We are living the nightmare of rising antisemitism. We talk about it a lot. We worry about it even more. And we have been inundated with reports of the explosion of antisemitism and targeted Jew hatred on college campuses.
We cringe when we hear the hateful words, chants and threats recorded at numerous student demonstrations across the country. And we worry about the safety of our children. Things have gotten so bad that even universities that denied the existence of antisemitic concerns on their campus or were reluctant to acknowledge it are now taking public steps to address antisemitism.
With increased vigilance on campuses and more universities promising to address antisemitism, one may wonder why it is necessary for Congress to pass H.R. 6090, the Antisemitism Awareness Act. Aren’t existing laws sufficient to protect Jewish students and everyone else from harassment, intimidation, discrimination and violence?
The bill’s name, Antisemitism Awareness Act, is a bit of a misnomer. While the legislation is all about antisemitism, it is less about awareness. Rather, the law is designed to assist the Department of Education in determining whether to pursue and investigate acts of alleged antisemitism under existing DOE antidiscrimination enforcement authority and it provides a common definition of antisemitism for that purpose.
The bill codifies a Trump administration executive order from 2019, which instructed the DOE to treat antisemitism on college campuses as a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism to assess cases of antisemitism. The Biden administration has continued to enforce the Trump order. And now, with H.R. 6090, and its passage in the House last week, it can soon become the law. We urge prompt passage in the Senate.
Under the act, Jewish students who face discrimination at their college or university based on perceived racial, national or ethnic characteristics would be protected. And the act uses the IHRA’s working definition of antisemitism to determine whether the challenged activity is motivated by anti-Jewish animus. The IHRA definition lists examples of antisemitic behavior that include traditional Jewish hatred and Holocaust denial along with examples of antisemitic activity that target Jewish Americans for association with or connection to Israel.
The IHRA definition makes anti-Zionists and Israel haters nervous. They claim not to hate Jews. They only hate Zionists and the state of Israel. These pro-Hamas, college-based, demonstration warriors claim not to promote the elimination of Jews. They only promote the elimination of colonialist Israelis and Zionists. And, of course, they are concerned that limitations on what they may say about Jews, Zionists and Israelis under the IHRA definition may impinge on their right to free expression under the First Amendment.
We have had enough of the silly wordplay. And so have most members of Congress. Once the Senate passes the act, those targeting Jews, Israelis or Zionists on campus are going to have to be a little more careful in how they go about vilifying their targets. They will need to choose their words and how they act more carefully. While they will be free to voice their views peacefully, they will have to respect the rights of their targets to be free of harassment, intimidation, discrimination and violence.
Marlee Waleik is building a Jewish artists’ collective — a community of theater and visual artists connected through common heritage and a commitment to sharing ideas.
Her Tribe 12 fellowship, a Jewish leadership experience, gave her the resources and motivational tools to create such a collaboration, she said. “I thought it was the perfect opportunity to get something off the ground.”
This is Waleik’s second year living at Moishe House Philly. The home is the nexus of a peer-led Jewish community organization for young adults, ages 22 to 32. The four roommates run social events at the home and around the city.
“I didn’t know my roommates too well before I moved in, but we grew to love each other and we do a lot of really fun events from barbecues to karaoke nights to a Purim drag show,” she said.
Waleik is working on the arts initiative with Gavriela Weitzman, one of her three roommates, who is a printmaker.
“A lot of different art mediums often keep to themselves. I really value collaboration,” said Waleik, a 2020 graduate in musical theater from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
She envisions a space where Jewish artists can come together to present their art, work together on projects and potentially create one giant project that spans multiple art forms.
Waliek said that arts culture can be isolating as well as competitive.
“I’m not a productive artist when I’m constantly comparing myself and thinking of myself as a competitor,” she said. “I want to be known as a facilitator and a collaborator, someone you want to work with and not against.”
The programming she co-leads for Moishe House needs to feel like hanging out with one’s closest friends, she said. “The events should be educational, spiritual and most of all — silly.”
Waleik loves art, film and theater that is wacky and eccentric. She knows Rocky Horror Picture Show by heart. She listens to all types of music and can play basic piano, melodica, guitar and ukulele.
“I love trying new things, meeting new people and being Jewish,” Waleik said. She appreciates weird art and strange, campy movies. “You can find us on a Saturday night after Shabbat watching a weird movie.”
She works as a nanny, having downsized her job as a day care teacher. “I love helping out parents and I love kids.”
Marlee Waliek participates in a community building activity. Photo courtesy of Marlee Waliek
Waleik grew up in a musical and theatrical home in Natick, Massachusetts. Her father played in a rock band and her mother was a buyer for Newbury Comics, a pop culture and music store chain. The home was traditionally Jewish, “but not super-religious.”
Her father grew more observant after Waliek left home for college.
“A few years ago, he became Orthodox, which led me to seek out more observant spaces in Philadelphia,” she said.
She attends services at multiple locations, including Mamash Chabad, the Sephardic Congregation Mikveh Israel, Mekor Habracha and the South Philadelphia Shtiebel, both Modern Orthodox synagogues.
The Philadelphia Shtiebel is a favorite.
“It’s home to many young people, which I really enjoy. I’ve found my own path to living more of an observant lifestyle,” Waleik said.
She moved back home for a while after college and returned to Philadelphia where she found friendship, kinship and acceptance.
“There’s so much warmth and love from this community. That’s when I started thinking that maybe I could go back to my art, theater and performance roots with a Jewish twist,” Waleik said. “It made things a little tricky. I no longer want to perform or do any work on Shabbat.”
The words of Rabbi Akiva inform her Jewish life, she said.
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” she said. “To me, it encapsulates what I’m trying to do right now. I want to foster a space and my home to be a place where people feel welcomed and accepted for who they are, regardless of their personal Jewish beliefs and identity.”
Joseph Abruzzo, clerk of the circuit court and comptroller for Palm Beach County, announces a record $135 million purchase of Israel Bonds at Congregation Torah Ohr in Boca Raton, Florida, on Oct. 31. (Courtesy of Joseph Abruzzo’s office via JTA.org)
Asaf Elia-Shalev
Joseph Abruzzo can’t seem to get enough Israel bonds.
The government official representing Palm Beach County, Florida, has invested $700 million of local taxpayer money in bonds that are helping the Israeli government finance its war against Hamas since Oct. 7.
At 15% of the county’s investment portfolio, Abruzzo has reached the maximum he is legally allowed to buy, per county policy. The total represents about a quarter of all Israel bonds sold since the war began, making Palm Beach County, which has a large Jewish population, the single biggest holder of Israel bonds in the world.
Abruzzo, who is not Jewish but has Jewish relatives, says his motivations are not ideological and that he’s hewing to state law and county policy requiring that he focus on safeguarding public money. But he also said the investment strategy happens to align with his support for Israel.
“I am proud to stand with what I consider our greatest ally in the entire world — Israel,” Abruzzo said in an interview. “With that said, these are incredibly safe investments. They’re making an incredible return for county taxpayers and it made perfect sense for us from a fiduciary standpoint.”
Palm Beach County is unique in how much of its financial portfolio is invested in Israel bonds, but Abruzzo’s words echo the reasoning of the growing number of state and local governments across the United States that have invested in the bonds in recent months.
The Israel Bonds organization, an arm of the Israeli government, announced earlier this month that it has sold more than $3 billion in bonds since Oct. 7, nearly three times its normal annual total, as the country navigates economic turmoil from the war. The buyers include individuals and financial institutions, but most of the sum, $1.7 billion, was purchased on behalf of taxpayers by government investment officers like Abruzzo, marking a departure from Israel Bonds’ traditional pitch as a chance for individual Jews in the Diaspora to invest in Israel’s development.
“We have seen state local governments all over the country invest in Israel bonds for some time now but we have seen a lot of jurisdictions invest for the first time or increase their holdings in Israel bonds particularly since Oct. 7,” said Justin Marlowe, a research professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and director of the school’s Center for Municipal Finance. “In some cases, we’ve had governments come right out and say that they’re increasing their investments as a statement of solidarity with Israel.”
At a time when anti-Israel protesters on college campuses are calling for their schools to divest from Israel, and for greater transparency into their school’s investment portfolio, the bonds represent a massive swath of Israel investments that are wide open to public review — though it’s not clear how much scrutiny they are drawing. No members of the public spoke for or against the strategy at a March meeting about Palm Beach County’s buying spree, according to video from the meeting.
Experts say the trend of public spending on Israel bonds is notable because state and local governments can’t take the same risks as ordinary investors. Governments have to be more careful because the money they are investing was collected from taxpayers and it must eventually be available to be spent on public needs, explained Daniel Bergstresser, a Brandeis University professor specializing in municipal finance.
“So investing these funds in safe assets is a very high priority,” Bergstresser said. “The bills must be paid.”
For most people managing public sector money, the situation has traditionally meant that they’re going to steer clear of any sort of investment in a sovereign entity, according to Marlowe.
“There are very few sovereign entities that are triple-A rated and can be considered truly risk free the way that U.S. Treasury bonds can,” he said.
In Israel’s case, the political instability and effect of the war on Israel’s economy have led global credit agencies to downgrade or attach warnings to the country’s ratings, which theoretically affects the government’s ability to borrow money.
And not all states allow local cities and counties to invest abroad. Florida passed a law to permit local Israel bond investments in 2008. “A state allowing it is a reflection of the state’s priorities and whether local officials choose to take advantage is a reflection of their priorities,” Marlowe said. “It’s clearly a policy statement on the part of government.”
In total, 35 state and local governments invested in the bonds after Oct. 7. Not all have disclosed their investments but the list includes Florida, New York, Alabama, Arizona, Ohio, Illinois, Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia, Nevada, Louisiana, South Carolina, Pennsylvania and Indiana as well as the Florida counties of Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade, the cities of Miami Beach and Boca Raton, and Franklin County, Ohio, according to the Bond Buyer.
The trend cuts across party lines.
“This is a bipartisan effort. I’m a Republican, but we’ve got a great treasurer in Franklin County’s Cheryl Brooks Sullivan and she’s a Democrat,” said Ohio state treasurer Robert Sprague in a recent virtual meeting of government investors convened by Israel Bonds, according to the Bond Buyer.
Abruzzo holds the elected office of clerk of the circuit court and comptroller for Palm Beach County, an area with a large and growing Jewish population. People living in Jewish households make up about 15-20% of the county, according to Brandeis University demographic studies released by the county’s two Jewish federations in 2018.
Before serving at the county level, Abruzzo, a Democrat, was a member of the Florida House of Representatives and Senate. He sponsored bills to support Holocaust survivors and recognize the 70th anniversary of Israel’s founding in 2018.
Abruzzo said he is a quarter Jewish before clarifying he was referring to the results of a genetic ancestry test. He added that his stepmother is Jewish and he grew up in a mixed Italian and Jewish household, with step-brothers who had bar mitzvahs.
“I like to say that one of my grandmothers made the best tomato soup in the world and my stepmother made the best matzah ball soup in the world,” Abruzzo said. “I’m very familiar with Israel and Jewish heritage.”
He began investing in Israel bonds long before the current war. During his first year in office in Palm Beach, he convinced the Board of County Commissioners to double how much he was allowed to invest in Israel bonds from 5% to 10% of the county’s portfolio.
But at the time, there were only so many bonds on the market and he couldn’t reach anywhere near the cap.
As Israel went to war and saw its economy contract, the government decided to offer more bonds.
“Fast forward to Oct. 7 and a day or two after that horrific event, I was able to speak with [local Israel Bonds representative] Mark Ruben and we purchased $25 million in bonds,” Abruzzo said. “We got very good rates and were excited about it. We then did the largest single-day purchase, which was $135 million.”
But even that wasn’t enough.
In March, he asked the county board to increase the cap again. In making his case, he pointed out that the county is set to earn $83 million in interest on the bonds, part of what official data shows is dramatically higher performance for the county’s financial portfolio since he took office in 2021.
The board voted unanimously to increase his cap to 15%, which comes out to about $700 million of the $4.7 billion in county coffers.
According to experts, the situation in Palm Beach County is highly unusual.
“I’m not aware of any other jurisdiction that has 15% of their holdings in one type of investment,” Marlowe of the University of Chicago said. “That’s not necessarily good or bad. It’s a decision. It’s a policy choice that they’re making. But it does represent a much greater concentration of risk in any portfolio for a public entity than I’ve seen in a long time.”
Bergstresser, of Brandeis University, said he believes the investment strategy is unusual to the point of being possibly unwise.
“Such a large allocation to one foreign issuer is arguably inconsistent with standard advice about portfolio diversification, particularly when avoiding severe losses is as high of a priority as it is in this situation,” Bergstresser said. “Sovereign issuers do sometimes default on bonds that they have issued. If the state of Israel were to default on these bonds, then Palm Beach County would have to find a way to pay its bills without money that it had counted on being available.”
Abruzzo is up for reelection in November, but with less than two months until the filing deadline, no one else has declared their candidacy, meaning that he is currently running unopposed.
Abruzzo said political calculations are not behind his Israel Bonds investments.
“Every decision was dollars and cents, and financial safety,” he said. “This has nothing to do about an election or personal motives. It was not done for political gain.”
But he did weigh in on a political debate roiling the United States and deepening divides within his party over Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza. With the White House growing increasingly impatient with the Israeli military’s conduct and the left flank of the Democratic Party accusing Israel of genocide, Abruzzo’s stance reflects a staunchly pro-Israel sentiment that’s still widespread in both parties. He rejected calls for Israel to show more restraint.
“A lot has been said about Israel, especially in the far-left circles of my party, but if what happened in Israel on Oct. 7 happened here in America, the country that was harboring the terrorists would look like the moon’s surface,” Abruzzo said.
In total, Israel’s borrowing, including Israel bonds and other financial vehicles, doubled in 2023 to $43 billion. Meanwhile, billions in charitable donations have also flowed in to support Israeli civilians and soldiers.
The successful fundraising drive for Israel Bonds comes after the organization in March last year alienated some American Jews by inviting Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s far-right finance minister, to speak at its conference amid massive protests by Israelis against their government.
Despite Israel’s credit downgrades, Israel Bonds president and CEO Dani Naveh said prospective bond buyers have not expressed such concerns to him. He said they should rest assured that Israel has never defaulted on its bonds, despite past military crises and regardless of who was in power.
“The state has always kept its obligation, paying its debts completely on time,” Nave said in an interview. “It’s also important to mention that if you take a look at previous security crises, the Israeli economy’s resilience was very strong and I’m optimistic that it will be the case this time as well.”
Chicken paprikash is a Hungarian comfort food, adapted by prewar Hungarian Jews to fit with the kosher laws, and passed down through the generations with love.
Because we do not mix meat or poultry with dairy in kosher cooking, the kosher version omits the sour cream that is often mixed in at the end of non-kosher versions. Those who grew up with Hungarian parents or grandparents will tell you that the smell of chicken paprikash evokes memories of warmth, comfort, home and family.
Because paprika is the main ingredient — and a more subtle flavor — it’s important to use good quality spice. If you can, use Hungarian sweet paprika. If you can’t find specific Hungarian paprika, at least buy a new container (from a store that has a high rate or turnover, so you know it hasn’t been sitting on the shelf forever).
Chicken paprikash is traditionally served with nokedli, little Hungarian egg dumplings, like spaetzle. Potatoes or egg noodles are good alternatives, and really any starch of your choosing will do. I tend to favor short-grain brown rice with this type of dish.
By the time it’s ready, the chicken should be falling off the bone soft. In fact, you may opt to pull it all off the bone and return it to the sauce and serve it like that.
Chicken paprikash. Photo by Miriam Szokovsky
Hungarian Chicken Paprikash | Meat Serves: 4-6
3 onions
⅓ cup olive oil
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
4-5 garlic cloves, sliced
4 tablespoons sweet paprika
4-6 chicken thighs
Kosher salt
Black pepper
Cut the onions into thin quarter rounds (or dice).
Use a deep frying pan with a cover.
Heat the pan over high heat and, once the pan is hot, add the onions. Dry fry for a few minutes, then add the oil and a teaspoon of kosher salt. Saute until translucent.
Add the diced bell peppers and sliced garlic cloves. Cook until just starting to soften.
Transfer the onion mixture to a bowl/plate/container and mix in the paprika.
Return the pan to the heat.
Season the chicken with salt and pepper on both sides.
Place the chicken skin-side down in the pan, and brown it for 5-7 minutes, uncovered.
Add the onion mixture and 2 cups of water, and cover.
Simmer on a low flame, covered, for 90 minutes. Remove the cover and simmer for another 30 minutes (this will help the sauce reduce a little).
The chicken should be falling off the bone. Serve it with generous lashings of the sauce. T
Miriam Szokovski is a writer, editor and member of the Chabad.org editorial team.
With the Passover seder meals behind us, it’s appropriate for those of us who put time into carefully planning the seder wines to assess what worked well and what could have been improved.
Having recently passed the Wine and Spirits Education Trust Level 3 certification and started a wine column, my extended family was impressed enough to trust me with the responsibility of choosing the holiday wines. I did my research, polling some serious wine geek friends and reviewing the recommendations of top kosher wine bloggers. Of particular assistance was the Kosher Terroir podcast, a wonderful series of discussions organized by one of best connected and beloved figures in kosher wine, S. Simon Jacob.
From his home in Jerusalem and previously in the U.S., Simon has befriended and supported just about every kosher winemaker you can name and is constantly tasting and discussing wine with his global network. For his Passover podcast, Simon dialed up 17 winemakers and wine experts from around the world and quizzed them on their strategies for the four cups. Check out the episode at Spotify or your favorite podcast app.
My seder plan was simple. Three cups of rose and a concluding sweet late harvest skin macerated wine from the creative Israeli winemaker Yaacov Oryah. But things didn’t go as planned. I started with an Israeli Champagne method sparkling wine for cup number one and then followed with the Dalton Pet-nat, so that my family could appreciate the difference between these two types of bubbly wines.
I explained the traditional champenoise method or “method traditionale,” which involves a complex process starting with the fermentation of a neutral base wine, followed by bottling, adding additional yeast, wine and sugar to induce a second fermentation in the bottle, slowly manipulating the bottles to allow the yeast to settle out and the residue to disgorge.
Finally, additional wine to add flavor and top off the bottle is added. Unless the wine is grown from grapes in the Champagne region of France and produced there, laws and treaties bar the wine from being labeled as Champagne. It’s a fairly elaborate and expensive process that we often don’t appreciate if we think of all sparkling wine as the same. Unless a wine is from the Champagne region of France or is labeled as using the traditional or Champagne-type method, sparkling wine may be produced much more simply, as is done with the popular but simpler Moscato D’Asti or Italian Prosecco. Cava from Spain does rely on the traditional method to round out the most common kosher sparkling options.
The sparkling wine that I introduced for the second cup was a Pet-nat, a wine that uses the “method ancestral,” a simple but refreshing style that bottles the wine before the initial fermentation is complete, trapping the carbon dioxide emitted and resulting in a lightly fizzy, hazy wine, capped with a beer bottle-type crown cap.
I figured this would be ideal for a second cup consumed on a still-empty stomach, before dinner. But what I forgot to consider was the seder service logistics, where the second cup is filled long before it is consumed, for references during the service including the traditional finger dips to spill out drops of the wine to mark each of the 10 plagues. Suffice it to say that this part of the plan “fizzled” out (literally, as in no more fizz). Strike one.
Strike two against my plan came when it was time for cup number three. This was time for the fancy Israeli pinot noir that I had selected, but having heard my lecture about the interesting skin macerated sweet orange wine, the seder guests didn’t want to wait for the fourth cup, when late-night sluggishness and wine haze would have set in. My credibility was already damaged with the fizzed-out Pet-nat and the seder guests demanded we adapt my plan and taste the sweet late harvest skin macerated Oryah Riesling.
The pinot ended up serving as the final wine of the evening. This may have been for the best, as plenty was left over and with a day of exposure to oxygen, the wine was even more delicious when consumed the next day with lunch.
One interesting footnote will be of interest to the kosher consumer who is aware that there is a Kedem kosher Champagne for sale, produced in New York State, not in France. This is possible due to a historical loophole. Much of the world agreed to respect the French demand to protect the Champagne brand decades ago, but the United States did not ratify those treaties.
Many U.S. producers were at that time using popular European terms for classic wines like sherry, Burgundy, Chablis and Champagne to label the style of the wines they were producing in the New World and didn’t want to give up the branding. But finally in 2005, the U.S. signed on to the international accord governing wine labeling, but with a loophole. If a producer had used the international names prior to March 2006, they could continue to do so indefinitely.
Kedem has produced New York Champagne for decades, enabling the company to be one of the few that can legally call its bubbly New York beverage Champagne, without the French origin or precise rules for production.
Jules Polonetsky is a Wine and Spirits Education Trust Level 3 Certified wine expert who writes for the Wine and Whiskey Globe when not occupied with his day job as CEO of a tech policy think tank. He is a former consumer affairs commissioner of the City of New York
They’re arguably the most famous verses in the Hebrew Bible:
You shall not hate your kinsfolk in your heart. Reprove your kin but incur no guilt on their account. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against members of your people. Love your fellow [Israelite] as yourself: I am Adonai. [Leviticus 19:17-18]
“Don’t hate” on the one end, “love” on the other. But notice four different terms for the object of my (or your) love or hate — “kinsfolk,” “kin,” “members of your people” and “fellow.” What, really, does it mean to love? And who, exactly, is my neighbor?
Rabbi Simha Zissel of Kelm (19th-century Lithuania), a founder of the modern Mussar movement, teaches that “love one’s neighbor” means “carrying the burden of our fellow.” In plain(er) English: Loving one’s neighbor involves taking responsibility with and for another.
My teacher, Rabbi Ira Stone, reframes the question: “Who is the person for whom I am responsible?” And his startling answer: “Our ‘neighbor’ is a constantly expanding category. The one who is closest to us, literally our beloved, is our first neighbor. But the very experience of such a responsibility itself increases our need for such responsibility, driving the list outward to include family, friends, ethnic and national affinities, and, ideally, all of humanity and all of creation.”
It’s tempting to think of “love your neighbor as yourself” as a sentimental greeting card slogan. The Mussar tradition teaches us that it’s anything but; rather, love and responsibility for ourselves, for our loved ones, for our community, for our people, for our country, for all of humanity, is the commitment to which the Torah calls us. Fulfilling this mitzvah is the work of a lifetime.
Notable commentaries:
Our Sages taught: One of the methods by which the Torah is acquired is by carrying the burden of our fellow … To reach the level of being one bears the burden of one’s fellow is impossible unless one has accustomed oneself to love one’s neighbor in thought and deed … Our Sages well understood that “To love your neighbor as yourself, this is the great principle of the Torah” (Bereshit Rabbah 24:8). For a person of spirit, the master of a fine soul, the soul is attached to the Torah through love, through observance in thought and deed. [Rabbi Simha Zissel of Kelm, Hokhmah u-Mussar]
Who is our neighbor? The answer to this question is never definitive, but rather evolving.
The word for “neighbor” in Hebrew, re’a, is derived from the same root as the word for “pasturing” or “shepherding.” The definition of “my neighbor” thus might be: the person for whom I am responsible … Who is the person for whom I am responsible? … If we have an insatiable desire (re’ut in Hebrew) to meet the needs of those for whom we are responsible, and this becomes the very intentionality of our consciousness, then the answer to our question must be that our “neighbor” is a constantly expanding category. The one who is closest to us, literally our beloved, is our first neighbor.
But the very experience of such a responsibility itself increases our need for such responsibility, driving the list outward to include family, friends, ethnic and national affinities and, ideally, all of humanity and all of creation. [Rabbi Ira Stone, “A Responsible Life,” pp. 25-26]
Hate is not just an emotion, but implies a mental activity, namely, plotting countermeasures. [Jacob Milgrom, “Anchor Bible,” Leviticus, p. 1,646]
But if he reveals to him his hatred and the other thus knows that he is his enemy, he doesn’t transgress this prohibition but “Do not take revenge or nurse a grudge,” and he also transgresses the performative commandment, “You shall love your fellow as yourself.” However, the heart’s hatred is the greater sin. [Rabbi Moses Maimonides, Sefer ha-Mitzvot, Negative #302]
And love your neighbor; for what is hateful to you yourself, do not do to him, I am the Lord. [Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Leviticus 19:18] T
David Ackerman serves as the spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Am Israel and as co-president of the Board of Rabbis of Greater Philadelphia. The Board of Rabbis is proud to provide diverse perspectives on Torah commentary for the Jewish Exponent. The opinions expressed in this column are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the view of the Board of Rabbis.
Paris Olympics 2024. (International Olympic Committee via JNS.org).
Ankara’s decision to back the Hamas terrorist group in its war against Israel has led to a low point in relations with Jerusalem, with the latest casualty the Israeli wrestling team’s dream of competing in the Paris Olympics this summer.
The Israel Security Agency informed the athletes that they are not allowed to fly to Istanbul for a May 9-13 Olympics qualifying event which represents the final opportunity for hopefuls to qualify for the games in the French capital.
The five Israeli athletes who were to have participated in the competition received the news on Friday.
“I’m disappointed, but I knew that this was going to be the decision,” said wrestler Ilana Kartish, who represented Israel at the Rio 2016 Olympics.
“I hope that the Israeli association and the Olympic committee will demand from the world association to consider us and give us a free ticket to the games; the athletes should not be harmed by the situation,” she added.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has taken an extreme anti-Israel position since the Hamas-led massacre of Oct. 7 and ensuing war in Gaza, openly supporting the terrorist group.
Israel’s National Security Council last month issued a travel warning for Turkey, Morocco, Jordan and Egypt as destinations that “should be avoided at the current time.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz accused Erdogan last week of acting like a “dictator” by blocking the country’s ports to Israeli imports and exports as part of a trade war.
“This is how a dictator behaves, disregarding the interests of the Turkish people and businessmen, and ignoring international trade agreements,” tweeted Katz.
The Israeli foreign minister said he had instructed his office to devise alternative trade routes that bypass Turkey while focusing on boosting local production and imports from other international partners.
Also last week, Erdogan, whose ruling Justice and Development Party took a thumping in local elections on March 31, decried the response to pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas protests currently taking place on U.S. college campuses under the guise of being against Jerusalem’s conduct during the war against Hamas.
Erdogan alleged that “conscientious students and academics, including anti-Zionist Jews” were facing “violence, cruelty, suffering and even torture” from authorities for opposing Israeli actions. He claimed some were being “sacked and lynched” for supporting the Palestinians.
“The limits of Western democracy are drawn by Israel’s interests,” the Turkish leader added, accusing Western nations of labeling any criticism of Israel as “anti-democratic” and “antisemitic.”
Katz severely criticized Ankara toward the end of April for inviting Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’s political bureau, to stay in the country.
PLO envoy to the U.N. Riyad Mansour addresses the Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East on April 25, 2022. (Mark Garten/U.N. Photo via JNS.org).
Mike Wagenheim
The United Nations General Assembly will attempt to run an end-around the U.N. Charter on Friday when it is slated to vote on a resolution that would grant the Palestinians unprecedented perks, following the Security Council’s rejection of the Palestinians’ long-standing full membership application.
The vote will provide a barometer of support for the Palestinians’ push towards universal statehood recognition.
In addition to asking the Security Council to “reconsider the matter favorably,” the resolution, which is widely expected to garner the necessary two-thirds majority of the 193-member body, states that the so-called Palestinian state is “peace-loving,” a requirement of the charter.
Critics have disputed that notion, pointing in part to the Palestinian Authority’s policy of paying monthly stipends to its residents who commit terrorist attacks against Israelis, with higher stipends paid based on the viciousness of the crimes.
Additionally, Hamas, which rules Gaza—part of an envisioned Palestinian state—carried out the Oct. 7 massacre and has vowed to repeat it as often as possible.
An annex to the resolution viewed by JNS—which could be revised ahead of Friday’s vote—would also grant unprecedented rights to a non-member observer state, which has been the Palestinians’ U.N. classification since a 2012 General Assembly vote.
Those benefits would include the right to be elected to General Assembly committees, to submit proposals and amendments, to raise procedural motions and to be seated among member states in alphabetical order—all privileges not granted to the institution’s other non-member observer state, the Holy See, nor to the European Union, which holds the same status.
The Palestinians would still not have a General Assembly vote, nor would they be able to present candidacy for major U.N. organs such as the Security Council, Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) or Human Rights Council.
Human Rights Council membership?
While membership qualifications for the Security Council and ECOSOC are defined in the U.N. Charter, the Human Rights Council relies instead on a General Assembly resolution, theoretically providing the possibility, through an amended or new General Assembly resolution, for future Palestinian membership in the Human Rights Council, which already has a remarkably powerful anti-Israel bent.
Last month, the United States vetoed an Algeria-drafted Security Council resolution to grant the Palestinians full U.N. membership. This came after the council’s membership admission committee failed to reach consensus on recommending the granting of full membership, with several council members concerned about the Palestinians’ qualifications, including their lack of defined borders, split governance and instability of the Palestinian Authority.
Gilad Erdan, Israel’s U.N. ambassador, ripped the proposed General Assembly resolution on Monday, claiming it would give the Palestinians de facto status as a full U.N. member, in contravention of the U.N. Charter.
“If it is approved, I expect the United States to completely stop funding the UN and its institutions, in accordance with American law,” said Erdan, noting that the resolution’s passage by the General Assembly would “not change anything on the ground.”
Under U.S. law, Washington must cease funding any U.N. organization that grants full membership to any entity lacking the “internationally recognized attributes” of statehood. Washington stopped funding UNESCO, the U.N.’s cultural agency, after it granted full member status to the Palestinians in 2011.
“There is an established process for obtaining full membership, and our concern is that this may be an effort to go around the Security Council,” Robert Wood, Washington’s deputy U.N. ambassador, told reporters on Monday. “We’ve made that very clear to council members, the Palestinians, so it will be up to them to decide what they want to do with it, but we’re very concerned with the precedent this type of resolution would set.”
Late last month, the State Department’s top Middle East diplomat critiqued the continued push for Palestinian membership at the United Nations.
Barbara Leaf, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, told reporters, “The effort to proffer membership to a state that doesn’t in fact exist—where the borders have not been delineated and a whole series of final-status issues have not been negotiated—simply makes no sense.”
Israel Katz, Israel’s foreign minister, chimed in on Wednesday, tweeting that recognition of a Palestinian state following Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre would be “rewarding” the terrorist group, while “giving a prize to the Iranian regime” and “living with the possibility of another Oct. 7.”
Photo Illustration by Igor Golovniov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images via JTA.org
Philissa Cramer
The social media company Meta is adjudicating whether a key phrase used by pro-Palestinian activists constitutes acceptable speech.
The company’s Oversight Board, an independent body tasked with reviewing Meta’s content moderation decisions, has taken up the question as it reviews three cases involving posts that use the phrase “From the river to the sea.”
The phrase has been used by Palestinian nationalist movements for decades, including by Hamas, and pro-Palestinian activists say it is a call for liberation. Israel and Jewish groups view it as advocating Israel’s destruction. It has been condemned in congressional votes and investigated in multiple instances by the U.S. Department of Education.
The slogan has appeared frequently in pro-Palestinian social media posts during the Israel-Hamas war, which began when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7. Some of those posts on Facebook and Instagram have been reported as potential violations of Meta’s policies, according to the Oversight Board. On Tuesday, the board announced a process to determine whether the company should create a specific policy for “From the river to the sea.”
The announcement says the board closely examined three cases dealing with posts that went up in November, a month into the war. The board did not share the posts themselves but said that one used a #Fromtherivertothesea hashtag in a generally anti-Israel post. A second featured, according to the board, “what appears to be a generated image of fruit floating on the sea that form the words from the phrase, along with ‘Palestine will be free.’” And a third, from a Canadian organization, used the words to end a post condemning “Zionist Israeli occupiers.”
All of the posts were reported as inappropriate by users and all were left online after being reviewed, two by automated assessments and one after being looked at by a person as well. Users appealed the decision to leave the posts online, saying the posts violated Meta’s policies barring “content that promotes violence or supports terrorism” and hate speech. Two of the users said the phrase “is antisemitic and is a call to abolish the state of Israel,” according to the board’s announcement.
After the Oversight Board took notice of the cases, it asked Meta to review them in more detail and explain its reasoning for not removing the posts.
“Meta explained the company is aware that ‘From the river to the sea’ has a long history and that it had reviewed use of the phrase on its platform after October 7, 2023,” the board said in its announcement. “After that review, Meta determined that, without additional context, it cannot conclude that ‘From the river to the sea’ constitutes a call to violence or a call for exclusion of any particular group, nor that it is linked exclusively to support for Hamas.”
Now, the board — whose moderation decisions are considered binding — says it will weigh in on how Meta should moderate content involving the phrase. It’s asking for public comments that illuminate the phrase’s historical and current usage and provide research about the real-life and online effects of its deployment.
The board is not the first entity to scrutinize the phrase over the last seven months and to assess whether its use should draw consequences. In November, the House of Representatives censured Rep. Rashida Tlaib for using the phrase, with dozens of her fellow Democratic lawmakers calling it a “rallying cry for the destruction of the State of Israel and genocide of the Jewish people.” Last month, a House resolution condemned the phrase as antisemitic.
The Foundation to Combat Antisemitism’s latest ad features images from pro-Palestinian protests. (Screenshot from YouTube via JTA.org)
Jacob Gurvis
An ad decrying antisemitism amid the recent wave of campus pro-Palestinian encampments will air during NBA playoff games this week, the latest effort by a national Jewish organization to spotlight threats against Jews at the protests.
The 30-second spot, produced by Robert Kraft’s Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, features images from recent demonstrations, including a torn Israeli flag and a sign showing a swastika superimposed on a Star of David. Those images are juxtaposed with more benign protest visuals: peace signs, megaphones and raised fists.
“When you protest, bring your passion,” the ad begins. “Your tenacity. Your anger. But don’t bring hate to the protest.”
The voiceover goes on to encourage protestors to “scream until you’re red in the face, but don’t scream at the Jewish kid walking to class,” and “threaten to change history, but don’t threaten your Jewish neighbor.” In its press release announcing the ad, FCAS said the commercial’s visuals “include examples of hate from recent protests.” In response to an inquiry, the organization said the images come from campus protests but did not specify where and when they occurred.
The ad features photos from at least two campuses that have seen unrest: One shot depicts two people wearing Israeli flags as capes opposite Columbia University’s library. Another appears to show a broken window at Hamilton Hall, the Columbia building occupied by protesters. Another shows street clashes near the City University of New York.
The ad does not suggest that the aims of the protest themselves are wrong. But Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, has spoken out against the protests, particularly at his alma mater Columbia, where a sports field and the Jewish student center bear his name. He has said he will not donate to the school until it addresses threats to students.
“I am no longer confident that Columbia can protect its students and staff, and I am not comfortable supporting the university until corrective action is taken,” Kraft wrote in a statement shared by FCAS shortly after the encampments began.
The ad concludes by displaying a blue square, a logo created by FCAS that signifies opposition to antisemitism, and repeats a theme that is central to the foundation’s approach: “Bringing hate to anyone brings more hate to everyone.”
The spot is the most recent in a series of similar ads aired during major sports events and produced by the foundation, which Kraft founded in 2019. Combating all forms of hate was also the focus of an FCAS Super Bowl ad this year, which drew mixed reviews. That spot was narrated by Martin Luther King’s former speechwriter, Clarence B. Jones.
Tara Levine, the president of FCAS, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in February that the Super Bowl ad “centers around this concept that all hate thrives on the silence of others, and it puts Jewish hate squarely in conversation with other forms of hate.”
The new ad will debut Tuesday night during the NBA playoff matchup between the Boston Celtics and the Cleveland Cavaliers, and will be shown again Wednesday when the New York Knicks face the Indiana Pacers. According to Sports Media Watch, the first round of the NBA playoffs averaged more than 3 million viewers per game.
“I believe political issues can be, and most importantly, should be debated,” Kraft writes in the ad. “They should be debated vigorously. But vicious hate speech and physical intimidation, preventing others from feeling safe, pursuing their studies, or having their voices heard is completely unacceptable.”
We are living the nightmare of rising antisemitism. We talk about it a lot. We worry about it even more. And we have been inundated with reports of the explosion of antisemitism and targeted Jew hatred on college campuses.
