RSS
At one New Jersey Jewish school, four families mourn relatives killed in Israel
(JTA) — On the Monday morning after the deadly Hamas attack near the Gaza border, administrators at the Solomon Schechter Day School of Bergen County in New Milford, New Jersey spoke to every grade and asked students how many of them had family in Israel.
Nearly every one of the school’s 420 students said they did, even beyond what Head of School Steve Freedman calls the “sizable minority” of children from Israeli families, either expats or the children of diplomats and others living temporarily in the United States, who attend the school.
And as the reports of the dead and missing rolled in from Israel, what came next was grim and perhaps inevitable: At least four families in the tight-knit community had a relative among the 1,300 Israelis killed in the surprise attack on Oct. 7 and the military clashes that followed. Three of those relatives were among the 260 people mowed down during a desert music festival near Kibbutz Reim. They included Sigal Levi, 31, a social worker who attended the festival to counsel troubled kids who might have been drawn to the party, and Ben Uri, 31, a cannabis entrepreneur and tech consultant who volunteered with a group that heals battlefield trauma through yoga.
Tal Eilon, 46, the cousin of a Schechter family, was a member of the security team at Kibbutz Kfar Aza who was shot and killed in a gun battle with Hamas members.
[For capsule portraits of those victims and others, click here.]
“It’s heavy,” said Freedman. “It’s very hard to do normal school because everyone’s so distracted. We understand that our children deserve normalcy, and to be able to learn and play and have fun, and because the faculty is amazing, we’re doing that.”
An Israeli flag flies outside the Solomon Schechter Day School of Bergen County in New Milford, New Jersey, March 30, 2022. (Courtesy SSDS Communication)
The northern New Jersey day school’s experience is hardly unusual among Jewish schools in North America, where the faculty and the kinds of families who send children to private Jewish schools often have strong personal and family connections to Israel. (This reporter’s children attended the Bergen Schechter over a decade ago.) A former teacher at Talmud Torah of St. Paul, Minnesota, Noi Maudi, 29, was killed at the music festival, as was Ben Mizrachi, 22, a graduate of Vancouver’s King David High School.
And the connections go beyond casualties. Omer Neutra, 21, who joined the Israeli army after graduating from The Schechter School of Long Island in Williston Park, New York, is missing and feared to be among those taken hostage by Hamas. Freedman said that at least 10 New Jersey Schechter alumni now living in Israel have been called up for the fighting. The father of a first-grader was returning to Israel to serve with his unit. One teacher’s aunt “by marriage” is missing and is presumed to be among the nearly 200 hostages taken by Hamas. The family learned about her capture on social media, Freedman said.
Among the grieving relatives at Schechter is Rona Lotan, who has a daughter in the seventh grade. Lotan, whose parents are Israeli but who was raised in the United States, remains close with her mother’s first cousin, Revital Herman, from the Palmachim kibbutz in central Israel. Herman’s son, Idan, 26, an engineering student, was killed along with his girlfriend Eden Naftali, 23, at the music festival.
Idan Herman, an engineering student killed during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on a music festival in southern Israel. (Courtesy Rona Lotan)
Lotan, 46, recalled a harrowing few hours on social media, where Herman’s family initially reported that their son was missing. The family was called to Soroka Medical Center in Beersheva to identify what authorities originally thought was Idan’s body. “It turned out to be a case of mistaken identity,” she said. Unsure whether to feel relieved or cheated of the closure they sought, the family did not have to wait long before learning that Idan was elsewhere in the hospital and had suffered fatal wounds.
Lotan is asking people to donate in Idan’s memory to Zahal Shalom of Bergen County, which brings wounded Israeli veterans to the United States on rehabilitation tours. The organization spoke to eighth-graders at Schechter this past May.
Freedman said the school is putting together parents’ groups for those who need help finding ways to talk about the war with their children. Each day since the Hamas attack, meanwhile, the school gathers for an assembly for support and morale-boosting.
“What do we tell our children? How do we allay their fears?” said Freedman. “That’s our job here and that’s been a journey.”
—
The post At one New Jersey Jewish school, four families mourn relatives killed in Israel appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
Rashida Tlaib Uses Thanksgiving Message to Express Solidarity With ‘Palestine,’ Other ‘Indigenous People’
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) addresses attendees as she takes part in a protest calling for a ceasefire in Gaza outside the US Capitol, in Washington, DC, US, Oct. 18, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) used the holiday of Thanksgiving to “mourn” the “indigenous people” of “Palestine” and elsewhere “fighting for freedom on their own land,” portraying one of America’s most storied celebrations in a negative light.
“This Thanksgiving we mourn the Indigenous people killed by European settlers and the United States in order to steal their land,” Tlaib reposted on Instagram. “From here to Palestine, we stand in solidarity with all Indigenous people as they fight for freedom on their own land.”
Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman elected to the US Congress, has long been an outspoken critic of Israel. The congresswoman was slow to issue a public statement acknowledging the Palestinian terror group Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, and since the onslaught, she has repeatedly accused Israel of committing “genocide,” “ethnic cleansing,” and “apartheid.” She has also alleged that American support for Israel stems from “anti-Palestinian racism.”
US Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA), another staunch critic of Israel and progressive lawmaker, also used Thanksgiving as an opportunity to take shots at America, arguing that the beloved holiday represents “stolen land and broken treaties” for Native Americans.
Lee has been on the receiving end of immense criticism over her anti-Israel rhetoric in the year following the Oct. 7 atrocities. In the weeks following the slaughter, Lee co-sponsored a resolution calling for a “ceasefire” between Israel and Hamas. She has similarly accused the Jewish state of committing “genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza. In a statement commemorating the anniversary of Oct. 7, Lee only wrote that she mourned “those killed one year ago and those massacred in the year since,” seemingly drawing an equivalence between Hamas’s terrorism and Israel’s defensive military operations.
“Thanksgiving is a time of gratitude and togetherness for many, but it’s also a reminder of stolen land and broken treaties for others. Today, let’s honor Native communities by committing to the fight for sovereignty, justice, and the promises this country has failed to keep,” Lee wrote.
In contrast, some other members of Congress called attention to the American hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza in their Thanksgiving statements.
“As we gather with family today, we must not forget the families who are missing their loved ones who were taken hostage by Hamas 418 days ago — including New York’s own Omer Neutra,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) said. “Let us pray that by this time next year, they will be reunited safely with their families.”
“As you spend Thanksgiving with your family and friends, don’t forget the 100+ families whose loved ones are being held hostage by Iran-backed Hamas for the second holiday season in a row. It’’ been 419 days. Enough! Bring them home NOW!” US Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) said in a statement, referring to the 101 hostages still in captivity in Gaza.
Of the remaining hostages, seven are Americans.
The post Rashida Tlaib Uses Thanksgiving Message to Express Solidarity With ‘Palestine,’ Other ‘Indigenous People’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Antisemitism in Berlin Surges to Record Levels This Year, New Data Show
Pro-Hamas demonstrators marching in Munich, Germany. Photo: Reuters/Alexander Pohl
The number of antisemitic incidents in Berlin in just the first six months of this year surpassed the total for all of 2023 and reached the highest annual count on record, according to a new German report.
Germany’s Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS) on Thursday released data documenting 1,383 incidents of antisemitism in the German capital from January to June, averaging nearly eight a day.
The figure compiled by RIAS, a federally-funded body, was a significant increase from the 1,270 antisemitic outrages tallied in 2023 and the highest count for a single year since RIAS began monitoring antisemitic incidents in 2015.
Of the 1,383 incidents documented in the first half of this year in Berlin, two were cases of “extreme violence,” another 23 were attacks (six of which were against children), and 37 were targeted acts of property damage, including 21 acts involving memorials.
In the first extremely violent incident, a Jewish student in Mitte was punched several times in the face on the street and then kicked in the face after he fell to the ground in February 2024. The victim, a member of student groups working to combat antisemitism, had been doxed online as a “right-wing Zionist,” according to The Jerusalem Post.
The second incident also occurred in Mitte, this time in May, when a visibly Jewish Ukrainian was physically attacked by an unknown assailant while on the way to synagogue. The attacker yelled “Free Palestine” while assaulting the victim, and no one reportedly intervened.
RIAS also documented 28 threats, such as direct messages on social media, and 1,240 cases of abusive behavior.
“The content of antisemitism also continued to be more violent and uninhibited. Seventy-one incidents contained threats of annihilation, including graffiti that openly called for the killing of Jews,” the report noted.
In the first half of 2024, 74 antisemitic incidents were documented in educational institutions in Berlin, including 27 incidents in schools. “The nature of the incidents is alarming: Jewish or Israeli children were beaten, spat on, threatened, and treated with hostility by their classmates,” according to RIAS. “Antisemitic incidents occurred in schools in 9 of 12 Berlin districts.”
A striking 71.6 percent of all antisemitic incidents during the first half of 2024 in the German capital were related to Israel.
RIAS previously reported a major spike in antisemitic incidents across Germany since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.
There have been 230 antisemitic outrages per month since Oct. 7, 2023, compared to around 50 such incidents per month before the onslaught.
“These data indicate a lasting change in the dynamics of incidents: the number of antisemitic incidents in Berlin remained at a significantly higher level in the first half of the year than in the months and years before, starting with the sharp increase following Oct. 7,” RIAS summarized.
However, many antisemitic incidents had nothing to do with Israel or its ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza.
“It can be observed that in this context the boundaries of what can be said have shifted overall and some antisemitic statements seem to be acceptable even to [normative] society,” RIAS wrote. “They range from the demonization and delegitimization of Israel, to antisemitic conspiracy myths, trivialization of the Holocaust and reversals of perpetrator and victim, to open antisemitic insults.”
The antisemitism monitoring group concluded that rates of antisemitism show no sign of letting up in Berlin: “A downward trend is not foreseeable at the time of publication of the report.”
Europe has experienced an explosion of antisemitic incidents in the wake of the Hamas atrocities of last Oct. 7. In many countries, anti-Jewish hate crimes have spiked to record levels.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), police registered 5,154 antisemitic incidents in Germany last year, a 95 percent increase compared to the previous year.
However, experts believe that the true number of incidents is much higher but not recorded because of reluctance on the part of the victims.
“Only 20 percent of the antisemitic crimes are reported, so the real number should be five times what we have,” Felix Klein, the German federal government’s chief official dealing with antisemitism, told The Algemeiner in an interview last year.
The post Antisemitism in Berlin Surges to Record Levels This Year, New Data Show first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Maccabi Tel Aviv Plays Soccer Game in Empty Hungarian Stadium Amid Security Concerns After Amsterdam Violence
Soccer Football – Europa League – Besiktas v Maccabi Tel Aviv – Nagyerdei Stadion, Debrecen, Hungary – November 28, 2024 General view before the match as the teams and match officials line up. Photo: Reuters/Bernadett Szabo
The Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv played a UEFA Europa League match on Thursday against their Turkish rivals Besiktas in an empty stadium in Hungary, which was closed to supporters likely due to security concerns following the recent attack on Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam.
Maccabi won the match 3-1 in the Nagyerdei Stadium in Debrecen, Hungary, during the fifth week of the UEFA Europa League. Gavriel Kanichowsky secured Israel’s lead in the 23rd minute with a goal, but Besiktas struck back in the 38th minute with a goal by Rafa Silva to tie the score. Maccabi Tel Aviv took the lead again right before halftime by scoring another goal in added time. The Israeli club finished 3-1 with Weslley Patati’s goal in the 81st minute.
Groups of police patrolled outside the venue and the game concluded with no incident, according to the Associated Press.
On Nov. 11, days after the attack against Maccabi Tel Aviv fans in Amsterdam, the European soccer body UEFA announced that this week’s match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Besiktas, which was originally scheduled to take place in Istanbul, would be moved to Hungary “following a decision by the Turkish authorities not to stage it in Turkey.” Hungary, which has hosted several home games for Israel’s national soccer team since the start of the Israel-Hamas war last year, agreed to host the match and UEFA said it “will be played behind closed doors following a decision of the local Hungarian authorities.”
Maccabi Tel Aviv coach Zarko Lazetic said after Thursday’s match that playing in front of an empty stadium was hard for the team. “We play football because of the fans, to give them some pleasure, some excite(ment) and to be together,” he explained, as reported by the AP.
The match on Thursday was Maccabi Tel Aviv’s first game in Europe since its fans were violently attacked in The Netherlands during the late hours of Nov. 7 and into the early hours of the following morning. After the team competed against the Dutch club Ajax in a UEFA Europa League game in Amsterdam, anti-Israel gangs chased Israeli fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv through the streets of Amsterdam, ran them over with cars, physically assaulted them, and taunted Israeli soccer fans with anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian slogans such as “Free Palestine.” Five people were reportedly hospitalized for injuries.
Leaders in Israel and Europe condemned the premeditated and coordinated attack as antisemitic. Amsterdam’s mayor called the attackers “antisemitic hit-and-run squads” and said the assailants were going “Jew hunting.” Police in Amsterdam said they have already identified, investigated, and even arrested 45 suspects in connection to the incident.
The post Maccabi Tel Aviv Plays Soccer Game in Empty Hungarian Stadium Amid Security Concerns After Amsterdam Violence first appeared on Algemeiner.com.