House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) announced on Monday that he’s postponing plans to visit Israel and speak to the Knesset on Sunday in light of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran, which has thus far frozen all civilian air traffic in and out of Israel and prohibited public gatherings in the country.

“Due to the complex situation currently unfolding in Iran and Israel, Speaker [of the Knesset Amir] Ohana and I have made the decision to postpone the special session of the Knesset,” Johnson said in a statement. “We look forward to rescheduling the address in the near future and send our prayers to the people of Israel and the Middle East.”

The trip would have been Johnson’s first visit to the Middle East since he was elected speaker, shortly following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel.

A separate congressional delegation is set to visit the Middle East this week and stop in Israel, although it’s not clear whether that will be feasible. Members could still attempt to transit into Israel via land crossings from Jordan or Egypt, as some did immediately following Oct. 7.

The war is likely to disrupt upcoming travel to Israel for various members — the House is currently set for a weeklong recess, and the Senate will be out of town for the latter half of the week. Members of both chambers are also in recess during the first week of July, for Independence Day.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) sharply denounced the anti-Israel movement on Tuesday, describing it as making common cause with terrorists and putting “a bounty on the heads of peace-loving Jewish Americans.”

Johnson gathered on the steps of the Capitol with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), dozens of members of Congress, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter, American Jewish Committee CEO Ted Deutch, hostage family members including Ronen Neutra and staff from the Israeli Embassy and AJC for a vigil honoring Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, the Israeli Embassy employees killed by an anti-Israel activist outside an AJC event at the Capital Jewish Museum last month.

“It’s a dangerous time to be a Jewish American,” Johnson said, noting that the House had taken extra precautions to keep the event under wraps for security reasons. Visible and covert security surrounded the gathering.

“The monster who murdered [Lischinsky and Milgrim] was not motivated by peace, [but] something very different. He went to a Jewish museum to hunt down Jewish people, and we want to be crystal clear tonight: This is targeted antisemitic terrorism,” Johnson said. “There are no shades of gray. There is no other way to describe it, as we’ve seen in the weeks since this violence is definitely not isolated.”

He said that the D.C. shooter and the individual who attacked a march for the hostages in Gaza in Boulder, Colo., were “united in their sick hatred of the Jewish people.” He highlighted that both shouted “Free Palestine” during their attacks, a slogan he noted has proliferated at protests on college campuses and in American cities.

“‘Free Palestine’ is the chant of a violent movement that has found common cause with Hamas,” Johnson said. “It’s a movement that has lost hold of the difference between right and wrong, between good and evil, between light and darkness … They proclaim that violence is righteous, that rape is justice and that murder is liberation. They have created a culture of lies that puts a bounty on the heads of peace-loving Jewish Americans.”

Jeffries described the shooting as domestic terrorism and said Lischinsky and Milgrim were “victims of the same deadly antisemitism that fueled the attacks in Boulder, the attack at Gov. Josh Shapiro’s home in Pennsylvania, at synagogues, yeshivas, businesses and communities all across America.”

“Antisemitism has been a painful reality of Jewish life throughout the world for thousands of years, but now too many of our Jewish brothers and sisters here in America fear for their safety,” Jeffries said. “In this country, antisemitism has been metastasizing like a malignant tumor, and we must all work together to eradicate this cancer.”

Referencing the week’s Torah portion, when God instructed Moses to appoint elders to help him lead the Jewish people through the desert after leaving Mount Sinai, Jeffries said that lawmakers from both parties need to step up to help the Jewish community fight antisemitism.

“We will not let you shoulder this burden alone,” Jeffries said. “That’s a moral necessity here in the United States of America.”

Leiter said that “the intifada has been globalized, and like [George] Orwell’s ‘1984,’ ‘Free, free Palestine’ means ‘Death, death Israel,’ and it is now incumbent upon all of us to confront it,” Leiter said. “Today we are challenged to act, to honor the fallen, not just with words, but with a renewed commitment to fighting the scourge of hate, fighting the demonization and delegitimization of the State of Israel.”

AJC’s Deutch said that “antisemitism is antisemitism, period. There should be no more debate about which kind of antisemitism is more dangerous, or which we need to be more afraid of.”

“It is clear every antisemitism is and has been deadly, from the extreme left to the extreme right,” Deutch said. “Both must be condemned by everyone, no excuses, because if you can only see antisemitism when it is convenient then you’re not seeing it at all.”

He described the demonization of Israel and trends of blaming it for “every injustice in the world” as the “current socially acceptable form of antisemitism,” which has “sanitized” the hatred.

“There is a straight line from the demonization of Israel, the dangerous lies that people peddle about the one Jewish state to the antisemitic violence that impacts real people,” Deutch said. “When calls to globalize the intifada and chants [of] ‘from the river to the sea’ are screamed at protests, these must be called out for what they are. They are not slogans for a social justice movement. They are incitement to violence. Everyone must call that out forcefully and with clarity.”

Deutch said he appreciates Congress’ work to improve Jewish communal security, but argued that it is not normal nor acceptable for any religious group to need armed guards and security checkpoints to gather and practice their faith.

Lischinsky and Milgrim’s supervisors at the embassy shared statements from their families, highlighting their lives, the positive impacts they had on their communities and their passion for their work at the Israeli Embassy.

Antisemitic violence struck at the heart of the nation’s capital on Wednesday evening when an assailant shot and killed two Israeli embassy employees outside an event at the Capital Jewish Museum for young diplomats and Jewish professionals hosted by the American Jewish Committee.

“Two staff members of the Israeli embassy were shot this evening at close range while attending a Jewish event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington DC,” embassy spokesperson Tal Naim Cohen said in a statement. “We have full faith in law enforcement authorities on both the local and federal levels to apprehend the shooter and protect Israel’s representatives and Jewish communities throughout the United States.”

Officials said there was no ongoing threat to public safety and that a suspect had been arrested.

“American Jewish Committee (AJC) can confirm that we hosted an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. this evening,” AJC CEO Ted Deutch said in a statement. “We are devastated that an unspeakable act of violence took place outside the venue. At this moment, as we await more information from the police about exactly what transpired, our attention and our hearts are solely with those who were harmed and their families.”

President Donald Trump said in a statement, “These horrible D.C. killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW! Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA.”

D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith said that a man and woman were killed in the incident. Israeli Ambassador Michael Leiter said that the two victims were a young couple and embassy employees who were planning to get engaged next week in Jerusalem — the man purchased a ring earlier this week.

Eyewitness Paige Siegel, who was a guest at the event, told Jewish Insider that she heard two sets of multiple shots ring out, and then an individual, who police have since identified as suspected shooter Elias Rodriguez, entered the building appearing disoriented and panicked, seconds after the shooting ended. She said security allowed the man in, as well as two other women separately.

Siegel said she spoke to the man, asking him if he had been shot. He appeared panicked and was mumbling and repeatedly told bystanders to call the police. Siegel said that she felt the man was suspicious.

JoJo Drake Kalin, a member of AJC’s DC Young Professional Board and an organizer of the event, also told JI the man appeared disheveled and out of breath when he entered the building. Kalin assumed he had been a bystander to the shooting who needed assistance and she handed him a glass of water.

Siegel said that the man was sitting in the building in a state of distress for approximately 10 to 15 minutes, and she and a friend engaged him in conversation, informing him that he was in the Jewish museum.

After Siegel said that, she said the man started screaming, “I did it, I did it. Free Palestine. I did it for Gaza,” and opened a backpack, withdrawing a red Keffiyeh. She said that an officer, who had already arrived, detained the man and took him outside. She said that she subsequently saw security footage of Rodriguez shooting the female and identified the shooter as the same individual. Kalin said that some attendees stayed for several hours at the museum into the night to be debriefed by police.

A short video obtained by JI showed an individual in the lobby of the museum chanting “Free, free Palestine” being detained by police and removed from the building.

A video obtained by Jewish Insider shows the suspected shooter, identified by police as Elias Rodriguez, in the lobby of the Capital Jewish Museum chanting “free, free Palestine” as he is detained by police and removed from the building.

Full story: https://t.co/ZGZBj9agQx pic.twitter.com/zZUbTvovFm

— Jewish Insider (@J_Insider) May 22, 2025

Smith said in a press conference that the suspect, Rodriguez, a 30-year-old from Chicago, opened fire on a group of four outside the museum, and then entered the building and was detained by event security. Smith said that Rodriguez, once in custody, implied that he carried out the shooting and chanted “free, free Palestine.”

Smith said Rodriguez had been pacing outside the event before the altercation.

Leiter said that he had spoken to President Donald Trump, who vowed that the administration would do everything it can to fight antisemitism and demonization and delegitimization of Israel.

“We’ll stand together tall and firm and confront this moral depravity without fear,” Leiter said.

Smith said that police would coordinate with local Jewish organizations to ensure sufficient security. She said police had not received any intelligence warning of the attack.

Mayor Muriel Bowser said, “we will not tolerate antisemitism,” and said the city would continue to assist Jewish organizations with security grants.

FBI officials and Attorney General Pam Bondi and interim U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro joined the response alongside D.C. police.

“We are a resilient people. The people of Israel are a resilient people. The people of the United States of America are a resilient people. Together, we won’t be afraid. Together we will stand and overcome moral depravity of people who think they’re going to achieve political gains through murder,” Leiter said. 

According to an invitation to the event viewed by JI, the event planned to discuss efforts to respond to humanitarian crises in the Middle East and North Africa, including in Gaza.

Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, described the shooting as a “depraved act of anti-Semitic terrorism.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told JI, “I’ve been informed of the tragic shooting that occurred outside of the Capitol Jewish Museum tonight in Washington D.C. We are monitoring the situation as more details become known and lifting up the victim’s families in our prayers.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a post, “This sickening shooting seems to be another horrific instance of antisemitism which as we know is all too rampant in our society.”

Richard Priem, the CEO of the Community Security Service, told eJewishPhilanthropy that there are still “so many unknowns” about the shooting, namely if it was a sophisticated attack specifically targeting Israeli Embassy staff or an attack more generally against the Jewish event itself. In any case, the organization called for “increased situational awareness” at Jewish institutions going forward, particularly ahead of Shabbat.

“Anytime there’s an attack, certain people get activated and think, ’Now’s the time,’” Priem said. “But we don’t know yet if there might be a direct correlated threat.”

eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross contributed reporting

Columbia University President Minouche Shafik announced her resignation on Wednesday, days before the start of the school year — and months after the end of a chaotic school year that saw her testify before Congress about antisemitism and navigate the unruly fallout of the first anti-Israel encampment in the nation. 

Dr. Katrina Armstrong, CEO of Columbia’s Irving Medical Center, will serve as interim president, a university spokesperson confirmed to Jewish Insider. A source familiar said Armstrong has already been in touch with Hillel leadership at Columbia. 

News of Shafik’s resignation was first reported by the Washington Free Beacon’s Eliana Johnson. Shafik is the fourth Ivy League president to step down in the last year amid rising anti-Israel activism on campuses, following the University of Pennsylvania’s Elizabeth Magill, Harvard’s Claudine Gay and Cornell University’s Martha Pollack.

“I have had the honor and privilege to lead this incredible institution, and I believe that — working together — we have made progress in a number of important areas,” Shafik, who only started in the role in July 2023, wrote in an email to the Columbia community. 

“However, it has also been a period of turmoil where it has been difficult to overcome divergent views across our community. This period has taken a considerable toll on my family, as it has for others in our community. Over the summer, I have been able to reflect and have decided that my moving on at this point would best enable Columbia to traverse the challenges ahead,” she wrote.

Following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, Columbia, like other American universities, saw an uptick in antisemitism and targeting of Zionist students. But in an April hearing before the House Education and the Workforce Committee, Shafik avoided the kind of viral moment that dogged her colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

But when she went back to Manhattan, she faced the first anti-Israel encampment at an American university. Her decision to call in the police to break up the demonstration set off a wave of anger among many students and faculty members on campus and sparked dozens of other solidarity encampments at other universities. 

From there, her leadership was under a microscope. Following a number of antisemitic incidents related to the encampment, several members of Congress from both parties went to Columbia to speak to Jewish students and show solidarity.

In a statement, the Anti-Defamation League said it is “saddened that the leadership of another flagship university has crumbled under the weight of antisemitism on its campus,” calling on the school to move quickly to fill the leadership vacancy before the fall semester.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), in a statement first shared with JI, cheered Shafik’s decision to step aside: “As a result of President Shafik’s refusal to protect Jewish students and maintain order on campus, Columbia University became the epicenter for virulent antisemitism that has plagued many American university campuses since Hamas’ barbaric attack on Israel last fall.” 

“I stood in President Shafik’s office in April and told her to resign, and while it is long overdue, we welcome today’s news. Jewish students at Columbia beginning this school year should breathe a sigh of relief…We hope that President Shafik’s resignation serves as an example to university administrators across the country that tolerating or protecting antisemites is unacceptable and will have consequences,” Johnson added.

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), the chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said that, under Shafik’s leadership “a disturbing wave of antisemitic harassment, discrimination, and disorder engulfed Columbia university’s campus” and students were allowed to break the law with impunity.

“Columbia’s next leader must take bold action to address the pervasive antisemitism, support for terrorism, and contempt for the university’s rules that have been allowed to flourish on its campus,” Foxx continued, 

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), a prominent member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, crowed, “THREE DOWN, so many to go,” adding that her “failed presidency was untenable and that it was only a matter of time before her forced resignation.”

She added, “We will continue to demand moral clarity, condemnation of antisemitism, protection of Jewish students and faculty, and stronger leadership from American higher education institutions.”

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) told JI that the resignation was “long overdue.”

“I have been calling for President Shafik to be ousted or resign ever since her abysmal failure to condemn Columbia’s antisemitic outbursts or ensure the safety of Jewish students on her campus,” Lawler said. “Let this be a lesson to all who waver in the face of evil.”

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) said that “when President Shafik failed to enforce the code of conduct and protect Jewish students just trying to walk to class safely, she failed at her job and allowed a hostile, antisemitic environment to escalate.”

He asserted that similar treatment of any other minority group would have been quickly stopped by school administrators and that signs reading “go back to Poland” displayed just outside Columbia’s gates when he visited the campus have stuck with him.

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) called Columbia “ground zero for campus antisemitism in NYC,” urging the new leadership to “summon the moral clarity and the moral courage to confront the deep rot of antisemitism at Columbia’s core.”

But Columbia’s problems didn’t stop with the encampment. In late April, student protesters occupied a campus administrative building, leading to hundreds of arrests by police. (The charges have since been dropped against most student protesters.) 

Two days later, President Joe Biden condemned unlawful protests at U.S. universities. “Destroying property is not a peaceful protest. It’s against the law. Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduation — none of this is a peaceful protest,” he said in a White House address in May. “It’s against the law.”

In May, the faculty of arts and sciences — which was mostly supportive of the anti-Israel encampment — approved a vote of no confidence in Shafik. 

Columbia made news earlier this month when three deans who had been placed on leave over exchanging antisemitic text messages resigned. 

And as recently as this week, lawmakers demanded that the school reimburse the New York Police Department for costs incurred in clearing the encampment on the Columbia campus.

Brian Cohen, executive director of Columbia/Barnard Hillel, declined to comment on Shafik’s departure but praised Armstrong’s appointment as interim president. 

“I think very highly of Dr. Armstrong and I know many colleagues feel the same way,” Cohen told JI. “She is a strong leader — when there were issues that needed to be addressed at the Medical Center, Dr. Armstrong was quick to respond and to address the issues.”

Jewish Insider Congressional correspondent Emily Jacobs contributed to this report.

In a forceful speech on Tuesday at the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony on Capitol Hill, President Joe Biden delivered strong remarks denouncing violent anti-Israel protests on college campuses, harassment and violence targeting the American Jewish community and ongoing efforts to deny, downplay or move past the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

The remarks, one of Biden’s clearest denunciations of antisemitism and Hamas in months, came amid surging anti-Israel protests on college campuses around the country and growing domestic and international pressure on Israel.

“I see your fear, your hurt and your pain, let me reassure you as your president you are not alone, you belong, you always have and you always will,” Biden said. “And my commitment to the safety of the Jewish people, the security of Israel, and its right to exist as an independent Jewish state is ironclad, even when we disagree.”

The president said that the right to hold strong beliefs about world events and to “debate, disagree, protest peacefully” is fundamental to America, but that there is “no place on any campus in America, any place in America for antisemitism, hate speech or threats of violence of any kind.” 

Biden emphasized that attacks and destruction of property — which have happened on a number of campuses — are not protected speech and are illegal.

“We are not a lawless country, we are a civil society. We uphold the rule of law,” Biden said. “No one should have to hide or be afraid just to be themselves.”

He said that it’s incumbent on all Americans to “be those guardians, we must never rest, we must rise against hate, meet across the divide, see our common humanity,” and that attacks on any minority group are threats to all minority groups.

Biden also condemned those who have already moved past the Hamas attack on Israel, and the “too many people” who are “denying, downplaying, rationalizing, ignoring the horrors of the Holocaust and Oct. 7, including Hamas’ appalling use of sexual violence to torture and terrorize Jews.”

“Now, here we are, not 75 years later, but just seven and a half months later,” Biden said. “People are already forgetting that Hamas unleashed this terror. It was Hamas that brutalized Israelis, it was Hamas that took and that continues to hold hostages. I have not forgotten and neither have you. And we will not forget.”

He connected such rhetoric to the Holocaust, highlighting that the Holocaust began with smaller crimes in the face of “indifference” from the world.

“It’s absolutely despicable and it must stop,” Biden added, of the Oct. 7 denialism. “Silence and denial can hide much but it can erase nothing… it cannot be buried no matter how hard people try.”

Biden pledged that he is “working around the clock” and “will not rest” until all hostages held in Gaza are freed.

In connection with Biden’s speech, the administration announced on Tuesday a series of additional steps to combat antisemitism. 

The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights issued new guidance to every school district and college in the country that provides “examples of Antisemitic discrimination, as well as other forms of hate,” which could prompt civil rights investigations, according to a White House announcement. 

Education officials told Jewish leaders last week the guidance is aimed at helping school leaders distinguish between protected free speech and antisemitic incidents.

The Department of Homeland Security will create a new “campus safety resources guide” to help schools access “financial, educational and technical assistance” available to them. 

DHS is also set to assemble and disseminate guidance on “community-based targeted violence and terrorism prevention” and ensure that targeted communities are aware of the federal resources available to them.

And the State Department’s Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism will bring together technology companies to discuss procedures for combating antisemitism online.

In separate remarks, Stuart Eizenstat, the administration’s special adviser for Holocaust issues, praised the House for passing the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which would codify the requirement that the Department of Education use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism and its examples in assessing campus antisemitism. Eizenstat said the bill would help clarify the definition of antisemitism.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) drew direct connections between the Holocaust, and the events that led up to it, and current events on U.S. college campuses, highlighting the role of German universities in perpetuating antisemitism and ultimately atrocities during the Holocaust.

“We remember what happened then, and now today, we are witnessing American universities quickly becoming hostile for Jewish students and faculty,” Johnson said. “The very campuses [that] were once the envy of the international academy have succumbed to an antisemitic virus… Now is the time for moral clarity, and we must put an end to this madness.”

Speaking graphically about both events, Johnson drew direct parallels between the atrocities of the Holocaust and the Oct. 7 attack.

“We must be graphic right now because the threat of repeating the past is so great,” Johnson said. “And some are trying to downplay, justify what happened on Oct. 7. Some are even blaming Israel for the barbaric, inhuman attacks. There are some who would prefer to criticize Israel and lecture them on their military tactics… than punish the terrorists who perpetrated these horrific crimes.”

Johnson added that it’s “very important we deliver” the “critical assistance” to Israel “without any delay at all” and that “we have to do all that we can, everything within our power, to ensure that evil does not prevail.”

The administration has reportedly been delaying shipments of bombs to Israel over disputes about Israel’s operations in Gaza.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) likewise highlighted the “deeply disturbing rise in antisemitism on campuses, throughout the country and around the world, adding that it’s a “very searing time for the Jewish community.”

Jeffries called to “recommit to the principle of Never Again,” and to “eradicating antisemitism whenever and wherever it rears its ugly head.”

“We must crush antisemitism along with racism and sexism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, homophobia and all other forms of hatred, together,” Jeffries said. “That is the American way, together. And together, we will defeat antisemitism with the fierce urgency of now. That’s a moral necessity.”