RSS
What happened when a Jewish group and the right-wing Moms for Liberty shared a conference hotel
(JTA) — It was still winter when the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs learned that its June conference would share space at a hotel with an unexpected guest: a conservative “parents’ rights” group that is driving book bans across the United States.
Among the books pulled from classrooms at the behest of Moms for Liberty members have been several Holocaust-related or Jewish titles, including a version of “The Diary of Anne Frank.” The group’s conference would bring together backers of the group’s agenda, purportedly to protect children from dangerous influences in their schools. It would also attract protesters who view Moms for Liberty as a vanguard for a radical right wing that is increasingly taking aim at LGBTQ rights.
That gathering at the Marriott Philadelphia Downtown took place alongside the national convention of the men’s club group and took its attendees by surprise, said convention co-chair Mark Givarz.
“We didn’t rent the whole building. We rented half of it,” Givarz, , who lives in Florida, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “But we never expected to have a group of controversy next to us.”
It was too late for the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs, which is associated with Judaism’s Conservative denomination, to reconsider its conference location. The group had already signed a contract with the Marriott, and approximately 400 attendees from across the country had already booked travel for the event, which ran June 28 to July 2. Plus, the organizers had already put together a whole program and made plans to set up a temporary synagogue for the duration of the event.
So the group proceeded, putting out a statement rejecting Moms for Liberty and emphasizing that it holds very different values.
“We believe that every person is made b’tzelem elohim — in God’s image, and deserving of loving-kindness, respect, and dignity,” the statement said. “As such, the FJMC strongly advocates for equal rights for all, including the LGBTQIA+ community. At the FJMC we welcome all participants with love, regardless of sexual orientation or identity, which is why our Inclusion Initiative is a vital part of our programming.”
The statement went on, “While the FJMC recognizes that Moms for Liberty and their speakers have the constitutional right to peaceably assemble, the FJMC does not endorse either the organization, its leadership, or the sentiments that they or their speakers may express during their conference.”
As the event drew nearer, Givarz and his co-chair Rick Wronzberg continually monitored the Moms for Liberty website for updates on guest speakers, concerned about the possibility of security issues at their own event. In the days before the conference, Moms of Liberty announced that three Republican candidates for president would speak: former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has been a particular champion of the parental rights movement. All three draw support from Republican Jews —including a subset of the men’s club convention attendees — driven in part by their records on Israel.
Moms for Liberty also ignited new controversies as the conference neared. A chapter in Indiana quoted Adolf Hitler in a newsletter; an apology followed, but so did an illumination of other instances when group members had cited Hitler approvingly. A report in Vice documented ties between the group and multiple white supremacist and extremist groups, including the Proud Boys, whose founder has a history of antisemitism and whose members were integral to the Jan. 6, 2021, pro-Trump riot at the U.S. Capitol. And the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate, officially declared Moms for Liberty an “extremist” organization, along with several other parental rights groups.
A few people who had planned to attend the FJMC conference canceled because of the overlap out of concerns for the atmosphere, Givarz said.
“They didn’t want to disrupt their Shabbos with the nonsense,” he said. “Can you blame them?”
Eric Weis, a member of the group’s board of directors from New Jersey, canceled his plans to attend despite having attended each of the group’s conferences over the last 22 years. “There was just no way we could have fun,” he told the Philadelphia Inquirer, which first reported about the overlapping conferences.
Another group member, Elliott Dubin, did travel from Northern Virginia to attend with his wife but told the local newspaper that the conference overlap was particularly galling because of his group’s membership.
“I just wondered who is the genius that booked two sort of opposing groups in the same hotel?” Dubin said. “Many of the Holocaust survivors went through book burnings in Germany and this seems to be the same type of thing.”
Tensions were high as the conferences got underway, as hundreds of protesters against Moms for Liberty gathered outside the Marriott. Police, Secret Service and hotel security amassed to keep the peace and protect the political speakers, and several protesters were arrested.
Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs leaders said they and their attendees felt safe despite the crowding. And Givarz said encounters between the two conferences were mostly neutral.
Moms for Liberty co-founder Tina Descovich speaks during the Moms for Liberty “Joyful Warriors” national summit at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown on June 30, 2023 in Philadelphia (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Only at one moment was there tension, when attendees of the men’s clubs conference got to bypass a security line and Moms for Liberty attendees got upset — but Givarz compared it to a dispute in the line to get soda at a baseball game. JTA has reached out to Moms for Liberty for comment on the confluence of the conferences.
“We’re very, very pleased with the Philadelphia Police Department and the Marriott for providing excellent, very assuring and unobtrusive security,” Alan Budman, the newly installed president of the mostly volunteer organization, told JTA.
On Saturday, a group of about 50 men set out on a short walking tour — and wound up with police escorts.
“We didn’t ask for it — they sent police officers on bicycles to accompany them on the walk down to the tour which was about a seven- or eight-block walk and then on the tour itself and back,” Budman said. “So it made our people feel much more secure.”
Givarz said that throughout the conference, he had brief, cordial conversations with Moms for Liberty co-founder Tina Descovich. He said she complimented his kippah, which was made by the Abayudaya Jewish community in Canada. (There is a FJMC chapter there, but Ugandan group members were unable to attend the conference because of visa issues.)
Givarz said he made contact one last time with Descovich on Sunday as both conferences were wrapping up — for a goodbye that he said was not particularly memorable.
“At the end of the day, in my opinion,” Givarz said, “Moms for Liberty were like a mosquito that got swatted around but did no damage.”
—
The post What happened when a Jewish group and the right-wing Moms for Liberty shared a conference hotel appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
Syria’s Sharaa Says Talks With Israel Could Yield Results ‘In Coming Days’
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks at the opening ceremony of the 62nd Damascus International Fair, the first edition held since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday that ongoing negotiations with Israel to reach a security pact could lead to results “in the coming days.”
He told reporters in Damascus the security pact was a “necessity” and that it would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity and be monitored by the United Nations.
Syria and Israel are in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.
Reuters reported this week that Washington was pressuring Syria to reach a deal before world leaders gather next week for the UN General Assembly in New York.
But Sharaa, in a briefing with journalists including Reuters ahead of his expected trip to New York to attend the meeting, denied the US was putting any pressure on Syria and said instead that it was playing a mediating role.
He said Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions since Dec. 8, when the rebel offensive he led toppled former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Sharaa said Israel’s actions were contradicting the stated American policy of a stable and unified Syria, which he said was “very dangerous.”
He said Damascus was seeking a deal similar to a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a demilitarized zone between the two countries.
He said Syria sought the withdrawal of Israeli troops but that Israel wanted to remain at strategic locations it seized after Dec. 8, including Mount Hermon. Israeli ministers have publicly said Israel intends to keep control of the sites.
He said if the security pact succeeds, other agreements could be reached. He did not provide details, but said a peace agreement or normalization deal like the US-mediated Abraham Accords, under which several Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, was not currently on the table.
He also said it was too early to discuss the fate of the Golan Heights because it was “a big deal.”
Reuters reported this week that Israel had ruled out handing back the zone, which Donald Trump unilaterally recognized as Israeli during his first term as US president.
“It’s a difficult case – you have negotiations between a Damascene and a Jew,” Sharaa told reporters, smiling.
SECURITY PACT DERAILED IN JULY
Sharaa also said Syria and Israel had been just “four to five days” away from reaching the basis of a security pact in July, but that developments in the southern province of Sweida had derailed those discussions.
Syrian troops were deployed to Sweida in July to quell fighting between Druze armed factions and Bedouin fighters. But the violence worsened, with Syrian forces accused of execution-style killings and Israel striking southern Syria, the defense ministry in Damascus and near the presidential palace.
Sharaa on Wednesday described the strikes near the presidential palace as “not a message, but a declaration of war,” and said Syria had still refrained from responding militarily to preserve the negotiations.
RSS
Anti-Israel Activists Gear Up to ‘Flood’ UN General Assembly
US Capitol Police and NYPD officers clash with anti-Israel demonstrators, on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, July 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Anti-Israel groups are planning a wave of raucous protests in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) over the next several days, prompting concerns that the demonstrations could descend into antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation.
A coalition of anti-Israel activists is organizing the protests in and around UN headquarters to coincide with speeches from Middle Eastern leaders and appearances by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstrations are expected to draw large crowds and feature prominent pro-Palestinian voices, some of whom have been criticized for trafficking in antisemitic tropes, in addition to calling for the destruction of Israe.
Organizers of the demonstrations have promoted the coordinated events on social media as an opportunity to pressure world leaders to hold Israel accountable for its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, with some messaging framed in sharply hostile terms.
On Sunday, for example, activists shouted at Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.
“Zionism is terrorism. All you guys are terrorists committing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza and Palestine. Shame on you, Zionist animals,” they shouted.
BREAKING: PRO-PALESTINE PROTESTORS CONFRONT “ISRAELI” AMBASSADOR DANNY DANON AT THE UNITED NATIONS
1/5 pic.twitter.com/4G1VYEMGzV
— Within Our Lifetime (@WOLPalestine) September 14, 2025
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), warned on its website that the scale and tone of the planned demonstrations risk crossing the line from political protest into hate speech, arguing that anti-Israel activists are attempting to hijack the UN gathering to spread antisemitism and delegitimize the Jewish state’s right to exist.
Outside the UN last week, masked protesters belonging to the activist group INDECLINE kicked a realistic replica of Netanyahu’s decapitated head as though it were a soccer ball.
US activist group plays soccer with Bibi’s mock decapitated HEAD right outside NYC UN HQ
Peep shot at 00:40
Footage posted by INDECLINE collective just as UN General Assembly about to kick off
‘Following the game, ball was donated to Palestinian Genocide Museum’ pic.twitter.com/TQ84sgZhKr
— RT (@RT_com) September 9, 2025
Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a radical anti-Israel activist group, has vowed to “flood” the UNGA on behalf of the pro-Palestine movement.
WOL, one of the most prolific anti-Israel activist groups, came under immense fire after it organized a protest against an exhibition to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel. During the event, the group chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied!” and “Israel, go to hell!”
“We will be there to confront them with the truth: Their silence and inaction enable genocide. The world cannot continue as if Gaza does not exist,” WOL said of its planned demonstrations in New York. “This is the time to make our voices impossible to ignore. Come to New York by any means necessary, to stand, to march, to demand the UN act and end the siege.”
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), two other anti-Israel organizations that have helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza, also announced they are planning a march from Times Square to the UN headquarters on Friday.
“The time is now for each and every UN member state to uphold their duty under international law: sanction Israel and end the genocide,” the groups said in a statement.
JVP, an organization that purports to fight for “Palestinian liberation,” has positioned itself as a staunch adversary of the Jewish state. The group argued in a 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing” to Palestinians. JVP has repeatedly defended the Oct. 7 massacre of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas as a justified “resistance.” Chapters of the organization have urged other self-described “progressives” to throw their support behind Hamas and other terrorist groups against Israel
Similarly, PYM, another radical anti-Israel group, has repeatedly defended terrorism and violence against the Jewish state. PYM has organized many anti-Israel protests in the two years following the Oct. 7 attacks in the Jewish state. Recently, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) called for a federal investigation into the organization after Aisha Nizar, one of the group’s leaders, urged supporters to sabotage the US supply chain for the F-35 fighter jet, one of the most advanced US military assets and a critical component of Israel’s defense.
The UN General Assembly has historically been a flashpoint for heated debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previous gatherings have seen dueling demonstrations outside the Manhattan venue, with pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups both seeking to influence the international spotlight.
While warning about the demonstrations, CAM noted it recently launched a new mobile app, Report It, that allows users worldwide to quickly and securely report antisemitic incidents in real time.
RSS
Nina Davidson Presses Universities to Back Words With Action as Jewish Students Return to Campus Amid Antisemitism Crisis
Nina Davidson on The Algemeiner’s ‘J100’ podcast. Photo: Screenshot
Philanthropist Nina Davidson, who served on the board of Barnard College, has called on universities to pair tough rhetoric on combatting antisemitism with enforcement as Jewish students returned to campuses for the new academic year.
“Years ago, The Algemeiner had published a list ranking the most antisemitic colleges in the country. And number one was Columbia,” Davidson recalled on a recent episode of The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast. “As a board member and as someone who was representing the institution, it really upset me … At the board meeting, I brought it up and I said, ‘What are we going to do about this?’”
Host David Cohen, chief executive officer of The Algemeiner, explained he had revisited Davidson’s remarks while she was being honored for her work at The Algemeiner‘s 8th annual J100 gala, held in October 2021, noting their continued relevance.
“It could have been the same speech in 2025,” he said, underscoring how longstanding concerns about campus antisemitism, while having intensified in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, are not new.
Davidson argued that universities already possess the tools to protect students – codes of conduct, time-place-manner rules, and consequences for threats or targeted harassment – but too often fail to apply them evenly. “Statements are not enough,” she said, arguing that institutions need to enforce their rules and set a precedent that there will be consequences for individuals who refuse to follow them.
She also said that stakeholders – alumni, parents, and donors – are reassessing their relationships with schools that, in their view, have not safeguarded Jewish students. While supportive of open debate, Davidson distinguished between protest and intimidation, calling for leadership that protects expression while ensuring campus safety.
The episode surveyed specific pressure points that administrators will face this fall: repeat anti-Israel encampments, disruptions of Jewish programming, and the challenge of distinguishing political speech from conduct that violates university rules. “Unless schools draw those lines now,” Davidson warned, “they’ll be scrambling once the next crisis hits.”
Cohen closed by framing the discussion as a test of institutional credibility, asking whether universities will “turn policy into protection” in real time. Davidson agreed, pointing to students who “need to know the rules aren’t just on paper.”
The full conversation is available on The Algemeiner’s “J100” podcast.