition will present its first “Pillar of Zion” award to Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) at the organization’s fifth annual National Conference in Washington. Other speakers at the three-day conference will include Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter; State Department antisemitism envoy Yehuda Kaploun; Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon; and Jonathan Schanzer, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
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REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK
Hiding under a table at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner
‘Two thoughts ran through my head. The main one: I’m getting married in six days. I can’t die now. The second: I can’t believe this is happening to me again’
FOLLOW THE MONEY
Abdul El-Sayed brings in campaign cash from head of Hamas-cheering group
The Michigan Senate contender accepted $7k from the chair of Al-Awda/PRRC — and hired her son
Plus, half of young Americans view Israel as a burden
Iranian Presidency/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian delivers a speech on April 19, 2026.
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Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
Talks between Israel and Lebanon, which are currently underway, were moved from the State Department to the White House. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio were spotted arriving there together this afternoon, and a White House official told Jewish Insider that President Donald Trump would greet the participants at the opening of the discussion…
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, who returned to Washington in order to participate in the talks, also stopped by Capitol Hill where he met with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)…
While the bombing campaign in Iran is on pause, the battle at sea continues: U.S. forces boarded another vessel carrying Iranian oil in the Indian Ocean this morning and Trump said he had ordered the U.S. Navy to “shoot and kill any boat” placing mines in the Strait of Hormuz — just as a third U.S. aircraft carrier arrived in the region…
Trump also said Iran is “having a very hard time figuring out who their leader is,” indicating the regime may still be struggling to present the U.S. with a unified proposal. “The infighting is between the ‘Hardliners,’ who have been losing BADLY on the battlefield, and the ‘Moderates,’ who are not very moderate at all (but gaining respect!),” he claimed.
In response, Iranian parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and President Masoud Pezeshkian, both considered relative moderates, issued nearly identical statements on X pledging “complete obedience to the Supreme Leader”…
Iranian officials tell The New York Times their new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is alive but injured, and so far ruling differently than his late father; the younger Khamenei is relying on Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commanders to provide him advice to make decisions “as though he is the director of the board.”
Khamenei’s injuries are extensive and he is largely inaccessible in person: “One leg was operated on three times, and he is awaiting a prosthetic. He had surgery on one hand and is slowly regaining function. His face and lips have been burned severely, making it difficult for him to speak, the officials said, adding that, eventually, he will need plastic surgery”…
U.S. officials are expressing concern over the military’s ability to defend Taiwan from China in the near future should the need arise, given that the U.S. has burned through more than 1,000 Tomahawk missiles and more than 1,500 air-defense missiles in the course of the war with Iran so far, supplies that could take up to six years to replace…
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar named Israel’s first Christian ambassador, George Deek, as the country’s special envoy to the Christian world, JI’s Lahav Harkov reports, after several recent controversies in Israel relating to Christians. Deek is part of the Arab Orthodox Christian community in Jaffa…
Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) joined other Michigan Democrats in denouncing Amir Makled, a Democratic nominee for regent of the University of Michigan, over Makled’s past comments expressing antisemitic sentiments and support for terrorism.
“I’m going to have a problem with any candidate — Democrat, Republican or independent — who shares antisemitic and hateful posts on social media. Especially when they refuse to disavow those comments or show remorse,” Slotkin said in a statement to JI’s Marc Rod, in response to a question about Makled…
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth did not give advance notice to senior Republican senators before announcing yesterday that he was firing Navy Secretary John Phelan, causing surprise and confusion on Capitol Hill. “I found out about it the way everybody else did,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) told JI’s Emily Jacobs and Marc Rod of the Pentagon’s announcement on social media of Phelan’s dismissal.
Trump praised Phelan in a post on Truth Social this afternoon and said he’d “certainly like to have him back within the Trump Administration sometime in the future” — Phelan had reportedly bumped heads with Hegseth but had a close relationship with the president…
Nearly half of young American adults view Israel as a burden to the United States, according to a new Harvard Youth Poll of 18- to 29-year-olds. The survey found that 46% of young Americans consider Israel to be mostly a burden to the U.S., compared to just 16% who say Israel is mostly a benefit, JI’s Gabby Deutch reports.
In addition, Ukraine, which has also received U.S. support in its lengthy war with Russia, was also determined to be more of a burden by young Americans — 31% of respondents said Ukraine is mostly a burden, while 21% said it is mostly a benefit…
The Wall Street Journal‘s Matthew Hennessey issued a defense of Elliot Kaufman, a member of the Journal‘s editorial board, after Trump slammed him on Truth Social as an “idiot” and a “moron.”
“What triggered the president’s ire was an op-ed under Mr. Kaufman’s byline headlined ‘The Iranians Take Trump for a Sucker.’ That’s a provocative title, yes, but the piece delivers on the provocation. Mr. Kaufman wasn’t calling Mr. Trump a sucker; he was merely pointing out that the Iranians are acting like they think he is one. The piece offers plenty of recent evidence to support that claim,” Hennessey wrote…
American journalist Shelly Kittleson details in The Atlantic her experience being kidnapped and held hostage by the Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah terror group in Iraq for nine days earlier this month…
Former Disney CEO Bob Iger, who stepped down last month, is returning to Joshua Kushner’s venture firm, Thrive Capital, in an advisory role…
⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today
An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead
Keep an eye out in Jewish Insider for an interview with Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) as he introduces a buffer zone bill in Congress, which follows legislation under consideration in New York and elsewhere, aiming to protect attendees at houses of worship.
Washington is abuzz ahead of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, being held at the Washington Hilton on Saturday night. The event will be headlined by American Israeli mentalist Oz Pearlman and attended by Trump for his first time as president, alongside celebrities (including Trump fan Nicki Minaj), politicians and media figures. Politicos and reporters will schmooze at events beginning this evening through Sunday morning.
We’ll be back in your inbox with the Daily Overtime on Monday. Shabbat Shalom!
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SHAPIRO SPOTLIGHT
Josh Shapiro supports U.S. aid to Israel, but calls to use it as leverage
In an interview with JI, Shapiro said he ‘[hasn’t] really thought about’ whether he would appear on Hasan Piker’s stream but that he hasn’t been invited
DEFINITION DEBATE
Mamdani won’t set definition of antisemitism after repealing IHRA, his antisemitism czar says
In testimony before the City Council’s antisemitism task force, an NYPD official said Mamdani played no role in a controversial change in reporting data from hate crimes
Plus, Dems concerned over fraying Israel-Europe ties
Gage Skidmore
Elizabeth Warren
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📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt maintained this afternoon that President Donald Trump is “generously offering a bit of flexibility” to Iranian leaders and has not given them a “firm deadline” to provide a proposal to the U.S., contrary to reports that said Trump only intended to wait a few days before ending the ceasefire that he extended yesterday.
Leavitt also said the president did not view Iran’s seizure of two ships near the Strait of Hormuz today as a violation of the ceasefire: “These were not U.S. ships. These were not Israeli ships,” she said — a change in tone for Trump, who has taken a hardline against Tehran’s escalatory actions in the key waterway.
Meanwhile, mediating countries are reportedly working to get Tehran and Washington back to the negotiating table, with a meeting possibly on Friday. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran “has welcomed dialogue and agreement and continues to do so,” but that “breach of commitments, blockade and threats are the main obstacles” to continuing talks…
Even as negotiations to end the war are still in flux, Trump thanked Iran for granting his request not to execute eight women who were reportedly due to be killed by the regime tonight, instead releasing four of them and holding the other four in jail for one month…
The Financial Times profiles Pakistani army chief Asim Munir as he emerges as an unexpected key mediator between the U.S. and Iran, utilizing his ties to Tehran’s security establishment — including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — and personal rapport with Trump to help secure a comprehensive deal…
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is keeping the door open to a possible 2028 presidential run, saying “only the good Lord knows” what comes next as he continues to reestablish himself in the private sector and policy world after serving in the first Trump administration.
In a wide-ranging interview with Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs, Pompeo also praised Columbia University, where he now teaches at the School of International and Public Affairs, for “beg[inning] to get back the correct leadership … in a way where more voices can be heard”…
U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack stood by his comments that drew criticism over the weekend in which he repeatedly criticized Israel and praised Turkey, saying he was merely “stating the obvious.”
“When I described the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire as a ‘time out’ and said that ‘everybody has been equally untrustworthy,’ I was simply stating the obvious reality on the ground. This is realism, not criticism of any side,” Barrack told Fox News Digital. He also reaffirmed his comments that the goal in Lebanon is “not killing Hezbollah,” and that Turkey should be readmitted to the F-35 fighter jet program…
A group of Jewish District of Columbia residents gathered at the city’s municipal building today for a scheduled meeting with Janeese Lewis George, a D.C. councilmember and one of the leading candidates in this year’s mayoral race, but she never showed, two people who were in the meeting told JI’s Gabby Deutch.
A staff member for Lewis George told attendees at the start of the meeting that she was having a busy morning, and they should begin the conversation without her. At the end of the meeting, when Lewis George still had not arrived, the staff member apologized that she could not attend…
New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin warned this morning that if Mayor Zohran Mamdani vetoes the council’s legislation intended to regulate protests at religious and educational sites, the city will face “more divisiveness,” calling the decision a critical test for the mayor, JI’s Haley Cohen reports.
Menin, New York City Comptroller Mark Levine and Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, speaking at 92NY on the future of Jewry in New York, beseeched the Jewish community not to flee despite tensions with the mayor. “This is not a time to lose hope. Hopefully the three of us here can embody the future of the commitment to fighting antisemitism, the commitment to supporting the Jewish community,” Menin said…
Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) is set to introduce a federal buffer zone bill, similar to that of the New York City Council, alongside Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt on Friday, as Suozzi seeks reelection to his swing-district seat on Long Island…
Democratic lawmakers and strategists are expressing concern over the rising popularity of far-left Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, fearing that if he clinches the Democratic nomination, he would lose in a general election to former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), the GOP front-runner, Semafor reports. Democrats must retain the Michigan Senate seat to have any hope of taking back the chamber in the midterm elections.
Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-MI), who is backing Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) in the race, told the outlet that “all three candidates are qualified, but dinged El-Sayed for campaigning with [Hasan] Piker and said ‘we are continuing to see consistent polling that suggests that Haley is the only one that can win in a general election’”…
Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner said he would not support keeping Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) as the party’s leader in the chamber, naming as potential replacements Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Chris Murphy (D-CT) or Brian Schatz (D-HI). He also said he would oppose a ban on semiautomatic assault weapons, a priority policy for much of the Democratic caucus…
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) dismissed criticism of Platner after campaigning with him in Maine last weekend: Asked on CNBC about her comment that Platner is “my kind of man” given his past incendiary rhetoric and actions including his Nazi chest tattoo, Warren said, “He has apologized, he’s out meeting with the people of Maine every single day so they can evaluate not who Graham Platner was but who Graham Platner is today.”
Warren sidestepped a question specifically about Platner’s 2014 praise of Hamas tactics during an attack on Israeli soldiers, as reported by JI: “You guys want to be the party of inclusivity, right?” host Sara Eisen asked regarding the report. “I want to be the party that stands up for hardworking people,” Warren answered…
Schumer dodged a question yesterday asking if he is on the wrong side of his party after most Democratic senators voted in favor of blocking arms sales to Israel — a measure he opposed. “Our caucus is united and focused on ending the war in Iran,” he said, and touted Democrats’ war powers resolutions before walking away…
Rep. David Scott (D-GA) died today at 80. Scott, who voted on the House floor last night, had been running for reelection for his 13th term…
⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today
An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead
Keep an eye out in Jewish Insider for the results of this afternoon’s war powers resolution vote in the Senate, which is expected to be blocked by Republicans as the previous four were.
Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter and Lebanese Ambassador to the U.S. Nada Hamadeh will meet at the State Department tomorrow for the second round of direct talks between the two countries. Lebanon is reportedly seeking a one-month extension to the ongoing ceasefire, which is set to expire on Sunday; Hezbollah, which has said it is not bound by the agreement, has continued to fire rockets and a drone at Israeli troops in southern Lebanon.
Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison will host an exclusive dinner honoring President Donald Trump and CBS News’ White House correspondents at the recently renamed Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace. Ellison is currently seeking regulatory approval of Paramount’s deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery.
The Jewish Democratic Council of America will host a candidate forum for New York’s 17th Congressional District featuring leading candidates Beth Davidson, a Rockland County legislator, and Cait Conley, a national security veteran.
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Daniel Moraff also recruited Rep. Summer Lee, a leading anti-Israel Democrat, to pursue her political career
Trump’s former top diplomat sat down with JI to discuss the U.S. war in Iran, backsliding support for Israel among young Americans, and how he’s looking at the midterms
Siavosh Hosseini/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaking at a conference titled "Iran: Organized Resistance, Key to Overthrow" held at the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) headquarters in January 2025.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is keeping the door open to a possible 2028 presidential run, saying “only the good Lord knows” what comes next as he continues to reestablish himself in the private sector and policy world after serving in the first Trump administration.
In a wide-ranging interview with Jewish Insider, Pompeo emphasized that there will be a “donnybrook” of competing visions for both parties in the next election cycle, and urged candidates to focus on “important issues” rather than online theatrics. He also praised Columbia University, where he now teaches at the School of International and Public Affairs, for “beg[inning] to get back the correct leadership … in a way where more voices can be heard.”
The conversation came one day after Pompeo made a brief visit to the State Department for a private ceremony unveiling his official portrait. The gathering included an appearance by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who delivered remarks to the crowd on his predecessor’s tenure as the chief U.S. diplomat.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Jewish Insider: What’s your message to the current Iranian leadership if you were traveling to Islamabad, Pakistan, on behalf of President Trump to negotiate an end to the war in Iran?
Mike Pompeo: My message would be that you’ve lost. You’ve lost the people of your country, who no longer want you to lead. You’ve lost the capacity to project terror around the world. You’re about to lose any capability to use nuclear weapons to continue to blackmail the world. The Strait [of Hormuz] is going to be reopened. You’re going to miss payroll in just a few weeks, because you’re not going to be able to ship product and receive currency that is usable in foreign exchange, and people will stop doing their jobs.
You miss payroll enough times and all of a sudden, Hezbollah decides it’s not as great a fighting force, or the Shia militias, or the knuckleheads in Yemen, the Houthis. They’ve all become hooked on Iranian money.
There is a solution that is different to that. It’ll mean you’re not in power. It will mean that you lose. It will mean that you personally lose power, but the other alternative is that you will be killed.
JI: Do you think that the president made the right decision by reentering negotiations with the Iranians when he did, or do you think there are targets he should have hit beforehand, for military or diplomatic leverage?
Pompeo: I think the blockade is sufficient to merit another try. Look, I’m deeply skeptical. I’m not sure there is a decision maker in Iran today. I think there are multiple fractured decision making processes and lots of confusion.
I don’t know that he needed to go after additional targets. The denial of their capacity to move product through the strait is a very significant impact on them, but I do think it’s the case if, in fact, the Iranian regime cannot coherently present a resolution that will look and feel to them like surrender … — because they’re going to give up the entirety of their nuclear program, they’re going to have to stop funding their proxy forces, their ballistic missile program is gone, their industrial base will have to be shut down and redirected towards commercial activity, not terror; that will feel like surrender to them — then I think the president will have to begin to go back at some of those industrial targets that continue to pose risk to Israeli and American servicemembers that are in the region, and more broadly, to commercial activity that needs to move through the region as well.
JI: We’re seeing a lot of reporting about various terms that the Trump administration has purportedly offered Iran in these talks, specifically when it comes to the enrichment of uranium. There have been reports suggesting the U.S. proposed a 20-year moratorium on Iran’s enrichment program, while others allege a 10-year pause is being discussed. What do you make of these reported offers and, more broadly speaking, what would a good deal look like to you?
Pompeo: Color me cynical, but having lived as a secretary of state for two and a half years, when I see that reporting — and I don’t have first hand knowledge — I suspect that is someone playing games.
I put no credit in anything that I read in The New York Times or The Washington Post, only in the sense that they don’t know or they heard from a single individual that wasn’t actually representing the holistic view of the U.S. government. I spend no time thinking about those. I do spend a lot of time thinking about what “good” looks like. Good is infinity.
I’m also practical as someone who was a practitioner. I get it. You don’t ever get forever, but you don’t put external constraints on duration when it comes to something as serious as a regime that is in power with the capacity to inflict enormous harm on the world, with a conventional force that is serious and a nuclear capability that is real.
There’s two things. One, you can’t pay them. That’s what President Obama, then President Biden tried to do, send pallets of cash to buy your way out of this solution. The regime is not for sale. Second, I think it’s also the case that you can’t falsely give them hope that says, ‘You’re going to be able to return to status quo in five years, 10 years, 20 years from now. I think it’s the case that we’ve reached the moment where now this is a durational change in the nature of the regime.
Maybe some of the names will be the same, maybe the good spirit will move them and they will become a normal nation again. These are the things we hope and pray for as Jews and Christians, but we also do it with the knowledge that it is unlikely, and that means we have to change the leaders that are actually directing activities inside of the country.
JI: Do you think NATO has handled this moment and responded to President Trump deciding to take action in Iran well? The president is vocally frustrated with them and thinks they’ve been a thorn in the administration’s side.
Pompeo: We all know that you figure out exactly who’s with you in times of stress. This is true in our personal lives. It’s true in our professional lives. It’s certainly true in sovereign interactions.
Putting aside NATO for the moment, the way some of the European nations have behaved is absolutely abhorrent. I get that they weren’t brought in at the beginning and how that makes it complicated and it creates hurt feelings, but this isn’t about feelings. This is about national sovereignty and the safety of their own citizens.
Whether it was Spain or another nation that wouldn’t do so much as to be quiet and allow our aircraft to fly through their space, for someone who has been a staunch defender of NATO, because I believe deeply it has been important to the United States of America and to global security, to watch a leader of a country cozy up to China while the United States is doing its level best to save the very security for his own citizens is deeply indecent.
I hope there will come to be an understanding that America is indeed the good guy in this all throughout Europe and many nations in Europe, that’s why I hesitate to broad brush NATO. Many nations in Europe have actually been great and have done their best with the tools that they have available. Others have chosen a path that is very different from that. I think that will be something that takes a long time to rebuild — the trust with those countries — and they’ll have to demonstrate that they are worthy of partnership with Israel or the United States or the West.
JI: Are you still facing death threats from Iran or has your standing with Tehran changed as a result of the war?
Pompeo: As far as I know, they have not lifted the fatwa on me, so yes. We still do our level best to have adequate security to keep me from being killed by the Iranians, who have repeatedly said that they would like to see me go away.
JI: How would you grade Israel as an ally, both historically and in the last few years in the post-Oct. 7, 2023, landscape?
Pompeo: First, the United States and Israel have sovereignty, they’re independent of each other, and a different set of priorities and a different set of understandings on particular matters, very full stop. Second, they are the most fundamentally important ally and a great partner and enormous friends and important to the United States in so many deep ways.
As a Christian, this matters to me, but more importantly as a security matter, I had no better partner than the Israeli intelligence services when I was CIA director and Prime Minister Netanyahu and the foreign policy and security team inside of Israel when I was secretary of state. They did so many things to help America, often when it was difficult and much more in our interest than theirs.
That doesn’t mean we’re not going to have knock down, drag out fights over certain things. I’m sure that’s going to be true. We’ll have different target priorities, and that’s normal. It would be odd if you didn’t find that, but boy, I don’t know that the United States has ever had a closer military and security relationship than today between the United States and Israel, and I think the Iranians found that out the hard way.
They saw us flying together. They saw us intelligence sharing together. They saw the hard work that is the logistical tail that sits behind all of this. It doesn’t get much glory, but you’ve got to move a lot of ammo, a lot of fuel, a lot of people, a lot of stuff. We did that alongside Israel, and it would have been very difficult for either of us to have achieved what’s been achieved today without the other.
JI: With that in mind, we’re seeing a real shift in attitude, especially with young people, both in the Democratic and Republican parties on supporting Israel. What’s your reaction to this and what do you think was the catalyst for this change? Do you attribute it to negative feelings about the war on terror in the 2000s? What role do you think antisemitic figures in the podcast space play?
Pompeo: The causation is so difficult to identify. I think probably each of those has some element of impact and shaping. Israel has always been a flashpoint because of the conflict between Israel and the terrorists, but it’s been framed as a Palestinian-Israeli conflict, with Israel pitched to most of the world as the bad guy in that. My judgment is nothing could be further from the truth.
Israel has simply wanted to live as a sovereign, independent nation. It’s made many offers. The Palestinian Authority rejected them for decades. I think that has worn on a certain piece of the intelligentsia, the American left and some pockets on the right for sure. Some of it’s rooted in antisemitism, almost certainly. Some of it’s rooted in that it’s popular. It’s cool on a campus because the faculty is all talking about the genocidal horrors inflicted by Israel, which, I mean, it’s just patently false. I think each of those things contribute to it.
My prayer and my hope is, and I think this will prove to be true, that in the end, decent people who are part of Western civilization can identify evil from good, and will see the difference between the two. They may not like a particular strike that the United States takes somewhere where innocent civilians are killed — it’s true, as collateral [damage], it happens — but they will be able to see the difference between genocidal intent, that is driven by the Iranian regime around the world, and a desire for peace, which is driven by nations like the United States and Israel.
That means those of us who see it that way have a duty to try and articulate it, to explain it, to be relentless in articulating why that’s true, not to call people names, not to mock them, but rather to make the arguments, to use reason to convince them of reality and of the truth about what’s really taking place there. I pray one day that the bad guys will lay down their weapons, because the moment they do, the reality will be before us all. There will be peace.
JI: Staying on politics, there’s a lot of trepidation from Republicans on Capitol Hill about how the November midterms are going to play out. Do you share that concern?
Pompeo: Having served in Congress, having been elected four times, I’m always mindful that this conversation isn’t that important. What’s really important is that you work your tail off, and you, the candidates, have the first responsibility, and the rest of us try our best to help them.
It is the case, I think, that there’s a lot of energy in the progressive movement on the left today. I think that energy is there that sometimes has been more on our side. When I got elected in 2010, we had 74 brand new Republicans in districts we hadn’t won in years and years, so there was more energy. I think the next six months require us to go build that energy. If we build that energy, I think we’ll do better than the mean.
These midterms are always tough for the party that’s in control. No reason to think that historical change will take place, but if you work hard and tell a story properly, which is that these conservative ideas will deliver better outcomes for America, then we’ll do better than I think some of the fearmongers are predicting.
JI: Do you worry about the situation in the Middle East hurting Republicans in November?
Pompeo: You’ve seen that already. You’ve seen Sen. [Chris] Murphy (D-CT) do this. You’ve seen Sen. [Bernie] Sanders (I-VT) do this. They’re already trying to say: ‘This was a war of choice. President Trump failed. This is a disaster. Look how expensive gasoline is.’ So yes, this will be part of the political conversation, but that just means you have to go and articulate the why of this.
I know how people are struggling, and I feel bad when I see gas prices high for everybody too, especially the least amongst us, but I’d remind them we just have lived in this false state for so long where we thought we could just ignore this problem when it had to be solved. If the price of that, of solving that and keeping Americans for decades to come from Iran with a nuclear weapon, then to pay a little bit more at the gas pump for a little while is an acceptable cost, in my view.
I think most Americans actually get that, and they just need to understand the why and the how. When explained, I think they’ll come to the same conclusion I do, that this was a noble and important decision that President Trump made, and that it is, in the long run, better for them and their children and their grandchildren. We [Republicans] shouldn’t play politics with it either, because this is about national security, but we should articulate the rationale for why this is the best outcome for every American, Democrat and Republican alike.
JI: How are you looking at the 2028 Republican presidential bench? Do you see yourself being a part of that race?
Pompeo: It’s gonna be a donnybrook on both sides. I think there will be lots of candidates who present themselves, and I love that. As for what comes for the Pompeo family next, only the good Lord knows. We’ll see. I have a brand new grandson, I’m loving life, but we’ll see.
But I will say something that I do think is really important about the 2028 election. I hope it’s fought over important issues in a rational way. I hope the progressives show up and make their best arguments to the American people, and that the center-left and center-right do the same, and the MAGA folks and the right wing, just everybody don’t do memes, don’t tell fibs, don’t think, ‘Gosh, I was really good. I owned a lib on X.’ That might bring a sugar high, but what it doesn’t do is really deliver for the American people. I hope the campaign will turn out to be about things that really matter and be discussed in a serious way, and if so, I always have confidence the American people will get it right.
JI: What are the next steps for you in your career?
Pompeo: I’m back in the business world. It’s what I did for most of my life, before I ran for Congress. I’m involved with a private equity firm. I’m helping a couple other businesses as a board member, back in the capitalist mode, and that’s great because there’s lots of risk but lots of joy. … I’m keeping my hand in the policy space too. I teach at Columbia University and at Liberty University, two very different institutions, and I love them both, each in their own way. Then I’m trying to help some candidates be successful in these midterm elections as well.
JI: We’ve covered Columbia closely at JI since Oct. 7, and it’s notable for them to have a voice like yours join their faculty. On that front, what’s your take on the lack of campus protests or encampments against the Iranian regime? We’re not seeing the same type of protests we saw against Israel taking place against Iran.
Pompeo: It’s a great question. It got out of control because of failed leadership. The institution’s leaders failed those students. They didn’t keep the students safe. They didn’t set the correct boundaries.
We all want to protect First Amendment freedoms. That’s what college is about. Knock yourself out. You can say crazy stuff, but you can’t threaten and you can’t put other students at risk, and you can’t blockade classrooms so the students can’t enter. That’s just functionally terrible leadership.
I think what you’re seeing is some of these institutions have begun to get back the correct leadership, and I think they’ve actually done it in a way where more voices can be heard.
I was at another liberal campus a few weeks back, and some of the conservative students were still saying to me that they felt like it was still difficult to speak up in class, and that the faculty was, they didn’t use the word oppressive, but they felt the faculty was difficult. I hope that veil will be lifted, and I hope those students and all students that have different views will all feel comfortable saying, ‘Here’s what I think, and here’s why I think that.’ Then somebody will challenge them and say, ‘Well, have you thought about X or Y,’ or ‘I see it differently.’ That’s what these institutions are all about. It’s what Columbia was when it was at its finest. That’s what Harvard and Dartmouth and Liberty all should aspire to.
Mohamed Abdou also praised the May 2025 assassination of two Israeli Embassy employees outside of the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington
Getty Images
Street view of New York University NYU in Greenwich Village Manhattan.
Mohamed Abdou, a former Columbia University professor terminated for praising Hamas and advocating for jihad following the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel, is scheduled to speak at an event organized by New York University students on Tuesday.
According to an Instagram flyer posted by Shut It Down NYU, a non-registered coalition of anti-Israel NYU students, faculty and staff, Abdou’s lecture — titled “The Student Movement is Dead. What Now?” — is the latest in a campus discussion series, the “Death to the Akademy” tour. His talk will evaluate the “successes and failures of the post Al Aqsa Flood [Oct. 7 attacks] student movement for Palestine,” according to the flyer, which features promotional art that depicts keffiyah-clad terrorists holding guns.
“NYU strongly condemns the brazen use of threatening language, as well as the imagery of violence in promotional posts for this event,” Wiley Norvell, senior vice president for university relations and public affairs, told Jewish Insider. “The group sponsoring the event is not an organization affiliated with the university, nor are the event or the invited speaker in any way supported by NYU. We are investigating several potential university policy violations associated with these posts.”
The event post does not identify a location for the event. As of Monday night, it was unclear whether the event will be held on campus or not.
“Let us engage in jihad,” Abdou said in March, addressing Union Theological Seminary students by video. In the clip, he praised the May 2025 assassination of two Israeli Embassy employees outside of the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington. He went on to glorify the gunman, Elias Rodriguez, saying he “took action” against “two Zionists,” and encouraged students to similarly “be a threat.”
Abdou was one of several Columbia University faculty members named by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) during her April 2024 questioning of then-President Minouche Shafik. Stefanik asked Shafik about Abdou’s position at the university after he posted on social media on Oct. 11, 2023, “I’m with Hamas & Hezbollah & Islamic Jihad.” Shafik responded, “He will never work at Columbia again.”
At Columbia, Abdou — who was active in Columbia’s anti-Israel encampment protesting the Gaza war — taught a class in the Middle East studies department called “Decolonial-Queerness and Abolition in SWAN” in the spring 2024 semester, a graduate-level course on “(neo)colonial/(neo)imperial Euro-American informed modernity,” according to the course description.
“I believe in an Islam that hates America,” Abdou wrote in a Substack piece last summer.
The DOJ’s Board of Immigration Appeals rejected the Columbia University anti-Israel protest leader’s attempt to dismiss his deportation case
Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images
Demonstrators hold a rally and march to the national ICE headquarters to protest the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, April 5, 2025 in Washington, D.C.
The Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals rejected Columbia University anti-Israel protest leader Mahmoud Khalil’s attempt to dismiss his deportation case on Thursday, his lawyers said.
Khalil called the ruling, which was widely expected and brings him closer to re-arrest and possible deportation, “biased and politically motivated.”
“The only thing I am guilty of is speaking out against the genocide in Palestine — and this administration has weaponized the immigration system to punish me for it,” Khalil said in a statement. The ruling has not yet been publicized by the DOJ.
Khalil was a key organizer of Columbia University’s anti-Israel encampment in April 2024, a two-week demonstration in the center of campus during Israel’s war in Gaza. The demonstration included several incidents of assault on Jewish students. Protesters used threatening and antisemitic slogans, including, “Go back to Poland”; signs with the Hamas symbol and the words “I’m with them”; and chants calling for Hamas attacks on Tel Aviv.
Khalil later described the Oct. 7 attacks as “a desperate attempt to tell the world that Palestinians are here. That was my interpretation of why Hamas did the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel,” he said in a New York Times interview.
Last month, while speaking at the annual South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, Khalil argued that “claims of antisemitism are being weaponized to silence any critique of the U.S. support to Israel.”
A former Columbia graduate student who grew up in Syria but is of Palestinian descent, Khalil was released in June from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Louisiana, where he had been held for three months pending deportation proceedings. Judge Michael Farbiarz ruled that his prolonged detention likely violated his constitutional rights.
A federal appeals court then ruled in January that Khalil could be rearrested. In a 2-1 ruling, a panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit decided that the federal district court in New Jersey that issued Khalil’s release did not have jurisdiction over the matter and that it should have been handled in immigration court, which is part of the executive branch overseen by the Justice Department, meaning Khalil is now liable to be rearrested.
The Trump administration has been working to deport Mahdawi over his alleged involvement in terrorist violence
Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images
Palestinian activist Mohsen Mahdawi speaks during a rally at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. as President Donald Trump delivers his State of the Union address inside Congress on February 24, 2026.
The Congressional Progressive Staff Association, a congressional employee group for progressive staffers and prospective staffers, hosted a happy hour this week with Columbia University protest leader Mohsen Mahdawi, whom the administration has been trying for months to deport.
The Department of Homeland Security has characterized Mahdawi as a “ringleader” in anti-Israel protests at Columbia and accused him of using “threatening rhetoric and intimidation” against Jewish students.
The administration has also claimed that Mahdawi admitted to being involved in and supporting terrorist violence, including telling a gun shop owner more than a decade ago that he had “considerable firearm experience” and used guns to “kill Jews while he was in Palestine,” that he attempted to purchase a rifle and a machine gun, that he claimed to have made guns for Hezbollah and that he said that he enjoyed killing Jews.
Mahdawi’s lawyers have denied those claims and noted that they were dismissed by law enforcement at the time.
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.”
On his Instagram page, Mahdawi shared photos honoring what he called the “martyrdom” of his “cousin,” Maysara Masharqa, a field commander in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade — designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S., Israel, the E.U. and others — calling him a “fierce resistance fighter.”
He also called Hamas a “product of the Israeli occupation” and reportedly helped craft a statement justifying the Oct. 7 attacks as “rooted in international law.”
In its advertisement for the event on Instagram, CPSA described Mahdawi as “the student activist from Columbia University arrested by ICE at his immigration hearing and detained for protesting the Palestinian genocide.”
Jewish Democratic staffers have told Jewish Insider that increasing anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiment has made them feel afraid, uncomfortable and shunned among fellow progressive staff on Capitol Hill since the Oct. 7 attacks.
CPSA did not respond to a request for comment.
Khalil again declined to condemn Hamas during his hourlong conversation on ‘the cost of dissent’ at the festival
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who was released from ICE detention, speaks during a rally on the steps of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan on June 22, 2025 in New York City.
The anti-Israel campus protest movement is facing “fear and exhaustion” amid the Trump administration’s crackdown, Mahmoud Khalil, who led demonstrations against Israel on Columbia University’s campus in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks and the ensuing war in Gaza, said on Sunday at the annual South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas.
“With the Biden administration, you protest because you feel you can move the needle a little bit,” said Khalil. “But with Trump, it’s like plain tyranny. They would not listen.”
Khalil, who spoke three days after an attempted terrorist attack at a synagogue in Michigan, noted that “antisemitism is real in this country” and condemned “violence against civilians.”
At the same time, he argued that “claims of antisemitism are being weaponized to silence any critique of the U.S. support to Israel.”
“All mainstream Jewish organizations in this country are disregarding real antisemitism in the Republican Party and just protecting Israel,” continued Khalil. He spoke in an hourlong conversation “on the cost of dissent,” with The Guardian editor Betsy Reed and Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center For Constitutional Rights who was a lawyer for Khalil in his ongoing deportation proceedings.
SXSW, a weeklong festival that convenes around 300,000 guests, including film and media professionals, executives and politicians to discuss culture, technology and innovation, faced scrutiny from some Jewish leaders over its decision to platform Khalil.
Greg Rosenbaum, SXSW senior vice president of programming, told the Austin American-Statesman that hosting the discussion does not mean the festival endorses Khalil’s views.
“While many people, including us, may strongly disagree with some of the views, the reality is that expressing some of those views in a country with free speech protections led him to be imprisoned,” said Rosenbaum. “That doesn’t mean we support what he says, but it does mean that there’s a broader conversation that’s worth having about speech, disagreement and the consequences people face for expressing controversial ideas.”
Ted Deutch, CEO of the American Jewish Committee, expressed dismay at this justification. “But platforms amplify voices — that’s the point,” he wrote on X prior to Khalil’s appearance. “Giving him this platform is a mistake.
Khalil was a key organizer of Columbia University’s anti-Israel encampment in April 2024, a two-week demonstration in the center of campus during Israel’s war in Gaza. The demonstration included several incidents of assault on Jewish students. Protesters used threatening and antisemitic slogans, including, “Go back to Poland”; signs with the Hamas symbol and the words “I’m with them”; and chants calling for Hamas attacks on Tel Aviv.
Khalil later described the Oct. 7 attacks as “a desperate attempt to tell the world that Palestinians are here. That was my interpretation of why Hamas did the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel,” he said in a New York Times interview.
A former Columbia graduate student who grew up in Syria but is of Palestinian descent, Khalil was released in June from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Louisiana, where he had been held for three months pending deportation proceedings. A federal appeals court ruled in January that Khalil could be rearrested.
Asked on Sunday by Reed about his repeated refusal to denounce Hamas in a CNN interview shortly after being released from detention, Khalil still did not condemn the terrorist organization. Instead, he said he “would never answer such a question in a 20-second sound bite,” and argued that it was a “double standard” to be asked the question in the first place.
“When Palestinians get asked this question, they are not interested in my views,” he said. “That question was asked a month after my release. If you say yes, maybe you are worth listening to and if not, then you’re discredited. That’s why I refused to answer that question.
“You can never justify violence and Oct. 7 but to them you can never contextualize Oct. 7, [yet] Oct. 7 justifies everything that happened after. To me that’s a double standard. These are all deliberate attempts to silence people.”
The anti-Israel protest leader will discuss ‘the system that tried to silence him, and the personal and political stakes of resistance,’ according to the agenda
Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images
Then-Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil talks to the press at an encampment at Columbia University's Morningside Heights campus on Friday evening, in New York City, United States on June 1, 2024.
Columbia University anti-Israel protest leader Mahmoud Khalil is scheduled to speak at this week’s annual South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas.
Khalil will participate on Sunday in a conversation “on the cost of dissent,” with The Guardian Editor Betsy Reed and Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center For Constitutional Rights who was a lawyer for Khalil in his deportation proceedings, according to the SXSW schedule. The weeklong festival each March convenes around 300,000 guests, including film and media professionals, executives and politicians to discuss culture, technology and innovation.
“Khalil joins The Guardian for an unflinching conversation on his ordeal, the system that tried to silence him, and the personal and political stakes of resistance,” SXSW’s website states.
At Columbia, Khalil was a key organizer of the anti-Israel encampment in April 2024, a two-week demonstration in the center of campus during Israel’s war in Gaza. The demonstration included several incidents of assault on Jewish students. Protesters used threatening and antisemitic slogans, including, “Go back to Poland”; signs with the Hamas symbol and the words “I’m with them”; and chants calling for Hamas attacks on Tel Aviv.
Khalil was a lead negotiator with the administration in negotiating to end the encampment, where he demanded the university sever ties with Israeli institutions and grant amnesty for students involved in the encampment.
A former Columbia graduate student who grew up in Syria but is of Palestinian descent, Khalil was released in June from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Louisiana, where he had been held for three months pending deportation proceedings. A federal appeals court ruled in January that Khalil could be rearrested. One month after his release, Khalil repeatedly declined to condemn Hamas in a CNN interview.
Earlier this week, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani faced criticism from Jewish groups for hosting Khalil at his official residence.
SXSW did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Jewish Insider about its decision to host Khalil.
The Jewish Community Relations Council and UJA-Federation of New York blasted Mamdani’s recent gatherings with Mahmoud Khalil and Abdullah Akl
Leonardo MUNOZ / AFP via Getty Images
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani arrives for a news conference at Gracie Mansion in New York City on March 9, 2026.
Two of New York’s largest Jewish community groups voiced consternation Tuesday night over New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s recent fraternizing with activists who had defended and even advocated violence against Israel.
The criticism from the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York and the UJA-Federation of New York came after Mamdani shared a photo on social media Monday night of himself and his wife hosting Columbia University campus activist Mahmoud Khalil at Gracie Mansion — and after reports that Abdullah Akl, the stridently anti-Israel political director of the Muslim American Society of New York, had introduced the mayor at an event in Staten Island.
JCRC CEO Mark Treyger highlighted federal findings that the protests that Khalil helped lead created a hostile environment for Jewish students at Columbia. He acknowledged Khalil’s legal fight to avoid deportation, but urged the mayor to also open Gracie Mansion to those subjected to harassment on the Ivy League campus.
“If our democracy affords Mahmoud Khalil due process rights, as it should, then those same democratic principles must also extend to the civil rights of students and staff to study and work in an environment free from hate, intimidation, and harassment. We cannot be selective about whose rights we defend,” Treyger, a former city councilmember, wrote on X. “Their stories deserve to be heard so that no student, in any educational setting, is ever forced to endure hate and intimidation again.”
The UJA-Federation statement noted that Khalil had rationalized the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks as a means of preventing Israeli-Saudi normalization, and that Akl had led a chant in 2024 calling for attacks on Tel Aviv and lauding now-deceased Hamas spokesperson Abu Obeida.
“His decision in the last few days alone to share a stage on Staten Island with an individual who publicly called to ‘strike, strike Tel Aviv,’ and then host an Iftar meal at Gracie Mansion with a man who justified the Oct. 7 atrocities, raises deep concerns in our community,” the UJA-Federation statement said, contrasting the actions with the mayor’s pledges of inclusivity when he entered office.
“This is an important moment for Mayor Mamdani to live up to his own rhetoric and reaffirm his commitment to confronting antisemitism and keeping every New Yorker safe.”
Akl’s organization had its funding from the City Council frozen earlier this year after it held a craft fair hawking merchandise celebrating Hamas, Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and featuring the slogans “Let’s go bomb Tel Aviv” and “Death to the IDF.”
The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and did not answer questions from Jewish Insider about how his team vets the people he participates in events with.
‘Gracie Mansion belongs to all New Yorkers. Public office must never be used to legitimize hate,’ an ADL spokesperson said
Mayor Zohran Mamdani/X
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani hosts Mahmoud Khalil for iftar dinner at Gracie Mansion.
The Anti-Defamation League condemned New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday for hosting Columbia University anti-Israel protest leader Mahmoud Khalil at his official residence.
“Welcoming someone known for justifying the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks as an honored guest at Gracie Mansion — while some in the Mayor’s inner circle have amplified antisemitic content and posts dismissing the atrocities of that day — sends a deeply troubling message,” an ADL spokesperson told Jewish Insider.
“Gracie Mansion belongs to all New Yorkers. Public office must never be used to legitimize hate, and New York’s Jewish community deserves a mayor who makes that clear in both words and actions,” said the ADL spokesperson.
On Monday night, Mamdani posted a photo which included his wife, who has come under fire in recent days for her social media support for Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks, and Khalil having an iftar meal at Gracie Mansion.
Other Jewish groups have so far declined to publicly weigh in on the dinner.
Khalil, a former Columbia graduate student who grew up in Syria but is of Palestinian descent, was released in June from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Louisiana, where he had been held for three months pending deportation proceedings. A federal appeals court ruled in January that Khalil could be rearrested.
One month after his release, Khalil repeatedly declined to condemn Hamas in a CNN interview.
Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition of over 80 student groups, is ‘illegally using the Columbia name’ on X, the university said
Victor J. Blue for The Washington Post via Getty Images
Students protest against the war in Gaza on the anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel at Columbia University in New York, New York, on Monday, October 7, 2024.
Columbia University distanced itself from Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition of over 80 university student groups, after it posted “death to America” in Farsi in response to U.S. strikes on Iran, denying that current students are behind the account.
“Marg bar Amrika,” CUAD posted on X on Saturday after U.S. and Israel’s joint strikes killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader — using a phrase that was frequently invoked by Khamenei. The post was deleted, but CUAD doubled down, writing in a new post, “X forced us to delete our ‘marg bar amrika’ tweet in order to gain back access to our account but the sentiment still stands.”
Columbia responded that “the group that calls itself ‘CUAD’ is not a recognized student group, or affiliated in any way with the University.”
“There is no evidence that anyone currently in control of their account is a current Columbia student, staff, or faculty member. They are illegally using the Columbia name,” the university said in a statement.
But a source familiar with the university’s actions told Jewish Insider that Columbia does not know who controls the account.
Last year, Columbia served the email associated with CUAD’s social media accounts with a cease and desist letter and sent takedown requests to the social media platforms carrying them, the source said.
CUAD then changed its account name from Columbia University Apartheid Divest to CU Apartheid Divest, stopped using an alma mater logo, changed its status on X to be a “commentary account” and added a statement to its bio about being “proudly unrecognized” by Columbia.
The source said the university is continuing to pursue all available legal action on the matter.
CUAD was formed in 2016 and gained renewed support since Hamas’ attacks on Oct. 7, 2023. It consists of groups run by current Columbia students, including Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, Student Workers of Columbia and Columbia Social Workers for Palestine. In an updated statement on Sunday evening, Columbia said that currently recognized student groups cannot affiliate with CUAD.
Columbia announced last July — about a week before it reached a settlement with the Trump administration to restore federal funding — that it would no longer recognize CUAD, which organized the 2024 campus anti-Israel encampment and several other demonstrations against the war in Gaza, some of which turned violent. At the time, Khamenei praised such protests, telling students they were “on the right side of history.”
CUAD’s Instagram page was disabled last year for promoting violence.
Plus, Trump sets monthlong timeline for Iran deal
DOMINIC GWINN/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images
Jeremy Carl speaks at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington D.C., Sept. 3, 2025.
Good Thursday afternoon!
This P.M. edition is reserved for our premium subscribers — offering a forward-focused read on what we’re tracking now and what’s coming next.
It’s me again — Danielle Cohen-Kanik, U.S. editor at Jewish Insider and curator, along with assists from my colleagues, of the Daily Overtime. Please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and feedback by replying to this email.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again voiced skepticism about the U.S.’ ability to reach an agreement with Iran as he departed Joint Base Andrews today, reports Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov, who is traveling with the prime minister’s delegation.
A day after his White House meeting with President Donald Trump, Netanyahu told reporters, “The president thinks the Iranians understand who they’re dealing with. He thinks the conditions he is setting, combined with their understanding that they made a mistake last time not reaching a deal, could bring them to agree to conditions that will allow a good deal to be reached.”
The prime minister’s view was more reserved: “I do not hide my general skepticism about the possibility of any deal with Iran.” Netanyahu said he told Trump that if a deal is indeed reached, “it must include the components that are important to us, the State of Israel, and, I think, the entire international community: not just the nuclear matter, but also ballistic missiles and Iranian proxies in the region.”
The Prime Minister’s Office also said Netanyahu will not be returning to Washington next week as scheduled, in order to speak at an AIPAC conference, and will instead appear virtually…
At a press conference this afternoon, Trump said the timeline for a potential deal with Iran is “over the next month … should happen quickly.” Asked why Netanyahu wants him to stop negotiating, Trump said, “He didn’t say that, we didn’t discuss that. I’ll talk to [Iran] as long as I like.” Trump additionally said Israeli President Isaac Herzog “should be ashamed of himself” and called him “disgraceful” for not issuing a pardon to Netanyahu…
The Trump administration smuggled around 6,000 Starlink terminals, used to establish internet connection, to activists in Iran during the regime’s violent suppression of nationwide protests, which included internet blackouts, U.S. officials told The Wall Street Journal…
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his team refused to condemn antisemitic and pro-Hamas social media posts from the co-founder of the group ‘Hot Girls for Zohran’ when pressed by JI’s Will Bredderman and other reporters today.
Speaking from City Hall, Mamdani would only stress that Gilani’s organization operated independently of his official election effort: “This was an individual leading an outside group and was never paid for by our campaign,” said Mamdani. “If New Yorkers want to know my views then they can hear it directly from me.
But when JI pressed the mayor directly whether he condemned the content of Gilani’s posts, he refused to respond and left the room, similar to how he fled questions on the matter from Politico on Wednesday…
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) urged the Trump administration today to investigate reports that a clique of radical staffers at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene had launched an anti-Israel “working group” inside the agency, JI’s Will Bredderman reports.
In a letter addressed to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Stefanik decried reports that employees had met during work hours at the city bureaucracy’s Queens headquarters. She raised the possibility that the department’s federal funding might have gone toward a prohibited political purpose — or that the gathering may have violated civil rights protections by creating a discriminatory environment for Jewish New Yorkers…
The nomination of Jeremy Carl, tapped to be the assistant secretary of state for international organizations, appears bound to fail after Sen. John Curtis (R-UT) announced his opposition to Carl’s confirmation following his contentious hearing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this morning, JI’s Marc Rod reports.
Curtis and a series of Democrats questioned Carl over past antisemitic, anti-Israel and otherwise inflammatory comments that the nominee had made online and in a series of podcast appearances, including his assertion that the U.S. spends too much time and energy on Israel “often to the detriment of our own national interest” and that “the Jews love to see themselves as oppressed”…
CENTCOM announced today it had completed a “deliberate and conditions-based” withdrawal of U.S. forces from al-Tanf Garrison in Syria, handing control of the site on the country’s border with Iraq and Jordan to forces aligned with the Syrian government. The U.S. has had a presence at the base since 2016 as part of its fight against ISIS; over 7,000 ISIS detainees are also being transitioned out of Syria into Iraq, while the U.S. troops were relocated to Jordan…
Germany joined the growing calls today for U.N. Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese to resign, after France did the same yesterday, over her recent speech at the Al Jazeera Forum where she called Israel humanity’s “common enemy.” German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul wrote on X, “I respect the system of independent rapporteurs of the UN. However, Ms. Albanese has already repeatedly failed in the past. I condemn her recent statements about Israel. She is untenable in her position”…
Israeli authorities arrested several people, and indicted one army reservist and one civilian, for allegedly using classified information to place bets on the popular prediction market Polymarket around the timing of Israel’s war with Iran last June, the Shin Bet announced today. The bets all correctly predicted the timeline of the strikes, raking in more than $150,000, Israeli media reported…
⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today
An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead
Keep an eye out in Jewish Insider for reporting on the race to succeed Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) in New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District, where the congresswoman is coming out forcefully against the lone Jewish candidate in the race — for being too supportive of Netanyahu.
The Munich Security Conference kicks off tomorrow, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio leading the U.S. delegation and speaking from the main stage on Saturday. Dozens of members of Congress were also expected to attend — official travel was canceled due to the impending shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security tomorrow, but members still may attend on their own. One member making a foray into foreign policy is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who will be speaking on two panels at the high-level summit. Other Democrats in attendance will be California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu.
In observance of President’s Day, we’ll be back in your inbox with the Daily Overtime on Tuesday. Shabbat Shalom!
Stories You May Have Missed
DOUBLING DOWN
Two Trump religious liberty appointees joined forces in anti-Israel push for antisemitism hearing
Activist Sameerah Munshi was appointed by the White House to the commission’s advisory board; the two women have jointly posted antisemitic content online
DOHA DEALINGS
GOP senator Ted Budd calls on Qatar to extradite Hamas leader to the U.S.
Budd says Qatar should hand over Khaled Mashaal because he has the ‘blood of Americans on his hands’
Plus, France calls for resignation of U.N.'s Albanese
GPO
President Donald Trump greets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Feb. 11, 2026.
Good Wednesday afternoon!
This P.M. edition is reserved for our premium subscribers — offering a forward-focused read on what we’re tracking now and what’s coming next.
It’s me again — Danielle Cohen-Kanik, U.S. editor at Jewish Insider and curator, along with assists from my colleagues, of the Daily Overtime. Please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and feedback by replying to this email.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
The U.S. will continue pursuing diplomacy with Iran, President Donald Trump said following his White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier today, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports.
“There was nothing definitive reached” in the meeting “other than I insisted that negotiations with Iran continue, to see whether or not a deal can be consummated,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “If it can, I let the Prime Minister know that will be a preference.”
If negotiations do not lead to a deal, the president added, “we will just have to see what the outcome will be. Last time, Iran decided they were better off not making a deal, and they were hit with [Operation] Midnight Hammer. That did not work out well for them. Hopefully, this time, they will be more reasonable and responsible.”
Netanyahu’s office said about the meeting, “The prime minister stood up for the State of Israel’s security needs in the context of the negotiations, and the two agreed to continue to coordinate closely”…
Even as Trump insists diplomacy will continue, the Pentagon has told a second aircraft carrier strike group to prepare for deployment to the Middle East, The Wall Street Journal reports, to join the USS Abraham Lincoln along with dozens of U.S. aircraft and other warships…
Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of 23 senators, spanning the political and ideological spectrums, introduced a resolution today condemning the Iranian government for its crackdown on protesters and attempts to cut off internet access across the country, JI’s Marc Rod reports.
“Iranian civilians’ unprecedented nationwide protests and bravery, confronted with the regime’s unprecedented widespread extrajudicial killing of thousands and disruption of all electronic communication, have profoundly destabilized the country and constitute changed conditions in Iran,” the resolution reads, highlighting that the regime’s suppression and killing of protesters continues…
The Trump administration expects to be able to announce several billion dollars in donations for Gaza reconstruction at the Board of Peace’s inaugural meeting in Washington next week, The Times of Israel reports, even as it is still working on a proposal to disarm Hamas. That plan so far reportedly envisions Hamas relinquishing its heavy weapons and destroying manufacturing sites, without fully addressing lighter arms…
Conservative activist Carrie Prejean Boller was removed from the White House’s Religious Liberty Commission today, JI’s Gabby Deutch reports, two days after the commission held its first public hearing on antisemitism, which turned contentious when Prejean Boller pressed Jewish witnesses about whether they would consider her antisemitic for not being a Zionist and for believing Jews killed Jesus.
“No member of the Commission has the right to hijack a hearing for their own personal and political agenda on any issue,” Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who chairs the commission, wrote in a post on X. “This is clearly, without question, what happened Monday in our hearing on antisemitism in America. This was my decision”…
France is calling for the resignation of U.N. Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot announced today, after Albanese called Israel humanity’s “common enemy” in a speech at the Al Jazeera Forum in Qatar over the weekend.
“France unreservedly condemns the outrageous and reprehensible remarks made by Francesca Albanese, which are directed not at the Israeli government, whose policies may be criticized, but at Israel as a people and as a nation, which is absolutely unacceptable,” Barrot said in remarks to lawmakers. Her latest comments add “to a long list of scandalous positions,” including “justifying” the Oct. 7 attacks and “comparing Israel to the Third Reich,” he said…
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) introduced legislation seeking oversight into the hundreds of millions of dollars in Venezuelan oil proceeds that the U.S. has acquired, some of which officials have said is being held in an account in Qatar…
New York City’s only Ethiopian-Israeli restaurant is closing its doors to diners, Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports, and turning only to private events over rising anti-Israel harassment, which the owner, Beejhy Barhany, said escalated after the restaurant became kosher in February 2024…
The Department of Homeland Security hired a social media manager who had raised red flags at his previous position at the Department of Labor posting messaging that echoed white nationalist sentiments on official social media accounts, The New York Times reports.
Those posts “used evocative imagery, some reminiscent of the 1920s and 1930s, with phrases like ‘Restore American Greatness’ and ‘the globalist status quo is OVER.’ … Colleagues warned superiors that the department’s accounts could be seen as promoting white-supremacist rhetoric, Nazi imagery and QAnon conspiracy theories”…
⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today
An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead
Keep an eye out in Jewish Insider for an interview with Jason Friedman, a longtime Chicago Jewish federation leader making a bid for Illinois’ open 7th Congressional District.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a nomination hearing for conservative commentator Jeremy Carl to serve as assistant secretary of state for international organizations. Schumer denounced Carl and his nomination on the Senate floor this week, “citing Carl’s long history of racist, white supremacist, and antisemitic views.”
Sinai Temple in Los Angeles will host a summit tomorrow on faith and sports, ahead of NBA All-Star weekend taking place in the city. The convening will feature several NBA athletes, coaches and faith and civic leaders.
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BASEBALL DIARIES
Team Israel’s World Baseball Classic team unveils its 2026 roster
The team is anchored by its pitching ace Dean Kremer of the Orioles, while Harrison Bader and Spencer Horwitz are among its best known hitters
SYRIA SPOTLIGHT
House members say Syrian government is not meeting U.S. expectations for sanctions relief
Speaking at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, Republican and Democratic lawmakers highlighted ongoing abuses by the Syrian government
Plus, N.C. Dems condemn antisemitism from Muslim caucus chair
Heather Khalifa/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Analilia Mejia, Democratic House candidate for New Jersey, speaks to supporters and members of the media at Paper Plane Coffee Co. in Montclair, N.J., on Jan. 29, 2026.
Good Tuesday afternoon!
This P.M. edition is reserved for our premium subscribers — offering a forward-focused read on what we’re tracking now and what’s coming next.
It’s me again — Danielle Cohen-Kanik, U.S. editor at Jewish Insider and curator, along with assists from my colleagues, of the Daily Overtime. Please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and feedback by replying to this email.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
President Donald Trump is considering sending a second aircraft carrier group to the Middle East as a contingency if negotiations with Iran fail, he told Axios today. “Either we will make a deal or we will have to do something very tough like last time,” the president said, adding, “We have an armada that is heading there and another one might be going.”
Still, Trump expressed optimism that Tehran “wants to make a deal very badly” and said the negotiations are “very different” since he authorized strikes last June on Iran’s nuclear facilities. He also said he doesn’t think Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is en route to Washington for his Wednesday meeting with Trump, is nervous about the negotiations, stating Netanyahu “also wants a deal. He wants a good deal”…
Trump also reiterated his opposition to West Bank annexation, days after Israel’s Security Cabinet voted to expand Israeli authorities in the area. “I am against annexation. We have enough things to think about now. We don’t need to be dealing with the West Bank,” he told Axios. While Trump’s meeting with Netanyahu tomorrow will ostensibly focus on Iran, the latest Israeli moves could drive a wedge between the two leaders…
On the campaign trail, former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) conceded the race for New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District to far-left activist Analilia Mejia today, after outstanding ballots broke decisively in her favor over the weekend.
In his statement, Malinowski, the presumed favorite who was the target of over $2 million of ads by the AIPAC-linked United Democracy Project super PAC, claimed that “the outcome of this race cannot be understood without also taking into account the massive flood of dark money that AIPAC spent on dishonest ads” attacking him. He warned, “If AIPAC backs a candidate — openly or surreptitiously — in the June NJ-11 Congressional primary, I will oppose that candidate and urge my supporters to do so as well.”
Mejia was congratulated by New Jersey Democratic leaders including Sens. Andy Kim and Cory Booker and Gov. Mikie Sherrill, though it remains to be seen if she will retain their support in the June primary when she must run for the Democratic nomination again if she hopes to retain the office for a full term…
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) officially launched her reelection campaign today for her seat which Democrats likely need to flip if they hope to take back the chamber. Collins, who has been targeted by Trump due to her occasional votes across the aisle, will likely face either Maine Gov. Janet Mills or oyster farmer Graham Platner in the general, after they battle it out in a hotly contested primary…
New York Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado dropped his primary challenge to Gov. Kathy Hochul today, whom he had hoped to beat out in her reelection race from the left. The move comes after several progressive leaders, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, endorsed Hochul, which Delgado alluded to in his statement: “After much consideration, I’ve concluded that there simply is no viable path forward. And though my campaign has come to an end, I fully intend to do all I can in our effort to build a more humane, affordable, and equitable state that serves all New Yorkers”…
The Washington Free Beacon details several Mamdani administration staffers with a history of comments defaming Israel, including one who called Israel a “modern-day Nazi Germany” and one who called people ripping down posters of Israeli hostages “heroes”…
North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, condemned rhetoric from the leader of the state Democratic Party’s Muslim Caucus, Elyas Mohammed, in a statement shared exclusively with JI’s Matthew Kassel. Mohammed recently described Zionists as “modern day Nazis” and as a “threat to humanity,” among other incendiary social media posts.
“Antisemitic comments and conspiracy theories have no place anywhere, including in the North Carolina Democratic Party,” the governor said, after the leaders of several prominent Jewish groups in the state sent a joint letter urging Democratic officials and lawmakers to publicly denounce Mohammed’s statements…
Columbia University is considering expanding and refocusing how its Middle Eastern studies department teaches about Israel, JI’s Haley Cohen reports. The provost’s regional review committee announced a set of recommendations this week for the department, including a stronger partnership with the school’s Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies, marking a pivot in a field and at a school that have come under immense scrutiny from the federal government and Jewish leaders following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks…
Shaare Tefila, a Conservative congregation in Olney, Md., in the Washington suburbs, was defaced with antisemitic graffiti today, JI’s Haley Cohen reports. A swastika, the word “genocide” and the phrase “AZAB,” an acronym standing for “All Zionists Are Bastards,” were spray-painted on street signs and banners outside the synagogue.
Ron Halber, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, called the act “outrageous. While it is fortunate that no one was physically hurt, it is yet another sad reminder that antisemitic incidents have become common occurrences throughout our region,” he said…
Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, said the Justice Department intends to pursue and ultimately shut down groups that have engaged in disruptive protests at synagogues and other antisemitic activities, as well as those supporting those groups, JI’s Marc Rod reports.
Speaking today at a conference on antisemitism organized by The George Washington University Program on Extremism, Dhillon said her division’s work includes pursuing those funding, training and supporting groups such as American Muslims for Palestine and the Party for Socialism and Liberation, which she said are engaging in “acts of domestic terrorism”…
⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today
An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead
Keep an eye out in Jewish Insider for a preview of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bilateral meeting with President Donald Trump tomorrow at the White House, as the Israeli PM seeks to provide input on U.S. negotiations with Iran.
The House Appropriations Committee will hold a hearing on the potential impacts of a Department of Homeland Security shutdown, which looks likely as lawmakers struggle to reach a deal before its funding runs out on Friday.
The House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on oversight of the Department of Justice with Attorney General Pam Bondi.
American Jewish Committee CEO Ted Deutch will speak at New York City’s Temple Emanu-El on the organization’s annual State of Antisemitism in America survey, released today.
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POSTWAR PROBLEMS
White House needs to confront limits of Hamas disarmament, experts say
The options for demilitarization ‘strike me as not feasible from a military point of view and certainly not practical from a political point of view,’ says the Carnegie Endowment’s Aaron David Miller
POST-TRAUMA ACTIVISM
‘Bringing voice to the voiceless’: Former hostages Aviva and Keith Siegel heal through helping others
The couple, once held captive by Hamas, channel their trauma into humanitarian work, volunteering in Kenya’s Kakuma refugee settlement with IsraAid and amplifying the stories of those suffering in silence
A report from the school’s regional review committee recommended a set of remedies, including new professorships on modern Israel
CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images
Students are seen on the campus of Columbia University on April 14, 2025, in New York City.
Columbia University is considering expanding and refocusing its Middle Eastern studies department’s instruction on Israel, the provost’s regional review committee announced in a set of recommendations this week, marking a pivot in a field and at a school that have come under immense scrutiny from the federal government and Jewish leaders following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks.
Among its recommendations, the review committee urged the department to strengthen its relationship with the school’s Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies through visiting professorships. The IIJS will host a multiyear visiting appointment for a professor to teach about the history of modern Israel beginning this fall, the report said.
Some faculty in Middle Eastern studies departments at Columbia and other elite institutions praised Oct. 7 as “resistance” against the “settler-colonial” Israeli state. Critics of the field have long alleged that it teaches students a one-sided history of the Middle East, describing Israel as the perpetual villain.
A December report by the Columbia University task force overseeing efforts to combat antisemitism on campus spotlighted Columbia’s lack of “full-time tenure line faculty expertise in Middle East history, politics, political economy and policy that is not explicitly anti-Zionist.” The task force found that the absence of ideological diversity had an impact on course offerings — in listening sessions, students said that classes at the university more often than not treat Israel as entirely illegitimate.
The provost’s review committee is headed by Miguel Urquiola, senior vice provost for academic initiatives, whom the university appointed to oversee the department as part of a settlement with the Trump administration after $400 million in federal funding was cut last year over Columbia’s alleged failure to address antisemitism.
Among Trump’s demands for funding to be restored was a mandate to place the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies (MESAAS) department under academic receivership. While Columbia did not commit to academic receivership, it appointed Urquiola and created the review committee in September, selecting the Middle East as the first region to be reviewed.
The committee’s report additionally states that the School of International and Public Affairs is “finalizing” arrangements for a visiting professor to teach about economic and other policy issues in Israel, scheduled to begin this fall. SIPA partnered with the IIJS to appoint a visiting professor to teach courses on the Jewish world and Middle East policy for a three-year term. The two schools are searching for a joint professor of Israel and Jewish studies, which the review committee notes “may be on the tenure- or practice-track.” The review committee also suggested offering a new undergraduate major or minor in Middle East social sciences and policy, which would fall under SIPA’s undergraduate offerings.
The report further states that the school’s political science department is “actively considering” launching a search for a permanent faculty member to be appointed together with IIJS.
“Columbia’s MESAAS department is notoriously lacking viewpoint diversity, particularly as it relates to Israel,” Lishi Baker, a senior studying Middle East history, told Jewish Insider. “I am grateful that Columbia is finding other ways to increase its course offerings about Israel so that students interested in the region are not stuck with the MESAAS propaganda.”
The recommendations also noted that the search to fill the Edward Said professorship in modern Arab studies and literature is ongoing. The role has been open since Rashid Khalidi retired in August after two decades at Columbia, stating that the university’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism — which he said conflated criticism of the state of Israel with antisemitism — made it “impossible for me to teach modern Middle East history.”
Two professors under consideration for the position have faced disciplinary action from their universities for participating in antisemitic and anti-Israel activity, The Washington Free Beacon reported this week.
Rosie Bsheer, an associate professor of history at Harvard and formerly the associate director of the university’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies was removed from her role at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies after events she hosted “very likely” violated the IHRA definition of antisemitism, according to former Harvard President Lawrence Summers.
Max Weiss, a Princeton University professor of history and an advocate of an academic boycott of Israel, was put on probation for holding class inside an anti-Israel encampment.
Mnookin, who is Jewish, initially disbanded an anti-Israel encampment at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before entering into negotiations with student protesters
Leon Bennett/Getty Images
Jennifer Mnookin attends UCLA Black Law: 50th Anniversary Solidarity Gala at The Beverly Hills Hotel on April 04, 2019 in Beverly Hills, California.
Columbia University this week tapped University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin as its fourth president in two years — and first Jewish leader in three decades.
While the New York City campus, which was roiled by antisemitic turmoil for nearly two years following the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel, has been quieter in recent months, Jewish student leaders who worked closely with Mnookin at Wisconsin expressed optimism that she could help Columbia repair its strained relationship with the federal government and ongoing division among students and manage the implementation of recent recommendations made by the school’s antisemitism task force.
Still, Mnookin, a legal scholar who served as dean of the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law before moving to Wisconsin in 2022, faced some criticism over concessions she made with Students for Justice in Palestine protesters during an anti-Israel encampment on the Madison campus in April 2024.
Mnookin initially sent law enforcement to shut down the student encampment — resulting in the arrest of roughly three dozen demonstrators — then negotiated with protesters after they established a new encampment. The non-binding deal reached to dismantle that encampment required SJP to comply with university protest rules in exchange for the right to present their divestment demands to university leaders, who did not consent to their requests.
Under Mnookin’s leadership, SJP was suspended from campus in July 2025 for violating university policy while protesting an event with former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield. SJP was reinstated, on probation, earlier this month.
After Columbia’s board of trustees announced her unanimous appointment, Mnookin wrote in an email to the Columbia community on Monday that “the last several years have been challenging ones for higher education, certainly including Columbia. Having had the privilege for the past few years of leading a public flagship university in a complex time, I well understand the significant uncertainties and heightened scrutiny many universities are now facing.”
“The chancellor being Jewish would lead a lot of Jewish students to automatically assume she’s ‘on our side.’ That’s not her role, despite what her personal beliefs might be outside of her position. [But] Mnookin was definitely present in the aftermath of Oct. 7,” Jacob Bigelman, who graduated from Wisconsin in May with a degree in personal finance, told Jewish Insider.
Bigelman, a former AEPi chapter president, helped organize the first meeting post-Oct. 7 between Jewish students and Mnookin “to express concerns about antisemitism and when freedom of speech teeters on the line of hate speech,” he said.
“She’s a very experienced legal scholar with an understanding of the First Amendment,” Bigelman said. When Mnookin didn’t put out a statement immediately following the terrorist attacks, as many other university leaders had done, Bigelman questioned her about the silence during an encounter at the university’s Hillel, a couple days after the attacks.
“She said it was a classic lose-lose situation,” he recalled. “You’re never going to make someone happy enough and it creates a precedent that every time a world event happens the university has to comment on everything.” Mnookin did release a statement on Oct. 11, which Bigelman described as “neutral.” In it, she expressed concern that “these devastating developments will fan the global flames of both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, making peace and justice in the region even more elusive.”
Later, her response to the encampment “left everyone wanting a little bit more,” said Bigelman. “Jewish students, and people fed up with the protests in general, were happy to see she gave them warnings. When those weren’t met she brought in the police. A lot of people were glad to see the university was taking concrete steps to follow through on dismantling the protest. When the encampment started again, a lot of people were hoping they would send the police back in and were disappointed to find out that they were going to enter negotiations with SJP.”
At the same time, Bigelman said that “the negotiations were purely symbolic and she didn’t give in on anything of substance. The symbolism of negotiating with them is what frustrated a lot of Jewish students.”
“I think what Mnookin did well is she maintained institutional control,” he continued. “Campus never got to the levels of Columbia, which was seen as ground zero of all of this. Everyone was left wanting a little bit more [from her], but at the end of the day, in terms of negotiations with protesters, nothing happened with negotiations that impacted the way the university discloses its finances. I think it was just making the Palestinian cause feel that it had more space on campus. But just the symbolism of it left a sour taste in a lot of our mouths.”
Bigelman said that he would have liked to see more transparency from the administration, which relied on “proceduralism, such as codes of conduct, disciplinary probation, internal committees, that came off as a bit obscure to people involved.”
Overall though, “the chancellor was good to our university,” he said. “At the end of the day, she prevented the campus from turning into something worse. [That] track record may be why she was eyed for this opening at Columbia.”
He added, “I think Mnookin will be strong with working with Congress” in regard to reinstating Columbia’s funding that was slashed by the federal government over an alleged failure to combat antisemitism. The university announced in July it would implement several commitments in an effort to restore some $400 million in federal funding.
Sophie Small, who graduated from UW-Madison in December with a double major in history and religious studies, met Mnookin several times at Hillel. The chancellor was “a frequent flier at things like Rosh Hashanah services and would always come and light the Hanukkah candles on the first night,” Small, who served on Hillel’s executive board, recalled.
Small, who described the encampment as “a gathering” that was not disruptive like on other campuses, said she feels “70 percent positive, 30 percent negative” about how Mnookin handled protests and her relationship with Jews on campus.
“She did what she could and she showed up for the Jewish community in ways I was impressed by,” said Small. “She did not stop coming to Rosh Hashanah even though she was under flak from Jewish students and parents.”
“I’m excited for her to be at Columbia,” continued Small. “I didn’t feel like Columbia was encouraging its students to engage in conversation [the way Wisconsin did]. Our encampment was a night and day difference from Columbia’s. I think she’ll be good there. It will be good for Columbia to have a Jewish leader.”
Mnookin grew up in a Reform Jewish family in the Bay Area. Her father, Robert Mnookin, is on the board of directors at Harvard Hillel and the author of The Jewish American Paradox: Embracing Choice in a Changing World.
Mnookin’s tenure comes on the heels of three other presidents who grappled with campus unrest post-Oct. 7. Minouche Shafik, who was leading the university during the attacks, cited the “period of turmoil” that followed when she resigned in 2024. Shafik was criticized by members of Congress and some of the Columbia community over her handling of the encampment, which included physical intimidation of Jewish students.
Katrina Armstrong, who briefly replaced Shafik, abruptly stepped down in March 2025 as the school faced pressure and funding cuts from the Trump administration over antisemitism allegations.
Claire Shipman, Armstong’s successor and the current interim president, struck a deal with the government to restore funding. She also faced scrutiny — and later apologized — for leaked text messages where she suggested that a Jewish trustee should be removed from the university’s board over her pro-Israel advocacy.
Hillel directors at Wisconsin and Columbia both expressed support for Mnookin in statements on Monday.
“Mnookin has been an outstanding friend and partner to UW Hillel, and she has consistently and thoughtfully supported our students,” said Greg Steinberger, CEO and president of UW Hillel. “Her leadership, work ethic and commitment to building community has helped us grow the wonderful Jewish community the UW has long been known for. The UW Hillel Foundation is grateful to Chancellor Mnookin for her friendship, service, and leadership, and we look forward to continuing to work closely with her through the spring semester. We remember fondly celebrating our holidays with the Chancellor. She has stood with us through the challenges, sorrow, and sadness that our community and the campus have experienced.”
Brian Cohen, executive director of the Kraft Center for Jewish Life, Columbia’s Hillel, said, “the last few years have been undeniably difficult for the Jewish and Israeli communities on campus. While challenges remain, there is a vibrant, joyful, proud Jewish community at Columbia. I am hopeful that President-elect Mnookin will bring the reputation, experience, and understanding that we need to build on that strong foundation.”
Judea Pearl, a professor of computer science at UCLA — where Mnookin served as law school dean from 2015-2022 — was also supportive of Columbia’s new hire, calling Mnookin a “good choice” in a post on X.
Mnookin will begin her tenure on July 1.
Tricia McLaughlin, the DHS assistant secretary for public affairs, made the comments shortly after a federal appeals court ruled Khalil could be rearrested
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who was released from ICE detention, speaks during a rally on the steps of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan on June 22, 2025 in New York City.
Former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of the school’s anti-Israel protest movement, will likely be rearrested and deported to the North African country of Algeria, a top Department of Homeland Security official said Wednesday.
Khalil was released in June from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Louisiana, where he had been held for three months. Last week, a federal appeals court ruled that he could be rearrested, instructing the lower court to dismiss Khalil’s habeas petition, a court filing that challenged his incarceration and eventually secured his release. His deportation proceedings had been paused.
Asked by Katie Pavlich on NewsNation on Wednesday whether there are plans to rearrest Khalil and move forward with deportation, Tricia McLaughlin, DHS assistant secretary for public affairs, said “it looks like he’ll go to Algeria. That’s what the thought is right now.”
“It’s a reminder for those who are in this country on a visa or on a green card. You are a guest in this country — act like it,” said McLaughlin. “It is a privilege, not a right, to be in this country to live or to study.”
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at a press conference on Thursday that Khalil “is a New Yorker. He should remain in New York City.”
“We have seen this attack on him as part of a larger attack on the freedom of speech that is especially pronounced when it comes to the use of that speech to stand up for Palestinian human rights. I will make that clear to everyone. He deserves to be in the city just like any other New Yorker,” Mamdani said.
Khalil, who grew up in Syria but is of Palestinian descent, first came to the U.S. on a student visa, and later married a U.S. citizen and received a green card. While a graduate student at Columbia in 2024, he led campus protests against the war in Gaza and subsequent negotiations with university administrators.
The federal government sought to deport Khalil on the basis of his failure to disclose crucial information in his green card application, including his former employment by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency that works with Palestinians, as well as his membership in the unofficial campus group Columbia University Apartheid Divest, which was banned from Instagram last year for promoting violence.
Immigration authorities arrested Khalil at his home in March. He was not charged with a crime. The White House said at the time that the government had authority to arrest and deport Khalil based on the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, which states that if the secretary of state has “reasonable grounds” to believe that a migrant poses “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences,” that person is eligible for deportation.
A memo submitted in May to the court in Louisiana and signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio cited the president’s authority to expel noncitizens whose presence in the country could have adverse foreign policy consequences, regardless of whether they have committed a crime. It stated that Khalil’s arrest and planned deportation were based on his “participation in antisemitic protests and disruptive activities, which fosters a hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States.”
Khalil was released from ICE detention in June as the federal government sought his deportation
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who was released from ICE detention, speaks during a rally on the steps of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan on June 22, 2025 in New York City.
A federal appeals court ruled on Thursday that former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of the school’s anti-Israel protest movement, could be rearrested.
Khalil was released in June from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Louisiana, where he had been held for three months.
A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reopened the case on Thursday, instructing the lower court to dismiss Khalil’s habeas petition, a court filing that challenged his incarceration and eventually secured his release. In a 2-1 ruling, the panel decided that the federal district court in New Jersey that issued Khalil’s release did not have jurisdiction over the matter and that it should have been handled in immigration court, which is part of the executive branch overseen by the Justice Department, meaning Khalil is now liable to be rearrested.
Baher Azmy, a lawyer for Khalil, told The New York Times, “We are disappointed with and strongly disagree with the majority opinion, but take heart in the very powerful and persuasive dissenting opinion. We’ll continue to fight with all available legal options.” The dissenting option came from Judge Arianna Freeman, who said that Khalil had proved that he faced irreversible injuries during his detention.
Khalil’s deportation proceedings are currently paused, secured through a deal between his lawyers and the federal government. Thursday’s ruling could mean that the case restarts again, though it will very likely be appealed.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani responded to the reopening of Khalil’s case, saying in a statement that “last year’s arrest of Mahmoud Khalil was more than just a chilling act of political repression, it was an attack on all of our constitutional rights.”
“Now, as the crackdown on pro-Palestinian free speech continues, Mahmoud is being threatened with rearrest. Mahmoud is free—and must remain free,” said Mamdani.
Khalil, who grew up in Syria but is of Palestinian descent, first came to the U.S. on a student visa, and later married a U.S. citizen and received a green card. While a graduate student at Columbia in 2024, he led campus protests against the war in Gaza and subsequent negotiations with university administrators.
The federal government sought to deport Khalil on the basis of his failure to disclose crucial information in his green card application, including his former employment by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency that works with Palestinians, as well as his membership in the unofficial campus group Columbia University Apartheid Divest, which was banned from Instagram last year for promoting violence.
Immigration authorities arrested Khalil at his home in March. He was not charged with a crime. The White House said at the time that the government had authority to arrest and deport Khalil based on the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, which states that if the secretary of state has “reasonable grounds” to believe that a migrant poses “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences,” that person is eligible for deportation.
A memo submitted in May to the court in Louisiana and signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio cited the president’s authority to expel noncitizens whose presence in the country could have adverse foreign policy consequences, regardless of whether they have committed a crime. It stated that Khalil’s arrest and planned deportation were based on his “participation in antisemitic protests and disruptive activities, which fosters a hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States.”
Khalil’s arrest was largely met with cautious celebration from mainstream Jewish groups at the time who said his deportation was “fully justified” but emphasised a need for due process.
Khail was released on June 20 when Judge Michael Farbiarz ruled that his prolonged detention likely violated his constitutional rights.
One day after his release, Khalil appeared at a rally in New York City organized by a group accused of ties to the Iranian regime protesting the U.S.’ airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities that had occurred a few days earlier.
The report calls for more ideological diversity among faculty, while recommending a balance between free expression and preventing discrimination
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Columbia students participate in a rally and vigil in support of Israel in response to a neighboring student rally in support of the Palestinians at the university on October 12, 2023 in New York City.
The Columbia University task force overseeing efforts to combat antisemitism on campus released its fourth and final report on Tuesday, spotlighting Columbia’s lack of full-time Middle East faculty who are not explicitly anti-Zionist.
According to the report, “Columbia lacks full-time tenure line faculty expertise in Middle East history, politics, political economy and policy that is not explicitly anti-Zionist.” The absence of ideological diversity is having an impact on course offerings — in listening sessions, the task force said it heard from students that classes at the university more often than not treat Zionism as entirely illegitimate.
The report calls on the university to “work quickly to add more intellectual diversity to these offerings” and to “establish new chairs at a senior level in Middle East history, politics, political economy and policy.”
Furthermore, it claims that “academic resources available for teaching and research on Jewish and Israeli topics at Columbia are insufficient, especially in comparison to the resources available for teaching and research on other parts of the Middle East. The University should work quickly and energetically to build up its capabilities here, through academically first-rate full time tenure line additions to the faculty and the curriculum.”
The report also cites numerous instances in which the academic freedom of Jewish and Israeli students was not protected in classrooms and suggests remedies — while trying to find a delicate balance between allowing for free expression and cracking down on discrimination.
“We urge the University to protect freedom of expression to the maximum extent possible while also complying with antidiscrimination laws,” states the report, titled The Classroom Experience at Columbia: Protecting the Academic Freedom of Faculty and Students. “Censorship has no place at Columbia. Neither does discrimination.”
Columbia University Acting President Claire Shipman said in a statement on Tuesday that the university will “continue to work on implementing the recommendations of the task force and addressing antisemitism on our campus.”
“We have also been working this semester to focus on discrimination and hate more broadly on our campuses — which has long been a strong recommendation of the task force. All of this work must become part of our DNA,” said Shipman.
Columbia’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism was formed in November 2023 as a response to a surge of antisemitism on campus that began as an immediate response to the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel. Throughout the following two years of war in Gaza, scenes of masked anti-Israel protesters barging into classrooms and hourslong demonstrations in the center of campus calling for an “intifada revolution” became commonplace at Columbia, which has faced some of the worst antisemitic incidents of any college campus since Oct. 7.
The new report is the first one released since Columbia reached a deal with the Trump administration in July to restore some $400 million in federal funding.
The funding was frozen by the government in March due to the university’s record dealing with antisemitism. The campus has seen less turbulence since the deal was struck and reforms aimed at combating antisemitism — some based on the task force’s earlier recommendations — were announced over the summer.
The 13-member task force, which is led by by Ester Fuchs, professor of international and public affairs and political science; Nicholas Lemann, professor of journalism and dean emeritus of Columbia Journalism School; and David Schizer, professor of law and economics and dean emeritus of Columbia Law School, suggested a range of free expression and anti-discrimination policies that Columbia could adopt.
Among the recommendations are that the university disclose, before students enroll in a course, if the material has the potential to cause students to feel excluded or silenced. If students are not aware in advance, or if it is a required course, and a controversial topic — such as the Middle East — is not the stated topic, “it’s not appropriate to make it a central part of the course,” the report states.
The authors write that academic freedom “entails openness to scholars and students from other countries.” As such, the report states that boycotts of faculty, students, researchers or scholars from other countries “are not consistent with academic freedom.” The academic boycott movement consistently targets Israel, “proposing to restrict the research, teaching, and studying opportunities available to a cohort whose members are overwhelmingly Jewish,” the report continues. Student protesters at Columbia have frequently demanded that the university end its partnership with Tel Aviv University.
In addition, the task force calls for consistency across all university anti-discrimination policies to include Jewish and Israeli students and for applying anti-discrimination policies in regards to classroom disruptions targeting students or instructors for their identity in a protected class.
The latest report builds upon a series of earlier ones released by the antisemitism task force in March 2024, August 2024 and June 2025, each offering solutions to a different key issue impacting Jewish students at the Ivy League university. Each report was based in part on two dozen listening sessions the task force conducted with hundreds of Jewish and Israeli students at Columbia.
The 70-page fourth and final report includes recommendations from the three prior reports and recaps several of the most egregious incidents of antisemitism in the classroom at Columbia since Oct. 7. Those include reports of several instructors encouraging their students, during class, to participate in the 2023-24 academic year’s anti-Israel protests. Some professors held their classes or office hours within anti-Israel encampments (where in several cases it was indicated Zionists were not welcome).
Editor’s note: After publication, Columbia’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism updated language in the report to read: “Columbia would benefit from full-time tenure line faculty expertise in Middle East history, politics, political economy and policy that is not explicitly anti-Zionist.”
Plus, Khanna to attend conference featuring antisemitic speakers
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Sen. David McCormick (R-PA) walks through the Senate Subway during a vote in the U.S. Capitol on January 27, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Good Friday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on the campus climate at Columbia, where classes resumed for the fall semester this week, as well as the university’s hiring of an assistant dean who backed the Palestinian “indigenous resistance movement confronting settler colonialism, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing.” We report on Rep. Ro Khanna’s upcoming appearance at a conference that features an array of antisemitic speakers, and cover Sen. Dave McCormick’s call for the Trump administration to respond to the recent decision by Norway’s sovereign wealth fund to divest from Caterpillar and other Israel-linked companies. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Robert Kraft, Mia Ehrenberg, Warren Bass and Sam Sussman.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by Jewish Insider Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with assists from Marc Rod, Lahav Harkov and Danielle Cohen-Kanik. Have a tip? Email us here.
For less-distracted reading over the weekend, browse this week’s edition of The Weekly Print, a curated print-friendly PDF featuring a selection of recent Jewish Insider and eJewishPhilanthropy stories, including: Amb. Leiter: Nature of U.S.-Israel aid may change in coming years; New Humash features Rabbi Sacks’ posthumously published translation; and Negotiations for next U.S.-Israel aid deal faces uphill battle with changing political tides. Print the latest edition here.
What We’re Watching
- President Donald Trump is signing an executive order today to rename the Department of Defense as the Department of War, the name used through the first half of the 20th century until its renaming in 1949 as part of the implementation of the National Security Act of 1947.
- Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, are endorsing Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA) today in her bid to succeed Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA). Read more from JI’s Emily Jacobs here.
- We’re continuing to monitor the situation in California, where members of the state’s Jewish Caucus are moving toward watering down antisemitism legislation that has faced significant pushback from the California Teacher’s Association. Proposed concessions on the legislation — which has until the end of the legislative session next Friday to pass — include the removal of penalties against schools that foster antisemitic learning environments and a provision setting guidance for teaching subjects that could be considered controversial.
- We’re also keeping an eye on the situation in Israel, following the IDF’s announcement that it was in control of 40% of Gaza City amid continued calls this week from senior Israeli officials including IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir and Mossad head David Barnea for Jerusalem to accept a temporary ceasefire. Earlier today, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced the beginning of an aerial campaign targeting Hamas operatives in Gaza City. As Israel marks 700 days since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks, the terror group released a video of Guy Gilboa-Dalal and Alon Ohel.
- Looking ahead to the weekend, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is bringing his “Fighting Oligarchy” tour to New York City on Saturday, where he’ll campaign with Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.
- On Sunday, the Jewish Theological Seminary kicks off its inaugural storytelling festival. Etgar Keret, Jonathan Safran Foer, Jodi Kantor, Shalom Auslander, Alex Edelman and Deborah Treisman are all slated to speak at the event, which runs through Tuesday.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S JOSH KRAUSHAAR
Just when it looked like far-left New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani was on track to become mayor, in part thanks to persistent divisions among his opposition, there are signs of a possible consolidation of the crowded field.
The New York Timesreported that embattled Mayor Eric Adams is considering a job offer from the Trump administration — a position at the Department of Housing and Urban Development or an ambassadorship have been floated — that would entice him to withdraw from the race. The paper is also reporting that Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa has also been approached by Trump allies, but Sliwa has remained adamant that he is sticking in the race.
All told, Trump’s team is doing everything it can behind the scenes to eliminate the structural hurdles for a successful anti-Mamdani coalition, without publicly putting its finger on the scale for the leading Mamdani challenger, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. (It’s also notable that Trump, even though it would be in his political interest to use a Mamdani mayoralty as a battering ram against Democrats, is more concerned about the policy consequences of a socialist mayor in his hometown.)
A one-on-one Mamdani-Cuomo general election showdown is still far from a sure thing, but it’s worth noting that the matchup would be quite competitive, according to the available public polling. Even the pro-Mamdani pollster Adam Carlson found in July that Mamdani only led Cuomo by three points among registered voters in a head-to-head matchup, though the lead expanded to double digits when the most likely voters were polled.
campus beat
Columbia’s new school year starts quietly, but antisemitism still present
The first day of the new school year on Tuesday at Columbia University was met with a wary sense of relief from Jewish students and faculty, who returned to campus unsure whether recent reforms aimed at combating campus antisemitism would make any difference. Scenes that have become commonplace on Columbia’s campus over the past two years — masked anti-Israel demonstrators barging into classrooms and the library banging on drums and chanting “Free Palestine” or hourslong demonstrations in the center of campus of more than 100 students calling for an “intifada revolution” — were nowhere to be seen. Still, in quieter ways, there were moments behind the tall iron entrance gates reminiscent of the antisemitic turbulence that grew commonplace on the Morningside Heights campus since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
What went down: Three members of Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition of over 80 university student groups that Instagram banned earlier this year for promoting violence, protested Columbia Hillel’s club fair, distributing fliers urging Jewish students to “drop Hillel” because it “supports genocide.” Elsewhere on campus, an organizer of the 2024 anti-Israel encampment movement, Cameron Jones, paraded a sign that read, “some of your classmates were IOF [Israeli Occupation Forces] criminals committing genocide in Palestine.” Within hours, Columbia announced it had “initiated investigations into incidents that involve potential violations of the University’s Student Anti-Discrimination and Discriminatory Harassment Policies and University Rules.”
faculty faux pas
New Columbia dean leading ‘meaningful dialogue’ supported Palestinian ‘resistance movement’
Columbia University’s new hire for senior associate dean of community and culture was a signatory of a 2021 letter supporting the Palestinian “indigenous resistance movement” and rejecting the “the fiction of a ‘two-sided conflict.’” He is tasked with leading “meaningful dialogue” in his new position. Jonathon Kahn signed on to the “Vassar Community Members’ Statement of Solidarity with the Palestinian People” while a professor of religion at Vassar College, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports. “We affirm that the Palestinian struggle is an indigenous resistance movement confronting settler colonialism, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing, and stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people,” the letter read.
Now and then: The senior associate dean of community and culture role is a new position, created in the wake of increased antisemitism that has plagued Columbia’s campus since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks in Israel. Kahn, who has no known social media presence, said in a statement sent to the Washington Free Beacon on Wednesday regarding the petition that he is “a Zionist” who “believe[s] deeply in Israel’s right to exist and thrive as a Jewish state” and also “deeply value[s] Palestinian life and Palestinians’ aspirations for statehood.” He said, “My beliefs are not fully captured in this letter that was authored more than four years ago.”
OSLO AIM
McCormick urges Trump administration to retaliate against Norges Fund’s BDS move
Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA) wrote to top trade officials in the Trump administration urging them to take action to respond to the decision by the Norges Bank Investment Fund, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, to divest from U.S. equipment firm Caterpillar because of the Israeli military’s use of its products in the West Bank and Gaza, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. McCormick served from 2020-2022 as CEO of Bridgewater Associates, which manages portions of Norges’ portfolio.
What he said: “As the Trump Administration continues to take bold action to rebalance global trade, I urge you to also address the disturbing politicization of sovereign wealth fund investment decisions against American companies,” McCormick said in a letter, sent Thursday, to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. He called on the administration to take Norges’ moves against American companies into account in ongoing trade negotiations with Norway, calling the effort a “form of economic warfare directed by a foreign government against the U.S. economy.”
Flashback: Bridgewater CIO Greg Jensen addressed Norges’ 2024 investment conference.
CONVENTION COTROVERSY
Ro Khanna to appear at conference featuring pro-terrorism, antisemitic speakers
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) is set to speak later this month at ArabCon, an annual convention hosted by the Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, joining a lineup that includes numerous speakers with records of support for terrorism and antisemitism, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Speaker list: Among the controversial speakers on the ArabCon lineup are Electronic Intifada Executive Director Ali Abunimah, CAIR San Francisco Executive Director Zahra Billoo and activist Linda Sarsour. “I have never been to a conference where I agree with every speaker, but speaking at ArabCon is important,” Khanna said in a statement to JI. “I will discuss my efforts to recognize a Palestinian state without Hamas as part of a two state solution. Recognition of Palestinian statehood — alongside continued efforts to secure Israel’s safety and guarantee its future as a democratic homeland for the Jewish people — is essential to achieving peace.”
flights resume
United to resume direct flights to Israel from Washington, Chicago
United Airlines announced Thursday it plans to resume direct flights to Israel from Chicago O’Hare and Washington Dulles international airports for the first time since the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks on Israel, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports. Flights from Chicago are set to commence Nov. 1 and will operate four times per week, and flights from Washington are scheduled to begin Nov. 2 and will operate three times per week, according to the airline.
Direct choice: Currently no other airline offers direct flights to Israel from Chicago or Washington. United and Delta offer daily flights between Israel and the New York area. “The resumption of these flights underscores United’s longstanding commitment to Tel Aviv,” Patrick Quayle, United’s senior vice president of global network planning and alliances, said in a statement.
JOINING FORCES
Faith communities ‘stand up’ to antisemitism in new FCAS initiative
Congregants of a Hindu temple on Long Island that was vandalized last year and worshippers of a Methodist Church in Oklahoma City, who last year put on a musical production of “Fiddler on the Roof” to learn about Jewish culture, may not appear to have much in common. But this Sunday, both houses of worship — together with an expected crowd of nearly 1 million congregants around the country — will join forces for the inaugural “Stand Up Sunday,” a show of force in the fight against antisemitism and all faith-based violence, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
Show of solidarity: As part of the effort, spearheaded by Robert Kraft’s Foundation to Combat Antisemitism and the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, founded by Rabbi Arthur Schneier, organizers said each congregation “will dedicate their services to raising awareness about the sharp increase of antisemitism and all forms of hate against religious communities in the United States by standing together on September 7.” FCAS’ Blue Square pins will be distributed to attendees “as a visible display of solidarity across faiths,” the group said. Congregational leaders will deliver remarks on antisemitism and faith-based hate in their sermons and houses of worship will place signs and posters throughout their buildings.
Worthy Reads
Kim or Khamenei?: In Foreign Affairs, Vipin Narang and Pranay Vaddi of MIT’s Center for Nuclear Security Policy posit that as a result of the damage inflicted to Iran’s nuclear program during the 12-day Israel-Iran war, North Korea will become a model for rogue states looking to advance their nuclear programs. “In contrast to Tehran, Pyongyang largely avoided delays in weaponizing its program; it made steady progress toward a bomb, using periodic engagement to test U.S. resolve over possible agreements, routinely relied on feints and stalling tactics, and weathered tremendous diplomatic and economic pressure along the way. When diplomacy broke down, North Korea rapidly advanced its program so its Kim regime was prepared to approach any future engagement from a position of greater strength. … For would-be proliferator states, the lessons are dangerously clear: do not wait to get the bomb, assume major powers will attack, and do not trust that diplomacy is within reach. In other words, be like Kim, not like Khamenei.” [ForeignAffairs]
The New Axis Powers: In The New York Times, the Center for a New American Security’s Richard Fontaine and Andrea Kendall-Taylor caution that this week’s summit in Beijing with the leaders of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran signals a growing threat to the U.S.-led world order. “Though they may occasionally come to one another’s aid — like the North Korean soldiers who joined their Russian allies in battle against Ukrainian forces — that is not the point. The group has a much more ambitious objective. It seeks, like the World War II era Axis Powers of Germany, Italy and Japan, “a new order of things,” in which each country can claim “its own proper place.” Discontented with an international system they believe denies them the status and freedom of action they deserve by virtue of their power and civilizations, they are united in the desire to change it. … Indeed, the gathering in Beijing suggests that the axis, rather than withering following the war in Iran in June, has momentum. Its members sense an opportunity.” [NYTimes]
Laying Blame: In The Times of Israel, Menachem Rosensaft, who teaches a genocide law course at Cornell Law School, pushes back against the International Association of Genocide Scholars’ recent passage of a resolution labeling Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide. “Nowhere in the IAGS resolution is there even an allusion to, let alone explicit mention of, the facts that it is Hamas, not Israel, that has used Palestinian civilians in Gaza, including children, as human shields; that it was Hamas, not Israel, that established military installations behind schools and hospitals, making them legitimate targets in Israel’s wholly legitimate efforts to eliminate the threat posed by such military installations; that by all reliable accounts, Hamas bears more than its fair share of responsibility for preventing the distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza.” [TOI]
Word on the Street
The State Department announced sanctions on Al Haq, the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights over the groups’ legal moves against Israel at the International Criminal Court…
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that he had advised European countries against their push for Palestinian statehood, saying that such a move would cause “reciprocal actions” — such as Israeli annexation moves — and “would make a ceasefire [in Gaza] harder”; Rubio’s comments came as Finland joined the group of European nations that issued a declaration in support of a two-state solution following a French- and Saudi-led conference in July on the issue…
The U.S. is mulling restrictions on diplomats from several countries, including Brazil, Iran and Sudan, who are traveling to New York later this month for the U.N. General Assembly; among the restrictions under consideration is banning Iranian diplomats from shopping at big-box stores such as Costco and Sam’s Club…
President Donald Trump hosted tech leaders, including Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Google co-founder Sergey Brin on Thursday at the White House; Brin was later photographed with Trump in the Oval Office…
The Wall Street Journal spotlights the tensions between Trump and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who has opposed key pieces of the president’s legislative agenda and increasingly finds himself at odds with GOP leadership…
Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA) filed a resolution to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) for “promoting and cheering on terrorism and antisemitism at the People’s Conference for Palestine.” Carter is a candidate for Senate in Georgia…
Former Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) is weighing a congressional bid in Florida’s 19th District, as Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) vacates the seat to run for governor…
Elias Rodriguez, the Chicago man accused of killing two Israeli Embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, pleaded not guilty to a series of felony charges related to the May attack…
The New York Times profiles author Sam Sussman, whose soon-to-be-released novel Boy from the North Country mirrors his own life as the potential son of singer Bob Dylan…
Argentinian prosecutors filed charges against the daughter and son-in-law of a senior Nazi official who served as financial advisor to Adolf Hitler before fleeing to Argentina with looted artwork; the couple was charged with hiding the looted “Portrait of a Lady” by Italian painter Giuseppe Ghislandi, as well as nearly two dozen Matisse works…
In a new interview with the popular Israeli Telegram channel Abu Ali Express, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to a question asking if Israel could announce the war over in Rafah and allow civilians back into the city, saying, “It’s a good idea and it’s not theoretical … We are doing work on the ground”; Netanyahu declined to respond to whether the war would end before Israel’s next election, which is set for over a year from now could take place earlier in 2026…
Israel’s national basketball team fell short in its EuroBasket tournament matchup against Slovenia; the team, led by Deni Avdija, will next face Italy or Greece…
In his first visit to Qatar since Iran launched ballistic missiles at the U.S. air base in Qatar, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani on Thursday in Doha; Araghchi also met with senior Hamas officials living in Qatar…
Iran’s Foreign Ministry said it had downgraded its diplomatic relations with Australia following the expulsion of Tehran’s ambassador to Canberra and three other Iranian diplomats over Iran’s involvement in attacks on Jewish sites in Melbourne and Sydney…
Warren Bass, who previously worked at the Pentagon as director of speechwriting and a senior advisor to former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, is joining The Washington Institute for Near East Policy as director of communications and senior fellow…
Mia Ehrenberg is joining the Democratic National Committee as senior spokesperson…
Holocaust survivor David Schaecter, a co-founder of the Holocaust Memorial Miami Beach, died at 96…
Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, whose most well-known work was a deep dive into Nazi doctors during the Holocaust, died at 99…
Joshua Abram, a co-founder of the NeueHouse coworking space, died at 62…
Philanthropist Harold Matzner, the longtime chair of the Palm Springs International Film Festival, died at 88…
Pic of the Day
Israeli President Isaac Herzog (left) met on Thursday with Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican. In a readout following the meeting, Herzog said the two discussed, “first and foremost, the need and duty to free the hostages and bring them home.”
Birthdays
Co-founder and chairman of Murray Hill Properties in NYC, Norman Sturner turns 85 on Saturday…
FRIDAY: Author, educator, and activist, Jonathan Kozol turns 89… Rabbi emeritus of Congregation Rinat Yisrael in Teaneck, N.J., and rosh yeshiva of the Torah Academy of Bergen County, Rabbi Yosef Adler turns 74… Judge of the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, JoAnne Fishman Kloppenburg turns 72… COO of The New York Public Library, she has been married to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) since 1980, Iris Weinshall turns 72… Principal at Watershed Associates, he is a negotiation consultant, Stuart Shlossman… Heidi Beth Massey… New York-based real estate developer, Jacob Frydman turns 68… Judge of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, for the Southern District of Florida, Laurel Myerson Isicoff turns 68… Investigative journalist, Yevgenia Albats turns 67… Member of the Knesset until 2023, she is the first woman in the IDF promoted to major general (the IDF’s second highest rank), Orna Barbivai turns 63… Canadian lawyer, investor and business executive, he is the co-founder and chairman of Israeli AI company Aiola, Mitch Garber turns 61… Nationally syndicated newspaper columnist and a senior editor at Reason magazine, Jacob Z. Sullum turns 60… Chief assistant district attorney in Manhattan until 2021, now a criminal defense attorney, Karen Friedman Agnifilo turns 59… Entrepreneur and investor, he is the chairman of Mentored, an education technology platform, Eric Aroesty… Managing editor for politics and legal affairs at USA Today, Holly Rosenkrantz… Senior rabbi of Temple Sholom in Vancouver, B.C., and past chair of Reform Rabbis of Canada, Rabbi Dan Moskovitz turns 55… Academy Award-winning filmmaker, Ari Devon Sandel turns 51… Member of the Knesset for the Yisrael Beiteinu party, Yulia Malinovsky turns 50… Payroll specialist at Topaz Financial Services, Jeremy C. Frankel… Voice actor for English versions of anime, animation and video games, Maxwell Braden Mittelman turns 35… Director in the D.C. office of Baron Public Affairs LLC, Jeremy Furchtgott… Founder of Bangalore-based Catoff, Anthony (Tony) Klor… NYC-based director of strategic initiatives and director of IPF Atid, both at Israel Policy Forum, Shanie Reichman turns 30… Shoshanna Liebman…
SATURDAY: Retired 36-year member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Sander Levin (D-MI) turns 94… CMadelon “Madi” Portugal… Member of the New York State Assembly from 1981 until the end of 2024, Helene Weinstein turns 73… Oncologist and bioethicist, he is the older brother of Rahm and Ari, Ezekiel Jonathan “Zeke” Emanuel turns 68… Co-founder in 2008 of Kol HaNeshamah: The Center for Jewish Life and Enrichment and co-author of a siddur, Dr. Adena Karen Berkowitz… Founding managing director at Olympus Capital, Daniel R. Mintz… Former governor of New Jersey from 2010 until 2018, and two-time candidate for president of the U.S., Chris Christie turns 63… Toronto-based publisher and entrepreneur, she serves on the board of governors of Shalem College, Elisa Morton Palter… Rabbi of Temple Shalom in Louisville, Ky., since 2016, Beth Jacowitz Chottiner turns 61… City treasurer of Southfield, Mich., Irv “Moishe” Lowenberg… Chess Master since age 14, now a FIDE Grandmaster, Ben Finegold turns 56… National director at AIPAC, Joseph S. Richards… Acting president and CEO of the JCC Association of North America until this past July, earlier this week she was named as chief development officer at the Ad Council, Jennifer Mamlet… Chief communications officer at Bloomberg LP, Jason Schechter… Israeli film, television and stage actor, Amos Tamam turns 48… Author, he won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his novel The Netanyahus, Joshua Cohen turns 45… Former rabbi at Beth El Synagogue in Minneapolis for 14 years, now a consultant, Avi S. Olitzky… Senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, he is a veteran of the IDF and an AIPAC alum, Daniel Flesch… Communications director at the William F. Buckley, Jr. Institute at Yale University, Ari Schaffer… Australian-born entrepreneur, now living in NYC, he is the co-founder of two start-ups, Ben Pasternak turns 26… Actor whose career started at 8 years old, Asher Dov Angel turns 23…
SUNDAY: Palm Beach, Fla., resident, the school at the Westchester (N.Y.) Jewish Center bears her name, Beverly Cannold turns 100… Considered one of the “Founding Mothers” of NPR, she is now a special correspondent on NPR’s “Morning Edition,” Susan Stamberg turns 87… Member of the U.K.’s House of Lords, Baron Andrew Zelig Stone turns 83… Longtime political columnist for Time magazine and author of the novel Primary Colors, Joe Klein turns 79… Color commentator for New York Yankees radio broadcasts since 2005, Suzyn Waldman turns 79… Former national political editor at the Washington Post, Maralee Schwartz… Owner and CEO of Gristedes Foods, John Catsimatidis turns 77… Pulitzer Prize-winning former national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, now director of literary journalism at UC-Irvine, Barry E. Siegel turns 76… Minneapolis-area school counselor and language arts teacher, Sandra Sevig… Russian-born mathematician, he is a professor emeritus at UCSD, he was formerly a professor at both Yale and University of Chicago, Efim Zelmanov turns 70… Chief rabbi of the U.K., he was knighted by King Charles III as part of the 2023 New Year Honours, Rabbi Sir Ephraim Yitzchak Mirvis turns 69… 2023 Nobel Prize laureate in medicine, professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Drew Weissman turns 66… Global co-chair of the Israel practice at Latham & Watkins until his retirement in 2023, Stuart Kurlander… President of Hofstra University since 2021, the first woman to hold this position, Susan Poser turns 62… Bahraini ambassador to the U.S. from 2008 until 2013, after the prior four years in the Bahraini Parliament, both firsts for a Jewish woman, Houda Ezra Ebrahim Nonoo turns 61… Personal finance journalist and CEO of the multimedia company HerMoney, Jean Sherman Chatzky turns 61… Vice provost at Yeshiva University, she is the author or co-author of 15 books on leadership, the Torah and spirituality, Erica Brown turns 59… Award-winning special writer at The Wall Street Journal and author of six best-selling books, Gregory Zuckerman turns 59… Part-owner of the NHL’s New Jersey Devils, the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers, the NFL’s Washington Commanders and MLB’s Cleveland Guardians, David S. Blitzer turns 56… Tax partner with RSM US LLP, where he serves as the national family office enterprise markets leader, Benjamin Berger… Screenwriter, producer and director of many successful films and TV shows, Alex Kurtzman turns 52… Author of three New York Times bestsellers and an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon turns 52… Rabbi of Baltimore’s Congregation Shomrei Emunah since 2009, Rabbi Binyamin Y. Marwick… Deputy chief of staff and legislative director for Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME), Eric B. Kanter…
The university said it will ‘immediately pursue’ disciplinary actions against several anti-Israel agitators, in shift attributed to reforms adopted in Trump admin settlement
Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty Images
Students enter campus on the first day of the fall semester at Columbia University in New York City, United States on September 2, 2025.
The first day of the new school year on Tuesday at Columbia University was met with a wary sense of relief from Jewish students and faculty, who returned to campus unsure whether recent reforms aimed at combating campus antisemitism would make any difference.
Scenes that have become commonplace on Columbia’s campus over the past two years — masked anti-Israel demonstrators barging into classrooms and the library banging on drums and chanting “Free Palestine” or hourslong demonstrations in the center of campus of more than 100 students calling for an “intifada revolution” — were nowhere to be seen.
Still, in quieter ways, there were moments behind the tall iron entrance gates reminiscent of the antisemitic turbulence that grew commonplace on the Morningside Heights campus since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks.
Three members of Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition of over 80 university student groups that Instagram banned earlier this year for promoting violence, protested Columbia Hillel’s club fair, distributing fliers urging Jewish students to “drop Hillel” because it “supports genocide.”
Elsewhere on campus, an organizer of the 2024 anti-Israel encampment movement, Cameron Jones, paraded a sign that read, “some of your classmates were IOF [Israeli Occupation Forces] criminals committing genocide in Palestine.”
Within hours, Columbia announced it had “initiated investigations into incidents that involve potential violations of the University’s Student Anti-Discrimination and Discriminatory Harassment Policies and University Rules.”
“The individuals involved are being notified that the University will immediately pursue its process for disciplinary action regarding their conduct,” the school said.
Jewish students and faculty praised Columbia’s swift response, which some attributed to the recent reforms, part of a deal made in July between the university and the Trump administration to restore the school’s federal funding that was slashed over the school’s alleged failure to address antisemitism.
Tal Zussman, a third year PhD student in computer science, called the quick investigation a “significant change from a year ago.”
“Last year’s first day of classes was marked by a protest that completely blocked the campus entrance and vandalism of [the sculpture] Alma Mater,” Zussman told Jewish Insider. “There were a few isolated instances [on Tuesday] that the university seems to be handling, but they were minor compared to last year’s drama. Hopefully things remain calm, but the university’s clear communication and quick response is a significant change from a year ago.” He said he felt that the change was “absolutely” due to the reforms.
Civil engineering professor Jacob Fish similarly described a “situation in and around campus [that] is much better compared to previous fall and spring.” Fish, the director of Kalaniyot, the university’s new initiative to bring Israeli researchers to the Columbia campus, lauded the program as a way to further “make a difference on campus,” he told JI.
“More than 200 first-year students participated in joyful and welcoming on campus activities,” Columbia’s Hillel director Brian Cohen told JI. “Three students disrupted these activities. We will continue to work with Columbia University’s rules process and hope that students who violate University rules continue to be held accountable.”
Columbia’s settlement with the federal government to restore some $400 million in federal funding that was slashed in March was met at the time with cautious optimism from Jewish leaders.
Some expressed hope that the settlement could lead to a safer environment for Jewish students following nearly two years of antisemitic protests and disruptions on campus in the aftermath of Oct. 7. Others, however, raised concerns that the settlement did not include key structural reforms to protect Jewish students.
Lishi Baker, a senior studying Middle East history and co-chair of the pro-Israel campus group Aryeh, told JI he is “optimistic” that Columbia’s recent changes, “particularly around discipline and policymaking, will make a big difference in improving life on campus for Jewish students and in preventing campus chaos.”
Jonathon Kahn, Columbia's associate dean of community and culture, signed a petition in 2021 accusing Israel of ‘settler colonialism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing’
InSapphoWeTrust / Flickr
Columbia University
Columbia University’s new hire for senior associate dean of community and culture was a signatory of a 2021 letter supporting the Palestinian “indigenous resistance movement” and rejecting the “the fiction of a ‘two-sided conflict.’” He is tasked with leading “meaningful dialogue” in his new position.
Jonathon Kahn signed on to the “Vassar Community Members’ Statement of Solidarity with the Palestinian People” while a professor of religion at Vassar College.
“We affirm that the Palestinian struggle is an indigenous resistance movement confronting settler colonialism, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing, and stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people,” the letter read. It came amid the May 2021 Israel-Hamas conflict, in which at least 13 Israelis were killed by Hamas rocket fire. The open letter also “includes a commitment to academic BDS, which, if put into effect, would restrict the educational opportunities and academic freedom of students and faculty who want to study about or in Israel.”
In his new role at Columbia, Kahn will “build and lead initiatives that cultivate curiosity, civic purpose and meaningful dialogue — facilitating student engagement with faculty outside the classroom, and helping reimagine what a liberal arts and sciences education can be in the next century,” Josef Sorett, dean of Columbia College and vice president for undergraduate education, said in a statement announcing the appointment on Tuesday.
Columbia University did not respond to an inquiry from Jewish Insider asking whether the school was aware of the petition before hiring Kahn.
The senior associate dean of community and culture role is a new position, created in the wake of increased antisemitism that has plagued Columbia’s campus since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks in Israel.
Kahn, who has no known social media presence, said in a statement sent to the Washington Free Beacon on Wednesday regarding the petition that he is “a Zionist” who “believe[s] deeply in Israel’s right to exist and thrive as a Jewish state” and also “deeply value[s] Palestinian life and Palestinians’ aspirations for statehood.”
“My beliefs are not fully captured in this letter that was authored more than four years ago,” he said. “I didn’t agree with every sentence then, and I still don’t. But I put my name to that letter at a time when I felt in deep disagreement with actions taken by the Israeli government and I wanted to signal my support for the Palestinian civilians who were suffering.”
Kahn’s appointment comes just over a month after Columbia reached a deal with the Trump administration, in which it has to pay a $200 million dollar settlement, to restore some $400 million in federal funding that was cut by the government in March due to the university’s record dealing with antisemitism.
A clear template is emerging of what the White House views as the ideal outcome here: deals, deals, deals — in classic Trump fashion
CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images
Students are seen on the campus of Columbia University on April 14, 2025, in New York City.
This week, the Trump administration demonstrated its endgame in its fight against campus antisemitism: hefty financial settlements.
Columbia University agreed to pay $221 million to the federal government to settle the administration’s civil rights investigation, and Brown University will pay $50 million to Rhode Island workforce development agencies to put a federal civil rights investigation to rest. Harvard is reportedly willing to spend up to $500 million on a settlement that is in the works. In return, frozen research grants to the tune of billions of dollars from the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Health and Human Services will be reinstated.
What these early settlements have made clear is that antisemitism is only one small part of President Donald Trump’s fight against elite universities. The agreements offer a window into the other right-wing culture war issues driving his administration’s hard-charging negotiations with America’s top academic institutions. The lengthy documents also have the universities ceding to White House demands on diversity, equity and inclusion programs, race-based hiring standards, transgender issues and international students.
In its agreement with the White House, Columbia pledged to hire an administrator to “serve as a liaison to students concerning antisemitism issues,” and promised other sought-after changes, such as the hiring of new faculty members in the Israel and Jewish studies department and additional oversight of the school’s Middle East studies program.
But the propositions agreed to by Columbia go much further. The school pledged not to use racial preferences in admissions and promised to share admissions and hiring data with the federal government. The university also said it will allow any women who want it to have access to “single-sex housing” and “all-female sports, locker rooms and showering facilities,” a reference to Trump’s opposition to the inclusion of transgender women in women’s sports.
Brown’s settlement agreement is much more overt about the transgender issues — they’re the first issues addressed, above antisemitism. Below, Brown promised to take “significant, proactive, effective steps to combat antisemitism and ensure a campus environment free from harassment and discrimination.” Like Columbia, Brown will provide the federal government with admissions and hiring data.
A clear template is emerging of what the White House views as the ideal outcome here: deals, deals, deals — in classic Trump fashion. The most important question for Jewish students to consider as they return to campus in the next few weeks, though, is whether these deals will bring meaningful change for them. Some pro-Israel students at Harvard and Columbia told Jewish Insider this week that they’re worried the financial settlements may not do much to create real change.
Trump can now boast that he’s racked up wins with Columbia and Brown, and maybe even Harvard soon. Whether the deals lead to a calmer campus environment next year free of discrimination against Jewish students remains to be seen.
Jewish students said their ‘support is contingent on enforcement’ and called the deal ‘not the end of the story’ but ‘an important start’
CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images
Students are seen on the campus of Columbia University on April 14, 2025, in New York City.
Jewish leaders on and off Columbia University’s campus praised the settlement reached last week between the university and the Trump administration to restore some $400 million in federal funding that was slashed in March due to the Ivy League’s record dealing with antisemitism.
While some Jewish leaders, students and alumni are taking a wait-and-see-approach, others expressed cautious optimism that the deal could lead to a safer environment for Jewish students following nearly two years of antisemitic protests and disruptions on campus in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks in Israel.
“I am heartened to see the resolution agreement for several reasons,” Adam Lehman, president and CEO of Hillel International, told Jewish Insider last week. “It recognizes both the clear, egregious violations of the civil rights of Jewish students and staff at Columbia and Barnard [an affiliate of Columbia] during the past two academic years, and the concrete steps Columbia has recently pursued to address these issues.”
Those steps, publicized last week, included further incorporating the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism by requiring its Office of Institutional Equity to embrace the definition; appointing a Title VI coordinator to review alleged violations of the Civil Rights Act; requiring antisemitism training for all students, faculty and staff; and refusing to recognize or meet with Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition of over 80 university student groups that Instagram banned earlier this year for promoting violence.
The school also announced last week that disciplinary action and rules surrounding student protests would be moved out of the purview of the faculty-run University Senate and into the provost’s office, a move called for by pro-Israel students. Columbia also agreed to pay a $200 million settlement over three years to the federal government.
“Importantly, it also restores the university’s ability to pursue essential medical and scientific research with access to federal funding support,” Lehman said. “I hope and trust that the university will use this important resolution to see through its recent commitments to foster a campus environment that will be safer and more welcoming for Jewish students, and all students, moving forward.”
Still, some said that key reforms are missing from the deal, which falls short of several demands initially made by the Trump administration. Among the demands were putting the Middle Eastern, South Asian and African studies department and the Center for Palestine Studies under the purview of a senior vice provost, who would be appointed by the university to supervise course material and non-tenure faculty hiring, as well as the formation of a presidential search committee to replace acting President Claire Shipman.
In addition to the fine, the university has agreed to settle investigations brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for $21 million. A number of open Title VI investigations into the university alleging harassment of Jewish students will also be settled and the university will abide by laws banning the consideration of race in admissions and hiring. Columbia, which did not admit to wrongdoing in the deal, said it will continue to have “autonomy and authority over faculty hiring, admissions, and academic decision-making.”
“I’m on board [with the settlement] but my support is contingent on enforcement,” said Shoshana Aufzien, an incoming sophomore in the dual program between Barnard College and the Jewish Theological Seminary. At the same time, Aufzien said that “the scope of the settlement is unclear” and “many of the reforms mentioned are existing legal obligations” for recipients of federal funding, such as the appointment of a Title VI coordinator.
Lishi Baker, a rising Columbia senior studying Middle East history, called the settlement “an important moment for the Jewish community, Columbia, higher education and the United States more broadly. Getting federal funding back and committing to the work of positive reform within the university is a good thing,” Baker told JI.
“This deal is not the end of the story. It is an important start. Reforming Columbia for the better is a long-term endeavor that could never be covered in one deal, and need not be overly intertwined with the government.”
Eden Yadegar, a former president of the Columbia chapter of Students Supporting Israel who graduated in the spring with Middle East studies and modern Jewish studies degrees, told JI she is “grateful to the federal government for prioritizing the fight against antisemitism in higher education, and hope this deal is the beginning of what will be sustained change at Columbia.”
“I’m holding my breath to see if and how things will change for Jewish and Israeli students in September. There is undoubtedly plenty more work to do and the Jewish community is not going to back down from doing it and holding Columbia accountable,” Yadegar said.
The Anti-Defamation League called the settlement “an important next step in fighting antisemitism and hate on their campus, along with restoring federal funding needed for critical research.”
But others raised concerns that the settlement does not include the structural reforms initially demanded in the Trump administration’s letter to Columbia in March.
“The deal stops short of necessary internal reforms, such as discipline and review of faculty leadership for those who participated in encampments or violated other campus policies,” Inbar Brand, who graduated in the spring from Columbia’s dual-degree program with Tel Aviv University, told JI. “Worst to me is that this deal is a closing of the Title VI investigation without any admission of guilt by Columbia.”
A source familiar with the negotiations told JI that “while the [Trump] administration spins the deal as a win, the reality is it caved and let Columbia pay a fine and continue business as usual under a toothless monitor with no meaningful reforms.”
The settlement “lets Columbia off the hook in advance of presidential selection, meaning [that there’s] no incentive to pick a president committed to reform,” the source said, referring to the ongoing search for a permanent president.
The Trump administration is in talks with several other universities that have faced similar funding cutoffs, including Harvard, Cornell and Northwestern.
The university ‘does not admit to wrongdoing’ despite reaching the agreement, Acting President Claire Shipman said
JEENAH MOON/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Columbia University acting President Claire Shipman speaks during the Commencement Ceremony at Columbia University in New York on May 21, 2025.
Columbia University announced on Wednesday that it reached a deal with the Trump administration to restore some $400 million in federal funding that was cut by the government in March due to the university’s record dealing with antisemitism since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks in Israel.
Under the terms of the deal, Columbia agreed to pay a $200 million settlement over three years to the federal government. In addition, the university has agreed to settle investigations brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for $21 million. A number of open civil rights investigations into the university alleging harassment of Jewish students will also be settled under the terms of the agreement, according to which the university will also abide by laws banning the consideration of race in admissions and hiring.
Columbia said it will continue to have “autonomy and authority over faculty hiring, admissions, and academic decision-making.”
“While Columbia does not admit to wrongdoing with this resolution agreement, the institution’s leaders have recognized, repeatedly, that Jewish students and faculty have experienced painful, unacceptable incidents, and that reform was and is needed,” the university said in a statement.
“This agreement marks an important step forward after a period of sustained federal scrutiny and institutional uncertainty,” Claire Shipman, Columbia’s acting president, said in a statement. “The settlement was carefully crafted to protect the values that define us and allow our essential research partnership with the federal government to get back on track. Importantly, it safeguards our independence, a critical condition for academic excellence and scholarly exploration, work that is vital to the public interest.”
Brian Cohen, executive director of The Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life, Columbia’s Hillel, called the settlement “an important recognition of what Jewish students and their families have expressed with increasing urgency: antisemitism at Columbia is real, and it has had a tangible impact on Jewish students’ sense of safety and belonging and, in turn, their civil rights.”
“Acknowledging this fact is essential, and along with the new path laid out by the president and trustees, I am hopeful that today’s agreement marks the beginning of real, sustained change,” Cohen said in a statement. “This is not the end of the process, however it is a major step forward.”
The agreement comes days after Shipman publicized a list of commitments aimed at addressing antisemitism on campus. These included further incorporating the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism by requiring its Office of Institutional Equity to embrace the definition; appointing a Title VI coordinator to review alleged violations of the Civil Rights Act; requiring antisemitism training for all students, faculty and staff; and refusing to recognize or meet with Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition of over 80 university student groups that Instagram banned earlier this year for promoting violence. The school announced on Friday that disciplinary action and rules surrounding student protests would be moved out of the purview of the faculty-run University Senate and into the provost’s office, a move called for by pro-Israel students.
The terms of the settlement — which resulted from months of negotiations — diverge from a list of reforms that was demanded in the Trump administration’s letter to Columbia in March, which was initially agreed upon by the university but never finalized. The list included putting the Middle Eastern, South Asian and African studies department and the Center for Palestine Studies under the purview of a senior vice provost, who would be appointed by the university to supervise course material and non-tenure faculty hiring; as well as the formation of a presidential search committee to replace Shipman.
Pressed by CNN anchor Pamela Brown, Khalil said: ‘I hate the selective outrage of condemnation because this wouldn’t lead to a constructive conversation’
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who was released from ICE detention, speaks during a rally on the steps of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan on June 22, 2025 in New York City.
Anti-Israel activist Mahmoud Khalil, who was a prominent leader of the Columbia University protest movement, repeatedly declined to condemn Hamas in a CNN interview on Tuesday.
“It’s disingenuous to ask about condemning Hamas while Palestinians are the ones being starved now by Israel,” Khalil told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and Pamela Brown when asked whether he condemns the U.S.-designated terrorist organization. “It’s not condemning Oct. 6, where 260 Palestinians were killed by Israel before Oct. 7. I hate the selective outrage of condemnation because this wouldn’t lead to a constructive conversation.”
Khalil also accused the Trump administration of “weaponizing antisemitism” to “silence my speech” and denied that he engaged in any antisemitic activity.
Khalil, a U.S. green card holder, was detained in March with the Trump administration claiming that he posed adverse foreign policy consequences to the country, though he was never charged with a crime. Last month, Khalil was released from the immigration detention center where he had been held for three months after a district judge said it would be “highly, highly unusual” for the government to continue detaining a legal U.S. resident who was unlikely to flee and hadn’t been accused of any violence.
In response to Khalil’s remarks, the Department of Homeland Security doubled down on its allegations against him.
“Mahmoud Khalil refuses to condemn Hamas because he IS a terrorist sympathizer not because DHS ‘painted’ him as one,” DHS wrote on X. “He ‘branded’ himself as antisemite through his own hateful behavior and rhetoric.”
“It is a privilege to be granted a visa or green card to live and study in the United States of America,” the DHS post continued. “The Trump Administration acted well within its statutory and constitutional authority to detain Khalil, as it does with any alien who advocates for violence, glorifies and supports terrorists, harasses Jews, and damages property.”
Just one day after his release, Khalil, who grew up in Syria but is of Palestinian descent, appeared at a rally in New York City organized by a group accused of ties to the Iranian regime protesting the U.S.’ airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Plus, Huckabee resolves Israeli visa squabble
Rami Alsayed/NurPhoto via Getty Images
The President of the Syrian Arab Republic, Ahmad Al-Sharaa, delivers a speech at the People's Palace during the swearing-in ceremony of the new government, in Damascus, Syria, on March 29, 2025.
Good Monday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on the resolution of tensions between U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and Israel’s Interior Ministry over visa hurdles faced by Christian Zionists, and talk to Sen. Mark Warner about the American strikes last month targeting Iran’s nuclear program. We preview the House Financial Services Committee‘s upcoming vote on Rep. Mike Lawler‘s legislation conditioning the repeal of Syria sanctions, and cover Columbia University’s announcement that its faculty-run University Senate will no longer have oversight over student disciplinary procedures. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Jacob Frey, Adam Katz and Yoav Segev.
What We’re Watching
- The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations kicks off a three-day mission to Israel today.
- Oral arguments in Harvard‘s lawsuit against the Trump administration‘s freezing of approximately $3 billion in federal funds begin today in Boston.
- Lawmakers in Texas return to Austin today for the start of a special legislative session that will take up, among other issues, potential statewide redistricting that could potentially give Republicans an additional five House seats but may make other safe GOP districts more competitive.
- Israel launched fresh drone strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen earlier today, days after a ballistic missile fired by the Iran-backed terror group triggered sirens across central Israel.
- We’re keeping an eye on Iranian nuclear talks, following an announcement this morning from Iran’s Foreign Ministry that Tehran’s deputy foreign minister will meet this Friday in Istanbul with his counterparts from the U.K., France and Germany to continue negotiations. Over the weekend, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with senior Iranian official Ali Larijani.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S JOSH KRAUSHAAR
A newly released CNN poll, conducted this month, illustrates the resilience of a hawkish DNA within the Republican Party and among its voters even amid the rise of an isolationist strain that has sought to gain influence in the GOP during President Donald Trump’s second term.
The poll asked respondents: “Do you think the United States should or should not take the leading role among all other countries in the world in trying to solve international problems?” Overall, 43% took the more active approach, while 56% took a more isolationist view.
Republicans, however, remained the strongest advocates of a muscular American role in world affairs, with 52% supporting America taking a leading role, with 47% opposed. By contrast, just 42% of Democrats and 39% of independents shared the more hawkish worldview.
Notably, the shift in more isolationist sentiment was almost entirely driven by Democrats and independents since the last CNN survey in March, which found majority support for significant American global engagement. In the March survey, a 57% majority of Democrats preferred more American involvement in the world, a number that dropped 15 points in the last four months. The Republican share of those preferring American engagement remained steady at 52%.
The results from the CNN polls suggest there’s a more committed core of Republican-voting hawks that is more resilient than the shifting political winds, whereas the Democratic foreign policy worldview appears more dependent on partisanship and what’s happening in the news at the time.
christian controversy
Netanyahu’s office resolves high-profile visa issue for American Christian groups
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office resolved a dispute between U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and Israeli Interior Minister Moshe Arbel over the denial of visas to workers and volunteers for several evangelical Christian organizations, two sources involved in the matter told Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov on Sunday. Huckabee sent a letter to Arbel last Wednesday, expressing “great distress” and “profound disappointment” that after the two met to discuss the matter earlier this year, the Interior Ministry’s visa department continued to conduct investigations into American and other evangelical organizations seeking visas for their workers.
Solution found: “A solution has been reached to the satisfaction of all parties. The evangelical Christian organizations active in Israel, which represent the vast majority of Zionists in the world today, will receive all of the visas they need through a streamlined and efficient application process,” Calev Myers, the attorney for the organizations told JI on Monday. Hours before the issue was resolved, a source in the Prime Minister’s Office told JI, “this is something that we consider to be of urgent importance. We have every intention of solving this problem very quickly … It is being handled with the proper sensitivity between the Prime Minister’s Office and the embassy.”
ON THE HILL
House committee to vote on Lawler bill modifying Syria sanctions
The House Financial Services Committee is set to consider legislation by Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) this week that aims to create oversight and set conditions for lifting sanctions on Syria, but stops short of full repeal of the 2019 Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act sanctions bill that other lawmakers are pushing on a bipartisan basis, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Why it matters: That the House is moving forward with Lawler’s legislation, which sets conditions for waiving Caesar Act sanctions, rather than the bipartisan Caesar Act repeal effort may indicate a level of continued skepticism from some House members about the prospect of full sanctions relief for the new Syrian government pushed by the Trump administration.
REVERSING COURSE
National Education Association rejects ADL boycott proposal
The National Education Association, the largest teachers’ union in the country, announced on Friday that it would not cut ties with the Anti-Defamation League, declining to implement a contentious resolution approved by its governing body earlier this month that sought to target the Jewish civil rights organization, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
What is said: “After consideration, it was determined that this proposal would not further NEA’s commitment to academic freedom, our membership or our goals,” the union’s board of directors said in a statement. The decision came nearly two weeks after the measure was adopted by the NEA’s representative assembly, its annual leadership gathering that drew more than 6,000 union delegates. “There is no doubt that antisemitism is on the rise. Without equivocation, NEA stands strongly against antisemitism. We always have and we always will,” the NEA’s board wrote. “In this time of division, fighting antisemitism, anti-Arab racism, and other forms of discrimination will take more resources, not fewer. We are ready.”
WORDS WITH WARNER
Sen. Mark Warner: U.S. strikes on Iran were a ‘success,’ but what happens next is critical
Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) told Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod on Friday that he’s inclined to view the Trump administration’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities as a “success,” if negotiations with Tehran resume and barring substantial future retaliation from Iran.
What he’s saying: “I will acknowledge the successfulness of the Israeli attacks and how back-foot the regime was. The fact that they didn’t launch the thousands of missiles,” Warner told JI on the sidelines of the Aspen Security Forum. “I was concerned about an attack that didn’t bring Congress along. And I do think there was a huge process foul when the Gang of Eight wasn’t notified and the Republicans [were] — Trump[’s first administration] never did that — but I have never contested the success. … If the current status quo is the same a year from now and it actually leads towards further negotiation — success.”
CREDIT WHERE DUE
Sen. Chris Coons: U.S. strikes on Iran could ultimately be a positive step
Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) said on Friday that the U.S. strikes on Iran could ultimately produce a positive outcome, a softening of the Delaware senator’s previous skepticism, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports from the Aspen Security Forum.
What he said: “The strike on Iran is one that I disagreed with because of the process, the lack of consultation with Congress, the partisan way that Republicans were notified at the most senior levels [and] Democrats were not,” Coons said at the conference. He said he also had not expected that the administration would be able to avoid significant Iranian retaliation and an escalating conflict. “I frankly, did not believe that we would end up in the period we seem to be in where a counter-strike by Iran against American soldiers and interests has not yet come,” Coons continued.
Also speaking at the forum: Retired Gen. David Petraeus, the former director of the CIA and head of U.S. Central Command, said on Friday that, in the post Oct. 7, 2023, environment, Israel will no longer tolerate threats to its security throughout the region, including a resumption of Iran’s nuclear program.
Differing worldview: Former National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan suggested at the Aspen Security Forum on Friday that the U.S. strikes on Iran had not been necessary and didn’t accomplish the fundamental goal of permanently stopping Iran’s nuclear program.
WINDS OF CHANGE
Columbia moves student disciplinary authority out of University Senate
In a move called for by pro-Israel students at Columbia University, the school announced on Friday that disciplinary action and rules surrounding student protests would be moved out of the purview of the faculty-run University Senate and into the provost’s office, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
Student reaction: “This is the most encouraging and commendable action taken by Columbia’s administration to address the systemic problems within the university since [the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks],” Noa Fay, a graduate student entering her last year in Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, told JI. “Revoking the University Senate’s power over disciplinary and rule-making procedures has been top of the institutional reform list for many Columbians who wish to see our university restored to order and excellence.”
Worthy Reads
The Trump Whisperer: The New Yorker’s Antonia Hitchens profiles Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, looking at the former Cantor Fitzgerald CEO’s yearslong friendship with President Donald Trump. “Lutnick and President Donald Trump speak on the phone most nights, at around one in the morning, just after Lutnick gets in bed. They talk about ‘real stuff,’ like Canadian steel tariffs, Lutnick told me, and also about ‘nothing,’ which he summarized as ‘sporting events, people, who’d you have dinner with, what was this guy like, can you believe what this guy did, what’s the TV like, I saw this on TV, what’d you think of what this guy said on TV, what did you think about my press conference, how about this Truth?’ Of course, Lutnick said, ‘Trump has other people he calls late at night.’ But does he have other people he always calls?” [NewYorker]
Confronting Cambridge: The Atlantic’s Franklin Foer does a deep dive into the tenure of Harvard President Alan Garber, who has handled much of the fallout from the school’s handling of post-Oct. 7 campus antisemitism as well as Harvard’s legal battles with the Trump administration. “Even as Harvard sits on the receiving end of vitriolic attacks from the right, Garber has turned inward — willing to engage with Harvard’s harshest critics and to admit that even bad-faith attacks sometimes land on uncomfortable truths. He’s treated the university’s crisis as an opportunity, leveraging the looming threat of Trump to make changes that would have been politically impossible in less ominous times. The leader of Harvard, bane of MAGA, agrees with much of the underlying substance of the MAGA critique of higher education, at least when stripped of its rhetorical froth and fury. He knows that elite higher education is suffering a crisis of legitimacy, one that is, in no small measure, of its own making, because it gives fodder to those who caricature it as arrogant and privileged.” [TheAtlantic]
The Gaza Debate: In eJewishPhilanthropy, Michael Berenbaum and Menachem Z. Rosensaft respond to genocide scholar Omer Bartov’s recent New York Times op-ed alleging Israel is engaging in genocide. “We are not arguing that this war has always been waged appropriately or that it has been waged proportionally. Nor do we suggest that Israel or any other country involved in warfare cannot be accused of or should not be held accountable for other alleged violations of international law, including crimes against humanity, war crimes and even ethnic cleansing. But those are separate questions from whether a genocide is being committed; and unless such alleged violations of international law satisfy the elements, including specific intent, as defined in Article II of the Convention, they do not constitute genocide.” [eJP]
Cowed on Campus: In Tablet, Eric Kaufmann looks at recent survey data from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression that indicates shifts in the behaviors of Jewish college students as campus climates become increasingly politicized in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks and ensuing war in Gaza. “A closer look at the 2024 data shows that the pro-Palestinian tent encampments had a big impact: Before they went up on April 17, 28% of Ivy League Jewish students self-censored. Afterward, 40% did. Across all institutions in the FIRE data, statistical analysis shows that the encampments increased Jewish self-censorship while reducing it for conservatives. Conservative speech has for years been the least free of any major demographic, but Jews have now converged with them. In the Ivy League, Jews now self-censor more than conservatives do.” [Tablet]
Word on the Street
Unnamed Trump administration officials are reportedly angry with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s recent actions, telling Axios that the prime minister has “acted like a madman” who “bombs everything all the time”; the White House officials expressed concerns that Netanyahu’s actions could “undermine” President Donald Trump’s efforts in the region…
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) met for an hour on Friday with New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani but did not issue an endorsement for the candidate; a spokesperson for Jeffries said the two had a “constructive, candid and community-centered” conversation that also included “a variety of other important issues, including public safety, rising antisemitism, gentrification and the importance of taking back the House in 2026”…
Reps. Mark Alford (R-MO), Don Davis (D-NC), Tony Gonzales (R-TX), John Carter (R-TX), Sam Graves (R-MO) and Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ) introduced a resolution congratulating the fighter and bomber wings involved in the U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities…
Sens. John Curtis (R-UT) and Jacky Rosen (D-NV) introduced a resolution commemorating the anniversaries of the bombings of the Israeli Embassy in Argentina and the Buenos Aires AMIA Jewish community center; in the House, Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) and Tony Gonzales (R-TX) introduced a resolution condemning the AMIA bombing…
Reps. Jefferson Shreve (R-IN), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Bill Huizenga (R-MI), Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL) and Mark Messmer (R-IN) introduced a bill requiring the administration to provide a strategy to counter Iran and Hezbollah’s influence in Latin America…
Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano, who in 2022 lost to Gov. Josh Shapiro in the commonwealth’s gubernatorial race, teased a potential rematch, posting different logos for a “Doug Mastriano for Governor” campaign…
Minnesota’s statewide Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party endorsed state Sen. Omar Fateh, a democratic socialist, over incumbent Mayor Jacob Frey…
The Wall Street Journal spotlights the efforts of Robert Kraft’s Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, under the leadership of Adam Katz, to use analytics to identify digital trends in antisemitism, craft countermessaging and share data with social media platforms and universities…
Harvard Business School graduate Yoav Segev filed a lawsuit against the university and its police department, alleging that both failed to protect him from being assaulted by anti-Israel campus activists and that school officials obstructed an investigation into the incident…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought medical attention over the weekend after falling ill from eating spoiled food; the prime minister will work from home until Tuesday while he recovers…
Israel, working with the U.S., reportedly delivered aid to the Syrian Druze city of Sweida as a ceasefire reached late last week appeared to hold; more than 1,100 are believed to be dead in the sectarian violence that drew in Syrian government forces…
Israel will not renew the visa of Jonathan Whittall, the head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the West Bank and Gaza, citing his “biased and hostile conduct against Israel”…
Hamas officials in Gaza claimed at least 85 people were killed trying to access humanitarian aid near the Zikim border crossing; the IDF, which said it fired “warning shots” to remove an “immediate threat,” disputed the number, saying the “reported number of casualties does not align with the existing information”…
The Wall Street Journal looks at the logistical and operational challenges facing the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation amid increasing concerns over humanitarian aid distribution in the enclave…
Senior Christian leaders from Jerusalem, including Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, visited the sole Catholic church in Gaza, which was damaged by an Israeli strike last week that also killed three people…
Brig. Gen. (res.) Giora Even Epstein, the most decorated Israeli Air Force fighter pilot in the country’s history, died at 87…
Pic of the Day
Israeli President Isaac Herzog (right) received the credentials of Polish Ambassador to Israel Maciej Hunia. Hunia’s arrival marks the first time in four years that Warsaw has had an ambassador posted to Israel. In addition to Hunia, Herzog also received the credentials of Malta’s new envoy to Israel, Ambassador Claude Bonello.
Birthdays
Actress and producer, Alysia Reiner turns 55…
Laureate of the 1992 Nobel Prize in chemistry, Rudolph A. Marcus turns 102… President at Admar Group, Henry Dean Ostberg turns 97… Retired CEO of Sony/ATV, a large music publishing firm, he is a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Martin Bandier turns 84… Professor emeritus in the Department of Physics at Bar-Ilan University, he won the Israel Prize in 2018, Shlomo Havlin turns 83… Director of the Center for the Political Future at USC, Robert Shrum turns 82… Criminal defense attorney, known for representing many politicians, celebrities and organized crime defendants, Benjamin Brafman turns 77… Former member of the U.K.’s House of Commons, now in the House of Lords, Baroness Susan Veronica Kramer turns 75… U.S. senator (R-WY), John Barrasso turns 73… Chairman and CEO at Quantitative Financial Strategies, Sanford “Sandy” Jay Grossman turns 72… Endocrinologist and professor at Columbia University’s medical school, she is an honorary president of NYC’s Central Synagogue, Shonni Joy Silverberg, MD… Professor at Columbia Law School and daughter of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Jane Carol Ginsburg turns 70… Brooklyn resident, Irene Ostrovsky… Comedian and actor, best known for his five seasons on “Saturday Night Live” ending in 1990, Jon Lovitz turns 68… Former chief rabbi of Moscow, his opposition to the Ukraine war forced him to leave Russia, Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt turns 62… Literary agent at the William Morris Endeavor book department, Eric Matthew Simonoff turns 58… Professor of astronomy at MIT and winner of a 2013 MacArthur genius award, Sara Seager turns 54… Brazilian fashion designer best known for avant-garde designs and eclectic prints, Alexandre Herchcovitch turns 54… CEO of Fanatics, licensed sports merchandise and digital sports platform, Michael G. Rubin turns 53… Founder, president and CEO of Securing America’s Future Energy (SAFE) and the Electrification Coalition, Raphael “Robbie” Diamond… Rabbi of Congregation Bais Naftali in Los Angeles, his YouTube channel has over 4.6 million views, Rabbi Yoel Gold… Online media personality and director of product management at Electronic Arts (EA) in Vancouver, British Columbia, Veronica Belmont turns 43… CEO of Women of Reform Judaism since 2023, Rabbi Liz P.G. Hirsch… Clinical social worker, Aniko Gomory-Pink… Entrepreneur and political activist, Chloé Simone Valdary turns 32… Policy advisor at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, Zachary A. Marshall… Recruiter at Tines, Rachel Elizabeth Nieves… Attorney in Madrid and secretary general of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain until 2021, Elias Cohen…
Pro-Israel students have been advocating for the move since the faculty Senate refused to discipline anti-Israel student protesters
Mary Altaffer-Pool/Getty Images
Student protesters camp on the campus of Columbia University on April 30, 2024 in New York City.
In a move called for by pro-Israel students at Columbia University, the school announced on Friday that disciplinary action and rules surrounding student protests would be moved out of the purview of the faculty-run University Senate and into the provost’s office.
“This is the most encouraging and commendable action taken by Columbia’s administration to address the systemic problems within the university since [the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks],” Noa Fay, a graduate student entering her last year in Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, told Jewish Insider.
“Revoking the University Senate’s power over disciplinary and rule-making procedures has been top of the institutional reform list for many Columbians who wish to see our university restored to order and excellence.”
Critics of the University Senate say that since Oct. 7 and the ensuing protests that have roiled Columbia’s campus, the 111-elected member body has blocked discipline against anti-Israel protesters and removed protest regulations aimed at protecting Jewish students.
Earlier this week, when the university released a list of commitments to address antisemitism on campus, several Jewish students expressed concern that structural reform to the University Senate was missing.
Fay, a student member of the Columbia-SIPA Anti-Hate Task Force, suggested to JI earlier this week that changes to the University Senate are one of the most important measures that could create a safer climate for Jewish students “as it has served most reliably and forcefully to protect those guilty of antisemitic racism at school.”
Last August, the University Senate passed revised guidelines for the Rules of University Conduct that removed an interim demonstration policy that the university implemented following disruptive — and sometimes violent — Gaza solidarity encampments that spring, put in place to restrict the location and times that protests were allowed.
Lishi Baker, a rising senior at Columbia studying Middle East history, wrote in a 2024 Columbia Spectator op-ed that the University Senate had refused to let Jewish students share their experiences of antisemitism on campus when the university’s task force on antisemitism presented its second report to the body.
“I was one of the students asked by the task force to speak,” Baker wrote. “However, when the task force co-chairs informed members of the Senate leadership of their desire to bring students, those Senate leaders dismissed the idea outright.”
The Senate has been under university review since April. The decision by Columbia’s trustees to diminish the Senate’s power comes as university leadership is in the final stages of talks with the Trump administration to make a deal that would restore some $400 million in federal funding that was cut by the government in March due to the university’s record dealing with antisemitism.
But the changes announced by the university won praise from the ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt and the school’s Hillel executive director
JEENAH MOON/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Columbia University acting President Claire Shipman speaks during the Commencement Ceremony at Columbia University in New York on May 21, 2025.
As Jewish students and alumni at Columbia University await the final details of the university’s prospective deal with the Trump administration, some are expressing skepticism that a list of commitments announced by the school this week to address antisemitism on campus would have a significant impact on protecting Jewish students.
The steps were publicized Tuesday by Columbia’s acting president, Claire Shipman, as the school works to reach a deal with the Trump administration to restore some $400 million in federal funding that was cut by the government in March due to the university’s record dealing with antisemitism since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks in Israel.
On Thursday, The New York Times reported that about 10 Columbia and Trump administration officials, including Shipman, met in Washington for roughly an hour. The White House confirmed that President Donald Trump has been fully briefed on the meeting but that negotiations were not finalized. According to a draft deal, Columbia would be required to pay a $200 million fine and commit to releasing admissions and staffing data to the federal government.
“The deal as it stands now lets Columbia off the hook relatively without a scratch,” Inbar Brand, who graduated in the spring from Columbia’s dual-degree program with Tel Aviv University, told Jewish Insider. “The school gets its money back without resolving the core issues in its governance and administrative structure that allowed for antisemitism to fester openly for so long on campus.”
“It’s disheartening that after all the pressure placed on Columbia by the Trump administration, they are pulling back exactly when it matters most,” Brand said.
The commitments already agreed upon by the university include further incorporating the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism by requiring its Office of Institutional Equity to embrace the definition; appointing a Title VI coordinator to review alleged violations of the Civil Rights Act; requiring antisemitism training for all students, faculty and staff; and refusing to recognize or meet with Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition of over 80 university student groups that Instagram banned earlier this year for promoting violence.
These diverge from a list of reforms that were demanded in the Trump administration’s letter to Columbia in March, which were initially agreed upon by the university but never finalized. These included putting the Middle Eastern, South Asian and African studies department and the Center for Palestine Studies under the purview of a senior vice provost, who would be appointed by the university to supervise course material and non-tenure faculty hiring; changes to the University Senate, which critics say has blocked discipline against anti-Israel protesters and removed protest regulations aimed at protecting Jewish students; and the formation of a presidential search committee to replace Shipman.
“An immense disappointment” is how Noa Fay, a graduate student entering her last year in Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, described the university’s latest commitments and prospective deal.
“Adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism is the only satisfactory aspect, and even that does not solve what has been the paramount issue at school since Oct. 7 — adherence to and enforcement of our own policies, rules and codes of conduct,” said Fay, a student member of the Columbia-SIPA Anti-Hate Task Force who last year received the Anti-Defamation League’s Levenson Family’s Defender of Democracy Award for her work to combat campus antisemitism.
Fay sees the outlines of a Trump administration deal as “largely symbolic” because it “establishes new policies and bureaucratic measures for reporting antisemitism without requiring Columbia to enact institutional reforms that would guarantee their effectuation,” she told JI.
The only measures that will accomplish a safe climate for Jewish students, Fay suggested, are those that were outlined in the Trump administration’s letter earlier this year, including “discipline [including expulsion] of culpable students and faculty; admissions reform; education and [changes to] the University Senate, as it has served most reliably and forcefully to protect those guilty of antisemitic racism at school.”
Lishi Baker, a rising senior at Columbia studying Middle East history and co-chair of the pro-Israel campus group Aryeh, echoed a call for the University Senate to be stripped of some of its power. “It’s the primary reason our governance is so bad and cannot continue to exist in its current form,” he told JI.
Baker said he’d like to see “a strong deal to restore federal funding in exchange for deep institutional reforms.”
“If we want to change our culture, we need the right structures in place to do so. For example, revealing hiring and admissions data is good but it doesn’t fundamentally change culture. We need to actually hire better, more responsible people, and this might require changing the hiring process,” Baker continued. “We need better policies, better accountability measures and stronger moral leadership. Adding antisemitism to a list of micro aggressions doesn’t do it for me — we have to fix the culture of excluding and litmus testing Jews for their connection to Israel.”
Eden Yadegar, a former president of the Columbia chapter of Students Supporting Israel who graduated in the spring with Middle East studies and modern Jewish studies degrees, told JI that “a deal that abandons reforming the institutions that have fostered antisemitism would be tantamount to abandoning Jewish students.”
“President Trump should not sign a deal of this framework,” Yadegar told JI. She wrote on X that the commitments are “good first steps” but believes her alma mater is “once again vying for a PR win.”
“The strategy?” Yadegar continued, “Elicit praise for quick fixes to pave the way for a deal that abandons the need for structural reform … I’m sick of being expected to praise the bare minimum from Columbia.”
Eliana Goldin, who graduated in the spring as a political science major with a dual degree from the Jewish Theological Seminary, expressed concern that if the steps are “taken as a win, it will distract from actually dealing with Columbia’s deep-rooted issues and can possibly lead to more antisemitism rather than less,” she told JI.
Goldin continued, “Essentially, if you don’t treat a problem at its roots, you might never treat the problem.”
The commitments received praise from Brian Cohen, the executive director of Columbia/Barnard Hillel – the Kraft Center for Jewish Life, as well as Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the ADL.
Cohen welcomed the steps taken by the university, “including the unequivocal recognition that there is an antisemitism problem on campus and that it has had a tangible impact on Jewish students’ sense of safety and belonging,” he wrote on X. “I hope this announcement marks the beginning of meaningful and sustained change,” said Cohen.
ADL chief Greenblatt wrote on X, “I applaud these commitments made by @Columbia, which will help restore the university as a welcoming place for Jewish and Israeli students and faculty.”
“Our hope is that Columbia can go from being an example of the worst of antisemitism on campus to being a model for what other colleges can do to combat antisemitism,” Greenblatt said.
While Trump has not yet responded to Columbia’s latest commitments, last week he told CNN that a deal was likely to happen. “We’re going to probably settle with Columbia. They want to settle very badly. There’s no rush,” Trump said.
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images
Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani (L) and Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani talk to US President Donald Trump as he prepares to leave at the end of the Qatari leg of his regional tour, at the Al-Udeid air base southwest of Doha on May 15, 2025.
Good Wednesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we cover yesterday’s antisemitism hearing on Capitol Hill with the leaders of Georgetown University, the City University of New York and the University of California, Berkeley, as well as the suspension of Georgetown professor Jonathan Brown following his call for Iran to strike the U.S. We also report on steps taken by Columbia University to try to reach a deal with the Trump administration on its handling of antisemitism and report from the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit in Pittsburgh. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Ambassador Mike Huckabee, Albert Bourla and Richard Attias.
What We’re Watching
- President Donald Trump is slated to host Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani tonight at the White House. More below.
- At the Aspen Security Forum this afternoon, Amos Yadlin, the former head of the IDF’s Intelligence Directorate; former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Mike Herzog; Brett McGurk, the former National Security Council coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa; and author and “Call Me Back” podcast host Dan Senor are set to take the stage for a conversation about Israel’s future.
- This morning in Washington, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is slated to hold a business meeting followed by a full committee hearing on State Department reform.
- This afternoon, the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Middle East and North Africa subcommittee is holding its own hearing on State Department management.
- Also today, Rep. Mark Harris (R-NC) is holding a press conference with other members of Congress calling for the National Education Association’s congressional charter to be revoked following the organization’s adoption of a measure effectively banning cooperation with the Anti-Defamation League.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH jI’S MELISSA WEISS
Ceasefire and hostage-release talks have been ongoing in Doha, Qatar, for the last week. But one of the most consequential meetings in the negotiations could be happening tonight in Washington, when President Donald Trump hosts Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani for dinner at the White House.
This continues a new tradition for Trump of hosting prominent Gulf royals who aren’t the heads of state of their respective countries for dinner at the White House. In March, Trump hosted a dinner in the White House’s State Dining Room for Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the United Arab Emirates’ national security advisor and chairman of several sovereign wealth funds.
Qatari officials have been in the U.S. all week. Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani was rumored to have met with Trump on the sidelines of the FIFA finals in New Jersey on Sunday, after being spotted in New York over the weekend.
White House Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, whose trip to Doha last week was postponed over stalled talks, told reporters over the weekend that he planned to meet with Qatari negotiators on the sidelines of the match. And Trump shared a suite with senior Qatari sports officials at the match, including Nasser bin Ghanim Al-Khelaifi, the president of the Paris Saint-Germain team who played in New Jersey on Sunday and chairman of beIN Sports, previously known as Al Jazeera Sport. (In a weekend interview at the FIFA match, Trump even noted Qatar’s “big presence.”)
Qatar also loomed large in Washington this week, where legislators on the House Education and the Workforce Committee pressed university leaders from Georgetown, CUNY and the University of California, Berkeley about their foreign funding sources during a hearing about antisemitism in higher education. (More below on the hearing.) Former Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA), one of Qatar’s top lobbyists in Washington, was seen sitting right behind Georgetown University interim President Robert Groves as Groves testified on Tuesday. The school has received over $1 billion from Qatar, and has a campus in Doha.
Qatar’s be-everywhere, invest-in-everything strategy has allowed Doha to gain footholds across the global economy and in diplomatic circles. And since the start of the war, it has sought to highlight its role as a facilitator of ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas, the latter of which Doha supports financially and diplomatically.
Doha has the power to push Hamas to accept a ceasefire. Whether tonight’s dinner will exact a change in Qatar’s approach to Hamas remains to be seen. The sit-down between Trump and the Qatari prime minister could change the tide in the 21-month war, or it could serve as yet another missed opportunity in a war full of stalemates and diplomatic posturing — with fresh casualties mounting on both sides and 50 hostages still languishing in captivity.
TESTIMONY TALK
Berkeley chancellor calls Hamas-endorsing professor a ‘fine scholar’ at antisemitism hearing
When the leaders of Georgetown University, the City University of New York and the University of California, Berkeley sat down on Tuesday morning to testify at a congressional hearing about antisemitism, they clearly came prepared, having learned the lessons of the now-infamous December 2023 hearing with the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and MIT, each of whom refused to outright say that calls for genocide violated their schools’ codes of conduct. Georgetown interim President Robert Groves, CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez and UC Berkeley Chancellor Rich Lyons were all quick to denounce antisemitism and even anti-Zionism at Tuesday’s House Education and Workforce Committee hearing examining the role of faculty, funding and ideology in campus antisemitism. But while the university administrators readily criticized antisemitism broadly, they struggled to apply that commitment directly to their field of academia, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Mind the gap: Lyons in particular offered a revealing look at the gulf between a university’s stated values and its difficulty in carrying them out. He was asked to account for the promotion of Ussama Makdisi, a Berkeley history professor who described the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks as “resistance” and later wrote on X that he “could have been one of those who broke the siege on October 7.” Why, Lyons was asked by Reps. Randy Fine (R-FL) and Lisa McClain (R-MI), did Berkeley announce last September that Makdisi had been named the university’s inaugural chair of Palestinian and Arab studies? Lyons first defended Makdisi: “Ussama Makdisi, Professor Makdisi, is a fine scholar. He was awarded that position from his colleagues based on academic standards,” Lyons said. Later, when McClain followed Fine’s line of questioning, Lyons went to great lengths to avoid criticizing Makdisi.
Given the boot: Jonathan Brown, a tenured Georgetown University professor who came under fire last month for a social media post in which he called for Iran to conduct a “symbolic strike” on a U.S. military base, has been placed on leave and removed as chair of the school’s Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies, Georgetown’s Groves said Tuesday at the congressional hearing.
CAMPUS BEAT
Columbia takes steps to reach Title VI deal with federal government
Columbia University announced on Tuesday it would implement several measures to confront antisemitism in an effort to reach a deal with the Trump administration to restore the $400 million in federal funding that was cut by the government in March due to the university’s record dealing with the issue, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
The measures: The steps include the university further incorporating the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism by requiring its Office of Institutional Equity to embrace the definition; appointing a Title VI coordinator to review alleged violations of the Civil Rights Act; requiring antisemitism training for all students, faculty and staff; and refusing to recognize or meet with “Columbia University Apartheid Divest,” a coalition of over 80 university student groups that Instagram banned for promoting violence.
MIKE’S MOMENT
Waltz commits to combating ‘pervasive antisemitism’ at U.N. during nomination hearing
Former White House National Security Advisor Mike Waltz laid out an aggressive approach to countering anti-Israel sentiment at the United Nations during his Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday to be U.S. ambassador to the global body, accusing the organization in his opening statement of “pervasive antisemitism,” Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
Setting goals: Waltz, a staunch supporter of Israel and an outspoken critic of Iran who was nominated for the U.N. post in May after being removed from his position as national security advisor, said he would seek to block “anti-Israel resolutions” in the General Assembly and would push for the dismantlement of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency over some of its employees’ involvement in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks.
SMART STATE
McCormick, Shapiro project unity at innovation summit aimed at spurring PA investment
Pennsylvania’s top lawmakers put up a united front on Tuesday to emphasize to the hundreds of tech and energy investors at Sen. Dave McCormick’s (R-PA) inaugural innovation summit the benefits of working with states that embrace bipartisanship and the national security imperatives of investing domestically, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports from Pittsburgh. The Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit brought top tech and energy executives to Carnegie Mellon University’s campus, home to one of the world’s most advanced AI programs. Tuesday’s gathering also included the state’s two leading Democrats, Gov. Josh Shapiro and Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), and President Donald Trump, all of whom praised the conference as a strategic way to promote U.S. investment to the scores of foreign and American leaders in attendance.
Better together: Amazon Web Services’ $20 billion investment last month in three computing and AI campuses in the Keystone State was “an indicator of all that we can be when we harness the new things that we have going for us, and when we have government and the private sector working together, not at odds, and when we pull in our educational institutions … in a way that really helps move Pennsylvania forward,” Shapiro said during a panel discussion with McCormick and AWS CEO Matt Garman.
STRAIGHT TALK
Huckabee calls on Israel to ‘aggressively investigate’ killing of American citizen in West Bank
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee on Tuesday called on Israel to “aggressively investigate” the death of Saif Musallet, a Palestinian-American man from Florida who was killed by Israeli settlers in the West Bank last Friday. In a statement posted to X, Huckabee called the incident a “criminal and terrorist act” and said “there must be accountability.” Musallet, 20, was attacked by Israeli settlers while visiting his family in Sinjil, a village north of Ramallah. The Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health reported a second man was also shot and killed during the incident, Jewish Insider’s Danielle Cohen-Kanik reports.
Weighing in: Democratic lawmakers in Washington also weighed in on the attack. Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL), a pro-Israel stalwart, said on Tuesday that he was “appalled and heartbroken” by the news, adding he had “repeatedly called on the Israeli government to address the growing number of violent attacks by Israeli settlers in the West Bank.” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) called the “brutal killing” of Musallet “shocking and appalling” and said the Israeli government “must thoroughly investigate this killing and hold any and all settlers responsible.”
EXCLUSIVE
Bipartisan bill aims to expand U.S.-Israel health collaboration
A new bipartisan House bill set to be introduced on Wednesday aims to expand U.S.-Israeli research and development cooperative programs in the medical field. The BIRD Health Act, led by Reps. Randy Weber (R-TX) and Chris Pappas (D-NH), builds on the long-running Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation program, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Moving forward: Around a third of BIRD projects in the past decade have been related to the health-care sector, and the U.S. and Israel have pursued growing cooperation in the field in recent years. The bill would further formalize those efforts by establishing a new $10 million annual funding stream and joint management structure between the Department of Health and Human Services and the Israeli Ministry of Health specifically focused on supporting such projects. It would support research and development between institutions and companies in both countries, including startups, as well as health systems, telemedicine, disease prevention efforts and biological product manufacturing.
Worthy Reads
NEA’s Lesson Plan: In The Wall Street Journal, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt responds to the National Education Association’s recent adoption of a measure targeting the ADL. “This wasn’t about the ADL. It was a clear and unambiguous statement to Jewish educators, parents and children: You don’t count. And it perversely takes this stance at a time when anti-Jewish hate is skyrocketing. … Unfortunately, the NEA vote is symptomatic of a larger problem of intensifying antisemitism in our K-12 schools. Specifically, antisemitism cloaked in the rhetoric of anti-Zionism. A generation of teachers has been educated on college campuses where this poison has festered and spread. It has been normalized. Now its purveyors want to bring this bigotry into your children’s classrooms.” [WSJ]
Pressing Putin: The Washington Post’s David Ignatius looks at President Donald Trump’s new approach to Russia, following Trump’s support for sending offensive weapons to Ukraine. “Trump decided to escalate for three reasons, according to a source familiar with administration discussions. First, he believed that Putin was disrespecting him, feigning a readiness to make peace but ignoring the U.S. president’s call for a ceasefire. Second, he saw the efficacy of U.S. military power in the use of B-2 bombers and Tomahawk missiles against Iran. And third, he thought Putin would only negotiate if threatened with greater force. As the Russians like to say, Trump decided to ‘escalate to de-escalate.’ Trump has made a sound choice in recognizing that Putin won’t make concessions without more pressure. But the president has also embarked on an escalatory course whose risks are unknowable.” [WashPost]
Mamdani’s Gift … to the GOP: The New York Times’ Bret Stephens posits that a victory in November by New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani would be a positive outcome for Republicans nationwide who are likely — and in some cases, have already begun — to push Mamdani as the future of the Democratic Party. “Among the reasons the Democratic Party’s brand has become toxic in recent years is progressive misgovernance in places like Los Angeles; San Francisco; Oakland, Calif.; Portland, Ore.; Seattle; and Chicago. If Mamdani governs on the promises on which he’s campaigned, he’ll bring the same toxicity to America’s biggest city. … A Mamdani mayoralty would be the political gift that keeps on giving. The state of the city would become a reflection of the Democratic Party writ large. Every Mamdani utterance would become a test for every Democratic politician, starting with Senator Chuck Schumer on Israel.” [NYTimes]
Word on the Street
The FBI released new images of three Iranian intelligence agents believed to be involved in the kidnapping and disappearance of retired special agent Bob Levinson, who was last seen on Iran’s Kish Island in 2007; Levinson is believed to have died in Iranian custody sometime prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic…
Adelita Grijalva was declared the winner of the Democratic primary special election in Arizona’s 7th Congressional District to succeed her father, Rep. Raúl Grijalva, who died earlier this year; the special election in the deep-blue district will take place in September…
Former Washington, D.C., Councilmember Trayon White, who was expelled last year over an ongoing bribery case, was reelected to his seat in a special election on Tuesday; White had previously promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories while in office…
New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani told business leaders on Tuesday that he would “discourage” the use of the “globalize the intifada” slogan and not use the phrase himself, but said the term was used by many to show support for Palestinians; among the attendees in the 90-minute meeting was Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, who, according to The New York Times, “pushed Mr. Mamdani about the meaning of genocide and defended Israel’s war in Gaza”…
Former Future Investment Initiative Institute CEO Richard Attias is rejoining the Saudi Arabian conference network as interim CEO, replacing Penny Richards, who is departing after six months in the position…
The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism ended its contract last month with an interfaith advisor who had been working with the group for several years, in a potential indication that it is moving away from previous plans to allow rabbis within the movement to officiate interfaith weddings, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher reports…
The Washington Post reports on the recent reunion between a 97-year-old Holocaust survivor and one of the American soldiers involved in the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp; the reunion was facilitated by the USC Shoah Foundation…
British police cautioned that Russia, China and Iran were behind an increasing number of sabotage, espionage and kidnapping plots in the U.K….
France, Germany and the U.K. will bring back sanctions on Iran via the U.N. Security Council if a nuclear deal is not reached by the end of August, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot warned on Tuesday, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports…
The Wall Street Journal looks at how Iran struck Israeli targets with increasing success during the 12-day war between the countries, as Tehran used trial and error to adapt its military strategy by using more advanced weaponry and firing from more locations toward the end of the war…
The Financial Times reports on tensions between Iranian hard-liners and the country’s reformists following the country’s war last month with Israel, with the country’s hard-line faction opposing engagement with the Trump administration that President Masoud Pezeshkian has supported…
The U.N.’s special representative for Afghanistan warned that the country’s support systems were under strain amid an influx of Afghans returning to the country following the implementation of new immigration laws in Iran; more than 1 million Afghans illegally living in Iran have been repatriated this year amid the crackdown…
The three members of the U.N.’s Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory reportedly resigned from their positions in rapid succession earlier this month; the resignations come amid an effort by the Trump administration to sanction officials who have targeted Israel in international institutions…
Twenty Palestinians were killed in a crowd rush at a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution site in Khan Younis, Gaza; the organization said the “chaotic and dangerous surge” was “driven by agitators in the crowd”…
Pic of the Day
The Argentine Embassy in Washington held a commemoration event at the Capitol last night ahead of the 31st anniversary of the bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, in which 85 people were killed.
Birthdays
World-renowned violinist, violist and conductor, Pinchas Zukerman turns 77…
One of the three co-founders of Comcast Corporation, he served as its chief financial officer and vice chairman, Julian A. Brodsky turns 92… Senior U.S. district court judge for the Southern District of New York, Judge Sidney H. Stein turns 80… President of an eponymous communications firm, public speaker and coach, Betsy R. Sheerr… Co-creator of the first-ever spreadsheet program (VisiCalc), he currently serves as the chief technology officer of Alpha Software, Daniel Singer “Dan” Bricklin turns 74… Former high ranking civilian official in the Pentagon during the Bush 43 administration, now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, Douglas J. Feith turns 72… Senior rabbi since 1997 at Temple Beth Avodah in Newton Centre, Mass., Rabbi Keith Stern… Los Angeles-based attorney, she is the president emerita of the LA chapter of the Jewish National Fund, Alyse Golden Berkley… Past vice chair of the Board of Trustees of The Jewish Federations of North America, Cynthia D. Shapira… British solicitor, he represented Princess Diana in her divorce and Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt in a libel case, Anthony Julius turns 69… Pulitzer Prize-winning and Tony Award-winning playwright and screenwriter, Tony Kushner turns 69… U.S. ambassador to the EU in the Trump 45 administration, Gordon David Sondland turns 68… Former airline executive at Northwest and Delta, now on the board of Spirit Airlines, Andrea Fischer Newman… Former president of Viacom Music and Entertainment Group, Douglas Alan Herzog turns 66… Businessman and philanthropist, owner of interests in many Israeli firms including IKEA Israel, Matthew Bronfman turns 66… Canadian journalist, he worked for CNN International for 30 years, Jonathan Mann turns 65… Former Israeli minister of science and technology, now a venture capitalist, Yizhar Nitzan Shai turns 62… Chief of staff of the Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago, Jim Rosenberg… Chicago-based entrepreneur and philanthropist, Victoria Rivka Zell… Former NFL offensive lineman, he is now the president of Collective Mortgage in Colorado, Ariel Mace Solomon turns 57… Senior scholar at the Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center, a home for Conservative Judaism in Israel, Rabbi Joshua Kulp turns 55… Israeli former professional tennis player, in 2003 she was ranked 15th in the world, Anna Smashnova turns 49… Founder of Pinkitzel, a cupcake cafe, candy boutique and gift store located in three Oklahoma cities, Jonathan Jantz… U.S. senator (R-IN) since the beginning of this year, Jim Banks turns 46… National political correspondent for The New York Times, Shane Goldmacher… Co-founder of Los Angeles-based Meteorite Social Impact and Health Action Alliance Advisors, Steven Max Levine… White House liaison to the Jewish community in the Bush 43 administration, now managing partner at Arogeti Endeavors, Scott Raymond Arogeti… Features reporter for Jewish Insider, Matthew Kassel… Founder and managing partner at Vine Ventures, Eric M. Reiner… Registered nurse and an internationally board-certified lactation consultant, Chantal Low Katz…
Among other commitments, the university announced it would refuse to recognize or meet with the anti-Israel student group Columbia University Apartheid Divest
CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images
Students are seen on the campus of Columbia University on April 14, 2025, in New York City.
Columbia University announced on Tuesday it would implement several commitments in an effort to reach a deal with the Trump administration to restore the $400 million in federal funding that was cut by the government in March due to the university’s record dealing with antisemitism.
The steps include the university further incorporating the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism by requiring its Office of Institutional Equity to embrace the definition; appointing a Title VI coordinator to review alleged violations of the Civil Rights Act; requiring antisemitism training for all students, faculty and staff; and refusing to recognize or meet with “Columbia University Apartheid Divest,” a coalition of over 80 university student groups that Instagram banned for promoting violence.
“Our work toward an agreement with the federal government has put a harsh spotlight on many of the difficult issues regarding discrimination and harassment we’ve seen on our campuses,” Claire Shipman, the university’s acting president, said in a statement. “The fact that we’ve faced pressure from the government does not make the problems on our campuses any less real; a significant part of our community has been deeply affected in negative ways.”
Shipman said that “any government agreement we reach is only a starting point for change.”
Brian Cohen, executive director of Columbia’s Hillel, welcomed the steps taken by the university, “including the unequivocal recognition that there is an antisemitism problem on campus and that it has had a tangible impact on Jewish students’ sense of safety and belonging,” he wrote on X.
“I hope this announcement marks the beginning of meaningful and sustained change,” said Cohen.
Columbia was rocked by several high-profile incidents last academic year, including a sit-in in February at its affiliate, Barnard College, where a staff member was assaulted. In May, more than 100 masked anti-Israel demonstrators stormed the university’s main library — disrupting students studying for finals by banging on drums and chanting “Free Palestine.” Still, the university saw relatively fewer anti-Israel disruptions since it first entered into negotiations to restore federal funding.
The slashing of Columbia’s funds marked the first time a university faced a suspension of federal funds since the Title VI of Civil Rights Act of 1964 was implemented six decades ago. Several other elite universities, including Harvard and Cornell, followed suit with billions of dollars stripped by the government due, at least partially, to concerns around antisemitism.
Columbia’s Hillel director said that the university is on track for a large incoming class of Jewish freshmen next year
CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images
Students are seen on the campus of Columbia University on April 14, 2025, in New York City.
Earlier this year at a symposium in New York City, Jewish scholars gathered to analyze the recent surge of antisemitism on college campuses and debate whether Jewish students still belong at the country’s elite bastions of higher education.
“I certainly don’t think that we should abandon great citadels of learning or be chased out of them, although to be there takes fortitude that I don’t think should be asked of every student,” Rabbi David Wolpe, a former visiting scholar at Harvard University Divinity School, said during the event’s opening address. “So I’m going to give a selective answer: it depends who.”
Over the next two months, college freshmen will embark on new chapters at universities around the country. Many Jewish students have found appeal in other top schools, such as Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tenn., and Washington University in St. Louis, where administrators were quick to enforce university rules amid rising antisemitism in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks, and therefore avoided much of the chaos that played out on other campuses.
But some Jewish students are still seeking admission to the country’s most prestigious schools.
Who are these students making the choice to display the fortitude that Wolpe referenced by attending Columbia and Harvard —- two Ivy League campuses that have been beset by nearly two years of controversy over anti-Israel encampments and classroom disruptions, physical assaults of Jewish students and battles with the federal government, including potential loss of accreditation — over an alleged failure to address antisemitism?
Leah Kreisler, a recent graduate of Winston Churchill High School in Potomac, Md., decided in ninth grade that she wanted to attend Columbia. Kreisler plans to enroll in Columbia’s dual-degree program with the Jewish Theological Seminary and will begin next year, following a gap year in Israel.
Recent events have only reinforced Kreisler’s dream of attending the storied institution. “Columbia has always had a politically charged environment and I honestly think that fits a part of who I am,” she told Jewish Insider. “I like having those kinds of discussions and engaging with people I disagree with. That spirit drew me to the school.”
She’s also hopeful that by the time she arrives at Columbia for the 2026-27 school year, “things will get figured out.” The university is in talks with the federal government to restore the institution’s federal funding, which was slashed in March due to the antisemitic demonstrations that have roiled the campus since Oct. 7.
Still, Kreisler admitted she’s “a little bit scared” to face antisemitism, which she hasn’t directly encountered in her tight-knit D.C. suburb with a sizable Jewish community. “There will probably be people in the streets doing antisemitic things,” she said, noting that she often gets “weird looks from Jewish members of the community” when she shares her plans to attend Columbia.
Laura Hosid runs a private business in Potomac guiding high school students through the college admissions process. She works with many students like Kreisler who are “often willing to overlook [antisemitism] at schools like Harvard and Columbia, if they can get in,” Hosid, who is Jewish, told JI.
“At slightly less selective schools, though, it’s more of a factor,” she said. “Students are willing to look away if there’s too much anti-Israel stuff.”
“Jewish life at Columbia is Dickens-esque: the best of times and the worst of times,” said a Jewish Columbia alum who requested to remain anonymous. “There are real challenges, but at the same time, you can go to Columbia Hillel, the Kraft Center for Jewish Life, and access the most interesting people in the world. Bob Kraft shows up for events,” he said, referencing the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots for whom the center is named.
“I’m certainly not discouraging students if they are interested in schools like Columbia and Harvard,” Hosid continued. “I’m just making sure that they are well aware of what’s going on there and how it compares to what the climate is like at other schools.”
A Jewish Columbia alum who requested to remain anonymous told JI that he still sees his alma mater as “an amazing New York City school with an incredible alumni network.” So he was supportive when his daughter, an incoming Columbia freshman, committed to the university.
“Jewish life at Columbia is Dickens-esque: the best of times and the worst of times,” he said. “There are real challenges, but at the same time, you can go to Columbia Hillel, the Kraft Center for Jewish Life, and access the most interesting people in the world. Bob Kraft shows up for events,” he said, referencing the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots for whom the center is named.
In 1967, Columbia’s student body was 40% Jewish, according to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency report at the time. But even as Jewish enrollment at Columbia has declined since then, it still has one of the highest percentages of Jewish undergraduates in the Ivy League, at an estimated 22%. “The numbers for this year’s incoming class are quite strong,” Brian Cohen, executive director of Columbia Hillel, told JI.
Cohen said that the center’s “top priority is to make sure that every Jewish student feels seen and supported and part of a vibrant Jewish community from the moment they arrive at Columbia University.”
“Everything we hear anecdotally is that the number of applications of Jewishly involved students to Harvard were stable — if not increased — from last year to this year,” said Rabbi Jason Rubenstein, the director of Harvard Hillel.
That’s been Hillel’s goal for years — even before antisemitism reached record highs on campus. But Cohen noted that for the past two academic years, “everything is ramped up.”
“We want to make sure that when we meet students and families face-to-face they already have some idea of who we are and the relationship isn’t starting from square one,” he said, outlining two priorities. “One is that students understand that they are entering into this thriving, diverse Jewish community on campus. [The second is] that, should any problems arise during their time at Columbia, they have trusted resources to go to that are easily accessible and can help support them in navigating the various university processes.”
Rabbi Jason Rubenstein, the director of Harvard Hillel, is similarly spending the summer preparing for a new class of Jewish students. He’s hearing less concern around antisemitism from incoming students and their parents compared to last year. “I think that’s a combination of all of us adjusting our baselines and knowing what we’re getting into, and that last year was calmer on campus than the year before.”
Like Columbia, Harvard has had billions of dollars in federal grants and contracts frozen by the Trump administration. The university filed suit against the government in April, claiming that the cuts violate the First Amendment. A 300-page antisemitism report released by the university in April described “severe problems” that Harvard’s Jewish students have faced in the classroom, on social media and through campus protests.
“Everything we hear anecdotally is that the number of applications of Jewishly involved students to Harvard were stable — if not increased — from last year to this year,” Rubenstein said. Ramaz, a Modern Orthodox Jewish day school in Manhattan, for instance, admitted five students to Harvard the past admissions cycle, with four planning to attend. “That’s the highest in living memory,” Rubenstein said.
One of the Ramaz graduates starting at Harvard this fall is Stella Hiltzik, who grew up hearing “incredible stories” from her mother’s time on the Boston campus. “But it wasn’t until I visited Harvard last year that I decided that was the place I wanted to be,” Hiltzik, whose major is undecided, told JI. She was drawn to Harvard “even despite all of the crazy things happening on campus” after seeing “how supportive, warm and comforting Jewish life on campus is — especially the Chabad. It feels like a sense of home,” Hiltzik said.
“Despite everything going on, when I say I’m going to Harvard, most people are proud of me and supportive,” Hiltzik continued. “But there are some people who ask me, ‘What are you thinking?’ For me, it’s honestly a cool conversation to have, because I get to tell them how I’m excited to be a Jewish voice on campus during these hard times.”
“Despite everything that has happened at Columbia,” Leah Kreisler, a recent graduate of Winston Churchill High School in Potomac, Md., said, “I don’t think that the solution to antisemitism is to remove ourselves from these institutions. That’s been my mentality throughout the college [application] process.”
“Jewish students are not being dissuaded,” Rubenstein said. “Which is a great thing because some people are chanting ‘Zionists are not welcome here’ and the one thing they most want is Jewish students to not come here.”
Students like Hiltzik and Kreisler offer a quiet rebuke to the billionaire alums of the Ivies who have begun to withhold their considerable donations. One Israeli venture capitalist went as far as to try to lure Jewish students attending Ivy League schools to transfer to universities in Israel.
“Despite everything that has happened at Columbia,” Kreisler said, “I don’t think that the solution to antisemitism is to remove ourselves from these institutions. That’s been my mentality throughout the college [application] process.”
“People shouldn’t be afraid to go to any of these schools,” echoed Hiltzik. “At the end of the day, you’re going to get a good education and you’re going to show everyone how cool it is to be a proud Jew. I feel, in a sense, that this is my version of fighting for my people.”
The acting Columbia University president said the comments ‘do not reflect how I feel’
JEENAH MOON/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Columbia University acting President Claire Shipman speaks during the Commencement Ceremony at Columbia University in New York on May 21, 2025.
Claire Shipman, acting president of Columbia University, issued an apology to several members of the campus community for leaked text messages where she suggested that a Jewish trustee should be removed from the university’s board over her pro-Israel advocacy.
“The things I said in a moment of frustration and stress were wrong. They do not reflect how I feel,” Shipman wrote on Wednesday in a private email obtained by Jewish Insider, noting that she was addressing “some trusted groups of friends and colleagues, with whom I’ve talked regularly over the last few months.”
The text messages, from 2023 and 2024, were obtained by the House Committee on Education and Workforce and published in a letter from the committee’s chairman, Tim Walberg (R-MI), and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) to the university on Tuesday as part of the committee’s ongoing investigation into whether the school is violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by allowing harassment of Jewish students.
Shipman, then co-chair of Columbia’s board of trustees, also wrote in a separate message to the board’s vice chair on Jan. 17, 2024, “We need to get somebody from the middle east [sic] or who is Arab on our board.”
Shipman said in a follow-up message days later that Shoshana Shendelman, a Jewish board member who frequently condemned campus antisemitism, had been “extraordinarily unhelpful” and said, “I just don’t think she should be on the board.” In another communication on April 22, 2024, she expressed belief that Shendelman was a “mole”.
“I have apologized directly to the person named in my texts, and I am apologizing now to you,” Shipman wrote in Wednesday’s email. “I have tremendous respect and appreciation for that board member, whose voice on behalf of Columbia’s Jewish community is critically important. I should not have written those things, and I am sorry. It was a moment of immense pressure, over a year and a half ago, as we navigated some deeply turbulent times. But that doesn’t change the fact that I made a mistake. I promise to do better.”
Shipman continued, “One thing I hope salacious headlines will not obscure—my deep commitment to fighting antisemitism and protecting our Jewish students and faculty. Board members who have worked with me for more than a decade know that antisemitism, and the culture on our campus, was a priority well before October 7th, as do colleagues at the university, and personal friends.”
She included a link to steps the university pledged to take to combat antisemitism. Shipman added that she continues to commit to “restoring our critical partnership with the federal government as quickly as possible, so that thousands of our faculty and researchers and students can get back to the essential work they do on behalf of humanity.” The Trump administration canceled approximately $400 million in grants and contracts with Columbia in March. The university has since entered into negotiations with the federal government.
The texts from Claire Shipman, published in a letter by the House Education Committee, call a Jewish board member a ‘mole’ and ‘extremely unhelpful’
Alex Wong/Getty Images
Acting Columbia University President Claire Shipman testifies before the House Committee on Education & the Workforce at Rayburn House Office Building on April 17, 2024 in Washington, DC.
Text messages obtained by the House Committee on Education and Workforce published in a letter on Tuesday revealed that Claire Shipman, acting president of Columbia University, suggested that a Jewish trustee should be removed over her pro-Israel advocacy and called for an “Arab on our board,” amid antisemitic unrest that roiled the university’s campus last year.
“We need to get somebody from the middle east [sic] or who is Arab on our board,” Shipman, then the co-chair of Columbia’s Board of Trustees, wrote in a message to the board’s vice chair on Jan. 17, 2024. “Quickly I think. Somehow.”
Shipman said in a follow-up message days later that Shoshana Shendelman, a Jewish board member who frequently condemned campus antisemitism, had been “extraordinarily unhelpful” and said, “I just don’t think she should be on the board.”
In another communication on April 22, 2024, according to the texts obtained by the committee, Wanda Greene, vice chair of the board of trustees, asked Shipman — referring to Shendelman — “do you believe that she is a mole? A fox in the henhouse?” Shipman agreed, stating, “I do.” Greene added, “I am tired of her.” Shipman agreed, “so, so tired.”
The messages were referenced in the letter, first obtained by Free Beacon, sent to Columbia on Tuesday by the committee’s chairman, Tim Walberg (R-MI), and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) as part of the committee’s ongoing investigation into whether the school is violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by allowing harassment of Jewish students.
The lawmakers wrote in the letter, which was addressed to Shipman, “These exchanges raise the question of why you appeared to be in favor of removing one of the board’s most outspoken Jewish advocates at a time when Columbia students were facing a shocking level of fear and hostility.”
Columbia responded to the letter, in a statement to Free Beacon, claiming that the text messages were taken out of context.
“These communications were provided to the Committee in the fall of 2024 and reflect communications from more than a year ago,” the university said. “They are now being published out of context and reflect a particularly difficult moment in time for the University when leaders across Columbia were intensely focused on addressing significant challenges.”
Shipman, a former ABC News reporter, stepped into the role in March after interim President Katrina Armstrong’s abrupt resignation. At the time, Stefanik called the choice of Shipman “untenable.” On campus, the news of Shipman’s hiring was met with cautious optimism from pro-Israel student leaders.
Last April, Shipman testified at a congressional hearing regarding antisemitism at Columbia alongside then-Columbia President Minouche Shafik, who resigned from her post in August, and board co-chair David Greenwald. Shipman told members of the House Committee at the time that she knew Columbia had “significant and important work to do to address antisemitism and to ensure that our Jewish community is safe and welcome.”
Critics and Iranian dissidents accuse NIAC of being tied to the Iranian regime
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who was released from ICE detention, speaks during a rally on the steps of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan on June 22, 2025 in New York City.
One day after former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil was released from the immigration detention center where he had been held for three months, the anti-Israel activist appeared at a rally in New York City organized by a group accused of ties to the Iranian regime protesting the U.S.’ weekend airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
“Mahmoud Khalil is a freedom fighter … who refuses to remain silent while watching a genocide in Palestine,” Khalil told a cheering crowd on Sunday, where he led anti-Israel chants including, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free,” at the People’s Forum protest, a demonstration organized by the National Iranian-American Council to protest the U.S. military strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites.
Iranian dissidents and critics of NIAC, a U.S.-based Iranian-American advocacy group that calls for diplomacy with the Iranian regime and was critical of the Biden administration’s approach to Israel and the Middle East, accuse the group of being tied to the regime.
Khalil, who grew up in Syria but is of Palestinian descent and living in the U.S. on a green card, led last year’s anti-Israel campus protests at Columbia against the war in Gaza and subsequent negotiations with university administrators. He was detained in March and released on Saturday after U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz said it would be “highly, highly unusual” for the government to continue detaining a legal U.S. resident who was unlikely to flee and hadn’t been accused of any violence.
Khalil’s release was met with support from some left-wing lawmakers.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who met Khalil at New Jersey’s Newark-Liberty International Airport a day after he was freed from a federal immigration facility in Louisiana, said that his detention by the Trump administration violated the First Amendment and was “an affront to every American.”
“He has been accused, baselessly, of horrific allegations simply because the Trump administration and our overall establishment disagrees with his political speech,” Ocasio-Cortez added.
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) wrote on X that he welcomed the decision to release Khalil. “As I have said before, his prolonged detention — without charges — is a chilling, McCarthyesque action in response to the exercise of First Amendment rights to free speech and raises serious constitutional concerns,” Nadler said.
The federal government said Columbia ‘acted with deliberate indifference towards the harassment of Jewish students’
CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images
Students are seen on the campus of Columbia University on April 14, 2025, in New York City.
The Trump administration’s battle with higher education escalated on Wednesday with the announcement that Columbia University is at risk of losing accreditation for violation of the Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights and the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights “determined that Columbia University acted with deliberate indifference towards the harassment of Jewish students, thereby violating Title VI,” the Education Department said in a statement, noting that the Ivy League institution “no longer appears to meet the Commission’s [sic] accreditation standards.”
Columbia is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, a voluntary membership organization recognized by the Department of Education. Accreditation is required for a university to receive federal funding, for its students to receive public student loans and to be recognized by employers.
In a statement to Jewish Insider, a spokesperson for Columbia said that the university is “aware of the concerns raised by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights today to our accreditor… and we have addressed those concerns directly with Middle States.”
“Columbia is deeply committed to combating antisemitism on our campus. We take this issue seriously and are continuing to work with the federal government to address it,” the spokesperson said.
The Education Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from JI inquiring whether any specific recent incidents led to the determination.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in the department’s announcement that Columbia’s actions on antisemitism since the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks have been “immoral” and “unlawful.”
McMahon said the department will work with the accreditor “to ensure Columbia’s compliance with accreditation standards including compliance with federal civil rights laws.”
Columbia University has faced intense scrutiny from the federal government since President Donald Trump returned to the White House earlier this year.
In February, the Trump administration directed that an investigation into violations of Title VI be opened. A month later, it pulled $400 million from Columbia’s federal funding over its failure to crack down on antisemitism, marking the first time a university has faced a cutoff of federal funds since Title VI was implemented six decades ago.
Columbia responded by entering ongoing negotiations with the government. The agreement included putting the school’s Middle Eastern studies department under a “receivership,” which involves closer oversight from an external body.
Several other elite institutions faced similar funding freezes in the weeks that followed, including Harvard University, which responded by suing the Trump administration.
At a congressional hearing, Education Secretary Linda McMahon assured lawmakers that, though the size of the office is being reduced, discrimination cases are still being investigated
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon prepares to testify before a House Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies hearing on the budget for the Department of Education, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on May 21, 2025.
House Democrats urged Education Secretary Linda McMahon not to make cuts to the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights as employees work through the backlog of cases, which includes scores of civil rights complaints from Jewish students alleging discrimination at their universities since the Oct.7, 2023, attacks on Israel.
After Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) accused McMahon and the Trump administration of being broadly unconcerned with civil rights, citing the Office of Civil Rights and the Education Department “being decimated,” McMahon responded: “It isn’t being decimated. We have reduced the size of it; however, we are taking on a backlog of cases that were left over from the Biden administration.”
Asked why she’d reduce resources to the office given the backlog from the previous administration, McMahon replied, “Because we’re working more efficiently in the department.”
Rep. Lois Frankel (D-FL) similarly urged McMahon not to make cuts to OCR “if you are sincere about fighting antisemitism and also all kinds of unlawful discrimination.” Frankel also referenced several other programs she wanted McMahon to protect, a number of which McMahon expressed openness to considering.
After recounting an experience of a Jewish friend who took their children out of the Washington, D.C., public school system due to its unwillingness to address concerns about antisemitism, Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-OK) offered McMahon an opportunity to speak about the rise of antisemitism in primary and secondary education.
“Certainly the president has made it very clear that he does not condone any kind of discrimination — racial and especially, we’ve seen religious, we’ve seen it across our college campuses, some of the most elite in the country. We took very strong and very decisive action against those universities who clearly were not protecting Jewish students against antisemitism,” McMahon told the committee.
“When you see students barricaded in a library, and others pounding on the glass going, ‘Death to Jews. Death to Israel. Death to United States,’ that is unacceptable at our college campuses. And we reacted,” she continued.
McMahon went on to discuss her engagement with Columbia University, praising its acting president, Claire Shipman, for her response to student protesters involved in the takeover of the school’s main library earlier this month.
“We reacted to Columbia first. This incident happened at Columbia, and I met with the president of Columbia. I’ve had two conversations now with the current president of Columbia. We’ve talked about things that we need to do at those universities. We want to be able to be supportive, but those universities, albeit they’re private, do receive federal funding. We have leverage to withhold some of that federal funding or to cancel some of the grants, and we would do that unless it could be proven that these colleges and universities are going to respect all rights and set their policy in place and enforce them,” McMahon said.
“I was complimentary to the acting president now at Columbia, Claire Shipman, when I talked to her last week, and I said, ‘You reacted just as you said you would to the recent uprising on campus. You were looking at whether or not– you’ve suspended students, are you going to expel them?’ And that’s still what she’s looking at. So we’ve seen that that kind of action can deliver results,” she continued.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
President Donald Trump delivers remarks during a swearing-in ceremony for Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff in the Oval Office at the White House on May 06, 2025 in Washington, where he provided an update on the Houthi conflict in the Middle East.
Good Thursday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at the Trump administration’s waffling position on Iran’s nuclear program, and report on Columbia University’s handling of an anti-Israel protest in the school’s library during finals week. We also talk to experts about Israel’s military approach to Syria, and report on yesterday’s meeting between senior Justice Department officials and Orthodox Jewish leaders in Washington. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, Jay Sanderson and Arizona state Rep. Alma Hernandez.
What We’re Watching
- House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and James Lankford (R-OK) and Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Brian Mast (R-FL) are slated to speak at an event this morning on Capitol Hill hosted by United Against Nuclear Iran, which will display an Iranian Shahed-136 drone in the Cannon Office Building.
- Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Tom Cotton (R-AR) are hosting a press conference at 10:30 this morning on their resolution “affirming the acceptable outcomes of the United States’ negotiations with Iran regarding its nuclear program.”
- The Senate Appropriations Committee is holding hearings at 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. with FBI Director Kash Patel and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, respectively.
- Former President Joe Biden will give his first televised interview since leaving office when he appears on “The View” this morning alongside former First Lady Jill Biden.
- America Abroad Media is holding its annual awards dinner tonight in Washington. Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner and Iran International are among the honorees at this year’s dinner.
- The Library of Congress is hosting an event to mark Jewish-American Heritage Month with the New York Andalus Ensemble, which will perform a medley of songs in Hebrew, Arabic, Spanish and Ladino.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S GABBY DEUTCH
There’s an ongoing parlor game in Washington: Trying to figure out President Donald Trump’s Iran policy. More specifically, trying to decipher his endgame for ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran, which are set to enter their fourth round in Oman this weekend.
Does Trump support allowing Iran to enrich uranium at a low level, as Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said last month, before he walked that position back? Will he seek a “total dismantlement” of Iran’s nuclear program, as he told “Meet the Press” last weekend? Or will he allow Iran to have a “civil nuclear program,” as Vice President JD Vance said on Wednesday, by importing enriched material from abroad (as Secretary of State Marco Rubio has stated)?
Trump offered the latest clue to Iran watchers on Wednesday afternoon. Or, more accurately, he pretty much shut down the entire game — because trying to guess what the Trump administration wants is a fool’s errand if Trump himself has not made up his mind.
“We haven’t made that decision yet,” Trump said in the West Wing on Wednesday when asked by a reporter whether it is Washington’s position that Iran can maintain an enrichment program as long as it doesn’t enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels. “We will, but we haven’t made that decision yet.”
What’s particularly striking is that Trump’s comment came hours after he seemed to suggest something different to radio host Hugh Hewitt, saying the only options are to “blow them up nicely or blow them up viciously,” apparently referring to Iran’s nuclear program.
The 2015 Iran nuclear deal, negotiated by the Obama administration, allowed Iran to continue enriching uranium at a low level, rather than forcing the Islamic Republic to give up its nuclear program entirely. This was one of the key reasons foreign policy hawks opposed the deal so strongly — including Trump, who pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2018. But the regional landscape has changed since then. Iran is weaker, but it is also bolder.
“Even if you agreed with the JCPOA, you have to note that Iran is different today, and it’s different because it’s now a country that will directly attack Israel, and it’s now a country that will directly try to kill American presidents,” said William Wechsler, director of the Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council.
Dan Shapiro, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel who worked on Iran policy at the Pentagon in the Biden administration, said Trump administration officials shouldn’t negotiate in public. “Pick a line — preferably full dismantlement, with the military option available if they refuse — stick with it, and try to hammer out a deal in private negotiations. When it comes to public commentary, less is more,” Shapiro told Jewish Insider.
Meanwhile, Republicans in the House and Senate have been gathering signatures for letters calling for full dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program, JI’s Marc Rod scooped on Wednesday.
What’s clear is that there is not yet a consensus even among Republicans in Washington about the best way to handle the question of enrichment in a nuclear deal with Iran. And amid all the hubbub about enrichment, chatter about other major issues, such as Iran’s support for terror proxies across the Middle East, has died down entirely.
PROTESTS PERSIST
Over 75 anti-Israel protesters arrested after storming Columbia library during finals
More than 100 masked anti-Israel demonstrators stormed Columbia University’s main library on Wednesday afternoon — disrupting students studying for finals by banging on drums and chanting “Free Palestine.” As public safety officers attempted to clear out the protesters, several of the officers were forcefully pushed to the ground near the building’s front entrance. “The sense of entitlement and sheer ignorance of these students remains astonishing, and it is an embarrassment that they were even admitted to this university in the first place,” Eden Yadegar, a senior studying Middle East studies and modern Jewish studies — who was in the library as the chaos began — told Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen.
Arrests in the library: By Wednesday evening, New York Police Department officers arrested around 75 of the protesters after Acting President Claire Shipman authorized the NYPD to enter the library. Two individuals were led off campus by Columbia University Emergency Medical Service on stretchers, one of whom had their face covered by a keffiyeh and the other had their face covered by a sheet, Columbia’s student newspaper, The Spectator, reported. New York City Mayor Eric Adams praised the NYPD’s swift response and called on parents of students protesting to “call your children and make clear that breaking the law is wrong and they should exit the building immediately.”
Congressional questioning: Haverford College President Wendy Raymond took the brunt of congressional questioning and criticism at a House Education and Workforce Committee hearing on Wednesday on campus antisemitism, repeatedly dodging questions from committee members, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
DAMASCUS DEALINGS
Israeli presence in Syria ‘a direct lesson of Oct. 7’
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa made a surprising admission during a visit to Paris on Wednesday: that Damascus and Jerusalem have been engaged in indirect negotiations in recent days. Al-Sharaa, the former leader of an Al-Qaida offshoot in Syria whose nom de guerre was Mohammed Al-Jolani, was welcomed by friendly crowds to the Eiffel Tower on Wednesday evening, a potent symbol of his growing acceptance in the international community. French President Emmanuel Macron said that he is looking to have the EU lift sanctions on Syria and would advocate for the Trump administration to do the same. Israel, however, continues to be deeply suspicious of al-Sharaa. The IDF maintains a presence over the border and miles into Syria, which Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has said will continue “indefinitely,” Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports.
Military action: Last week, Israel struck an area on the outskirts of Damascus, to protect the Druze community, whose militias had been clashing with Syrian government-affiliated forces. “Israel is in Syria as a direct lesson from Oct. 7 [2023],” Sarit Zehavi, the founder and president of the Alma Research and Education Center, specializing in Israel’s northern border, told JI this week. “On Oct. 7, Israel understood that we can no longer let radical elements build military capabilities on the other side of our border … If we’re not there, we’ll have radical Sunni bases on our border. We can’t let the monster grow. We have to cut it down while it’s small. That’s the basic idea,” she added.
double talk
Vance: Iran can have ‘civil nuclear power’ but no weapon
Vice President JD Vance said at a conference in Washington on Wednesday that Iran can have a “civil nuclear program” but not a “nuclear weapons program,” offering yet another confusing signal about the Trump administration’s position on Iran’s nuclear capabilities as negotiations with the Islamic Republic are set to enter their fourth round this weekend. Several Trump administration officials have in recent weeks offered competing messages about the goal of the ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran. Vance’s comments come days after President Donald Trump said the outcome of the negotiations must be “total dismantlement” of Iran’s nuclear program, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
What Vance said: Vance’s remarks, at the Munich Security Conference’s D.C. confab, suggested that the White House believes Iran does not need to entirely give up its nuclear program. “Our proposition is very simple. We don’t care if people want nuclear power. We’re fine with that,” said Vance. “But you can’t have the kind of enrichment program that allows you to get to a nuclear weapon, and that’s where we draw the line,” the vice president added. Vance said the negotiations will end with “Iran eliminating their nuclear program,” before he seemed to stop himself and clarify that he meant only their “nuclear weapons program.” He continued, “This is going to end somewhere, and it will end either in Iran eliminating their nuclear program — their nuclear weapons program. They can have civil nuclear power, OK? We don’t mind that.”
Senator’s soapbox: Speaking at an Orthodox Union luncheon on Capitol Hill, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said that Iran must be fully stripped of any nuclear capacity. He also vowed to work to revive the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which faces an uncertain path ahead in the Senate after a chaotic committee hearing last week, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
SCOOP
Senate, House Republicans circulate letters calling for full dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program
Prominent Senate and House Republicans are collecting signatures on nearly identical draft letters to President Donald Trump insisting that any nuclear deal with Iran must include the full dismantlement of the regime’s nuclear program and that the verification protocols from the original 2015 nuclear deal are no longer a viable option, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod has learned. The letters indicate a concerted effort among congressional Republicans to emphasize to the Trump administration that they expect that any deal with Iran will mandate full dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program, in the wake of inconsistent comments from top administration officials on that issue.
Simultaneous efforts: The draft Senate letter is led by Sens. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) and Ted Cruz (R-TX). Ricketts and Cruz both sit on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and have taken a hard line toward Iran. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee who has emerged as a prominent voice for full dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program, is also supportive, JI has learned. Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX) is circulating a similar letter for signatures in the House, a copy of which was also reviewed by JI. He chairs the influential conservative Republican Study Committee, the largest GOP caucus in the House, which counts nearly three-quarters of House Republicans among its membership. A military veteran, Pfluger is also a prominent hawkish voice in the House GOP on national security matters.
MILKEN MOMENTS
Former hostage Noa Argamani: ‘I’m thinking about the hostages all the time’
Former hostage Noa Argamani and author Noa Tishby spoke about anti-Israel activism and antisemitism on Wednesday at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, Calif., with Argamani saying that an anti-Israel performance at the Coachella music festival “broke her heart” and Tishby arguing that antisemitism “is nothing short of a cultural conflict,” Jewish Insider’s Danielle Cohen reports.
Coachella controversy: Argamani, who was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists from the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023, said that she had intended to attend Coachella last month, where the Irish band Kneecap led the crowd in chants of “Free, Free Palestine” and displayed messages on the stage that read, “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people,” “It is being enabled by the US government who arm and fund Israel despite their war crimes” and “Fuck Israel. Free Palestine.” Argamani said of the event, “It’s really hard and breaking my heart to see that this is still happening. I’m like all of the people that come for Coachella, and we are the same people. It could happen to each one of us, and if people will not share sympathy [for] each other, for all these people just going to festivals of love, peace and community, that’s what we need to do. We didn’t choose to be kidnapped, we didn’t choose to be born in Israel. We just want to go to a festival to dance and have fun.”
Money matters: Financial experts and regulators touted the strength of the Israeli economy, tech sector and stock exchange after a year and a half of war during a panel at the Milken conference, saying that “resilience” is a “very core characteristic of the Israeli market.”
justice agenda
DOJ officials tell Orthodox leaders they have launched probes into antisemitic discrimination
Senior Justice Department officials revealed on Wednesday that they have “several open investigations involving Orthodox Jewish communities across the country.” During a meeting between Trump administration officials and Orthodox Jewish leaders at the Justice Department, Michael Gates, the deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights, told attendees that the DOJ is looking into several matters impacting the Orthodox community, including how some municipalities’ use of zoning laws had affected individual religious communities’ ability to operate normally, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.
Open investigations: “We currently have several open investigations involving Orthodox Jewish communities across the country. These investigations include municipalities that have restricted building or operation of houses of worship or other religious land uses, and we are investigating cities that have made changes to zoning laws that negatively impact religious communities. In another matter, we are investigating antisemitic discrimination in public accommodations, including whether a restaurant, believe it or not, has engaged in a pattern practice of religious discrimination for refusing service to Jewish patrons,” Gates said.
Worthy Reads
Let’s Make a (Bad) Deal: In The Wall Street Journal, Israeli journalist and political commentator Amit Segal raises concerns about President Donald Trump’s approach to malign actors in the Middle East. “What’s happening is that Iran is drawing great encouragement from Mr. Trump’s conduct. The shaken regime — whose proxies have been hammered by Israel and whose air defense systems have been destroyed by advanced weaponry it can’t even identify — may be about to receive a deal similar to the one Barack Obama pursued. That would be more favorable to Tehran, since in the decade since Mr. Obama’s deal, the Iranian nuclear program has only surged ahead. If this were President Biden, the Israeli right, led by Mr. Netanyahu, would be accusing the American leader of throwing Israel under the bus. The prime minister would fly to Washington to address Congress and rally senators to petition against the president. But who is Mr. Netanyahu going to persuade now — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?” [WSJ]
The Gaza Bind: The New York Times’ David French considers Israel’s strategic options as it pursues the defeat of Hamas and the release of the remaining hostages in Gaza. “Israel is facing a terrible choice. If it wants to remove Hamas from power, it almost certainly has to pursue an occupation that would divide the nation and further enrage the international community. If it wants to secure the release of the hostages, it will almost certainly have to agree to a cease-fire that leaves Hamas in place and sets the stage for future conflicts. It remains to be seen whether Israel’s new approach is anything more than bluster. Perhaps Israel’s threats are little more than negotiation tactics. Perhaps Israel will ultimately prioritize releasing the remaining hostages over ending Hamas’s despotic rule. But one thing is crystal clear. There are no shortcuts in war.” [NYTimes]
Word on the Street
President Donald Trump withdrew the nomination of Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, the sister-in-law of former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, to be surgeon general; Nesheiwat had faced criticism from far-right provocateur Laura Loomer over her support for vaccines and allegedly misrepresenting her education background…
FBI Director Kash Patel was pressed on Wednesday about the exclusion of Ed Martin’s ties to an alleged Nazi sympathizer in his FBI background check after Martin was nominated to be U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports…
The U.S. signed off on a plan for Qatar to fund the salaries of Syrian civil servants; Doha’s financial support will not extend to the Damascus’ defense and interior ministeries…
A group of 96 House Democrats has signed onto a letter to Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter blasting as both a moral and strategic failure Israel’s blockage of humanitarian aid moving into Gaza in recent months, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports…
Bloomberg looks at how the ceasefire between the U.S. and the Houthis will impact Trump’s visit to the Middle East next week, allowing senior officials and the U.S. delegation, which also includes Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, to prioritize economic cooperation in their meetings…
A new Anti-Defamation League report indicates that Jewish members of Congress have experienced a five-fold increase in antisemitic harassment on Facebook this year since Meta loosened its content moderation guidelines and dialed back enforcement…
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey announced the launch of a strategic partnership with Israel’s Sheba Medical Center to build a new health-care accelerator in the state…
The San Marcos, Texas, City Council voted down a resolution calling for an arms embargo on Israel, weeks after Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to withhold state grants if the resolution passed, citing the state’s anti-boycott laws…
A federal appeals court ruled that the Tufts student being held at a detention facility in Louisiana must be moved to Vermont…
Prosecutors in New York charged a self-described “Jew hater” who on three separate occasions physically assaulted Jewish people, including a Columbia University student, with federal hate crimes; a search of Tarek Bazrouk’s Manhattan home uncovered hundreds of thousands of dollars, brass knuckles, an airsoft gun and real bullets, while a probe of his phone uncovered writings sympathetic to Hamas and Hezbollah…
Temple University issued an interim suspension to a second student involved in an antisemitic incident that took place over the weekend at a Philadelphia bar owned by Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy…
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs signed into law legislation banning the erection of encampments on public universities in the state; the bill, which had bipartisan support, was first introduced by state Rep. Alma Hernandez…
In an appearance on conservative commentator Tucker Carlson’s talk show earlier this month, Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Ben Cohen addressed a question from Carlson about his faith, saying, “I was born a Jew. I love Jesus Christ. I think the words that he said are wonderful, are amazing. And, you know, I’m kind of distressed that a lot of organized Christian religions are not really, I don’t know, abiding by the words of Jesus Christ”…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that 21 hostages in Gaza are believed to be alive, while the statuses of three others remain uncertain, confirming past comments from his wife and Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, as well as a recent comment from President Donald Trump…
Israel’s National Security Council warned Israelis attending the Eurovision Song Contest in Basel, Switzerland, next week against wearing Israeli or Jewish symbols in public, talking about their military service or posting their location on social media…
U.K. officials said that five Iranian nationals arrested earlier this week in London had been plotting an attack on Israel’s embassy in the country…
A Houthi spokesperson confirmed that the Iran-backed terror group’s ceasefire agreement with the Trump administration does not include Israel, the same day that a missile launched at the Jewish state by the group fell short in Saudi Arabia…
Jay Sanderson was named interim president of the American Jewish University, succeeding Jeffrey Herbst…
Former American Jewish Committee Board of Governors Chair Bobby Lapin was named the organization’s next president, succeeding Michael Tichnor…
Pic of the Day
A group of Zanzibari children slated to travel to Israel earlier this week to receive life-saving treatment through the Save a Child’s Heart nonprofit was stranded in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for 24 hours after their flight to Israel was canceled following a Houthi ballistic missile attack on Ben Gurion Airport on Sunday morning.
The group connected with Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, who was in Ethiopia for meetings with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Foreign Minister Gedion Timotheos, and joined Saar on his flight back to Israel, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judith Sudilovsky reports.
Birthdays
Retired USDOJ official, for many years he was the director of the Office of Special Investigations focused on deporting Nazi war criminals, Eli M. Rosenbaum turns 70…
Retired senior British judge, Baron Leonard Hubert “Lennie” Hoffmann turns 91… Former chairman of the board of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Stanley A. Rabin turns 87… International chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, he is a past president of the Canadian Jewish Congress, Irwin Cotler turns 85… MIT biologist and 2002 Nobel Prize laureate in medicine, H. Robert Horvitz turns 78… Former MLB pitcher who played for the Angels, Rangers and White Sox, Lloyd Allen turns 75… Rabbi in Dusseldorf, Germany, until moving to Israel in 2021, Rabbi Raphael Evers turns 71… CFO for The Manischewitz Company for 13 years until 2024, Thomas E. Keogh… Past president of Congregation B’nai Torah in Sandy Springs, Ga., Janice Perils Telling… Third-generation furniture retailer in Springfield, Ill., Barry Saidman… President of Clayton, Mo.-based JurisTemps, Andrew J. Koshner, J.D., Ph.D…. CEO and founder of NSG/SWAT, a high-profile boutique branding agency launched in 2011, Richard Kirshenbaum turns 64… Novelist, author of If I Could Tell You and movie critic for The Jerusalem Post since 2001, Hannah Brown… Co-founder and director of the Mizrahi Family Charitable Fund and a Maryland climate commissioner, Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi turns 61… Israeli journalist, anchorwoman and attorney, she is best known as host of the investigative program “Uvda” (“Fact”) on Israeli television, Ilana Dayan-Orbach turns 61… Longtime litigator and political fundraiser in Florida, now serving as a mediator and arbitrator, Benjamin W. Newman… Canadian social activist and documentary filmmaker, Naomi Klein turns 55… Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations from 2015 to 2020 and again since last August, Ambassador Danny Danon turns 54… Stand-up comedian, writer, actress and author, Jodi Miller turns 54… Novelist and memoirist, Joanna Rakoff turns 53… Senior advisor at West End Strategy Team, Ari Geller turns 52… Director of strategic initiatives at J Street, Josh Lockman turns 43… Ice hockey player, now the assistant coach of the New Hampshire Wildcats women’s ice hockey program, Samantha Faber turns 38… Canadian beach volleyball player, he competed in the 2016 and 2024 Summer Olympics, Sam Schachter turns 35… Keren Hajioff… Founder and CEO at Axion Ray, Daniel First… Former White House senior policy advisor, now a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, Amiel Fields-Meyer…
Sewell Chan said he was let go after several interactions with staff, including confronting one reporter ‘passionately devoted’ to anti-Israel campus protests
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
A Columbia Journalism student journalist shows off their sign as they cover the events at Hamilton Hall at Columbia University on April 30, 2024 in New York City.
After being let go from his post as executive editor of the Columbia Journalism Review last week, Sewell Chan pinned the firing — which he called “hasty” and “ill-considered” — in part on a recent interaction he had with a staff member “passionately devoted” to activism in support of Gaza on Columbia’s campus.
In a statement, Chan wrote that he was informed last Monday of complaints from staff regarding three separate interactions in the past weeks during which he gave what he described as “fair and critical feedback rooted in editorial rigor.” Among those communications, according to Chan, included a talk with a fellow who was “passionately devoted to the cause of the Gaza protests at Columbia.” The student journalist had written an article about the “recent detention of a Palestinian graduate student” for a publication that he had previously covered for CJR. Chan did not disclose the name of the student or the publication.
“I told him there was a significant ethical problem with writing for an outlet he had just covered,” Chan wrote, adding that the other two interactions involved letting go a staff member who “declined” to come into the office and write at least one story a week, despite the journalism school’s attendance policy; as well as a second conversation with an editor working on a “sensitive” investigation about sexual harassment.
“This was the first time in a 25-year career that I’ve ever been subjected to discipline in a job — much less terminated from one,” Chan wrote. “I have immense respect for Jelani Cobb as a journalist and educator, but the decision to let me go was hasty, ill-considered and quite frankly baffling,” he said, referring to the dean of Columbia’s journalism school and publisher of CJR. Cobb did not respond to a request for comment from Jewish Insider and Chan declined to comment.
CJR was founded in 1961 “to assess the performance of journalism in all its forms, to call attention to its shortcomings and strengths, and to help define—or redefine—standards of honest, responsible service,” according to its mission statement.
Chan, a seasoned journalist who previously served as editor-in-chief of the Texas Tribune, was selected for the prestigious role at CJR in June following a lengthy search process. He began his tenure in September — as a fresh wave of anti-Israel demonstrations kicked off a new school year on Columbia’s campus.
In an interview with the student newspaper, The Columbia Spectator, upon assuming the position, he praised the undergraduate student reporting of last spring’s anti-Israel encampment movement and reporting on the occupation of Hamilton Hall.
“I was really, really impressed by the quality of the student journalism, both the radio station and the Spectator, during the Columbia protests,” he said. “I think a lot of that work from them was courageous and happened under very difficult circumstances—and on a story that is about as polarizing and difficult to cover as we could imagine.”
Mahdawi voiced empathy for Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attacks on ‘60 Minutes’ and honored his cousin, a commander in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade
Adam Gray/Getty Images
Pro-Palestinian activists rally for Mohsen Mahdawi and protest against deportations outside of ICE Headquarters on April 15, 2025 in New York City.
The arrest on Monday of a Palestinian student at Columbia University who helped organize campus anti-Israel demonstrations was the latest front in the Trump administration’s closely scrutinized crackdown on foreign activists who have expressed sympathy for Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups.
Mohsen Mahdawi, a 34-year-old green card holder born and raised in the West Bank, was arrested and detained by federal immigration officers on Monday after he appeared at a U.S. citizenship interview in Vermont, where he resides.
Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, said in an email to Jewish Insider on Tuesday that Mahdawi “was a ringleader in the Columbia protests,” sharing a New York Post article citing anonymous State Department sources claiming that he had used “threatening rhetoric and intimidation” against Jewish students.
“Due to privacy and other considerations, and visa confidentiality, we generally will not comment on Department actions with respect to specific cases,” a State Department spokesperson told JI on Tuesday.
Mahdawi’s lawyers filed a habeas corpus petition on Monday calling his detention unlawful. “This case concerns the government’s retaliatory and targeted detention and attempted removal of Mr. Mahdawi for his constitutionally protected speech,” the petition said.
Representatives for Columbia declined to comment on Mahdawi’s arrest, citing federal student privacy law.
Like Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian green card holder and recent Columbia University graduate arrested by federal immigration agents last month, Mahdawi has not yet been charged with a crime. Instead, he appears to have been detained on a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act cited by Secretary of State Marco Rubio to justify expelling foreigners who are seen as a threat to U.S. foreign policy and national security, which the petition also challenges.
Last week, a federal judge in Louisiana ordered that Khalil can be deported, determining such arguments are sufficient grounds for his removal, in a decision that is expected to face further challenges.
A federal judge in Vermont ruled on Monday that Mahdawi must be held in the state and cannot be removed from the country for now.
Mahdawi’s legal team did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
Mahdawi had been a key organizer of anti-Israel protests at Columbia that roiled the campus after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. He helped to found Columbia University Apartheid Divest and was a member of the university’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, which has expressed pro-Hamas rhetoric, among other student anti-Israel groups.
For his part, Mahdawi, who moved to the U.S. from a refugee camp in the West Bank in 2014, called Hamas a “product of the Israeli occupation” shortly after the attacks and reportedly helped to write a statement released by Columbia student groups on Oct. 14, 2023, claiming that the “Palestinian struggle for freedom is rooted in international law, under which occupied peoples have the right to resist the occupation of their land.”
He also appeared at a rally a month after the attack alongside Nerdeen Kiswani of Within Our Lifetime, a radical group that advocates for armed resistance against Israel.
In an interview on “60 Minutes” in December 2023, Mahdawi voiced sympathy for Hamas’ terror attacks.
“I did not say that I justify what Hamas has done. I said I can empathize,” he said. “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.”
On his Instagram page in August, meanwhile, Mahdawi posted photos commemorating what he called the “martyrdom” of his “cousin,” Maysara Masharqa, a field commander in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the armed wing of Fatah, describing him as a “fierce resistance fighter,” according to The Washington Free Beacon.
“Here is Mesra who offers his soul as a sacrifice for the homeland and for the blood of the martyrs as a gift for the victory of Gaza and in defense of the dignity of his homeland and his people against the vicious Israeli occupation in the West Bank,” Mahdawi wrote.
While the petition filed by his legal team notes that he stepped back from such activism in March 2024, Mahdawi’s public statements drew intense scrutiny from several antisemitism watchdog groups that are pushing the Trump administration to target campus protest leaders.
Mahdawi, who was an undergraduate at Columbia University, was planning to pursue a master’s degree in the fall, according to the petition.
His arrest drew criticism on Monday from Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Peter Welch (D-VT) and Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT), who said in a statement that “he must be afforded due process under the law and immediately released from detention.”
Claire Shipman, a former ABC News correspondent, was elevated to the school’s top job at a time of historic turmoil
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Acting Columbia University President Claire Shipman testifies before the House Committee on Education & the Workforce at Rayburn House Office Building on April 17, 2024 in Washington, DC.
After Columbia interim President Katrina Armstrong’s abrupt resignation on Friday, several of the university’s congressional antagonists quickly jumped in to criticize Armstrong’s successor, former ABC News journalist Claire Shipman, the co-chair of Columbia’s board.
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), the former chair of the House Education Committee, said that Shipman’s tenure as interim president would be “short-lived.” Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), freshly returned to Capitol Hill after President Donald Trump withdrew her nomination to be U.N. ambassador, called the choice of Shipman “untenable.”
But a different reaction came from the White House: subtle praise. The Trump administration’s antisemitism task force called Columbia’s Friday night actions an “important step,” which an administration official confirmed to Jewish Insider was in reaction to Shipman’s appointment. News reports last week indicated that days before her resignation, Armstrong had promised the Trump administration she would enforce a mask ban on campus while telling faculty privately that she would not.
On Columbia’s campus, the news of Shipman’s hiring was met with cautious optimism from pro-Israel student leaders.
“We’re in desperate need of strong leadership willing to make the deep-seated reforms necessary to save the university at this pivotal moment,” said Eden Yadegar, a senior studying Middle East studies and modern Jewish studies who last year testified before Congress about the antisemitism she has faced on Columbia’s campus. Yadegar declined to elaborate on whether she believes Shipman will bring about those reforms.
Lishi Baker, a junior studying Middle East history and co-chair of the campus Israel advocacy group Aryeh, also said he would take a wait-and-see approach to Shipman. Baker expects university leadership to bring “deep structural and cultural changes at Columbia [that] are necessary to restore our campus to its primary mission of teaching, learning, and research,” he said.
“Some of these changes can happen immediately and some will take longer,” Baker told JI.
The university’s Hillel director, Brian Cohen, praised Shipman in a statement to JI, saying that she “is deeply committed to Columbia University and has consistently demonstrated concern for the well-being and needs of its Jewish community.”
“I look forward to working with her in this new role,” Cohen said.
Major Jewish organizations have largely avoided weighing in on Shipman’s appointment. The Anti-Defamation League told JI that it was “too early.”
Shipman, a veteran reporter and author with no academic leadership experience, has publicly stood by the university’s leadership as co-chair of Columbia’s board of trustees in response to the antisemitism that exploded on campus after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks and ensuing war in Gaza.
From the beginning of her tenure, Shipman will be contending with a complex campus landscape: Many liberal faculty and students are angry about the university’s decision to acquiesce to Trump’s demands as a way to regain access to $400 million in federal funding that his administration pulled in March, citing Columbia’s failure to properly address antisemitism.
She will also face a tough negotiating partner in Washington, and pressure from Jewish students and alumni to take a stronger stance against a campus culture in which anti-Israel protests have thrived, with little consequences for rule-breaking activists until recently.
“In an existential crisis, they need to collaborate and to be candid in the exchanges with the Trump administration and what they’ll do, and they need to stick with that,” Mark Yudof, former president of the University of California, offered as advice for Shipman. “You need good faith implementation of what you agree with with the administration, that you’re not looking for loopholes.”
In a message sent to the Columbia community on Monday, Shipman expressed a desire to meet with people across Columbia’s campus as she navigates this “precarious moment” for the university. She did not reference the circumstances of her appointment, nor did she discuss antisemitism on campus, although she hinted at the seriousness of the task before her.
“My request, right now, is that we all — students, faculty, staff and everyone in this remarkable place — come together and work to protect and support this invaluable repository of knowledge, this home to the next generation of intellectual explorers, and this place of great and continuing promise,” Shipman wrote.
Last April, Shipman testified at a congressional hearing about antisemitism at Columbia alongside then-Columbia President Minouche Shafik, who resigned from her role in August, and board Co-Chair David Greenwald. Shipman told members of the House Committee on Education and Workforce that she knows Columbia has “significant and important work to do to address antisemitism and to ensure that our Jewish community is safe and welcome.”
The hearing generally avoided the splashy headlines that followed testimony from the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania in December 2023. (Shipman reportedly described that hearing as “capital [sic] hill nonsense,” according to a congressional report published in October.)
But her Capitol Hill appearance with Shafik and Greenwald was followed by the erecting of Columbia’s anti-Israel encampment — the first such protest in the country, which touched off dozens of others. Columbia’s response to the encampment earned criticism from bipartisan lawmakers, even as Shipman and her fellow board members stood by Shafik’s handling of the protests, which turned violent when students occupied a campus building.
Choosing a university president from outside of academia is an unusual choice, even for an interim position. Shipman, who grew up in Columbus, Ohio, graduated from Columbia College in 1986 and returned to earn a master’s degree from Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs in 1994. She reported from Moscow for CNN, covered the Clinton administration at NBC News and spent 15 years covering politics and international affairs at ABC News.
Shipman, notably, also spent time earlier in her career covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on assignment in the Middle East.
Harvard is the latest university to have its contracts and grants put under review for failing to adequately address antisemitism on campus
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Gate at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Ramping up its pressure campaign against Ivy League schools, the Trump administration notified Harvard University on Monday in a letter that it is reviewing the school’s billions of dollars in federal funding.
The newly formed Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism will review $255.6 million in contracts and $8.7 billion in multiyear grant commitments between the government and Harvard, first reported by The Free Press and later announced by the Department of Education.
“Harvard’s failure to protect students on campus from anti-semitic discrimination — all while promoting divisive ideologies over free inquiry — has put its reputation in serious jeopardy,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement. “Harvard can right these wrongs and restore itself to a campus dedicated to academic excellence and truth-seeking, where all students feel safe on its campus.”
Harvard President Alan Garber argued in a statement on Monday that the university has “devoted considerable effort to addressing antisemitism” for the past 15 months.
Those efforts, Garber said, have included “strengthen[ing] our rules and our approach to disciplining those who violate them, training and education on antisemitism across our campus and [the introduction of] measures to support our Jewish community and ensure student safety and security.”
Garber said that the university will “engage with members of the federal government’s task force to combat antisemitism to ensure that they have a full account of the work we have done and the actions we will take going forward to combat antisemitism.”
The crackdown comes days after Columbia University agreed to enter into ongoing negotiations with the Trump administration, which cut $400 million from the university on March 7, citing the academic institution’s “ongoing inaction in the face of relentless harassment of Jewish students.” The set of demands that Columbia agreed to include putting the school’s Middle Eastern studies department under a “receivership,” which would involve closer oversight from an external body.
As an apparent preemptive measure to avoid a fate similar to Columbia’s, two heads of Harvard University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies were let go from their roles last Wednesday.
Task force member Sean Keveney, acting general counsel at the Department of Health and Human Services, said in a statement that the task force is “pleased that Harvard is willing to engage with us.”
Harvard University did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Jewish Insider about the investigation.
On March 10, the Department of Education sent letters to 60 universities, including Harvard, warning them of “potential enforcement actions” if they do not fulfill their obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to protect Jewish students.
Meta is reportedly not allowing CUAD to appeal the decision
Victor J. Blue for The Washington Post via Getty Images
Students protest against the war in Gaza on the anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel at Columbia University in New York, New York, on Monday, October 7, 2024.
The Instagram page of the anti-Israel coalition Columbia University Apartheid Divest was disabled on Monday for the second time since the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks, a spokesperson for Meta confirmed to Jewish Insider.
The account belonging to CUAD, a coalition of at least 80 Columbia student groups that was formed in 2016 and has gained renewed support since Hamas’ attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, was initially suspended in December 2024.
Columbia’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, a member of the coalition, was banned from Meta in August 2024. At the time, a spokesperson for Meta, the company that owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, told JI that the account was disabled for repeated violations of Meta’s dangerous organizations and individuals policies.
According to Meta’s policies, the company does “not allow organizations or individuals that proclaim a violent mission or are engaged in violence to have a presence on our platforms.”
The coalition has ramped up its anti-Israel demonstrations, as the university entered into ongoing negotiations with the Trump administration over its handling of antisemitism on campus. The White House cut $400 million from Columbia’s federal funding earlier this month over its failure to address campus antisemitism.
Meta declined to comment on its latest decision to remove CUAD from the platform on Monday. CUAD remains active on several other social media platforms, including X and Telegram.
“This comes after a long and concerted effort from corporations and imperial powers to erase the Palestinian people,” CUAD wrote on X, claiming that this time around Meta is giving “no option for appeal.”
Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the university is ‘on the right track’ to restore funding but must implement terms of agreement
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Demonstrators rally in support of Palestine outside of Columbia University on March 24, 2025 in New York City.
Pro-Israel students returned to Columbia University from spring break on Monday cautiously optimistic that ongoing negotiations between university leaders and the Trump administration would herald an end to the anti-Israel demonstrations that have roiled the campus since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks and the ensuing war in Gaza.
Instead, students were greeted with familiar protests and disruptions. Dozens of masked demonstrators overtook campus, hanging a large “Free Palestine” sign from a building and chanting so loudly it could be heard from inside classrooms.
The negotiations, which were announced on Friday and include rules around the wearing of masks on campus as well as oversight of the school’s Middle Eastern studies department, are a first step toward restoring $400 million in federal funding, according to both the university and the White House.
The reforms agreed upon between Columbia and the federal government include a policy that administration can ask those covering their faces with masks on campus to present identification; clarification of time, place and manner restrictions to clearly state that protests in academic buildings are prohibited; the hiring of 36 “special officers who will have the ability to remove individuals from campus and/or arrest them”; advancing Columbia’s Tel Aviv Center; and putting the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African studies department and the Center for Palestine Studies under the purview of a senior vice provost, who will be appointed by the university and will supervise course material and non-tenure faculty hiring.
On Sunday, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon told CNN that Columbia is “on the right track” to restore the $400 million that the federal government cut from the university on March 7, but she declined to confirm that the canceled grants and contracts would be reinstated.
Jewish leaders, both on and off Columbia’s campus, remain skeptical over whether the concessions will bring a new normal to campus — noting that any changes will come down to the implementation of the agreed upon terms.
Eden Yadegar, a senior studying Middle East studies and modern Jewish studies who has testified before Congress about the antisemitism she has faced on Columbia’s campus, called the government’s list of reforms “not only constructive but necessary.”
“Until Columbia effectively implements these reforms, though, there is no judgement to be made. Contrary to much reporting, Columbia has not implemented the vast majority of these reforms — such as banning masks when used to intimidate or conceal identity, or instituting common time, place and manner protest guidelines,” Yadegar told Jewish Insider. “This is not a value judgement but rather a fact — despite talks with the federal government, Columbia has yet to take meaningful action in comprehensively implementing their list of reforms.”
Eliana Goldin, a fourth-year political science major and co-chair of the campus pro-Israel group Aryeh, argued that this is “definitely not” a moment of reform for the university.
Goldin expressed that she believes that Columbia was “intentionally vague” in its document provided to the federal government on updates to its priorities. “It’s not a done deal,” she said.
“It is promising that Columbia has articulated a plan to address antisemitism,” Brian Cohen, executive director of Columbia Hillel, told JI. Cohen said that the plan could “move us in the right direction,” noting that “there is a lot of work to be done to change the culture of Columbia.”
Next steps between the university and the government remain unclear, Cohen said.
“The effectiveness of these changes will depend entirely on their implementation and enforcement,” the Anti-Defamation League said in a statement. “Columbia must be held accountable for putting these commitments into action. Such practices must protect free speech and academic freedom but not extend to rule breaking actions.”
On Monday, the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism said in a statement that Columbia’s “compliance with the Task Force’s preconditions is only the first step in rehabilitating its relationship with the government, and more importantly, its students and faculty.”
The task force added that “the decisive steps” should “serve as a roadmap for universities with similar problems across the country.”
“Columbia’s early steps are a positive sign, but they must continue to show that they are serious in their resolve to end anti-Semitism and protect all students and faculty on their campus through permanent and structural reform,” Federal Acquisition Service Commissioner and Task Force member Josh Gruenbaum said in a statement. “Other universities that are being investigated by the Task Force should expect the same level of scrutiny and swiftness of action if they don’t act to protect their students and stop anti-Semitic behavior on campus.”
The freshman California congresswoman, who is Jewish, said expressing sympathy or support for Palestinians in Gaza is not sufficient ground to merit deportation
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Rep.-elect Laura Friedman (D-CA) arrives along with other congressional freshmen of the 119th Congress for a group photograph on the steps of the House of Representatives at the U.S. Capitol Building in November 2024. Friedman led the letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on the swastika policy.
Representing one of the most heavily Jewish congressional districts in America — California’s 30th, which encompasses Hollywood, Burbank and Glendale — freshman House Democrat Laura Friedman has made the issue of antisemitism a priority in her political life.
As a legislator in the California Statehouse, she and her fellow Jewish caucus members had supported establishing an ethnic studies program, and later fought back against efforts to include antisemitic material in it, working with other identity caucuses in the state Legislature. And she authored a bill, which passed, requiring Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs to include education on antisemitism and the Jewish experience.
Now, as Friedman confronts the issue from Washington, as a member of the minority party, she is taking a nuanced view. Noting the gravity of the issue, she told Jewish Insider in an interview last week, “I don’t think we can take the threats of rising antisemitism too seriously.” But while saying that the seriousness of the antisemitism problem in the United States can’t be overstated, she also argued that some of the Trump administration’s high-profile moves responding to campus antisemitism, especially at Columbia University, are not the right approach.
Friedman, who is Jewish, told JI that the Trump administration’s move to revoke hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of grant funding from Columbia University in response to its failure to address campus antisemitism is “the absolute wrong approach.”
“It’s not going to make antisemitism any better on campuses,” Friedman said. “In fact, it’s going to make Jews responsible for the defunding of programs to deal with cancer research, with science, [which] has nothing to do with antisemitism. I don’t believe that this is a serious attempt to combat antisemitism. I think it’s a way to punish schools that this administration thinks ideologically are not in lockstep with MAGA.”
Friedman said that if there are specific programs at issue, those could and should be evaluated, “but don’t take away money from medical researchers. Don’t take money away from scholarships to students that might be going to Jewish students. … That is counterproductive and it’s not going to help.”
In the immediate aftermath of the arrest of former Columbia student and green card holder Mahmoud Khalil over his involvement in anti-Israel and alleged pro-Hamas activities on Columbia’s campus — before the details of his arrest became clear — Friedman said that he deserves due process and that the high legal standards for revoking his residency must be met, adding that she was concerned about the way the arrest was conducted.
She said that expressing sympathy or support for Palestinians in Gaza is not sufficient ground to merit deportation.
As a general matter, Friedman said that laws around immigration and green cards should be applied fairly and consistently, and that it would set a “dangerous precedent” to specifically target students involved in certain types of activities if others violating similar laws under circumstances unrelated to anti-Israel protests aren’t also facing deportation.
“We need to be consistent across the board. We can’t cherry-pick certain types of protest that we don’t like,” Friedman said. “And believe me: I’m not on the side of the protesters in many of these cases, but we need to make sure that we’re applying whatever law it is around deportations equally.”
She said that attention must also be focused on the ways that antisemitism has emerged from conspiracy theories and extremist rhetoric, particularly on the political right.
“We’re seeing this, I believe, from this administration. And I don’t even believe that the motions they make toward Israel — it doesn’t mean that there’s not antisemitism there as well,” Friedman said. “I just don’t see a good-faith effort to really combat antisemitism.”
To her, a good-faith effort “means to stop using the Jews as the scapegoats,” Friedman said, to stop indulging conspiracy theories, to not platform or bring into the administration individuals who express antisemitic views and to publicly condemn antisemitic conspiracy theories.
“If you’re not outwardly saying that this is antisemitic and it’s wrong and it’s a conspiracy theory that has no basis in fact, then you’re tacitly encouraging it,” Friedman said, addressing the hiring of antisemitic commentator Kinglsey Wilson at the Pentagon and the platforming of Holocaust deniers and other antisemites in right-wing media spaces like the Joe Rogan podcast.
Asked about specific policy approaches for the federal government, Friedman highlighted the DEI legislation she passed in California requiring such programs to include education on antisemitism and the Jewish experience, which she said would make academics better aware of the issues and of what antisemitism is.
She also highlighted legislation that passed in California requiring students entering universities to sign a code of conduct affirming that they are aware of their schools’ rules and the punishments for violating them, so that they cannot later plead ignorance if they break them.
Friedman additionally emphasized the importance of educating people about the Holocaust, the founding of Israel and antisemitic tropes, so that they can identify when criticism of Israel crosses the line into antisemitism and understand the history of Jewish connections to Israel.
Looking toward the Middle East, before Israel had resumed military operations in Gaza, Friedman said that freeing as many hostages as possible must be the “paramount consideration” for Israel and the United States.
In the longer term, she said the U.S. and Israel should work with Arab partners to help stabilize Gaza and the region as a whole.
“I’m not an expert. I don’t live in Israel. I don’t want to be the American to tell Israel what to do and how to keep itself safe, but Israel has to think about its long-term stability and having normalized relationships with as many countries as possible, as it seemed like was happening,” Friedman said.
She noted that Hamas was likely seeking to foil those peace efforts through its Oct. 7 attacks, and that further normalization and stabilization must be a central goal going forward “so that Israel doesn’t have this kind of situation happen over and over again.”
Friedman said that Hamas must be removed from power in Gaza and that a “regional solution” is likely going to be necessary to accomplish that goal and achieve further peace. “I don’t know that Israel can do this alone as much as I’d like for them to be able to.”
The path to peace, Friedman continued, will likely need to go beyond just a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, and will now require a “regional solution” where Israel commits to allowing self-governance for the Palestinians, and the Palestinians and other countries in the region also agree to support and guarantee Israeli security.
She added that she wants to avoid war with Iran, but “we need to keep Iran from having nuclear weapons,” calling it unquestionably “the most destabilizing and the most threatening outcome for the whole region, not just for Israel.”
The emergence of a new regime in Syria and the U.S.’ efforts to influence that government, Friedman argued, highlight why the Trump administration was wrong to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development.
She said that USAID and other diplomatic tools provide the U.S. with powerful ways to incentivize other governments to have positive relationships with the U.S. and ensure outcomes friendly to it and its allies, like Israel.
Friedman emphasized that she’s been deeply involved in Jewish advocacy issues since the beginning of her political career, having been one of the first candidates endorsed by the then-nascent California Legislative Jewish Caucus. She said that, in office, she came to work closely with Jewish groups in California.
One particular issue of focus for her in California was the state’s controversial ethnic studies curriculum. She said the Jewish caucus had advocated for establishing an ethnic studies program, and later fought back against efforts to include antisemitic material in it, working with other identity caucuses in the state Legislature.
Friedman is now a member of the newly formed Congressional Jewish Caucus. From her experience in California, she said she envisions the group can be helping to provide a resource and advocacy for Jewish communities around the country that do not feel that they have a representative who is looking out for their needs or standing up against antisemitism.
She said that the group can also play an important role by being “very clear when things are being done by this administration in our name that don’t align with our values.”
And she said the Jewish caucus can build relationships with other identity based caucuses to support shared issues as well as educate other groups about Jewish issues and values, so that they can call upon them to help fight antisemitism — such as when the Jewish Caucus in California enlisted the support of other ethnic caucuses to combat problematic material in the ethnic studies program.
Columbia is reportedly close to an agreement that would put its Middle Eastern Studies department, an anti-Israel epicenter, under an academic receivership
Kaya/Flickr
Columbia University
The field of modern Middle Eastern studies was born at Columbia University in the 1970s under the influence of Edward Said, the prominent Palestinian-American literature scholar and political activist.
Now, the discipline as it currently exists may die there, too, as President Donald Trump seeks to rein in a field that has come under immense scrutiny following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks — an event that some ideologues in Middle Eastern studies departments at Columbia and other elite institutions praised as “resistance” against the “settler-colonial” Israeli state. Critics of the field have long alleged that it teaches students a one-sided history of the Middle East, flattening the region’s complexities into an overly simplistic story in which Israel is the perpetual villain.
In a letter to Columbia’s president and trustees last week, the Trump administration issued a set of demands that it described as a pre-condition for beginning talks about Columbia’s “continued financial relationship with the United States government,” after $400 million in federal grants and contracts were pulled in response to Columbia’s alleged inaction against antisemitism.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Columbia was close to agreeing to meet Trump’s demands, which include banning masks, creating stronger campus disciplinary procedures, giving campus police more power and — most controversially, at least according to academics — putting the school’s Middle East, South Asian and African Studies department under something the Trump administration described as an “academic receivership.”
Doing so would be an unusual step, with management of the department transferred from its faculty to an external figure. Receiverships are already extraordinarily rare within academia; to have one mandated by the federal government is unprecedented.
Whether that person would come from inside Columbia, from another academic institution or from the government is not clear; spokespeople for Columbia, the White House and the Education Department declined to comment on Wednesday.
The push to put the department under receivership has lit a fuse under academics, many of whom — including some who are deeply critical of the increasingly radical tilt of the Middle Eastern studies field — worry that the move reeks of government censorship. One prominent Jewish studies professor at an East Coast university said it rivaled Joseph Stalin’s rewriting of Russian history.
“I don’t think this is a great solution because it creates this adversarial situation,” said the writer Dara Horn, who has a doctorate from Harvard and served on Harvard’s antisemitism task force in late 2023. “I would like these institutions to change without outside pressure. But I don’t see that happening.”
“When a government steps in to say what an institution of higher education can be teaching, that is, to me, a signal of authoritarianism and fascism, actually not only on the right, but also this is exactly what the communists did in terms of the Soviet Union,” said the professor, who requested anonymity for fear of professional repercussions.
But after a year and a half of prestigious institutions like Columbia failing to take the concerns of Jewish students and faculty members seriously, even some skeptics of Trump’s meddling in higher education acknowledge that it might take unprecedented action to jolt universities leaders into action.
“I don’t think this is a great solution because it creates this adversarial situation,” said the writer Dara Horn, who has a doctorate from Harvard and served on Harvard’s antisemitism task force in late 2023. “I would like these institutions to change without outside pressure. But I don’t see that happening.” A 2024 report from the Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance took aim at the school’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies and other academic departments for taking the view that “the Palestinian people are innocent victims of Jewish (white) oppression and that known terrorist groups are simply ‘political movements.’”
Miriam Elman, a former political science professor at Syracuse, expressed concern that last week’s letter from the Trump administration made the receivership sound like “a hostile takeover.”
But that may be the price Columbia must pay for its handling of campus events since Oct. 7, Elman conceded. “I always come back to this — that if the universities don’t get their house in order, internally on their own, the outside will come for them,” said Elman, who is now the executive director of the Academic Engagement Network, which organizes faculty to oppose anti-Israel trends on their campuses.
Asaf Romirowsky, a Middle East historian who is a longtime critic of the broader Middle Eastern studies field, said, “This is not a violation, to my mind, of free speech. It’s a matter of looking at national security matters that are taking place here, given how these departments and how these institutions have allowed terrorism to thrive in lieu of scholarship and legitimate education.”
The Trump administration’s letter to Columbia last week made the argument that government scrutiny is necessary because “taxpayers invest enormously” in American colleges, so federal officials have a duty to make sure the money is spent responsibly.
Given the way some Columbia faculty members have described the Hamas attacks — such as Professor Joseph Massad, who called the scenes of violence on Oct. 7 “awesome” — Asaf Romirowsky, a Middle East historian who is a longtime critic of the broader Middle Eastern studies field, described the receivership as a necessary course corrective, taken with national security concerns in mind.
“I see no problem at all,” said Romirowsky, executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa. “This is not a violation, to my mind, of free speech. It’s a matter of looking at national security matters that are taking place here, given how these departments and how these institutions have allowed terrorism to thrive in lieu of scholarship and legitimate education.”
David Myers, the chair of Jewish history at the University of California, Los Angeles, conceded that the field of Middle Eastern studies is “highly politicized” and that it should be “more open to diversity of perspectives.” But he doesn’t think Trump’s proposal is the way to fix that.
“Is our assumption that money is so fungible that to the extent to which I’m at all financially supported by the federal government, then Uncle Sam owns that much piece of whatever I’m doing across the board? That seems to be the implicit argument here,” said a Zionist Middle Eastern studies professor at a New England university. “For an administration that touts the virtues of the free market, it’s a little totalitarian.”
“Does the malady merit this proposed remedy? I really don’t think so,” Myers said. “It’s really saying, ‘We the government can and should have control over not only your teaching agenda, but really about how you conduct research.’”
The impact of what will happen next with Columbia’s Middle Eastern studies department will extend far beyond the Morningside Heights campus and the confines of a single academic discipline. Those watching closely include not just other academics in the field of Middle East studies, but professors and researchers across all disciplines, wary that their funding may come under threat, or that their writings and syllabi may be subjected to an additional, unexpected degree of scrutiny from government officials.
“Is our assumption that money is so fungible that to the extent to which I’m at all financially supported by the federal government, then Uncle Sam owns that much piece of whatever I’m doing across the board? That seems to be the implicit argument here,” said a Zionist Middle Eastern studies professor at a New England university. “For an administration that touts the virtues of the free market, it’s a little totalitarian.”
The lawsuit alleges the university knowing allowed anti-Israel protesters to harass Jewish students and prevent them from going to class
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Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.
The Justice Department’s newly formed Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism filed a statement of interest in court on Monday night supporting Jewish students and a professor in their case alleging that the University of California Los Angeles permitted antisemitism on campus.
According to the suit, in the spring of 2024 UCLA violated Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act by knowingly allowed members of an anti-Israel protest encampment to physically prevent students and faculty from accessing portions of the campus if they were wearing items that identified them as Jewish if they refused to denounce Israel. The filing comes as the task force is separately investigating the University of California system for Title VI violations.
The brief filed on Monday marks the first time the federal government has filed a statement of interest in court to argue that a university should be held accountable for the campus antisemitism that has skyrocketed across the country since the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Israel.
Leo Terrell, head of the antisemitism task force, said in a statement that “the President, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and the Task Force know that every student must be free to attend school without being discriminated against on the basis of their race, religion or national origin.”
The Trump administration’s new multi-agency task force to combat antisemitism announced earlier this month that it would visit 10 university campuses that have experienced an increase of antisemitic incidents.
The task force already announced it will cut $400 million from Columbia University’s federal funding due to antisemitic demonstrations unless the university agrees to a number of conditions by Thursday. At the time, Terrell said that was “only the beginning” of university funding cuts.
The university has disciplined students participating in the anti-Israel encampment
Kaya/Flickr
Columbia University
The intense scrutiny that the Trump administration has placed on Columbia University for failing to address rising campus antisemitism escalated last week in several incidents that culminated in Department of Homeland Security agents raiding two dorm rooms on Thursday night and arresting one student, and another student having their visa revoked by the State Department.
Leqaa Korda, a Palestinian from the West Bank who has been active in anti-Israel protests on campus, was arrested for allegedly overstaying her expired visa, which terminated in January 2022. Korda had previously been arrested for her involvement in the protests last year, according to DHS.
A second student, Ranjani Srinivasan, a Ph.D. candidate from India, had her student visa revoked on March 5 for “advocating for violence and terrorism,” DHS said in a statement Friday. Srinivasan has already “self-deported” to Canada.
Katrina Armstrong, Columbia’s interim president, said in a statement that she was “heartbroken” by the raid, adding that “no one was arrested or detained,” which DHS contradicted with its statement. DHS agents served Columbia with two warrants to access the dorms, where Armstrong said “no items were removed, and no further action was taken.”
The search came as Columbia University faces mounting pressure from the Trump administration to address the antisemitic demonstrations that have roiled the campus since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks. The university became the focal point of a national debate on free speech last week when immigration officers arrested and threatened to deport recent graduate Mahmoud Khalil over his role in anti-Israel activism on campus.
Earlier this month, the White House cut $400 million from Columbia’s federal funding over its failure to crack down on antisemitism. The Wall Street Journal reported the decision is under a 30-day review period.
The Trump administration followed up last week with a series of preconditions and policy changes that Columbia must implement in order to restore the federal funding. Demands from the federal government — which the university must agree to by March 20 — include the termination of the University Judicial Board, the implementation of a mask ban and the granting of “full law enforcement authority, including arrest and removal of agitators” to public safety officers. The letter stated that Columbia has “fundamentally failed to protect American students and faculty from antisemitic violence and harassment in addition to other alleged violations of Title VI and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”
Also on Thursday, the university issued expulsions, multiyear suspensions and degree revocation for students who participated in the anti-Israel encampment and occupation of the university’s Hamilton Hall last spring, after the University Judicial Board found that the participants violated university policy.
A university official told Jewish Insider that Columbia began the disciplinary process against these students immediately following the takeover of the campus building last April — which initially included interim suspensions of several participants.
The official added that new revisions — including a designated rules administrator and the development of an Office of Rules Administration — will “allow the Rules process to operate more expeditiously” going forward. The university declined to provide the number of students impacted by these latest actions.
Brian Cohen, executive director of Columbia Hillel, called the disciplinary action “an important first step in righting the wrongs of the past year and a half.”
“I am grateful to the Rules Administrator and other members of the Administration for their roles in ensuring these cases were resolved,” Cohen wrote on X.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt referenced a federal statute that allows the secretary of state to deport immigrants who are ‘adversarial’ to U.S. ‘foreign policy and national security interests’
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White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt takes a question from a reporter during the daily press briefing at the White House on March 11, 2025 in Washington, DC.
As questions swirl about the Trump administration’s legal authority to revoke the green card of Columbia University protest leader Mahmoud Khalil, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt offered an answer on Tuesday — a federal statute that permits removing anyone with a U.S. visa or green card whose actions are “adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States of America.”
Leavitt was referring to a passage in the Immigration and Nationality Act, the 1952 law that governs immigration, which says that if the secretary of state has “reasonable grounds” to believe that a migrant poses “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences” to the United States, that person is able to be deported. When asked if a green card holder must be charged with a crime in order to be eligible for deportation, Leavitt — in stating plainly that Secretary of State Marco Rubio already retains the power to deport individuals — suggested the answer is no.
“Secretary Rubio exercised that authority, and we fully believe that we are going to move forward with more arrests,” Leavitt said. A White House official told The Free Press that Khalil is not currently being charged with a crime: “The allegation here is not that he was breaking the law,” the official said.
Khalil, a 30-year-old of Palestinian descent who grew up in Syria, was detained by immigration authorities on Saturday in Manhattan. He had been a leader of the anti-Israel encampment protesting the war in Gaza on Columbia’s campus last spring, and served as its lead negotiator with university administrators.
“This is an individual who organized group protests that not only disrupted college campus classes and harassed Jewish American students and made them feel unsafe on their own college campus, but also distributed pro-Hamas propaganda flyers with the logo of Hamas,” said Leavitt.
Many on the left, including the leadership of the Senate Judiciary Committee, have rallied around Khalil as a symbol of overreach by President Donald Trump. But Khalil’s arrest has also drawn scrutiny from some legal experts who see it as an attempt to bypass due process protections and target anti-Israel speech. Some have cheered the move, saying that Khalil’s leadership in the encampment movement is evidence enough of his involvement in criminal acts.
Trump administration officials have made clear that Khalil is just the first foreign student activist likely to face immigration consequences. The White House and the Department of Homeland Security have been working together since Trump signed an executive order on antisemitism in January to identify other people to deport.
“They have been using intelligence to identify individuals on our nation’s colleges and universities, on our college campuses, who have engaged in such behavior and activity, and especially illegal activity,” Leavitt said. She stated that Columbia has received the names of other “pro-Hamas” students that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement wants to deport, but Columbia is not cooperating with them.
A Columbia spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Katrina Armstrong, Columbia’s interim president, sent an email on Monday to university affiliates that said she “understand[s] the distress” around ICE officers on campus but didn’t mention Khalil.
As a lawful permanent resident, Mahmoud Khalil has a stronger claim to due process protections than he would as a foreign national in the U.S. on a time-bound student visa, which has raised questions about the legality of Trump’s move
Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images
Protestors gather in Foley Square and march through the streets of Lower Manhattan in protest of the detention of Palestinian activist and Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in New York, United States on March 10, 2025.
“SHALOM, MAHMOUD.” That’s how the White House announced the detention and planned deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia University graduate who was an organizer of last year’s anti-Israel encampment on campus.
President Donald Trump called Khalil, who grew up in Syria but is of Palestinian descent, “a radical foreign pro-Hamas student,” and said the former graduate student’s arrest was the “first arrest of many to come” as his administration began to target “terrorist sympathizers.” The move escalated Trump’s long-standing commitment to deport foreign students who support terrorism, which he made a priority in a January executive order on combating antisemitism.
While Khalil, who is 30, first came to the U.S. on a student visa, he later received a green card. As a lawful permanent resident, Khalil has a stronger claim to due process protections than he would as a foreign national in the U.S. on a time-bound student visa — which has raised questions for some legal experts about the legality of Trump’s move to arrest and deport Khalil. On Monday, a federal judge in New York blocked his deportation pending further proceedings.
“I consider myself on the right, and I wouldn’t have any objection to student visa action,” said Paul Rosenzweig, a former Republican Department of Homeland Security official and a national security lawyer. “Maybe this guy shouldn’t have gotten a green card in the first instance. But he’s got one now, and that means he has rights.”
Central to the issue is a debate over whether Khalil’s activism — as one of the encampment’s lead negotiators and an advocate for divestment from Israel — should be considered free speech, protected by the First Amendment, or whether it should be viewed as support for terrorism.
“There is some obvious ambiguity about what counts as expressing support for terrorism. You could define that narrowly or broadly,” said Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University. “When we talk about pro-terrorist speech or other kinds of categories of objectionable speech, a lot of them have a high degree of fuzziness about their meaning.”
A DHS spokesperson said on Sunday that Khalil “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.” The Trump administration had not yet outlined the details of their allegations, such as whether Khalil himself made any concerning comments or if he participated in unlawful activity, like the violent occupation of a campus building last April. Khalil also hadn’t been charged with a crime. Spokespeople at the State Department and DHS did not respond to requests for comment on Monday.
Federal immigration law states that a foreigner is “inadmissible” if they have endorsed or espoused “terrorist activity” or persuaded others to do so, or if they “support a terrorist organization.” They are also deemed ineligible to be in the U.S. if officials have “reasonable ground to believe” someone “is a representative of a terrorist organization or a political, social or other group that endorses or espouses terrorist activity.” But what is considered support for terrorism is a difficult legal question, particularly as it relates to immigrants and visa holders.
“They’ll try to say, ‘Oh, this remark or that remark is espousing terrorism and encouraging other people to do so,’” said Elizabeth Keyes, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law. She argued that the terrorism argument may be a way for Trump to target anti-Israel speech.
“What they’re really doing is trying to make sure people are afraid to express their political viewpoints, and that’s a First Amendment problem,” Keyes continued. “Even though this will be litigated in some way, shape or form in immigration court, there’s also going to be First Amendment challenges.”
The key question, according to Will Creeley, a First Amendment attorney and the legal director of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, is whether Khalil engaged in unlawful conduct in the course of his participation in last year’s encampment. The Trump administration has not provided answers on that front.
“The way I’ve been thinking about it today is that, just as the First Amendment protects your right to wear, for example, the KKK’s white sheets or fly the communist flag, so, too, does it protect your right to distribute pamphlets about Hamas,” Creeley told Jewish Insider. “You don’t have the right to break into a library. You don’t have the right to prevent access and egress to a campus and so forth. But without that information, we just can’t tell what’s at issue here.”
Some have argued that simply participating in the encampment rises to the level of criminal activity. Khalil was under investigation by Columbia University for alleged misconduct last year, but he was ultimately cleared and allowed to graduate in December.
“This was not mere protest activity, but involved some degree of criminality,” said Ken Marcus, founder and chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which litigates civil rights cases alleging antisemitism at U.S. universities. “The federal government is not prosecuting people for engaging in political speech. The federal government is addressing criminality, violation of school rules and violation of the terms of either green cards or student visas.”
Revoking student visas is a much less onerous process than doing so for a green card. Revocation of a green card requires the holder to appear before an immigration judge — unlike the arrest and deportation of undocumented immigrants, another priority of the Trump administration, which has dispatched Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents to major cities to deport immigrants who lack legal status.
“Sometimes courts are reluctant to infringe upon the liberties of green card holders in a way that they’re not reluctant if it’s somebody who’s here temporarily or somebody who’s here without status at all,” said Keyes. That is not to say that a person with a green card must be convicted of, or even charged with, a crime to have their legal status revoked.
“Many of the grounds don’t require convictions. It’s just the administration saying this person is trying to get other people to support a terrorist organization, and they have enormous latitude to determine who’s a terrorist organization,” added Keyes.
A petition filed by Khalil’s lawyer alleges that the four DHS agents who arrested him at his home on Saturday night told him they were there to revoke his student visa, suggesting they were not aware that he now holds a green card. When he showed them documents proving he has a green card, they said they were revoking that, too.
“It’s much easier to revoke those visas than to revoke green cards. And it may be that they initially thought that he only had a student visa, when, in reality, he had a green card,” said Somin. “Green cards can only be revoked for a relatively narrow set of specified reasons. Whether providing support to terrorism or expressing such support can qualify as such a reason is a question that perhaps will now be litigated.”
Most House Republicans celebrated the move, but several Senate Republicans said they’re waiting for more details
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A Department of Homeland Security officer stands guard at 26 Federal plaza as protestors gather to demand the release of Mahmoud Khalil at Foley Square on March 10, 2025 in New York City.
Left-wing lawmakers condemned the Trump administration’s decision to detain Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University student who was a leader in anti-Israel campus protests, while several pro-Israel Democrats were taking a wait-and-see approach, underscoring the scourge of campus antisemitism while also acknowledging the need for due process.
The administration accused Syrian-born Khalil, a green card holder, of organizing pro-Hamas protests, although the precise legal justification for his detention and potential deportation remained unclear. A federal judge temporarily halted Khalil’s deportation pending a legal challenge.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, repeatedly defended Khalil, posting “Free Mahmoud Khalil” and accusing the administration of arresting Khalil because administration officials “didn’t agree with what he said” in his legitimate exercise of free speech rights.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) characterized the arrest and detention as a potential overreach, stating that the university disciplinary process should handle any violations of Jewish students’ rights.
“In the context of the arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil, DHS must produce facts and evidence of criminal activity. Absent evidence of a crime, such as providing material support for a terrorist organization, the actions undertaken by the Trump administration are wildly inconsistent with the United States Constitution,” Jeffries said in a statement. “A judge has blocked this egregious removal pending further action and, along with [New York] Attorney General Letitia James, we will continue monitoring this developing situation closely.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) posted, “If the federal government can disappear a legal US permanent resident without reason or warrant, then they can disappear US citizens too.” Other progressive lawmakers also suggested that U.S. citizens could be targeted next.
According to ICE, Khalil was transferred to a Louisiana facility; his whereabouts had been unclear earlier on Monday.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) collected signatures from fellow lawmakers on a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, which she planned to send on Tuesday morning, a source familiar with the situation told Jewish Insider.
A draft version of the letter obtained by JI accuses the administration of having “effectively disappeared” Khalil and demands his immediate release and a halt to any further similar detentions. It also characterizes him as a “political prisoner” and victim of “anti-Palestinian racism.” Khalil is of Palestinian descent.
“Khalil has not been charged or convicted of any crime,” the letter reads. “As the Trump administration proudly admits, he was targeted solely for his activism and organizing as a student leader and negotiator for the Gaza Solidarity Encampment on Columbia University campus, protesting the Israeli government’s brutal assault on the Palestinian people in Gaza and his university’s complicity in this oppression.”
The Tlaib letter further states that “if unchecked, this authoritarian playbook will be applied to any and all opposition to his undemocratic agenda” and that the arrest is a threat to all Americans. It also calls on universities to “protect their students from this vile assault on free thought and expression.”
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) expressed concern about the situation but said he needed to be briefed on the details. “I’m alarmed. I don’t know the facts, but I’m alarmed,” Schatz told JI.
“It was never about free speech, it was about controlling the kind of speech they like,” Schatz said when asked about the move coming from the Trump administration, which campaigned on protecting free speech. “Last I checked, it’s still legal to have unpopular or even offensive political opinions and so I’d like to understand the facts a little bit, but this seems like a pretty big screw up.”
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), a co-chair of the House Jewish Caucus, said he’s monitoring the situation but added that “the warrantless arrest of any legal permanent resident seemingly solely over their speech is a chilling, McCarthyesque action in response to the exercise of First Amendment rights to free speech” and an illegal move that will not protect Jewish students.
Some pro-Israel moderate Democrats told JI they didn’t know enough about the situation to weigh in, while others sounded cautiously supportive of the policy in general terms.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) told JI that more details on the case are necessary and that everyone should receive due process.
As a general matter, he continued, “If you’re here as a foreign student … and you’re attending Hamas rallies, then yes, your tourism visa or your student visa should be looked at. I don’t know the particulars of this case, but he should be getting due process.”
“We need the details,” Moskowitz reiterated. “If he turns out that he’s organizing Hamas rallies, then it’s something that needs to be looked at.”
Rep. Laura Gillen (D-NY) told JI she was “very concerned about violence on college campuses … I think that we have to treat people who behave that way with the seriousness it requires.”
House Republicans largely backed the move.
“We’ve all seen the appalling groups of masked pro-Hamas protestors terrorizing college campuses and intimidating American students. I do not think the State Department is out of bounds by revoking the visas of individuals that are breaking the law,” Rep. Craig Goldman (R-TX), a Jewish House Republican, told JI. “It is a privilege to come into the United States and participate in our higher education system — this does not give a foreign individual the right to commit crimes, support terrorism, promote antisemitism, and intimidate American students.”
Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, described Khalil as a terrorist sympathizer and an enemy of the United States.
“If Mahmoud Khalil told customs officers when he entered the U.S. that he was coming here to intimidate and harass American Jews, shout death to America, promote Hamas, and occupy campus buildings they would have not let him in,” Mast said in a statement.
“We only have one nation and if we don’t defend it from all enemies foreign and domestic — nobody else will,” he continued. “I applaud President Trump and Secretary Rubio for leading with common sense and kicking terrorist sympathizers out of our country. It’s time for them all to leave.”
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) said that the deportation is “long overdue.”
“Being a foreign student or having a green card is a privilege, not a right,” Lawler said. “If you are going to engage in antisemitic protest and violate the rights and freedoms of other students, your visa and/or green card can and should be revoked.”
Some Senate Republicans are taking a more cautious stance, saying they’re waiting for the details of the case to play out.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), who spoke at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week in favor of deporting visa holders involved in pro-Hamas activity, said he didn’t know the details of the case or whether Khalil had committed illegal activity or violated the terms of his green card.
“The question would be, did he violate the terms of his status? I just don’t know the answer,” Hawley said, asked if the case raises First Amendment concerns. “I’d have to go look, as a legal matter … It depends on what the terms are that you agree to come into this country.”
More broadly, Hawley continued, he is “all for revoking visas of students who commit unlawful activity” such as vandalism, assault and trespassing. “If they are protesting peacefully, that’s fine. I don’t like what they’re saying in these cases, but that’s the First Amendment.”
Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) said in a CNN interview that Khalil would receive due process and that non-citizens who support terrorist groups were subject to deportation, but acknowledged that Khalil said he does not support Hamas and had denied involvement in illegal or discriminatory behavior on Columbia’s campus.
“We’ll find out who’s right,” Kennedy said. “The Immigration and Naturalization Act, though, is fairly broad. And if the administration can show acts directly and probably indirectly supporting Hamas, they’ll deport him, and he should be deported, if that’s what’s shown in court.”
The other leading Democratic candidates for New York City mayor condemned the arrest as unconstitutional and authoritarian
Seth Wenig-Pool/Getty Images
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is so far staying silent with regard to the arrest by federal agents on Sunday of a Palestinian student activist who played a leading role in anti-Israel protests at Columbia University last year — as several primary rivals for New York City mayor condemn the move.
A spokesperson for Cuomo, a Democrat who announced his mayoral bid a week ago, did not return requests for comment from Jewish Insider on Monday. He has otherwise declined to publicly address the matter.
His hesitation to weigh in on the politically charged issue suggests that Cuomo — who has been courting Jewish and pro-Israel voters — is taking a cautious approach to the Trump administration’s polarizing crackdown on campus protests even as he indicates that combating rising antisemitism is among his top priorities.
“The law must be aggressively enforced and our New York should go even further and be at the forefront, leading the fight against the global rise of antisemitism,” Cuomo said in a 17-minute kickoff video, which featured an image of an anti-Israel demonstration outside of Fordham University.
The former governor has also pledged to stand up to President Donald Trump, characterizing him as “the bully in the schoolyard” who “puts his finger in your chest.”
Cuomo’s opponents in the June primary election, meanwhile, have almost unanimously denounced the arrest as a violation of due process and called for the release of Mahmoud Khalil — a green card holder who was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents days after the Trump administration said it would slash $400 million in federal funding from Columbia over the university’s handling of alleged antisemitic protests.
Brad Lander, the progressive-minded city comptroller and a Jewish Democrat, called the arrest “an unconstitutional and egregious violation of the First Amendment, and a frightening weaponization of immigration law.”
“I disagree strongly with things that were said in the protests he reportedly led,” Lander said on Sunday. “But it will not make Jews — or any of us — safer for the federal government to deport people for saying things we may find hateful.”
In a statement to JI on Monday, Scott Stringer, the former comptroller and a Jewish Democrat, said it is “absolutely absurd for the government to arrest people they don’t agree with.”
“While I disagree with many of the tactics and rhetoric of the protests at Columbia, the Trump administration detaining a green card holder for engaging in speech they don’t like is a clear violation of First Amendment rights,” Stringer added.
Zohran Mamdani, a state assemblyman from Queens and the most outspoken critic of Israel in the mayoral race, also denounced the arrest as “a blatant assault on the First Amendment and a sign of advancing authoritarianism under Trump,” he wrote on social media. “He must be released now.”
Mamdani added in a separate post that Cuomo’s continued avoidance of the issue shows he is “not prepared to stand up to Donald Trump.”
“This chilling action by the Trump administration crosses another line towards authoritarianism,” said Zellnor Myrie, a Brooklyn state senator who is one of several progressives in the race. “ICE has no right to detain a green card holder who has not been convicted of, or even charged with, any crime. This is profoundly un-American, and Khalil must be released.”
Adrienne Adams, the City Council speaker who officially launched her mayoral bid on Saturday, likewise characterized Khalil’s arrest as an act of “blatant authoritarianism.”
“This is a civil rights issue and an astounding overreach that disregards the U.S. Constitution,” she said on Monday. “It should concern every American and cannot be allowed to stand.”
In a statement shared with JI on Monday, Jessica Ramos, a state senator from Queens, said that the Trump administration had “offered no serious legal justification for Khalil’s detention, instead citing a Trump executive order.”
“We know from history that abuse of detention powers are a hallmark of authoritarian regimes,” Ramos added. “Contrary to his own belief, Trump is not a king. His actions are a threat to all of us, even those who disagree with Khalil’s speech. I demand the immediate release of Mahmoud Khalil.”
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement on Sunday that Khalil had been arrested “in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism,” claiming the former Columbia graduate student “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.”
“ICE and the Department of State are committed to enforcing President Trump’s executive orders and to protecting U.S. national security,” the statement added.
Khalil, who has not been formally charged with a crime, is being held in an immigration detention facility in Louisiana, according to an online ICE database. His attorney has vowed to challenge the arrest in court.
Trump, in comments posted to social media on Monday, said that Khalil’s detention “is the first arrest of many to come.”
“We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it,” he wrote. “Many are not students, they are paid agitators. We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again.”
A spokesperson for New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who had aggressively targeted Columbia protestors last year, declined to comment on the arrest. “We don’t have a lot of information on this beyond what has been reported,” the spokesperson told JI, adding that Adams’ team “doesn’t work with ICE on civil immigration enforcement.”
The mayor has in recent weeks faced widespread calls to resign over accusations, which he denies, that he negotiated a deal with the Department of Justice to dismiss his federal corruption charges in exchange for enforcing the Trump administration’s immigration agenda.
Jim Walden, a former federal prosecutor who is running as an independent, shared a more skeptical view of Khalil on Monday, even as he called for due process in handling his arrest. “I cannot lend my voice to someone who strikes me as an antisemitic terrorist sympathizer,” he told JI in a statement. “He deserves due process of law in the United States — unlike the repressive regimes he supports.”
“Offering support to terrorists, attacking Jewish students, and engaging in hate speech seem like valid reasons for authorities to take a closer look at pro-Hamas organizers,” Walden said.
The announcement comes days after Trump said all federal funding will ‘STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests’
Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty Images
Pro-Palestinian protesters gather outside Columbia University Campus on March 04, 2025.
The Trump administration announced on Friday it will cut $400 million from Columbia University’s federal funding due to antisemitic demonstrations that have roiled the campus since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks.
The announcement comes in the wake of the Trump administration saying it would conduct “a comprehensive review of the more than $5 billion in federal grant commitments to Columbia University to ensure the university is in compliance with federal regulations, including its civil rights responsibilities.” The review included a multiagency assessment of the federal government’s $51.4 million in contracts with Columbia University, citing the academic institution’s “ongoing inaction in the face of relentless harassment of Jewish students.”
The cut announced on Friday, first reported by The Free Press, comes days after Trump posted on social media that “all Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests.”
A Columbia University spokesperson told Jewish Insider that the university is “reviewing the announcement from the federal agencies and pledge[s] to work with the federal government to restore Columbia’s federal funding.”
“We take Columbia’s legal obligations seriously and understand how serious this announcement is and are committed to combatting antisemitism and ensuring the safety and wellbeing of our students, faculty, and staff,” the university said.
Leo Terrell, the head of the Department of Justice’s newly formed antisemitism task force, said in a statement that the funding cuts are “only the beginning.”
“Universities must comply with all federal antidiscrimination laws if they are going to receive federal funding,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who was sworn into her new role on Monday, said in a statement. “For too long, Columbia has abandoned that obligation to Jewish students studying on its campus.”
Columbia has recently been rocked by several high-profile antisemitic incidents, including a sit-in last week at its affiliate Barnard College where a staff member was assaulted.
The cut on Friday marks the first time a university has faced a cutoff of federal funds since the Title VI of Civil Rights Act of 1964 was implemented over six decades ago.
Dep’t of Education, Dep’t of Health and Human Services and General Services Administration to consider whether to end contracts ‘in light of ongoing investigations for potential violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act’ facing the school
Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images
Protestors demonstrate near Columbia University and Barnard College on February 02, 2024 in New York City.
The Trump administration announced on Monday a multi-agency review of the federal government’s $51.4 million in contracts with Columbia University, citing the academic institution’s “ongoing inaction in the face of relentless harassment of Jewish students.”
As part of a federal task force combating antisemitism created by President Donald Trump, the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services and the General Services Administration will consider whether to end the contracts “in light of ongoing investigations for potential violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act” facing the school.
A press release on the review stated that the agencies “will also conduct a comprehensive review of the more than $5 billion in federal grant commitments to Columbia University to ensure the university is in compliance with federal regulations, including its civil rights responsibilities.”
The announcement came shortly after Education Secretary Linda McMahon was sworn in to her new role, having been confirmed by the Senate on Monday evening.
“Americans have watched in horror for more than a year now, as Jewish students have been assaulted and harassed on elite university campuses. Unlawful encampments and demonstrations have completely paralyzed day-to-day campus operations, depriving Jewish students of learning opportunities to which they are entitled,” McMahon said in a statement on the review.
“Institutions that receive federal funds have a responsibility to protect all students from discrimination,” she continued. “Columbia’s apparent failure to uphold their end of this basic agreement raises very serious questions about the institution’s fitness to continue doing business with the United States government.”
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement that, “Anti-Semitism – like racism – is a spiritual and moral malady that sickens societies and kills people with lethalities comparable to history’s most deadly plagues. In recent years, the censorship and false narratives of woke cancel culture have transformed our great universities into greenhouses for this deadly and virulent pestilence.”
“Making America healthy means building communities of trust and mutual respect, based on speech freedom and open debate,” he added.
Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, praised the Trump administration and the task force for launching the review.
“For more than a year, Columbia’s leaders have made public and private promises to Jewish students, faculty, and Members of Congress that the university would take the steps necessary to combat the rampant antisemitism on Columbia’s campus. Columbia has failed to uphold its commitments, and this is unacceptable,” Walberg said in a statement.
The announcement comes at a time when Columbia faces continued scrutiny from the administration and Congress over antisemitic activity and accusations of political bias
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Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaking at a conference titled "Iran: Organized Resistance, Key to Overthrow" held at the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) headquarters in January 2025.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will teach a course at Columbia University this spring on diplomacy, decision-making and organizational leadership at the school’s Institute of Global Politics, a prominent conservative hire for the embattled Ivy League school.
“The Academy cannot be an ivory tower,” Keren Yarhi-Milo, the dean of the School of International and Public Affairs, told The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the appointment. “We should engage with the world because we learn a lot from engaging with practitioners with differing positions and ideologies who also ultimately can learn from us.”
The announcement comes as Columbia faces ongoing scrutiny from the administration and Congress over antisemitic activity on campus since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and ensuing war between Israel and Hamas, and amid long-running accusations from some conservatives that elite institutions are silencing and sidelining conservative voices.
“I suspect that [Columbia’s] outreach was intentional in the sense that they were seeking to bring onto campus … someone with a view that is very different than most of the faculty on their staff,” Pompeo told the Journal.
Pompeo said that he seeks to “teach the next generation about the greatness of our nation” and that he wants to hold “fair, reasoned and fact-based discourse.”
Prior to serving as President Donald Trump’s second secretary of state, Pompeo led the Central Intelligence Agency and served as a member of Congress. He took a hard-nosed approach to the Iranian regime as secretary of state and was a vocal supporter of the U.S.-Israel relationship.
Pompeo fell out of favor with Trump after he didn’t endorse the president’s false claims that the 2020 election was rigged and condemned the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Last month, Trump revoked Pompeo’s security detail that had been put in place to protect him from assassination attempts by the Iranian government.
The shift comes as the Trump administration issued executive orders designed to combat antisemitism
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A Gaza Solidarity Encampment by the Occidental College Students for Justice in Palestine on the campus of Occidental College in Eagle Rock on Monday, April 29, 2024.
Members of Bowdoin University Students for Justice in Palestine who set up an anti-Israel encampment last week inside the college’s student union building are now facing disciplinary action from the school — including prohibition from attending classes pending permission from the dean’s office.
At Columbia University last month, administrators launched an investigation — together with law enforcement — just hours after anti-Israel demonstrators used cement to clog the sewage system in the School of International and Public Affairs building and sprayed the business school with red paint.
Days before that, Columbia suspended a student who participated in a masked demonstration in which four people barged into a History of Modern Israel class, banged on drums, chanted “free Palestine” and distributed posters to students that read “CRUSH ZIONISM” with a boot over the Star of David.
The University of Michigan announced last week that Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, the campus’ SJP chapter, would be suspended for up to two years. Weeks earlier, George Mason University barred the leaders of its SJP chapter from campus for four years after they were caught vandalizing a university building.
The recent crackdowns on SJP and its affiliated groups — along with other episodes of anti-Israel extremism on campus — are the latest indication that university administrators are approaching antisemitic incidents with a new seriousness since the Trump administration issued executive orders aimed at deterring campus antisemitism.
Several campus leaders welcomed the shift. For too long “there were no consequences,” said Mark Yudof, chair of the Academic Engagement Network and the former president of the University of California system. “The new Trump administration is very serious and I’ve told [certain universities] they are in jeopardy.”
“Many of these campuses are at risk,” Yudof told Jewish Insider. In response, “they are saying SJP can have chapters, but they’re violating rules by preventing people from crossing campus or doing overnight encampments or occupying the library.”
Yudof called the Title VI settlements that came in the final days of the Biden administration “relatively weak” and noted that university requirements could “become much stricter in terms of what they need to do by way of enforcement” if the remaining complaints are settled.
Even with the recent investigation and suspension at Columbia, the university’s Hillel director, Brian Cohen, noted that other university investigations remain open, such as ones against students involved with the encampments and the takeover of Hamilton Hall last April. “These cases should have been resolved months ago, and many of the students involved in those cases remain on campus and continue to break university rules,” Cohen said. “Complicating this all is that despite the best efforts of Columbia’s Public Safety Department to identify students who violate university rules and policies, they are hamstrung by university policies that allow students to conceal their identities.”
Trump claimed during his 2024 campaign that, if reelected, U.S. universities that failed to address antisemitism would lose accreditation and federal support. In the weeks leading up to Trump’s return to the White House, a number of universities rushed to settle antisemitism complaints with the Biden administration’s DOE in its final days.
Weeks after Inauguration Day, Trump issued an executive order calling on every federal agency and department to review and report on civil and criminal actions available within their jurisdiction to fight antisemitism.
Under the executive order, the Department of Justice is directed to review existing antisemitism cases and prepare to more actively bring legal action against those who commit acts of antisemitism in violation of federal civil rights laws. The Department of Education is directed to conduct a thorough review of pending Title VI complaints and investigations. The order also “demands the removal of resident aliens who violate our laws,” according to a White House fact sheet.
Days later, the DOJ announced a new multi-agency task force whose “first priority” will be to “root out anti-Semitic harassment in schools and on college campuses,” according to an announcement by the department. The DOE also took its first major action under the new administration to combat antisemitism by launching investigations into alleged antisemitic discrimination at five universities — Columbia University; the University of California, Berkeley; Portland State University; Northwestern University and University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
“Any student group that openly and continually violates campus rules and/or the law must be held accountable,” Sara Coodin, American Jewish Committee’s director of academic affairs, told JI. “We are glad to see administrators taking steps to enforce their rules and regulations that are meant to foster campus environments welcoming to all students.”
A spokesperson for the Anti-Defamation League echoed that the group is “pleased that many universities are now holding student organizations accountable for violations.”
“We have been calling for the last 16 months for universities to enforce their policies and codes that govern conduct of students, faculty and student organizations,” the ADL said in a statement to JI, noting that because these types of disciplinary cases often take some time to move through the processes, “it is difficult to attribute recent action to the new administration.”
“But as we have said, fighting antisemitism requires a whole-of-society approach and we welcome the focus and actions from the Trump administration to combat antisemitism on campus,” the statement said.
Cary Nelson, former president of the American Association of University Professors, emphasized that cracking down on SJP activity does not suppress political speech. “An SJP chapter that has its campus recognition withdrawn can still post messages on Instagram or X, so its group speech rights remain intact,” Nelson told JI. “Students and faculty remain free to endorse SJP messages.”
“Moreover, some banned SJP chapters continue to organize campus events,” Nelson said. “But the bans cancel campus funding and send the message that violating laws or campus regulations have consequences, including public condemnation.” Nelson also pointed out that even with the new rules, on many campuses, SJP’s faculty partners, Faculty for Justice in Palestine, retain recognition and can function as SJP surrogates.
Columbia University; the University of California, Berkeley; Portland State University; Northwestern University and University of Minnesota, Twin Cities are the first targets of the new Department of Education
David Ake/Getty Images
U.S. Department of Education headquarters building in Washington, DC.
The Department of Education is taking its first major action under the new administration to combat antisemitism, launching investigations into alleged antisemitic discrimination at Columbia University; the University of California, Berkeley; Portland State University; Northwestern University and University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
The Department of Education under the Biden administration pursued antisemitism cases after complaints had been filed by students and organizations representing them. These new cases, however, are being launched proactively, giving the Department of Education broader investigative latitude.
“Too many universities have tolerated widespread antisemitic harassment and the illegal encampments that paralyzed campus life last year, driving Jewish life and religious expression underground,” Craig Trainor, the acting assistant secretary of education for civil rights, said in a statement. “The Biden Administration’s toothless resolution agreements did shamefully little to hold those institutions accountable.”
Trainor said the announcements serve to put “universities, colleges, and K-12 schools on notice: this administration will not tolerate continued institutional indifference to the wellbeing of Jewish students on American campuses, nor will it stand by idly if universities fail to combat Jew hatred and the unlawful harassment and violence it animates.”
In a press release, the Department of Education described the new investigations as a response to the Trump administration’s executive order last week on combating antisemitism, and said they would “build upon the foundational work” done by the House Education and the Workforce Committee since the Oct. 7 attack.
In a letter to the interim president of Columbia University obtained by Jewish Insider, Trainor noted that the university has been accused of a “longstanding pattern of tolerating antisemitic harassment, intimidation, and acts of violence” and of failing to implement disciplinary policies. He noted that Columbia faculty allegedly had “extensive” involvement in campus encampments and the break-in at the school’s Hamilton Hall.
A Columbia spokesperson said in a statement that the school is reviewing the letter and that the school “strongly condemns antisemitism and all forms of discrimination,” adding that “calling for, promoting, or glorifying violence or terror has no place at our University.”
“Since assuming her role in August, Interim President Armstrong and her leadership team have taken decisive actions to address issues of antisemitism, including by strengthening and clarifying our disciplinary processes,” the spokesperson said. “Under the University’s new leadership, we have established a centralized Office of Institutional Equity to address all reports of discrimination and harassment, appointed a new Rules Administrator, and strengthened the capabilities of our Public Safety Office. We look forward to ongoing work with the new federal administration to combat antisemitism and ensure the safety and wellbeing of our students, faculty, and staff.”
Kenneth Marcus, the founder of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and a former assistant secretary of education for civil rights in the first Trump administration, told JI that the investigations are “a big deal … every bit as important as the executive orders.”
He said he repeatedly pressured the Department of Education under the Biden administration to open such proactive cases, to no avail.
“There’s a world of difference between simply waiting for complaints to pile up versus proactively announcing initiatives,” Marcus explained. “They’re viewed very differently within the higher education community and also among OCR investigators. When the secretary of education decides to highlight an issue by developing a proactive initiative, it sends a clear message that the department is prioritizing the matter.”
He said that opening a proactive investigation also gives the department more latitude to pursue its case “in any way that it thinks is appropriate,” instead of relying on the sometimes-incomplete information presented by individual complainants.
He added that administration’s choice of schools to investigate signals it will be scrutinizing both elite institutions with highly publicized antisemitism issues and less prominent ones such as Portland State and the University of Minnesota.
“This is a way of making sure that every university president realizes that if they don’t clean up their act, they could be next,” Marcus said.
Prior to the announcement, the Department of Education had open investigations into alleged antisemitism at the University of Minnesota, as well as alleged anti-Palestinian discrimination at Columbia, Portland State and Northwestern. It previously dismissed an antisemitism case at Berkeley, deferring to pending litigation on the subject in federal court.
Marcus said he anticipates the administration will open more proactive investigations, as well as potentially seek to renegotiate some of the “controversial” settlement agreements the Biden administration inked to close antisemitism cases before the end of its term.
The announcements of new investigations come even as Trump administration officials are reportedly considering pathways to shrink or eliminate the Department of Education entirely.
He said the Department of Justice may also get more involved in campus antisemitism — it has the ability to join pending lawsuits against schools, can file its own complaints against schools, can go to court to enforce existing settlements with schools and can get more involved in a law enforcement capacity on campuses.
In a possible sign that the Department of Justice does plan to be more aggressive, the Department of Justice announced on Monday that it was launching an interagency task force, to include the Department of Education, which would focus on campus antisemitism.
A group of protesters clogged the sewage system of Columbia’s international affairs school, and spray painted the business school with an antisemitic slur
Victor J. Blue for The Washington Post via Getty Images
Students protest against the war in Gaza on the anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel at Columbia University in New York, New York, on Monday, October 7, 2024.
Columbia University’s administration has launched an investigation — together with law enforcement — to identify the perpetrators of an act of vandalism on Wednesday in which anti-Israel demonstrators clogged the sewage system in the School of International and Public Affairs building with cement and sprayed the business school with red paint.
Columbia defined the spray-painting as an “act of vandalism” in a Wednesday statement, adding that the graffiti “included disturbing, personal attacks.” It said it was “acting swiftly to address this misconduct” and “to identify the individual perpetrators and address their actions.”
“The university has done a better job [responding to antisemitic incidents] compared to in the past year, but at the same time, the actions of these perpetrators has gotten a lot worse,” a second-year graduate student in SIPA who requested to remain anonymous told Jewish Insider. “This went from antisemitic vitriol to cementing toilets and causing staff to be there overnight scrubbing fecal matter out of the toilets.”
In a Wednesday night email to SIPA students, the school’s dean, Keren Yarhi-Milo, wrote that the women’s restrooms on four floors of the building were “vandalized with a cement-like substance causing the toilets to clog.” The walls of the 15th floor restroom were also spray-painted, as was the business school’s Kravis Hall, according to the email.
The Columbia Spectator reported that the graffiti included the phrase “Keren eat Weiner,” a reference to Yarhi-Milo and Rebecca Weiner, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism, as well as “5.3.2018-1.29.2024 Hind called we must answer” and “Im scared please help – HIND AGE 6,” a reference to Hind Rajab, a Palestinian girl killed during the war in Gaza.
In April of last year, at the start of the illegal anti-Israel encampment movement, protesters occupied Hamilton Hall and unfurled a banner that read “Hind’s Hall,” announcing that they had renamed the building in her honor. New York City Resists with Gaza, Columbia University Apartheid Divest and Students for Justice in Palestine claimed responsibility for the vandalism in a social media post.
Columbia’s response comes as the university has reacted more quickly to antisemitism in recent weeks — a sharp contrast compared to what lawmakers and Jewish students and faculty have called a slow, or nonexistent, response to the frequent antisemitism occurring on campus since the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel. Last week, the university suspended a university affiliate for participation in a masked demonstration in which four people barged into a History of Modern Israel class, banged on drums, chanted “free Palestine” and distributed posters to students that read “CRUSH ZIONISM” with a boot over the Star of David.
Columbia’s Office of Student Affairs also mandated on Wednesday that a SIPA group chat, intended to distribute campus-related information to students, be restricted to “administrator-only” mode after several incidents of students espousing antisemitic rhetoric in conversations, a student familiar with the situation told JI.
“We have been monitoring the chats closely and while the discussions are warranted, we have been mandated by the OSA to pause all cohort group chats temporarily till we convene to find a resolution to the ongoing discussions. … I would urge everyone to reflect on how we can reinforce civility in our discourse as we navigate this,” an administrator wrote in one cohort chat, according to messages obtained by JI.
The SIPA graduate student described antisemitic rhetoric in the students’ chat to JI as “a constant stream of pretty outrageous messages.”
“It quickly devolved into the same two or three students from our cohort invoking the Holocaust,” he said. “OSA is getting the handcuffs on these [perpetrators] more quickly than they were last year.”
Asked whether the perpetrators of Wednesday’s vandalism would be suspended or expelled once identified, a spokesperson for Columbia told JI that the university won’t comment further.
Columbia President Katrina Armstrong: ‘We want to be absolutely clear that any act of antisemitism … against members of our community is unacceptable and will not be tolerated’
Haley Cohen
The first anti-Israel demonstration inside of the Columbia gates of the new school year on Sep. 27, 2024.
Columbia University students learning about the history of Israel found their first day of class thrown into chaos Tuesday after four masked demonstrators barged into the classroom, banged on drums, chanted “free Palestine” and distributed posters to students that read “CRUSH ZIONISM” with a boot over the Star of David.
The masked demonstrators also held up, and tried to plaster the walls of the classroom, a sign featuring an illustration of Hamas terrorists pointing guns titled “THE ENEMY WILL NOT SEE TOMORROW.”
“They started throwing fliers at us all and talking about how terrible it is that this class is even happening and that we have an Israeli professor,” Lishi Baker, a junior studying Middle East history and a student in the History of Modern Israel course, told Jewish Insider. Baker praised the professor, Avi Shilon, a visiting professor from Israel, for responding “calmly.”
“He said to them we’re here to learn [and] offered for them to learn, [otherwise] if they don’t want to learn, they should leave,” Baker recalled. “They did not listen, they kept banging their drums and [trying to] put up their posters. It was clearly a performative disruption meant to intimidate and disrupt. After they were finished with that, they marched out, yelled ‘Free Palestine’ and went to join up with larger demonstrations outside and inside [of the Columbia entrance] gates.”
Dozens of protesters, with their faces covered by keffiyehs and masks, also took to Columbia’s main quad, as well as the entrance of the Morningside Heights campus, on Tuesday afternoon to chant for an “intifada revolution” and other antisemitic slogans.
The classroom demonstrators were presumably students or other university affiliates. At the start of this academic year — in an effort to crackdown on protests — Columbia locked down its gates, which had been long open to the public. The tall iron entrance gates are now guarded 24/7, with security officers only allowing Columbia affiliates with a valid school ID and their pre-approved guests inside.
The disruption was immediately condemned by Columbia University Interim President Katrina Armstrong, as well as Columbia Hillel’s executive director, Brian Cohen.
“Today a History of Modern Israel class was disrupted by protesters who handed out fliers. We strongly condemn this disruption, as well as the fliers that included violent imagery that is unacceptable on our campus and in our community,” Armstrong said in a statement.
“No group of students has a right to disrupt another group of students in a Columbia classroom. Disrupting academic activities constitutes a violation of the Rules of University conduct and the nature of the disruption may constitute violations of other University policies.”
Armstrong said that Columbia will “move quickly to investigate and address this act. We want to be absolutely clear that any act of antisemitism, or other form of discrimination, harassment, or intimidation against members of our community is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”
Cohen noted on X that the demonstration not only violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 but is also “a clear violation of University rules.”
He called for the university to “act quickly and strongly to hold these individuals accountable.”
The incident comes two days after the implementation of a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, which campus anti-Israel demonstrators have demanded since the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks and ensuing war began.
“This was never about ceasefire and it was never about the war in Gaza,” Baker said. “It was always about a broader existential mission to eradicate the state of Israel. If that wasn’t clear before, it better be clear now.”
“One of the main talking points of the [anti-Israel campus] movement has been a defense of the things that they say on the grounds of academic freedom,” Baker continued. “Well, so much for academic freedom when you barge into a classroom and interrupt it and intimidate the students and the professor.”
Joseph Massad, who praised the Oct. 7 terror attacks, will be teaching ‘History of the Jewish Enlightenment in 19th century Europe’
Haley Cohen
The first anti-Israel demonstration inside of the Columbia gates of the new school year on Sep. 27, 2024.
A Columbia University adjunct professor announced his resignation on Monday, citing the university’s decision to allow a longtime professor who described the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Israel as “astounding,” “awesome” and “incredible” to continue teaching a course on Zionism.
In his resignation letter, Lawrence “Muzzy” Rosenblatt, an adjunct professor of international and public affairs, wrote that having Joseph Massad, a professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual history, teach a course on Zionism was “akin to having a White nationalist teach about the US Civil Rights movement and the struggle for Black equality.”
“Columbia has lost not only its moral compass, but its intellectual one,” Rosenblatt wrote.
As antisemitism roiled Columbia’s campus over the past 14 months, including the burning of Israeli flags and physical assaults of Jewish students, Rosenblatt said that he felt it was important to stay to teach. “I believe the Institution was not aligned with the hateful and destructive values of some who teach and study here, and that by staying I would not be ceding the Academy to those who spew evil, but instead be a model for thoughtful, responsible and professional learning,” he wrote.
But that changed with the continuation of Massad’s class in light of his comments about Oct. 7, according to Rosenblatt.
Massad is scheduled to teach the undergraduate course “History of the Jewish Enlightenment in 19th century Europe and the development of Zionism,” as he has done every spring since 2016. The class typically fills up, drawing between 30-60 students each semester. The class is limited to 60 students and is not a required course, but rather one of three courses Columbia students can elect to take next semester on the subject of Zionism and the history of Israel, two of which are offered through Columbia’s Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies.
One day after Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack, Massad wrote, “Perhaps the major achievement of the resistance in the temporary takeover of these settler-colonies is the death blow to any confidence that Israeli colonists had in their military and its ability to protect them.”
He went on: “The sight of the Palestinian resistance fighters storming Israeli checkpoints separating Gaza from Israel was astounding, not only to the Israelis but especially to the Palestinian and Arab peoples who came out across the region to march in support of the Palestinians in their battle against their cruel colonizers,” Massad wrote of the Oct. 7 massacre. “No less awesome were the scenes witnessed by millions of jubilant Arabs who spent the day watching the news, of Palestinian fighters from Gaza breaking through Israel’s prison fence or gliding over it by air.”
He went on to say that Oct. 7 has “both shaken Israeli society and struck Palestinians and Arabs as incredible.”
Massad’s anti-Israel activism on Columbia’s campus dates as far back as 2004, during the Second Intifada, when an Israeli student who served in the IDF said that Massad demanded to know how many Palestinians he’d killed. He has promoted the boycott Israel movement on campus since 2016.
During April’s congressional hearing about antisemitism at Columbia University, the university’s then-president, Manouche Shafik, said Massad was “under investigation” after his outspoken support for the Oct. 7 attacks. Massad later claimed he was never reprimanded.
Neither Rosenblatt nor Massad responded to requests for comment from Jewish Insider.
In a statement to JI, a Columbia spokesperson acknowledged that Massad’s statements following Oct. 7 “created pain for many in our community and contributed to the deep controversy on our campus.”
“We remain committed to principles of free expression and the open exchange of viewpoints and perspectives through opportunities for constructive dialogue and understanding throughout our campus community, and we seek to provide a learning environment and classrooms that promote intellectual inquiry and analytical thinking along with civility, tolerance and respect,” the spokesperson said.
Clifford Stein, a professor of industrial engineering and computer science at Columbia, said he applauds Rosenblatt’s “courage.”
“I fully support allowing a diverse set of viewpoints, but having Professor Massad, who has called for the destruction of the state of Israel and who publicly celebrated the Oct. 7 attacks, teach the history of Zionism is insulting,” Stein told JI. “Professor Massad has a documented history of intimidating students with pro-Israel viewpoints. He does not support an objective evaluation of the material. Why have someone like that teach a course on the history of Zionism?”
Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote on X that allowing Massad to teach a course on Zionism “would be offensive at any time, but after his post-10/7 comments, it’s incomprehensible & indefensible.”
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) also condemned Columbia’s decision to allow Massad to teach the course, writing on X, “why should U.S. taxpayers subsidize ideological indoctrination that glorifies the mass murder, maiming, mutilation, rape, and abduction of Jews and Israelis?”
“What’s next at Columbia? David Duke teaching a course on antiracism,” Torres wrote on X.
Altman, a longtime progressive activist, is running against Rep. Tom Kean (R-NJ) in a battleground district
Courtesy
Sue Altman
On Friday morning, the National Republican Campaign Committee shared an audio clip on X that appeared to depict Sue Altman, the Democratic candidate challenging Rep. Tom Kean (R-NJ) in New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District, endorsing antisemitic campus protests at Columbia University.
But the full clip tells a very different story, in which Altman clearly condemned the protests as antisemitic and unacceptable.
The post is the latest of Republicans’ efforts to portray Altman, a longtime progressive activist who led the Working Families Party in New Jersey, as too radical to represent the New Jersey swing district — a line of attack that has sometimes focused on questions about Altman’s record on Israel.
Based on a clip of the exchange obtained by Jewish Insider, Altman was asked at an event by a Jewish high schooler about how she would address antisemitism on college campuses and keep the Jewish community safe.
“I am extremely concerned and worried about the rise in antisemitism,” Altman said. She mentioned that she’d read a recent report by Columbia University’s antisemitism task force, which she described as “truly appalling. No student, Jewish or anything, should have to ever experience antisemitism or any kind of bias against them.”
Altman, a Columbia alumna, highlighted a Sept. 3 tweet she sent in response to that report, in which she said that “glorifying despicable acts of terror and subjecting Jewish students to harassment or intimidation does absolutely nothing to advance the interests of innocent Palestinians — nor does it advance the broader mission to secure peace.”
Altman, in the excerpt from the event posted by the NRCC said, in general terms, that “an anti-war movement is something that is honorable and part of Columbia’s history, and I’ve always respected good old protests.”
But she went on to say that at Columbia and many other schools, “what should have been an anti-war movement and a movement for [a] peace that is sustainable, which would have included returning the hostages, not just a one-sided unilateral peace had, in my opinion bled over into antisemitism.”
She said that she’s been “very disappointed and appalled” at the activity of the protesters at Columbia, describing their push to relitigate the founding of Israel and question the Jewish people’s right to a state as “a nonstarter for me.”
Altman’s campaign had, in its early days, drawn questions about her positions on Israel, given that the national Working Families Party has been a long-standing critic of the Jewish state.
Altman said at the event that she had publicly broken with the group on Israel “because I do feel as though the Israeli people have a right to defend themselves,” noting that Israel continues to face attacks by its neighbors.
The congressional candidate said she’s had conversations with local Jewish leaders about the fear that they are feeling, adding that she feels that antisemitism has long been “left unchecked and left unexamined,” going back to the time of the Holocaust and before.
She said that many in the U.S. have forgotten or glossed over the fact that the U.S. turned away Jewish refugees and turned a blind eye to the atrocities the Nazis were committing in the Holocaust, or in some cases attended pro-Nazi rallies.
“The conversation around antisemitism in our country has a long way to go, in scholarship, in popular culture, in the way we talk about the ways antisemitism affects regular people,” Altman said, arguing the U.S. hasn’t had a proper reconging with antisemitism in the way it has in recent years with racism and sexism.
“I would encourage us all, whether Republican or Democrat … or unaffiliated, to look very closely at the ways in which antisemitism exists in this country, alongside the other ills that we are more conversant around — gender and race,” Altman said.
Asked about its characterization and presentation of Altman’s remarks, the NRCC accused her of trying to disguise her record.
“Sue Altman has been trying to hide her radical past from voters this entire election cycle — from deleting tweets to a full on attempted rebrand that even leftists acknowledge,” NRCC spokesperson Savannah Viar said. “She has spent her career associating with anti-Israel activists and no number of rambling answers will cover that up.”
The NRCC has gone after Altman in the past for her ties to the WFP, for her support for former Ohio congressional candidate Nina Turner, a critic of Israel, and for taking endorsements from progressive Israel critics in Congress. Conservatives have also accused her of being slow to speak out in support of Israel and against the chaos at Columbia.
More broadly, Kean and the NRCC say Altman is trying to walk back her progressive record to win election in a swing district.
Altman fired back, “instead of recognizing an opportunity for Democrats and Republicans to affirm our support for the Jewish people” at a time of heightened fear and antisemitism, “Kean and the NRCC have deceptively manipulated a recording of me to lie to voters — because their only goal is to win an election at any cost.”
Kean’s campaign reposted the NRCC video on its X account. It declined to comment.
“The insinuation that I have anything less than absolute contempt for antisemitism and hate in all its forms is disgusting,” Altman continued. “As my record clearly shows, I have and always will stand with the Jewish community — and unlike Tom Kean Jr., I’m not looking to score cheap political points by spreading dangerous and false lies.”
The Senate minority leader said universities must earn back trust over handling of anti-Israel protests
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 13: U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) speak to reporters following the weekly Senate policy luncheons at the U.S. Capitol on June 13, 2023 in Washington, DC. The Republicans spoke on the war in Ukraine, China and the economy. McConnell was joined by Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT).
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) called on Columbia University and other elite academic institutions to tackle the “great deal of work to do to earn back the trust of students, parents and alumni, alike” over the handling of last year’s anti-Israel campus protests.
Speaking on the Senate floor on Tuesday, McConnell urged university faculty and administrators not to tolerate “the tantrums of campus radicals” this fall that “made some elite schools so inhospitable to learning – particularly for Jewish students.” The top Senate Republican said that “[a]s students head back to school, college campuses across the country are hoping this academic year begins more calmly than the last one ended.”
“Unfortunately, what used to be a reliable path to the middle class appears to have turned into breeding ground for childish radicalism,” McConnell said.
McConnell said he welcomes the resignations last month of Columbia University President Minouche Shafik and three deans who were placed on leave after exchanging antisemitic text messages, describing them as “steps in the right direction for an Ivy League institution that professes a commitment to thoughtful, rigorous debate and a campus culture free of bigotry, intimidation, and harassment.”
Still, McConnell expressed concern that Columbia was taking counterproductive measures, citing the school’s decision to allow a Marxist doctoral student to teach contemporary Western civilization to undergraduates despite her role in occupying Hamilton Hall alongside violent anti-Israel protesters.
“The decline in the Ivy League’s academic rigor is well-documented,” McConnell said of Columbia doctoral student Johannah King-Slutzky. “But it would seem that at a bare minimum, its instructors ought to be able to distinguish between civilization and barbarism, and to act accordingly.”
He also pointed to a Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression survey conducted over the summer that found a rise in support from students for establishing encampments and defacing school property.
“I have to wonder whether a survey of the parents of college students, or for that matter, the campus staff who clean up after their misbehavior, wouldn’t paint a different picture,” McConnell mused.
Dozens of anti-Israel students disrupted a convocation for incoming freshmen with chants of ‘Free Palestine’
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Students participate in a protest in support of Palestine and for free speech outside of the Columbia University campus on Nov. 15.
More than 1,000 new students kicked off their freshman year at Columbia University this week. But even with all the institutional changes that took place over the summer, including the naming of a new president, several aspects at the prestigious New York school are already reminiscent of the chaos last academic year — one that was marred by occasional violent anti-Israel disruptions, amid scrutiny of university leaders for not enforcing rules that would keep Jewish students safe.
Brian Cohen, executive director of Columbia Barnard Hillel, told Jewish Insider that he expects to see “plenty of activism again on campus, at least some of which will be highly disruptive.”
The disruptions have already started, with a week left before classes begin. At a convocation event to welcome incoming freshmen on Sunday, about 50 members of Columbia University Apartheid Divest, wearing masks and keffiyehs and holding megaphones and drums, disrupted the event from just outside of the campus gates with chants of “Free Palestine.”
The group, which labels itself a “student intifada,” distributed fliers around the convocation that told students they were sitting “through propaganda being delivered to you by war criminals of an administration.” A Columbia University spokesperson told JI that the NYPD was present at the protest in case it was needed. The spokesperson did not respond to a follow up question about how the university is preparing to handle larger demonstrations this year.
CUAD, a coalition formed in 2016 that has gained renewed support since the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks, with at least 80 student groups at Columbia joining the coalition, also published an op-ed in the Columbia Spectator on Sunday, attempting to rally freshmen to join in on the demonstrations. CUAD “will not sit quietly and watch our campus turn into a microcosm of the settler-colonial state we are protesting, and we need your help to prevent that,” the group wrote.
CUAD wrote that it is “working toward achieving a liberated Palestine and the end of Israeli apartheid and genocide by urging Columbia to divest all economic and academic stakes in ‘Israel.’”
Amid an “overall spirit of excitement for the coming school year,” the demonstration was “noisy and loud,” Julia Zborovsky-Fenster, whose son is a freshman at Columbia and daughter graduated from Barnard in the spring, told JI. Zborovsky-Fenster, who was walking on campus during the demonstration, said that she has “not seen anything that has given me a very clear message as to what we can expect” from university leadership this year.
“If I was to look at move-in day and the convocation, and base my judgment only on what happened on that one day, I would say I am optimistic,” she said, noting that law enforcement was abundant on campus and the protest remained relatively small, without turning violent.
During summer break, Columbia made leadership changes and set new guidelines that some are optimistic will protect Jewish students.
Columbia University President Minouche Shafik announced her resignation on Aug. 14, months after she testified before Congress about antisemitism and her handling of the disorderly fallout of the first anti-Israel encampment in the nation.
Days before Shafik’s resignation, in an attempt to prevent activists from occupying buildings, destroying property and engaging in the kind of physical violence that overtook Columbia’s campus last year, the school’s COO, Cas Holloway, said that campus access will now be restricted to affiliates with a valid campus ID. Holloway said that this move would “keep our community safe given reports of potential disruptions at Columbia.”
Zborovsky-Fenster said the changes could lead to an “ushering in not only of a new year but a new era with this new leadership that would show we have learned lessons from a very challenging, divisive period last year.”
But she added that parents and students deserve more transparency than they received last year. “I would love to see specific messaging as to what the policies are, specifically how they are going to be enforced, by whom, in what timeframe and how that is going to be communicated to the student body,” she said.
As questions remain around whether the Columbia administration will crack down on disruptions from anti-Israel groups this year, outside organizations have already started doing so. On Monday, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine announced that its Instagram page had been permanently deleted.
A spokesperson for Meta, the company that owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, told JI that the account was disabled for repeated violations of Meta’s dangerous organizations and individuals policies. According to Meta’s policies, it does “not allow organizations or individuals that proclaim a violent mission or are engaged in violence to have a presence on our platforms.”
The House Committee on Education and the Workforce has also raised concern about the climate on Columbia’s campus and unwillingness of the administration to enforce its rules. Last Wednesday, the committee issued six subpoenas to Columbia University officials for documents related to the committee’s investigation into campus antisemitism.
According to a summary of Columbia disciplinary hearings from the end of last semester that was released earlier this month by the committee, of the 40 students arrested when Columbia brought police dressed in riot gear to the campus to remove a student encampment on April 18, just two remain suspended. The remaining students are in good standing and can enroll in classes while waiting for their disciplinary hearings, although roughly half are on “disciplinary probation.”
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), chair of the committee, said in a statement that the lack of consequences for students was “reprehensible.”
“Following the disruptions of the last academic year, Columbia immediately began disciplinary processes, including with immediate suspensions,” a university spokesperson told JI last week. “The disciplinary process is ongoing for many students involved in these disruptions, including some of those who were arrested, and we have been working to expedite the process for this large volume of violations.”
The subpoena demands that Columbia provide, by noon on Sept. 4, all communications between the school’s leaders about antisemitism and the anti-Israel encampment since Oct. 7, all records of Board of Trustees meetings since April 17, all records of Board of Trustees meetings since Oct. 7 relating to antisemitism or Israel and any documents relating to allegations of antisemitism on Columbia’s campus since Oct. 7.
In a letter to Dr. Katrina Armstrong, Columbia’s interim president, Foxx said the subpoenas were issued because “Columbia has failed to produce numerous priority items requested by the Committee, despite having months to comply and receiving repeated follow-up requests by the Committee.” Jewish Insider’s senior congressional correspondent Marc Rod contributed reporting.
The issuance of a new round of subpoenas comes just days before Columbia begins classes for its fall semester
CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images
People rally on the campus of Columbia University which is occupied by pro-Palestinian protesters in New York on April 22, 2024.
