Right-wing political commentator Tucker Carlson, who has hosted Holocaust deniers and antisemitic influencers on his podcast, used his address at the memorial for conservative influencer Charlie Kirk in Arizona on Sunday to compare Kirk’s assassination to the killing of Jesus. 

The former Fox News host began his remarks to the more than 70,000 people in attendance at State Farm Stadium in Glendale by noting that the political engagement brought on by Kirk’s killing “actually reminds me of my favorite story ever,” before offering an account of how Jesus was killed in Jerusalem. While he never brought up the Jewish people by name, he made references to Jewish culture to suggest that he was referring to the antisemitic trope that Jews were responsible for the killing of Jesus. 

“It’s about 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem and Jesus shows up, and he starts talking about the people in power, and he starts doing the worst thing that you can do: just telling the truth about people, and they hate it, and they just go bonkers. They hate it, and they become obsessed with making him stop. ‘This guy’s got to stop talking. We’ve got to shut this guy up,’” Carlson said.

“I can just sort of picture the scene in a lamp-lit room with a bunch of guys sitting around eating hummus, thinking about, ‘What do we do about this guy telling the truth about us? We must make him stop talking.’ There’s always one guy with the bright idea, and I can just hear him say, ‘I’ve got an idea. Let me just kill him. That’ll shut him up, that’ll fix the problem.’ It doesn’t work that way,” he continued.

Carlson, who spoke for just under six minutes, then quoted the beatitude from Matthew 5:4: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” He connected the passage to Kirk’s political message, making the argument that the slain conservative activist “was bringing the gospel to the country. He was doing the thing that the people in charge hate most, which is calling for them to repent.”

“How is Charlie’s message different? Charlie was a political person who was deeply interested in coalition building and getting the right people in office, because he knew that vast improvements are possible politically, but he also knew that politics is not the final answer. It can’t answer the deepest questions, actually, that the only real solution is Jesus,” Carlson said. “Politics at its core is a process of critiquing other people and getting them to change. Christianity, the gospel message, the message of Jesus, begins with repentance.”

Carlson went on to praise Kirk for not having “hate in his heart” and being able to “forgive other people” by following “a call to change our hearts from Jesus,” before acknowledging his own shortcomings.

“Charlie was fearless at all times, truly fearless. To his last moment, he was unafraid. He was not defensive, and there was no hate in his heart. I know that because I’ve got a little hate compartment in my heart, and I would often express that surely about various people,” Carlson said. “He would always say, ‘That’s a sad person, that’s a broken person, that’s a person who needs help, that’s a person who needs Jesus’. He said that in private, because he meant it.” 

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. 

Former National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Wednesday that the “case for withholding weapons from Israel today is much stronger than it was one year ago,” adding that he now backs such efforts.

“The thing that we were grappling with throughout all of 2024, which is not the case today, is that Israel was under attack from multiple fronts,” Sullivan, who served under President Joe Biden, told The Bulwark’s Tim Miller. “It was under attack from Hezbollah, from the Houthis, from Syria, from Iraq, obviously from Hamas and from Iran itself. So the idea of saying, ‘Israel, we’re not going to give you a whole set of military tools’ in that context was challenging.”

“The case for withholding weapons from Israel today is much stronger than it was one year ago,” Sullivan added. “One, they don’t face the same regional threats. Two, there was a ceasefire hostage deal in place and the ability to have negotiations, and it was Israel who just walked away from it without negotiating seriously. Three, there is a full-blown famine in Gaza. And four, there are no more serious military objectives to achieve. It’s just bombing the rubble into rubble.”

Sullivan, who was tapped as the inaugural Kissinger Professor of the Practice of Statecraft and World Order at the Harvard Kennedy School, suggested that the political makeup of the Israeli government could affect the future of the U.S.-Israel relationship.

“If nothing changes in their government — if it continues to be a far-right government that pursues the same policies — then it won’t be the Israel we’ve known,” Sullivan said. “I think a lot of Israelis would say they wouldn’t recognize that Israel. And obviously, that should have an impact on the relationship.”

The unrest could be felt everywhere — in traffic jams, on the airwaves, in WhatsApp groups, even in the waiting room of a dental clinic.

Across Israel yesterday, hundreds of thousands joined a nationwide unofficial strike, led by hostage families and bereaved families, demanding an end to the war in Gaza and the immediate release of the hostages still held there. According to the Hostages Families Forum, over 1 million people participated in protests throughout the day. As the government plans to escalate its military campaign against Hamas, emotions ran high across towns, cities and online spaces, deepening a national rift.

Police clashed with demonstrators blocking roads. In Ra’anana, a truck driver was arrested after allegedly attacking a protester. In a Tel Aviv neighborhood mothers’ WhatsApp group, several members condemned local cafés for staying open, while another defended them for “not strengthening Hamas.” At a dental clinic, a man berated staff for opening their doors, shouting, “What about the hostages!?”

At the heart of the tensions is a painful divide: protesters — including the majority of the hostage families — argue that rescuing the captives must come before all else. Meanwhile, the government and its supporters, and even several hostage families, claim such demonstrations weaken Israel’s negotiating hand and embolden Hamas. Israeli President Issac Herzog, speaking at Hostages Square, said “There’s no Israeli who doesn’t want them back home. We can argue about philosophies, but truly, the people of Israel want our brothers and sisters back home.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doubled down on his government’s stance in a public statement, warning: “Those who are calling for an end to the war today without defeating Hamas, are not only hardening Hamas’s stance and pushing off the release of our hostages, they are also ensuring that the horrors of October 7 will recur again and again … to advance the release of our hostages and to ensure that Gaza will never again constitute a threat to Israel, we must complete the work and defeat Hamas.”

Yet recent polls show that a majority of Israelis support prioritizing the hostages’ release and bringing an end to the war.

Israeli journalist and commentator Ben Caspit wrote on social media: “To join the protest strike, you don’t have to be a leftist. Nor a centrist. Nor a rightist…  You need a heart. There on the left side, between the ribs and the lungs. A beating heart that feels the need to express solidarity with our kidnapped brothers, with their families, with the terrible suffering.”

“And no, don’t believe the spin that it ‘helps Hamas.’ It doesn’t. Hamas doesn’t need strike X or demonstration Y to get to know Israeli society. Hamas knows us very well, just as we know them. They are death eaters. We seek life. That’s the whole difference.”

Meanwhile, Amit Segal — a reporter and political commentator often seen opposite Caspit on Channel 12 — offered a more sober take in his newsletter on Sunday: “While the strike will help many Israelis express their frustration and desperation to bring the hostages home, it won’t bring Israel closer to achieving the very thing they’re protesting for.”

Even if that may be, the protests reach further than home: former hostages have recounted the strength they gained from witnessing the demonstrations on the news while in captivity in Gaza. In Tel Aviv, as night fell, thousands of protesters raised their phone flashlights in Hostages Square and the surrounding streets, creating a moment of visual unity. The sea of lights stretched across the plaza and beyond — a simple gesture that carried a message of solidarity for the hostages still held in Gaza.

At the same time, the wheels of war are already turning. While Israelis grappled with grief, anger and hope in the streets, the military was preparing for its next incursion. Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, the IDF’s chief of staff, declared yesterday from the Gaza Strip: “Today we are approving the plan for the next phase of the war.”

“We will maintain the momentum of Operation ‘Gideon’s Chariots’ while focusing on Gaza City. We will continue to strike until the decisive defeat of Hamas, with the hostages always at the forefront of our minds,” Zamir said, adding, “Soon we will move on to the next phase” of the operation.

More than 30 anti-Israel demonstrators who occupied a University of Washington engineering building at the end of the spring semester — causing more than $1 million worth of damage — are now being investigated by the university and local attorney’s office for potential criminal charges, Jewish Insider has learned. 

The investigation comes after a recent report put a spotlight on a link between the radical student group that led the takeover and the U.S. designated terrorist group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. 

“We have taken this incident very seriously, including having issued emergency suspensions for all students who were arrested in the building and working with the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office on potential criminal charges,” a University of Washington spokesperson told JI on Wednesday, referring to the demonstration in May in which masked demonstrators blocked entrances and exits to the building and ignited fires in two dumpsters on a street outside. 

The newly constructed engineering building had been partially funded by Boeing, which the student protest group, Students United for Palestinian Equality & Return (SUPER UW), said makes UW a “direct partner in the genocide of the Palestinian people” due to the IDF’s use of Boeing products. Days later, the university suspended 21 students who were arrested during the anti-Israel protests, a marked shift from the school’s reaction to previous anti-Israel activity. 

The incident also led the Trump administration’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism to open a review into the university. 

The Seattle public university’s investigation into criminal charges comes as the Secure Community Network (SCN), a safety and security network for American Jewish communities, found that a manifesto released by SUPER UW — which the student group published on Medium shortly before its building takeover began — was inspired by a foreign terrorist entity. 

The document praised Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Israel as a “heroic victory” and said the group looks to “the rich history of struggle in our university for strength and inspiration as we take action.” SUPER UW also released a statement of solidarity with the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, a fundraising arm of the terror group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine which was designated as a terror group by the U.S. Treasury Department in October 2024. 

“The fact that this action was inspired by a foreign terrorist entity is gravely concerning and should be an alarm for the broader community,” Solly Kane, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, told JI. “When foreign terrorist organizations are allowed to infiltrate university campuses the implications are significant and we hope the university leadership will continue to follow-up on this incident seriously and with consequences for those responsible, after appropriate due process.”

Miriam Weingarten, co-director of Chabad UW with her husband Rabbi Mendel Weingarten, said she hoped that those responsible for the damage from the May protest would be “held responsible in a way that would deter any future actions.” She said doing so would help Jewish students feel safe and comfortable on campus, and, in the meantime, “Chabad continues to be open as a space for Jewish students to become more confident in their Jewish pride.”

Kerry Sleeper, SCN deputy director of intelligence and information sharing, warned in June at a congressional hearing about the rise of antisemitism that the terror ties associated with UW demonstrators are part of a larger pattern at protests on campuses around the country — claiming that “this is not a protest in the traditional sense; it is an information and intimidation campaign targeting Jewish students and institutions, often through violent tactics.”  

“These trends are fueled by a persistent ecosystem of anti-Israel networks operating in the U.S. and online,” Sleeper said. “Groups such as the Students for Justice in Palestine, Within Our Lifetime, Unity of Fields, and online propaganda hubs such as the emerging ISNAD Network consistently amplify messaging aligned with Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Iranian-backed information operations.” 

“While not all are directly tied to designated foreign terrorist organizations, they help blur the lines between protest and incitement, justifying, glorifying and promoting violence against the Jewish community in the name of Gaza.” 

In a statement to JI, Michael Masters, SCN national director and CEO, said that as students return to campus in the coming weeks, “these threats are not dissipating; they’re evolving.”

“These incidents are not isolated; they are part of a coordinated effort, which has included the circulation of terror toolkits, to intimidate Jewish students and disrupt Jewish life.” 

Masters called for universities to “do more to protect their students and secure Jewish spaces, including allocating the necessary resources and funding for security. Jewish students should never have to choose between their safety and fully participating in campus or religious life.”

The rise of antisemitism has dominated breaking news headlines, films and books in recent years. But two leading journalists noticed a void — a lack of resources in how to address the subject matter with young readers. 

Concerned about what they observed, CNN anchor Bianna Golodryga and Yonit Levi, an anchor on Israel’s Channel 12, joined forces to write Don’t Feed the Lion, a new novel geared towards middle schoolers. 

The book tells the story of three children in Chicago who experience antisemitism firsthand at school when a soccer star makes an antisemitic remark and a swastika appears on a locker. Theo, his sister Annie and their new friend Gabe each struggle with how to speak up and confront hate. 

The book comes as antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment has increasingly impacted K-12 classrooms nationwide in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks on Israel and ensuing war in Gaza. 

“We approached this project wearing three hats: as journalists who seek clarity, as Jews who feel the weight of history, and as mothers who want our children to live in a world that is kinder and more just,” Golodryga and Levi, both first time authors, told Jewish Insider in a joint statement. 

“Empathy doesn’t happen in silence. We wrote this to help open dialogue between kids, parents, teachers, and communities, especially in times like these,” the veteran reporters said.

Don’t Feed the Lion, published by Arcadia Children’s Books, goes on sale Nov. 11. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to ask the Security Cabinet to back expanding Israel’s military efforts in Gaza, Israeli media reported on Monday.

“We are going to conquer the [Gaza] Strip,” a senior source in Netanyahu’s office told Israel’s Channel 12. “The decision was made. Hamas will not free more hostages without us fully surrendering, and we will not surrender. If we don’t act now, the hostages will die of hunger and Gaza will remain under Hamas’ control.”

A few caveats: Netanyahu did not use the term conquer or occupy with all of the Cabinet ministers to whom he conveyed his position, according to Israeli public broadcaster KAN. Maariv reported that Netanyahu has not made a final decision yet about whether the IDF should take control of all of Gaza, and noted that legally, he cannot decide on his own without the Security Cabinet. 

“Netanyahu realized … that there is no point anymore in waiting for Hamas [to agree to a deal], and therefore a decision about the next stage of the war must be made quickly,” a source involved in the matter told Maariv. “The dispute now is not about whether to act or negotiate, because a deal with Hamas is no longer on the table. Rather, it’s about how to act without a deal, whether to go for full conquest or for a siege and increased pressure.”

IDF Chief of Staff Maj.-Gen. Eyal Zamir reportedly favors a siege over occupying all of Gaza.

The IDF currently controls about 75% of the Gaza Strip, and the new plan would bring the entire area under Israel’s control. Among the areas the IDF would enter would include Gaza City, where the IDF has not maneuvered in a year and a half, and towns in central Gaza, where some 20 remaining living hostages are believed to be held.

The military’s hesitation to enter those areas was, in part, due to a concern for the hostages’ safety. Last year, Hamas executed six hostages when the IDF approached their position and former hostages have said that their captors said they would kill them if the army approached the location where they were held. Hamas has also warned the IDF that attempts to rescue hostages would result in death.

Senior officials were quoted in multiple Israeli news outlets saying that Zamir should resign if he disagrees with Netanyahu’s decision to take control of the remaining 25% of the Gaza Strip. 

Netanyahu is expected to bring the proposal to a Security Cabinet vote on Tuesday. 

The move comes two weeks after Hamas rejected a partial ceasefire and hostage-release deal, and Israel and the U.S. said they would only pursue comprehensive agreements to free all of the hostages moving forward. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad published videos in recent days of hostages Rom Braslavski and Evyatar David who appeared to be starving; the latter was filmed digging his own grave.

In addition to Zamir, others expected to argue against conquering the rest of Gaza, according to Channel 12, are Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, Shas leader Arye Deri, National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi and Mossad chief David Barnea, among others.

Netanyahu has the support of Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Military Secretary Maj.-Gen. Roman Gofman and Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs.

The Prime Minister’s Office did not respond to requests for comment on the reports. 

Rather than confirm or deny that he had made a decision about Israel’s next military steps in Gaza, Netanyahu posted a video to X after Hebrew media reported on the matter, which focused on Israeli efforts to get food and medicine to residents of Gaza, and compared claims that Israel was starving Gazans to antisemitic conspiracy theories. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and a group of House Republicans are visiting Israel this week, in Johnson’s first visit to Israel since becoming speaker.

Johnson was set to visit Israel in June to address the Knesset, but postponed his visit after the war between Israel and Iran began. He will not be addressing the Knesset on this visit, a source familiar with his plans told Jewish Insider.

Johnson and those in his delegation — Reps. Michael McCaul (R-TX), Nathaniel Moran (R-TX), Claudia Tenney (R-NY) and Michael Cloud (R-TX) — have prayed at the Western Wall and met with Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar.

“We’re so grateful to be in Israel, particularly on this day, recognizing the destruction of the two Temples … it is such a moving time for us to be here at the Wailing Wall. We’ve offered our prayers, we’ve put our notes into the wall,” Johnson said in brief video remarks from the Kotel, which he visited on Tisha B’Av. “We’re so moved by the hospitality of the people and the great love of Israel.”

“Our prayer is that America will always stand with the people of Israel and we pray for the preservation and the peace of Jerusalem,” Johnson continued. “That’s what scripture tells us to do, it’s a matter of faith for us, and commitment that we have.”

Katz said in a statement that he thanked the lawmakers “for their unwavering support and moral clarity in standing with Israel against its enemies, and for their vital voices in the efforts to bring all the hostages home and defeat the murderous terrorist organization Hamas.”

Sa’ar said the group discussed global antisemitism, anti-Israel efforts by countries like Ireland and the attacks on the Druze in Syria, which Sa’ar said were “same kind of barbarism perpetrated by Hamas.”

The trip was organized by the U.S.-Israel Education Association.

In comments on CNN last week, Johnson raised concerns about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, saying that “it is quite sad and quite alarming to see” and that he’d like to see the war in Gaza end soon.

Johnson’s office did not share any further details of his itinerary while he’s visiting the Jewish state.

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.

Around 400 Jewish organizations and synagogues signed onto an Anti-Defamation League backed letter Monday expressing concern over the “growing level of antisemitic activity” within teachers’ unions, which recently escalated with the National Education Association’s adoption of a measure targeting the leading Jewish civil rights organization, Jewish Insider has learned.  

Signatories include the American Jewish Committee, Jewish Federations of North America, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, National Council of Jewish Women, Orthodox Union, Rabbinical Assembly and Union for Reform Judaism. 

The letter, addressed to Rebecca Pringle, president of the NEA — the largest teachers’ union in the U.S. — comes on the heels of a measure passed last week by the association that bars the union from using any teaching materials from the ADL. 

The letter urges Pringle to reject the measure, referred to as New Business Item 39, as well as to issue a condemnation of and plan of action to address antisemitism and anti-Israel rhetoric in the NEA.

“The ADL has been a national leader in anti-hate education in K-12 schools for decades and is widely recognized as one of the country’s foremost experts on antisemitism,” the letter states, raising concern that, “although NBI 39 does not explicitly say so, we understand that much of the underlying concern prompting this resolution is directed at ADL’s Holocaust education materials.” 

“That reality makes this proposal especially disturbing,” the letter continues. “This is precisely the kind of education that is vital not only to combat antisemitism, but also to fighting hatred and intolerance of all kinds. The effort to exclude ADL’s voice from educational spaces at a time of skyrocketing antisemitism — including in K-12 classrooms — speaks volumes about the climate within NEA that allowed this measure to pass, and the lack of understanding, if not outright hostility, behind it.”

The letter also references several Jewish teachers who spoke out against the resolution at the Representative Assembly, claiming that they were “harassed and shouted down during the proceedings.”

“It is our belief that the goal of those who introduced NBI 39 is to marginalize mainstream Jewish voices within this country’s public school systems and to limit the ability of educators to address the growing threat of antisemitism with their students,” the letter states. 

The ADL has criticized the vote, calling it “profoundly disturbing that a group of NEA activists would brazenly attempt to further isolate their Jewish colleagues and push a radical, antisemitic agenda on students.” 

“Excluding ADL’s gold-standard educational resources is not just an attack on our organization – it’s a dangerous attack on the entire Jewish community,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the group’s CEO, said in a statement. “We urge the NEA Executive Committee to reverse this biased, fringe effort, and reaffirm its commitment to supporting all Jewish students and educators.”

Even outside of the recent measure, antisemitism and anti-Israel activism in teachers’ unions has been increasing since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks in Israel. At their conventions last year, both the NEA and the American Federation of Teachers, the second largest teachers’ union in the U.S. — which together represent 4.7 million members — made anti-Israel resolutions a notable part of both gatherings. In July 2024, the NEA signed a joint letter calling on President Joe Biden to halt all military aid to Israel amid its war against Hamas. 

Also in July of last year, at the AFT convention, members voted on a total of seven resolutions regarding Israel, including one against the “weaponization of antisemitism” to defend Israel. One of the seven proposed resolutions critical of Israel at the AFT convention passed.

Israel struck a centrifuge production site in Tehran early Wednesday, after successfully intercepting more than two dozen missiles launched by Iran toward Israel in the preceding hours.

Over 50 Israeli Air Force jets flew to Iran, where they struck a facility in which centrifuges were manufactured to expand and accelerate uranium enrichment for Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the IDF Spokesperson’s Office said.

”The Iranian regime is enriching uranium for the purpose of developing nuclear weapons. Nuclear power for civilian use does not require enrichment at these levels,” the IDF said.

The IDF also said it struck several weapons manufacturing facilities, including one used “to produce raw materials and components for the assembly of surface-to-surface missiles, which the Iranian regime has fired and continues to fire toward the State of Israel.” Another facility that the IDF struck manufactured components for anti-aircraft missiles.

IDF Spokesperson Effie Defrin said on Wednesday that the IDF “attacked five Iranian combat helicopters that tried to harm our aircraft.” 

“There is Iranian resistance, but we control the air [over Iran] and will continue to control it. We are deepening our damage to surface missiles and acting in every place from which the Iranians shoot missiles at Israel,” Defrin added.

Defrin said on Tuesday evening that, as a result of Israel’s air superiority in western Iran and the Tehran area, the Islamic Republic’s military efforts “have been pushed back into central Iran. They are now focusing their efforts on conducting missile fire from the area of Isfahan.”

Defense Minister Israel Katz said that “a tornado is passing over Tehran. Symbols of the regime are exploding and collapsing, from the broadcast authority and soon other targets, and masses of residents are fleeing. This is how dictatorships collapse.” 

Most of the projectiles fired from Iran toward northern and central Israel overnight were intercepted, and no injuries or fatalities were reported. 

In addition, Iran launched over 10 drones at the Galilee and the Golan on Wednesday morning, all of which the IDF intercepted.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Israel is running low on Arrow interceptors used to shoot down long-range ballistic missiles from Iran. Israel also uses the David’s Sling system against Iranian missiles. The Arrow is manufactured by Israel Aerospace Industries. The U.S. has augmented Israel’s air defenses with its THAAD system, but is concerned about its own stock of interceptors. The IDF told the Journal that “it is prepared and ready to handle any scenario.”

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wrote on X that Iran “must give a strong response to the terrorist Zionist regime. We will show the Zionists no mercy.” On his Persian X account, Khamenei evoked Khaybar, the site of a massacre of Jews by Muslims in the 7th century, along with an image of a man with a sword entering a burning castle. 

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed that it shot Fatah-1 hypersonic missiles at Israel, which move faster than the speed of sound and cannot be detected by missile defense systems. However, there is no evidence on the ground in Israel of that being the case. 

Iranian state media reported on Wednesday the interception of an Israeli drone near Isfahan, with footage of an aircraft that looks like an IAF Hermes 900. The IDF declined to comment. 

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar wrote a letter updating the U.N. Security Council on Israel’s Operation Rising Lion against Iran. The operation is “aimed to neutralize the existential and imminent threat from Iran’s nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programs” and “specifically targets military facilities and critical components of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, as well as key individuals involved in Iran’s efforts to achieve nuclear weapons.” 

Sa’ar noted the Islamic Republic’s “public threats to eliminate the State of Israel, in stark violation of the UN charter, and its continued attempts to achieve the means to accomplish this by rapidly developing military nuclear capabilities, as well as its ballistic missile program.” He pointed out that the International Atomic Energy Agency censured Iran in a recent Board of Governors decision for its non-compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Sa’ar’s letter came after two missives from Iran to the UNSC about Israel’s strikes on the country.

Also Wednesday, the first Israeli rescue flights arrived from Cyprus, meant to help some of the over 100,000 Israelis stuck abroad while Israel’s airspace is closed. Israel Airports Authority said that 2,800 Israelis were expected to return on Wednesday. Israeli airlines El Al, Arkia, Israir and Air Haifa will be making further emergency flights to repatriate Israelis.

China’s foreign ministry said that it was telling citizens to leave Israel and Iran, and Russia’s ambassador to Israel, Anatoly Viktorov, said that the families of Russian diplomats left Israel via Egypt on Tuesday. 

Iran has launched about 400 ballistic missiles and hundreds of drones at Israel, hitting 40 impact sites since the beginning of the operation on Friday, according to the Israeli Government Press Office. There have been 24 fatalities and over 804 injured, eight of whom are in serious condition. About 3,800 people have been evacuated from their homes and 18,766 damage claims were submitted to the Israel Tax Authority.

Protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportations that have engulfed San Francisco’s streets this week took an antisemitic turn on Monday night when a local Jewish-owned civic engagement hub and community space had its windows smashed and walls defaced with slurs including “Die Zio,” “The Only Good Settler is a Dead One,” “Death 2 Israel is a Promise” and “Intifada.” 

“There is no justification for attacking me other than the fact that I am Jewish,” Manny Yekutiel, owner of the Mission District event space Manny’s, which is in disrepair following the vandalism and break-in, told Jewish Insider. “My business is not a pro-Israel business. I am not Israeli. This is not a space that represents Israel in any way.”

The space was also the target of antisemitic graffiti in October around the one year anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attacks. The most recent attack is currently being investigated as a hate crime. 

In the Bay Area, over 150 people were arrested on Sunday and Monday following protests against President Donald Trump’s travel ban, latest immigration policies and ICE raids. Similar protests spread across the country — including in Los Angeles where 4,000 National Guard members and 700 U.S. Marines were deployed on Monday. 

Yekutiel believes the protests against ICE are “necessary” because ongoing deportations are “stoking hatred” and “we need to stand with immigrants.” While Yekutiel says he will continue identifying with left-wing causes, he also said the attack on his business makes the protests concerning for Jews.

The attack on Manny’s “undermines the very values such movements claim to uphold” such as “justice and welcome the stranger,” the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area said in a statement.

Monday’s vandalism in San Francisco comes as the Jewish community faces an “elevated threat” following a surge of violent antisemitic attacks across the country in recent weeks, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security warned last week. Last month, two Israeli Embassy employees were killed in a shooting in Washington. Days later in Boulder, Colo., 15 people advocating for the release of hostages in Gaza were injured in a firebombing by an Egyptian national who overstayed his visa in the U.S. 

Trump announced his travel ban — which bars nationals of 12 countries from entering the U.S. — last week following the Boulder attack.

“The recent terror attack in Boulder, Colorado has underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted, as well as those who come here as temporary visitors and overstay their visas,” Trump said. “We don’t want them.”

The IDF found and returned the bodies of U.S.-Israeli citizens Judith Weinstein-Haggai and Gad Haggai, who were killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office announced on Thursday.

The Haggais were murdered in Kibbutz Nir Oz during Hamas’ onslaught targeting Gaza border communities. Their bodies were held by Hamas, the PMO said.

The couple was on a morning walk when they were shot by terrorists on motorcycles. Weinstein-Haggai called emergency medical services, but the ambulance that was traveling to help them was hit by a rocket, according to her daughter. 

Gad was 72 and Judith, a New York native who also held Canadian citizenship, was 70; they are survived by four children and seven grandchildren.

The Weinstein-Haggai family released a statement via the Hostage and Missing Families Forum, saying that their return “is painful and heartbreaking, yet it also brings healing to our uncertainty. Their return reminds us all that it is the state’s duty to bring everyone home, so that we, the families, together with all the people of Israel, can begin the process of healing and recovery … A grave is not a privilege. A grave is a basic human right, without which personal and national recovery is impossible.”

The family called on leaders to “do everything necessary to reach an agreement that will return all 56 remaining hostages — the living for rehabilitation and the deceased for burial.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked the IDF soldiers and Shin Bet fighters who recovered the bodies and added, “We will not rest until we bring all of our hostages home, living and deceased.” 

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz sent condolences to the Weinstein-Haggai family and said that “the State of Israel is morally and nationally committed to returning our brothers and sisters, living and not living, and we will continue acting with determination until the mission is complete.”

The bodies of two American hostages, Itay Chen and Omer Neutra, remain in Gaza, out of a total of 56 hostages, 20 of whom are thought to be alive.

One of Hamas’ top three sources of funding is the U.K., where it is a banned terrorist organization, an investigation from Israel’s Channel 12 found. That funding includes 25% of Hamas’ donors from non-state actors, as well as tens of millions of dollars from the government of the U.K. to a UNICEF program whose beneficiaries are determined by Hamas.

The U.K., France and Canada threatened Israel last week with “concrete actions” if it does not lift restrictions on humanitarian aid and work with United Nations agencies to distribute it.

The U.K., Canada and the European Union — of which France is a member— as well as Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Mauritius and Croatia, sponsored a project through UNICEF, the U.N. Children’s Emergency Fund, for which a Hamas-run ministry provides a list of people to receive funding.

The program provides cash payments of $200-$300 per month to 546,000 needy people in Gaza. UNICEF said that it works with a “beneficiary list from the MoSD,” meaning the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Social Development, to determine who receives the cash. The program uses a digital platform funded by USAID to distribute the cash. UNICEF published an update on the program as recently as November 2024. 

MoSD is led by Ghazi Hamad, a member of Hamas’ politburo, designated a “senior Hamas official” by the U.S. Treasury Department. 

A 2022 document from the U.K. Foreign Office, uncovered by NGO Monitor, showed that London was aware of Hamas’ involvement with the program and that it had the potential for “severe” reputational damage. 

“The cash assistance component will be implemented in coordination with the Ministry of Social Development MoSD. The MoSD in Gaza is affiliated with the de facto authorities and thus UK Aid can be linked directly or indirectly with supporting the de facto authority (Hamas) in Gaza which is part of a proscribed group,” the document reads.

The U.K. gave about $23.1 million to UNICEF projects in the West Bank and Gaza in 2024, and $4.8 million in 2023. 

NGO Monitor’s legal Advisor, Anne Herzberg, noted that it is unclear how much of that funding went to the Gaza cash program.

“There is very little detail from the U.K. side about how much is going in, what oversight is in place, what exactly they are doing to mitigate the risk” of money going to Hamas, Herzberg told Jewish Insider on Sunday. “A lot of countries are giving funds to the U.N. and just leave it in their hands.” 

Herzberg said that while a lot of attention has gone to UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees and their descendants, which was recently banned from Israel after some of its employees participated in the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, “UNRWA is just the tip of the iceberg, because 13 U.N. agencies are operating in Gaza. There is very little information into how these other U.N. agencies are operating.” 

“Aid diversion is the main problem and why there have been so many issues with humanitarian aid in Gaza,” she said. “It’s inconceivable to me that these governments refuse to deal with this issue. They claim they want to help Palestinians, to end the conflict and bring peace, yet they don’t want to tackle this issue.” 

Beyond government aid going to Hamas, what qualifies the U.K. as the leading non-Muslim country funding Hamas is nongovernmental contributions, Channel 12 reported.

In 2001, Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi founded the Union of Good, a coalition of 50 Islamist charities with connections to Hamas and other proscribed terrorist groups. The group raised hundreds of millions of dollars for Hamas during the Second Intifada.

The organization was banned in the U.S. and U.K., and Qaradawi, who is Egyptian and lives in Doha, Qatar, has been barred from the U.S., U.K. and France.  

Yet the organizations making up the Union of Good continued their fundraising activities.

The Channel 12 report names specific Hamas operatives based in the U.K., including Zahar Birawi, who is the head of the Palestinian Return Center in London, leads Hamas activities in Great Britain and has been instrumental in organizing weekly anti-Israel protests in London. Issam Yusef Mustafa, a former member of the Hamas politburo, is a U.K. citizen and is the biggest fundraiser for Hamas in Europe as the head of “Interpal,” a former Union of Good group sanctioned by the U.S. and Israel.

Herzberg explained that many of the organizations funneling money to Hamas are registered as businesses so they can avoid scrutiny from the Charity Commission.

“The monitoring in the U.K. does not seem as robust as what you see in the U.S., where there are many more investigations going on at the governmental level and more reporting, even though the U.K. government says it has robust control in its laws,” Herzberg said. “It’s unclear how those laws are being enforced.” 

Erez Noy, a former Shin Bet official dealing with terror funding, told Channel 12 that “Hamas is strong in Britain because over the years they got used to being able to do almost anything they want there, compared to other countries in Europe … For years, Britain, for whatever reason, did not handle preventing and taking care of these systems [to fund terror]. When Hamas realizes there is a permissive arena, it tests the limits.” 

Hamas petitioned the U.K. last month to be removed from the country’s list of banned terrorist organizations. 

According to Udi Levy, the former head of the Mossad’s department for fighting terrorism funding, “these are businesses that raise funds under the guise of humanitarian aid, and reach Hamas in Gaza, Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] and anywhere else around the world.”

Levy told Channel 12 that “total victory over Hamas is not just in the Gaza Strip. We are making a huge mistake because even if we kill every last ‘soldier’ in Gaza, there is still a massive Hamas infrastructure that will continue to act and even rehabilitate its activities, unless we start taking care of it.” 

The British Embassy in Israel said in response to a query from JI that “Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organization in the U.K. and funding or supporting it is a crime. We categorically reject the false and irresponsible allegations in the Channel 12 investigation that the UK Government funds Hamas run agencies in Gaza. No UK funding was provided to the Ministry of Social Development in Gaza … We are clear that Hamas must play no role in the future of Gaza. FCDO [the Foreign Office] conducted a thorough due diligence assessment of UNICEF, and we identify how U.K. funds are transferred until they reach the final beneficiaries.”

The embassy interpreted the claim made by the U.K. Foreign Office that “U.K. Aid can be linked directly or indirectly with supporting the de facto authority (Hamas) in Gaza which is part of a proscribed group,” as referring to the Ministry of Social Development in Ramallah run by the Palestinian Authority.

In addition, the embassy stated that it does “not recognize the claim that 25% of Hamas’s non-state funding comes from the U.K. To our knowledge, no official Israeli body has ever made such a claim.” 

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency is denying claims that it violated the religious rights of Muslim detainees at a Florida detention center by failing to provide them with halal meals since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

ICE policy stipulates that detainees must receive “a reasonable and equitable opportunity to observe their religious dietary practice,” but conditions that requirement “within the constraints of budget limitations and the security and orderly running of the facility.” 

In a letter, signed by attorneys from Muslim Advocates, Americans for Immigrant Justice (AIJ) and King and Spalding LLP, the groups allege that officers at the Krome North Service Processing Center in Miami consistently served Muslim detainees “rotten and expired” halal meals, at times forcing them to choose between eating pork-contaminated meals or expired meals.

The facility, like many institutions, has transitioned since the start of the pandemic to a satellite meal preparation and service model that provides pre-portioned meals to all detainees in an effort to limit the risk of infection. According to the letter, Muslim detainees have been served pork meals, including sausages and ribs, despite officers knowing their religious requirements.

When detainees brought their complaints to a chaplain, according to the letter, they were told: “it is what it is.”

The groups called on the agency and the Department of Homeland Security to “immediately address this unlawful pattern of religious discrimination” and “ensure that no detainee at Krome or any other ICE facility across the United States is forced to choose between their faith and starvation.”

Citing First Amendment protections and the Religious Freedom Reformation Act, the letter calls on DHS and ICE to immediately “train, supervise, and discipline all personnel involved in this systematic denial of detainees’ rights.”

According to Lily Hartmann, a Human Rights advocate at AIJ, many of the Muslim detainees, who come from Somalia, Jamaica, Tunisia, Egypt and Guatemala, have been in ICE custody for over a year. “The immigration detention system is meant, through its abuses, to wear people down so that they give up fighting their immigration case.” Hartmann told Jewish Insider, adding of the Krome incidents: “This is just one example of how that is done.”

Nimra Azmi, a staff attorney at Muslim Advocates and a signatory to the letter, told JI in an email, “officials at Krome know these are Muslim detainees who are being served rotten meals or meals that violate their faith and they do not care.”

In a statement to JI, an ICE spokesperson denied the allegations. “ICE’s Performance Based National Detention Standards cover all aspects of detention, to include reasonable accommodation of religious dietary practices. Any claim that ICE denies reasonable and equitable opportunity for persons to observe their religious dietary practices is false.”

ICE policy only requires religious dietary accommodations “within the constraints of budget limitations and the security and orderly running of the facility.” The spokesperson did not explain if the alleged conduct could be permissible under those constraints.

Jewish groups, including the American Jewish Committee and Bend the Arc, condemned the allegations. In a tweet, AJC wrote “If these allegations are true, they are beyond despicable!  No one should be forced to choose between food and their religious beliefs. We call on @ICEgov to change this inhumane and un-American policy.”

“The Song of Names,” due in theaters December 25, is a poignant, haunting and memorable film. It is also the first feature movie ever allowed to film on the grounds of Treblinka.

The film, starring Tim Roth and Clive Owen, darts back and forth between 1938, 1951 and 1985, following the lives of two young boys brought together just before the onset of the Holocaust. Dovidl Rapoport, a Jewish violin prodigy from Warsaw, is taken in as a lodger in London by the family of young Martin Simmonds. 

The two young boys quickly become fast friends as they survive the London blitz together, though Dovidl never learns the fate of his parents and sisters left behind in Poland. On the day he is slated to make his musical debut at a London concert hall, Dovidl disappears without a trace. Decades later, Martin is still searching for him, hunting down clues to find the man he loved as a brother.  

The film was directed by Francois Girard, set to a haunting and pivotal original score from Oscar-winner Howard Shore and produced by Robert Lantos, the Hungarian-born son of Holocaust survivors who has called Canada home for more than 50 years. 

Lantos spoke with Jewish Insider recently about his work on the film, the troubling rise in global antisemitism and the lessons movies can teach about hatred and prejudice. 

“This is a story that — in the climate in which we live today — absolutely has to be told,” Lantos said. “It’s a way to remember, it’s a way to honor the two key words in my entire vocabulary, which are ‘never again.’”

The screenplay for “The Song of Names” was written by Jeffrey Caine and adapted from a novel by Norman Lebrecht of the same name. When Lantos first read the book, he knew immediately that he wanted to bring it to the silver screen. The storyline, he said, is a way of telling a Holocaust tale “in an original manner and an emotionally compelling manner.” The musical-themed plot, he noted, is a conduit for “bringing the horrors of the Holocaust back to a contemporary audience without forcing people to come face to face with living skeletons and images of horror.”

Martin (Tim Roth) in a scene set at Treblinka.

The cast and crew spent just one day filming at the site of the Treblinka extermination camp, where close to a million people were murdered in its just over one year of operation. Today, nothing remains of the original camp, and the site is marked with a haunting memorial to the dead. 

“We asked for a permit and the authorities read the script and surprisingly they said yes,” Lantos recalled. That single day of work was the most difficult and disturbing day on set, he said.

“It was like being in a state of altered reality,” he told JI. “We only shot there for one day. And frankly, I can’t imagine spending more than one day there. The weight of the place is unbearable.”

Caine’s original screenplay contained dialogue for the scenes set in Treblinka. But once the filmmakers arrived on location, they changed the plan entirely. 

“Once we were there, we all felt that the dialogue had to go, because there’s nothing to say there,” Lantos said. “There’s nothing that can be said that wouldn’t be trivial in the context of what we were seeing with our eyes.”

While the original novel told a story of two young Jewish boys living through World War II, the film chose to make Martin and his family not Jewish. 

“The character of Martin provides an access point” to a wider audience, Lantos said. “I thought it’d be important to bring to it the point of view of someone who wasn’t steeped from birth in Jewish rituals and tradition.”

Dovidl (Jonah Hauer-King) enters a synagogue in London in the 1950s.

Dovidl’s connection to religion is a key plot point throughout the film. In one emotional scene, he reflects on the ideas of Judaism as a faith and as an ethnicity — a debate that still resonates strongly today. 

“Ethnicity isn’t soluble in water, Motl,” Dovidl tells Martin, using his affectionate nickname. “It’s a skin you’re born in and wear until the day you die. Now religion — that’s a coat. When it gets too hot — you can take it off.”

Lantos said they consulted with rabbis from Reform to Orthodox to “try and get every detail that had to do with religion and the period this film was set in” as authentic as possible.

Work on “The Song of Names” began several years ago, but Lantos has felt its importance and significance only grow as a rash of antisemitic incidents creeps across North America. 

The scene that was filmed in Treblinka, Lantos said, “is the reason that I felt that the film had to be made. Because in the world in which we now live in, where Jew hatred has found brand new ammunition, and it is firing on all cylinders, and it’s sweeping across Europe and on our campuses in North America, anything that we can do, to not forget… the consequences of that hate and human suffering — anything that I can do to remember, has to be done,” he continued. “If we don’t remember the past, we’re guaranteed to repeat them, to repeat all of its tragedies.”

Dovidl (Clive Owen) performs a solo violin concert.

Lantos has enjoyed a long and storied career as a filmmaker in Canada. His works include the critically acclaimed 2004 film “Being Julia,” starring Annette Benning; 2007’s “Eastern Promises” with Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts; and 2010’s “Barney’s Version,” starring Paul Giamatti. 

But many of Lantos’s films, particularly his recent ones, have dealt with the experiences of Jews during the Holocaust. Those include 1999’s “Sunshine,” starring Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz; 2003’s “The Statement” with Michael Caine; and 2015’s “Remember,” featuring Christopher Plummer. 

Lantos said his parents, both Hungarian Holocaust survivors, opted to hide their Jewish identity when he was a child, hoping that “the solution to sparing their son of the horrors and persecutions that they had lived through was to forget all about being Jewish.” 

The award-winning producer said that for decades he made films that had nothing to do with the Holocaust or with his Jewish identity — which finally changed with 1999’s “Sunshine,” which follows five generations of a Hungarian Jewish family and in many ways mirrors his own life story. 

“Up until that point, I didn’t feel that compelling need” to tell stories of Jewish persecution, Lantos said. And since then, as he watches a resurgence of antisemitism across the world, “I can’t think of anything that is more important to deal with than that in my life. I happen to be a filmmaker. That gives me a way of dealing with it that could possibly make a difference.”