As anti-Israel demonstrators increasingly target synagogues in protests that have turned violent and used antisemitic rhetoric, some Jewish leaders and state lawmakers are now calling for more expansive legislative safeguards to help bolster protections for houses of worship.

The new efforts have come in the wake of threatening behavior outside synagogues in New York City and Los Angeles that drew forceful condemnation from elected officials and raised concerns among Jewish leaders who fear that such incidents will normalize antisemitic harassment disguised as anti-Zionism.

In New York, state lawmakers this week introduced a new bill to ban protests directly outside houses of worship. The legislation seeks to amend the existing state penal law by establishing a 25-foot buffer zone around religious sanctuaries to insulate congregants from facing intimidation and potential clashes with demonstrators that have occurred more regularly in recent years.

The bill, which would also apply to abortion clinics, was advanced in response to a controversial protest last month outside Park East Synagogue, a Modern Orthodox congregation in Manhattan, where about 200 activists disrupted an event educating attendees about immigration to Israel while chanting slogans including “death to the IDF” and “globalize the intifada,” interpreted as calls to violence against Jews.

“We’re in a very troubled time, and that’s going to mean we need to adapt, including with legislation,” Micah Lasher, an assemblyman in Manhattan who introduced the legislation with a fellow Jewish state senator, Sam Sutton, told Jewish Insider on Thursday.

He said that he had weighed free speech concerns while drafting the bill to protect “the right of people to speak out, even when that speech is hateful, with the right of people to express their religion freely.”

“We’re going to see more and more of this until we can more broadly curb antisemitism,” he cautioned, calling the protest in Los Angeles this week, which ended in the arrests of two demonstrators, “a harbinger of things to come” in the absence of further legislative action.

Nily Rozic, a Democratic assemblywoman from Queens who is co-sponsoring the bill, echoed that view. “Houses of worship should serve as peaceful sanctuaries, not punching bags for protesters,” she explained. “Following incidents in NYC and LA, it’s becoming apparent that creating no-protest zones outside houses of worship is absolutely necessary.”

In contrast with the incident in New York City, the protest that erupted in Los Angeles on Wednesday was more intrusive, with video showing anti-Israel demonstrators shouting inside the historic Wilshire Boulevard Temple — where one activist shattered a vase during a public safety event held with Korean community members.

Jewish community activists in California said they viewed the incident, coupled with the recent protest in New York City, as an impetus to take a closer look at state law relating to such demonstrations.

Julia Mates, the director of policy and government affairs at Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area, said that the state already has an existing law that protects access to houses of worship as well as abortion clinics — similar to the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which has been used by the Justice Department under President Donald Trump to target protesters charged with disrupting Jewish spaces.

Mates said that her organization last year had “started to reexamine the act” with an eye toward potentially expanding what she called the “bubble zone” protecting congregants, but tabled that effort in favor of focusing exclusively on legislation aimed at countering antisemitism in public schools.

But now, in light of recent events, “it might be a good time to reexamine a fixed distance rule and gaps in enforcement,” she told JI on Thursday.

“The environment is such that we need to take another look at this,” Tyler Gregory, CEO of the Bay Area JCRC, vowed. “This is getting a lot of chatter in the community. I think that Jewish legislators and organizations haven’t figured out where we want to land yet,” he continued. “But it’s certainly the topic du jour.”

Noah Farkas, who leads the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, said that his organization, for its part, has “been pushing for” legislation to more forcefully regulate such demonstrations “for a long while.”

“While we recognize the right of anyone to assemble lawfully to express themselves,” he explained to JI Thursday, “it should not endanger the lives or limit the liberty of anyone else. And while this is a matter on a legal and political level of balancing one set of rights next to another, there is yet a deeper strain of values that needs to be addressed.”

Rep. Laura Friedman (D-CA), a Jewish Democrat from Los Angeles, said the Wilshire demonstration was “deeply personal,” noting that she had attended services at the synagogue during the High Holidays. 

“At a time of surging antisemitism, no one should have to choose between their safety and their right to worship,” she said in a statement shared with JI. “I’ll always protect free speech, but when protests cross into criminal intimidation, threats or blocking access, authorities must step in to uphold the law and protect Americans’ right to gather and worship without intimidation.”

Julie Fishman Rayman, senior vice president of policy and political affairs at the American Jewish Committee, called the Los Angeles protest “horrific and beyond unacceptable,” while citing legal “tools that already exist and should be used to maximum impact” in order to hold anti-Israel demonstrators accountable.

As Jewish community activists are now considering efforts to strengthen such laws, Lasher said his new legislation “strikes the right balance” on free speech and safety issues, and “could potentially be a model for other states.”

“For as long as we’re dealing with these sorts of hateful events,” he said, “we should make sure we are giving appropriate tools that are constitutional to enable people to enter synagogues without fear of intimidation.”

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, voiced interest in supporting the bill on Thursday, saying that she was “willing to look seriously at a buffer to protect that fundamental right we have, which is to express ourselves and practice the faith we choose to without fear and intimidation.”

“I don’t say whether or not I’ll support bills,” she told reporters, “but if it shows up in another place, I’m taking that very seriously. I think it’s time. I will be supportive of that.”

Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City and a democratic socialist long vocally critical of Israel, has also expressed interest in learning more about such legislation, after he had faced backlash for accusing the Park East Synagogue of promoting activities “in violation of international law,” even as he sought to distance himself from the protesters.

Mamdani’s team did not respond to a request for comment from JI about the newly proposed bill.

Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Rick Crawford (R-AR) will introduce a resolution later this week condemning Hamas for its “campaign of executions and intimidation against innocent Palestinians in Gaza” since the implementation of a ceasefire with Israel earlier this month, Jewish Insider has learned. 

Crawford is chair of the House Intelligence Committee. Gottheimer sits on the committee.

The bipartisan resolution criticizes Hamas’ actions against Gazans since the Oct. 10 ceasefire implementation date, accusing the terrorist group of attempting “to suppress dissent and reassert control over the territory, resulting in the deaths of scores of civilians.” 

“The House of Representatives condemns in the strongest terms the killings and acts of terror committed by Hamas against innocent Palestinians in Gaza,” it reads.

The resolution also “reaffirms the commitment of the United States to supporting the implementation of the ceasefire agreement and to advancing stability and peace for innocent civilians in Gaza.” 

Videos emerged in the days following the implementation of the ceasefire showing Hamas terrorists lining up and executing Palestinians in the streets of Gaza City, often on charges of “collaboration” with the enemy. Analysts described the killings as Hamas’ attempt to reassert itself as the dominant force in the Palestinian enclave following the withdrawal of Israeli forces. 

Since then, Hamas has continued carrying out the executions, largely of members of rival Palestinian groups. 

Adm. Brad Cooper, the commander of U.S. Central Command who is leading a civil-military coordination center in Israel to help maintain the ceasefire, released a statement earlier this month calling on Hamas to cease the killings. 

“We strongly urge Hamas to immediately suspend violence and shooting at innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza — in both Hamas-held parts of Gaza and those secured by the IDF behind the Yellow Line,” Cooper said, later calling on Hamas to begin “disarming without delay.”

The Fairfax County public school system denounced two high schools’ Muslim Student Association chapters on Monday for publishing social media videos that imitate hostage-taking and depict violence as part of a recruitment pitch to attract participants to their programming. 

The school system, in a statement to Jewish Insider, said that if the involved students are found to have violated school conduct codes, they will be “held accountable for their actions.” But they announced no disciplinary measures yet, despite widespread outcry from Jewish community leaders in the Northern Virginia suburb.

“FCPS has been made aware of social media videos featuring high school student organization members that are neither school nor division approved,” a spokesperson for the school district told JI. “These videos depict violence, including kidnappings, with victims being hooded and placed in the trunk of a car, among other things. Acting out these types of violent acts is traumatizing for many of us to watch and, given world events, especially traumatizing to our Jewish students, staff, and community.” 

The statement goes on: “FCPS would never consider these videos to be appropriate or acceptable content. Any students found to be violating our Student Rights and Responsibilities will be held accountable for their actions.”

The videos were published on Instagram last week by MSA chapters at two elite FCPS schools,  Langley High School and Thomas Jefferson High for Science and Technology. Both videos invited students to join a club meeting and pretended to kidnap those who did not want to participate. 

The Langley MSA video, which portrayed a kidnapping of students by throwing them into the trunk of a car, has since been deleted. 

The Thomas Jefferson MSA clip, which was taken offline after JI reported its existence Monday afternoon, was filmed in a classroom where a student wearing a keffiyeh asks other students if they plan to attend the meeting. When two students say no, two other students approach them, cover their heads with keffiyehs and carry them away to the other side of the room, as they pretend to scream that they are being kidnapped. 

In the following scene, the two students say they are attending, one of whom is wearing a sweatshirt with an outline of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza filled in with the colors of the Palestinian flag. The video ends showing the “kidnapped” students laying down, one on the floor and one in a plastic bin, and text that says, “no one was harmed in the making of this video.” 

Langley High School administration did not respond to JI’s request for comment about the video, while Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology administrators declined to comment, redirecting the inquiry to the county. 

“We are appalled that some FCPS high school students used unauthorized social media accounts bearing FCPS school names to imitate hostage-taking and violent deaths. It is never appropriate to make light of such horrific acts, but it is especially callous and cruel to do so when Hamas continues to hold the bodies of deceased Israeli hostages more than two years after committing the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust,” Guila Franklin Siegel, the JCRC of Greater Washington’s chief operating officer, told JI. 

“The trauma that all families impacted by the Israel-Hamas war have experienced over the past two years remains fresh. Making light of violence during a time of war is beyond the pale.” 

“FCPS must determine whether students have violated school conduct codes with this behavior, and if so, discipline them accordingly,” continued Siegel. “The district should take any steps necessary, including legal action if needed, to ensure that school names, images, and logos do not appear on unauthorized social media accounts. School officials must communicate transparently and with moral clarity to the entire school system about these incidents. All people of goodwill should be horrified by this.” 

Siegel called the school system’s response to several recent antisemitic incidents “slow and nontransparent,” and urged FCPS to “do more to properly address such behavior.”

The MSA posts come weeks after students at several Muslim student organizations at Fairfax County high schools organized “Keffiyeh Week” protests timed to the second anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks, encouraging classmates to wear the scarf associated with the Palestinian movement. 

Two political activists closely affiliated with Omar Fateh, a far-left Minnesota state senator who is now running for mayor of Minneapolis, have expressed a range of extreme views on the Hamas terror attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, endorsing the violence as a justified act of resistance and accusing Israel of initiating the war in Gaza, among other inflammatory comments.

Their rhetoric could fuel concerns among local Jewish leaders who sounded alarms about Fateh’s close alliances with anti-Israel activists after he won the state Democratic Party endorsement last month over Jacob Frey, the incumbent seeking a third and final term. Fateh, a 35-year-old democratic socialist whose campaign has recently drawn comparisons to New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, has likewise been a staunch critic of Israel, calling its conduct in Gaza a genocide and pushing for a ceasefire 10 days after Hamas’ attack.

In a mayoral candidate questionnaire solicited by the Twin Cities chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America — which endorsed his bid after facing widespread criticism over its response to the Oct. 7 attack — Fateh also backed the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel, according to portions of the form reviewed by Jewish Insider. 

He additionally pledged, without explanation, to “refrain from any and all affiliation” with what the DSA questionnaire dismissed as “Zionist lobby groups,” citing AIPAC, J Street, Christians United for Israel and, most notably, the Jewish Community Relations Council, a nonpartisan organization that typically engages with a diverse group of elected officials in both parties. The local JCRC — which represents the Jewish community to Minneapolis government officials — has voiced reservations about its ability to interact with Fateh if he is elected, in light of his statements on Israel.

But some of Fateh’s campaign staffers have gone significantly further than the state legislator, raising questions over his tolerance for incendiary language on a sensitive issue that has stoked growing internal tensions in the state party and could possibly inflect an increasingly bitter mayoral race in the lead-up to November.

In a series of now-deleted social media posts, for instance, Fateh’s communications manager, Anya Smith-Kooiman stated that Israel “does not have a ‘right’ to exist” and “must be dismantled,” while amplifying comments dismissing widespread reports of sexual violence on Oct. 7 as “propaganda” and hailing the attacks as a form of “resistance” that succeeded where the peace process had failed.

Elsewhere, Smith-Kooiman, who joined Fateh’s campaign in December, according to her LinkedIn page, declared a month after the Oct. 7 attacks that she did “not give a flying f**k about Hamas,” claiming “the root of the problem is a colonial government segregating, ethnically cleaning, murdering Palestinians, stealing their land with impunity and not expecting a resistance group to violently fight back.”

“Colonial and oppressive regimes love to call everyone but themselves a terrorist,” she continued in her November 2023 post to X, now removed from her profile. “Israeli terrorism created Hamas and the cycle will go on and on until Israel, Britain and the U.S. are held accountable for their violence and thievery. Let’s address root causes: imperialism.”

More recently, Smith-Kooiman, in a June social media post, advocated for the release of what she called “all Palestinian hostages,” equating prisoners held in Israel with the captives who were kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7.

In addition to Smith-Kooiman, another activist with ties to Fateh’s mayoral bid, David Gilbert-Pederson, has unreservedly praised the Oct. 7 attack, which he has characterized as a heroic feat of defiance against “imperial domination.”

Speaking on a panel discussion about “connecting movements for collective liberation” in December 2023, Gilbert-Pederson — who has been listed as a Fateh campaign staffer in filings — celebrated “what happened collectively for the people of Palestine on Oct. 7,” saying it was not his place to cast judgment on the violence. 

“We as Americans, people who live in the imperial core, our job is to stand in unconditional solidarity with those resisting oppression,” Gilbert-Pederson, a close ally of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), explained in his panel remarks. “Unconditional solidarity does not mean that we get to say, ‘Oh, this tactic you did, we don’t really like that,’ or, ‘We agree with you, but I think that some of your methods are too extreme.’ That’s not what unconditional solidarity means.”

“We live in the core of the empire,” he said, “so it is our job to demand that our government divest from Israel, divest from the colonial project, and start to free the U.S. as well.”

Broadly summarizing his approach, he argued that “all resistance to that kind of imperial domination is justified.”

Fateh’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday about Gilbert-Pederson and Smith-Kooiman, both of whom have previously faced some scrutiny for their rhetoric on Israel and Oct. 7, or his answers to the DSA’s questionnaire.

For his part, Frey, a Jewish Democrat, has been outspoken against rising antisemitism in the wake of Hamas’ attacks. The mayor, 44, has clashed with the City Council over anti-Israel resolutions he has dismissed as one-sided, even as he has condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government’s handling of the ongoing war in Gaza.

Israel struck the Syrian Defense Ministry’s headquarters in Damascus on Wednesday in response to violence against the country’s Druze minority, a week after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke in the White House of the “opportunity for stability, security and eventually peace” with Syria.

The strikes came after clashes between Druze and Bedouin groups that began on Sunday, leaving as many as 250 dead over four days in Sweida, some 25 miles from the border with Israel and in the area of Syria that Israel seeks to have demilitarized. 

Syrian government forces entered the fray on Tuesday, saying they aimed to stop the fighting and bring about a ceasefire, which they said they had reached on Wednesday. Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, formerly the head of the Syrian branch of Al Qaida, seeks to disarm Druze and other militias and have them integrate under the new government.

Israeli Druze called for Israel to intervene from the outset of the violence on Sunday, saying that their Syrian counterparts were being massacred, raped and tortured by forces aligned with al-Sharaa. In Israel, videos and images circulated of Druze religious figures’ mustaches being forcibly shaved off by men in military fatigues.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday afternoon that Washington has “engaged all the parties involved in the clashes in Syria. We have agreed on specific steps that will bring this troubling and horrifying situation to an end tonight. This will require all parties to deliver on the commitments they have made and this is what we fully expect them to do.”

An Israeli official said that the U.S. had been in talks to stop the violence in Syria since Monday. 

Reda Mansour, a Middle Eastern Studies professor at Reichman University, former Israeli ambassador to Brazil and a member of Israel’s Druze community, told Jewish Insider that “there is not really one Syrian army; it’s different armed groups that do what they think. It will take time until everyone is convinced to hold their fire.” 

Mansour expressed hope that the Israeli strikes convinced al-Sharaa to “stop the rampage.” 

The former ambassador compared the violence against the Druze in Syria to the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and said that the Druze in Syria had not faced such violence since the 1925 rebellion against the French Mandate.

“In the rebellion against the French, it was mostly between soldiers,” Mansour said. “This ISIS and Al Qaida-style attack is a massacre, rape, burning of holy sites, torture of the elderly and religious leaders.” 

Mansour also said the community has not had electricity in three days and is running out of food and medical supplies, after attacks on the city’s hospital and its medical staff.

Syrian Druze “are in distress and they are asking [Israel] for help all of the time,” Mansour said, and argued that “al-Sharaa wants to get rid of the Druze.” 

“If he wanted to stop the attack, it wouldn’t have happened,” Mansour said. “His people said they are coming to Sweida to defend the Druze from the Bedouin, and then they conquered Druze villages. The people murdering and torturing the elderly are wearing his military’s uniforms.” 

On Tuesday, dozens of Israeli Druze men began crossing into Syria, breaching a border fence near the town of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights. 

Netanyahu called on the Israeli Druze to remain in Israel: “You could be murdered, you could be taken hostage, and you are impeding the efforts of the IDF,” he said. 

Yet, on Wednesday, the number of Israeli Druze in Syria rose to at least 1,000. The IDF also used tear gas and other crowd control methods to stop Syrian Druze from crossing into Israel.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir said that Israel is “acting with determination to prevent hostile elements from establishing a presence beyond the border, to protect the citizens of the State of Israel, and to prevent the harming of Druze civilians … We will not allow southern Syria to become a terror stronghold.”

Zamir called on Druze Israelis to “uphold the law and preserve your lives. We are committed to you and your security and are doing everything possible to support you. I have ordered a further reinforcement of intelligence and strike capabilities in order to increase the pace of strikes and halt the assaults against the Druze in Syria as needed.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, who has held a hard line on al-Sharaa since the fall of the Assad regime last year, called on the new Syrian government “to come to its senses and to restore order,” lest it lose control of the country and risk the economic engagement it has sought with the West. 

Sa’ar called on the international community to speak out against the violence against minorities in Syria, asking rhetorically, “What else needs to happen? What are they still waiting for?”

“We are seeing a recurring phenomenon of persecution of minorities to the point of murder and pogroms in Syria,” Sa’ar said in a briefing to reporters on Wednesday. “Sometimes it is the regime’s forces. Sometimes it is Jihadist militias that are the basis of the regime. And usually, it is both.”

Sa’ar pointed to violence against the Syrian Alawite community, the burning and bombing of churches in recent weeks and repeated waves of violence against Druze in Syria. 

The foreign minister said that Israel will act to keep regime forces out of southern Syria and protect its border, and to protect the Druze minority.

Sa’ar also took aim at Western leaders looking to engage with al-Sharaa. “This is not a democratically elected regime,” he said. “Because sometimes, when I am in political meetings [with foreign counterparts], people talk to me about the ‘transition.’ This is not an elected regime at all. This is a regime that … took control by force.”

Sa’ar later spoke to his counterparts in the EU, Germany and Greece, pointing out that the EU set the protection of minority rights as a condition for lifting sanctions on Syria. Sa’ar said there is a “consistent pattern of exploiting these riots [against minorities] for the regime’s interests.” He also called the Syrian government’s claim that there would be an independent investigation of the events a “farce,” noting that al-Sharaa made a similar statement about the massacre of Alawites in March, and no results have materialized.

However, IDF Lt.-Col. (res.) Sarit Zehavi, founder and president of the Alma Research and Education Center focusing on the security of Israel’s northern border, argued to JI that “Israel really had no choice.”

“It had to send a sharp and clear message of defense to the Druze in Syria because it committed to defending them, because the Druze in Israel are real partners,” she said.

In addition, Zehavi said that “whoever doesn’t protect minorities in Syria, especially those on the border [with Israel], will end up being attacked by the same jihadis.”

That being said, Zehavi doubted that the strike on the Syrian Defense Ministry would be effective and said that Israel should focus on targets that are relevant specifically to stopping the attacks on Syrian Druze.

Michael Doran, director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East at the Hudson Institute, questioned whether Israel was certain al-Sharaa was behind the violence in Sweida. Doran wrote that he is not convinced that al-Sharaa “traveled to Baku and met with Israelis there, [and] then chose to provoke a conflict with [Israel] over the Druze,” referring to a meeting between Syrian and Israeli officials over the weekend.

“A policy that holds al-Sharaa responsible for forces he doesn’t control won’t strengthen him—it will weaken him,” Doran wrote on X. “In practice, it becomes a tacit, perhaps unwitting, vote for a disintegrated Syria. But a disintegrated Syria serves Iran more than it serves Israel. And it won’t help with Turkey either.” 

Last week, Netanyahu praised President Donald Trump in the White House for having “opened up a channel” with the Syrian regime for negotiations. Talks were underway, with Israeli representatives reportedly meeting with al-Sharaa in the UAE and Azerbaijan last week, for a non-aggression pact between the countries, though not for normalization.

An Israeli official speaking about the future of Israel-Syria talks on condition of anonymity said on Wednesday that Israeli “policy is not based on illusions, but on reality. We want security first.” 

Recently, Israel was willing to engage more with the regime in Syria because “things stabilized a bit,” the official said, “but we are not deluding ourselves. They are talking nicely … but there is a difference between what they say and what they do. As their neighbors, we cannot ignore what they do. We send messages [to Western countries] that reflect these things.”

Mansour, who is an expert on modern Syrian history, was skeptical that negotiations between Israel and Syria can be fruitful, saying, “There is not much hope for a political culture that will create stability … There is an inability of the Sunnis, the majority, to understand and accept that there are many minorities, over 30% of the population.”

The former ambassador said that regime-affiliated forces have been harassing minorities on a daily basis. “They enter Christian areas and call on loudspeakers to convert to Islam,” he said. “They check couples to see if they’re married and if not they harass them. There is daily pressure on the Druze, Christians, Alawites and Kurds, and it cannot continue. When they are threatened, they will react.”

Al-Sharaa, Mansour said, “does not look like he’s capable or wants to change it. He wears a suit and tie, but he was in Al Qaida from age 16 … He hinted he’s willing to let Israel keep the Golan Heights and that he wants peace, but on the ground the signs are not encouraging. He speaks nicely, but on the ground he wants to get rid of the Druze — and if he succeeds, he’ll attack the Kurds next.” 

“The problem,” Mansour lamented, “is that the Americans believed his show.” 

Zehavi said that Israel is likely to return to talks but will be better informed about where the al-Sharaa regime is headed after recent events.

“The first question is whether [al-Sharaa] controls his forces so they won’t massacre minorities, whether he really controls Syria,” she said. 

This week also clarified Israel’s red lines for al-Sharaa, she said: “It’s clear why it is important for southern Syria to be demilitarized. You cannot mix Druze and jihadi militias.” 

Three weeks after a Colorado march in support of the Israeli hostages in Gaza was abruptly interrupted by a scene of grotesque violence, one of the victims of the antisemitic firebombing attack that left 29 people injured succumbed to her wounds. 

Karen Diamond died on June 25, Rabbi Marc Soloway, of Boulder’s Congregation Bonai Shalom, announced in an obituary. She was 81, and is survived by her husband, two sons, two daughters-in-law and five grandsons. 

“There are no words to express the pain of this horrific loss of our beloved member and friend,” Soloway wrote.

The alleged attacker, Egyptian national Mohamed Soliman, now faces two counts of first-degree murder connected to Diamond’s death, in addition to 12 federal hate crimes charges and more than 100 state charges related to the June 1 attack. A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment. 

Run for Their Lives, the organization that arranges the weekly hostage marches, released a statement on Monday calling Diamond’s death “a heavy and heartbreaking moment for us.” 

Julio Frenk was sitting at a Miami Hurricanes football game on Oct. 7, 2023, when he learned the details of the terror attacks in Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw over 250 taken hostage. Frenk, a public health scholar and sociologist who was then the president of the University of Miami, knew immediately that he had to weigh in with an unequivocal condemnation of the violence. 

“I had no question that I had to respond and say something. It’s very personal for me,” Frenk, whose family settled in Mexico City after fleeing Nazi Germany in the 1930s, told Jewish Insider in an interview this week. His wife’s father survived Nazi concentration camps but lost nearly his entire family in the Holocaust. “I think it was one of the first messages by a university president, and it was unambiguous.” 

In an email sent to university affiliates two days after Oct. 7, he touted UM’s “deep ties” to Israel. “We stand in solidarity with the people of Israel, with all those impacted by the violence and with all who seek peace,” wrote Frenk. 

It was an unusually bold statement from a university president at a time when many other leaders of elite universities seemed afraid of issuing similar clear-eyed denunciations. He followed the email with straightforward guidance about the university’s rules around protesting, harassment and violence, and continued disavowals of antisemitism. There was no anti-Israel encampment at UM in the spring of 2024. 

But that was in Florida, a conservative-minded state where Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and other political officials have made clear that violent anti-Israel protest activity would be punished — bolstered by the leadership of Frenk at the University of Miami, Ben Sasse at the University of Florida and other academic leaders. 

Now, Frenk, who is 71, is attempting to bring some Florida to deep-blue California as he wraps up his first semester as chancellor of the University of California, Los Angeles, a position he started in January. Both schools have among the largest Jewish student populations in the country.

Westwood, where UCLA is located, is a dramatically different environment for Frenk, who was the dean of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health before taking over in Coral Gables. UCLA, the top-rated public university in the country, has a budget double the size of Miami’s. It’s also a public university, which means greater free speech protections than at UM. But for Frenk, the core issue has nothing to do with infringing on students’ freedom of expression. It’s about teaching them what’s right and what’s wrong. 

“When we engage with each other, we do that respectfully and without — obviously no hatred, no harassment, no incitement to violence, but also no expressions that are deeply offensive to the other side,” Frenk said to JI. He specified that he was referring specifically to the anti-Israel slogan “From the river to the sea” as one such expression. “That’s the same message here. It’s not a legalistic issue. It’s part of educating young people.” 

During UCLA’s large anti-Israel encampment last spring, Jewish students were barred from accessing parts of campus by the protest organizers. The tents popped up just days after Frenk had accepted the offer from Michael Drake, president of the University of California system.

“I had already said yes, and he said, ‘Are you going to change your mind?’ And I said, ‘No, I’m not going to change my mind. I think this is a very important challenge to face and fix if I can, and I’m going to give it my all,’” Frenk recalled. “What drew me here is just the reputation, the standing, and I know that that spring, the images of UCLA going to the world were not very enticing. But to be honest, facing that challenge was something that attracted me.”

“My position has been that, with all transparency and humility, we need to acknowledge that we have an antisemitism problem in universities. Denying it would be dishonest,” Frenk added. “What we are telling the Department of Justice and others is yes, we acknowledge, and we are fixing the problem.”

Frenk took over the chancellorship of UCLA at a precarious time for the entire institution of higher education, which is facing “the greatest challenge in living memory,” he said in a speech to a Jewish communal advocacy day in Sacramento this month. 

He committed early on to fighting antisemitism, even seeking to work proactively with the Trump administration on protecting Jewish students. 

“We’re trying to respond to the federal government, first of all by saying that I applaud the decision to combat antisemitism, and secondly, that we acknowledge that there had been a problem with, there is a problem with, growing antisemitism. But we are determined to deal with that and eradicate antisemitism.”

But Frenk walks a fine line as he declares President Donald Trump’s goal of combating antisemitism to be laudable while also criticizing some of the administration’s strategies, such as cutting federal funds to Harvard and other institutions — all while the UC schools face the prospect of being sued by the Trump administration. 

“That occupies me at night,” he said of the prospect of losing federal funds. UCLA receives hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government each year. 

“My position has been that, with all transparency and humility, we need to acknowledge that we have an antisemitism problem in universities. Denying it would be dishonest,” Frenk added. “What we are telling the Department of Justice and others is yes, we acknowledge, and we are fixing the problem.”

He cited a statement that UCLA signed onto, as a member of the American Association of Universities, which “clearly states that we applaud the decision to combat antisemitism, but that certainly withholding research money is not the way to do it,” Frenk explained. “We’re hoping that the administration will reconsider those kinds of measures.”

“My North Star is always to be explicit about the principles,” Frenk said. “[One] thing we said [at Miami], and I’m following the same idea at UCLA, is here are the rules: You cannot occupy space, you can have no encampments, etc., and here are the consequences of violating the rules.” 

Early in his tenure at UCLA, Frenk suspended the undergraduate and graduate chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine after their members vandalized the home of UC Regent Jay Sures. In March, he announced an initiative to combat antisemitism that would implement the recommendations of a task force that studied antisemitism and anti-Israel bias on campus. 

“It has a budget. It’s not just volunteer time. It has a full-time executive director,” said Frenk. “It has administrative support. It is real. It reports to me directly.” Its goals include hiring a Title VI officer to enforce federal civil rights statutes and implementing trainings for students and staff when they return in the fall. That’s in addition, he noted, to a UC-wide revision of rules about campus protests and gatherings that took place last year. 

“My North Star is always to be explicit about the principles,” Frenk said. “[One] thing we said [at Miami], and I’m following the same idea at UCLA, is here are the rules: You cannot occupy space, you can have no encampments, etc., and here are the consequences of violating the rules.” 

It was, he explained, a page out of his pandemic playbook, when Miami reopened in the fall of 2020 with strict precautions in place. He suspended a student soon after for hosting a party in her dorm room. 

“The parents were pleading with me, and I said, ‘Look, I am responsible for protecting this campus. And furthermore, you’re paying us to educate your daughter, and part of their education is to learn that there is something called the rule of law, and that if you don’t follow the law, there are consequences,’” Frenk recalled. “She’s going to graduate into the real world, and is going to find that that’s not the way the rest of the world behaves. I see this as part of my educational duty, and it’s exactly the same principles we’re using in UCLA.” 

So far, Frenk insists he “very much” has buy-in from the relevant stakeholders at UCLA in his quest to ensure that, contrary to last year, the school actually enforces its policies. 

“We do it for our Jewish students, faculty and staff, for the rest of the members of our community and for the university itself,” said Frenk. 

Fighting antisemitism and the impact it has on the entire campus environment will “save the university,” according to Frenk. That’s a lesson he learned from his grandparents, after they fled Germany. 

“It was through antisemitism that German universities, which were the premier universities in the world in the 1920s and early 1930s, declined,” said Frenk. “It destroyed the soul of the university.” 

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