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External review clears Orthodox feminist group of wrongdoing after allegations against its sex-guru founder
(JTA) — Fourteen months after the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance was riven by allegations of sexual harassment against one of its co-founders, an independent investigation into the group has cleared it of wrongdoing.
The investigation by attorneys at a third-party law firm marks a turning point in a painful chapter for the Orthodox feminist organization. The group was upended last year when Bat Sheva Marcus, a prominent sex therapist and one of its founders, revealed in an essay that she had been investigated and forced to resign as board chair due to allegations of workplace harassment. Marcus claimed the allegations reflected “lighthearted remarks” that were blown out of proportion, but those making the allegations said her comments harmed them and hindered their ability to do their jobs.
Although JOFA had already responded to the allegations internally, it commissioned an external review of its past and practices amid questions about whether a group founded to disrupt oppressive gender dynamics ended up reinforcing them. The law firm, Cozen O’Connor, has a unit devoted to helping organizations prevent and better respond to sexual abuse,
Released Wednesday, the review concludes that all of the allegations aired publicly last year were true. But after interviews with 31 people and unfettered access to documents and communications related to JOFA, the report’s authors said they found no other evidence of wrongdoing.
Still, the report says, the group did not live up to its values during the period ending in 2018 during which two executive directors said they were subjected to sexual harassment and inadequate responses to their concerns. Improvements have been made subsequently, the report says.
“Cozen O’Connor found that Jofa’s responses to their reports were aligned with legal requirements and effective practices in place at the time, but that there was more Jofa could have done in each instance to communicate care and concern for the impacted individuals,” states the report, written by two attorneys who are former sex and child abuse prosecutors.
The report includes a series of recommendations, including that the group conduct annual sexual harassment prevention training for both employees and board members, and that it consider more frequent changes to the board’s composition in order “to encourage the infusion of new voices, perspectives, and ideas.”
The crisis has unfolded at a moment when JOFA’s role is uncertain. Its first conference, in 1997, was a landmark moment for Orthodox feminists at a time when women had few opportunities for leadership in Orthodox congregations and communities. But in recent years, the group’s significance has waned as the space it initially carved out has both expanded and grown more crowded.
The investigators did not speak to the two former executive directors whose accusations triggered changes at JOFA and distancing by some of its allies last year. According to the report, the women had declined repeated invitations, “citing their concerns about the impartiality and neutrality given that Cozen O’Connor had been hired by Jofa, and that individuals whose actions they believed to be the subject of the review were still active Board members.”
The two executive directors made their identities and allegations public after Marcus’ essay. Elana Sztokman, who ran the group from 2012 to 2014, said she had been fired the same day she wrote a letter to JOFA’s board saying that Marcus “had been emotionally abusive for over a year.”
The review did not seek to answer whether one of Sztokman’s complaints, that Marcus had given her an unsolicited vibrator, constituted sexual harassment. It found that JOFA’s board did not have a legal responsibility to respond to the allegation when she made it publicly, because she was no longer working there. But the report added that the board had missed an opportunity to improve its culture by not reaching out to her.
Sztokman’s successor, Sharon Weiss-Greenberg, led the group from 2014 to 2018. She said that she, too, had been subjected to what she said was workplace harassment and that her efforts to press the group’s board to respond had not yielded satisfactory responses.
“I was trying to help them do the right thing the whole time,” Weiss-Greenberg told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency last year.
“There’s a #MeToo journal that JOFA did,” she said in that interview, referring to the movement to counter sexual misconduct that began in 2017. “Part of me thought that if we were writing about behaviors that were happening in our own home, we would wake up to it. I was wrong.”
Both women said they had not gone public before Marcus’ essay because of non-disclosure agreements that JOFA required them to sign. The agreements have become controversial in recent years amid growing discussion of the prevalence and costs of workplace harassment and abuse. Amid the flurry of public scrutiny last year, JOFA released all past and present employees from NDAs.
Several board members said they regretted not apologizing to Sztokman, the Cozen O’Connor report says, and on Wednesday, the group’s current leaders again apologized for JOFA’s handling of the women’s criticism in the past.
“We acknowledge that our attention to our former executive directors’ well-being did not comport with the culture that we seek for our staff and organization, and for that we are sorry,” the group’s current board president, Mindy Feldman Hecht, and executive director, Daphne Lazar Price, said in a letter sent to the JOFA community on Wednesday.
After the uproar last year, the group was suspended from the Safety Respect Equity Network, a Jewish advocacy group focused on workplace safety issues that counts about 150 organizations in its fold. According to JOFA’s letter to its community on Wednesday, it is now being readmitted to the network.
The letter also says JOFA’s board has endorsed the report and its recommendations.
Hecht and Price wrote, “We are committed to remaining a positive and formidable force for feminism and to continuing to partner with you to create a more vibrant and equitable Orthodox community.”
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The post External review clears Orthodox feminist group of wrongdoing after allegations against its sex-guru founder appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire
Explosions send smoke into the air in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, July 17, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
The spokesperson for Hamas’s armed wing said on Friday that while the Palestinian terrorist group favors reaching an interim truce in the Gaza war, if such an agreement is not reached in current negotiations it could revert to insisting on a full package deal to end the conflict.
Hamas has previously offered to release all the hostages held in Gaza and conclude a permanent ceasefire agreement, and Israel has refused, Abu Ubaida added in a televised speech.
Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States, have hosted more than 10 days of talks on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day truce in the war.
Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment on the eve of the Jewish Sabbath.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on a call he had with Pope Leo on Friday that Israel‘s efforts to secure a hostage release deal and 60-day ceasefire “have so far not been reciprocated by Hamas.”
As part of the potential deal, 10 hostages held in Gaza would be returned along with the bodies of 18 others, spread out over 60 days. In exchange, Israel would release a number of detained Palestinians.
“If the enemy remains obstinate and evades this round as it has done every time before, we cannot guarantee a return to partial deals or the proposal of the 10 captives,” said Abu Ubaida.
Disputes remain over maps of Israeli army withdrawals, aid delivery mechanisms into Gaza, and guarantees that any eventual truce would lead to ending the war, said two Hamas officials who spoke to Reuters on Friday.
The officials said the talks have not reached a breakthrough on the issues under discussion.
Hamas says any agreement must lead to ending the war, while Netanyahu says the war will only end once Hamas is disarmed and its leaders expelled from Gaza.
Almost 1,650 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed as a result of the conflict, including 1,200 killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli tallies. Over 250 hostages were kidnapped during Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught.
Israel responded with an ongoing military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
The post Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel
People hold images of the victims of the 1994 bombing attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) community center, marking the 30th anniversary of the attack, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Irina Dambrauskas
Iran on Friday marked the 31st anniversary of the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish community center in Buenos Aires by slamming Argentina for what it called “baseless” accusations over Tehran’s alleged role in the terrorist attack and accusing Israel of politicizing the atrocity to influence the investigation and judicial process.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on the anniversary of Argentina’s deadliest terrorist attack, which killed 85 people and wounded more than 300.
“While completely rejecting the accusations against Iranian citizens, the Islamic Republic of Iran condemns attempts by certain Argentine factions to pressure the judiciary into issuing baseless charges and politically motivated rulings,” the statement read.
“Reaffirming that the charges against its citizens are unfounded, the Islamic Republic of Iran insists on restoring their reputation and calls for an end to this staged legal proceeding,” it continued.
Last month, a federal judge in Argentina ordered the trial in absentia of 10 Iranian and Lebanese nationals suspected of orchestrating the attack in Buenos Aires.
The ten suspects set to stand trial include former Iranian and Lebanese ministers and diplomats, all of whom are subject to international arrest warrants issued by Argentina for their alleged roles in the terrorist attack.
In its statement on Friday, Iran also accused Israel of influencing the investigation to advance a political campaign against the Islamist regime in Tehran, claiming the case has been used to serve Israeli interests and hinder efforts to uncover the truth.
“From the outset, elements and entities linked to the Zionist regime [Israel] exploited this suspicious explosion, pushing the investigation down a false and misleading path, among whose consequences was to disrupt the long‑standing relations between the people of Iran and Argentina,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said.
“Clear, undeniable evidence now shows the Zionist regime and its affiliates exerting influence on the Argentine judiciary to frame Iranian nationals,” the statement continued.
In April, lead prosecutor Sebastián Basso — who took over the case after the 2015 murder of his predecessor, Alberto Nisman — requested that federal Judge Daniel Rafecas issue national and international arrest warrants for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over his alleged involvement in the attack.
Since 2006, Argentine authorities have sought the arrest of eight Iranians — including former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who died in 2017 — yet more than three decades after the deadly bombing, all suspects remain still at large.
In a post on X, the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA), the country’s Jewish umbrella organization, released a statement commemorating the 31st anniversary of the bombing.
“It was a brutal attack on Argentina, its democracy, and its rule of law,” the group said. “At DAIA, we continue to demand truth and justice — because impunity is painful, and memory is a commitment to both the present and the future.”
31 años del atentado a la AMIA – DAIA. 31 años sin justicia.
El 18 de julio de 1994, un atentado terrorista dejó 85 personas muertas y más de 300 heridas. Fue un ataque brutal contra la Argentina, su democracia y su Estado de derecho.
Desde la DAIA, seguimos exigiendo verdad y… pic.twitter.com/kV2ReGNTIk
— DAIA (@DAIAArgentina) July 18, 2025
Despite Argentina’s longstanding belief that Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah terrorist group carried out the devastating attack at Iran’s request, the 1994 bombing has never been claimed or officially solved.
Meanwhile, Tehran has consistently denied any involvement and refused to arrest or extradite any suspects.
To this day, the decades-long investigation into the terrorist attack has been plagued by allegations of witness tampering, evidence manipulation, cover-ups, and annulled trials.
In 2006, former prosecutor Nisman formally charged Iran for orchestrating the attack and Hezbollah for carrying it out.
Nine years later, he accused former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner — currently under house arrest on corruption charges — of attempting to cover up the crime and block efforts to extradite the suspects behind the AMIA atrocity in return for Iranian oil.
Nisman was killed later that year, and to this day, both his case and murder remain unresolved and under ongoing investigation.
The alleged cover-up was reportedly formalized through the memorandum of understanding signed in 2013 between Kirchner’s government and Iranian authorities, with the stated goal of cooperating to investigate the AMIA bombing.
The post Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns
Murad Adailah, the head of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood, attends an interview with Reuters in Amman, Jordan, Sept. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jehad Shelbak
The Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world’s oldest and most influential Islamist movements, has been implicated in a wide-ranging network of illegal financial activities in Jordan and abroad, according to a new investigative report.
Investigations conducted by Jordanian authorities — along with evidence gathered from seized materials — revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood raised tens of millions of Jordanian dinars through various illegal activities, the Jordan news agency (Petra) reported this week.
With operations intensifying over the past eight years, the report showed that the group’s complex financial network was funded through various sources, including illegal donations, profits from investments in Jordan and abroad, and monthly fees paid by members inside and outside the country.
The report also indicated that the Muslim Brotherhood has taken advantage of the war in Gaza to raise donations illegally.
Out of all donations meant for Gaza, the group provided no information on where the funds came from, how much was collected, or how they were distributed, and failed to work with any international or relief organizations to manage the transfers properly.
Rather, the investigations revealed that the Islamist network used illicit financial mechanisms to transfer funds abroad.
According to Jordanian authorities, the group gathered more than JD 30 million (around $42 million) over recent years.
With funds transferred to several Arab, regional, and foreign countries, part of the money was allegedly used to finance domestic political campaigns in 2024, as well as illegal activities and cells.
In April, Jordan outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s most vocal opposition group, and confiscated its assets after members of the Islamist movement were found to be linked to a sabotage plot.
The movement’s political arm in Jordan, the Islamic Action Front, became the largest political grouping in parliament after elections last September, although most seats are still held by supporters of the government.
Opponents of the group, which is banned in most Arab countries, label it a terrorist organization. However, the movement claims it renounced violence decades ago and now promotes its Islamist agenda through peaceful means.
The post Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns first appeared on Algemeiner.com.